Byline Times Audio Articles

Odcinki

• 
  Reform UK Mayor Has Firm Struck off as Another Files No Accounts in Six Years Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Police Admit Error After Failing to Seize Phone of Reform Councillor Arrested Over Stalking Claims Business and Finances Don't miss a story Reform UK's Basildon Leader Accused of Bullying After Filming Council Staff and Residents With Meta-Style Smart Glasses Best Value Notice Reform UK's 'Meta Glasses' Councillor Who Was Accused of Shaming Disabled Man and Dyslexic Colleague Is Put in Charge of Special Educational Needs Calls to Resign holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Reform UK Mayor Has Firm Struck off as Another Files No Accounts in Six Years Times Higher Education, Sponsored by Orbán's Hungary, Failed to Report James Orr Allegations Nigel Farage-Backed Bitcoin Firm to Buy Gold Dealer That Paid Him £685,500 Reform Council Leader Denies Climate Change Crisis After Record Heat Deaths Revealed: The Pro-Hitler Messages Behind the 'Neo-Nazi' Libel Case Funded by Reform's Crypto Billionaire Donor Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 02.10.2026 15min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The Reform UK Mayor of Basildon – who is also Essex County Council's Cabinet Member for Education, SEND and Skills – has had one of his companies struck off the official register after it failed to file legally required documents, while another has never filed accounts in more than six years. On 29 September, Genesis Jewellery Ltd, a company Cllr Sam Journet co-owned and directed, was dissolved via compulsory strike-off by Companies House, the official registrar of companies. Companies House does this when it has reason to believe a company is not carrying on business. It is nearly always triggered by overdue filings. Compulsory strike-off is an administrative step and is common for companies that are no longer used, but failing to file required documents is a criminal offence (albeit one that is rarely prosecuted). The firm's confirmation statement – an annual filing confirming details including who owns and controls a company – was due by 28 March 2026. It was never filed. The company's only set of accounts, covering the year to 31 May 2025, records 'nil' on every financial line and no employees. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. Yet when Cllr Journet submitted a fresh register of interests to Basildon Council on 31 July – a fortnight after Companies House gave public notice that Genesis would be struck off – he listed it as a trade carried on "for profit or gain". That register was published on 21 September. Genesis appears in the same way on his Essex County Council register, where Cllr Journet is Cabinet Member for SEND and Education following a Reform victory in May. The same Basildon register declares "None" for shareholdings ("securities", in the register's terms). His Essex register, by contrast, declares shareholdings in all three of his companies. Companies House records him as holding 75% or more of two of them, both with Basildon addresses. Basildon's register requires councillors to declare holdings in companies with a place of business or land in the borough, where the holding is worth more than £25,000 or exceeds one hundredth of the company's share capital. Councillors' registers of interest are legally-required to be up to date within 28 days. Some of Cllr Journet's entries were added late. His August 2025 Basildon register said "None" to sponsorship and to land. Financial support from Reform UK and a land entry appeared only on the September 2026 version, 13 months later. Reform has set its own standard on registers. In July 2025 it accused Cllr Gavin Callaghan, then Labour leader of the council, of failing to register a company within the 28-day limit, saying: "Failure to register or disclose within the statutory timeframe is a criminal offence… This matter is now with the police." The gap then was 36 days. EXCLUSIVE Essex police privately accepts device should have been taken from Reform Cllr Sam Journet rather than handed to a political ally Josiah Mortimer Cllr Journet still runs a jewellery shop, trading as Samuel Perry Jewellery, in Basildon's Eastgate shopping centre. His shop is a tenant of DVS GHL Basildon Ltd, the company that owns Eastgate, which Basildon Borough Council bought in July. The council says the shop is not a direct council tenant. His Essex register lists all three of his companies as renting county council-owned land, but his Basildon one does not. His company Samuel Perry Jewellery Ltd also faced compulsory strike-off this year. Companies House published a strike-off notice on 17 March over accounts that had been due by 30 September 2025. The company filed them the next day...
• 
  'Digital Armies' and Disinformation: How Big Tech Is Hitting Brazil's Upcoming Election Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Information Warfare in Brazil Revealed: Reform UK Crypto Partner's Ties to Pro-Trump Big Tech and Kemi Badenoch Big Tech Sets its Sights on Brazil Personalising Propaganda ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Bolsonaro's 'Digital Armies' 02.10.2026 17min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Far-right populists worldwide are using AI to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and spread disinformation at scale. Nowhere is that more true than Brazil, which has been rocked by political disinformation in recent years and is expected to face even more daunting challenges with the rise of generative AI. These concerns are now reaching an inflection point just days ahead of Brazil's general election on October 4 — a contest that sits at the intersection of the race to influence democracy with AI and the race to control the technology itself. Thirteen candidates are running for the presidency, but the race is currently dominated by incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Worker's Party (PT) and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the right-wing Liberal Party (PL). Lula won by a narrow margin in 2022, just edging out Jair Bolsonaro (Flávio's father), who is now serving time for his role in plotting a coup in an attempt to overturn the 2022 election results. The upcoming election mirrors other recent elections in the region, with high levels of distrust in democratic institutions and the possibility of another right-wing candidate taking office and aligning closely with the presidency of Donald Trump. Brazil is also a strategically important location, particularly for AI companies, as it is becoming a priority market for data-center investment and is a crucial source of critical minerals that are needed to power and build AI. The United States and European Union, as well as private companies, are now looking to Brazil as they try to reduce supply-chain dependence on China, and Bolsonaro has indicated his support for such a realignment. Because of this, access to Brazil's Government is both politically and commercially important, making the upcoming election a prime target for interference by foreign governments and tech companies alike. For the past several election cycles, Brazil has served as a testing ground for information warfare tactics in the digital age. The digital environment there has been described as "a fertile ground for innovative strategies to spread polarizing content with the intent of manipulating public debate." Several factors converge to make Brazil uniquely vulnerable to political disinformation and malign influence, including a heavy reliance on hyperconnected chat applications, intense political polarization, and a powerful influencer-driven media market. Brazil was early to recognize the potential dangers of AI as a tool of election influence and interference. Ahead of its 2026 election, the Superior Electoral Court, known as the TSE, prohibited generative AI systems from providing certain election-related responses, including those that recommend or prioritise candidates, parties, and campaigns. The rules also prohibit these systems from expressing an electoral preference or recommending a vote, and impose restrictions on AI-generated content. In theory, those rules are supposed to help prevent AI systems from interfering in elections via misinformation, disinformation, or content plagued by bias, partisanship, or other forms of hidden influence. In practice, however, that's not how things are playing out. Research on these systems has found that most of the major AI models ranked or ordered candidates in nearly every instance during testing, and official sources were not reliably used when doing so. Additionally, responses were often inconsistent and varied based on the wording of the input, meaning that voters who turn to these systems for information could receive differing responses with variable source quality, yet no one would know because no one has access to view all of these responses, except for the companies themselves. In addition to AI chatbots violating Brazil's election rules, Meta's ad system was found to be approving advertisements containing content that violates bot...
