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  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...
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  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...
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  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...
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  Conservative Donor Is Major Player in Gambling Syndicate That Used George Cottrell's Betting Accounts Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Nigel Farage Funder George Cottrell's Inner Circle Hosted Indicted Cocaine Trafficker How George Cottrell's Reform UK Network in Montenegro Is Tied to Sanctioned Russian Oligarchs 16.09.2026 6min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The Conservative Party has accepted a donation from the director of a company that used convicted fraudster and Nigel Farage aide George Cottrell as a stalking horse to place bets. In the second quarter donation releases for 2026 with the Electoral Commission, it was revealed that the Conservative Party has taken £50,000 in three instalments from Adam Stephen Franks, a former director and current shareholder at the Star Lizard Consulting betting syndicate. In court documents released late last year, reviewed by Byline Times, Tony Bloom, the founder of the syndicate, admitted to using Cottrell as a stalking horse. Bets that made $3.7 million profit were allegedly placed using betting accounts created under George Cottrell's name, according to Guardian reporting on the court case. Tony Bloom, the founder of Star Lizard was sued by one of his former employees, Ryan Dudfield, over an alleged agreement to share the profits from the Cottrell account. Dudfield believed he was owed a sum potentially stretching into the millions from the profit, though this was denied by Bloom. Gambling syndicates like Star Lizard often end up with their accounts getting closed down because of the size of the wins and the calculated nature of the bets. Instead they use high-spenders, known as 'whales' to place bets on their behalf. Cottrell had a reputation as a high-roller who was not particularly successful, which meant he was a whale that could be used by the syndicate. According to the court document reviewed by Byline Times the arrangement between Cottrell and Star Lizard ended in October 2025. EXCLUSIVE Cottrell's partner is the sister of two men indicted over an alleged operation involving 5,670 kilograms of cocaine, who are tied to one of the most powerful organised crime groups in the Balkans Nafeez Ahmed According to Bloom's defence, Cottrell's Sportsbet.io account, for most of the period that the syndicate controlled it, was in net loss. The losses peaked at a net loss of $13.7 million, one month after Star Lizard controlled it, before the syndicate then took it into a position of net win. Adam Franks, the Conservative donor, was previously a director at Star Lizard Consulting, the firm that runs the syndicate, and now owns a substantial portion of the firm. Companies House documents show that Franks first took a 25% stake in the firm in 2016, which later became 75% in August 2025, meaning that Franks had a stake in the firm while it was using Cottrell's accounts to place bets. According to a 2016 profile of Star Lizard, Franks is integral to the Star Lizard operation. He is a friend of Bloom's from university and has worked as the financial director of many of Bloom's businesses. He also sits on the board of Brighton and Hove Albion football club alongside Bloom who is the owner and chairman of the club. According to Bloom's defence in the case brought by Dudfield, Bloom was to keep 60% of profits from Cottrell's bets, Cottrell 33% and Dudfield 7%. EXCLUSIVE Nigel Farage's criminal funder runs a Montenegro company whose corporate advisors work for a Belgrade Russian-arms dealer and individuals tied to Russian state-linked enterprises Nafeez Ahmed During the court case, it was alleged that the Star Lizard syndicate agreed not to place bets through sites in which Cottrell had a stake, such as Tether Bet, though Bloom's defence denied that the syndicate had ever used Tether Bet at all. Cottrell has previously denied having any relationship to Tether Bet beyond being a customer. Sportsbet.io advertises itself as the best crypto sports betting and casino site. Franks' name also appears in the Paradise Papers leak of offshore investments in tax havens. He is listed in the papers as a shareholder of igame holdings P.L.C., a Malta based gambling company which focused on the Nordic and Central European markets before it was sold to Unibe...
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  Reform UK Could Pocket Nearly £500,000 in Interest if They Are Forced to Return £72 Million Crypto Billionaire Donations Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Don't miss a story ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE 'Glaring Loophole' Why Reform UK Could Be Forced to Hand Back Their £72m Donations From Crypto Billionaires Unease Over Cap Nigel Farage Funder George Cottrell's Inner Circle Hosted Indicted Cocaine Trafficker holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED 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 Police Contradict Reform Council Over Claim Town Centres are 'Unsafe' Due to Asylum Seekers Reform's £645,000 'Ghost' Pollster Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 16.09.2026 13min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Reform UK would be allowed to keep the interest earned on the £72 million in donations received from two billionaire donors over the weekend – even if they're forced to return the gifts. Crypto billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo gave the largest ever donations to a UK political party, £36 million each, to Nigel Farage's party. Both were reported as living – until very recently – overseas. Delo was based in Hong Kong and Harborne in Thailand. The Labour Government's current Representation of the People Bill going through Parliament places a cap of £100,000 a year on donors living overseas, which will be retrospective. Under the new bill, an individual is not a permissible donor if when the party receives the donation, they are an "overseas contributor" and their donations for that whole calendar year exceed £100,000. Assuming the bill passes as it is, this largely kicks in from when the changes were announced, 25 March 2026. There is therefore mounting speculation that the donations will have to be returned by Nigel Farage's party once the bill passes. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES Under the legislation, the party would have 60 days to return the donations if they are ruled impermissible. However, Byline Times has learned that even if the donations are ruled illegal, Reform UK will be able to keep any interest earned on the enormous gifts. The interest could amount to nearly £500,000 if the donations are returned at the end of the 60-day legal deadline. The current highest-earning, easy access business account Byline Times found pays 4.15% AER variable, which would amount to £491,000 interest. Other providers offer 3.91% AER variable interest (£462,800 interest) or have introductory offers of 4.00% (£473,000 interest over 60 days). There is no sanction for a party if they return impermissible donations within the legal timeframe. This arguably creates an incentive for parties to accept illegal donations, hold on to them for 59 days, return the donations and pocket the interest. Annual rate Approx interest over 60 days 3% (low estimate) £355,000 3.75% (Bank Rate) £444,000 3.91% (available rate) £462,800 4% (available rate) £473,000 4.15% (available rate) £491,000 4.5% (e.g. if rates rise) £533,000 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. Labour MP Phil Brickell, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption, told Byline Times the weekend's mega donations mean democracy has entered "uncharted waters." "They've exposed a glaring loophole which the government must urgently plug via the Representation of the People Bill currently making its way through Parliament. "There's only one inescapable conclusion – that we need to pave the way now for a cap on the amount any individual can donate and which is fair, proportionate and workable." Brickell said: "If the donations are forced to be returned, but with substantial interest being kept by Reform UK, then Nigel Farage should respect the spirit of the law and donate the inadvertent proceeds to a worthy cause, such as the RNLI." A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission told this outlet: "When interest has been gained on an impermissible donation before it is returned…the interest accrued until that point may be kept by the party. "The interest is not treated as a donation and does therefore not need to be included in the total reported to the Commission. The value of the impermissible donation returned must still be reported to the Commission." The spokesperson insisted: "We have not seen evidence of parties or other regulated entities having received and retur...
