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The UK Government is being taken to court by climate campaigners over its controversial Jet Zero Strategy (JZS), arguing that the policy encourages aviation expansion at the expense of legally binding climate commitments.

Climate charity Possible and the Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport and their legal teams at law firm Leigh Day have filed judicial reviews against the Department for Transport (DfT), challenging the JZS for "failing to present a viable plan to reduce aviation emissions in line with the UK's Net Zero targets."

They are concerned that the far-off promise of 'Jet Zero' - the long-distant hope of emissions-neutral air travel - is being used as an excuse to expand airports today, complete with a major increase in carbon emissions here and now.

The strategy was launched by the last Conservative Government, which claimed it would allow travellers to fly "guilt free".

The strategy has continued post-election, with the Chancellor Rachel Reeves announcing in January that the Government will support the construction of a third runway at Heathrow. Ministers have delayed a final decision on Gatwick airport expansion to October this year to assess the climate impact - but suggest they are "minded to approve" expanding the London hub.

In its announcement on Heathrow, the Government said they would "engage [with] the Climate Change Committee on how aviation expansion can be made consistent with our net zero framework." And defending Gatwick expansion, a transport minister, Mike Kane, used Jet Zero efforts to bolster his claims: "We continue to work together with industry to consider the best ways to support the aviation industry to de-carbonise, including through the jet zero taskforce."

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He added: "Airspace modernisation can help us to reach our target by reducing delays and allowing aircraft to fly in more direct routes. That should result in far less fuel burn, and therefore reduce our carbon omissions and potentially the noise impact of flights."

But the International Energy Association says decarbonisation efforts for aviation are "not on track," adding: "In 2023, aviation accounted for 2.5% of global energy-related CO2 emissions, having grown faster between 2000 and 2019 than rail, road or shipping."

The legal challenge on Jet Zero begins today (April 1) at the Royal Courts of Justice, with both challenges being heard alongside each other, and is expected to last for four days.

Both legal cases argue that the JZS relies on speculative technological solutions while ignoring the need for demand management measures, despite clear recommendations from the Government's own statutory advisors, the Climate Change Committee (CCC).

Challenging airport expansion earlier in Parliament earlier this year, Green Party MP Sian Berry said: "The Government's arguments that I have seen appear to rest on the idea that there are new technologies ready to go that will cut carbon emissions and allow large airport expansions. In reality, does the Minister accept that such innovations, many of which are still not ready for commercial use, cannot be relied upon?"

Virgin Atlantic's '100% Sustainable' Flight is just a Greenwashing Gimmick say Ex...

"In April 2011, the newly ennobled Maurice Glasman suggested that immigration 'undermined solidarity, it undermines relationships, and in the scale that it's been going on in England, it can undermine the possibility of politics entirely'. A week later, he suggested talking to the English Defence League, and on 18 July, he told the Daily Telegraph that 'Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first'. Asked if that meant a stop to immigration, Glasman answered 'yes'".

Extract from Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar: The Little Black Book of the Populist Right

The anti-immigration, pro-faith-flag-and-family Labour peer Maurice Glasman is back in the limelight. The originator of Blue Labour - economically interventionist, socially conservative - was the only British parliamentarian to receive an official invitation to President Trump's inauguration ceremony in Washington.

By way of recompense for this honour, Glasman sang the praises of Trump, the MAGA project in general and several of its key ideologues in particular, notably former Trump staffer Steve Bannon and Vice-President JD Vance. Yet this Ed Miliband appointee claims he is still on the left, and Blue Labour appears to be wielding increased influence on the Labour government. How and why?

Boosted by Bannon

Glasman's invitation - signed by Vance himself - was no accident. Key MAGA operatives saw the potential to use the Presidential inauguration not only to consolidate their domestic cross-class coalition by staging a monarchical-style investiture in Washington but also to invite key figures from across the world, eager to salute and hail, in Glasman's words, the new "emperor of the republic".

