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Apparently if you're awful enough to cut the legs off one side of a spider then it walks round in circles. It's this image that sticks in my mind as a tiny faction of the Labour right looks to sever the link to anything that can discernibly be called left wing in the party.

The latest manifestation of this operation to separate Labour from the left was the recent suspension of the whip from five MPs, four for voting against the Government and then Diana Abbot for refusing to back down on comments she made about the structure of racism. All this on the anniversary of seven MPs being suspended just after the election for voting against two child benefit cap and now chiming with the launch of a new left party.

Pundits and commentators have tried to make sense of this oddly timed and weirdly focussed act of looking tough. Why these four and not the actual effective ringleaders of the disabled benefits revolt? And why respond to that revolt by agreeing to change the legislation and say you'll begin to listen to backbenchers, but then arbitrarily begin summary expulsions?

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Clearly an internal row has been raging inside Number Ten, and the crackdown kings have won. With tough votes coming up in the autumn on issues like special needs in education, the two-child benefit cap and the budget itself, markers are being put down. In anticipation of further revolts, the leadership are attempting to show that they can and will crush dissent.

But this isn't just some flash in the pan internal squabble in one political party. It's a fundamental insight into the very substance and style of UK politics.

Machiavelli wrote that the successful Prince, by which he meant leader, must be both feared and loved. Labour strategists, in the total absence of any love, have doubled down on fear. It's a brutal and crude form of politics. But they're not alone. It echoes the Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings approach to Brexit dissent within the ranks of the Conservative party when scores of MPs had the whip withdrawn in the run up to the 2019 election. It broke the Conservatives as a broadly based party of the centre right and ended four years later in them receiving their lowest share of the popular vote since 1832.

But further echoes of this approach could be found even among those who have left the party, as the build-up to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana's fledgling left-wing party saw dissenters simply deleted from WhatsApp groups. The urge to impose and not negotiate outcomes is not a question of being left or right, indeed an old anarchist slogan claims that 'inside every socialist, there is a policeman waiting to come out'.

As such the internal discipline and intolerance to difference, is part and parcel of the mood to crush external opposition. Witness the absurd and frightening designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. There is an enemy within and without and in the framing of Stuart Hall the crisis is something to be policed not solved. In cinematic terms think of modern political leadership as more Reservoirs Dogs when they turn their guns on each other than Field of Dreams - build it and they will come.

Two big things are going on here. The first is that the more the party system fragments, the greater control people in those parties try to exert, such that fragmentation in the country goes hand in hand with hyper factionalism within the parties. Labour is now suffering from unprecedented levels of the narrowest kind of factional dominance. But the increasingly bitter fight in the Greens for leadership control in that party and the fact that all progr...

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The team appointed by Nigel Farage to slash spending at Reform's new flagship local authority Kent County Council (KCC) has submitted a progress report based on inaccurate and misleading information derived from the party's own former chairman's social media account, opposition councillors claim.

The 'Progress of the Kent Department of Local Government Efficiency' report, released on July 16, was delivered with the stated aim of providing "an introduction to the work of the Kent DOLGE and the priorities of the administration", and followed an announcement by the new leader of KCC, Linden Kemkaran, about proposed savings to the council budget.

However, the appendix, issued as a "reply from Reform Head Office to some questions" asked of DOLGE by the local authority scrutiny committee are simply references to tweets sent by former Reform chair Zia Yusuf between 4 June and 16 June 2025.

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Many of them have been found to contain inaccuracies and distortions of the truth, and the appendix - which appears to try and counter some of the backlash the tweets received - fails to address the core concerns.

The three-page report came under heavy opposition scrutiny at a council meeting the day it was released, with members stating that "never has a committee waited so long, for so little".

Reform members were also asked by committee members if any of them would be willing to distance themselves from Yusuf's tweets, which were accused of causing reputational damage to the council.

Central to the complaints were four widely circulated assertions from Yusuf cited in the appendix, relating to the work of DOLGE since the May election.

Firstly, he claimed on 15 June that: "Kent County Council is using taxpayer money to pay for TV licences for asylum seekers. Remember that next time you are asked to pay for yours." The tweet was not backed up by evidence.

The DOLGE document refers to his post as evidence of a "national scandal".

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Yusuf's claims were later reported on by a number of media outlets, which appeared to take at face-value, the idea that 'illegal migrants' were not only being given free TV licences but treated to taxpayer-funded activities like bowling, cinema trips and trampolining.

