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Friday, October 9, 2026
52 minutes ago
The National Pulse
Analysis

Americans First: Why Trump Wants Foreign Students to Pay $70,000 to Work in the U.S.

The Trump administration has announced reforms to Optional Practical Training in a bid to prevent foreign students on temporary visas from remaining in the United States permanently and protect American workers.

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Explaining President Trump’s Proposal.

The Trump administration has proposed increasing the cost of Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows foreign students on temporary F-1 visas to work in the United States after completing their studies. Under the proposal, universities would face a $70,000 charge when they initially recommend an international student for OPT, followed by a $30,000 fee for subsequent training, including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) extensions. The current fee is roughly $500. The proposal aims to prevent abuse of the OPT system and protect American workers.

Do Foreign Students Contribute to the United States?

Foreign students provide American universities with revenue through tuition and living expenses, as well as through a research pipeline that starts in the university system. Last year, approximately 1.18 million international students studied at colleges and universities in the United States, generating an estimated $42.9 billion in economic activity, according to NAFSA (National Association of Foreign Student Advisers).

According to current estimates, roughly six percent of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees in the United States are awarded to foreign students. The proportion increases when it comes to graduate degrees, with just over half of all master’s degrees in the same field going to foreign students, as well as 38 percent of science and engineering doctorates. Research from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics shows that temporary visa holders earned 61 percent of doctorates in computer and information sciences, 54 percent of engineering doctorates, and 51 percent of mathematics and statistics doctorates in the United States in 2024.

This has long-term economic ramifications for the American job market, as approximately 37 percent of international students who graduate from U.S. universities remain in the country years later. Retention varies significantly by degree level, at roughly 18 percent for bachelor’s graduates, 43 percent for master’s graduates, and 80 percent for doctoral graduates, according to a report from the Aspen Institute’s Economic Strategy Group published last year.

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Comparisons With H-1B Visa Reform.

The Trump administration is aware that employers can obtain cheap foreign labor through the F-1 visa system, thereby circumventing the H-1B visa system, which is subject to an annual cap, among other restrictions. The H-1B system has been subject to various reforms by the Trump administration. Last year, President Donald J. Trump announced a $100,000 fee on H-1B workers to incentivize employers to hire Americans. This followed an anti-fraud investigation by Vice President JD Vance.

As such, the proposal to reform OPT is an extension of the Trump administration’s crackdown on H-1B visas. The proposal is also comparable to previous H-1B reform, as the Trump administration aims to use economic incentives to alter corporate decision-making. The measure reflects that, like American workers, American students face economic pressures from immigration, making F-1 reform an extension of the Trump administration’s America First philosophy.

What Does This Mean for American Graduates?

The proposal has sparked debate over whether sharply increasing employment costs would benefit American graduates or encourage international talent to go elsewhere. Significantly, making foreign graduates far more expensive to employ would give American graduates a stronger market position when competing for jobs, particularly where foreign workers and Americans have similar skills.

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The Trump administration has announced reforms to Optional Practical Training in a bid to prevent foreign students on temporary visas from remaining in the United States permanently and protect American workers.

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2 hours ago
The National Pulse
Analysis

KASSAM: A Farage Government Must Be Prepared to Defeat the Deep State on Day One.

A Reform UK party government under Nigel Farage will face an immediate attempt by the permanent bureaucracy to nullify the election result, and it must have the legal powers to fire participants ready before hospitals and police stations empty, The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam has warned.

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Speaking to former Prime Minister Liz Truss, Kassam said the scale of the bureaucracy’s reaction will depend on the size of any parliamentary majority. With a large enough bloc to pass legislation comfortably, a Farage government could move at once. Without one, he warned, the apparatus of state simply waits the elected officials out. “I imagine that, day one, you’re going to get sort of a mass slowdown or general strike” in the National Health Service (NHS) and other government entities, he said. “If Reform wins, you need to have legislation passed immediately that says if you participate in these sorts of things, you lose your jobs.”

