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In a recent speech at Chatham House, the UK Attorney General, Richard Hermer, launched a principled defence of international law and attacked what he called the 'pick-and-mix' approach of those who seek to discard our principles whenever it is inconvenient.

His explicit targets were Conservative and Reform UK politicians who have attacked the UK's agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Indeed, he subsequently apologised to them for comparing their attitudes to those of the political theorist Carl Schmitt, who notoriously supported the Nazis - although on the merits, what he said was appropriate.

Hermer's credentials

Hermer is persistently targeted by the far right, particularly over the imprisonment of Lucy Connolly, the Conservative councillor's wife who tweeted in favour of burning down asylum hotels. Although the decision to prosecute was made by the Crown Prosecution Service and Connolly pleaded guilty, with her sentence decided by a judge, Conservative and Reform politicians have blamed Hermer. The opportunist Conservative leadership wannabe, Robert Jenrick, has also targeted him because of the individuals Hermer defended as a barrister.

Even the Trump-sympathetic wing of the Labour Party have Hermer in their sights too. In an extraordinary attack earlier this year, the 'Blue Labour' founder, Maurice Glasman, reported to be close to Keir Starmer's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, told the New Statesman that Hermer was 'an arrogant progressive fool who thinks that law is a replacement for politics'. Hermer certainly came to office with progressive credentials. A Jewish lawyer who was critical of Israel before he joined the government 11 months ago, he told LBC on 28 October 2023 that 'it is almost impossible to conceive of how a siege that deprives a civilian population of the basic necessities of life… is in compliance with international law'.

After Nearly 600 Days the End of the Israel-Gaza War Looks as Far off as Ever

As the world continues to wring its hands, the suffering of the people at the heart of this conflict only continues to grow, writes Alexandra Hall Hall

Alexandra Hall Hall

UK support for Israel

19 months on, Hermer's rejection, at Chatham House, of the idea that Britain "should abandon the constraints of international law in favour of raw power" obviously brings to mind the Labour Government's complicity in the vastly greater crimes that Israel and the USA, two of its key allies, have since committed, and are still committing, in Gaza. Starmer and his Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, both of them also lawyers, have been unusually critical of Israel in recent weeks. The Prime Minister even joined the French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian leader Mark Carney in denouncing Israel's denial of humanitarian aid to the population of Gaza, promising "further concrete actions" if Israel continued. Yet this mystified observers, since few actions against Israel have been observed.

Despite occasional criticisms, most of the UK Government's "concrete" actions have effectively supported Israel's campaign. The UK signed a military cooperation agreement with Israel in 2020, when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister. Under this deal, the RAF has conducted very regular surveillance flights over Gaza since October 2023, apparently sharing information with Israel on the pretext of assisting them to rescue hostages held by Hamas. This claim has long been threadbare: it is obvious that Israel's main purpose is to assault Gaza's civilian population, despite the loss of hostage lives which this has caused, while spurning agreements to secure their release. Indeed, Israel has now clearly stated its intention to per...

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Next May's Welsh Parliament (Senedd) election is a three horse race - with Wales facing dramatically different options to determine its future.

In May, left-wing nationalist party Plaid Cymru hit 30% in a YouGov poll, followed not by Labour, but Reform UK. Labour's 26-year domination of Welsh politics appears to be crumbling before voters' eyes.

Reform UK support was at 25% - quite a feat for a party that does not even have a leader in Wales, and no clear frontrunner for First Minister should the far-right party succeed. It does not have a single representative in the Senedd yet. But things change fast these days.

Anti-establishment sentiment against both UK Labour under Starmer and Welsh Labour is on the rise. And the opposition comes from highly contrasting camps.

Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan, who took over from her scandal-hit predecessor Vaughan Gething in 2024, has tried to set what former leader Rhodri Morgan called 'clear red water' between Labour in Westminster and in Wales. Her version - the 'red Welsh way' does not appear to be cutting through.

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Why? In an interview with Byline Times, Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth claims the First Minister and baroness only distances herself from PM Starmer when politically necessary, unlike the late Labour premier and left-winger Rhodri Morgan who "genuinely meant it".

Morgan has been clear she wants to abolish the two-child limit on benefits - and appeared to reject Keir Starmer's "island of strangers" speech on immigration in May, saying she opposed "divisive rhetoric".

But when Rhun ap Iorwerth pushed Morgan to make it clear if she was rejecting Keir Starmer's rhetoric directly, a Labour spokesperson jumped in to say she was criticising other people, not her PM.