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  Behind the AI 'Extinction' Power Bid: Soaring Costs Could Hit 10% of World GDP Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Apocalypse Now? Testing the Runaway Anthropic's Own Data ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE The Human Decisions Behind the Breach The Rising Price of 'Progress' Cheaper Rivals Keep Pace Big Tech Helped Elon Musk Meet Jeffrey Epstein Four Times After Conviction Ideological Roots of Doom Don't miss a story 15.09.2026 24min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies are invoking unproven extinction warnings to justify measures that could protect their market position and expand their influence on industry oversight, a Byline Times investigation has found. A review of industry research found no demonstrated cycle of accelerating, autonomous self-improvement underpinning these warnings. Meanwhile, Byline Times calculations suggest OpenAI, Anthropic and Google's parent Alphabet could face a $10.7 trillion research-computing bill during 2026–2030. Even generous assumptions about business growth would cover only around a third of that sum, leaving a roughly $7 trillion gap to be met through existing reserves, financing, higher income or lower costs. Two independent experts with experience developing AI programmes at the United Nations and a top-tier global bank told Byline Times that measures presented as protecting humanity could also shield leading companies from cheaper rivals, and give industry insiders greater influence on potential regulation or oversight mechanisms. The current debate over AI was spurred by the resignation of AI safety researcher Jacob Coxon from Anthropic, the frontier AI giant behind the chatbot known as Claude. Coxon, who previously worked at OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT – accused both companies of recklessly pursuing AI that can improve itself and become far more capable than humans. He said insiders believe AI could wipe out humanity before this decade ends. Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger subsequently put the chance of human extinction over the next decade at over 10%; his colleague Samuel Marks warned of human extinction "within a few years". Dario Amodei, Anthropic's CEO, claimed that AI would become capable of "taking over the entire internet" within six to 12 months. He called for US Government support or antitrust exemptions allowing leading companies to coordinate safety standards and limits on development; outside monitors from the nonprofit Model Evaluation & Threat Research (METR); and restrictions on Chinese access to advanced chips and chipmaking equipment. These restrictions would affect a major source of cheaper, openly available AI models. Anthropic's call to slow AI development has been supported by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, and xAI CEO Elon Musk. AI is already used to help develop better AI systems, or "models", which are trained by processing data and adjusting how they work. In the runaway scenario, each improved model becomes better at building its successor, accelerating the cycle as humans step back. This is an extreme form of "recursive self-improvement" (RSI). Daanish Masood, Chief Executive of AI firm CX-1 and former co-lead of the UN's Innovation Cell, where he helped develop AI programmes for peace efforts, cautioned against treating AI progress as proof of runaway self-improvement. "The AI risks Dario details are serious enough to justify enforceable safeguards," he told Byline Times. "I think we need to distinguish what's been demonstrated from what is being predicted." He added: AI is already helping to develop AI, but that alone does not establish the runaway, self-sustaining improvement process that is implied by the rhetoric or the term RSI. We also don't need to declare or pretend that a takeoff has arrived to take the risks seriously. AI research company Weco tested a crucial part of this process in July. Its system produced seven improved versions of an AI research programme over eight days without people intervening. Some improvements also helped with tasks beyond those used to develop them. Although this was a meaningful success, when one of the improved programmes was put in charge of the next round, it ultimately produced results no better than those reached when the original AI ran the process. It seemed to get there faster, ...
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  Why Reform UK Could Be Forced to Hand Back Their £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 A Narrow Route to Legality Nigel Farage Funder George Cottrell's Inner Circle Hosted Indicted Cocaine Trafficker 'A Cap on Donations Is Not Anti-Union — It Is Anti-Oligarchy' What Canada Shows Us Reform UK Donations Overwhelmingly Have Overseas or Tax-Haven Ties The Unions Start to Shift holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED 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 Police Contradict Reform Council Over Claim Town Centres are 'Unsafe' Due to Asylum Seekers Reform's £645,000 'Ghost' Pollster Raft of Senior Reform Councillors Fail to Declare Interests Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 14.09.2026 16min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The weekend saw the largest donations to UK political parties ever made: £36 million each, from Reform-backing crypto billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo. Both were reported as living – until very recently – overseas. Delo was based in Hong Kong and Christopher Harborne in Thailand. This matters because the Labour Government's current Representation of the People Bill going through Parliament places a cap of £100,000 a year on donors living overseas. Crucially, this will be retrospective. Under the new bill, an individual is not a permissible donor if when the party receives the donation, they are an "overseas contributor" and their donations for that whole calendar year exceed £100,000. Assuming the bill passes as it is, this largely kicks in from when the changes were announced, 25 March 2026. From my reading, under the Bill, anyone who moved back to the UK during 2026 remains capped at £100,000 until 1 January 2028. The clock starts ticking from the start of the calendar year before the donation, not from the date of return*. Reform UK have cried foul, claiming that the policy is an attack on them and their latest donations. This appears to give the Government credit for inventing a time machine. 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 retrospective element was already there in the bill, and runs back to the point of the Rycroft review into foreign interference. The rationale is that without it, donors would have rushed money in, ahead of the legislation. Which seems to be what Reform UK are trying to do. The 25 March is of course well before these donations were made over the weekend. That's linear time for you. It is quite odd then that Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne each made £36 million donations to Reform over the weekend. Reform and the mega-donors almost certainly knew this law was coming (they would have to have been ignoring legislation that clearly affected them to have not). Reform and in particular Robert Jenrick MP has been insisting that Harborne and Delo are living in the UK, and that the overseas donor cap supposedly won't affect them. In April 2026, while still apparently based in Hong Kong, Delo wrote in The Telegraph that he would move be moving back to Britain early so he could contribute more to Reform, framing Labour's £100,000 cap on donations from Britons living abroad as a "rigged game". If he was still living in Hong Kong in April, that is clearly after the 25 March donation cap implementation date. And a claim form filed by Harborne in the High Court only this June lists his address as (still) being in Bangkok. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES There is a very narrow route in the bill where Harborne's donation could be legal. From our reading, it requires three things to have happened by three dates. 1. Firstly, his removal from the register as an overseas elector on or before 25 March 2026, when the cap was announced. 2. Unbroken (not even for one day) UK residence from 6 July 2026 onwards. 3. And registration as an ordinary UK elector by the date of the donation. That means Harborne would have had to deregister as an overseas elector before the £100,000 was even announced, which suggests foresight that is unlikely to have existed. We know Harborne was registered to vote in February this year, as on the 19th he donated £25,000 (as a benefit in kind) to Nigel Farage for a trip to the Maldives, on a "humanitarian aid mission." And we know he gave a Bangkok address as recently as 9 June, from the High Court filing — so he surely cannot have returned before then. We also know that Companie...