Trump strategists want to create a new nationalist International, above all in Europe, where they seek the break-up of the European Union. Hence the stream of inauguration invitations for anti-European political figures able to promote the national populist cause: a clutch of AfD politicians from Germany; the leader of Spain's Vox; the French MEP Sarah Knafu, representing Eric Zemmour's extreme right party Reconquest; and Glasman.

He didn't disappoint. In a series of news stories and profile pieces, Glasman extolled the virtues of the MAGA project and berated "progressives" as "a sickness" and "the enemy". In an hour-long soft interview with Freddy Sayers for the national populist Unherd podcast (6 March 2025) Glasman said that the Trump victory heralded "the end of globalisation" and "Labour should be dancing in the streets".

According to Glasman, there are two sides to "the MAGA square" and while all owe fealty to Caesar, he sides with Bannon and Vance on the left side against the tech bros and oligarchs on the right. The leftness of the Bannon/Vance faction consists of support for re-industrialisation, tariffs and the working-class and its trade unions as well as fully endorsing MAGA's overall anti-immigration, anti-progressive and anti-woke agenda. In other words, Glasman supported the full-fat national populist position promoted - if not always stuck to - by Viktor Orban, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders and Donald Trump.

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So here was a senior Labour figure clearly revelling in the new Washington, receiving gifts (a set of cowboy boots) and being feted as a "hero" by Steve Bannon. Like an awe-struck teenager suddenly cast in the spotlight, Glasman describes the experience to Sayers as "far-out, man."

Emerging after the 2008 crash, Glasman's Labour communitarianism could be seen benign if not appealing: a necessary corrective to New Labour's infatuation with global neo-liberalism, and its disdain for its traditional industrial base.

Following his ill-judged call for a stop to immigration and dialogue with the English Defence League, Glasman ...

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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Senior figures in British fossil fuel and water companies are having to deal with a form of workplace stress unfamiliar to most British workers - the possibility of being placed under citizen's arrest.

The Citizens Arrest Network (CAN) is targeting various executives at UK water and oil and gas companies, serving them with legal documents and attempting to place them under citizen's arrest as part of a campaign to "hold those making the decisions driving the worst environmental pollution to account". The group has attempted citizen's arrests on eight people from five firms including Thames Water since 18 March.

A videographer who followed the activists in the course of their citizen's arrests shows Gilles d'Argouges, Chief Financial Officer for Perenco, an Anglo-French oil and gas firm, phoning his colleagues during the encounter.

"I need some help, I'm outside the office and I have been put under… citizens' arrest. So I'm just looking to reach out to someone from Legal to get some counsel" he can be heard saying.

The video also shows Dr Kathy Fallon, a retired GP turned climate activist present d'Argouges with what she claims is "a dossier of evidence" of "indictable criminal offences" that the network accuses d'Argouges of having committed through his work at Perenco.

d'Argouges reacted calmly to the arrest, and spoke to the activists. Amjad Bseisu, CEO of Enquest, by contrast, ran from the woman trying to citizen's arrest him who shouted: "If you're innocent Amjad, why are you leaving?".

Gail Lynch, a spokesperson for the Citizen's Arrest Network told Byline Times that previous attempts to use the law to hold fossil fuel firms and polluters accountable "became part of business as usual."

"They would go to court, or settle out of court and then go back to doing exactly what they were doing. These fines and costs simply become part of the business model and so there needed to be a shift towards individuals so they face consequences they don't want to face."

David Whyte, a professor of Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London told Byline Times that "normally directors, senior managers, CEOs are able to hide behind the 'corporate veil'."

"When you are a director or a senior manager there is an almost de facto corporate veil because in most instances of wrongdoing, it will be the company that's sued, it will be the company that is held liable for a regulatory offence, not an individual.

"Effectively what the CAN is doing is attempting to pierce the corporate veil. They are trying to overcome the problem that directors, senior managers and CEOs can use the company to mask decisions that they make as individuals. I think it's quite an important approach to thinking about legal accountability," he said.

Whyte added that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1982 enshrines the right of citizens' arrest to prevent a person "causing physical injury to himself or any other person…or causing loss of or damage to property."

