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Jason Arday, a 41-year-old academic who resigned as Cambridge's Professor of Sociology of Education, was found dead on Friday following intense scrutiny of many aspects of his qualifications and personal life by the majority of the established press.

His coordinated targeting by an explicitly anti-black race science network did not come out of nowhere, Byline Times can reveal.

Backed by the pro-Trump Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, this network has spent a decade penetrating Cambridge University before reaching Reform UK, Restore Britain, and the pan-European far-right.

This phase of the campaign against Jason Arday began when academic and anti-black racist Nathan Cofnas raised claims of plagiarism in Arday's work in a Substack post last month.

The story it fuelled was then dissected in more than 200 articles across the majority of the British press in the weeks that followed, both in print and online.

It was striking that many of these articles did not acknowledge that the central accusations were being made by a man who believes that inherited racial differences make black people less intelligent and would leave black people absent from virtually every elite position in public life outside of sport and entertainment.

They also did not mention that Cofnas had used the terms "retarded", "illiterate", and "mentally disabled" to describe Jason Arday, while noting that he was "black".

Cofnas said that an unidentified male Cambridge faculty member had supplied him with information about Arday. Before even examining Arday's PhD thesis, completed at Liverpool John Moores University, Cofnas had dismissed him as "just another DEI hire", referring to 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion' schemes.

At the ideological centre of the network is Aporia, an online magazine which serves as the public-facing arm of the Human Diversity Foundation – now known as Polygenic Scores.

The Human Diversity Foundation was a rebranded and relaunched version of the Nazi-era Pioneer Fund, which sought to mainstream its eugenics doctrines through Aporia.

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has cultivated ties to key actors in this network: to Cambridge Professor James Orr, through whom he channelled a donation to Cambridge; to Orr's Cambridge circle; to online magazine Quillette which published attacks on Arday; and directly to Nathan Cofnas and Aporia senior editor Noah Carl.

Orr linked this infrastructure to politics. Reform UK's Head of Policy, and an advisor to the Free Speech Union organisation, he invited Aporia into national conservatism.

At The Sanctuary, a right-wing hub in Westminster, the Orr-backed Cambridge Scrutonian Society has an office provided by crypto-billionaire Ben Delo; while Aporia is able to book spaces for events there through the venue's internal booking system.

Delo gave Reform £4 million in early 2026. He has also sponsored the Free Speech Union.

By understanding this network and its ideology, a more accurate picture can be developed of the motivations behind the disproportionate attacks on Jason Arday that continued even after his resignation from Cambridge University.

On 21 July, Nathan Cofnas published the article which launched the campaign against Jason Arday.

Titled 'DEI Fraud and Cover-Up at Cambridge', he portrayed Arday's appointment to Cambridge University in 2023 as evidence that it had "grabbed a random black person" and abandoned academic standards in pursuit of diversity.

On 9 August, Cofnas said that a male faculty member at Cambridge University – who he said he was not allowed to name – had contacted him on 13 June with information about Jason Arday. He referred to this person as a whistleblower who feared professional retaliation.

Cofnas then examined Arday's PhD thesis and published his allegations about alleged plagiarism.

Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) had already formally tested the central ...

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In February 2025, Reform's then-Chairman Zia Yusuf wrote: "We are pleased to announce that, as promised, Nigel Farage has handed over ownership of Reform UK to its members.

"Reform UK is now a non-profit, with no shareholders, limited by guarantee."

Previously, Nigel Farage literally owned Reform UK. He held the vast majority of shares, in a highly unusual arrangement for a political party.

Farage pledged to change that. The party remains a company, but the majority-shareholder model is gone, and a formal constitution, member conferences, and voting rights are now in place. Up to a point.

Byline Times has got hold of a copy of Reform UK's constitution, adopted in September last year, and it shows that Reform UK is still not the member democracy its leading lights have suggested.

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The resolution adopting Reform's new constitution states that it "robustly democratises participation within the party by the membership."

What the actual constitution itself suggests however is that Reform UK is a DINO – Democracy in Name Only.

While the new governing document introduced a party Board, containing (some) elected members, and formalised member ballots for the leadership, Nigel Farage retains an extraordinary degree of power.

Some of the arrangements will be familiar to frustrated members of other parties. Motions carried at Reform's conference are advisory only, and simply have to be discussed by the Board.

