Pretending that substantially lower migration is cost-free is no more honest than pretending migration has no consequences, writes Jonathan Portes

The smell of BS in the morning…. Farage is clearly very worried about this £5m bung from Harborne. And rightly so - British voters really don’t like big money in politics, Reform voters as much as anyone So Farage is trying everything to distract from the crypto bros bankrolling Reform.

By the time he was announced as Reform UK's candidate against Andy Burnham in the #Makerfield by-election, Robert Kenyon's previous Reform UK X account had been mysteriously suspended. We found the archive. 419 tweets. Here's what they reveal. 🧵 1/12 bylinetimes.com/2026/05/20/r...

Reform's candidate Robert Kenyon said abortion was a "cowardly act of murder" and implied that people falsely claimed to have been raped He said: “Don’t dole out the ‘what if someone is raped by their brother’ arguement... don’t want babies? Use contreception! [sic]” observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Publication day for the 10 year, totally rewritten, anniversary edition of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. arutherford.substack.com/p/a-brief-hi...

This cartoon by Ella Baron from the Guardian today actually made me well up a little. We will keep fighting. Together.

If this is what the Israeli authorities do to people the world is watching, imagine what they do to people with no voice and no visibility. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Thank you to @quietriotpod.bsky.social for having me on this week! We spoke about what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, and why now more than ever it is important that we use our voices to speak out. Listen below ⬇️

💥Our very first B-SIDE edition is OUT NOW with @laylamoran.bsky.social 🇵🇸- what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank? 🇮🇱- can resistance to Netanyahu come from within Israel? 🇺🇸- greening Philadelphia 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/79mW... 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q...

Nigel Farage took £50,000 from crypto firms then said he was "not aware" of the industry funding his party bylinetimes.com/2026/05/22/n...

This week's post: Why Labour's current disarray is ultimately the consequence of Osborne’s austerity mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2026/05/why-... The media's belief that 2010 austerity was necessary led to Corbyn's victory, which then led to Starmer's Blue Labour and their subsequent polling disaster

So a trans woman I know, almost 70, now has to use male toilets? Why? She had gender reassignment surgery in the 1980s and has been using women's toilets for 40 years. She has never been a threat to anyone. Will she be safe in men's toilets? Where's the law to protect her?

In today’s Russian papers: “nuclear muscle-flexing,” carrots and cabbages, “two scenarios” for Russia’s future and what a Russian singer said after getting an award from Vladimir Putin. #ReadingRussia

How the Trump administration lashed out at opponents across the board last week youtube.com/shorts/tpNav...

One deleted account was bad enough. Now a second. What else is Rob Kenyon hiding? And is this really the man Reform UK thinks is fit to represent the people of Makerfield in parliament? hopenothate.org.uk/2026/05/21/r...

Inaugural Lecture Klaxon! Our magnificent CTO Seb Bacon is a hero of the modern age, and now PROFESSOR Seb Bacon... Come to his inaugural lecture in Oxford! OpenSAFELY! OpenPrescribing! TrialsTracker! OpenCorporates! Open Code! Open Everything! www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2026/05... bacon.boutique

Just to be clear how little I’m exaggerating, in 2016, the UK Government actually advised trans people against travelling to certain US states due to the implementation of bathroom bans. @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social is now implementing those same bans across the UK. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-u...

New Swingometer! The Makerfield by-election: High risk, high return. I take a look at the seat on which this Parliament turns open.substack.com/pub/swingome...

💥 NEW SHOW & NEW FORMAT! We caught up OXWAB MP @laylamoran.bsky.social for TWO cracking episodes. Part ONE out now 👇 🚂- over budget, over time and under speed - why can't we deliver infrastructure at scale? 🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q... 🎧 open.spotify.com/episode/2YOe...

One Russian paper says Russia's “on verge of recession” & warns of “a large-scale bank liquidity crisis.” After Putin & Xi failed to reach a deal on the 'Power of Siberia 2' pipeline, another paper writes: “Chinese media ignored the topic of the gas pipeline.” #ReadingRussia

Latest data due tomorrow but your regular reminder: net migration is *plunging* without these plans being enacted.

It’s very hard to digest how the explicit antimuslim racism on display in the streets of London on Saturday is passing by with no consequences. Very hard not to feel like we’re regarded as second class citizens and fair game to be sacrificed on the alter of pacifying angry voters. Very hard & scary.

Just another day for our Israeli allies.