Hospitals and police stations cannot be left understaffed, he argued, because civil servants have decided to make a political point after the public has already voted. The threat of dismissal would make many think twice. A minority government or a confidence-and-supply arrangement would be far harder to explain to voters, and Kassam has not ruled out Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives cutting a deal with Labour specifically to keep Reform away from the levers.

Kassam rejected the usual label for the permanent bureaucracy as “the Blob,” calling it “cartoonish.” Instead, he argued it should be called “the regime,” or something like “the Deep State,” as is now commonly used in America.

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Part of the legal foundation for the deep state, Kassam and Truss agreed, is the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. It placed civil servants under a code interpreted by other civil servants, made government ministers unable to fire them, and allowed officials to withhold information from the Prime Minister on the grounds that they were legally obliged not to share it. Kassam’s answer is that the Act has to be repealed on day one, with Parliament sitting continuously if required, as Farage has vowed, in the same spirit as the early Trump executive order blitz. Talking about anything else, he said, “is for the birds.”

He highlighted the American experience with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a warning rather than a model. Operatives in the U.S. reported getting nowhere near half of what they intended, he observed, because the permanent state slowed, litigated, and applied external pressure until the effort shrank. A Farage government that has not already written a strike-and-dismissal statute and committed to tearing out the Tony Blair-era insulation around the Civil Service, the Bank of England, and the quasi-governmental agencies, will discover the same limits on the morning after its elections.

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A Reform UK party government under Nigel Farage will face an immediate attempt by the permanent bureaucracy to nullify the election result, and it must have the legal powers to fire participants ready before hospitals and police stations empty, The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam has warned. show more
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19 hours ago
The National Pulse
Analysis

Jaguar Registers Just TWO Cars in Europe After Woke Rebrand.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), the main standards organization for the European car industry, has released its report on new car registrations in Europe, and the numbers for Jaguar are alarming.

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Going Woke.

In February 2021, Jaguar announced it would pivot into becoming an all-electric, all-luxury car brand. As part of the pivot to attract a new customer base, the company pursued a significant rebrand, breaking with its traditional image of British luxury, sporting performance, and understated masculinity with its November 2024 “Copy Nothing” advertisement, which focused on so-called “Exuberant Modernism” and utilized bright colors, contemporary fashion, and diverse and androgynous actors.

This triggered widespread backlash, inviting accusations of generic “woke” corporate rebranding that dismantled Jaguar’s well-established identity. Significantly, the rebrand came ten years after Jaguar’s 2014 “Good To Be Bad” (also known as “The Art of Villainy”) advertising campaign, which featured British actors Sir Ben Kingsley, Mark Strong, and Tom Hiddleston, leaning heavily into British culture and dark suave aesthetics, receiving widespread acclaim.

Critics of the rebrand noted that the advertisement did not feature a car, only strange, genderless models, and many took issue with the company’s decision to replace its iconic cat symbol with a minimalist “JaGUar” logo. In response to the backlash, Jaguar Managing Director Rawdon Glover accused critics of “vile hatred and intolerance” in an interview. “If we play in the same way that everybody else does we’ll just get drowned out. So we shouldn’t turn up like an auto brand. We need to re-establish our brand and at a completely different price point so we need to act differently,” said Glover at the time.

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Going Broke.

According to ACEA’s latest report on year-to-date car registrations in the European Union (EU), Jaguar registrations fell from 934 between January and August in 2025 to just two during the same period in 2026, effectively reducing the car brand’s market share to zero percent.

While the report suggests Jaguar registrations were declining before the 2024 rebrand, registrations plummeted almost entirely after the rebrand. In 2024, 22,571 Jaguar registrations were made in the EU, down from the 24,902 Jaguar registrations recorded in 2023. However, the report establishes that this is not because Europeans are not buying cars, given that new registrations in the EU rose 5.3 percent between January and August 2026. Nor does the report suggest a lack of demand for electric cars in Europe. It therefore seems fair to assume that Jaguar’s rebrand has significantly harmed its reputation, leading to a historic loss in sales and market share across Europe.