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  Nigel Farage Funder George Cottrell's Inner Circle Hosted Indicted Cocaine Trafficker 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 Unexplained Wealth 'Posh George', Two Passports, and a Fraudulent Identity: Convicted Fraudster and Nigel Farage Funder's Connections to Reform UK's Murky Financial Structures Cottrell's Partner The Brothers The Corporate Client List Nigel Farage Funder George Cottrell's Accountant Co-Invested With Russia-Linked Indicted Cocaine Trafficker Why Tivat? Don't miss a story 14.09.2026 21min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The convicted fraudster who secretly financed Nigel Farage is tied to a Montenegro circle whose members include two suspects charged with involvement in one of the Balkans' most powerful transnational drug-trafficking organisations, Byline Times can reveal. George Cottrell's partner is the younger sister of two men indicted over an alleged operation involving 5,670 kilograms of cocaine – including a man US authorities believe is a senior figure in the Kavač clan. The Kavač clan is one of the Balkans' most powerful cocaine-trafficking organisations. It emerged when Montenegro's Kotor organised crime ring split into two rival groups in 2014; the ensuing conflict has been linked to at least 60 murders across Europe. Cottrell's partner Andjela Vukadinović, is also plugged into a nexus of corporate services firms in Tivat representing Cottrell, which administer companies owned by several other Reform UK figures – including Mehrtash A'zami, the party's former treasurer; Christopher Harborne, its largest individual donor; Gawain Towler, its former communications chief and board member; and Samee Bhatti, its former digital strategist. That corporate overlap is significant for reasons extending beyond the organised crime connections. The Sunday Times has reported that a company owned by Reform UK's data protection officer, Mowbray Jackson, unlawfully enabled British customers to move money into and out of tether.bet – a cryptocurrency-gambling platform linked to George Cottrell which was not licensed to serve customers in Britain. Records seen by Byline Times now reveal a second Reform-related connection to the same platform through Mehrtash A'zami, Reform UK's former treasurer for some six years. He was legally responsible for the party's compliance checks on the Cottrell-linked donations now under police investigation. 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. George Cottrell has spent a decade inside Farage's political circle and paid for staff, security and social-media filming while providing the use of his London home. In 2024, Cottrell's mother Fiona made three donations totalling £1.5 million into Reform UK and a fundraising company controlled by its Deputy Leader Richard Tice. The Guardian reported that George transferred $2,047,693 to her in three tranches, each arriving between 24 and 72 hours before she made one of those payments. The money passed through US cryptocurrency exchanges and some was routed through money-transfer services. The Metropolitan Police is investigating whether the ultimate source of the donations was disguised. The Electoral Commission says that, before accepting a donation of more than £500, a political party must take all reasonable steps to establish the donor's true identity and confirm that the source is permissible. The Sunday Times reported that George Cottrell was involved with tether.bet, an offshore cryptocurrency-gambling platform, which Cottrell denied. Filings seen by Byline Times now show that a corporate services firm in Cyprus linked to Reform UK's then treasurer Mehrtash A'zami incorporated the company handling tether.bet's payments in 2021. That company is called GT eServices Ltd. The firm which set it up, McMillan Woods Cyprus, is a member of McMillan Woods Global, where A'zami is a partner. A'zami was Reform UK's treasurer from 2019 to 2025. "McMillan Woods Cyprus was engaged on a one-off basis in connection with the incorporation and registration of GT eServices Ltd in Cyprus", the firm's managing director Angelou Aristodimou told Byline Times. "Our involvement was limited to tha...
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  From 9/11 to Southport: The Deadly Blind Spots in Britain's Counter-Terror System Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system The Post-9/11 Legacy 'Salad-Bar' Terrorism ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Addressing the Roots of Alienation Terrorist Narratives: The Biases in 'Prevent' Training Show How Counter-Extremism is Politicised The Silo Problem Don't miss a story 11.09.2026 9min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Three referrals to Britain's Prevent programme were closed before 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana stabbed three children to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in Southport in July 2024. The killings laid bare systemic failures in how the British state detects and responds to individuals showing warning signs of mass violence. Between 2019 and 2021, Rudakubana was referred to Prevent by his schools three separate times. Teachers warned about his interest in weapons, mass killings and terrorist attacks. Yet none of the referrals progressed to Channel, the programme through which agencies assess individuals and coordinate support. The subsequent learning review identified premature closure and failures to gather information. Rudakubana lacked a clear political motive, and officers treated his vulnerabilities as matters for other services without adequately assessing the cumulative danger. These failures were examined by the then interim Independent Prevent Commissioner, Lord David Anderson of Ipswich, whose July 2025 report highlighted the difficulty the Home Office's counter-terrorism programme faces in responding to warning signs of mass violence that do not fit a clear political ideology. In the years following 11 September 2001, at least 4.5 million people died in post-9/11 war zones from fighting or its indirect consequences, according to a 2023 estimate by Brown University's Costs of War project. In Britain, this war opened up a domestic front with the establishment of Prevent in 2003 – a flagship programme designed to identify individuals at risk of radicalisation and provide early intervention. Home Office funding across Prevent-related units reached £49.1 million in 2020–21, according to the independent review published in 2023. From its inception, Prevent focused exclusively on Islamist terrorism, with early local authority funding allocated according to the size of the local Muslim population. Its remit was broadened in 2011 to include all forms of terrorism. The British approach to counter-terrorism has continued to place considerable emphasis on whether an extremist is "Islamist" or "extreme right-wing". But that tidy taxonomy is not enough. According to official Prevent data, 18% of referrals in England and Wales in 2023–24 involved "conflicted ideology", while 36% involved vulnerability but no identified ideology or counter-terrorism risk. Referrals are concerns raised for assessment, not confirmed terrorist threats. As MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said in October 2024, straightforward labels "don't fully reflect the dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies we see". Alongside established ideological threats, the British state is confronting "salad-bar" extremism – where lone actors pick and choose from an online smorgasbord of misogynist forums, violence-fixation gore communities, gaming platforms and subcultures glorifying US school shootings. Radicalised in a digital dark, these individuals are among those who cannot be fully understood through current approaches to counter-terrorism. Prevent's guidance has recognised people without fixed ideologies for years. But Anderson's report identified significant inconsistency in how cases involving a fascination with extreme violence progress through the system. 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. Proposals following Southport include a new offence targeting preparations for mass killings without a terrorist motive, put forward by Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, in March 2025. His review argued against broadening the de...