• 
  Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives Block Byline Times From Conference After Condemning Reform for Journalist Ban Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Kemi Badenoch's 'Free Speech' Conservatives Ban Byline Times From Party Conference Press Freedom Concerns Don't miss a story Rejection Email in Full holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Times Higher Education, Sponsored by Orbán's Hungary, Failed to Report James Orr Allegations Nigel Farage-Backed Bitcoin Firm to Buy Gold Dealer That Paid Him £685,500 Reform Council Leader Denies Climate Change Crisis After Record Heat Deaths Revealed: The Pro-Hitler Messages Behind the 'Neo-Nazi' Libel Case Funded by Reform's Crypto Billionaire Donor Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 30.09.2026 9min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Byline Times' chief reporter has been blocked from attending the Conservative Party conference, just weeks after leader Kemi Badenoch called Reform's decision to bar several journalists from their own conference "authoritarian" and an attack on the "free press". Josiah Mortimer was told by a party official on Tuesday (29 September): "I regret to inform you that approval has not been granted by the Conservative Party, and as such, your application has been unsuccessful." The email gave no specific reasons. Mortimer has reported on dozens of political conferences and the ban comes within days of the event starting this Sunday. The decision was condemned by the National Union of Journalists and Index on Censorship as an attack on press freedom. It comes after the Conservative leader hit out at Nigel Farage's party earlier this month for rejecting several reporters who had investigated Reform UK from their annual gathering. Badenoch said at the time: "I think you could…[see] what kind of government they would be – authoritarian and using state power actually to pursue opponents is what they've effectively been threatening. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. "We believe in free speech. We believe in a free press. And yes, of course, that might be painful for us as politicians, but public scrutiny is part of the gig. If Nigel Farage can't handle difficult questions about his dodgy £5m then he shouldn't be a politician," she said. However, the remarks rang hollow even then, coming after her party blocked this outlet's political editor Adam Bienkov, and the late parliamentary correspondent David Hencke, from attending in 2025. Hencke had attended the Conservative conference for decades for outlets including Byline Times and the Guardian. The Conservatives have not responded to Bienkov's application to attend this year's event. Then and now, the party gave no explanation for the ban, but a Conservative official said last September that the decision had been taken by "our media team". The apparent blacklisting comes despite Byline Times having previously been approved to cover Conservative conference under the leadership of Badenoch's predecessors Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, as we reported last time. Conservative conference is in Birmingham, running from Sunday 4 October to Wednesday 7 October. In the US, President Trump's move to strip three outlets of their White House access (CNN, MS Now and Politico) led to US television networks suspending their pooled coverage of Trump, in a coordinated show of solidarity that included even Fox News. Such walkouts are largely unheard of in the UK, meaning political parties may calculate that they can afford to be picky about which outlets attend their events. EXCLUSIVE The ban on covering the party's annual gathering came despite Badenoch's repeated commitment to "fight" for free speech and a free press Adam Bienkov Laura Davison, general secretary of Mortimer's union the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), said: "Further reports of political parties refusing journalists access to their conferences raise serious questions about the state of press freedom in the UK. "The Conservative Party appears to have rejected media passes to journalists from Byline Times without explanation. This follows the banning of journalists at both the Labour and Reform UK party conferences, and of Byline Times journalists at the Conservative Party conference last year." The NUJ leader says political parties should not "pick and choose" which journalists and publications are able to question and s...
• 
  Times Higher Education, Sponsored by Orbán's Hungary, Failed to Report James Orr Allegations Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system The Times Higher Education-Hungary Partnership Andy Burnham's Labour Conference Speech Offers a Clear Break From the Politics of Despair Self-Censorship? James Orr ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE More Self-Censorship? 30.09.2026 15min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Times Higher Education (THE), which also publishes the annual World University Rankings, has failed to provide coverage of the legal and misconduct allegations engulfing Dr James Orr, a Cambridge academic and suspended Reform UK policy chief – who is also chair of the Hungarian government-funded Roger Scruton Foundation – since THE signed a sponsorship agreement with Hungary in 2024. Times Higher Education (THE) is best known for publishing the annual World University Rankings, which evaluate and compare higher education institutions globally. Since 2004 THE has partnered with both Thomson Reuters and Elsevier using their data alongside reader input to rank the top 200 universities and 11 academic disciplines. To be in the top 10 of Times Higher Education World University rankings, where the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, take positions, 1, 3 and 7 respectively is to be envied by higher education institutions around the world and is studied rigorously by ambitious parents. That envy is no more evident and made tangible in its 2024 partnership with Hungary's former Culture and Innovation Ministry, a new ministry that was created by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's administration in 2021. During Orbán's tenure his administration took control of large swathes of Hungary's media landscape, altered judicial structures and placed political allies in key regulatory and institutional positions. Orbán himself declared that his government was building an "illiberal" state in 2014. The partnership was announced with great fanfare. Phil Baty, Times Higher Education's chief global affairs officer, said upon closing the deal that: "Hungary's ambitions for its higher education and research sectors are impressive and inspiring and Times Higher Education is delighted to have been selected to partner with the ministry to provide our trusted data, global benchmarks and insights to support the sector." Balázs Hankó, then Hungary's Minister of Culture and Innovation, said: "Our aim by 2030 is to have at least one university in the world's top 100 and three among Europe's top 100. […] Significantly, Hungary is already a prominent higher education hub in Europe, and through our HEIs' performance in THE rankings we expect to attract even more attention." Times Higher Education's website now also hosts a page called Discover Hungary. THE introduces the advertorial as follows: "Higher education in Hungary reflects a deep tradition of academic excellence paired with a forward-looking commitment to innovation […] where scholarship, scientific progress and international collaboration can thrive". The Discover Hungary landing page links to numerous articles, each with its own link to the official Hungarian Government website. Each article on the page discloses that it is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, Government of Hungary, but not who wrote them. In 2021, just three years before the long-term partnership was signed there had been global outrage, when it was revealed that Hungary had been attempting to place political ads in some of Europe's most respected newspapers. Reuters reported that France's Le Figaro, Spain's ABC, and Denmark's Jyllands-Posten were some of the recipients who agreed to publish the ads. Further to that in 2025 it was exposed that Hungary had spent 1.1 billion since 2015 on state advertising subsidies around the world. Following Prime Minister Viktor's landslide election defeat in April a House of Commons briefing notes that: "Controversial legislation adopted under Orbán brought Hungary into conflict with the EU, with the European Commission taking legal action against Hungary on several occasions. This included action in relation to judicial reforms, restrictions on civil society organisations and the refusal to implement EU migration policies." Writing in Univ...
• 
  'Andy Burnham's Plans to Make Britain Great Again Are the Polar Opposite of Trump's' Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE 30.09.2026 9min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Andy Burnham's speech to the Labour Party Conference has been hailed by many British commentators as one of the most consequential in a generation, with his ambitious plans to reform social care and pensions, tackle festering deficiencies in Britain's housing stock, energy supply and infrastructure, improve education and opportunity for young people, and launch national debates on reforming the UK's electoral system, and restoring a better relationship with the EU. He promised he was going to deliver a "real speech" and say the things "politicians usually avoid" and there was almost no sacred cow he was not willing to address. He became the first major political leader to state openly that Britain was not "anywhere where we want it to be" and has "been on the wrong path for a long time." He became the first to openly state that Thatcher's privatisation of public utilities such as water in the 1980s was a mistake – "a service where shareholders never lose and the public never wins….It stinks." He was also the first to openly acknowledge that Brexit did not allow the country to "take back control" but actually has caused "more harm than good" whilst explicitly thanking immigrants for their contributions to the country. Perhaps most importantly, because of the implications for his own party's future, he also became the first major party leader to express openness to reforming Britain's electoral system, with the explicit aim of preventing handing the keys of No 10 to "divisive elements" (code for Reform) with less than 30% of the national vote. Burnham made clear that he was not interested in presiding over Britain's decline, but in leading it back to strength at home and influence abroad. "We led the world's first industrial revolution…so why can't we lead the next? We can, Conference, and we will… As Gordon Brown has said, we can be the world's innovation nation, and he's right, we can." His remarks throughout were tinged with patriotism, belief, and confidence in the country. "Britain is not perfect; it can be better; and we will make it so; but it still stands for something worth saving, worth fighting for." His plan was "not just to hold us together, but allow Britain to rise again and be confident of our place in the world." In a particularly poignant moment, he described how it made him feel when the Scottish leader, John Swinney, said that Burnham would be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Burnham, who was at his father's deathbed at the time, said the remark made him "utterly determined to prove him wrong." Above all, he repeatedly emphasised his determination to deliver on his promises, no matter what the political pain. "It's the leadership I promised you…and I will do it." "I know it's hard…I know not everyone will agree…but I will fight hard for what I believe is in the best interests of our country." This speech establishes Burnham as not just the most serious politician in Britain in years, but also potentially the most consequential British politician to be reckoned with on the world stage. In terms of public profile, it easily puts him on a level footing with Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada, who has shown himself to be equally courageous in saying the unsayable. Just as Carney has won global respect by being frank about the need for Canada to reduce its reliance on America, so Burnham's remarks are sure to make other countries sit up and take notice that he means business. To underscore the message, Burnham explicitly drew the link between the state of the UK at home, and its influence and standing abroad. "A country which invests in people's success, rather than abandoning them and paying for failure, will be much more resilient to the shocks we will undoubtedly face in the rest of this century… This leadership we are showing at home will be matched on the international stage." The UK...