In response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent to KCC on 14 July 2025, the council confirmed it "does not have a policy or scheme to fund TV licences for asylum seekers".

This first allegation hinges on a conflation of two legally distinct groups; adult asylum seekers (the responsibility of the Home Office) and Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC) - individuals under the age of 18 in the care system, who arrive in the UK seeking asylum and who have been separated from parents or guardians.

Every local authority has a legal duty to protect both British nationals and UAS children in care, and to provide basic amenities for them. This includes access to activities crucial to a child's development like recreational activities (swimming, the cinema, etc). The money for UASCs comes from the central Government, and is not paid for by council taxpayers.

It's also inaccurate to state that the money is exclusively for individual TV licences. The council receives a Home Office grant to cover the costs of licences in care homes, to UAS Children in reception centres in Kent, as we...

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Charities who say they have "done the right thing" by investing in electric vehicles will face a new daily charge of £9 to drive a zero-emissions van in central London from December.

The charge from Transport for London could add over £3,000 to the annual running costs of each electric van - a major financial hit at a time when they are facing higher wage bills and the recent employer National Insurance hike.

From December 2025, the 100% Congestion Charge discount for electric vehicles is set to be reduced. Publicly-owned TfL, which is chaired by Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, is consulting on a new 25% discount for electric cars and 50% discount for electric vans.

A spokesperson for green campaign Clean Cities said they were worried that this will mean charities who operate vans in central London either won't be able to afford the shift to electric, or will shift back to diesel.

This will have negative impacts on air quality and decarbonisation, and doesn't support a just transition, the non-profit argues.

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Clean Cities is pushing for an 100% discount for electric vans and trucks operated by an SME or charity.

Food banks and food redistribution organisations like the Trussell Trust and The Felix Project are expected to be hard hit. Felix recently purchased a fleet of electric vans which they'll now have to pay over £3,000 a year to run in central London.

Charities collecting for charity shops are also likely to be hit by the measure.

Zak Bond, Campaign Manager at Clean Cities said: "The Mayor is right to back electric vehicles, we can't reach net zero or clean up the air without them. These proposals need improving given charities and small businesses who have gone green will be hit with a new £9 daily charge per electric van. Costs of over £3,000 a year would be a huge blow to charities like food banks and small firms who need the greatest support."

"The Mayor should continue the 100% congestion charge discount for electric vans run by SMEs and charities."

A spokesperson for London food charity The Felix Project told Byline Times: "We're proud to rescue high-quality surplus food and redistribute it to Londoners who need it most. In central London we do this with a fleet of electric vans so that we can contribute to cleaner air and our shared net zero journey. Every penny we spend on operational costs is a penny we aren't spending on helping Londoners, so this new charge of over £3,000 for each of our electric vans is very concerning."

Raj Singh, director of charity at Thomas Franks, a group supporting disadvantaged children and young people, added: "Charities provide a vital lifeline to the cities most vulnerable. We urge the Mayor to take us into consideration when making this decision."

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Responding to the concerns, a Transport for London spokesperson said: "The Congestion Charge has been in place since its introduction in 2003 to manage traffic and congestion in the central one per cent of London during the busiest times of day.

"Without the changes proposed in our consultation, the charge would become less effective, with an estimated additional 2,200 vehicles in the zone on an average weekday. Under these proposals, we are proposing a new Cleaner Vehicle Discount (CVD) for those who need to drive in the zone to do so in the cleanest vehicles possible."

The spokesperson added that under the new s...

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For years, some Europeans have dreamed of a giant free trade deal between the European Union and the United States. Many rounds of negotiations took place starting in 2013 to try to deliver what was dubbed the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Its proponents said such a deal would establish an economic Nato, creating an economic relationship as deep as the security partnership; some say that the failure of those negotiations in 2016 as a result of stubbornness on both sides contributed to Brexit. Various half-hearted attempts have been made since then to resume limited trade liberalisation talks.

No one at any point during those years could have imagined that when the EU-US trade deal came, it would look like the humiliating surrender agreed by Ursula von der Leyen in an awkward meeting with Donald Trump in Scotland on Sunday. The Commission president agreed to a deal under which most EU exports would be taxed at 15 percent when they entered the US, up from around 2 percent pre-Trump. This is an outcome that would have been unthinkable just three weeks ago, when Brussels thought it had a deal for a 10 percent deal, let alone three months ago, when von der Leyen was hoping to negotiate a zero-for-zero tariff deal.