How Wales Became the Target of a Right Wing Culture War

Rachel Morris on the politicians and media organisations now cynically trying to exploit Wales for their own political gain

Rachel Morris

It is one of many reasons, he argues, that Labour are today viewed as "the establishment" in Wales, stemming from both their decades-long domination of politics there, but now by unpopular decisions made by a Labour PM in Westminster too.

"We know what's happening globally, with the growth of the right in politics as a backlash against the establishment. Well, Labour is the establishment in Wales…

"The Labour vote in particular is collapsing and tending to come to us. The Conservative vote has collapsed and gone to Reform. Our appeal is: let's corral that progressive pro-Wales voice around Plaid Cymru. We are the only realistic, genuine pro-Wales alternative Government that we have on offer for next year."

"Her instinct was to back Keir Starmer. Her instinct was to not criticise the cut to the Winter Fuel Payment, was to not criticise the two-child benefit cap…She mocked us for calling for scrapping the two-child limit, and she in fact voted against a Plaid Cymru motion calling for scrapping of the two-child limit.

"Now that she has seen the perilous position that Labour in Wales is in…she knows that somehow she has to put some distance between herself and Keir Starmer."

In contrast to Labour, Plaid Cymru has been vocal in calling for wealth taxes, rather than funding the huge hike in UK defence spending through cuts to foreign aid and disability benefits.

There's a real chance that next year it might be necessary for Plaid Cymru and Labour to work together in the Assembly, to hold out a Reform Government in Wales.

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The recent publication of BP's damning internal memos exposes what many artists, performers, writers and arts workers have long argued: that corporate sponsorship is a transaction, not a donation.

In its own words, these documents reveal how BP uses cultural sponsorship as a means to "secure public support and advocacy from partners to mitigate risks and advance business interests".

For BP, influential cultural figures are co-opted as fossil fuel industry "enablers and defenders", and our cultural institutions leveraged in order to reach "high-level decision-makers" and - exceeding even the most sceptical of expectations - to "mitigate against the impacts of possible litigation".

This poses an urgent question for those museum directors who continue to take BP's dirty money: will you cut ties to BP now that its cynical use of your institutions has been laid bare and an ethical red line has clearly been crossed?

Captured Culture

BP is, as always, in need of some good PR. In February, BP completed an astonishing yet hardly surprising U-turn by backtracking on its already weak carbon reduction targets, deciding that it could make more money by simply having no targets at all.

At the same time, it has also come under scrutiny for its role in providing a significant source of fuel to the Israeli military, enabling the genocide of Palestinians.

Whistleblower Alleges Systemic Failures in UK-Approved US Biofuel Sustainability Certification

Ex-auditor claims compliance has been 'eroded into a rubber-stamping process'

Stuart Spray

Who were virtually the only voices to rush to BP's defence as it announced its pivot 'back to petroleum' and increasing oil and gas production? The British Museum and the Science Museum of course, apparently eager to play their part as BP's "powerful third party advocates for issues that are critical to our business".

Right on cue, they both named BP's support as "vital" to their institutions, giving BP its only positive publicity in the same week that it decided to openly stop caring about the death and destruction that it fuels as one of the world's biggest contributors to climate breakdown.

The Director of the Science Museum, Sir Ian Blatchford, has for years given credibility to BP's previously desired image as "a fossil fuel company that is playing its part in addressing the climate challenge", as outlined in one of the newly exposed documents.

As if reading from the same script, Blatchford has repeatedly repeated the line that "the major energy companies have the capital, geography, people and logistics to be major players in finding solutions to the urgent global challenge of climate change", even while BP continued to invest in new oil and gas extraction and obstruct the solutions that were so urgently needed.

Despite BP changing its line, the Science Museum is still finding a way to justify its sponsorship deal and argue that BP plays a positive role in the world against the unchanging scientific reality that we must urgently reduce carbon emissions.

Just Stop Oil Has Called It Quits, but They Say Their Fight Is Far From Over

The climate movement has announced an end to its direct action campaigns. The group's spokesperson tells Josiah Mortimer what's next

Josiah Mortimer

Similarly, when The British Museum's announcement of a new 10-year deal with BP at the end of 2023 was met with resounding criticism, Nicholas Cullinan, Director of The British Museum, chose to defend the institution's decision to accept BP's £50 million payment on the rather low-bar basis that the money was "legally acquired", and made the readily refutable claim that, without BP, the Museum would no longer remain free to the public.

Po...