• 
  Andy Burnham's Pledge for Electoral Reform: What We Know So Far Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Years of Growing Pressure Don't miss a story Keir Starmer Rejects Call for 'Fairer Votes' Despite MPs Voting in Favour of Proportional Representation Shaping the Commission Longstanding Backer holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Times Higher Education, Sponsored by Orbán's Hungary, Failed to Report James Orr Allegations Nigel Farage-Backed Bitcoin Firm to Buy Gold Dealer That Paid Him £685,500 Reform Council Leader Denies Climate Change Crisis After Record Heat Deaths Revealed: The Pro-Hitler Messages Behind the 'Neo-Nazi' Libel Case Funded by Reform's Crypto Billionaire Donor Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 29.09.2026 12min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The Prime Minister has announced a national commission to review Westminster's First Past the Post voting system – and has promised to include an overhaul in Labour's next manifesto. Andy Burnham made the announcement in his leader's speech at Labour Party Conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, 10 weeks after becoming Prime Minister. Addressing party members, he said: "In past years, [Labour conference] has voted twice to support electoral reform. I hear you. I agree with you. And today I am announcing a new National Commission on Electoral Reform. I invite all the political parties to be part of its work." He added: "We will contest the next election with a manifesto commitment to change the electoral system so that everyone's vote counts and everyone's voice is heard." In a lobby briefing after Burnham's speech, the Prime Minister's spokesman told journalists: "The commission's job is to look at the options properly, hear from all parties and the public, and make a recommendation. "There may be questions around whether we are going to keep the constituency link. The Prime Minister believes the constituency link is critical." Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. The Prime Minister's official spokesperson restated this when asked by Byline Times about whether Burnham was ruling out 'list' versions of proportional representation – which aim to secure the most proportional results but which are often seen as removing the direct link between voters and a single constituency MP (there would be multiple local MPs elected from party lists). It arguably leaves mixed-member PR systems, such as the one used for the Scottish Parliament, in play, which keep a constituency MP but have a regional 'top up' list of representatives elected to rebalance the results so that seats more closely match vote shares. Asked why the Government would not simply adopt the ranked-choice 'AV Plus' system recommended by the Jenkins Commission in 1998, the spokesperson said the new body would "hear from all parties and the public". He declined to say whether any change would require a referendum like the one held on the (non-proportional) Alternative Vote system in 2011. Reform UK, which recently abandoned its backing for proportional representation, will be invited to join the commission alongside other parties. The announcement has been hailed as a momentous moment by electoral reform campaigners. Laura Parker of Labour for a New Democracy, which spearheaded much of the internal campaigning in recent years, said: "Our voting system is bust. The public knows it, an overwhelming majority across Labour know it, and now a Labour Prime Minister has committed to doing something about it." The announcement follows years of growing pressure in the party. Alex Sobel, the Labour MP who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections, recently tabled an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill calling for a commission. It was backed by more than 180 MPs, which Make Votes Matter says makes it the most-supported amendment to any bill since the last general election. "A National Commission can look at all the issues, consult the public, experts and civil society, and make independent recommendations for how general elections should be run in modern Britain," Sobel said. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES YouGov polling of 100 MPs in July also found a majority of Labour MPs support a commission. A Survation poll for LabourList in August found two-thirds of party members backed one, with just 16% opposed. Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock also backed the ide...
• 
  Andy Burnham's Labour Conference Speech Offers a Clear Break From the Politics of Despair Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Burnham Wins in Makerfield: Can the 'Politics of Place' Now Offer an Antidote to the Poverty of Possibility? A Human Touch ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE 29.09.2026 9min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Political conferences are meant to be about bringing parties together. Yet under Keir Starmer, Labour's annual gathering often felt like it was about doing the complete opposite. Far from seeking to show that he understood his party's hopes and fears, Labour's former leader often appeared determined to demonstrate his indifference, and even contempt, towards them. In his final conference speech, Starmer berated what he described as the "extreme" views of those to his left, who he dismissed as being "snake oil merchants" who hated their country. When the then Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham turned up to suggest that, just possibly, a Labour Government should do a few things that its own supporters actually wanted, he was roundly dismissed and mocked, with commentators suggesting that he had blown any chance of ever becoming Labour leader and Prime Minister. Fast forward to today and Andy Burnham has just delivered a speech which promises to fulfil many of the things his own party have long hoped for. A new national care service, free at the point of use would be created, Britain's deeply unfair electoral system would be reformed, and its broken relationship with Europe repaired. Speaking with real emotion and power, Burnham did what his predecessor could never do, which was announce big decisions and then clearly argue the case for them. "I won't pretend some of this won't be difficult," he conceded, as he announced that the triple lock on pensions would be restricted, in order to pay for his new care service. "I accept I may pay a political price, but someone has to go through the pain barrier and rip the plaster off." Ripping that plaster off could prove to be painful. Most of what Burnham announced today will be complete anathema to the owners and editors of most British newspapers. Public ownership of national utilities, increased social housing and the effective expansion of the NHS into social care will be derided as a return to 1970s-style socialism and economic ruin. Every complaint by big business will be amplified and every slight shift in the cost of borrowing magnified. The same news outlets that greeted Liz Truss' disastrous budget as a political triumph, will treat Burnham's speech as a national calamity. Burnham's plans could face a public backlash too. When Starmer announced his own plans to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners it left a wound in his government's reputation that would never be healed. His own much more significant plans for the triple lock, risk triggering an even bigger negative reaction. Yet Burnham today gambled that his willingness to be honest about where he thinks the country has gone wrong and how he plans to set it right again, will ultimately be rewarded by a country wearied by a decade of national drift and decay. "Britain has been on the wrong path for a long time," he told his conference. "Deindustrialisation, deregulation, privatisation, austerity, Brexit, and what has it given us? A country run for vested interest, not in the public interest, with power held in too few hands and too many places left to drift. "I am ready to do things my predecessors wouldn't. I will make a break with the direction of the past 40 years and put Britain on a new path, build a new economy and a new politics. That is the case I make to you today." The reality of Burnham's programme for Govermment may not prove to be quite as radical as he made it sound. His plans for social care and electoral reform are all being shunted until after the next general election, while his changes to the triple lock are not set to fully kick in until next decade. And while he took the big step of conceding that Brexit has "done more harm than good" he held back from signalling clearly that return to the EU will ever be on the cards. Yet with the next general election potentially coming as early as next year, m...
• 
  UN Acknowledges 'Conflicts' of Interest After Byline Times Exposes AI Panel's Ties to OpenAI and Anthropic Funders Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Help Byline Times Fund aN URGENT New INVESTIGATIVE SERIES The Undisclosed Effective Altruism Conflict 'Almost Started A War': Trump Administration's AI Policies Are Hurtling Towards Catastrophe The Money Behind the AI Firms and Their Assessors The Ideas Behind the Funding Panel Members Inside the Industry Disclosure and Independence? 25.09.2026 17min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The United Nation's "Independent" AI Panel warning governments about the dangers of advanced artificial intelligence has financial and personnel ties to OpenAI and Anthropic – the frontier AI companies building the technology the panel was created to assess – a Byline Times investigation has established. In response to this publication's enquiries, the UN has disclosed that measures including recusal from specific discussions were agreed after an assessment of the conflicts of interest. The UN AI panel's latest briefing largely echoes the warnings in recent weeks from frontier AI firms, warning that the "safeguards designed today" may fail "once agents can understand them and plan around them. In simple terms, the traditional model of safeguarding is unravelling." However, a Byline Times investigation has revealed that the panel has extensive ties to the very companies it is assessing. Its co-chair, Yoshua Bengio, advised OpenAI at its launch and now leads LawZero, an AI organisation supported by funders of OpenAI and Anthropic. Kevin Kohler, one of the writers of the panel's July preliminary report, simultaneously worked full-time for a think tank funded by the same philanthropic network that built both frontier AI giants – an affiliation omitted from the report's credits. "Each declaration was assessed for possible or actual conflicts, and mitigation measures, including recusal from specific discussions, were agreed," states an FAQ published on the panel's website, which was updated in response to Byline Times' inquiries. The answer does not identify the interests concerned, or name the members who agreed to stand aside from particular discussions. "We have published answers to many of the questions you raised on the Panel's website," a spokesperson for the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, told Byline Times. These potential conflicts of interest reach into the panel's latest assessment, published on 21 September. Examining an incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face, the brief warns about the risk of losing human control over AI. It draws on Bengio's own work and discusses research from his organisation, LawZero. The 40-member Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence was appointed by the UN General Assembly in February to assess AI's opportunities, risks and impacts. Bengio co-chairs it alongside Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa. Its findings are intended to inform how governments worldwide govern the technology. The potential conflicts also extend to the panel's creation. The Simon Institute for Longterm Governance, which employed Kevin Kohler during his report drafting assignment, helped shape the negotiations over the panel's design. Open Philanthropy, which funded OpenAI and supports Yoshua Bengio's LawZero through its successor Coefficient Giving, also financed the expansion of effective altruism and longtermism, which have intellectual roots in eugenics – the pursuit of supposedly superior human populations through selective reproduction. The same philanthropic network helped finance AI developers and organisations warning of their technology's dangers, and now supports organisations employing people responsible for the UN's independent assessments. Neither the UN AI panel's September brief nor its July preliminary report publishes individual declarations of interest or records of members standing aside from decisions because of a conflict. One of the writers of the UN AI panel's July report was simultaneously employed full-time by a think tank that had helped shape the panel itself. Kevin Kohler's CV records a UN University consultancy in scientific editing and drafting from April to July 2026. Yet throughout those months, he was also a senior technology policy specialist at the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance. While the July report cred...