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Reading the Riot Act: Reform UK’s Makerfield By-Election Candidate During the Summer of Trouble The archive of Robert Kenyon’s suspended X account reveals intense activity after three children were murdered in Southport in 2024

I promised our analysis of the £5m gift to Nigel Farage would annoy everybody. The verdict? He probably doesn't owe any tax. Why? Because "campaigning for Brexit" isn't a taxable trade, and genuine gifts aren't income. But there are risks for him. Thread:

That America is now a kleptocracy is beyond dispute. That it's happening in broad daylight without serious pushback is beyond devastating. Where is the rule of law?

This is all too familiar. When I discussed Assad's horrors in Syria, people a bit like this called me a "warmonger". When I confronted apologists for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it was "US imperialist". Now, for lamenting antisemitism, it's "Zionist". In truth I'm against all forms of aggression.🧵

It's kind of wild to me that the only share buttons Gov.uk offers are for X and Facebook. After *everything*. It's even on Govt press releases excoriating Grok and social media abuse

THE INVISIBLE DOCTRINE w/ @georgemonbiot.bsky.social now has 200K+ views on our FREE Youtube link. Neoliberalism, do you know what it is? "This may be the most important documentary people ever watch.” - Martin Carr, martincar.co.uk www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR4e...

Nigel Farage’s claim that he paid for a £1.4mn house with his fee from a reality TV show has been challenged by corporate accounts that appear to show that the income remained on his company’s balance sheet after the property purchase. www.ft.com/content/88ce...

Police investigating ‘violent attack’ in Golders Green as antisemitic hate crime www.jewishnews.co.uk/police-inves... “They caught him, dragged him across the road, brutally beat him until he was close to losing consciousness. They tore his clothes, threw away his shoes and shouted abuse in Arabic"

In Saudi Arabia’s Khamis Mushait prison, 200 Ethiopian men are awaiting execution. Most were sentenced in mass trials without legal representation, according to Ethiopia’s Tigray Youth Affairs Bureau. 🧵1/5

In which we learn Sam Bowman doesn't seem to know what legally means.

Today marks Nakba Day, an annual day of remembrance to commemorate the expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians between 1947 and 1949 during the creation of the State of Israel and the year that followed.   Inea is a New Yorker and a Nakba survivor. She shared her story with us.

Immigration make Britain brilliant

“Until the end!” Day 535 of #GeorgiaProtests 📷 Droa

I hope this isn’t true. There are times when it’s more important to put country before party. This is one of them. Burnham’s longstanding commitment to a fairer voting system could transform our democracy & counter the dire threat of a Reform UK government elected on a minority of the vote

crucial context: Peter Mandelson was sacked from the first New Labour government for having a £373,000 *loan* (not a gift) from a Labour colleague (Geoffrey Robinson) to buy a house

💰 Extreme wealth is dangerous to our economy, society and our democracy. 🖥 Watch Danny Sriskandarajah from the New Economics Foundation on @zackpolanski.bsky.social Bold Politics podcast. ✅️ Only the Green Party will take on wealth and power to create a fair and just society: Join.greenparty.org.uk

Raise the Colours came back to force their flags on a bit of Birmingham which they know rejects them, to livestream the reaction Multiple reports of aggression towards local residents including injuring one with their cherry picker Police let them go! Hooligans & bullies wrapped in an England flag

🔴 Keir Starmer promised to crackdown on "Slapps" - abusive libel cases to silence journalists and critics Then Labour quietly dropped it We can reveal why: a three-year lobbying blitz by libel lawyers who've acted for Russian oligarchs, Epstein + more democracyforsale.substack.com/p/how-lawyer...

This is an extraordinary essay which really ought to have been published in a mainstream outlet. But please, share the hell out of it.

BREAKING: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage bought a £1.4 million property in cash shortly after receiving a £5m personal gift from billionaire donor Christopher Harborne, according to property records seen by Sky News.

Ant Middleton - who advocates on race/ancestry/faith making Sadiq Khan ineligible to be Mayor of London, banning Kemi Badenoch as a party leader or PM, barring Yusuf/Braverman as Home Secretary - may prove to be one of the more moderate speakers on Saturday! www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Y'days post: Why has Westminster politics become so dumb? mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2026/05/why-... The idea that policy debate should look at evidence went out of the window with the Brexit referendum in 2016: the first triumph of right wing populism in the UK.

I know there’s a lot going on with the Labour Party, but it is all in the bounds of democratic politics. This however, paid collusion between the leaders of two political parties in the run up to election, if true, is a scandal of staggering propositions

🚨A non-Westminster episode!😀🚨 Is the new government of Syria in league with the jihadists? I spoke to Kelly Kassis. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...

Holocaust denial, but the newspapers pretending to give a damn about antisemitism, The Times, Telegraph and Mail, haven't covered it because it's not about the Greens.