The Ferret headlines

After major protests across the UK at the end of last year, anger from farmers at tax changes shows no sign of abating.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) has planned a nationwide day of action for 25 January. In Scotland this is set to include "coordinated tractor rallies" across the country.

While the protests have focused on tax and other pressures faced by the farming industry, there are concerns that some groups are attempting to capitalise on the farmers' cause to peddle conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Ferret Fact Service explains.

Farmers are angry at changes to inheritance tax announced by the Labour government in October. Thousands marched on London in November 2024 to protest the policy, which some view as the "last straw" after a series of decisions by governments which have been unpopular with farmers.

From April 2026, farms will no longer be eligible for full relief from inheritance tax. Instead, full relief will only apply to the first £1m of assets passed down.

Anything over £1m will be charged inheritance tax at 20 per cent - half the usual inheritance tax - although some additional relief could be available, particularly for married couples.

Many farmers claim that their businesses do not generate enough money to pay inheritance tax bills due to a range of factors including rising costs and cuts to subsidies.

The NFU argues the only option for many farmers would be to sell their farms to afford tax bills which could, it claims, impact the amount of food the UK produces.

The government has countered that most farms won't pay inheritance tax - a claim the NFU rejects - and that money raised by the changes is needed to pay for public services.

The policy has also been described by some experts as an attempt to stop wealthy people from buying up farmland to avoid paying inheritance tax.

'No Farmers, No Food'

One group which has gained traction in farming debates in the last year is No Farmers, No Food.

It has garnered over 130,000 followers on social media, more than the NFU itself, and its yellow logo is increasingly spotted both online and at protests. Scottish politicians have shared No Farmers, No Food posts on social media and the Tories' agriculture spokesperson, Jamie Halcro Johnston, has appeared wearing one of its badges outside the Scottish Parliament.

No Farmers, No Food was founded by PR expert and GB News regular, James Melville.

Melville - who has over half a million followers on X - says he grew up on a family farm in Fife and started the group to provide a "unified and non-partisan campaign" for farmers.

Yet on his personal accounts he has posted and shared misinformation including around conspiracy topics like 15 minute cities, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the 'Great Reset', as well as the extent of deaths from Covid-19.

What are 15 minute cities and why are they controversial?

Melville has called net zero policies to limit climate change a "con" aimed at making money for corporations.

While No Farmers, No Food has largely focused on the impacts of the inheritance tax in recent months, its mission statement published in February 2024 took aim at net zero.

"The government's obsession with net zero is having a devastating impact on British farming," the group claimed in a statement that said one of its objectives was to "push back against unrealistic net zero policies". The campaign has also argued that farming is being "sacrificed on the altar of net zero".

Posts by the group on social media also attract comments from conspiracy theorists. One farmer has described being added to a campaign WhatsApp chat after an invite by Melville. He claimed the group was "toxic" with members "fighting amongst each other" about Covid-19 vaccines and discussing "uprisings" against the WEF.

Despite outlining plans for one nearly a year ago, No Farmers, No Food has no website. A limited company which names Melville and two others as directors was set up in April last year but is yet to file any accoun...

There has been renewed controversy over the UK Government's handling of grooming gangs in recent weeks.

X owner Elon Musk made several posts about the issue, including a claim that UK politicians had shown reluctance to deal with foreign offenders.

In one related post, he shared an image that claimed to name MPs and Lords who had voted against deporting foreigners living in the UK convicted of rape. Musk told readers to "remember these names next election".

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1876435054622388257

Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it False.

Evidence

The scandal around the UK state's response to grooming gangs has been ongoing for a decade, and there have been a series of inquiries into how gangs were able to exploit vulnerable children.

It has been claimed that authorities including the police were reluctant to look into exploitation allegations committed by British Asians to avoid inflaming community tensions.

Musk has made a number of interventions into UK politics since he took over the X platform, and has focussed recent criticism on Keir Starmer and other politicians for their handling of the grooming gangs scandal. His posts have sparked new interest in the issue.

Analysis from Sky News found Musk's interest was sparked by a handful of right-wing accounts on the X platform, and posts about the issue significantly increased after he began to post about it.

This has led to calls for a fresh inquiry into the issue, which the Conservative Party attempted to add as an amendment to Labour's child welfare bill in the House of Commons this week. The proposed amendment was voted down.