Because climate breakdown causes wildfires and extreme weather, displacing people and damaging property, he argued that fossil fuel executives continuing to expand production are "intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance."

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

One of the group's targets was Alistair Cochrane, who was the Chief Financial Officer of Thames Water when he was placed under citizen's arrest for multiple counts of Public Nuisance. Activist...

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.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

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The county of Essex has long-established links with the United States of America.

Christopher Martin, governor of the Mayflower which sailed west with the 'Pilgrim Fathers' in 1620 haled from Great Burstead, George Washington's great-great grandfather was the vicar of All Saints Church at Purleigh and William Penn, who founded the state of Pennsylvania spent much of his youth on his family's country estate in Wanstead.

During WWII and well into the 1990s, the county was home to over a dozen USAAF air bases and thousands of US service personnel.

While touring the North side of the Thames estuary in 1971, President Richard Nixon gave a famous speech at Basildon Town Hall in which he declared that since Essex was:

"To all intents and purposes, the easternmost bulwark in our fight against communism, I don't see why we shouldn't just plant a flag and make it the 51st State!"

And now, it would seem, that the Trump administration is taking Nixon's idea seriously. For White House insiders, quoted in Washington based political journal, The Quatsch, have revealed that the president's team are in advanced talks with UK diplomats and Reform UK go-betweens regarding the prospect of taking out a 300-year lease on the Essex seaboard in return for a favourable trade deal with Keir Starmer's Labour government.

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"The Essex coastline between Harwich and Jaywick sits in a prime geopolitical and strategic hotspot known as the 'candyfloss rim'," one aide told The Quatsch, "and since the time of Henry VIII, it's been said that 'they who control Walton-on-the-Naze, control the North Sea'. So, it makes strategic as well as economic sense for America to take out a lease on the region."

The area is rich in London clay deposits - which contain pyrites, smectite and selenite - a vital ingredient used in the manufacture of EV vehicles, suggesting that Elon Musk, too might have one eye on the county.

Byline Times can now reveal that Nigel Farage's eight (at time of writing) visits to the USA since he was elected MP for Clacton in August 2024 had an actual purpose and that he has been at the forefront of the proposed deal.

"Nigel has repeatedly said that he is representing Clacton on the world stage!" A Reform Party source tells us, "And in the next few weeks, people are going to see that he's as good as his word. He and Trump's team have been working on this for the last three months, and Starmer is willing to listen - if it gets him that much-needed trade agreement."

Farage allegedly has high hopes of becoming the Senator for the State of North Essex as it enters an exciting new phase in its history.

The proposals include the development of a gigantic freeport on the current site of Clacton's famous pier, built in 1871, which will be dismantled and sold for scrap.

"Donald suffers from chronic gephyrophobia - an irrational fear of old bridges, tunnels and seaside promenades," the Reform source tells us, "So everyone has agreed that the pier has to go as a first step before we can even show him photos."

Under the terms of the US lease, the Tendring peninsula will be transformed into 'the Singapore of East Anglia' and the hope is that nearby Frinton, with its famously lively nightlife and nearby mini golf course, will become the Mar-a-Lago of Eastern England.

Locals have mixed views on the development, and restaurant manager Ivor Maditup, at La Fir Polo on Marin...

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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A Labour MP has condemned his party's "failure of imagination" after the Government rejected his calls to overhaul the ownership of the scandal-plagued water sector in England.

Government-aligned MPs lined up on Friday to oppose his proposals for a citizens' assembly, for the public to determine how to fix England's water crisis amid decades of privatisation and as the biggest supplier, Thames Water, teeters on the brink of collapse.

Left-winger Clive Lewis MP has proposed a Water Bill, which, if passed, would launch a representative citizens' assembly to determine the future of the sector, following years of large dividends and bonuses being taken out of the system by England's privatised water firms.