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The European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA), the main standards organization for the European car industry, has released its report on new car registrations in Europe, and the numbers for Jaguar are alarming.

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21 hours ago
Christopher Tomlinson
Analysis

Mosques Are Secretly and Illegally Endorsing Politicians.

A British Green Party campaign coordinator admitted this week that mosques coordinate their parishioners’ votes, despite British regulations stating that, as registered charitable organizations, they must remain politically impartial. Asma Alam, campaign coordinator for Green Party Member of Parliament (MP) Hannah Spencer, stated that mosques had secretly switched to Spencer because they had become dissatisfied with the ruling Labor Party failing to cater to them enough.

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“Talking about mosque endorsements, it’s actually really, really hard; in fact, it’s impossible because they all have got charitable status, and with that charitable status, it means that they can’t endorse a political party. So they can do it under cover, which happened with me,” Asma told an audience at an event last Friday.

Her comments not only show the willingness of mosques to violate election law but the growing influence of the Islamic bloc vote in Britain, where mosques can sway their members to vote as a singular entity in elections, a phenomenon that is occurring all over the Western world.

Britain’s Increasingly Powerful Muslim Vote.

Many Muslims have traditionally voted for the leftist Labour Party for a variety of reasons, including Labour’s permissive stance on immigration and socialistic policies on welfare benefits, as Muslims tend to have a much higher unemployment rate on average. Many Muslims still vote for Labour in Britain and provide the party with many prominent Muslim politicians, such as London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, and former Scottish Labour Party leader Anas Sarwar, now Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s Minister of State for Trade in the House of Lords.

There have been ruptures in Labour’s historic relationship with the Muslim community in Britain, which now makes up around six percent of the population overall but is often concentrated in areas of major cities like London, Birmingham, and others, where the Muslim bloc can sway elections for local Members of Parliament. In Birmingham alone, Muslims make up around 30 percent of the population, nearly one in every three people, with the numbers increasing rapidly.

Israel’s war in Gaza and Labour’s response to it led many Muslims to support independent Muslim candidates and the Greens in the last election in  2024, with four independent MPs winning seats on an explicitly pro-Palestinian platform.

Some Muslim politicians have also been caught engaging in fraud. In 2015, Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman was found guilty in Election Court of corrupt and illegal practices that voided his 2014 election victory. Rahman had used his Muslim faith to garner votes and flouted election rules on the day of the vote. Despite this, Rahman was allowed to run again and became Tower Hamlets’ Mayor for a third term earlier this year.

Continental Europe May Be Even Worse.

France, which has one of the largest Muslim populations in the Western world, at around ten percent, also sees the same trend of Muslims voting as blocs for left-wing parties. For the Muslims in France, far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his France Unbowed party tend to be the most popular choice, with some terming the movement “Islamo-Leftism.” Mélenchon captured around 69 percent of the Muslim vote in the first round of the 2022 presidential elections and 58 percent in the 2024 European elections after denouncing Israel’s war in Gaza.

Political Islam is such a major issue in France that President Emmanuel Macron addressed it in 2021 by creating a “charter of principles” to combat sectarianism and radicalism, which have both been blamed for the wave of terror attacks in the country that have been ongoing over the last decade or so.

In Italy, a mosque outside Milan was caught explicitly telling its members to vote for left-wing parties in a bulletin in 2018. The reason was that the left supported birthright citizenship, which would allow Muslim migrants to easily stay in the country if they had “anchor babies” who were automatically given Italian citizenship.

The Bloc that Mass Migration Built.

Muslim influence in elections across the West, including in American cities like Dearborn, Michigan, and in parts of Texas, is likely to increase due to the mass migration policies that allowed it to emerge in the first place. The question for much of the West in the coming years will not be whether or not the Muslim voting bloc exists and is coordinated, but who is taking its votes and at what cost.