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Plans for the UK's biggest clean up of nuclear waste is already 13 years behind schedule and costing over £21 billion more than planned, a report by MPs warns today.

The report by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee is highly critical of the Sellafield management and oversight of the Sellafield nuclear waste facility by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. It includes a warning from Sellafield's own nuclear safety experts that "the site is becoming increasingly unsafe" because of the delays in retrieving the waste from outdated buildings.

The removal of the waste and its disposal to safe underground chambers for thousands of years is now estimated to cost £136 billion and take 100 years. But to achieve this MPs estimate management performance will have to improve 24 fold over the next decade, despite already missing most targets over the last seven years.

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Mathilda Mallinson

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Committee, said: "The intolerable risks presented by Sellafield's ageing infrastructure are truly world-class. When visiting the site, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that one can be standing in what is surely one of the most hazardous places in the world. This is why we expect Sellafield's management of its assets, and the delivery of the project to decommission it, to be similarly world-class.

"Unfortunately, our latest report is interleaved with a number of examples of failure, cost overruns, and continuing safety concerns. Given the tens of billions at stake, and the dangers onsite to both the environment and human life, this is simply not good enough."

"As with the fight against climate change, the sheer scale of the hundred-year timeframe of the decommissioning project makes it hard to grasp the immediacy of safety hazards and cost overruns that delays can have. Every day at Sellafield is a race against time to complete works before buildings reach the end of their life. Our report contains too many signs that this is a race that Sellafield risks losing."

The most hazardous place in Sellafield is an old Magnox silo storage which is leaking radioactive water into the ground for the last seven years. This is the equivalent to the size of an Olympic swimming pool every three years, but the management say there is no danger to the public.

Another project- a new laboratory to analyse ways of storing plutonium - is likely to be abandoned after spending £127 million because it was ill conceived and would end up costing hundreds of millions more than planned.

Nigel Farage's '£7 Billion DEI Savings' Don't Actually Exist

The media is widely reporting Reform UK's claims they could save billions by cutting equality schemes. The real figure appears to be around 250 times smaller, reports Josiah Mortimer

Josiah Mortimer

MPs are highly sceptical of claims by management during a hearing with MPs that relations with staff are improving. Instead figures showed it had paid out £377,000 last year to resolve staff complaints and issued 16 non disclosure agreements to staff over three years - a legal device used to keep disputes between staff and management secret.

Alison McDermott, a former whistleblower and management consultant at Sellafield, who produced a report revealing bullying and harassment there, said:" This report horrifically vindicates everything I've said about the toxic, dangerous culture at Sellafield. I was hired to report on the problems - and when I did this honestly, they turned on me. They then tried ...

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New police powers to ban facemasks being worn at protests would hit disabled activists, dissidents and Muslim women, a human rights group has warned.

The Crime and Policing Bill being proposed by Keir Starmer's Government and making its way through Parliament now rehashes many of the same proposals put forward in the Conservatives' Criminal Justice Bill before it ran out of time ahead of the General Election.

Police would gain expanded powers to impose bans on wearing face-coverings at protests. The new powers would affect Muslim women wearing niqabs, disabled activists avoiding infection, and dissidents protesting outside foreign embassies, according to campaign group Liberty.

While there would be legal exemptions to protect those covering their faces for religious or health reasons, this defence would only be available after arrest. In other words, plenty of people would be caught up and arrested before being released without charge.

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Liberty says it would add another chilling effect to peaceful protest in the UK, following several major pieces of strict legislation in recent years - the Conservatives' Public Order Act and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, neither of which the Government plans to repeal.

Once the conditions are put on a particular protest, police could compel anyone covering their face to remove that covering at that point, and then if they don't comply, they can be arrested.

In an interview with Byline Times, Ruth Ehrlich, Head of Policy & Campaigns at Liberty, said: "When you think about the kinds of people who might rely on a face covering to take to the streets, we're thinking of dissidents who are protesting outside foreign embassies. We're thinking about Muslim women who might wear the niqab to cover her face. We're thinking about disabled activists who want to stay healthy and avoid infection."

"We have seen in recent months arrests happening outside the Chinese Embassy…It's very difficult when you start dictating how people can and cannot protect themselves at a protest, and the message that that sends to them - and to the regimes that they're protesting against," she added.

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Police will also be given broader powers to shut down protests near religious buildings, imposing orders which could effectively ban demonstrations from even going near churches, mosques, or synagogues if an order was in place. "In most cities, towns, villages, there will be places of worship near a protest. When you introduce a power as broad as that, does that effectively mean there's a risk that protests will be shut down because of that," Ehrlich told Byline Times.