Worse, the EU is being charged even for the privilege of trading with the US on these abased terms. Von der Leyen has committed that the EU will buy $750 million of US energy products over the next three years and invest $600 billion in the US economy. How this will work in practice is unclear since details are scarce and both sides have given contradictory briefings. On the face of it, the energy promise looks a particular stretch since it would require the EU to divert the bulk of its annual €375 billion energy spend to the US. Currently it buys just 17 percent of its oil, its biggest energy import, from the US. Perhaps these are just numbers plucked out of thin air to please Trump and not meant to be taken seriously.

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What the EU gets out of this hopelessly one-sided arrangement is simply the chance to avoid what could have been an even worse outcome. Had no deal been reached, Trump was threatening to impose a 30 percent tariff on all EU imports from August 1. The best that can be said for this deal, from a European perspective, is that in accepting a baseline 15 percent tariff, European businesses will avoid some of the much higher tariffs that Trump has introduced for certain sectors, most notably automotive imports, although it seems not steel and aluminium. On the basis that 15 percent becomes the new baseline tariff for most countries, other than the UK which will receive a tariff of 10 percent, the EU will at least not be at a competitive disadvantage.

Meanwhile, Trump has not had it all his own way. The US president has had to abandon his demand that the EU change aspects of its regulations on sectors such as digital services, pharmaceuticals and agriculture to suit US corporate interests. The irony is that this was the one thing that US businesses wanted out of a trade deal above all else. Indeed, removing such barriers to trade was the focus of the TTIP negotiations and subsequent EU-US trade initiatives. In surrendering this core US interest and prioritising instead tariff revenues, Trump has delivered to US businesses the worst of both worlds: higher taxes and no enhanced market access.

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A charred car, struck by a Russian FPV drone, caught Ukrainian photojournalist Ivan Antypenko's eye as he drove along the Kherson-Mykolaiv highway.

"Bad news," he wrote on social media.

Reporting from the south of Ukraine since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022, Antypenko has documented dozens of drone-struck vehicles. This one was different: he knew it was a harbinger of a drone siege.

For Kherson, a city of 60,000, separated from the Russian military by less than a mile of the Dnipro River and under non-stop attacks, the highway to Mykolaiv, a major seaport, is a lifeline to Ukrainian-controlled territory. The highway is Kherson's main artery for evacuation, aid and supply. In July 2025, that lifeline is being severed - from the sky. If this strategy succeeds, Kherson risks becoming the first city besieged by drones.

The city and its main highway are already a "kill zone" - a stretch near the frontline dominated by first-person-view (FPV) drones, remotely operated aircraft used by both sides to strike military and civilian targets with speed and precision. Shutting down Kherson's main road with FPV drones would allow Russian forces to encircle the city for the second time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 - this time, without setting foot on the ground.

Russian drone attacks along the Kherson-Mykolaiv highway increased to one to two cars per week during July 2025, according to Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, Deputy Head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration.

"There have been at least three recent attacks in Klapaya and near the Chornobaivka checkpoint," said Tolokonnikov in an interview with Byline Times. "One of the targeted vehicles belonged to the Chief Rabbi of Kherson - he and his family were unharmed."

Antypenko and other local journalists reported that farmers in the Kherson region could not harvest crops sown last autumn or spring due to attacks by large FPV drones and artillery setting fire to fields and agricultural equipment.

It is possible that the Russian military is shifting tactics because drone defence inside Kherson has improved, according to Tolokonnikov. Parts of the city are now shielded with anti-drone nets. Ukrainian forces use electronic warfare, small arms and target Russian drone crews across the river. As Kherson becomes harder to hit directly, Russian drone pilots are targeting its outskirts and the road to Mykolaiv.

"The Russians know it's a key route, and that is precisely why they are targeting it," said Tolokonnikov.

Authorities have urged civilians to avoid the route unless absolutely necessary, and anti-drone nets are now being installed in the Chornobaivka area. Yet, once considered safe, the road is now lethal.

The strategy is clear: isolate, choke supply lines and break resistance without direct engagement. The city is being besieged - by unmanned systems alone. If this tactic succeeds, Kherson faces a humanitarian crisis.