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A British Green Party campaign coordinator admitted this week that mosques coordinate their parishioners' votes, despite British regulations stating that, as registered charitable organizations, they must remain politically impartial. Asma Alam, campaign coordinator for Green Party Member of Parliament (MP) Hannah Spencer, stated that mosques had secretly switched to Spencer because they had become dissatisfied with the ruling Labor Party failing to cater to them enough. show more
22 hours ago
The National Pulse
Analysis

A Look Inside The Gambling Industry’s Push to Keep Customers Playing.

Making it easier to move money onto casino machines. Giving losing gamblers reasons to stay. Creating betting opportunities that continue when traditional sports slow down. Even using fragrances to shape the casino experience. These are among the strategies described in panel discussions and promotional materials surrounding the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, where gambling executives, influencers and professional bettors examined how to attract customers and keep them returning.

The Daily Caller first reported on leaked audio from the gathering Oct. 7, detailing discussions about retaining valuable gamblers through personalized incentives, casino amenities and easier access to money. The National Pulse has obtained additional audio, including warnings from a professional bettor about problem gambling and products that rapidly drain customers’ bankrolls.

The event, held Sept. 28 through Oct. 1, was presented by the American Gaming Association and organized by RX. While speakers discussed keeping gamblers playing, industry leaders at the same convention laid out a campaign to shut down sports-related offerings from federally regulated prediction-market competitors.

At “The Power of Unity: Confronting the Prediction Markets Challenge,” American Gaming Association President and CEO Bill Miller joined tribal gaming leaders to discuss their opposition to the businesses. The session featured Indian Gaming Association Chairman David Z. Bean, California Nations Indian Gaming Association Chairman James Siva and tribal advocate Holly Cook Macarro. IGA Executive Director Jason Giles moderated.

Miller called prediction markets “untaxed, unregulated, consumer-predatory organizations” presenting themselves as investment vehicles. The CFTC, however, identifies Kalshi and other prediction-market platforms as federally regulated and has sued states to defend what it says is its exclusive jurisdiction.  “Their best days are behind them. Their house of cards is falling apart,” Miller said.

His closing remarks described the campaign in combative terms.

“We got punched in the face early… but now they’re on the run. And the only way we lose is we take our foot off the throat,” Miller said.

One tribal leader compared prediction-market companies to a “cornered rat” and asked how they would respond as they lost in court. That campaign against competing wagering products unfolded alongside the expo’s discussions of how casinos and sportsbooks could retain their own customers and increase their spending.

One of the clearest descriptions of the business incentive came in a prerecorded video played during “From First Play to VIP: Creating Loyalty That Lasts.”

“The biggest thing for me as a high limit player is just removing all the barriers, make it easy,” a casino-content creator said. The speaker then connected faster gambling with operator revenue: “The faster the operator makes money.” The surrounding remarks described how keeping people playing more quickly benefits the business. The panel was moderated by Chalkline co-founder and CEO Daniel Kustelski and featured CC Griffus, director of iGaming and sports betting operations at Michigan’s Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort; casino influencer Kelly Koffler; and Josh Duffy, co-creator of the Slotaholic casino-content channel.

Griffus described an industry increasingly dependent on a small group of customers. The traditional notion that 20% of customers account for 80% of revenue had narrowed, she said, with roughly 5% to 10% of top players generating about 80%.

Duffy described the casino as a potential “second home,” where customers should encounter a friendly environment that makes them want to return. Koffler, who operates the Casino Kelly channel and also writes for the industry publication CDC Gaming, discussed giving customers alternatives when they are losing on the casino floor. “You shouldn’t want us to say, ‘Oh, I’m losing, I wanna go home,’” Koffler said. “You should want us to maybe go to the spa.”

Another recurring subject was reducing the inconvenience of financial transactions, including ATM fees and the steps required to access more money. Griffus described cashless systems that let customers transfer funds from their phones to casino machines, then move remaining money back to their phones. The systems connect to customers’ bank accounts.

“It’s kind of scary,” she said. The focus on the customer experience extended beyond payments, hosts and complimentary drinks.