• 
  Rupert Murdoch Flew Kemi Badenoch and Her Deputy to Mediterranean for Summer Trips Worth £12,000 Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Don't miss a story holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Nigel Farage-Backed Bitcoin Firm to Buy Gold Dealer That Paid Him £685,500 Reform Council Leader Denies Climate Change Crisis After Record Heat Deaths Revealed: The Pro-Hitler Messages Behind the 'Neo-Nazi' Libel Case Funded by Reform's Crypto Billionaire Donor Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network Reform UK Could Pocket Nearly £500,000 in Interest if They Are Forced to Return £72 Million Crypto Billionaire Donations Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 25.09.2026 6min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Kemi Badenoch was gifted an £8,177 trip from News Corp to meet Rupert Murdoch and other senior executives in Greece over the summer. The Conservative Party leader has just reported a donation-in-kind for the summer jaunt with the Murdochs worth thousands. The trip was marked as "international visit to Greece between 24 August 2026 and 26 August 2026" for "attending off-site meetings with Mr Rupert Murdoch and other senior executives from News Corp and News UK," according to her latest Register of Interests. Alex Burghart, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, also recorded a trip paid for by the Murdoch media empire worth £4,088, covering the same dates as Kemi Badenoch but in Italy. He said it was an "international visit to Italy between 24 August 2026 and 26 August 2026" for "off-site meetings with Mr K R [Keith Rupert, his full name] Murdoch and other senior executives from News Corp and News UK." Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. The two filings reveal Rupert Murdoch was travelling around Europe in late August, meeting Kemi Badenoch and her deputy in Greece and Italy. It is not known what they discussed. The Murdochs appear to be moving back towards the Conservatives following a flirtation with Nigel Farage's Reform UK. Politico reported in 2023 that Kemi Badenoch "held clandestine talks with media mogul Rupert Murdoch within days of joining the U.K. Cabinet, then failed to declare it in transparency data." "Murdoch, who stepped down this month as chairman of Fox and News Corp but retains a hugely powerful role at the media empire, questioned Badenoch for 20 minutes in an atmosphere described as akin to a job interview by one of those in attendance," the outlet reported. It is not clear what Badenoch and Burghart discussed at their respective overseas trips with the owners of The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times, but the spending suggests News Corp is keen to keep the Conservatives close. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES The issue is not confined to the Conservatives. One of Keir Starmer's last social events as Prime Minister was a News Corp summer party with Rupert-heir Lachlan Murdoch. The Sun reluctantly supported Labour at the last moment before the 2024 General Election, and Starmer went on to appoint a former Sun executive, David Dinsmore, to a top communications role. In 2024, Byline Times revealed that Labour failed to deny reports that Starmer made a secret pre-election deal with News UK not to complete the Leveson inquiry into the conduct of the British press, in exchange for an endorsement from Rupert Murdoch's newspapers. Liz Pendleton, co-founder of the campaign group Media Revolution, told Byline Times: "Probably the most concerning thing about the 'gifts' from Murdoch to Badenoch and Burghart is that it's not even vaguely surprising… "Our entire democracy has long been completely compromised by media owners – Murdoch is just one of many." She added: "Without genuinely independent regulation of the press and social media, there will be yet more victims at their hands, and our politics will remain captured by narrative hacks." Kemi Badenoch, Alex Burghart and the Conservatives were contacted for comment. Got a story? Get in touch in confidence on [email protected] While most the rest of the media seems to happy to give the handful of Reform MPs undue prominence, Byline Times is committed to tracking the activities of Nigel Farage's party when actually in power EXCLUSIVE 23 September 2026 21 September 2026 18 September 2026 17 September 2026 EXCLUS...
• 
  Ukraine Comes Under Assault From Putin's Terror and Trump's Delusions Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system The Cat-and-Mouse Race of Technical Advancement Psychological Terrorism Trump Pardon Buries FBI's Secret Work for Putin's Oligarchs The Delusion of the Diplomatic 'Deal' ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE 24.09.2026 9min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Ukraine's capital, my home for a quarter of a century, has been under terrorist siege for the last 48 hours. The definition of terrorism is the calculated use of violence to achieve political goals. Putin's goal is the subjugation of Ukraine, and so the country's capital of Kyiv is again one of his primary targets. Of course, Kyiv has been under attack since 24 February 2022. But things are different now, with attack capabilities enhanced through technological advances, Russia is experimenting with new kinds of cruelty. The purpose of the current attack strategy is not just the physical harm that they can do in destroying buildings and bodies, Russia's current theory of war now also encapsulates psychological terrorism. The Russian war against Ukraine is well known to be a race of technological advancement from each side. When Russia first introduced the Iranian-made Shahed drone to their arsenal, Ukraine sought ways to counter the threat they posed. The new generation of these drones, called "reactive" drones, now feature jet-powered engines that can propel these flying bombs at speeds of up to 600 Km/h. A significant upgrade from the 200 Km/h that the older variants were capable of. Getting a bead on machines travelling at such velocity is not impossible, but it is very difficult. So as Russia has nudged ahead in the cat-and-mouse game – of designing more efficient means of raining death on civilians in their homes versus the more efficient means of intercepting these powerful weapons – Russia has also refined their strategy of drone use. Previously drones were used in massive raids, intent on overwhelming the crews trying to interdict them, and hundreds of drones would flood the skies over Kyiv, home to 3 million people and the sixth most populous city in Europe. Those mass attacks would happen in a pattern of roughly once every ten days. Always at night, to catch families as they slept in their beds. Now, Russia is firing its new jet drones at the city on a near hourly basis, causing the air raid sirens to sound more frequently than ever before. Every time those sirens sound, people face a choice: find shelter or go on about their daily lives. That choice then translates to a life-or-death outcome if someone finds themselves at the spot impacted by one of these almost unstoppable machines. Life in Kyiv is literally a death lottery. Knowing that, the constant reminder of that fact, as sirens blare across the Ukrainian capital, is where the psychological torture is being inflicted. While new defences are being developed and tested, it seems like we are all almost naked now. There are three promising interceptor models in the works, the Government tells us, but that development was unable to stop the strikes yesterday. When we hear the impacts and see the rising clouds of black smoke over the city horizon or above our landmarks, we know that someone, somewhere, may have just been killed or severely wounded as a result. The targets struck in recent days have included the central railway station in Kyiv, a broad daylight attack causing panic to the thousands of passengers who will have been in that location at that time. Business centres have been hit. A maternity hospital took a blow. A kindergarten was also struck. Last night saw Russian cruise or ballistic missiles being added to the deadly cocktail of terrorist hardware, with impacts occurring at 4 am and causing foundations to rattle while folks hoped or prayed that they might evade death or injury this time around. EXCLUSIVE The former FBI agent's pardon came after his co-defendant's daughter donated $3.5 million to Donald Trump Jackie Singh Against this backdrop, the Presidents of Ukraine and the US met yesterday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Donald Trump once again confidently stated that he thinks he can end the war because he thin...