Geography

Kherson sits on the right (western) bank of the Dnipro River. To the east lies the river, now a frontline, and the Russian-occupied left bank, from which artillery and drones strike the city daily. Around Kherson, the fields are mined and side dirt roads are destroyed - not accessible in wet weather and impassable for supply trucks. Russian forces continue remote mining. Large sections of key roads, such as the Mar'yanske-Beryslav road and the route to Snihurivka, are already compromised or under Russian drone control, according to Antypenko.

"The side roads closer to the river are under drone and artillery attack," said Oleh, a Kherson volunteer. "Security measures implemented by our authorities are not efficient enough. Remote mining is another problem."

The only open and accessible route to and from Kherson is the highway to Mykolaiv. This single a...

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American diplomat, Bridget Brink, resigned in April from her position as US Ambassador to Ukraine, after she concluded she could no longer conduct the Trump administration's policy towards that country in good conscience. Since then, she has decided to run for public office, as a Democrat Party candidate for the US House of Representatives, representing her home state of Michigan.

I've known Bridget for over 12 years, since we were both posted to the Republic of Georgia in the Caucasus in the mid-2010s. We became good friends due to our shared professional and personal interests (she is married to a Brit, I am married to an American, and we have sons of similar age.) Now we have resignations from our respective foreign services in common too - me over Boris Johnson's dishonesty about Brexit, and her over Trump's policy on Ukraine.

I recently interviewed her about what propelled her into public service, what brought her to the point of resignation, the dangers she sees to American interests at home and abroad under Trump, and what she hopes to achieve if elected to Congress.

Bridget said she grew up in a small town in Michigan, imbued with the traditional Mid-Western values of hard work, integrity, and "doing the right thing". She inherited a commitment to the public good from her mother, who was a teacher, her father, a public prosecutor, and her grandparents, who served in World War 2. In 1989, aged 19, she studied abroad for a year at the London School of Economics, just around the time the Berlin Wall came down. "I was too young to know what it all meant, but I knew it was big." Her time in London, where she later met her husband, "opened my world" and she eventually decided to join the US Foreign Service.

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Her career became anchored in Europe, with postings to the Balkans, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Slovakia and finally Ukraine ("the culmination of my experience") as well as several senior European policy assignments in Washington, serving under Democrat and Republican Presidents. "I was so proud. I loved being a diplomat in Europe. I believed in the values of our country - democracy, human rights, the rule of law, free markets - which we shared with our European partners." She felt committed to the dream of achieving a "Europe whole, free and at peace", and regarded the transatlantic relationship as the foundation of American strength, with the US and Europe as each other's most important security and economic partners, working together to tackle global issues.

Bridget believes the challenge of Russia and Putin predates the current Trump Administration. Successive administrations erred in overestimating the potential for Russia to integrate with the West, underestimating the challenges facing the Russian people after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and misjudging how much they could achieve together. Every President thought they could do better than their predecessors in establishing better relations with Russia, but "Russian goals are completely at odds with ours. Especially under the current President [Putin], their goals are to create chaos, weaken Europe's democratic institutions, divide the EU, and undermine the US."

Europe's problems with populism today stem from these historical roots. Putin was using hybrid tactics very successfully to exploit fissures in democratic societies, for example, by propelling migrants from Syria into Europe to fuel public discord.

When Trump was re-elected President, Bridget hoped she would be able to "make it work" with the new team. Immediately after the November election, ...

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The United States is in the throes of an unprecedented homelessness crisis that is about to be made drastically worse by Donald Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' (OBBBA) signed into law earlier this month, housing campaigners have warned.

Older Americans, including those on low incomes reliant on social safety net programs, are especially vulnerable to becoming homeless once the billions of dollars of cuts laid out in the new legislation come into force.

Researchers were warning of a homelessness cliff edge for seniors even before the new legislation's cuts, attributable to factors such as the ongoing cost of living crisis hitting those on fixed incomes in retirement hard, as well as soaring rents and a dire lack of affordable or subsidised housing at a time when the population is ageing.

Recent data shows that rents in 2023 were unaffordable for 22.6 million households around the country while one study from Harvard calculated that a third of people over 65 were "cost burdened" due to high rent and utilities bills, putting them at greater risk of later-life homelessness.

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According to survey data, over the past two decades, the number of seniors spending more than half their income on housing has doubled from 5.2 million to nearly 11.7 million, putting huge pressure on household budgets.

Homelessness rates in the US hit a record level in 2024 with more than 770,000 people unhoused on a given night (up 18.1% from 2023), according to the most recent government figures.