Members vote in internal elections – but those are at the whim of the party Board. Article 4.3 of the constitution notes the Board has absolute discretion over party ballots.

But the democratic sheen comes off completely when we look at how Farage could be removed. The answer is: it's almost impossible.

To call an emergency general meeting or to issue a vote of no confidence in the leader, requires written requests to Farage's appointed Chairman, currently ex-Conservative MP Lee Anderson, from at least 50% of all members "in good standing" (There is another mechanism to call such a vote, but only once Reform has over 100 MPs).

Reform has around 270,000 members, according to recent tallies, meaning around 135,000 members would have to write to Anderson, within 60 days, to demand a no-confidence vote in the Chairman's boss.

Imagine, if you will, Lee Anderson combing through 135,000 hand-written letters and deciding if each of the writers are a) members and b) in 'good standing'.

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Members are deemed of 'good standing' if their subscriptions are up to date, they are not subject to any suspension or exclusion by the party, and they owe no debts to the party older than 30 days and more than £100.

The leader-appointed Chairman has extensive powers over what counts as 'good standing'. He can refuse new membership and renewals, revoke membership in specified circumstances, exercise emergency disciplinary powers "in cases of exceptional gravity and urgency", suspend candidates (subject to Board approval after the fact), oversee the membership database and exercise overall responsibility for party organisation.

The Discipline Committee of the Board, composed of serving members, calls most of the shots on member suspensions or expulsions – and it is chaired by the party secretary. That role is appointed by Nigel Farage. (There is an appeals process which is more independent, for those who want to keep fighting).

Should a no-confidence motion in Farage be called – after meeting that impossibly-high bar – the decision goes to the Board.

Farage sits on that Board, and there's no requ...

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The Department for Health and Social Care has launched a legal challenge against Uniserve for tens of millions of pounds, claiming the company, which has close ties to the Conservative party, supplied 11 million faulty gowns during the pandemic.

The legal action comes as new documents obtained by Byline Times, reveal how Uniserve, and a Conservative MP linked to the company, successfully lobbied ministers to push through the deal, which ultimately left the Government tens of millions of pounds worth of unusable PPE.

The deal was hugely controversial due to the involvement of a Conservative peer and the fact that the firm owns an office complex which houses the constituency office of Conservative Party MP and ex-Cabinet Office minister Julia Lopez.

The company, owned by businessman Iain Liddell, prides itself on being the "UK's leading logistics & global trade management provider.

However, despite the company having no track record of supplying PPE to the NHS, they were awarded multiple contracts in 2020 to provide vast quantities of masks, gloves, aprons, face shields and goggles.

Uniserve saw its turnover and profits surge during the pandemic as a result of the contracts, which generated payments of £1.15 billion from the DHSC, up to April 2023.

The contracts, valued at £303 million, were made possible after Conservative peer and Cabinet Office minister, Lord Agnew referred Uniserve onto the so-called 'VIP lane' for preferential contracts.

It was subsequently discovered that huge volumes of PPE supplied by Uniserve under these deals were not fit for purpose. According to data obtained by Spotlight on Corruption, 182 million items of PPE supplied by Uniserve, totalling £178.5 million were assigned into the 'do not supply' category.

Uniserve was also handed a £572m contract in March 2020 to provide freight services to the DHSC. The deal required the firm to assist the Government in delivering PPE located in China and South-East Asia to the UK and included the management of sea freight arriving at Felixstowe – where container storage was causing a major headache for officials due to the shear volume of PPE ordered by the DHSC.

A spokesperson for Uniserve said they procure products for customers, and had a global network of contacts that specialise in PPE. "We did not actively sell our procurement services to the DHSC, we were asked to help".

New documents released to Byline Times following a lengthy Freedom of Information battle with the Cabinet Office can reveal the true extent of the political lobbying between Conservative party Ministers and Uniserve in the build-up to the huge VIP lane deals being awarded.

Despite having no track record of supplying PPE, the lucrative deals were awarded to Uniserve without any competition. The company does however share the same address as former Cabinet Office Minister Julia Lopez MP and is based in her constituency.