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  Reform UK Members Dismiss Climate Crisis as 'Farce' After Record Summer Heatwaves Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Watch: Reform UK Delegates Dismiss Climate Change ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Drowning in Denial: One in Five Homes in Reform UK Heartlands Could Be Under Water Within 25 Years Don't miss a story 11.09.2026 8min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Reform UK delegates dismissed the climate crisis as a "farce" and accused scientists of manipulating evidence at the party's annual conference, days after the Met Office provisionally declared the UK's hottest summer on record. Despite having its press passes revoked at the last minute, Byline Times spoke to delegates as they queued to enter the conference hall last weekend. They were happy to share their views, with some describing climate change as a means of Government control. The interviews suggest that the rejection of climate science by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Deputy Leader Richard Tice finds a receptive audience among sections of the party's membership. Reform UK opposes net zero – the goal of balancing greenhouse gas emissions with their removal from the atmosphere. An analysis published by DeSmog in April found that the party had received more than £24 million from donors with financial interests in fossil fuels since its launch as the Brexit Party in 2019. Jared Iverson, a Reform UK party conference delegate, described himself as a journalist and climate change denier. He told Byline Times outside the conference hall that the Government was lying to the public about climate change, as he claimed it had about COVID-19. He expressed a "deep distrust of the Government" and accused climate scientists of "following the money", an allegation unsupported by evidence. "What climate crisis?" said a smartly dressed couple in their late 60s, sporting a Union Jack jacket and bow tie. They claimed scientists had "cherry-picked the data" to support their theories. The couple accepted that the climate had changed over time but insisted the world was heading towards a cooling period rather than "some catastrophic warming". "What we are talking about is controlling mankind," they said. "We are passionate about that." A farmer based in Devon, dressed in tweed, was equally dismissive, calling the climate crisis "a farce". "I've lived and grown up in the countryside all my life," he said. "They all talk about the temperatures moving and that, but I think we are colder now than when I was a kid." Asked how he knew it had been "definitely" a lot warmer during his childhood, he told Byline Times: "Because I spent my life in shorts." 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 temperature records tell a different story. The Met Office has announced that this summer was provisionally the UK's hottest on record, with temperatures reaching 38.1°C at Kew Gardens in London. Wildfires also engulfed homes in Stourbridge. Dr Amy Doherty, who leads the Met Office's National Climate Information Centre, said: "The conditions we've seen this summer have broken UK climate records once again. These records are now breaking with increasing frequency, reflecting the influence of human-induced climate change on the temperatures we're experiencing in the UK. Particularly notable is how much we've exceeded the previous summer mean temperature record, set just last year. The figures also knock the infamous summer of 1976 down to seventh for average summer mean temperature, with the top five warmest summers all occurring since 2003. A common refrain among those interviewed was that they had done their own research. "There is no climate change. It's absolute nonsense," one delegate told Byline Times. "What you have got to do is do some of your own research, and you will find out that it is cyclical." "I looked into it," the delegate added. "I've spent 10 years and I can't find a single scientist who agrees with any climate change." Another delegate ...
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  Conservative Peer Hosts Far-Right Activists Alongside US-Funded Anti-Abortion Group Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Conservatives Hosting the Far-Right ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Anti-Abortion Lobbying Don't miss a story Dark Money Revealed: The 'Right-Wing Arms Race' to Deport Non-White Britons – Backed By the Tufton Street Brexit Lobby 11.09.2026 11min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Far-right activists this week attended a free-ticketed event at the House of Lords, titled 'The UK's Demographic Timebomb' hosted by Conservative peer Shaun Bailey. Bailey spoke at the event alongside David Paton, a professor of industrial economics at Nottingham University Business School. The event, condemned by Abortion Rights and Amnesty International, was put on by anti-abortion lobby group The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), which has received US 'dark money' – funding for which the true source of funds is obscured. Lord Bailey, who hosted the event in the House of Lords, is a former special advisor to David Cameron, and the Conservative Party's candidate for Mayor of London in 2021. He entered the House of Lords in 2023 after receiving a peerage in Boris Johnson's resignation honours. Among those in attendance at his event on Tuesday were far-right activists and ethnonationalists, who were given a platform to air their opinions. Bailey denied inviting them or knowing who they were. They included Callum Barker, a founding alumnus of the fascist and ethnonationalist Homeland Party and former member of Patriotic Alternative, the largest neo-Nazi group in the UK. Barker is one of a growing crop of ethnonationalist influencers also known for his role in the anti-migrant actions in Epping last year, which became the scene of violent far-right protests after an asylum seeker living in a hotel there sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and woman. Barker claimed on X that he attended the House of Lords event and told those present: … we should stop importing an invasive foreign serf class to subsidise pensions and the falling birthrates, and instead build a system that prioritises us, makes homeownership affordable, encourages motherhood, and boosts Britain's native birthrate. Barker, described by campaign group Stand Up To Racism as a "hardened neo-Nazi", quit Homeland after complaining of lack of support from its leader, former British National Party member Kenny Smith, during the protests in Epping. Also present at the Lords event was Gregory Moffitt (AKA Young Bob), a self-styled Christian nationalist who describes himself on X as a "pro-life remigration activist", and who has campaigned for Disciples of Christ – a Christian activist group influenced by UKIP leader Nick Tenconi. He was previously involved with Turning Point UK and worked as a journalist for the far-right media outlet Vox Populi. Remigration is a far-right concept calling for ethnic cleansing via forced mass deportations of non-white, particularly immigrant, populations. Moffit is currently the CEO of the Christian nationalist group 'Project Britannia', which calls for abortion to be banned for creating "the greatest genocide in human history" – claiming that "if you don't want children, don't have sex". David Paton, who sat on the panel alongside Lord Bailey, sits on the academic review board of the Family Education Trust, which campaigns against LGBTQ+ rights. Its leadership has praised former president of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, while its events have featured far-right activist Connor Tomlinson and preacher Calvin Robinson, who has since promoted antisemitic claims about Jews collectively exercising control and pressuring others to silence opponents. 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 topic of discussion at the panel hosted by Lord Bailey was "falling birth rates and what this means for the future of the UK", with the event page stating "Birth rates across the UK are crashing to historic lows, threatening life as we know ...
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  Jason Arday: The Story Behind the Story of The Times' 'Impossible Data' Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday The Original Critics There Will Be Another Jason Arday Similarities and Citations A Correction, Not a Retraction The US Far-Right War on British Institutions ##LIGHTUPTHEDARK 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 James Orr: Reform UK's Religious Cambridge Professor's Politics of Contradictions A Pattern Does Not Establish Its Cause Jason Arday: We Must Rage – Rage Against the Journalism of Cruelty 'The Press Effectively Answered Them in Advance' 10.09.2026 33min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Jason Arday, Cambridge University's Professor of Sociology of Education, resigned in August after the institution announced it would investigate his appointment and work – following intense media scrutiny around allegations that parts of his 2015 PhD thesis had been plagiarised. After stepping down, hundreds of articles were published on Arday – scrutinising many aspects of his life beyond academia, including his charity fundraising and his childhood mutism – across the established press in the UK and internationally. The 41-year-old was found dead at his home days later on 14 August. One of the key articles which raised questions about the credibility of Arday's work beyond his PhD – 'Jason Arday: Times Analysis Finds "Impossible" Data in His Work' by Emma Yeomans – was published by The Times on 5 August. Cambridge University announced its investigation into Arday later that day. In a separate report on Arday's subsequent resignation on that same day, The Times wrote that the institution's investigation "came after The Times submitted fresh evidence to the university suggesting that large parts of his research were fabricated and­ contained 'impossible' evidence". ­ The characterisation of Arday as a possible serial plagiarist was repeated by reporting in the Guardian and Washington Post. After his death, The Atlantic claimed that a "preponderance of evidence" showed that he was a "serial fabulist and unrepentant plagiarist" who had "conned" British academia. The central claim in The Times article was built largely around a paper published by Arday in 2018 that had already been formally investigated by its publisher, MDPI. The Times reported that Arday had been "forced to retract and republish" it. But a MDPI spokesperson told Byline Times that its investigation did not establish plagiarism or data fabrication in the paper or result in a retraction, finding that the article's scientific conclusions were unaffected. It did identify problems with citations and the handling of interview data, which required corrections. These correctable errors did not invalidate the study. The Times did not report this. It explored the findings of its own "audit of five years of study" conducted by Arday. In addition to the 2018 paper, four other related studies by Arday were reported as possible evidence of fabrication and plagiarism. It did not mention that one of these, a 2020 paper by Arday, had already undergone a similar formal investigation by another scientific publisher, Taylor & Francis, again resulting in a correction of errors with no finding of plagiarism or data fabrication. In his career, Jason Arday authored 33 peer-reviewed papers and was one of the most cited scholars in his field. While media organisations choosing one 'angle' over another to pursue in a story is not in any way uncommon – indeed, it is often the norm – the case of The Times is an important one to examine, considering the extent to which the narrative around Jason Arday being a serial plagiarist took hold in the media firestorm that followed, culminating in his death. What is striking about The Times article is that it did not seriously examine the reasonable – or at least possible – alternative that problems in the papers it audited had resulted from the same kinds of error as the 2018 paper that had been investigated and cleared of plagiarism. The academics The Times spoke to said that "the cumulative impact is pretty damning, even if some individual examples might have more innocent explanations in terms of sloppy work or coincidence"; that "the studies seemed to show signs of fabrication… which is far worse than plagiarism"; and "I can't think of any alternative explanations of this… but maybe I just don't have a good enough imagination". In contrast, Professor Colin Talbot, a Research Associate at Cambridge University's Judge Business School and...
