"This entire process was never about me. It was never about any threat to the public, it was never about terrorism – a word used by your government to discredit people you oppress. It was always about Gaza, about what happens if you dare to speak up." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Starmer will chiefly be remembered for failing to stand up for Black and Brown people when they were attacked in their streets and homes, capitulating to rather than countering the politics of the far right when they mobilised at unprecedented scale, and furthering instead of undoing austerity.

If he's looking for a policy hated in equal measure by left-wing progressives, rights-focused centrist liberals, and right-wing conspiracy theorists, he may have hit his mark. But doubtless he and McSweeney have some tiny but apparently vital electoral segment in mind. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

As people are posting about Andy Burnham, here's a decade-old throwback on Labour neoliberalism. It partly aged badly in that I said Corbyn "according to the bookies – is by far the least likely to win" and the next week he went from 200-1 outsider to favourite! www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...

Between his racist attacks on London's mayor and all of multicultural, multiracial Europe, at the UN Trump also directly plagiarised Keir Starmer's own previous speech on "ending the failed experiment in open borders". Two men, one script, one political project.

Want to know how far-right views got mainstreamed to the point that we just had the biggest march organised by fascist and white supremacist groups in UK history? Exhibit A: Living conditions in asylum hotels are awful (some of which even reported in the article) but the BBC chose this headline.

So the fight against decline and division will be led by a PM who's spent his entire time in office waving flags, attacking refugees and anti-genocide protestors, snatching welfare from kids and disabled people, endorsing war crimes, and refusing to tax the rich? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

General strike in Italy for Palestine, here’s the amazing view from the top of Termini station in Rome. The people – not the government – stand for solidarity and justice (da Matteo Pucciarelli)

We recently had to close offices due to the far-right threat, and clearly are not alone as asylum orgs face even more intense hostility and abuse than usual. The UK desperately needs clear, anti-racist political narratives on migration to end the slide to fascism. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

As far as I can tell most of what are being reported as a given individual's "Charlie Kirk comments" - used to justify disciplining, sacking or silencing them - are actually comments about Donald Trump.

Spoke to @bigissue.com about how claiming scaling up Labour's "one in one out" policy 10-20x would be a "compassionate" approach to an asylum system is delusional. It would further undermine protections for modern slavery victims, and people would still need asylum. www.bigissue.com/news/social-...

"Whenever confronted with violent prejudice, Keir Starmer coughs, splutters and takes the coward’s way out. He either pretends not to see racism or panders to it" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

But what kind of political regime would designate antifascism "terrorist"? 🤔🤔🤔

No words.

"Completely different" except both love to scapegoat, criminalise and deport refugees, refuse to tax the wealthy as public services collapse, deny trans people's rights, snatch welfare from kids and disabled people, endorse thinly veiled white nationalist sentiment, do nothing on climate crisis...

The Dept. of Justice has removed a study showing that white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the U.S.

This week, two children died in the Channel. Ten days earlier the ex-Home Secretary suspended refugee family reunions. That means children have no safe way to reach refugee parents. It's hard to see how this will lead to anything other than more children being killed.

A racist goon like "tommy" could never have brought tens of thousands to the streets of London without years of official Conservative and Labour party policies (and affiliated media narratives) relentlessly centring far-right talking points and punching down at refugees. They created this.

A woman's rape is being treated by police as a "racially aggravated attack". The perpetrators reportedly told the woman during the attack: "You don't belong in this country, get out." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Since 5 July "more than 1,600 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act, including vicars, priests, doctors, former government advisers, army veterans, and many elderly and disabled people" - more people than the entire “war on terror” period since 2001 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Truly disgusting stuff, and re-confirms that this government are truly even worse than their predecessors on migration and asylum. Vicious, racist, cruel and cowardly policymaking to chase imagined votes they will never win. Unforgivable.

People’s homes are being stormed by far-right groups. The govt. Is saying nothing about how violence like this will not be tolerated. Where is Starmer’s “law and order” now? They’ve no control and we are moments away from someone being killed. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

“Analytic philosophy is in fact a tool of neoliberal governmentality” www.radicalphilosophy.com/wp-content/u...

Government plans to halve the ‘move on period’ for Refugees, reducing it to 28 days. 28 days to find a job, get a deposit, and find somewhere to live. Thousands of street homeless refugees by the time winter hits. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

"Stars - spectacular representations of living human beings - project this general banality into images of permitted roles. Specialists in apparent life, stars serve as superficial objects people can identify with to compensate for the fragmented productive specializations they actually live"

"Complicity" doesn't really cover US involvement in and responsibility for genocide in Gaza - under both the Biden and Trump admins - since by their own officials' accounts they have played a leading role, directly designing, commissioning and authorising war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“… in many cases, the children [being killed] were children of Hamas fighters, not children taking cover in places.” “Sorry, what did you just say?” “In many cases, the original number of casualties—“ “No, I meant the thing about who the children were.”