Liddell and Lopez, who continues to rent an office space from Uniserve, spent years denying they were in contact with each other regarding the PPE deals, in 2020 Uniserve explicitly told reporters at the Guardian, "Uniserve or Mr Liddell were never in contact with Julia Lopez regarding bidding for these contracts." A statement echoed by the then Conservative-controlled Cabinet Office. However in late 2025 the pair finally came clean and admitted that they were in email contact prior to the VIP lane deals being awarded.

Lopez declined to explain to the Guardian whether or not she acted on Liddell's email.

However, for the first time, Byline Times can reveal what happened next.

By March 2020 DHSC and Uniserve were already in discussion over the transportation of medical goods, however attention soon turned to the supply of PPE.

Uniserve lobbied Lopez on 02 April 2020, complaining that PPE procurement needed "serious thought" and officials were "taking too long" to deal...

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With their party's popularity in freefall, leading Republicans have identified a new message to unite around. The Democrats, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson, will lead America down "the dark road of death to communism." President Donald Trump, Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with religious right leaders such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's spiritual leader Doug Wilson, have made equally histrionic claims. The Red Scare has returned to America, only this time it is pure farce.

Definitions of "communism" are a bit like definitions of pornography: hard to pin down but everyone is pretty sure they know it when they see it. For the Republicans echoing this new midterm strategy, communism just means Democrats.

For the donors who fund Trump and the MAGA movement, communism means anything that hints that the gargantuan fortunes they have acquired are anything less than the righteous reward for their genius.

For the MAGA faithful, communism happens whenever some big-city or brown progressive person says something critical about the cost-of-living crisis or Papa Trump.

For many immigrants from formerly communist regimes, along with those whose political identities were forged by the Cold War, it means rule by thuggish authoritarians claiming to represent 'the people'. Because the term is such a vague catch-all for 'everything that scares me' it proves so useful for the demagogues who now control the Republican Party.

The messaging strategy is also circulating in some of the more conservative circles in the UK and the EU. At this year's Alliance for Responsible Citizenship gathering, which drew about 4000 attendees to London's Olympia conference center last June, several speakers merged their praise for Western civilization with dark threats about the spread of communism and its apparent equivalent, socialism.

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"It is almost universally recognised that the West shows the world the way of economic development," said Ignat Solzhenitsyn, a pianist and composer and the son of Aleksandr, the famous Soviet dissident and Nobel laureate. "Socialism of any style and hue leads to a comprehensive destruction of the spiritual essence of man."

Like Christian nationalists in the US, he laid the blame on humanism. "The turn effected by the Renaissance," he asserted, led to a "headlong dash from the spirit toward matter" and a "dangerous tilt toward worship of man and material goods."

Tell that to the well-dressed attendees who flew business class to this £1500-per-ticket event.

The American video producer and podcaster John Papola similarly invoked "communists," "Marxists," and "New Jacobins," along with the insufficiently pious, as the supposed enemies of fathers and families. Where precisely can you find these nefarious types? At the "woke madrasas" otherwise known as America's educational institutions.

The history of Red Scares is grim. In the scare of 1918-1920, the federal government under President Woodrow Wilson criminalized political dissent, engaged in warrantless searches as a matter of policy, and put thousands of individuals, many of them immigrants, under detention without due process. (Does any of this sound familiar?) In the 1950s, too, red-baiting deprived thousands of individuals of their civil rights and careers. More than that, Red Scares were used to undermine American movements for civil rights and labor rights, allowing reactionaries to sideline and silence opponents without having to engage with the facts.

The Red Scares of earlier times always came wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. It is no accident that they often invoked the language of religious authoritarianism. If God is on our side, according to the paranoid style of Ameri...

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Reform-backer and former Conservative chairman Nadhim Zahawi has been accused of peddling falsehoods on national TV after claiming Farage-rival and comedy candidate Count Binface received "£180,000" from Labour donor and Ecotricity founder Dale Vince.

On Friday 14 August, Reform UK's Nadhim Zahawi appeared as a guest on ITV's Good Morning Britain, discussing the Clacton by-election result. The vote saw Reform leader Nigel Farage return to Parliament last Thursday, following the by-election he called to counter standards investigations into his funding.

Host Kate Garraway noted that the anti-Farage candidate received 9,455 votes, securing over a quarter of the vote in an election where the main opposition parties did not stand.

Reform defector Zahawi replied: "Yeah and he got, by the way, he got I think £180,000 from Dale Vince, who is a big Labour supporter. He got activists from the Conservative Party and from Labour going out to try and knock on doors for him."