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  Green Party Split Over Iran as Members Push to Oppose IRGC Ban and Sanctions 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 'Proscription as a Political Weapon' UK Sent Top Security Chief to Trump's Left-Wing Crackdown Summit 'Why Can't We Name All the Bad Actors?' The Undemocratic Power Grab at the Heart of Restore Britain The Campaign Behind It 'A Cap on Donations Is Not Anti-Union — It Is Anti-Oligarchy' Senior Backer Speaks Up holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Reform UK Donations Overwhelmingly Have Overseas or Tax-Haven Ties Police Contradict Reform Council Over Claim Town Centres are 'Unsafe' Due to Asylum Seekers Reform's £645,000 'Ghost' Pollster Raft of Senior Reform Councillors Fail to Declare Interests Reform's First 100 Days in Norfolk: 'Flag Fights, Resignations, Broken Promises' Gold Firm That Employs Nigel Farage Predicts Unrest and Violence Under a Reform Government Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 10.09.2026 22min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The Green Party of England and Wales is at loggerheads over how to respond to the war in Iran, with a well-organised campaign calling for an end to economic sanctions on the regime and opposition to the designation of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign state-backed threat. Two competing motions on Iran are being debated ahead of the party's autumn conference. One, A93, has 106 named backers on the Green Party members' portal and is supported by Greens for Palestine. It calls on the British Government to "pursue diplomatic normalisation with Iran", to "campaign for the lifting of broad-based economic sanctions" and to "oppose the proscription or designation of Iranian state institutions, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)" on the grounds that "such measures are counterproductive, undermine diplomacy, close channels for engagement, and reduce opportunities for mediation and peacebuilding". Since the Green Party's conference is sovereign and binding, passing it would bring party policy into conflict with the position of most of its MPs. Four Green MPs recently backed a Liberal Democrat amendment calling for the IRGC to be banned more quickly than under the Government's own plans. 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 amendment, which fell, would have required the Home Secretary to bring forward regulations designating the IRGC as a state threat within one month of the Act passing, but it was defeated. Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion), Carla Denyer (Bristol Central, by proxy), Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) and Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) backed the push. Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) has no vote recorded. The anti-proscription motion was tightened on 7 July to oppose the designation mechanism specifically. Six days later, on 13 July, the Government designated the IRGC as a state threat and banned support for the group. The motion contains no reference to IRGC activity in the UK. Several British-Iranians appear to back the motion, with one writing on the members' forum that relatives cannot obtain important medicines under Western sanctions. The Government accuses IRGC proxies of targeting dissident journalists on British soil and supporting attacks on Jewish communities, including the arson attack on Jewish community ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March. Against that motion sits A99, "Justice, Not War, For Iran", written by British-Iranian members. It opposes US and Israeli military action while calling for Magnitsky-style sanctions on named individuals and to "financially proscribe" the IRGC. Incorporating concerns from some members about free speech, it also backs repealing "s11-13 of the Terrorism Act and the National Security Act" to "protect freedom of speech and Association in the UK", in a nod to members in prison or facing court for allegedly supporting the banned group Palestine Action. It has, at the time of writing, 55 supporters against A93's 106. Backers of A99 cite a figure from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) of more than 53,000 arrests made by the Iranian state in January alone, including hundreds of children. On 21 January 2026, Iran's own Supreme Council of National Security issued a statement saying 3,117 people were killed during protests against the regime. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES A93's proposer, Dr Ashok Kumar, did not answer specific questions from this outlet, including whether he believes the IRGC has directed or supported attacks on UK soil. But he said in a statement: "Britain has no business lecturing anyone about violence in t...
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  Voter ID Has Damaged Trust in UK Elections, Study Finds 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 Lasting Damage to Trust 'A Cap on Donations Is Not Anti-Union — It Is Anti-Oligarchy' Calls for Vouching holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Reform UK Donations Overwhelmingly Have Overseas or Tax-Haven Ties Police Contradict Reform Council Over Claim Town Centres are 'Unsafe' Due to Asylum Seekers Reform's £645,000 'Ghost' Pollster Raft of Senior Reform Councillors Fail to Declare Interests Reform's First 100 Days in Norfolk: 'Flag Fights, Resignations, Broken Promises' Gold Firm That Employs Nigel Farage Predicts Unrest and Violence Under a Reform Government Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 10.09.2026 12min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Mandatory voter ID damages trust in elections far more than it improves it, a new study suggests. Academics at Goldsmiths, University of London, conducted 1,000 survey interviews at polling stations across elections held in the UK between 19 October 2023 and 1 May 2025, finding that around 2–3% of voters who turned up were unable to vote. Of those who could vote, many knew of others who were not attending because they were aware they lacked the required ID proof, according to the research. And only 13% of all respondents said the voter ID rules had increased their trust in elections whilst 35% stated it had decreased their trust in elections, citing the fact that so many had been excluded. The policy was introduced by the Conservative Government in 2022 – on the explicit premise it would increase trust in the integrity of elections. Previous research found that the introduction of the new voter ID policy "prevented at least 16,000 voters from casting their ballots at polling stations at the 2024 general election, with many more of the estimated 2.1 million voters who did not own acceptable ID deciding not to participate due to the new regulations," the authors noted. 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. And the problem the law was designed to prevent, 'personation', saw only seven convicted cases between the years of 2010 and 2022. The authors identified six most at-risk groups from the policy: under-25s, low-income individuals, eligible immigrant voters facing language and documentation barriers, those with gender/sexuality/marital status issues, those who were neurodiverse, and those with disabilities. A separate study from academics Toby James and Alistair Clark had highlighted the low levels of attempted personation at two elections. Their survey of poll workers found that only 0.6% of those surveyed suspected a case of electoral fraud on the day, and only 3.9% said they had a person asking to vote whose identity they were unsure of. The new Goldsmiths research also points to a 2024 Fieldhouse et al. study, based on the British Election Study between May 2023 and July 2024, identifying that 'at the time of the 2023 and 2024 local elections in England, approximately one in twenty electors did not own any recognized voter identification, and this was concentrated in poorer and less educated groups and among supporters of left-leaning political parties'. Former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has, since the policy was introduced, admitted it was a form of "gerrymandering" to try and suppress the non-Conservative vote. However, he noted that it may have backfired as many older voters were disenfranchised. Voters in Scotland, the North-East, North-West, and West Midlands were the least likely to own appropriate ID, and those in London and the East of England the most likely to. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES Worryingly, the Fieldhouse et al. study also found that almost four times as many voters did not even attempt to vote due to the new regulations (1.9% in May 2023 elections) than those who were turned away at polling stations (0.5%). The independent Electoral Commission found in its own interim analysis a higher figure, of approximately 4% of people who did not vote in the elections citing the photo ID requirements as the reason why. "Evidence collected on polling day by Democracy Volunteers, the UK's largest election observation group, showed that in May 2023 and the 2024 general election, those turned away were disproportionally likely to be 'non-white passing', comprising 53% and 47% of turnaways respectively," the Golds...