And junior officers will be allowed to be authorised to impose protest conditions. Under the bill, chief officers would be able to delegate powers to relatively low-ranking officers to impose restrictions on large demonstrations, removing previous safeguards around seniority.

British Transport Police will also gain expanded protest powers, with new authority to impose stop and search, demand the removal of face coverings at protests, and impose tough conditions on assembly at transport hubs, stations, and for people on the move.

Ehrlich said much of the Crime and Policing bill was "c...

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Kate Wilson's new book, Disclosure, reads like fiction. Unfortunately for her, it is not.

It is the latest in a long-running fight for truth and accountability, after discovering her partner of two years was not the eco-activist he claimed to be.

Their relationship began in 2003. Mark Kennedy was working as an undercover police officer - infiltrating protest movements - throughout their two-year relationship. He was using Kate as a 'way in' to disrupt environmental campaigns in the UK.

Kate learnt of the deception in 2010 - and ever since has been battling to find out the extent of the scandal.

Her book "Disclosure: Unravelling the Spycops Files" was published last Thursday. It is described as 'experimental non-fiction'. It means that although it reads like a novel, it is true to her experiences, based on combing through thousands of pages of disclosures and documents uncovered in an official Investigatory Powers Tribunal, and now an ongoing public inquiry into the scandal.

In conversation with Byline Times, she discusses where the campaign stands now - and what undercover cops may still be getting away with.

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Josiah Mortimer: You've got the official launch this week, but you're also dealing with the ongoing Public Inquiry. That must make this saga all very live for you, 20 years since your relationship with an undercover cop began?

Kate Wilson: "Yes, the book deals primarily with the relationship. But the case actually went wider than that because I knew seven undercover officers over a 12-year period…

"The inquiry is looking at all of the undercover policing operations, and so the other six will also be investigated.

"There is an entire public inquiry looking at 50 years of this with 200 - at least - people from the side of the spied upon, so the non-state core participants in the inquiry. That inquiry has been working chronologically, looking at spying starting in 1968, and they are just reaching my era now essentially."

Are you confident the inquiry can get the results you're looking for?

"I think I can say: absolutely not. A public inquiry of this scale is a very complex thing - it's not going to get the answers that I want, but that doesn't mean it's not getting answers.

"The public inquiry is skimming the surface, but they will also be publishing all this material and so there is the opportunity then to keep going, to keep understanding."

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How has the inquiry treated the victims?

"I don't like the way that we are treated by the public inquiry. The officials… said four years ago that they were going to publicly release the name of the man who was Mark's handler for seven years, referred to in the book as EN 31.

"Over just the last week, they announced that they've changed their minds and they're going to keep that name secret. I'm horrified by that.

"One of the significant hopes I had in this public inquiry was that some of the faceless backroom men who ran Mark, who gave him his orders - to some extent, I hold them far more responsible even than Mark himself."

A note from the inqu...

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A flagship council won last month by Nigel Farage's Reform UK has cancelled a third of its upcoming council meetings, amid claims the new administration has no idea how to run a local authority.

As of May, Kent County Council is now run by Reform UK, one of 12 in England led by the party.

Since the election a swathe of crucial council meetings have been either scrapped or postponed as the new administration tries to work out what it is doing, with seven out of 20 meetings this month put on hold.

Opposition Labour councillor Alister Brady told Byline Times: "The administration are not ready yet. At the moment there are induction meetings and the experienced councillors are getting on with case work but there is a decision free zone within KCC at the moment.

"They don't know what they're doing."

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They include gatherings of legally-required committees such as the Governance and Audit committee which are essential to setting a budget and keeping finances in check.

One possible reason for the delay is enhanced criminal record (DBS) checks should be landing on councillors' doorsteps shortly. Every councillor needs an enhanced DBS check since councillors deal with vulnerable adults and children in casework.

Meanwhile the administration has put an extra cabinet member in place - supposedly to find 'efficiencies', dubbed DOLGE ('Department for Local Government Efficiency') after Elon Musk's DOGE in the US. The latter failed to find anywhere near the savings the Tesla boss and Trump adviser promised.

The new cabinet member means the council is paying an additional Special Responsibility Allowance worth nearly £37,000 on top of their £17,123 allowance. "They're actually costing more money," Brady said.