Treasury select committee chair Dame Meg Hillier told the Commons: "We are elected to make hard decisions and defend difficult issues. We cannot make the world like the land of milk and honey - certainly not after the inheritance we received from the last Government after 14 years of mismanagement.

"We have very big challenges and we need to tackle them. It would put heavy pressure on citizens' juries to do that." She and other Starmer-aligned MPs also said some citizens would find it hard to attend an assembly.

Gateshead Labour MP Mark Ferguson said even if a citizens' assembly was held, as suggested as an option, in Birmingham, it would be "[even] more difficult than London to get to from my constituency."

"I do not believe [the problem] is about the specific geographic place; it is about how we get people together from all corners of the country, to make sure we have a regional spread."

Lewis gave the arguments against a citizens' assembly on water short shrift: "We put men on the moon. The British state can figure it out."

Government figures point to the party's recent Water Special Measures Act, which gives regulators new powers to take "tougher and faster" action against water companies that damage the environment or fail customers.

The Environment Agency now has increased powers to bring forward criminal charges against water executives who break the law, with tougher penalties, including possible imprisonment, for water executives who obstruct investigations.

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

Regulator Ofwat now has the power to ban the payment of bonuses to water bosses if they fail to meet environmental, customer or company standards.

Dame Hillier told colleagues: "There has been endless discussion about how to resolve this situation, and stasis in the Government. We now have a Government [which] has begun to tackle some of these huge challenges."

Labour and Conservative MPs rejected nationalisation, typically on the basis that it would hit UK pension funds and other investors, and cost a large amount of money for the public purse. Lewis rejected the claims: "If [they'd] done their research, they'd know that British pension companies have abandoned England's privatised water sector.

"The vast majority are either sovereign wealth funds, private equity, or vulture capital. They're not UK pension companies, who make up just a very small fraction, less than 10%."

He said Labour needed a stronger vision for the scale of change needed - and that failure to overhaul the system's structure was "negligent" and a sign of his party being "intransigent."

In an interview with Byline Times after the debate, Lewis said: "The water debate is a small part of the story about something s...

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.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

On 23 December 2013, five men broke into a house in Switzerland. Prowling the villa's hallways, situated on the uber-exclusive shores of Lake Geneva, they took only photographs, later releasing the images to the world as a cursory catalogue of the building's contents.

Among those items were hand-woven oriental rugs, an 18th-century jewel-encrusted Quran, and priceless paintings by celebrated Soviet-era artists - many of them believed to have been lifted from the State History Museum in Tashkent, more than 6,000km away.

The men were no ordinary burglars, but dissidents opposed to the tyranny of Uzbekistan's then-president, Islam Karimov. The home was one of many belonging to the premier's daughter, Gulnara Karimova, herself a businesswoman, diplomat, popstar and, as was fast emerging, alleged head of a criminal syndicate at the heart of one of the largest corruption cases in history.

Precipitated by a bitter rift with her father, Karimova's fall from grace was swift. Chief among the allegations to come would be that her organization, known only as 'The Office', had solicited hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes from Russia's largest telecoms provider, Mobile Telesystems (MTS), in exchange for access to the Uzbek market.

So damaging were the revelations that investors later sued MTS, with one UK private equity group - Hunnewell Partners, headquartered in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea - leading a charge through the US courts after claiming to have sustained losses to its stake in the Russian communications giant as a result of the scandal.

The problem? Technically, it hadn't. Drawing on leaked corporate documents, public records and court proceedings, Byline Times can now reveal the London firm appears to have in fact been acting on behalf of one of Vladimir Putin's most trusted confidants: Roman Abramovich.

Not only shedding fresh light on the former Chelsea FC owner's long-running efforts to conceal his interests from Western authorities, these findings further provide a window into Abramovich's apparent ties to yet another autocratic, post-Soviet regime.