• 
  Nigel Farage-Backed Bitcoin Firm to Buy Gold Dealer That Paid Him £685,500 Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Don't miss a story Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires Reform's Crypto Policy Reform UK Could Pocket Nearly £500,000 in Interest if They Are Forced to Return £72 Million Crypto Billionaire Donations Timeline: Farage, Crypto and Gold holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Nigel Farage-Backed Bitcoin Firm to Buy Gold Dealer That Paid Him £685,500 Reform Council Leader Denies Climate Change Crisis After Record Heat Deaths Revealed: The Pro-Hitler Messages Behind the 'Neo-Nazi' Libel Case Funded by Reform's Crypto Billionaire Donor Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network Reform UK Could Pocket Nearly £500,000 in Interest if They Are Forced to Return £72 Million Crypto Billionaire Donations Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 23.09.2026 20min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen A bitcoin firm in which Nigel Farage holds a stake is set to buy the gold dealer that pays him as its 'brand ambassador' – further entrenching the Reform UK leader's financial interests in the cryptocurrency world. On 15 September, Stack BTC – which announced Farage as a 6.31% shareholder in March, alongside Liz Truss's former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as its executive chairman announced it planned to buy gold dealers Direct Bullion. In an announcement to the markets, Stack BTC wrote: "Today we announced heads of terms for our proposed first acquisition: Direct Bullion, a UK precious metals dealer with £52.1m audited revenue and an operating profit before non-recurring items of £3.86m and profit after tax of £2.15m in FY26. "Stack's strategy since day one [has been to] acquire profitable, cash-generative businesses that sustainably grow our Bitcoin per share, in sectors aligned with Bitcoin's hard-money principles. Gold is a natural fit." Farage has been paid £685,500 by Direct Bullion in the space of 18 months, according to his own entries in the Register of Members' Financial Interests. The value of gold tends to rise in times of political turmoil, suggesting the firm could benefit from unrest or instability under a radical right-wing Government. A 2018 SSRN study by academics at the University of Western Australia found: "Gold shows a unique behavior among all precious metals with a positive reaction to geopolitical risks and threats." A video advertisement recently posted by the company predicted violence and unrest under a Reform Government. Questioning whether "sterling can survive what's coming," the video's narrator added: "If a Reform government pushes through its agenda, resistance from those ideologically opposed to that direction could severely undermine national stability." Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. The Reform leader holds shares in Stack BTC through his company Thorn in the Side Ltd, having invested £215,000 on 9 March for 6.31% of the company. Within weeks he added £60,650 of shares in a second tranche. He bought in at 5p, and the share price surged to an all-time high of 21p on 10 March, the day after his investment was announced. At the time, that suggested a paper gain of almost £700,000 for the Reform UK leader, but it had gone by June, when Stack's share price fell back to 5p. His register entry still lists the shares, so he does not appear to have sold them. However, Farage's stake in the company has been diluted by a significant expansion in the number of shares available. (If the Direct Bullion deal goes through – funded in part by a major expansion in shares available – his shareholding could fall to around 3%). But if the purchase does proceed, Farage's brand ambassador fees from Direct Bullion would come from a subsidiary of a crypto company he part-owns, giving him an arguably greater incentive to boost cryptocurrencies. And Stack itself will have a strong incentive to boost a company that appears to have traded on the prospect of unrest and disorder under a Reform Government. Farage's last payment from Direct Bullion before his Stack investment was £135,000. The first one after it, 81 days later, was £270,000, described as covering the same amount of work: up to four hours a month over three months. Between those two payments he publicly promoted Stack on social media. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES The Clacton MP's payments from the gold dealer were equivalent to a quarter of Direct Bullion's profits in the year he became an MP. His register shows payments totalling £280,500 in the compan...
• 
  Royal British Legion Says It Wants 'No Association' With Anti-Migrant Group Behind Poppy Fundraisers Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Don't miss a story Poppy Politics 'Passing Off' Platforms Respond holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Reform Council Leader Denies Climate Change Crisis After Record Heat Deaths Revealed: The Pro-Hitler Messages Behind the 'Neo-Nazi' Libel Case Funded by Reform's Crypto Billionaire Donor Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network Reform UK Could Pocket Nearly £500,000 in Interest if They Are Forced to Return £72 Million Crypto Billionaire Donations Nigel Farage Funder George Cottrell's Inner Circle Hosted Indicted Cocaine Trafficker Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 22.09.2026 13min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The Royal British Legion has distanced itself from an anti-migrant group that has been accused of misleading the public through its fundraising, by using the charity's Remembrance poppy branding. Rushmoor People First (RPF) is an activist organisation in Hampshire which has led a string of anti-asylum-seeker protests, including outside hotels. It is currently running a 'Raise the Poppies' fundraising campaign – using what appears to be Royal British Legion (RBL) imagery and language, without sign-off from the charity. The group appears to have moved between at least three crowdfunding pages as earlier ones were taken down. After Byline Times contacted fundraising platform Crowdfunder, raising the Royal British Legion's comments, the latest page was taken down. Rushmoor People First has also been accused of placing unauthorised poppy attachments on council-owned lamp posts. The Royal British Legion has attempted to contact Rushmoor People First through its social media channels to discuss the nature of the Raise the Poppies initiative and its associated fundraising but has not received any response, Byline Times can reveal. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. Simon Kelman, an Aldershot resident, has been sounding the alarm about Rushmoor People First's apparent attempts to co-opt poppy imagery to raise cash for its controversial activities. He has reported RPF's crowdfunding campaigns to several platforms, which led to one platform, Collection Pot, removing RPF's 'Raise the Poppies' pages. Kelman believes RPF has misrepresented itself as a charity. He has reported RPF to the Charity Commission, the Fundraising Regulator, and RBL's legal team, among others. The fundraising campaigns claimed donations "support the Royal British Legion" and that money spent buying poppies "goes directly to support" it. However, the Royal British Legion wants nothing to do with it. Anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate has previously reported that RPF has attracted to its events a raft of Patriotic Alternative members, as well as former English Defence League and National Front activists. Searchlight magazine has also raised concerns over the group's use of the Remembrance poppy to raise cash. RPF leader Jeremy 'Jez' Stocking (also known as Jeremy Charles) was an election agent for Reform UK councillor Sharon Harvey in this May's elections. Stocking has continued to campaign for Reform, including urging RPF activists to vote for Nigel Farage's party. RPF activists are believed to have campaigned for Reform candidates at the same elections. Stocking was present when activists stormed an anti-racism meeting at Holy Trinity Church in Aldershot in December 2024, an event which led to the conviction of four far-right activists for assault (Stocking was not charged or convicted), as this outlet exclusively reported. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES The red poppy has been the UK's symbol of Remembrance since 1921, when the newly formed British Legion held its first Poppy Appeal. It is worn to remember members of the Armed Forces who have died in conflict – with money raised through the appeal supporting serving personnel, veterans and their families. RBL owns several registered trademarks related to Remembrance commemorations, including the two-petal Poppy logo and the word POPPY in capitals, which appear to have been used by the anti-migrant group to raise cash for its organisation. RBL does not have a record of purchases of poppies made by Rushmoor People First, though individuals linked to the group may have made purchases. Where an individual or organisation...
• 
  'Almost Started A War': Trump Administration's AI Policies Are Hurtling Towards Catastrophe Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system A Heated Debate Over AI Safety Trump Went to War In Order to Break Iran and Left It More Powerful Than Before – US Defence Analyst Throwing Caution To The Wind 21.09.2026 6min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The US military "almost started a war" with China this spring due to a faulty AI-generated intelligence report that falsely concluded that China was transporting nuclear materials aboard a ship in the Middle East, according to an alarming new report. Citing four unnamed sources, CNN reported on Friday that the US military was so confident in the information contained in the AI-generated intelligence report that it made plans to intercept the ship and even started carrying out those plans. Armed members of the military were reportedly getting ready to board the ship, and US military planes had been launched to support the effort. However, at the last minute, military officials started looking further into the intelligence report and discovered that it had been created with an AI chatbot, which had erroneously identified the materials on the ship as components of a nuclear weapons program. The resulting report was "entirely false," one source told CNN. It is unclear exactly what type of AI model was used in this incident, but CNN reports that a military analyst "queried a chatbot about some intelligence reporting on the ship's manifest that originated with US Special Operations Command Pacific, based in Hawaii." The chatbot then reportedly compiled information from open source intelligence (OSINT) and classified signals intelligence (SIGINT) sources, and delivered its erroneous conclusion about what the ship was carrying. The analyst then reportedly also used AI to package that information in the style of a standard military intelligence report before handing it off for dissemination. The revelation of the near-catastrophe comes amidst an escalating debate over AI safety, particularly in military contexts. The Trump administration's rapid expansion of AI use in the military has generated significant controversy over how quickly the technology is being pushed into systems involving surveillance, targeting, and autonomous weapons before oversight and safety frameworks have caught up — or even been fully developed. There are few clear rules and standards for autonomous AI use, and even when a human is involved in the process, there is "no real guidance" for how having a human in the loop will prevent potentially catastrophic mistakes, a source told CNN. In January 2026, the Trump administration's Department of War released a departmental AI strategy that established a mandate for the military to accelerate the use of AI by "aggressively" removing barriers and focusing on speed and scale over safety. Then, in June 2026, Trump released a national security memorandum ordering the adoption of frontier AI models across military and intelligence agencies, and mandating the termination of government contracts with AI developers that attempt to restrict how government agencies use their technology. The Trump administration claims that if the US doesn't prioritise the rapid development of military AI capabilities — or if it even slows down to ensure the safety of those systems before deploying them — then China will outpace the US and erode the American military's technological advantage. But in order to stay ahead in the race against China, the administration has increasingly framed safety as an impediment and has cast those who voice concerns about the speed of AI development as critics trying to stifle American innovation. EXCLUSIVE Brynn Tannehill explains how Trump's war has resurrected an Iranian regime that sanctions and drought had been on course to topple Brynn Tannehill In a series of social media posts just this past week, the DoW even went as far as portraying the AI safety movement as un-American, and in a bizarre post on Truth Social, Trump said that "the only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ)! PRESIDENT." But that's not what independent experts say. Human Rights Watch has conclud...