The image alleged MPs had voted down a bill aimed at deporting foreign-born people in the UK convicted of rape.

It included a number of Scottish MPs.

The UK Government already has the power to deport foreign nationals sentenced to a year or more in prison.

Section 32(5) of the UK Borders Act 2007 mandates that the home secretary must make a deportation order against a "foreign criminal". This is defined in act as a person who has been convicted and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment for an offence.

There are certain exceptions to this, where the deportation would breach international human rights legislation or the UK's obligations on rights for refugees.

British citizens cannot be deported, although citizenship can be revoked if it is considered to be conducive to the public good, or if the citizenship was obtained by fraud.

The list of MPs circulated by Musk actually showed more than 170 members who signed a letter in 2020 opposing plans to deport dozens of people convicted of crimes to Jamaica, after it emerged people on the flight had come to the UK as children as part of the Windrush generation.

The letter, organised by Labour MP Nadia Whittome, urged the flight to be delayed until a then-anticipated review of the scandal around the Windrush was completed. The review was published in March of that year.

The Windrush generation were invited to come to the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1971 as part of a bid to rebuild post-war Britain.

An estimated 500,000 people arrived during this time, and were later granted leave to remain in the UK.

In 2012, changes to immigration law meant many people who had arrived as children without their own documents were now unable to prove their status, and several were detained and removed from the country despite having lived as settled citizens for decades.

The flight in 2020 that prompted the letter eventually did fly containing 17 people and the UK Government said two had been convicted of rape. Those who signed the letter were not voting against deporting people convicted of rape, but expressing concerns over the flight and issues surrounding the Windrush in general.

Ferret Fact Service verdict: False

The claim that the listed MPs had all voted against deporting foreign rapists is inaccurate. In fact, the list contained signatories to a letter expressing conc...

Nuclear sites, King Charles' childhood school and a famous battlefield were among nearly 1,000 sites across Scotland which broke environmental rules in the past two years.

The Dounreay nuclear facility in Caithness was found to be in breach of rules on eleven occasions in recent years, making it one of the most frequent offenders in Scotland.

Dounreay - which houses radioactive waste - was a hub of nuclear research between the 1950s and 1990s but is now the site of the largest nuclear clean up in Scotland. There was also a breach at the Faslane naval base, although this did not involve radioactivity.

Gordonstoun School in Moray - which the King attended between 1962 and 1967 - the visitor centre at the Culloden battlefield, and a host of whisky distilleries have also been rapped.

The findings come from data released to The Ferret by the Scottish Government's green watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

The agency kept a further 25 sites which had broken rules secret. The Ferret understands this is because they house radioactive materials which governments fear could be targeted by terrorists aiming to build a dirty bomb.

That's twice a day that companies are disregarding the environment, at the expense of all of us.

Kim Pratt, Friends of the Earth Scotland

Campaigners described it as "alarming" that environmental rule breaking was being uncovered "every 12 hours in Scotland".

One opposition politician questioned why "repeat offenders are continuing to get away with non-compliance" and suggested Sepa may need to "pursue more cases through to prosecution".

Sepa said compliance with Scotland's environmental laws is "non-negotiable" and that it is taking "effective action against those who have failed to comply" with rules.

'New approach'

Sepa issues authorisations to businesses to carry out activities which could cause pollution to the environment.

Sepa determines whether companies are complying with the rules laid out in these authorisations by carrying out inspections and sampling at business and industry sites across the country. Companies also report breaches to Sepa themselves.

The agency used to publish annual reports on its website which ranked over 5,000 sites' environmental performance on a scale from 'very poor' to 'excellent'.

Previous sites to be damned for their performance included Gordonstoun, Donald Trump's golf courses, and the luxury five-star Gleneagles hotel.

But the last of these reports was for 2019 and information about environmental rule breaking has not been available in recent years, which Sepa blames on the Covid-19 pandemic and a criminal cyber attack in late 2020. The attack caused the body to lose a host of information on environmental checks and pollution breaches.

Cost of Sepa cyber attack doubles to £5.5m

In the aftermath of these issues, Sepa said it was developing a "new approach" to compliance. As The Ferret reported in 2023, campaigners and a former Sepa boss feared that this would impact transparency and mean the body stopped publicly naming and shaming businesses who flout rules.