Because Hunnewell isn't just a British private equity group. Its founders are also close enough business partners of Georgia's very own 'pro-Russian' ruling oligarch, Bidzina Ivanishvili, for critics to view the firm as a crucial enabler of the spiralling human rights crisis that has engulfed the South Caucasian country since the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

"Hunnewell Partners is primarily a political player in Georgia," said Hans Gutbrod, a professor of public policy at Tbilisi's Ilia State University. "Exercising a significant hold on the Georgian economy, it's a company that could only operate with Ivanishvili's blessing, and in turn also works directly for his interests."

The Fall of Googoosha

Born 1972, Gulnara Karimova was once one of the most powerful people in Central Asia. The eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who ruled the repressive former Soviet Republic with an iron fist until his death in 2016, she rose to become not only her country's Deputy Foreign Minister, but also its Permanent UN Representative.

At one time tipped as her father's most likely successor, her passions were perhaps more varied than your average dictatorial heir-apparent. A self-styled "poet, mezzo-soprano, designer and exotic Uzbekistan beauty," per her Twitter bio, she would also establish her own fragrance, fashion and jewelry lines, penning ill-fated screenplays and releasing duets with the likes of French actor Gérard Depardieu.

It was just four months after the launch of her debut album (Goog...

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.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

On Thursday, some big news landed regarding the future of the climate movement in Britain. Just Stop Oil announced that: "Three years after bursting on the scene in a blaze of orange, at the end of April we will be hanging up the hi-vis."

"It is the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets. But it is not the end of trials, of tagging and surveillance, of fines, probation and years in prison," the group said in a statement.

They will hold a final action in Parliament Square on 26 April.

During their short history, Just Stop Oil supporters have been arrested 3,300 times and imprisoned 180 times for, in their words, "having broken laws that were drafted by the fossil fuel industry". In June 2023, the Met Police said the group had cost it more than £4.5 million in just six weeks.

But while the organisation may be ending, they continue to face the force of the law. Seven of their activists are in prison serving sentences of up to four years, and eight are on remand. In the next few months, 16 more are due to be sentenced.

Byline Times' Josiah Mortimer (JM) spoke to Just Stop Oil spokesperson Mel Carrington (MC), who has been a core activist with the group from the beginning.

It's the end of an era for the opinion-dividing climate action group. But what's next?

JM: What's behind this decision to 'hang up your hi-vis'?

MC: It was something we'd been thinking about for a while, probably since we claimed a win when Labour came to power, but it didn't really make much of a splash, and we were thinking about what we'd do from there.

It just became ever more apparent that our current focus is not achieving what we need.

Looking at the science, looking at what's going on, looking at the global environment post Trump. We've got a poly-crisis, and we need a much broader based approach to resist.

So we've been thinking about ending the campaign for a while, and it just seemed like a good moment to do it.

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JM: Does it also reflect that a lot of JSO activists have been imprisoned? It must have been a very tiring couple of years as a movement.

MC: I think the whole climate movement has been up against it for years. It's run by volunteers and individuals, and little groups across the country. Just Stop Oil is no different. We're now mainly funded by individual donations, small donations, and people have thrown their heart and soul into it, and you can't keep doing that up against the might of the fossil fuel industry and the violent apparatus of the state. Inevitably, I think there's a bit of fatigue.

But we're really keen to frame this as a win for the climate movement as a whole. And I will be the first to say that the credit isn't all down to Just Stop Oil. Obviously, there are lots of groups. I was speaking to the Weald Action Group this morning, who are frankly hopping mad about our statement, because they've had some fantastic wins in the courts, and they do great work.

JM: Who made this decision? Is it collectively, from a group of volunteers? Was it a steering group? Most people won't understand how those decisions are made.

MC: There are working groups with different jobs. The group that determines strategy makes decisions at the strategic level. We look at everything, how we're mobilising, what kind of press we're getting, the finances, the energy in the system. All of that feeds into the decision-making.

We've just got to the point where we feel the external environmen...

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.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

A new alliance of campaign groups has been launched to get 4x4s off the roads in the UK.

Green activists are stepping up their opposition to sports utility vehicles - meant for off-road use - taking over British cities and towns.