His statement follows a report in the Telegraph on 9 July stating: "One of Labour's biggest donors has pledged to fund Count Binface in his Clacton by-election battle with Nigel Farage…[Dale Vince] could donate up to £180,050 to Count Binface to spend on campaigning materials during a by-election." However, no donation appears to have been made from the businessman and activist.

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In a statement on social media, Count Binface – real name Jon Harvey – wrote on Friday Zahawi's claim was "untrue."

"Dale Vince has never donated any money to me, and at no point have I asked activists from any other party to knock on doors for me. If anyone did so, it was not at my direction and was of their own volition.

"I'm sure Mr Zahawi will want to correct the record at his earliest convenience."

Dale Vince told Byline Times Zahawi's claim was: "untrue, totally false, a fantasy."

He claimed it was "unconnected with reality and unchecked by anyone at Reform (no-one asked)." Vince added: "Who does that?" The entrepreneur's team is set to contact Zahawi.

He confirmed he had donated nothing to Count Binface.

"Reform plays fast and loose with the truth, not just dodgy donations. There are five million (secret) reasons why complaining about someone else's funding is just plain daft. Even if it were truth as opposed to fantasy," the green entrepreneur added, referring to crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne's pre-election 'gift' of £5 million to Nigel Farage.

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A spokesperson for ITV told this outlet it had already issued a clarification on this morning's GMB programme at 6:28am.

Presenter Ranvir Singh said: "Before we get into today's stories on Friday's programme, Nadhim Zahawi said that Count Binface had received £180,000 from the businessman Dale Vince and had asked Labour and Conservative Party activists to go and knock on doors for him. While Mr Vince did offer financial support to Count Binface, it was never accepted. Count Binface also says he has never asked activists from other parties to knock on doors for him. We are happy to clarify that position."

Zahawi defected to Reform UK this January, claiming he did so to protect free speech. The former Conservative was briefly Chancellor in the dying days of Boris Johnson's premiership, calling for Johnson to resign less than 48 hours after being appointed to the top economic role. Johnson then did resign, only for Zahawi to later endorse calls for the former PM to return to the top job.

Zahawi had previously strongly criticised the Reform leader. In 2015, Zahawi told LBC ...

There will be another Jason Arday.

We know this. Because the media knows this.

We are told the press 'isn't free' if it lacks the impunity to do anything it likes. It is how power protects itself. By declaring it has none.

That is why there will be another Jason Arday.

It doesn't matter that a 41-year-old took his life after days of disproportionate media coverage even after his resignation from Cambridge University.

It doesn't matter that this mass exercise in hate-drenched fury, sneering, and self-righteousness was fuelled by his race and his class – and whether anyone wants to admit this or not. (No one argued that Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, elected politicians no less, weren't qualified enough to take the economy to the brink). Those in the media know that someone white and/or posh wouldn't be denigrated in the same way. Because none of their actions are treated in this way. No matter the 'truth' of what they say.

It doesn't matter that media outlets across the spectrum have had nothing much to write now that his children are without their father. That is not respect. That is the point. News cycles move on. Algorithms attract other eyeballs. Business as usual.

It doesn't matter that columnists at a few of these outlets are now writing of their own 'failure' of Jason Arday. Because they will continue to take the money these outlets pay them. And, in doing so, shield these outlets of any blame.

It doesn't matter that the rage-bait has moved on on social media platforms designed to ensure that other rage-bait takes its place. Some continue in their attacks. Hate pays.

It doesn't matter that a human being was reduced to an object of lustful frenzy upon the instincts of the mob. Not when division and desensitisation is the operating system our dehumanising political-social-media culture runs on.

That is why there will be another Jason Arday.

Because there is no check to fetter power when unfettered power resides in the check.

There is no 'neutral arbiter'. Only a media invested in its own status to shape how we see the world; who is 'up' and who is 'down'; who is 'in' and who is 'out'; what happens to people's lives. Only a media that cries 'public interest' even when it is not: it is the exercise of unchecked power.

There was a public interest seven years ago when this publication first reported on the questionable finances of Reform UK's predecessor party and Nigel Farage and his association with a convicted fraudster who is "like a son". No outlet followed up. Now they are fearless watchdogs.