Homelessness was once rare among older adults but people over 50 are now the fastest growing cohort among the unhoused, with many experiencing homelessness for the first time and the number expected to triple by 2030.

Against this backdrop, housing advocates contend that the passing of the OBBBA, a 900+ page mega tax and spending law that includes historically high cuts to social safety net programs essential to millions of seniors, constitutes a ticking time bomb for elder homelessness and will exacerbate destitution.

Monica Davalos, senior policy analyst at the California Budget and Policy Center, says older people already struggling to get by will find their problems compounded. "Fundamentally folks just don't have enough to meet their needs," she says of the precarity many older Americans face. The OBBBA cuts, including slashing access to government health insurance, will "create even more housing vulnerability," she concludes.

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For many older people, especially those from low-income backgrounds or with a history of poverty, cuts to federally-funded assistance programs will mean they are stretched to breaking point, not only swelling the number of older people who fall into homelessness but with the knock-on effect of overwhelming already strained housing and financial support services, Davalos adds.

People were "falling through the cracks," even before the new cuts, most of which are due to take effect after the November 2026 mid-term elections.

States, including California, which has battled with addressing an entrenched homeless problem for years and according to most recent data accounts for 24% of the nation's homeless population, will no doubt try to mitigate some of the fallout triggered by the OBBBA, Davalos says, but the "unprecedented" scale of the f...

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A new tool collating data on the funding of All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) over the last three years highlights transparency loopholes in the rules surrounding their funding.

The tool, from the consultancy Cast From Clay, alerted Byline Times to two loopholes in the transparency rules of APPG funding.

Companies such as Murdoch's News Corp and defence contractors like Lockheed Martin are able to conceal how much funding they are giving to APPGs by funding the secretariat, but not the APPG itself. Byline also found that the number of Policy Liaison Groups (PLGs) which act as APPGs without having to obey transparency rules has doubled since they were first established last year.

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APPGs, informal groups in Parliament which conduct research and make policy recommendations, have come under fire in recent years for acting as a form of lobbying integrated into the Westminster system.

APPGs are made up of MPs and peers, but can have secretariats staffed or funded by third parties meaning various special interests such as think tanks, companies, or campaign groups can gain regular access to MPs.

In 2023, new rules were introduced to improve transparency, including increasing the minimum numbers of members an APPG must have, mandatory yearly declarations of funding above £1500, and a ban on funding from foreign governments. Despite these attempts, ways remain to skirt the rules and avoid scrutiny.

Currently it is impossible to know how much a company is giving to an APPG when they are funding the secretariat, but not the APPG directly.

This means that there is no way of knowing how much money defence firms and News UK are donating to parliamentary research.

What the Tool Revealed

The APPG on Defence Technology received £61,000 from APPG Secretariat Services Ltd.

The public record states who the secretariat is funded by, but does not reveal the proportions of the funding.

Consequently, there is no way of knowing if the bulk of the funding came from the data services firm Capita, the engineering firm Ultra Electronics, the Story Homes construction company, or the arms manufacturers Leonardo and Lockheed Martin who also fund the APPG secretariat, or if all firms donated similar amounts.

Similarly News UK, which owns The Times and The Sun, funds Whitehouse Communications which acts as the secretariat for the Media APPG but it is unclear if the bulk of the £112,000 the APPG has received over the last three years comes from Murdoch, or from Bauer and the creative agencies that also fund the secretariat.

Tom Hashemi of Cast From Clay explained: "This masks who wields real influence: one company might provide £20,000 while another gives £1,000, but they appear identical on the register. The implications of this could be serious.

MPs engaging with these groups may have no idea whose interests dominate the funding, potentially championing policies that favour specific market players without realising it, or allowing wealthy interests to quietly steer the policy conversation while smaller contributors create an illusion of broad support

Tom Hashemi of Cast From Clay

Hashemi added: "The 2023 rule changes intended to make APPGs transparent. This loophole seems an oversight".

A second loophole is the rebranding of certain APPGs as Policy Liaison Groups (PLGs), a term with no official status, but which is not covered by the rules.

In 2024, Peter Geoghegan reported for The Times that three APPGs had been repackaged as PLGs by College Green Group, a political consultancy run by Thomas Borwick, formerly the chief technology officer for the Vote Lea...

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Staff working for the University and Colleges Union say it is a "toxic" workplace where junior staff are subjected to "managerial bullying and intimidation" with workplace racism as its "worst expression".