Aroma Impressions, a scent-marketing company listed among the expo’s exhibitors, advertised fragrances for gaming floors, entrances and resort hotels. Its exhibitor description said its products were designed to improve the guest experience and “maximize gaming revenue.” The company’s website cites a University of Nevada, Las Vegas study that tested fragrances across 253 slot machines over 20 days and reported increases in the amount wagered under certain fragrance conditions.

For online sportsbooks, another advertised session addressed a different challenge: offering customers more things to bet on when the traditional sports schedule slows down. The session, “Always-On by Design: Building the Next Layer of Sportsbook Content,” featured Oddin.gg, which promoted its appearance at the conference alongside its expanded fast-betting content.

“When the sports calendar slows down, bettor demand doesn’t,” the session description stated. This, supplied with the conference materials, outlined opportunities for “more betting moments, longer engagement, and increased retention” beyond the limits of a seasonal calendar. It identified esports, player-versus-player duels, and “bot-driven and studio competitions” as examples.

A separate panel, “What VIPs Actually Want From Your Platform,” included professional sports bettor Steve Fezzik, Bettor Day founder Scott Seidenberg and poker player Mike Lavin. Tom Hill, Plaid’s head of gaming and prediction markets, moderated. Fezzik delivered some of the sharpest criticism of the industry’s approach.

He said operators steer customers toward same-game parlays and other products with theoretical house holds of 10%, 20%, 30% or even 40%, describing such offerings as “a sucker bet.” He also disputed the roughly 2% problem-gambling figure he said he frequently hears.

“Multiply by ten,” Fezzik said, estimating that at least one in five gamblers he sees in Las Vegas are problem gamblers. He presented that estimate as his personal observation, not as a finding from a study. He said operators risk trying to extract “every ounce of blood from a turnip.”

The Daily Caller reported that Griffus, Koffler, Duffy, Fezzik and Lavin did not respond to its requests for comment.

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Making it easier to move money onto casino machines. Giving losing gamblers reasons to stay. Creating betting opportunities that continue when traditional sports slow down. Even using fragrances to shape the casino experience. These are among the strategies described in panel discussions and promotional materials surrounding the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, where gambling executives, influencers and professional bettors examined how to attract customers and keep them returning.

show more
22 hours ago
The National Pulse
Analysis

Kemi Badenoch Took Aim at Englishness at ‘Conservative’ Party Conference, But Has Fiercely Defended Her Own ‘Yoruba Ethnicity.’

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch closed the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, England, by scolding Reform UK supporters who treat Englishness as an ethnic as well as a civic identity. The politician she had in mind was Reform lawmaker Suella Braverman, who has said she regards herself as British Indian rather than English, and believes that English people with deep ancestral roots in their country do have a particular identity. The Conservative leader, with the endorsement of Hope Not Hate activist Dan Hodges, railed that she does not want Britain to be “run by people who… debate whether my mixed-race children are English.”

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However, not only is this debate not actually occurring within Reform, but she has previously been aggressively assertive in declaring her own ethnic identity as a Yoruba woman, and as a Nigerian when she was attempting to win Nigerian votes.

Rules for Thee.

Badenoch told her audience, “Reform MPs are openly questioning people’s identity. They are not like us. We are not like them. We are different. We are the Conservative Party.” She added, “I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but I am black. I am British. I’m proud of my country, I’m proud of our history.”

Braverman, who was born and raised in England by Indian parents, has said she does not regard herself as English, because “Englishness is an ethnicity. There have been English people for centuries, and we need to recognize this more if we are to start taking a more muscular approach to citizenship and nationality. And no, it’s not racist to say this.”

Badenoch, meanwhile, was born in England to a Nigerian mother who traveled to the country just to give birth to her and was taken back to Nigeria shortly afterward, and, despite her conference rhetoric against ethnic identity, she has expressed herself in similar but much harsher terms than Braverman in the past.