After nearly a decade in which Farage has been elevated as the next prime minister-in-waiting, it is time to turn up the scrutiny so as not to get caught out backing the wrong horse. No matter that the horse long bolted because they opened the gate.

The media's own interests; and the public interest: different stories, indeed.

That is why there's not yet any media interest, enough to establish a public interest, in a follow-up of the six-month investigation, spanning some 20 sources, published by Byline Times last month about the institution the press has been fixated with day after day: Cambridge University.

There is not yet any public interest, it seems, in the activities of another – white, middle-class, right-wing – professor there, James Orr, who is simultaneously a public figure in political life as Farage's Head of Policy at Reform. When this publication put to Cambridge the extensive findings of his activities at the university, including concerns around the safeguarding of students, the press office of my alma mater had nothing to say.

It passed our questions straight to Orr's lawyers. When we asked it why, its only response – which it said we couldn't publish – was to state that "we are unable to engage with the approach as a legitimate media enquiry". You can read the full investigation here and decide for yourself. (It redacts the name of the property from which Orr operates, and in which he houses students, in Cambri...

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The campaign group replacing Advance UK – a party registered only in December – has refused to rule out foreign funding for its 'Great British' efforts.

It comes amid a fiery conflict over the remains of Advance UK, the far-right Reform competitor party that formally deregistered with the Electoral Commission in July.

Advance UK was established by Ben Habib, who was the co-deputy leader of Reform UK from October 2023 until he was removed and replaced by Richard Tice in July 2024.

Habib quit the party in November 2024, after falling out with leader Nigel Farage and then chairman Zia Yusuf – with businessman Habib backing a hardline stance in favour of mass deportations. Habib, who was born in Pakistan, had also called on far-right MP Rupert Lowe to be readmitted to Reform.

On 30 June 2025, Habib took over what was then the Integrity Party, relaunching it as 'Advance UK'. That same day, former Reform MP Rupert Lowe launched his own project, 'Restore Britain' – which soon outflanked the party in every respect. Restore began as a 'pressure group' but formally registered as a party this February, and secured 9% of the vote in the recent Greater Manchester Mayoral election.

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It is polling around three per cent across Britain and is seen by Reform as a threat to its chances of securing a majority – with Lowe and Nigel Farage recently engaging in a very public spat over potentially working together.

This July, Ben Habib announced his intention to merge Advance UK with the non-party campaign group 'Great British PAC', which he chairs. He launched a ballot of members to certify the move. Around 8,000 members voted from the 38,000 potential voters, with the vast majority eventually backing the transfer.

Advance UK will continue to exist as a company – with, this outlet understands, around £250,000 in funds – but will no longer be regulated by the Electoral Commission. And it will give cash to GB PAC on a case-by-case basis.

GBPAC was set up in 2024 as a pressure group, "in the mold of American political action committees", as Hope Not Hate puts it. The group writes: "GB PAC spends much of its time opposing the government's Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius. It has also supported Tommy Robinson events and a protest opposing puberty blockers for trans youth.

"Plans to launch an academy to teach future right-wing leaders, host a conference, and publish a list of legislation it wishes to overturn appear to have stalled," the anti-hate group said in a February briefing. Its advisory group includes far-right activists like Carl Benjamin (AKA YouTuber Sargon of Akkad).

Despite Habib's stated aversion to 'ethno-nationalism', a regional director of GBPAC has previously shared a website containing Hitler's speeches and pointed his online followers towards a video asserting Hitler "never ordered the extermination of a single Jew". Another, the group's England director has also bemoaned the supposed decline of the British "gene pool", writing on X: "By importing loads of sub Saharan Africans plus Muslims that inter breed the IQ is in severe decline."

GBPAC's founder and sole director Claire Bullivant told this outlet Advance UK's funds were "not being transferred to GBP Corporation Limited or to Claire Bullivant personally, nor is the Great British PAC acquiring that sum [£432,000 outlined in the last accounts] as part of the arrangements between the organisations."

"We understand that Ben Habib and the Advance UK College will determine how any remaining funds should properly be applied, including potentiall...

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Reform UK paid at least £440,000 to firms with directors linked to the party since 2023, Byline Times can reveal.

'Electoral Commission filings show that Nigel Farage's party paid over £72,000 to Touchpoint Strategy, a 'media strategy and crisis consulting' firm for 'market research/canvassing' work around the 2024 general election. Companies House filings show that Touchpoint was only founded in March 2024. Within three months, Reform UK spent £72,000 with the firm.'

