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...

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.

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.

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...

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

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

tbf this is one of the most consistent decisions this government has made, in line with both its total lack of moral and political principle, and its stubborn refusal to understand or even learn how politics works or what anyone actually wants

Where’s the fury about rightwing antisemitism? The newspapers that call out leftwing antisemitism publish antisemitic cartoons and champion politicians with a record of antisemitic statements. So who is holding *them* to account? This week’s column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

NEW: Our latest analysis shows the affordability crisis in private renting is now a national phenomenon. With rents rising by between 6 and 9% each year across Britain since the pandemic.

The thing about Starmerism, such as it is (Labour Togetherism might be more accurate), is that unlike even Blairism - which was underpinned by neoliberal Third Way ideology - it is based on the idea you can have policies without politics. It's devoid of all principles and therefore of coherence.

Palantir latest. Yes, their staff will have unrestricted access to raw patient data in England.

the PM says he knows people are unhappy at paying the price for a war in the Middle East "we are not involved in"

Even when Starmer acknowledges "unnecessary mistakes", there is a 0% chance he thinks that supporting Israel's genocide, attacking the right to asylum, proscribing Palestine Action, or threatening the right to protest are among them. Which makes it actually impossible for him to learn or change.

I’m genuinely not interested in reading knowing pieces and explainers on the difficulty of getting sprouts of hope to break through the soil of British politics from people who spent the better part of a decade thoroughly salting the earth while insisting there can be no other way.

Fellow Lewishamers: they're finally announcing our council results. So far 100% of the (four) seats announced have switched from Labour to Green. www.salamandernews.org/lewisham-ele...

"special relationship" update: the British Library categorises the Library of Congress as "inappropriate for use in a public area"

Labour is losing *seats* to Reform because it's losing *votes* to the Greens (not my analysis, John Curtice's). What chance they will pay attention to this fact and re-consider their strategy of adopting ever more far-right policies on immigration, asylum, protest, genocide? I'm guessing zero.

Update: took less than a day to be boiled away... www.cityam.com/treasury-rul...

OPPOSE TOMMY ROBINSON MOBILISE YOUR UNION BRANCH UNION COUNTERDEMO 16TH MAY, WESTMINSTER WhatsApp: whatsapp.com/channel/0029... Website: tuff.network Instagram: www.instagram.com/tuff.network/

It was obviously never about saving money... It was always about trying to out-far-right the far right in the hope of appealing to the 10% of the registered vote that's ideologically wedded to it and will never budge I think Labour has been pretty clear about it www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

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People are experiencing severe delays and understandable frustration due to the implementation of the #EES, but to learn what the real European "border nightmare" looks like, check out our new report, out today: www.refugee-action.org.uk/lockedoutloc...

NEW! Our new @refugeeaction.bsky.social report, "Locked Out and Locked Up", on systemic racism in UK asylum policy (as it is experienced by people seeking safety in the UK and northern France) is out today. Please read it and share widely. www.refugee-action.org.uk/lockedoutloc...

NEW! Our new @refugeeaction.bsky.social report, "Locked Out and Locked Up", on systemic racism in UK asylum policy (as it is experienced by people seeking safety in the UK and northern France) is out today. Please read it and share widely. www.refugee-action.org.uk/lockedoutloc...

The same Met police who claimed that only "around 50,000" people turned out against the far right, at a demo anyone present could plainly see numbered in the many hundreds of thousands? It's almost like they have an institutional, ideological commitment to the success of the far right...

The Greens won against Reform *in Kent* It's all up for grabs folks. The myth of Reform's inevitability is just that, a myth. They can be defeated.

This is really cool, properly curious reporting - about the neighbourhood I live in and the ward I've been campaigning in. Turns out Muslims care about more than Gaza and white people want more than managed decline with extra racism on top! Who knew? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

we have had successive uk goverments that hate refugees so much, they would rather they all die at sea than give them a chance to seek asylum.

Afrori books needs to sell 1000 books in April or they’ll have to close. afroribooks.co.uk

I spoke to Shelagh Fogarty yesterday about the people tragically killed in the Channel by UK-funded racial border violence. It's from 02:10:30 here: www.globalplayer.com/catchup/lbc/...

After the tragic and avoidable deaths of four more people seeking safety in the UK yesterday, I wrote this. The UK government chooses to fund suffering and death rather than safe routes. This is lethal racist border violence. www.lbc.co.uk/article/chan...

After the tragic and avoidable deaths of four more people seeking safety in the UK yesterday, I wrote this. The UK government chooses to fund suffering and death rather than safe routes. This is lethal racist border violence. www.lbc.co.uk/article/chan...

After more people lost their lives and loved ones crossing the channel, our Senior Research and Policy Officer @drbenwhitham.bsky.social was with @lbc.co.uk @shelaghfogarty.bsky.social to talk about how our government must act and open safe routes. Listen back: www.globalplayer.com/catchup/lbc/...

"The UK-France border is becoming ever more hostile in the name of 'deterrence', but that never works. "People come here to seek safety. We need safe routes for people to travel here, so we don't see the tragedy we've seen this morning of people losing their lives."

"All of these deaths are preventable through the creation of safe routes. "We're sending hundreds of millions of pounds to France to fund the policing operation there, and this policing operation includes the snatching of life vests from people.

The result of a year-long, cross-border research project with people seeking safety in the UK and France, mine and Haleemah Alaydi's new report for Refugee Action is out on Monday 13th April. I'll post more here then.

1️⃣ week to go. Join us on 28 March in Central London to march for love, hope + unity. Thousands across the country, walking together united. 📍Park Lane, 12pm All are welcome, including families. togetheralliance.org.uk/march

📣📣 1/ We’ve got big news: RAMFEL is now Refugee and Migrant Justice. What started as a small advice service in an East London church has grown into 1 of the UK’s largest providers of immigration advice & a leading national voice standing for the rights of migrants, refugees & people seeking asylum.

Having deliberately destroyed every single university in Gaza with the full support of the West the Zionist genocidaires (including the Epstein empire) are moving on to destroying universities in Lebanon. 🤢

Get this one to understand UK politics right now!

Halfway down the article, that critical fact so many Brits and the UK government have been only too happy to ignore when they are making money and dodging taxes, living it up in resorts built by enslaved labour, or selling weapons to be used in RSF atrocities in Sudan. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“Under the cover of an existential war against the Palestinians, Israel is accelerating measures that alter Jerusalem’s demographic composition, religious character and legal status” - UN experts warn against the irreversible ‘de-Palestinisation’ of Jerusalem www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

Dear Shabana, Let's clear some things up around migration and remember we're talking about people's lives.