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  Reform UK Donations Overwhelmingly Have Overseas or Tax-Haven Ties 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 Pressure For A Donations Cap 'A Cap on Donations Is Not Anti-Union — It Is Anti-Oligarchy' Alleged Plot Reform UK: Q2 2026 donations with offshore or overseas links holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED 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 Police Contradict Reform Council Over Claim Town Centres are 'Unsafe' Due to Asylum Seekers Reform's £645,000 'Ghost' Pollster Raft of Senior Reform Councillors Fail to Declare Interests Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 10.09.2026 16min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen In last week's Channel 4 News and Verbatim exposé, which filmed senior Reform figures apparently encouraging foreign donations, the party's head of policy, James Orr, was caught on camera saying: "we just don't have British resident donors." New Byline Times scrutiny of Reform's declared donations tests that claim against the record. Of the £17.09 million in donations and public funds recorded by the Electoral Commission for the second quarter (Q2) of 2026, Reform UK accounted for nearly a third – some £5.4 million, more than any other party. Of that £5.4 million, just over 87% by value came from donors with links – through business interests or personal residence – to tax havens and comparable low-tax jurisdictions, or from people and companies based abroad. There is no suggestion of law-breaking through these donations. Donors with tax-haven and offshore links alone account for 83% of Reform's Q2 income. A further handful of companies whose controlling shareholders or owners are based overseas takes the total to 87%. Some of those donors appear in the Offshore Leaks database maintained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which holds records on more than 810,000 offshore companies, foundations and trusts drawn from the Pandora Papers, Paradise Papers, Bahamas Leaks, Panama Papers and Offshore Leaks investigations into people linked to using offshore entities. Inclusion in the database is not in itself an indication of wrongdoing, and offshore structures are used for purposes other than minimising tax bills. 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. Among those featured, and the individual comprising the lion's share of Reform's Q2 income is Ben Delo, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, who gave £4 million across two donations in April and May. Delo, who was convicted in the United States over anti-money-laundering failures at BitMEX and later pardoned by Donald Trump, had already given the party a substantial sum in the first quarter of 2026. The two tranches make him Reform's second most generous donor since 2019, behind fellow crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. Delo is unlikely to be caught by the Government's £100,000 annual cap on donations from overseas voters, as he is reportedly in the process of moving back to the UK after a decade resident in Hong Kong. Reform's second-largest donor in the quarter was the multi-millionaire businessman Bassim Haidar, who gave £192,000 between April and June, taking his total contributions to the party to nearly £700,000. Haidar's nationality is listed as Irish at Companies House. He told the Telegraph in November 2024 that he had left Britain over what he described as a punitive tax regime, and that he would split his time between Greece and Dubai. He later told Byline Times that he planned to leave "sometime in the future, not determined yet" – and he remains listed at a London address and on the UK electoral register, the condition that makes his donations permissible in the first place. Reform in Q2 also declared £14,157 from 'Investors in Private Capital Limited', which is ultimately owned by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. The company previously donated £100,000 to Reform in 2025. Two further corporate donors to have contributed this quarter have offshore parentage or dealings: BMJ Waste Ltd, which donated £50,000, is ultimately owned by a firm based in Cyprus, and Greybull Capital, which donated a further £14,000, has made use of holding companies in Jersey, though the firm says it has paid its UK tax. Greybull al...
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  'Israel's Shrill Attack on Ed Miliband Exposes Its Weakness' Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Israel's 'Grotesque' Detention of Palestinian Bodies Is Intended to Silence and 'Traumatise Families' ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE 09.09.2026 10min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen I listened with increasing outrage and disbelief as a series of Israeli figures, including the country's Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, accused the British Government of imposing trade restrictions on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank for purely domestic political reasons. They alleged that the British Government's action is nothing more than virtue signalling, in order to appease the Labour Party's left wing in the run-up to the party's annual conference, to fend off an electoral challenge from the Green Party, and to win the support of pro-Palestinian voters, in the upcoming by-election in Keir Starmer's old seat of Holborn and St Pancras. The charge is ludicrous on its surface, given that the UK was taking action in concert with eleven other countries, who presumably weren't at all motivated by concern for UK electoral politics. It's also deeply insulting, since it implies that the British Government has become so shallow that it is willing to take a decision of serious strategic importance for purely trivial domestic reasons. But, most of all, it is nakedly hypocritical, because for decades the UK, far from bending the knee to its most progressive and pro-Palestinian voters, has actually repeatedly gone out of its way to appease pro-Israeli groups, and tacitly turned a blind eye to Israeli actions which would have earned far more robust Government censure, had they been committed by almost any other country. I know of what I speak. In the late-1990s, I was the head of the Middle East Peace Process section in the UK Foreign Office, charged with overseeing efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including through trying to establish a two state solution. The big challenge of the time was to secure successful implementation of the Wye River Memorandum, an agreement brokered by President Bill Clinton in October 1998, requiring steady Israeli withdrawal from areas of the West Bank in return for stepped up security cooperation by the Palestinians to clamp down on terrorism. The deal quickly began to unravel, as both sides accused the other of failing to deliver on their commitments. It eventually collapsed altogether when right-wing opposition in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, including elements of Prime Minister Netanyahu's own coalition, forced the dissolution of the Government. Though both parties bore some responsibility for the agreement's failure, it was always a lopsided arrangement, because it imposed the most stringent requirements on the Palestinians, and failed to address many of their fundamental concerns, such as the right of return, or control of land and water in the West Bank. Many suspect Prime Minister Netanyahu never had any intention of allowing the agreement to succeed – a suspicion borne out by his boast years later that he had single-handedly destroyed the Oslo Accords, and his many actions since then to expand settlements in the West Bank. Since the October 7 attacks, the number of Palestinian bodies held by Israeli state incommunicado has soared Byline Times Team Yet, whenever we in the Foreign Office tried to get Downing Street to sign off on statements urging Israel to comply with its commitments, or criticising its breaches of the Agreement, we were repeatedly rebuffed by the team around the-then Prime Minister Tony Blair. We were always being told that it would not be "helpful", or was "not the right time"; or that "private engagement would be more productive." No such restrictions were imposed on our suggestions for public statements concerning alleged Palestinian shortcomings. In the mid-2000s, I was head of the Foreign Office's Human Rights and Democracy Department, charged with overseeing UK policy on human rights abuses worldwide. Again, there was the same reluctance by British political leaders to publicly criticise Israel, even in the face of persistent...
