Reminder that the Tories believe any non-British person who commits more than a minor parking or traffic offence should be automatically deported. They “believe in second chances”, apparently, but only for literal Nazis.

Kemi Badenoch defends selection of man jailed for harassing Jewish MP in council election – as it happened

Conservative leader tells press she stands by decision to select Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a candidate for local election in Somerset

theguardian.com

From a report on the SpaceX moon crash... The same global fascist billionaire tech-bros who deny and hasten climate change are simultaneously blocking what they believe to be their own future escape plan of "colonising Mars", polluting even the space around Earth with their garbage?

Keeping Mahmood and McFadden - the two most arch Starmerite-McSweeneyite ministers - in post, while giving big jobs to Cooper, Streeting, et al., suggests no real change of course. The dominant ideology remains unchanged, so Burnham will not be ending "40 years of neoliberalism" but continuing it.

I'm old enough to remember when a sitting Labour MP, Jo Cox, was shot and stabbed to death by a white supremacist for her pro-remain stance on the Brexit referendum, and a few days later Farage hailed the leave victory as having been won "without a single bullet being fired".

Is there a more apt summary of the Starmer-Mahmood years than "expressing a positive opinion will now be an offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison"? The IRGC and GRU are doubtless terrible state forces doing terrible state crimes but how does more UK state authoritarianism address that?

EXCLUSIVE: How one racist tweet about a hotel housing asylum seekers set in motion fascist protests, a government crackdown on couriers, and the eviction of the hotel's residents. www.vashtimedia.com/fascists-v-t...

Fascists v the Thistle

The butterfly effect of one anti-migrant tweet.

vashtimedia.com

We had an in-depth look at the misinformation targeting City of Sanctuary last summer. How it spread from the mainstream to the online far right, and how the charity was inundated with horrific threats. This is part of a worrying and growing trend. www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

How migrant charity City of Sanctuary was targeted by the far right

City of Sanctuary promotes compassion for asylum seekers and refugees. It has met a torrent of rightwing hate and misinformation

thebureauinvestigates.com

Jettisoning Starmer and Farage - a true pair of reactionaries - from frontline politics within a matter of weeks feels like a win. It's certainly an opportunity. But it will take huge effort from civil society and social movements to ensure that what comes next is better rather than worse.

Where do I sign up??

I bought an old 35mm SLR and started taking pictures on film for the first time in about 20 years. It's not only radically different and more fun than a phone but also shows that resolution does not equal "quality". Exhibit A: lad who guards a tiny farm in a hamlet on a hill in Umbria.

The fact that deportation has become the default expected outcome for anyone convicted of a serious offence in the UK who has any migration background is not a good thing, actually. It's one of the many points where an utterly toxic, racist political consensus has been reached among major parties.

From precarious post-92s to research-intensive Russell Group unis, higher education is under attack. Many thousands of highly qualified workers left unemployed. Urgently-needed subjects for a more humane society treated as superfluous and scrapped altogether. Government watches it all burn, shrugs.

Laleh Khalili@lalehkhalili.bsky.social · last mo.

These are the numbers being cut from Humanities and Social Sciences at Exeter:

The grift goes on. Whether MAGA folk in the US or Farage and Tommy followers in the UK, supporters of the new far right think their wins mean "owning" the libs and the left. In reality they are invariably being owned and taken for a ride by their own leaders. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Trump made more than $1bn from crypto in first year back in office

The president's crypto income far outpaces his earnings from real estate and Trump-themed items such as watches.

bbc.co.uk

The grift goes on. Whether MAGA folk in the US or Farage and Tommy followers in the UK, supporters of the new far right think their wins mean "owning" the libs and the left. In reality they are invariably being owned and taken for a ride by their own leaders. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Trump made more than $1bn from crypto in first year back in office

The president's crypto income far outpaces his earnings from real estate and Trump-themed items such as watches.

bbc.co.uk

Princeton University scientists bought and paid for by BP came up with bullshit "carbon capture and storage" that all the oil companies use to fob off carbon limits. www.propublica.org/article/wedg...

How BP Execs Influenced a Climate Study That Shaped a Generation of Global Policy

BP sponsored an elite Princeton research center to address the climate problem without getting off fossil fuels. Its key work, a paper known as “Wedges,” guided climate discourse for a generation.

propublica.org

Exactly one week ago Starmer's spokesperson promised "no new major policy or spending commitments" before he leaves office. He seems not to have got his own memo on this. Or he's actually *addicted* to u-turns and just couldn't resist squeezing a few more in before he leaves, just for the thrill?