The staff, represented by Unite, are balloting for a third round of strike action over the claims.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) sanctioned UCU in 2023 for "failing to meet statutory duties to prevent stress at work" with the regulator warning of a high number of work-related stress days taken by staff.

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Since then, a UCU source says work-related stress has exploded from "around 300 days lost in 2023" - the time of that HSE sanction - to "around 800 days lost" in 2024. The UCU union has not denied the claim.

Around half of the 20 Unite committee representatives are now "on disciplinary procedures or under threat" of job losses, according to the source, who declined to be named.

UCU staff have taken six weeks of strike action over March, April and May this year - and more industrial action looms if the dispute is not resolved.

A third strike ballot went out this week, and workers are understood to be preparing for further potential industrial action in September.

As the UCU source told Byline Times: "Happy workers don't vote for strike action…happy workers then don't do it three times."

Byline Times has also seen what appear to be 'gagging clauses', used when staff leave the organisation amid disputes over alleged bullying.

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The dispute occurs during an "existential crisis" in the higher education sector amid funding cuts and reduced foreign student numbers.

There are multiple disputes taking place within trade unions, including with the National Education Union.

The UCU dispute represents a significant breakdown in industrial relations within another of the UK's major education unions, and by far the largest in higher education.

A spokesperson for the UCU said the decision by the Unite UCU branch to pursue another strike ballot is "deeply disappointing, particularly given the extensive efforts made to engage in good faith and make meaningful progress on all points of the dispute".

The spokesperson added: "The fact that the overwhelming majority of UCU staff did not support the most recent industrial action underscores just how contested and unrepresentative this course of action is.

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"We acknowledge the rise in stress-related absences and are actively working to understand and address the causes. However, continued escalation by the branch leadership does little to support staff wellbeing and serves only to deepen division."

The spokesperson said "confidentiality clauses" are "occasionally negotiated as part of a settlement agreement when staff leave UCU".

"They are never imposed and are only agreed with the full consent of the individuals involved. In the majority of cases, such agreements have been reached by members advised by Unite representatives negotiating on behalf of departing staff, and we ensure that independent legal advice at UCU's cost is provided and is taken on behalf of departing staff. These arrangements are mutually beneficial and standard practice in empl...

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The first sitting of the House of the People, a citizens' assembly initiative by the group Assemble has recommended a "People's Charter" of citizen-led policy proposals.

These include a wealth tax, strengthening anticorruption laws to prohibit lobbying, an immediate arms embargo for all countries acting in violation of international law, the "long term decommodification of housing", and the creation of a Future Generations Act to ensure that Government policy takes into account those not yet born.

The House of the People gathered over three days in London this week to deliberate, debate and generate policy ideas after discussions with experts, such as the economist Richard Murphy, the head of policy at Greenpeace, Doug Parr, and Leigh Evans, a nurse who has worked in Gaza. Around 100 people attended.

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Some 1,500 have participated in Assemble's local assemblies over the past two years. 50% of the "members" of the House of the People, which the organisers call a "parallel parliament", were drawn by sortition from those assemblies, with the remainder remaining recruited from the public.

At this week's assembly, members debated four themes - democratic renewal, unjust war and genocide, wealth inequality and climate breakdown - which were generated through local assemblies where people were asked what the problems are in their area, and what changes they want to see in the UK.

Ishana Atkinson told Byline Times the assembly had been "an incredible experience, I feel like I've learnt so much".

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She continued: "I feel like I've gone in with a bit of understanding about the main topics we've been looking at; democracy, and unjust war and genocide, the environment and climate and also wealth inequality. I knew a little bit about each thing, but I feel like I've been learning a lot and also about how to synthesise a lot of information and turn it into actionable policies that we could recommend to the Government".

Assemble intends to use the proposals generated by the sittings to provide a policy platform that campaign groups can coalesce around and to put pressure on the Government, and push for change. This will include a "rush on parliament" in the style of the Suffragettes.

Small political formations across England, such as Southport Community Independents and Majority, a party run by Jamie Driscoll, the former Mayor of the North of Tyne, are working with Assemble to run local assemblies and generate policies that they believe are more likely to resonate with the electorate, because they've come directly from them.

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The first House of the People sitting attracted a more politicised, progressive-leaning section of the citizenry, but Assemble intends to make assemblies more representative.

Yaz Ashmawi, a facilitator at the assembly told Byline Times that he hopes people with different beliefs join the assemblies, arguing that they could play a vital role in combating the far-right: "The whole ...