The SUV Alliance - backed by groups like AdFree Cities, Mums for Lungs and Clean Cities - say SUVs are fast becoming 'the norm' due to car manufacturers promoting them in search of higher profits, and government 'inaction' over their rise.

They argue SUVs are reducing street space for other transport modes, such as scooters and e-bikes, and holding back the market for smaller, affordable electric vehicles.

Despite progress in fuel efficiency and electrification, the trend toward heavier and less efficient vehicles like SUVs has largely wiped out the improvements in energy consumption achieved in the car sector in recent decades. Sports vehicles emit roughly 20% more emissions than an average medium-sized car, according to the International Energy Association.

The SUV Alliance's first demand is for the Government to overhaul Vehicle Excise Duty to introduce higher taxes on the most polluting vehicles, based on their weight.

It highlights that 52% of the top 100 vehicle models sold in 2023 were too wide for minimum on-street parking spaces in major cities. In effect, councils and taxpayers are subsidising users of the prestige mega-vehicles.

The campaign calls for maximum width, length, and height limits for new car sales from 2030 to prevent oversized vehicles.

And they advocate for a national 'tobacco-style' ban on SUV advertising (including hybrid and electric SUVs) in outdoor spaces.

The campaign argues that advertising is driving demand for larger SUVs, rather than demand creating the supply.

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Backers want to see mandatory 'eco-scores' published for all new electric vehicles, combining engine efficiency and lifecycle CO2 emissions, to make clear their impact on the planet.

The campaign also wants to empower local authorities to introduce 'progressive parking tariffs' on heavier, bigger, and more polluting vehicles, due to their climate impact and danger for road users.

It cites examples like Paris - and in England, Bath (Somerset) and Islington (London) - which have introduced increased parking charges for larger vehicles.

The SUV Alliance encourages supporters to share the manifesto with local MPs and councillors to introduce anti-SUV policies.

Green Party Baroness, Jenny Jones, hosted a parliamentary launch on Wednesday of the new campaign to reverse the trend towards ever larger Sports Utility Vehicles in the UK.

Baroness Jones said: "Sales of SUVs have leapt up in the last two decades, yet many urban streets and car parking bays are simply too small to accommodate the increasing girth of these vehicles.

"I like what Paris has done to discourage their use, by charging the largest cars as much as three times more to park. In the UK, Bath and Islington councils have introduced similar measures. The government should encourage other councils to replicate these efforts."

A spokesperson for the campaign branded SUVs and 4x4s 'more polluting, more expensive and more dangerous to other road users' - yet they are fast becoming the norm in the UK.

Baroness Jones added: "I wish this new alliance every success with their aim of reversing the growth of these vehicles. SUVs pollute and are often owned and driven by wealthier citizens at the expense of those in less wealthy areas. They feel safer to drive, but are much less safe for any pedestrians and cyclists they collide with."

The campaign launch foll...

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.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

At a recent think tank event in Washington, Donald Trump's foreign policy was described as "domineering, arbitrary, and extractive." I agree with all those terms, but I would have added a fourth descriptor - "values-free" - in the sense that this administration appears to make no distinction between democracies and autocracies when it comes to making its foreign policy decisions.

If you are small, weak or dependent on the US in some way, this administration is happy to bully you to try to extract concessions, regardless of whether you are a traditional ally or enemy of the US.

Thus, we have a situation where the US is willing to impose tariffs on its closest trading partners, its geographical neighbours, and its allies in the transatlantic security alliance, such as Canada, Mexico and the EU, even though this will cause devastating economic harm to all involved, including the US itself.

Thus, the US is threatening to seize Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally, by force if necessary.

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Thus, the US is threatening to violate a decades old treaty, in order to take back control of the Panama Canal.

Thus, the US is willing to troll Canadians, about turning their country into the 51st state of America.

By contrast, the Trump administration seems willing to offer grace to countries whose leaders are as ruthless and unprincipled as Trump himself. If you have something to sell - like rare minerals, to trade - like new market access, or to offer - like cooperation on immigration, this administration is willing to do business with you, no matter what your human rights or democracy record.