Terrible news: the Court of Appeal has just ruled that the Government’s ban on Palestine Action is lawful. PA is now likely to lodge an appeal before the Supreme Court. So the mass arrests of peaceful people sitting with cardboard signs will continue. Because that is what terrorism looks like ...

Worth reading this to understand that the UK's recent press regulator has views identical to openly white supremacist perspectives on "racial self-interest". www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...

GB News critics want to limit free speech to ‘liberal, Islington consensus’, Grade says

Former Ofcom chair says he welcomed arrival of rightwing news channel five years ago in name of ‘plurality’

theguardian.com

In order for the public taboo on overt racism to erode you need to have removed huge amounts of the public taboo on implicit racism. You need people saying "It's not racist to ask (reworded sanitised version of racist views)"

For this sort of thing to happen, you need an environment where it is at least tolerated and very often celebrated. You need racist outbursts to be written up as "reasonable issues". You need politicians to normalise hatred and intolerance.

Something obvious but worth repeating. A bunch of thugs didn't wake up one morning and think "I've decided to be violent against minorities today". A single politician or single party didn't go on Twitter and say "be violent against minorities today" and a bunch of people went "OK"

In Doppelganger, @naomiaklein.bsky.social shows how white supremacists assume the victimhood of those they oppress, presenting the evils they do as evils done to them. In Britain, where black people are 7 times more likely than white people to die after police restraint, this is what we are seeing.

A challenge for Reform will be the fact that while many Brits are seemingly on board with racism and authoritarianism, the misogynistic, anti-abortion, pro-gun stuff will just alienate voters bc unlike the US there is no organised Christian Right to buy it. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Carol Vorderman demands apology from Reform candidate over ‘disgusting comments’

Broadcaster describes Robert Kenyon, who is standing in Makerfield byelection, as a misogynist and a ‘cowardly man’

theguardian.com

Another investigation that confirms the pattern of extreme pushbacks at the EU external borders. This time, a Greek border guard allegedly admitted to helping develop a system of forcing asylum applicants in illegal “pushback” operations in exchange for asylum papers.

‘Speak English?’ Greek Police Enlist Asylum Seekers in Illegal Pushbacks

Two asylum seekers tell of their 100-day ordeal helping Greek border guards push refugees and migrants back over the Evros river into Turkey, in return for their own free passage.

balkaninsight.com

This headline is fuel for the right-wing anti-migrant reaction machine, but the article reveals the employer knowingly brought her to the UK under a visitor visa to employ her, then denied her a work permit—and most importantly!—refused to pay her any wages. This looks approximate to modern slavery

Another full-fledged Nazi at my tram stop today, in a Thor Steinar T-shirt. It’s wild how quickly their presence has become normal in my neighbourhood. But when you see that the far-right are polling second in Berlin, attracting nearly one in five voters, it’s much less of a surprise.

Musa Okwonga@okwonga.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Was next to a Nazi couple on my local tram this morning, must have been in their early seventies. The guy was wearing a Thor Steinar jacket (Google it, if you have time) with a huge logo on the collar. The signs of these things are always there, long in advance. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

It's chilling to watch people trying to rip up the laws that protect all of us from torture. Human rights law protects every single one of us. Efforts to undo it in order to create Rwanda-plan-style attacks on the most vulnerable risk harming us all. www.theguardian.com/law/2026/may...

European ministers to discuss sending rejected asylum seekers to third-country hubs

Exclusive: Council of Europe to meet in Moldova on Friday, with human rights body expected to stress countries’ right to control borders Europe live – latest updates

theguardian.com

It's wild how quickly this practice has become the new normal. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

13 men killed by US military boat strikes identified: ‘These were flesh-and-blood people’

All victims of US strikes in eastern Pacific and the Caribbean identified so far came from extremely poor communities

theguardian.com

um, labour is already in power and that's the problem?

I see we have arrived at the "It's time to uncancel Enoch Powell" stage of the discourse. Rehabilitating the reputation of one of Britain's most notoriously racist politicians. When can we make racists ashamed again? archive.md/bqKZF