• 
  Bonnie Greer: The Golden Thread Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE 21.09.2026 11min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The first time I met Bonnie Greer she was laughing with delight as she hurtled down the hill at our first Byline Festival nearly ten years ago. She thought she was coming to a journalism conference and was thrilled by the mix of comedy, music and talks in the middle of a forest. She became a close family friend, especially of my wife Hilary and daughter Lucy, who as women of colour found her an inspiration and often hung out with her over glasses of champagne at the Soho Union Club. I regret we never managed to get round to putting together a series of talks on old Hollywood films at the club as we had planned. Bonnie's life was like a golden thread through the cultural and creative life of the America and Britain in the second half of the 20th Century and beyond; she had a unique understanding of the intersection of race, politics and culture. I will never forget the way she riffed like the very best jazz player as she reflected on how modern America had failed to live up to its ideals and fallen for Trump. Nobody else had her hinterland, knowledge, or love of life. Bonnie's upbringing in Chicago was modest. Her grandfather was a Mississippi sharecropper and her father a factory worker. She paid her way through university as a waitress in a blues bar and studied theatre under David Mamet who she never forgave later for supporting Trump. Then she moved to the West Village in New York to study at the Actors Studio, under Elia Kazan, famed as the home of Method Acting, with A-list alumni including Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe. Here she lived in the bohemian world of Andy Warhol, Keith Herring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, writing for the underground theatre scene, whose roots went back to the Beats, alongside playwrights and performers like Jackie Curtis, Wayne County, and Cherry Vanilla and hanging out in Max's Kansas City, CBGB and the Mudd Club. This was a world that Bonnie and I often discussed, as we knew many of the characters in common and she helped give me background information for Punk: The Last Word, the book Chris Sullivan and I wrote together. By 1983, there were more than a thousand AIDS cases in New York and many of Bonnie's friends and collaborators died, as she told Seb Morton-Clark in the Times in 2006: "The theatre scene in New York had been decimated, and with so many people dying around me I felt it was important that I made the most of my life. I needed to escape the shadow of death". She found her escape when in 1986 one of her plays brought her over to the Edinburgh Fringe. She felt instantly at home in Britain even though she arrived with all her worldly goods in one suitcase and only £500. She never went back and ended up living longer here in Britain than in America. After the West Village, there was only one place in Britain she could possibly live and that was in the heart of Soho. Bonnie loved Soho, with its mix of bohemian dodgy characters. Peter at the Union Club made Bonnie an honorary member and made her feel very welcome. She was incredibly popular – it was hard to get through lunch without her meeting at least a dozen friends. In many ways, Soho had remained much less gentrified than the West Village and kept more of its spirit alive. In Britain, Bonnie achieved critical success in 1993 with her play Munda Negra about black women struggling with mental health. She followed up with more plays: Dancing on Blackwater about mother-daughter relationships and Jitterbug, a collection of playlets exploring cultural divides. In 1994 she wrote her first novel, Hanging by Her Teeth. She worked closely with black community groups and theatre, including as Artist in Residence for the black community theatre Nitro and as patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize for unpublished works by women of colour. Bonnie soon adopted Britain as the country where she wanted to spend the rest of her life, marryin...
• 
  Reform Council Leader Denies Climate Change Crisis After Record Heat Deaths Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE The Claims Examined Don't miss a story Reform UK Members Dismiss Climate Crisis as 'Farce' After Record Summer Heatwaves Exchange in Full holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Reform Council Leader Denies Climate Change Crisis After Record Heat Deaths Revealed: The Pro-Hitler Messages Behind the 'Neo-Nazi' Libel Case Funded by Reform's Crypto Billionaire Donor Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network Reform UK Could Pocket Nearly £500,000 in Interest if They Are Forced to Return £72 Million Crypto Billionaire Donations Nigel Farage Funder George Cottrell's Inner Circle Hosted Indicted Cocaine Trafficker Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 21.09.2026 13min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The leader of Reform UK's flagship local authority, Kent County Council has denied man-made climate change exists and mocked climate science concerning the record-breaking extreme heat over the summer, in a fiery exchange on Thursday. Reform's Kent County Council leader, Cllr Linden Kemkaran, was accused of dismissing widespread public concerns about the climate crisis in the council chamber. The outburst occurred during a meeting of the full council in Maidstone, after Councillor Stuart Heaver (Green Party) asked Cllr Kemkaran if she had any second thoughts about the Council rescinding the KCC Climate Emergency Declaration, given the scale of heat-related deaths over the summer. Cllr Heaver noted UK Health Security Agency figures showing a significant increase on the 1,504 excess deaths observed in summer 2025 this year. Over 2,800 people have died in England and Wales due to record-breaking extreme heat over the summer, according to the official estimates. Kent Fire and Rescue service attended more than 130 grass fires since July, and 2026 is on track to be the worst harvest since records began. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. The leader simply replied: "No." When pressed to expand on her answer, she was accused of "reeling off a list of debunked climate denial claims" by the Greens. She told the chamber: "I will inject some much needed common sense into this conversation." She added: "Grass fires are not caused by an increase in temperature, but rather issues such as arson, poor land management practice, etc." While most UK wildfires are started by people rather than by the weather itself, what turns a spark into a serious fire is the condition of the vegetation, and that is driven by heat and drought. This summer much of the country was a dry tinderbox, with fires far more likely to combust and spread due to the extreme heat. A Met Office study found that the damaging fires during the UK's record-breaking (at that point) 2022 heatwave were made at least six times more likely due to human-caused climate change. The Reform leader then stated a list of debunked claims as fact. She said: "[Greens] forget that the climate is always changing. It always has and it always will change. In Roman and mediaeval times the earth was two degrees warmer than it is today, for example. The earth is actually coming out of a mini ice age, Mr Chairman. There is only one way for temperatures to go." The climate does change through history, but humans are now the overwhelming driver of temperature increases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is clear that "human influence on climate has been the dominant cause of observed warming since the mid-20th century." Glaciologist Jeff Severinghaus has told Carbon Brief that arguing natural change rules out human-caused change is "like saying that forest fires cannot be set by careless campers because lightning also causes forest fires." On her claim about "Roman and medieval times", this is strongly disputed by most of the academic literature. The IPCC has found that in the last decade, global average surface temperatures have been higher than any multi-century average in the past 11,700 years (the Holocene). While there were warm periods in the eras that Cllr Kemkaran referred to, they were not global, and they were not 2°C warmer than today. A major 2019 Nature Geoscience study found: "The largest warming trends at timescales of 20 years and longer occur during the second half of the 20th century, highlighting the unusual character of the warming in recent decades." Cllr Kemkaran'...