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  'A Cap on Donations Is Not Anti-Union — It Is Anti-Oligarchy' 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 An Arms Race for Big Money The Union Question holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Police Contradict Reform Council Over Claim Town Centres are 'Unsafe' Due to Asylum Seekers Reform's £645,000 'Ghost' Pollster Raft of Senior Reform Councillors Fail to Declare Interests Reform's First 100 Days in Norfolk: 'Flag Fights, Resignations, Broken Promises' Gold Firm That Employs Nigel Farage Predicts Unrest and Violence Under a Reform Government Wine, Vapes And 'Woke Mental Health' Jibes: Leaked Emails Expose Reform Council Meltdown Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 08.09.2026 9min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen At what point do we stop asking politicians nicely? New Electoral Commission figures show political parties accepted £14.2 million in donations excluding public funds between April and June this year, compared with £8.2 million during the same period last year. That is a staggering 74% increase in a single year. And look at the sums involved. Between April and June alone, crypto billionaire Ben Delo gave another £4 million to Reform UK, having already given the party £4 million in January. Gary Lubner and Lord David Sainsbury each gave £650,000 to Labour, while entrepreneur Ali Mosawi gave £550,000. Overall, Reform received £5.3 million in donations excluding public funds in just three months, Labour £3.6 million and the Conservatives £2.8 million. These are astonishing sums, and the timing could hardly be more striking. Coming one day after the Government finally acknowledged that domestic mega-donations are a problem and promised to tackle them "at pace", we learn that £14.2 million poured into political parties in a single quarter, up 74% on the same period last year. Big money in British politics isn't slowing down while Westminster works out what to do about it. It is accelerating. 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. These are not normal political donations. They are sums that bear almost no relationship to the financial reality experienced by the overwhelming majority of people in this country. We know Britain is facing a cost-of-living crisis. People are struggling with mortgages, rents, food and energy bills. Yet we maintain a political system in which the wealthiest people can exercise vastly more financial influence over our political parties than ordinary citizens could ever hope to. And guess what? They don't necessarily have the same interests. Someone worrying about their energy bill cannot donate £1 million, £4 million or £10 million to a political party. The tiny number of people who can inhabit a very different economic world, with potentially very different interests on tax, wealth, property, regulation and public spending. If you can't afford the cost of living, you definitely can't afford the cost of politics. The public gets it. Fair Vote UK polling found that 92% of voters support some form of cap on political donations. But these figures reveal something else too. British politics is becoming an arms race for big money. When one party raises millions from mega-donors, its opponents face pressure to find wealthy donors of their own. Each party can justify accepting enormous cheques because the other side is doing it. Nobody wants to disarm first. The result is a political system becoming increasingly dependent on a tiny group of people rich enough to bankroll it. That is precisely why voluntary restraint will never solve this. We need rules that apply to everyone. And the events of the past few days have shown just how urgent the wider question of political money has become. Reform UK is facing serious allegations following an undercover investigation that senior figures discussed ways an overseas backer could fund polling for the party and potentially route a £500,000 donation through a UK-based intermediary. Reform denies wrongdoing and says it has taken no illegal money. Two senior figures have stepped down while the party investigates, and the allegations are being considered by the Electoral Commission and police. Whatever those investigations ultimately conclude, the episode exposes the vulnerability of a political system awash with big money. Voters should not have to wonder who is really pay...
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  Key UK Nuclear Deterrent Link Destroyed Over Yorkshire Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system The Balloon Goes Up The Seeds of Sunflower 08.09.2026 15min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Britain's sole emergency communications link for sending nuclear retaliation orders to Trident missile submarines has been destroyed in a spectacular disaster unwittingly observed by hundreds of Yorkshire residents and passers-by. During a trial on Friday, the system was seen and filmed breaking up over Topcliffe, north of York, in clear view of travellers on the nearby A1 motorway. The emergency system, called Low Frequency Fall Back or LFFB and codenamed SUNFLOWER, used a "blimp" style tethered balloon or aerostat (illustrated) to lift a 1,500 metre long radio antenna. According to publicly available Army journals, Low Frequency Fall Back "was brought into service in 2003 to provide a high-powered LF radio system designed to operate through the atmospherically harsh conditions of a post-nuclear strike against the UK." While being flown on Friday, the balloon was observed suddenly to start deflating, triggering the catastrophic destruction sequence seen below. The Ministry of Defence refused to answer a question from Byline Times as to whether hostile power "hybrid warfare" is suspected of bringing down the balloon. A spokesperson also refused to say whether debris has been recovered, or whether service personnel or others have been injured. On Friday 4 September, strong gusty winds reported to exceed 50 miles an hour affected parts of the Pennines and Yorkshire, bringing down a tree in one area. Despite the weather news, the balloon was launched. Disaster struck at about 2.30 pm. A succession of images and videos posted to social media show its destruction in graphic detail (see panel). Members of an active Facebook group, North Yorkshire Weather Updates, posted notes and video records. As multiple watchers' cameras panned and zoomed in, showing wind pressure, the balloon and tail fins appeared partially deflated, implying that its skin and gas balloon had been ruptured. The balloon began to spin on its tether, almost plunging into the ground in one image. Then the tether, which was also the emergency radio antenna, snapped. At first, the top part of the aerial, called a corona ring, remained attached. Then it appears to have fallen off. About half an hour later, around 3 pm, the balloon was photographed still spinning and inflated while rapidly ascending over Thirsk. Over the next four hours, it appears to have continued to climb while being blown 12 miles east, finally exploding at an unknown high altitude over the edge of the North York Moors. Another Facebook user recorded the balloon wreckage falling into a farmer's field near Ampleforth. After apparent puncturing, images show the balloon drifting east until the wreckage fell near Ampleforth (Facebook North Yorkshire Weather Updates group) Available video does not show what caused the balloon to start deflating at about 2 pm on Friday. Its sudden destruction comes at the end of the week that NATO, Germany and the UK accused Russia of explosive drone attacks on Leipzig airport, and the UK Cabinet announced restarting Britain's "war book" emergency plans, previously abandoned in 2004. According to a source with direct knowledge of Trident launch control procedures, speaking off the record, national fire control messages are sent by the Cabinet Office and naval headquarters twice a week, using VLF (very low frequency) radio, and following a two-person rule throughout. At the receiving end, only the submarine's weapons officer and their deputy are then permitted to open the safe containing decoding equipment and firing keys. If any other crew or the captain were to attempt to open the safe, marine guards are posted to disable them using baseball bats. "The balloon would only be needed if all other failsafes have broken or been destroyed", the source added. "Testing is to find the weak link in rehearsal – not on the day of the crisis." The primary Cabinet O...