Touchpoint has never filed any accounts, and its most recent filings were due in December 2025 but are still not published. The firm also received a compulsory strike-off notice in February 2026, which has now been suspended.

The firm has two directors, Josephmarie Gerard John Dulston and Tess Wheldon. Dulston is a Reform Party activist who stood as a local Reform candidate in the May 2025 elections for Market Drayton South, under the name he commonly goes by – Joseph Robertson. He was appointed as a director in July 2024, after the June spending by Reform.

Robertson is a key figure in Liz Truss's CPAC Great Britain (CPAC-GB), a conference group attempting to import MAGA-style politics via its home-grown largest annual conference to the UK.

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Robertson is also a former member of the anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion Orthodox Conservatives, and appeared alongside Nigel Farage at the 2025 UK launch of the Heartland Institute, an American climate denial think tank.

Tess Wheldon, who has also worked as an analyst for rural policy at the Orthodox Conservative group, was an influential voice during the farmers protests during the early days of the Labour government.

Touchpoint was behind the organising of the recent CPAC-GB conference, which, in bringing together members of the global far right, vowed to "Save Britain, save the West". Both Robertson and Wheldon are listed as its only directors on Companies House.

Robertson has previously said in interviews with a Swedish media outlet that "there are essentially parts of the UK where Sharia Law is being enforced", and Wheldon has described abortion as murder on Instagram, as well as perpetuating the debunked claim that recent reforms to abortion legislation in the UK legalise "abortion up to birth".

Filings also show that Reform has paid another firm, Jupiter Visual Communications Limited, over £125,600 for work on 'rallies and other events', 'campaign broadcasts', and other general administration costs between August 2023 and July 2024.

Jupiter Visual Communications itself later went on to become a Reform donor, with the company giving £50,000 to the party in January 2026. It is, this outlet understands, the first time it has emerged that a supplier paid by Reform UK has then gone on to donate to the party.

However, this isn't its only link to the party.

One of the directors, Bennett Ingram Harley Moss – AKA Ben Moss – also sits as a director of another Reform-donating business, Prema Properties, which between September 2024 and April 2025 gave £50,000 to Reform. Ben Moss has also promoted CPAC-GB on his LinkedIn page.

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Another firm that Reform has paid for campaign broadcasts and 'overheads and general administration' costs, to the tune of £202,000 between January 2023 and July 2024, is Oak Hall Studios.

The sole director of the company is Dr David Bull, who was party Chairman between June 2025 through to May 2026, also formerly sitting as deputy leader from 2021 to 2023.

Bull was also a former Brexit Party MEP and is a regular fixture as a commentator on GB ...

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Presenter André Walker, who works for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Talk station, has been found guilty of assault, after dragging a protester into a room without CCTV at a Republicans Overseas dinner during Donald Trump's state visit.

The pro-Trump dinner at Windsor Guildhall on 16 September 2025 saw two Fossil Free London activists stand up at the front and chant "If you drill baby drill, how many will you kill?" while holding banners.

While the female protester was led to a nearby entrance, Mr Walker dragged NHS doctor Kush Naker through the middle of the room and into a side room — which, in a YouTube video after the incident, he mentioned had no CCTV, while putting his thumbs up and grinning.

Dr Naker accused Mr Walker of pinning him on the ground and attempting to punch him, knee him in the groin and strangle him, efforts Dr Naker told the court he had to overpower.

Mr Walker repeatedly said "I'm nearly 50" while visibly out of breath when a camera did eventually enter the room.

At a judgment hearing at Reading Magistrates' Court today, District Judge (Magistrates' Court) Pankhania told the pro-Trump YouTuber and News UK presenter: "I am satisfied that the defendant attempted to punch Dr Naker."

The judge found of the attempted punches: "I am not satisfied that any of those landed" — but Mr Walker's actions amounted to assault nonetheless.

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In a hearing on 30 July, which this outlet also covered, Mr Walker and his defence, former Conservative justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland KC, attempted to claim the Talk host was trying to defend the paintings from the protesters. But no evidence was given that they would attempt to do so.

The judge found: "Dr Naker didn't have a bag or anything in his hands when he stood up. His back was to the painting. At no point before his approach does he turn to the many pieces of art."