Labour have now put out a response to the Farage speech, in the name of Ellie Reeves - it’s all about the practicalities of deportation and detention. Suggests they’re just fine with his tone/language/the very dark turn this whole debate is taking.

Multi-ethnic working class area where I live: no flags. V.white middle class area where I grew up: flags everywhere The latter unlike the former has not been "forgotten by Westminster" or "left behind by globalisation". These people are mostly just racists. hopenothate.org.uk/2025/08/22/o...

‘What is striking about [Israel’s double strikes on Nasser hospital] is that each individual element – the targeting of a working hospital, of journalists and rescue workers, of civilian injured already under treatment – would be expected to draw accusations of a war crime in its own right.’

The UK remains absolutely determined to prove that "Children of Men" was a blueprint for government rather than a dire warning about our trajectory. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

On 30 October 2022, a man posted a tweet saying that Muslim women and children should be burned alive - the kind of tweet now being defended by mainstream politicians Shortly afterwards, he firebombed the Western Jet Foil facility in Dover www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crim...

We were among those closing offices due to the elevated far-right threat. One of the more disturbing aspects of this was how unsurprised many people were to hear it. The normalisation of the violent fascist threat to refugees and charities is incredibly dangerous. www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

The UK's tiny and historically ineffectual far-right groups - with new financial & strategic backing from US fascists - are successfully capitalising on five years of cowardly "mainstream" ruling-class politicians and media (Tory & Labour) blaming refugees for all the misery they themselves created.

This Labour government has backed a genocidal state as it relentlessly bombs, shoots and starves civilians, annihilates infrastructure, and steals land. It has enabled and legitimised racist "protests" targeting people seeking safety here. It has had people arrested en masse for political protest.

Racist tropes and abuse directed at people seeking asylum, indulged and appeased by the Labour government and actively encouraged and instigated by the Conservative and far-right opposition, are a threat to all people of colour in the UK, and ultimately to all hope for a more just and equal society.

People are angry & want politicians who'll articulate that anger. People also understand politics isn't a zero sum game & want politicians who'll fight for them Despite all the personal insults from the multimillionaire pitched against him, @zackpolanski.bsky.social did this on #GMB

That the Home Secretary thinks she can personally define what constitutes "legitimate" protest ("occasional stunts" only) and determine that anything falling outside of her definition has a "terrorism connection" is a disturbing insight into the authoritarian arrogance of this government.

Israel hasn't allowed a single aid truck from Oxfam or Save the Children into Gaza since March (thats when it broke the ceasefire)

The extent to which far-right racists and their interests have come to dominate and drive politics and policy in this country - thanks to capitulation, or more often active enabling, by mainstream political parties and media - is truly disturbing.

It is inherently absurd to proscribe a group as terrorists based on acts the public doesn't know about. Terrorism *by definition* involves violence intended to intimidate a civilian population. How can the target population be terrorised by acts they know nothing about? www.bbc.com/news/article...

The despicable treatment of people seeking safety in this country relies on a deranged fixation on channel crossings not only among cruel and cowardly politicians of both main parties but also supposedly serious media. Small boats account for <2% of UK immigration but about 98% of news.

Great piece by @francesryan.bsky.social which nails what’s particularly horrifying about the current outbreak of national racism: fascistic, white supremacist narratives have never gone away, but now they’re being endorsed, openly or through silence, by politicians from all the larger parties

The week in which it's going to be 34 degrees celsius would of course be the same one we are asked not to attend our air-conditioned offices due to an elevated far-right threat. It would be easy to only blame the fascists for all this, but the Labour government has played a huge enabling role.

From lynchings in the American South to the attacks on asylum hotels, allegations of sexual harassment and assault (often made by people who engage in exactly such offending) have long been used as a pretext for racist violence. But government is enabling this... www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"I am seeking clarification on how I—a student with Israeli citizenship—am allowed to speak about my government without violating these new policies."

Our chief exec is quoted here: "The vicious and relentless attacks on people seeking asylum from some politicians and sections of the media using age-old racist tropes and shoddy data must stop now" www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

New from Free Movement: Use of “deport first, appeal later” process expanded to 23 countries | Sonia Lenegan freemovement.org.uk/use-of-depor...

365 people arrested for opposing the UK government proscribing the non-violent Palestine Action group as terrorists. Labour’s legacy is this. Congrats to Starmer www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...