• 
  Revealed: The Pro-Hitler Messages Behind the 'Neo-Nazi' Libel Case Funded by Reform's Crypto Billionaire Donor Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE The Campaign Pro-Hitler in Private? Reform's Matt Goodwin Advises Conservative Peer Linked to Relaunched Nazi Race Science Platform Don't miss a story The Neo-Nazi Blog How Nazi Race Science Conquered the White House, and is Coming for Your Democracy The Lawyer and the Warning The Sanctuary 18.09.2026 23min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Reform UK's crypto billionaire donor Ben Delo financed a failed libel case brought by two writers who privately exchanged pro-Hitler messages and agreed between themselves that they should study Mein Kampf, Byline Times can reveal. Yet they lost their case against the defendant, Luke Turner, a Jewish artist who had publicly complained that the two writers had pursued him in a campaign of antisemitic bullying. The pair backed by Delo, who is now Reform UK's second largest donor, contributed anonymously to a blog run by the man behind a neo-Nazi social media account whose posts celebrated the Holocaust and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories – a man they knew personally. Their private exchanges included discussions of such theories. The claim was run by Mark Lewis of Patron Law, an honorary patron of the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA). Nina Power and Daniel Miller told each other they each kept a copy of Hitler's manifesto. "I keep a copy in my study of course," Miller wrote. "Well I have one too," Power replied. "I think maybe it is necessary." Minutes earlier she had been reading a conspiracy tract alleging a "Judeo-Masonic Plan to Conquer the World"; minutes later she asked what "the real deal" was with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – a notorious antisemitic forgery and hoax first published in Russia in 1903 that falsely claims to reveal a secret Jewish plan for global domination. The Financial Times reported this week that cryptobillionaire Ben Delo, Reform UK's second-largest donor, lent Power more than £300,000, secured against her London home, to help pay for the case. Byline Times can now reveal what that case involved. The findings are based on court documents, WhatsApp messages disclosed in evidence, legal correspondence and Land Registry records seen by Byline Times, including an official decision of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The allegations, and the messages underlying them, were set out in public court documents in June 2023. Delo registered his charge over Power's flat on 20 September 2023 – 13 days before the trial opened. In a statement to the legal newsletter Per Incuriam, Delo's solicitors acknowledged the loan and confirmed that he knew of Turner's allegations against Power and Miller, but said the cryptobillionaire gave them "no credence whatsoever". A person close to him told the Financial Times he does not believe either Power or Miller is antisemitic. In a judgment handed down in November 2023, Mrs Justice Collins Rice dismissed their libel claim and found their conduct towards Turner "could, on an objective basis, fairly be described as bullying" and "certainly aggressive, in register, language and imagery". They were ordered to pay 80% of his costs and were declared bankrupt. Turner has still not been paid. Despite his court victory, Delo's loan gives him a prior claim on money recovered from Power's flat, ahead of Turner's claim for legal costs. The Financial Times reported that Delo enforced his security shortly before Power's bankruptcy and now receives monthly rent from her as a means of recovering the debt. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. Turner's ordeal began before he had any direct dealings with Daniel Miller or Nina Power. A high-profile art project he was involved with alongside Hollywood actor Shia LaBeouf and artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö, launched on 20 January 2017 (Inauguration Day for President Donald Trump), invited passers-by in New York to say "He Will Not Divide Us" into a camera. Far-right activists targeted the project. By the judge's account, this e...
• 
  Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Don't miss a story The Panel Discussion Reform UK Could Pocket Nearly £500,000 in Interest if They Are Forced to Return £72 Million Crypto Billionaire Donations Former Ofcom Figure Speaks Out holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Nigel Farage Handed Platform by GB News to Defend Reform UK's £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network Reform UK Could Pocket Nearly £500,000 in Interest if They Are Forced to Return £72 Million Crypto Billionaire Donations Nigel Farage Funder George Cottrell's Inner Circle Hosted Indicted Cocaine Trafficker Reform UK Members Dismiss Climate Crisis as 'Farce' After Record Summer Heatwaves Reform UK Donations Overwhelmingly Have Overseas or Tax-Haven Ties Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 17.09.2026 11min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Nigel Farage has returned to hosting on GB News after a hiatus of six months – and spent most of his own programme defending his own party's mega-donors. The Reform leader was handed the unparalleled platform to spin his side of the story about the £36 million each that the crypto billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo's gave Reform over the weekend – where it comes from, and whether it is legal. There was no independent presenter or proper cross-examination on the show. It was Farage acting as defendant, prosecution and judge all at once, with long stretches of contestable monologue exonerating his donors and attacking Labour. He told viewers on his primetime terrestrial show: "I've been away for a bit, but I'm back. And today we talk about, you'll never guess it, there's a row over party political donations. But where does it all lead? Does it lead in the end to state funding? And would that be any better than what we currently have?" He added of the "row going on over party funding": "I seem to find myself somewhere in the middle of it." Farage mocked Labour ministers' claims that donations via trade unions were different to those from crypto billionaires – since most donations from unions come from thousands of members who have actively opted in to contribute to a 'political fund', established precisely to shift the balance of power away from oligarchs. Farage said: "Big donations are fine if they come to the Labour Party. But big donations are not fine, even though they're legal in every way, if they come to Reform." Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. He thereby skirted over the fact that on March 25 – months before the two £36 million donations to Reform were made – Labour said it would ban donations over £100,000 made from overseas donors, which at the time included Harborne and Delo, then based in Thailand and Hong Kong respectively. Labour said it would apply from that date, implemented through the Representation of the People Bill currently going through Parliament. Farage also issued a threat to Labour and the unions: "Labour want to attack us. We, in turn, might lash out back at the unions. This actually is a very, very bad place. If this continues…If you end private donations from individuals and companies, you finish up with state funding." He also claimed that this would "preserve in aspic the big parties as they are today." This does not appear to have been the case in Canada or the many European countries which have systems of public funding. In fact, the UK already has public funding for political parties, known as Short money. He told viewers "these donations are completely legal" and "this is very clean money"; stated flatly as fact by someone who benefits from them. The Reform leader called the Rycroft Review, the official assessment of foreign interference in UK politics which has bolstered the Government's proposed electoral reforms, "a total stitch-up by one of the Prime Minister's mates." He offered no evidence for the claim about the respected former senior civil servant. And when a Labour panellist pointed out the legislation actually predates the review, Farage didn't engage with the correction, he just repeated the "inventing law" framing seconds later. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES Farage never actually directly disclosed that he is, as party leader, a direct beneficiary of the donations he was defending, in that it could help him become Prime Minister. And he used his airtime to present a bar chart comparing "total party donations since 2021" that shows Reform at £110m against Labour's ...
• 
  The Two Professors and a 'War On Ideas' Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system 'This Could Be Me' There Will Be Another Jason Arday 'University Could Have Changed the Trajectory' The US Far-Right War on British Institutions ##LIGHTUPTHEDARK The Two Professors and a 'War On Ideas' Jason Arday: The Story Behind the Story of The Times' 'Impossible Data' The BBC Is Just Nodding Along Jason Arday: We Must Rage – Rage Against the Journalism of Cruelty The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday Palantir Co-Founder Peter Thiel and Reform UK's Cambridge University Recruitment Pipeline Project Revealed 'Good, Honest, Straightforward, Un-Christian Vengeance' 'Who Influences Those Minds is Fundamental' 17.09.2026 29min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Senate House sits at the heart of Cambridge University. It's the place you walk past most days as a student knowing that, when your time comes to put on the gown with the furry hood, it will be in this brilliant white bright building that becoming a graduate of the world-renowned institution will be marked. Approaching it from King's Parade in the last of the late summer sun, past the iconic King's College Chapel, and tourists sitting here and there on the walls lining the street with ice creams, Senate House emerged behind its black gates. This time, flowers fresh and dead were taped onto the rails or left at their feet. People stopped to look at them, speaking and silent. One woman explained to her young son who the flowers were for – a man who had "received some scrutiny that was justified but a lot that wasn't". "We have to be really careful with our words," she told him. "He was absolutely hounded and he didn't deserve to be." Jason Arday smiled warmly from the photograph at the centre of the tributes. Until 5 August, he was Cambridge University's Professor of Sociology of Education. Following claims of serial plagiarism, first made by academics aligned with race science, and then a wider campaign of intense media scrutiny both in the UK and internationally – on many aspects of his life beyond academia, from his charity running to his childhood mutism – Jason Arday resigned. Characterised in the right-leaning established press as "the nutty professor" and "the gift that keeps on giving", outlets on the left – the Guardian and Novara Media – also contributed to the reporting, and the speculative and dehumanising commentary. With his resignation, it didn't stop, even if the public interest journalists subsequently used to justify their reporting appeared, at that point, to have. On 14 August, Jason Arday was found dead at his home in south London. Just three years earlier, Cambridge University had celebrated the then 37-year-old's arrival, through the BBC and elsewhere, providing him with a considerable platform as the youngest black person to ever be appointed to a professorship at the institution. His death raises uncomfortable and urgent questions about appearances and reality in Arday's story – and what it reveals about the harder, deeper work the institution has seemingly not done to meaningfully tackle structural inequalities around issues of race and class. Particularly now that these systemic issues are increasingly at the forefront of a 'culture war'. "On behalf of every working-class person of colour student at this university past and present, your worth and dreams will not go unnoticed," one tribute to Arday read. Another: "I wish I would be able to remove envy and racism from this existence." Others said "hope this sad injustice leads to positive change in all walks of society. Lives should not suffer" and "I am sorry this system failed you". I had last been in Cambridge some months before with my Byline Times colleagues investigating allegations around another Cambridge academic whose story appears to have evolved very differently. Like Jason Arday, James Orr is unlikely to have been widely known to the public perhaps until very recently. Byline Times' investigation into Orr, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Faculty of Divinity, was published in July, when he was still Nigel Farage's Head of Policy at Reform UK. He stepped down from that role in September, following the broadcast of undercover footage by Channel 4 News, in which he appeared. It is now the subject of a criminal investigation by the Metropolitan Police. Our reporting – produced over six months through 20 sources at the University – raised serious questions about the safeguarding of students (some of whom are resident at his private property in the city), their 'recruitment' as part of Orr's stated ideological 'pipe...