In December 2024, she told The Spectator she was tired of being filed as Nigerian, saying, “I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity [Yoruba]. That’s what I really am. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country… those were our ethnic enemies, and yet you end up being lumped in with those people.”

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Opportunistic Identity.

While Badenoch said she had a “very strong identity” as ethnically Yoruba and appeared to reject a broader Nigerian identity, she has also identified as Nigerian when it suits her. On April 16, 2010, standing for election as Kemi Adegoke, she sent supporters a letter headed “Kemi Adegoke for parliament.”

“This year, things are a lot tougher as the party has dropped nationally in the polls. I need your help!” she pleaded. “Nigerians have been fantastic. My immediate circle of friends, ex-school mates, their friends and all our families have really rallied round and have been supportive.”

Ironically, the same letter complained that a BBC caller had insulted her “because I’m Yoruba,” asking readers to back her as a Nigerian. “Like you, I am sick and tired of reading that Nigerians are fraudsters, terrorists, bombing airplanes or slaughtering each other in places like Jos… So I am asking for your help now to support a Nigerian who is trying to improve our national image and do something great here.”

If elected, she wrote, she would speak out against people “cheating and robbing Nigeria and who seek refuge for themselves or their money in the UK,” and publicise “genuine grassroots initiatives such as #lightupNigeria.” She promised updates on her campaign via a “Nigerians for Kemi” list.

The ‘Golden Ticket.’

Badenoch was among the last to get British citizenship simply as a result of being born on British soil to a foreign national. The British Nationality Act 1981, implemented on January 1, 1983, ended American-style birthright citizenship. Now, a child born in Britain is British if at least one parent is British or settled in Britain. Badenoch has said that finding she held British citizenship was like finding “a Golden Ticket.”

While for liberals like Dan Hodges her denial of an English ethnic identity was a powerful statement against racism, for many right-leaning voters who have turned away from the Conservatives, it is further proof of the party’s turn towards elite, liberal opinion, as well as its hypocrisy, given that Badenoch believes she and other minorities are entitled to an ethnic identity on top of British ones which, for the white population, must remain strictly civic.

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Tory leader Kemi Badenoch closed the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, England, by scolding Reform UK supporters who treat Englishness as an ethnic as well as a civic identity. The politician she had in mind was Reform lawmaker Suella Braverman, who has said she regards herself as British Indian rather than English, and believes that English people with deep ancestral roots in their country do have a particular identity. The Conservative leader, with the endorsement of Hope Not Hate activist Dan Hodges, railed that she does not want Britain to be “run by people who... debate whether my mixed-race children are English.” show more
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24 hours ago
The National Pulse
Analysis

Hate Crimes Against Christians In Britain Are Rising Faster Than Against Any Other Group.

New data from the British government has revealed that hate crimes against Christians are rising faster than against any other religious group.

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What Does The Data Show?

According to British government data tracking hate crimes recorded to the police in England and Wales in the year ending March 2o26, hate crimes against Christians rose 24.3 percent compared to last year. The report also showed a 21.8 percent increase in hate crimes against people whose religion was unknown, a 15.4 percent increase against Hindus, a 14.6 percent increase against Muslims, a 10 percent increase against Jews, and a 3.1 percent increase against Sikhs.

While offenses against Jews and Muslims constituted a higher share of reported hate crimes overall, the data suggests that hate crimes against Christians are rising faster than against any other religious group in the United Kingdom, with an increase of 122 offenses over the course of one year, jumping from 502 to 624.

Why Does Nobody Seem To Care?

Politicians and journalists are not inclined to see a rise in anti-Christian hate crime as a problem, as anti-Christian discrimination, while officially against the law, has been normalized in contemporary Britain.

In 2025, for instance, Christian pro-life activist Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was investigated after silently praying within an abortion clinic “buffer zone” in Birmingham. In October 2024, Luke Salmons, a Police Community Support Officer in North Yorkshire, was suspended and faced disciplinary action after raising questions about Islamism during a diversity training session. And in June 2019, Reverend Dr. Bernard Randall, a school chaplain, was suspended and dismissed after delivering a sermon on the traditional Christian view of marriage and sex.