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"They're trying to justify it by saying councillors' allowances will be reduced by 5%, but they can't actually do that because they have to go to the Independent Remuneration Panel with that recommendation.

"They can't make that decision unilaterally. So at the moment, they've increased spending on cabinet members, not decreased it. The person who's supposed to make things more efficient is actually making it cost more…"

After this article was published, a Kent County Council spokesperson denied that the 'DOLGE' post came at an extra cost, saying: "Councils are only permitted a maximum of 10 Cabinet Member posts. The Leader has been revising the portfolios from previous administrations and introduced the 'DOLGE' element in place of now-removed Cabinet posts, with no increase in Special Responsibility Allowance payments as a result."

'How the Media is Cashing in on the Rise of Nigel Farage'

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Mathilda Mallinson

The new leader's X account has also been suspended, apparently for violation of X's rules. In 2019, Linden Kemkaran - then a Conservative election candidate in Bradford despite living in Kent - allegedly re-tweeted a post saying that Muslims have a "nasty culture." Kemkaran is a former BBC news reporter. It is not clear if Kemkaran's account was suspended for this reason.

Cllr Brady has asked the new Reform administration if they will reverse any of the Conservative cuts of the past decade. "They said it wasn't in their remit to do that. Most of them were ex-Tories -...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

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Operation Spider Web - an absolutely unprecedented event that they'll be making movies about in the not too distant future.

It's been a long time since we had some good news about the war in Ukraine, and on Sunday the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) delivered in the most spectacular way possible by taking out a significant number of Russia's heavy bombers using a handful of cheap, disposable FPV drones.

Now there are two things you need to know about these bombers. Firstly, they're the ones that Russia uses to regularly launch mass-missile attacks at Ukrainian cities.

Secondly, they do this in the most cowardly way possible. During one of the countless, regular mass missile strikes, these bombers never fly anywhere near Ukraine. They launch their missiles over the Caspian Sea, far out of range of Ukraine's air defences.

And they take off and land at air bases far out of range of Ukraine's own missiles (some drones can reach them but given their smaller warheads they've only had limited effect).

This has obviously presented Ukraine with a problem for a while now - how to stop Russia's indiscriminate bombing of Ukraine's cities?

The answer, it turns out, is with some cheap little drones and a lot of ingenuity.

Operation Spider Web - a year-and-a-half in the planning - saw 137 FPV drones equipped with small explosives smuggled into Russia and then hidden in the roofs of small wooden cabins.

These cabins were then transported across Russia on trucks. When the trucks stopped near four Russian air bases, the roofs of the cabins retracted and the drones flew out and headed towards the Russian bombers.

The full extent of the damage is not yet known, but the SBU claims to have hit more than 40 aircraft, disabling a third of Russia's heavy bomber fleet, and inflicted $7 billion in damage.

And it's the money involved that really show not only how incredible this operation was, but the dramatically changing face of modern warfare.

UN Confirms Russian Drone Attacks on Kherson are Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes

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Zarina Zabrisky

Each of these FPV drones costs only a few hundred dollars, and yet they're being used to destroy Russian military equipment costing millions - a single Russian A-50 radar aircraft is estimated to be worth round $350 million.

And in a marvellous twist, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday evening claimed the base of operations for Spider Web was located "directly next to FSB headquarters in one of their regions".

Whether or not Spider Web succeeds in stopping Russian mass-missile attacks remains to be seen, but the positive psychological boost in Ukraine is badly needed right now.

"Christmas has come early this year", one friend told me.

There is of course the question of how Russia will respond. They have plenty of ballistic missiles, and even the Oreshnik, which they can deploy to cover up their embarrassment.

But for now at least, Ukraine is celebrating a huge win.

Talks and Sanctions

As I write this, it's 131 days since Donald Trump took office, promising to end the war in Ukraine in 100 days, and by most measures, we're further from peace than when he started.

But there could be some positive movement in the coming days. Let's begin this look back at the last two weeks by looking ahead to the next one.