• 
  How Reform UK's Crypto Billionaire Donor Christopher Harborne Made Millions From the UK Taxpayer Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system The £61 Million Political Donor Building a Stake in Britain's Defence Industry The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network What Has the Investment Made? ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE The Ministry of Defence Contracts Public Contracts and Private Political Power 17.09.2026 13min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Christopher Harborne's £36 million donation to Reform UK, announced at the weekend, looked at first like yet another story about opaque cryptocurrency money entering British politics. Harborne, who is based in Thailand, made much of his fortune in crypto. He is also the most important individual financier of Nigel Farage's political career, sparking much controversy along the way. But alongside his crypto interests, Harborne has also invested hundreds of millions of pounds into QinetiQ, one of Britain's leading defence companies. What is far less commented on is that QinetiQ's biggest customer, by far, is the British Government and is a major source of Harborne's wealth. Byline Times has examined Harborne's investments in QinetiQ against regulatory filings, share prices rises and dividend payments and estimate his investment has produced for Harborne an uplift of about £101.7 million. QinetiQ says that roughly 58% of its group revenues over the relevant period came directly from Ministry of Defence contracts. So, if you apply that proportion to Harborne's estimated gains, the portion corresponding to QinetiQ's MoD-derived revenues comes to £58.8 million. Harborne has given £61.19 million to the Brexit Party and Reform UK. The scale of Harborne's political giving is extraordinary. Electoral Commission data show that he had given £25.19 million to Reform UK across 21 donations – and this is before his latest promise. About £10.19 million went to the Brexit Party in 2019 and 2020, before it became Reform UK. Harborne then donated £9 million in August 2025, followed by £3 million in November and another £3 million in January 2026. The latest £36 million takes his combined support for Farage's political vehicles to approximately £61.19 million. This does not include the controversial £5 million Harborne gave to Farage in 2024, which is now under scrutiny by Parliament's standards authorities and which the Reform leader said was intended to help pay for his security. Against this beneficent backdrop stands Harborne the arms dealer investor. He began buying shares in QinetiQ – a UK company that manufactures military robotics, unmanned aerial drones, and specialised target systems – back in 2022. A QinetiQ notification published on 30 May 2022 recorded that AML Global Ltd, a Hong Kong company ultimately controlled by Harborne, secured some 41,001,328 shares in the company between 06 and 25 May, equivalent to 7.08% of QinetiQ's voting rights. This would have cost about £144 million in trading. A 6 June filing put that holding at 47.35 million shares. A 27 June disclosure saw it rise to 54 million shares. And by 11 July, a further notification saw the stake reach 57,905,817 shares, or just over 10% of the company. Those shares were subsequently transferred from AML Global to Klear Kite LLC, another vehicle controlled by Harborne. He later strengthened his position. The latest disclosed notification, published on 24 August 2026, put Klear Kite's holding at 72,547,733 shares, some 14.07% of QinetiQ's voting rights. EXCLUSIVE A Reform councillor and campaign co-ordinater urged his followers to join and support the masked group Katherine Denkinson The precise value of each of Harborne's purchases is not public. TR-1 filings reveal when ownership thresholds are crossed, not the execution price of each trade. But historic market prices provide a reasonable basis for an estimate. Using QinetiQ's closing price on each of the dates when Harborne crossed the relevant thresholds suggests that his original 57.9 million shares cost about £205.2 million, or roughly £3.54 a share. The historic closing prices range from 340.6p on 6 May 2022 to 378p when the final threshold in the initial accumulation was crossed in July. By 15 September 2026, QinetiQ shares were trading at £4.84. Harborne has subsequently reduced his holdings. Across a serie...
• 
  The Reform Councillors Embedded in Britain's Masked 'Patriot' Anti-Migrant Network Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE The Civilians 'Flag Man' Behind Nazi-Linked Anti-Migrant Protests Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Woman The Councillors The Veterans How Neo-Nazis Posing as 'Ordinary Parents' Embedded Themselves in Anti-Immigrant Protests Don't miss a story 16.09.2026 13min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Masked men gathered in Dover and other coastal towns at the start of September, staging the first direct action from a network that spans at least 15 patriot groups and more than 40,000 followers built up over the past 18 months. Coastal groups within the network are now planning further protests outside local RNLI lifeboat stations. Byline Times has identified seven Reform councillors who are listed as members of these groups on Facebook. Among them is Mark Thorn, Reform's campaign coordinator for Gateshead, who has repeatedly urged his own followers to join Patriot Platform. Patriot Platform, fronted by Danny Thomas – an acolyte of convicted fraudster and thug Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (known as 'Tommy Robinson') – is formed from members of dozens of local groups. Among them is Poole Patriots and Northeast Patriots, which draw together councillors and ordinary residents alike. The network has also given rise to Frontline Alliance (FA), a veteran-led offshoot. Its founders have set out plans, in social media videos, for a body of unelected figures inside Parliament that would decide policy for whichever party is in power, alongside a British version of the US immigration enforcement agency ICE – with a threat to form a new political party if mainstream parties will not meet their demands. One of the founders denied any such plan when Byline Times put it to him directly. The network has grown out of the collapse of the Flag Force movement, which Byline Times has previously exposed for hosting neo-Nazis posing as ordinary parents within it. It has capitalised on residents' fears, drawing otherwise peaceful people into mobilising against migrants under the belief they are protecting their communities. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. The British Brotherhood (BB) is a prime example. Birmingham man Anthony Davies renamed a pagan Facebook group he operated, rebranding it in July 2025 as a Christian military order. Davies replaced pagan content with AI-generated nu-metal anthems about imagined crusades and clips declaring a need for the return of "Paki-bashing" – though older pagan posts still remain on the page. Questioned about this change by Byline Times, Davies said: "The majority of its members began to feel called to the Christian faith, so that Facebook group change its path and gave members notice of this change and offer them to stay… but many choose to leave and join a new group which we advestive [sic] for them at the beginning to help them out." As many members left his group in disgust, hundreds more joined, looking to be part of what Davies called a "grassroots Christian fraternity of ordinary citizens standing together to make our streets safer, kinder, and stronger." In his comment to Byline Times, Davies added that BB "is not political… has no extremist agenda, and we don't seek power, our only aim is to make our local areas better places for everyone." At least two men in the group have criminal records, one of whom was recently sentenced to three years and five months for burglary, while the other has historic convictions for manslaughter and domestic abuse. The former has shared images of himself on the BB Facebook group, while the latter appeared in a video on their TikTok page ranting about immigrants receiving benefits. Growing steadily for the past year, BB now has a large presence on both Facebook and TikTok and is advertising for people willing to "walk into Hell no matter the outcome". For some, this seems to involve "patrolling" parks and attending the weekly pub quiz, but others have stated a desire...