These cases are just a few examples of many similar cases, and all represent a trend of using the legal process as a punishment against Christians for expressing their faith.

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What are the Limitations of the Data?

The United Kingdom uses a very broad definition of hate crime as “an offence perceived by the victim or another person to have been motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a protected characteristic.” As such, it is possible to report hate crimes based on imagined rather than actual misconduct, and they can be easily weaponized by censorious actors who seek to quash criticism.

For instance, Reform UK party Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick was recently reported to the police and Prevent, the United Kingdom’s counter-terrorism program, for saying, “Radical Islam is a threat to everything that we hold dear in this country… It has to be eradicated from our country. And we can’t allow the creeping Islamification of the United Kingdom.”

The Big Picture.

While police recorded hate crime data has limitations, the increase in anti-Christian hate crime remains significant. It represents a substantial increase over a relatively short period of time, warranting attention and further research, especially since recent reporting has revealed that the suspect accused of the murder of devoutly Christian Reform spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe has been charged with terrorism, indicating an ideological and therefore potentially anti-Christian motive.

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New data from the British government has revealed that hate crimes against Christians are rising faster than against any other religious group.

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October 8, 2026
The National Pulse
Analysis

UK ‘Conservative’ Leader Says Party ‘Didn’t Notice’ It Was Letting in Millions of Migrants — But She Lobbied to Open the Door.

British Conservative Party leader Olukemi “Kemi” Badenoch has claimed that the post-Brexit surge in migration enabled by her party, known as the Boriswave, occurred because government ministers and civil servants simply “didn’t notice” it was happening. However, the Conservatives intentionally loosened immigration controls prior to the Boriswave, with Badenoch personally lobbying to remove certain limits.

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Impossible to Miss.

Speaking at the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Birmingham, England, where she was backed by Labour and Hope Not Hate activist Dan Hodges, Badenoch said previous Conservative governments had “promised to lower immigration” and “wanted to lower immigration,” despite the fact that it almost tripled from their entry into government in 2010 to its peak in 2023. The problem, she claimed, was distraction: “There were so many other things that people were looking at and focusing on that actually as the numbers increased, ministers didn’t notice, civil servants didn’t notice until well after huge numbers had come into our country.”

She added that Whitehall and ministers needed to concentrate on “the key items, not every single thing that people may want intervention for.”

However, the claim that the borders were opened accidentally sits awkwardly against the public record of the Conservatives’ deliberate policy choices. Successive Conservative governments cut salary, language, and skills thresholds, abolished a resident labor market test, and opened new visa routes, including expanded health and care pathways and post-study work options. Large visa volumes followed. Between 2021 and 2024, roughly 4.2 million people entered Britain on visas or protection routes. Home Office data showed a record 1.47 million visas issued in the year to March 2023 for work, study, family, or resettlement schemes, and about 1.4 million residence visas granted in calendar year 2022.

Net immigration hit successive peaks well above the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto pledge to bring overall numbers down, and its 2010, 2015, and 2017 promises to reduce net immigration “from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s assessment of the Conservative leader’s claim was blunt: “Kemi Badenoch says the Conservatives let 4 million people into Britain in 4 years because ‘ministers didn’t notice,’” he wrote. “21 of the 27 people in her Shadow Cabinet were those ministers. Her entire team is incompetent and can’t be trusted.”

Kemi Was Complicit.

Badenoch was an active participant in dismantling immigration restrictions. On December 19th, 2018, as a Conservative MP and party vice chairwoman, she welcomed then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s immigration white paper loosening controls in the House of Commons. “As a first-generation immigrant, I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement,” she said. “I feel that the white paper represents a move from the 20th century to a much better future immigration system. I especially thank the Home Secretary for removing the annual limits on work visas and on international students: I lobbied for both on behalf of the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Anglia Ruskin University, which serve my constituency.”