Firstly, there could be big things happening in the US Senate this week. For a while now, there has been a bill on the cards that, if passed and enacted, would finally see the White House exert...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

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This week I was privileged to attend the memorial service of Ambassador Richard L Armitage, a highly-decorated former US Navy Officer, renowned diplomat and international statesman, who died in April of a pulmonary embolism. During a long and distinguished military and diplomatic career, Armitage served three tours of duty in Vietnam, worked in numerous senior capacities at the Pentagon and State Department in the Reagan and first Bush Administrations, before becoming Colin Powell's Deputy at State Department during the years of the 9/11 attacks and the starts of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Among his many US and international awards, in 2005 he received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

Armitage was something of a legend within national security circles in Washington - partly because of his formidable size, and imposing physical presence, and partly because of his courage, daring and conviction. His most famous exploit came on the eve of the fall of Saigon, when he facilitated the evacuation of South Vietnamese naval ships and personally escorted an estimated 30,000 refugees to safety in the Philippines, defying the wishes of both the US and Philippines governments. At his memorial service, one of those Vietnamese Naval Officers whose life he saved described him as having an "unshakeable resolve to do what was right."

He was also known for his tough, no-nonsense talking style. In a memoir, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said Armitage was the US official who threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" if it did not cooperate in the war against Al Qaeda. Armitage later disputed the language used, but never denied that Pakistan was put on firm notice to help America's war effort.

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Powell and Armitage were a formidable team at the State Department. At his memorial service, Powell's son described the strong bond of friendship between his father and Armitage, a "friendship of the heart" which allowed them to "argue, disagree but never divide."

They were known as a moderating force within the Bush Administration, who tried to rein in the more aggressive instincts of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, especially over the conduct of the war in Iraq, and the challenges of reconstruction after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Armitage said in a 2009 interview that he had not known anything about the CIA's waterboarding programme, which he described as torture, and that "I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would've had the courage to resign."

According to Dov Zakheim, who was under-secretary of Defense working for Rumsfeld at the time, in a tribute to Armitage for 'The Hill', "The rifts between Rumsfeld and Powell, and their respective policy staffs have been well documented. Armitage was deeply affected by Powell's frustration and could not hide his anger. He once said to me of a senior Defense official, "if I ever meet him in a dark alley, I'll crush his balls." One did not want to meet Rich in a dark alley."

According to former US Ambassador Bill Burns, who served as Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, and as CIA Director in the Biden Administration, the Powell/Armitage years were "a Golden Age of US diplomacy." Speaking at the memorial, he said Armitage's approach was distinguished by three particular features - professionalism, especially the recognition that US national security depended on...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

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Just weeks after the UK agreed to scrap tariffs on US ethanol imports as part of the US-UK trade deal - a decision that could potentially force British producers to shut down - a whistleblower is challenging the integrity of the sustainability certification process for US corn ethanol exported to the UK under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation.

In the UK, bioethanol is primarily used as a fuel additive for petrol, specifically in E5 and E10 blends, and corn bioethanol, imported from the US made up around 11% of all biofuels used here in 2024, according to UK Government statistics.

The US imports were certified as sustainable under the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) system which, according to its website, is one of the world's largest certifiers of liquid biofuels.

An ex-auditor who worked directly for a Certification Body (CB) responsible for ISCC compliance in the US has shown Byline Times extensive documentation alleging widespread non-compliance and deliberate cover-ups.

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The former auditor, who declined to be named, first complained to the ISCC in December 2022, and, to date, is still waiting for a reply notifying him of the outcome. His last request for an update, on 31 July 2024, was not acknowledged.

Principle Two of the ISCC framework mandates "environmentally responsible production to protect soil, water and air".

During audits, however, the whistleblower routinely found significant violations of the standards required for certification, including improper and excessive fertiliser use, disregard for runoff risks, and a lack of any understanding of ISCC criteria among farmers.

The whistleblower alleges that, over a span of seven years, no instances of non-compliance were raised with farmers and attempts to do so were met with resistance not only from ethanol producers and grain storage facilities, but from the CB. He also accuses senior CB leadership of setting up a system of non-enforcement.

According to the whistleblower, ethanol manufacturers understand ISCC requirements, but by controlling upstream supply chains and paying for certifications, they ensure that their ethanol is exported to the EU and UK under the guise of sustainability.

"These guys want to sell their bioethanol to Europe, and they don't really care if it's sustainable or not, just that they can get it over there," he told Byline Times.

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The whistleblower claims that the grain storage hubs, which collect corn from multiple farms, often tried to influence the audits by flooding the meetings with their representatives creating an intimidating and obstructive environment. The whistleblower also described being followed, and monitored, during audits, undermining the independence of the process.

Farmers, he said, had no knowledge of ISCC certification standards before their first audit and were not given any practical guidance on how to meet sustainability requirements.

"So it was just luck if any farm passed the audit," he claimed.

The whistleblower maintains that the ethanol manufacturers' enormous demand for corn, and their fear that producers will take their business elsewhere, created a wides...