"There is no evidence that any of the protesters threatened to cause damage… There is no evidence in the Mayor's Parlour [the private side-room] that Dr Naker moved towards the art or threatened to move."

The judge found that Mr Walker "did not reasonably hold the belief that he needed to defend the artwork" — and that this defence only emerged strongly three months after the incident.

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Mr Walker appeared to have added to his problems by publishing prolifically on YouTube about the trial and the incident.

The judge found: "The YouTube video is instructive about the defendant's mind." In one video immediately after the assault, Walker described "having a fight with the protesters", mentioned the artwork briefly but nothing further, grinned with a double thumbs-up about the lack of CCTV, called the protesters terrorists, and asked for donations to his Patriot Fund.

"I do not find that the artwork threat was genuinely held," the judge said.

The judge also noted that Mr Walker "admitted in his police interview that he may have used unreasonable force."

The prosecution stated that Walker "dragged Dr Naker into the Mayor's Parlour, held him down, kneeling on him, and made some punches which did not connect". She submitted to the court that the dragging and kneeling on Dr Naker — neither of which was contested — amounted to substantial force.

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EXCLUSIVE: André Walker, accused of assault by beating over a clash with a Fossil Free London activist during the President's state visit, continues to front shows for the Murdoch-owned station

Josiah Mortimer

Dr Naker reported having a sore wrist, a sore jaw and a sore tongue after the incident, as well as...

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The wind-up of Advance UK has led to legal threats and recriminations between former activists and senior figures – with Byline Times able to reveal that party founder Ben Habib reported his own Chief Operating Officer to the police.

Advance UK, a competitor party to Reform and Restore Britain, formally deregistered with the Electoral Commission in July, amid fears it would only haemorrhage support to Rupert Lowe MP's Restore Britain.

It was set up by businessman Ben Habib, who was the co-deputy leader of Reform UK from October 2023 until he was removed and replaced by Richard Tice in July 2024.

Habib quit Reform in November 2024, after falling out with leader Nigel Farage and then chairman Zia Yusuf – with Habib backing a hardline stance in favour of mass deportations. Habib, who was born in Pakistan, had also called on far-right MP Rupert Lowe to be readmitted to Reform.

On 30 June 2025, Habib took over what was then the Integrity Party, relaunching it as 'Advance UK'. That same day, former Reform MP Rupert Lowe launched his own project, 'Restore Britain' – which soon outflanked the party in every respect. Restore began as a 'pressure group' but formally registered as a party this February, and secured 9% of the vote in the recent Greater Manchester Mayoral election.

This July, Ben Habib announced his intention to merge Advance UK with the non-party campaign group 'Great British PAC', which he chairs. He launched a ballot of members to certify the move.

In an extraordinary intervention, Tim Power, the party's Chief Operating Officer, wrote to all members shortly after the ballot went out, saying: "I am writing to inform you that the membership ballot launched on 5 June 2026 has been cancelled…

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"The ballot was not conducted in accordance with that Constitution…Any decision to de-register the Party or merge it with another organisation requires a special resolution – a 75% supermajority – of a properly constituted College of Electors under Articles 1.7 and 2. The College has never been properly constituted."

He added: "Advance UK is a company limited by guarantee. This means the Party's assets – its funds, its membership database, its intellectual property and its brand – are held for the benefit of the Party's objects as a registered political party. They do not belong to any individual and cannot simply be transferred to another organisation" – i.e. Great British PAC.

"GBPAC is not a registered political party. It does not stand candidates in elections. Its objects are materially different from those of Advance UK," Power wrote.

He also claimed "any transfer of member personal data to GBPAC would require the individual consent of each member under UK GDPR. No such consent has been obtained."

Power told Advance UK members: "What has happened over the last few days has exposed serious governance failings within this Party – failings that should have been addressed months ago and were not.

"A Board of Directors should have been properly constituted. A Treasurer should have been appointed. A College of Electors should have been properly elected by you, the membership, for the first time. None of that happened. And the result is that the Party arrived at this moment without the governance structures it needed to handle a decision of this magnitude properly."

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Ben Habib soon restated the ballot, claiming Power was "wrong on all points and should be ignored." He claimed the party was considering the "legal position."

Around 8,000 members voted from the 38,000 potenti...