Thus, Russia is offered the prospect of sanctions relief in return for stopping its war of aggression against Ukraine, whilst Ukraine, the injured party, is likely to be required to accept punitive terms for peace, including the permanent loss of at least 20% of its territory, and perhaps even the replacement of Zelensky's Government with a more biddable version in Kyiv.

Thus, Israel is given carte blanche to resume its pounding of Gaza, and to indulge in the notion of expelling Palestinians forever from that territory, so that Trump can move in and develop it as a real estate opportunity.

Thus, the administration has no qualms in deporting hundreds of illegal immigrants to El Salvador, a country with a dire human rights record, moreover without any due process to verify whether those involved are indeed Venezuelan gang members, as the administration alleges, or genuine asylum seekers with a valid claim for refugee status in the US.

Thus, the administration's "best friend" in Europe is Viktor Orban, the authoritarian ruler in Hungary.

Thus, the administration seems to have little to say about the ongoing democracy crackdowns in Georgia or Turkey.

Thus, the administration's main concern with China seems to be the challenge it poses to America's influence in the Asia-Pacific, rather than its threats to seize Taiwan by force, aggressive actions against American allies such as the Philippines in the South China Seas, or oppressive treatment of its own citizens, including in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet.

Thus, the administration's main beef with Iran similarly seems to be its geopolitical challenge to US interests in the Middle East, rather than any concerns about its dire domestic human rights record.

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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.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

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A group of voters have joined together to file a 'groundbreaking' legal claim against Reform UK, after it allegedly failed to properly respond to their requests for what personal information the party held on them.

Good Law Project is bringing a case on behalf of the claimants after it created a tool in the lead up to the general election that allowed voters to ask political parties what information they had on them through a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) and to demand the party stop using that information.

Around 1,800 people used the tool to contact Nigel Farage's party and, of those surveyed, 96% said that Reform had failed to respond to their data requests, thereby breaching its legal obligations. Reform was the worst performer of all the major political parties, according to GLP.

Between June-July 2024, voters submitted requests to Reform UK for their personal info and for the party to cease processing their data.

Reform UK was required to respond to these requests within one month, but failed to meet this deadline, according to the legal submission to the High Court.

Only after receiving a formal letter before action in October 2024 did Reform UK respond, claiming they had "no record" of the individuals in their systems, except for the original requests.

But GLP believes Reform UK's identical responses to all the individuals were inadequate and likely false - since Reform UK's own privacy policy states they "maintain a profile for each registered voter" by "merging" the Electoral Register with other data from third-party sources.

The claimant suspects Reform UK may be processing so-called special category data (including political opinions) about the individuals without proper legal basis.

The voters - 'data subjects' in the eyes of the law - have allegedly suffered "concern, worry, uncertainty and distress" due to Reform UK's handling of their data and ignoring their requests.

GLP wants the court to order Reform UK to comply with the data requests, pay compensation for non-material damage, and cover legal costs.

Good Law Project through its lawyers, Pallas Partners LLP (Pallas), wrote formally to Reform UK to challenge its refusal to meet its obligations under the law. Reform failed to respond to the legal letter, but sent out "identical emails", claiming to hold no data on any of them. It never responded to the demand to stop targeting those voters who requested it, the lawyers state.

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Reform has reportedly ignored further legal letters from Pallas which sought more information about its process for handling DSARs and challenged Reform's contention that it held no data on any of the individuals.

Now 51 people have opted to take further action collectively and challenge Reform in the High Court, under a novel legal mechanism embedded in the UK's GDPR data protection law.

Article 80 (1) of GDPR allows Good Law Project to represent the claimants as a group of victims of data protection infringements. Pallas is acting for Good Law Project in this challenge.

An anonymous claimant involved in this legal challenge said: "After receiving unwanted communications from Reform during early 2024, I joined this case because I believe it's crucial to hold all organisations wholly accountable for protecting personal data.

"Reform's data breaches highlight the importance of transparency and responsibility required in safeguarding all individ...