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  The Undemocratic Power Grab at the Heart of Restore Britain 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 Which Rulebook Rules? Don't miss a story Where Power Lies Who Is Really Bankrolling Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain Inside Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain With Neo-Nazis, Reform Defectors and Associated Rogues Toothless AGMs and Branches holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Police Contradict Reform Council Over Claim Town Centres are 'Unsafe' Due to Asylum Seekers Reform's £645,000 'Ghost' Pollster Raft of Senior Reform Councillors Fail to Declare Interests Reform's First 100 Days in Norfolk: 'Flag Fights, Resignations, Broken Promises' Gold Firm That Employs Nigel Farage Predicts Unrest and Violence Under a Reform Government Wine, Vapes And 'Woke Mental Health' Jibes: Leaked Emails Expose Reform Council Meltdown Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 08.09.2026 14min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Restore Britain's pitch to would-be members is clear. If you believe in "free speech, and direct democracy — you're in the right place." Unfortunately, that does not seem to apply to the running of the party itself. Former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe's party is now consistently hovering around 3% in the polls. That is substantial for a party that was only formally registered this March. In the Greater Manchester mayoral race it was biting at the heels of the Greens, securing nearly 9% of the vote. The far-right upstart — which pushes for mass deportations, the return of the death penalty, burqa bans, and to "restore Christian values" — can no longer be dismissed as a mere social media trend. Even if X owner Elon Musk has played a major role in amplifying it. But few have looked under the bonnet. How does Restore actually operate? Who is in control? Byline Times has got hold of Restore Britain's constitution and other founding documents filed with the Electoral Commission, until recently unpublished and unseen. Set alongside legal filings at Companies House, they show what kind of operation this is. 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. Let's start with the company itself. Restore Britain Ltd's certificate of incorporation, dated 12 June 2025, records it as a private company limited by shares. That is an unusual arrangement for a party, and the kind of set-up Reform UK had before it was "democratised" in 2025, as Nigel Farage would have it. It is also the kind of arrangement Lowe himself appeared to criticise in Reform, branding it a party "led by the Messiah". The company has issued one ordinary share ('£1 nominal'), carrying "full rights regarding voting, payment of dividends and distributions". It is held by the leader, founder and sole MP: Rupert Lowe. Lowe was registered as a Person with Significant Control from the start, on all three grounds available: he controls 75% or more of the shares, 75% or more of the voting rights, and the right to appoint or remove a majority of directors. That position remains live and unchanged today. The Companies House filings show Restore Britain Ltd is a company that Lowe owns outright. Which makes what happened next hard to explain. The Articles of Association — the rulebook governing how a company is run — are headed "Private Company Limited by Guarantee", as are the versions handed to the Electoral Commission. A special resolution signed on 28 March (and filed with CH on 16 May 2026), adopts them on that basis. A company cannot be both. There is no share capital in a guarantee company, and section 5 of the Companies Act 2006 bars a company limited by shares from converting into one limited by guarantee. So which is Restore? We asked. The party did not answer. The resolution is signed by one person: "Member Name: Liam Mark Porter". But the register shows only Rupert Lowe as the sole member — the legal term for the owner of the shares. He holds the single share, with no transfer or fresh allotment recorded since. Porter is a director, but not a corporate 'member'. On the face of it, the resolution adopting the current Articles was signed by someone who does not appear entitled to pass it. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES There are also two versions of the Articles in circulation. The set given to the Electoral Commission is headed "Adopted by Resolution of Members on 20 February 2026" — a date on which the company's only director was neither Lowe nor Porter. The set at Companies House is dated 28 March, and is more detailed: it adds a clause barring the company from distributing income to its ...
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  Andy Burnham Insists He Still Backs Electoral Reform After Amendment Blocked 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 Out of Scope Conservative and Reform Bid to Ban 'Foreign' Language Election Leaflets Defeated Polling and Party Pressure holding farage to account #reformUNCOVERED Police Contradict Reform Council Over Claim Town Centres are 'Unsafe' Due to Asylum Seekers Reform's £645,000 'Ghost' Pollster Raft of Senior Reform Councillors Fail to Declare Interests Reform's First 100 Days in Norfolk: 'Flag Fights, Resignations, Broken Promises' Gold Firm That Employs Nigel Farage Predicts Unrest and Violence Under a Reform Government Wine, Vapes And 'Woke Mental Health' Jibes: Leaked Emails Expose Reform Council Meltdown Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH 07.09.2026 12min

  Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The Government has insisted that Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues to support electoral reform – and has committed to meeting MPs to review proposals for change. The pledge came during the third reading of the Representation of the People Bill in the House of Commons on Wednesday evening. It followed an amendment, backed by 193 MPs across parties, being ruled out of scope by the Deputy Speaker. It was not called during the debate on the Government's flagship Representation of the People Bill. That's despite backers arguing it was supported by more MPs than any other amendment tabled in this Parliament. Ministers have instead offered talks on changing the voting system. Democracy Minister Florence Eshalomi told MPs that Andy Burnham "remains committed to electoral reform", while warning it was "premature to legislate now for one approach." She has offered to meet MPs from across the House to work up "a strong proposal" and discuss next steps. Fifteen MPs, eleven of them Labour, made the case for a National Commission on changing Westminster's First Past the Post voting system during the debate. Following pressure from Labour MPs and progressive opposition parties in the debate, Minister Eshalomi said: "The Government's priority is a politics that works for all people in all places, not some people in some places. The Prime Minister remains committed to electoral reform as a way of supporting that objective. 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. "However, we must be honest, this is a complex constitutional matter and it is premature to legislate now for one approach. I would be very happy to meet with many Members from across the House to hear their views, and look at how we can work on a strong proposal and discuss the next steps." Outside Parliament, activists and representatives from Make Votes Matter, Compass and Unlock Democracy gathered behind a banner reading "Wake Up Westminster" and triggered 34 alarm clocks simultaneously – representing the 34% vote share that delivered Labour a landslide majority in 2024. They were joined by Labour MP Clive Lewis. And on Thursday, representatives from Make Votes Matter and Compass were expected to deliver an open letter to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, signed by more than 20,000 people, calling for a National Commission on Electoral Reform to design a new voting system for the UK. Emma Harrison, CEO of Make Votes Matter, said: "Just last year, Andy Burnham described proportional representation as 'an idea whose time has come'. Now he has the opportunity to turn his longstanding commitment to fair votes into action. "Our current voting system leaves millions without a voice in Parliament and allows entire communities to be ignored by Westminster. We already know that the Prime Minister is able to talk the talk: now he needs to show courage where it matters and actively push for this much needed change." Speaking at last September's Labour Conference, Burnham said: "There's nothing more unstoppable, is there, than an idea whose time has come. And PR's time has definitely come… I'm here to endorse the call of Labour for a New Democracy for a National Commission to be set up in this parliament — and a manifesto commitment to a system of proportional representation to be introduced into Westminster elections in the next parliament." SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES The amendment, tabled by Labour's Alex Sobel MP as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections, was ruled out of scope of the Bill and not put to a vote. It had been signed by 193 MPs over its lifeti...