Compliance information for 2023 and 2024 was only released following a freedom of information request by The Ferret. Detailed information about the reasons for breaches was not provided.

Sepa says the new compliance information is not comparable to the assessments prior to 2020 because it includes "different parameters". Sites are considered either 'compliant', 'non-compliant', or 'major non-compliant' at different times but are not given an overall rating.

In total, 966 sites were found to be breaking rules at least once in the last two years and there were 1,616 instances of non-compliance overall, although some of these might be minor administrative issues. Over 600 of the breaches were in the more serious 'major non-compliant' category.

Many facilities that Sepa regulates were not assessed in that period, meaning the extent of rule breaking could be even higher. "The number of authorisat...

With its coarse leaves, jaggy spikes and purple blooms - the thistle is known as Scotland's national flower. Now it is also the name of the UK's first safer drug consumption facility, opening in Glasgow's east-end on Monday, 13 January.

Like its jaggy botanical namesake this drug injection centre - almost a decade in the planning - has been a thorny issue. It's considered bold and beautiful by many though met with more ambivalence by others.

But now, managers claim, it's time to prove that this approach can work and save lives. They reject criticisms of £2.3m costs, pointing out that specialist services for other health conditions - from cancer to kidney failure - would not be held up to the same level of scrutiny. And they claim that its trauma informed approach will help marginalised people traditionally excluded from services access the support they need.

The service, which will open daily from 9am to 9pm, is designed to reduce overdoses by providing a safe and clean place for an estimated 400 people who inject drugs such as heroin and cocaine in Glasgow's city centre. It will not provide facilities for people to smoke drugs at this stage, although work is ongoing to develop this service.

Neither will drug testing be available when it opens on Monday, though this is also due to be made available at Glasgow's Hunter Street complex, where both the Thistle and the assisted heroin treatment service are also based.

While on the premises drug users will not be prosecuted for possession. Those attending can also ask for help to reduce their drug use or access treatment services including drug rehab as well as being able to access support with housing or health services.

Promoting safer drug use

Early this week The Ferret was given a pre-opening tour of the Thistle, with its muted colour palette, sleek reception area and "chat rooms" - a more informal name for consultation rooms suggested by an advisory panel with experience of drug use.

The same panel gave the Thistle its name, advised on its layout and helped recruit staff.

Inside the injecting space, eight brightly lit mirrored booths dominate behind a nursing station where injecting equipment will be provided to drug users, who bring their own drugs with them.

Initially they might pass for vanity tables. But the large floor space behind them - where staff can give revive someone if they collapse due to overdose, along with oxygen tanks and access to an ambulance bay, are a reminder of the serious purpose of this facility.

Through the doors from the recovery area is a lounge with comfy chairs, a bookcase and kitchenette where people can make tea and coffee. The aim is to offer some respite from complicated and often harrowing lives after using the injection space and support from harm reduction workers, some of whom have experience of drug addiction.

In this still empty room there is a feeling of calm that belies the political battle it took to get to this stage. First proposed officially in 2016, in response to Glasgow's HIV epidemic affecting injecting drug users, permission was initially blocked by the Home Office under the then Conservative government.

In August 2023 Westminster's Home Affairs Committee recommended pilots of safe consumption facilities in areas across the UK where local government and others deem there is a need. A month later Scotland's Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain confirmed that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute and the safe consumption room was given the green light by Glasgow City Council with the backing of the Scottish government.

'A foundation to build on': Can Scotland's first safer injection site tackle the drugs crisis?

"Politically, all eyes are now on Glasgow," explains councillor Allan Casey, city convenor for workforce, homelessness and addiction services. "Some people are watching with skepticism. Some people are watching with interest because they want to do the same thing as we're doing.

"So there will be a huge amount of ...

The so-called 'culture war' has impacted politics across the globe. Populist outsider candidates and traditional political parties are, more than ever, using ideological wedge issues to appeal to voters and criticise the values of their opponents.

In recent years, Scotland has been the focus of such debates, becoming something of a lightning rod for several right-wing and libertarian culture warriors who have criticised the Scottish Government for pursuing what they feel are radical 'woke' policies and curbing liberties.

But what are the issues that have made Scotland part of the global culture war? Ferret Fact Service explains.

Significant battles of the 'culture war' have been largely fought online, with the globalised nature of the internet allowing for debates and disinformation around issues such as reproductive rights, race and civil liberties to reach around the world.

Humza Yousaf's racism speech

Former first minister and SNP politician Humza Yousaf faced criticism in Scotland and across the UK during his time as first minister , but it was a relatively low-profile speech made three years before that catapulted Yousaf into the global online culture war.

While justice secretary in 2020, Yousaf made a speech in a Scottish Parliament debate entitled 'Showing solidarity with anti-racism'. It took place in June that year, just weeks after the murder of Black American George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis.

Floyd's death sparked a series of protests across the US and the rest of the world, and brought the Black Lives Matter protest movement to global attention.

In his speech, Yousaf described his anger that racism still persists across the world, and referred to experiences of racial abuse he had faced as a Scottish Asian, since becoming an MSP.

He argued then that Scotland was not "immune" to racism, and referenced the "unconscious, the subtle, the overt, the institutional and the structural racism".

To underline his point, he went on to list senior positions across Scottish public life that were then held by white people.

Claim Humza Yousaf made anti-white speech is False

He said: "Some people have been surprised or taken aback by my mention on my social media that at 99 per cent of the meetings that I go to, I am the only non-white person in the room.

"Why are we so surprised when the most senior positions in Scotland are filled almost exclusively by people who are white? Take my portfolio, for example. The lord president? White, the lord justice clerk? White, every high court judge? White, the lord advocate? White, the solicitor general? White, the chief constable? White, every deputy chief constable? White, every assistant chief constable? White, the head of the Law Society? White, the head of the Faculty of Advocates? White, every prison governor? White.

"And not just justice. The chief medical officer? White, the chief nursing officer? White, the chief veterinary officer? White, the chief social work adviser? White, almost every trade union in the country, headed by people who are white. In the Scottish Government every director general is white. Every chair of every public body is white. That is not good enough."

This section of his speech has been clipped up and posted numerous times on social media, often accompanied by the suggestion that Yousaf is being an anti-white racist. It formed part of a lengthy speech which ended with the Glasgow Pollok MSP repeating the final words said by George Floyd as he died, ending with "I can't breathe". This phrase became a rallying call for protests against police brutality following Floyd's murder.

The debate in its entirety was posted on the Scottish Parliament's YouTube channel on 10 June 2023, and Yousaf used a portion of the speech, including the list of senior positions, on his social media channels two days later.

This speech began to get traction in Scotland and the UK a few weeks after it was posted online. It was featured in a number of YouTube clips and on...

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Misogyny has existed throughout history, but in recent years a newly-packaged form has taken hold online, promoted by influencers and online communities with thousands of young, male followers including in Scotland.

The Ferret hosted a panel discussion to discuss the issues, chaired by equality campaigner and researcher Talat Yaqoob, which we recorded for a special live For Fact's Sake podcast.

On the panel were:

Lisa Sugiura: Associate Professor in Cybercrime and Gender at the University of Portsmouth, and author of The Incel Rebellion: The Rise of the Manosphere and the Virtual War Against Women

Clare Duffy: Playwright and founder of Civic Digits Theatre Company. Their new project, Many Good Men, examines the impact of incel culture and how young men can fight against it.

Iain Corbett: Youth worker and participation advisor for Strathclyde University's Children and Young People's Centre for Justice. He has been leading "positive masculinity" workshops inside Polmont Young Offenders Institute, looking at what it means to be a 21st century man, so-called toxic masculinity, and online misogyny.

Katie Horsburgh: Policy and Practice Office for Children and Young People at Scottish charity Zero Tolerance, which works to end men's violence against women through tackling gender inequality

Show notes:

We investigated solutions in Scotland to online misogynistic radicalisation.

Read our explainer on the rise of online misogyny.

Lisa Sugiura's book is available here.

Read more about Civic Digits' 'Many Good Men' project here.

Ferret Fact Service (FFS) is a non-partisan fact checker, and signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network fact-checkers'

code of principles.

All the sources used in our checks are publicly available and the FFS fact-checking methodology

can be viewed here.

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Image: a snapshot of the event