A large share of Badenoch’s current Shadow Cabinet did serve as ministers during the years when visa grants and net migration climbed to record levels. Farage’s count—that 21 of 27 were among those ministers—underscores the continuity. Badenoch herself sat in Cabinet for part of the period. An explanation for Conservative-era mass migration that rests on claims that they “didn’t notice” it was happening asks voters to treat a multi-year policy outcome, visible in quarterly Home Office statistics and repeatedly debated in Parliament, as a mere accident rather than a deliberate breach of election promises.

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British Conservative Party leader Olukemi “Kemi” Badenoch has claimed that the post-Brexit surge in migration enabled by her party, known as the Boriswave, occurred because government ministers and civil servants simply "didn't notice" it was happening. However, the Conservatives intentionally loosened immigration controls prior to the Boriswave, with Badenoch personally lobbying to remove certain limits. show more
October 8, 2026
The National Pulse
Analysis

White House Official Issues Warning Over UK Government Spying on Farage.

A White House security official has warned that the British government’s renewed attempt to obtain access to encrypted Apple data could be used to spy on Trump administration officials and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, according to reporting by Freddie Hayward in the New Statesman’s October 9–15 cover story.

Hayward quotes a message sent by the official to a colleague in September: “The UK is making another attempt to put a backdoor on iCloud. This time by their secret court. They’re going to lean on a court order to justify it. They will use this back door to spy on the administration and Nigel Farage.”

The message documents a fear inside the U.S. administration, though it does not establish that British authorities have yet conducted such surveillance.

According to Hayward, Britain initially sought access to Apple customers’ encrypted cloud backups under the Investigatory Powers Act, before American pressure forced the withdrawal of that demand. He reports that the Home Office subsequently reissued an order covering UK users. The precise scope remains obscured by secrecy.

The concern indeed extends beyond Republicans. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Representative Warren Davidson announced a joint intervention on September 11, seeking greater transparency from Britain’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Their letter says Apple was permitted to brief senior executive officials but prevented from discussing the matter in detail with Congress.

Apple’s own account confirms that new UK users can no longer enable Advanced Data Protection. That affects additional encryption for categories including cloud backups, photos, and notes. Apple says iMessage and FaceTime remain end-to-end encrypted, as do categories protected by default. It also maintains that it has never built a backdoor.

Hayward says many American officials hope the Reform UK leader takes Downing Street, while one MAGA official dismisses Burnham as having “the weight of the governor of South Dakota”.

Nor does that preference automatically extend to Farage’s competitors. One administration official calls Rupert Lowe “a slop purveyor”. Elsewhere, an American official reportedly challenges Britain’s disinformation explanation for the rise of the right, suggesting that demographic change deserves attention. The entire piece is available here.

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A White House security official has warned that the British government’s renewed attempt to obtain access to encrypted Apple data could be used to spy on Trump administration officials and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, according to reporting by Freddie Hayward in the New Statesman’s October 9–15 cover story. show more

Editor’s Notes

Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.

RAHEEM J. KASSAM Editor-in-Chief
The fact that an administration official is willing to relay this kind of information to a left-wing magazine, The New Statesman, is indicative of how urgent this now is
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The fact that an administration official is willing to relay this kind of information to a left-wing magazine, The New Statesman, is indicative of how urgent this now is show more
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October 7, 2026
The National Pulse
Analysis

The DSA is Infighting Over Mamdani and Israel, Here’s Why:

Earlier this month, the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), the youth wing of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), in coalition with other far-left groups, announced they would protest New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on October 7 for “capitulating” on policing, Israel, and housing, exposing the far left’s internal tensions.

The National Pulse keeps you updated on the far left’s networks and maneuvers. To support more research by Raheem J. Kassam and his team, please JOIN THE NATIONAL PULSE or MAKE A DONATION today.

Defunding the Police.

Since taking office in January, Mamdani, a DSA member, has increased the New York City Police Department’s headcount to 35,370, including roughly 580 additional officers, despite campaigning to keep it flat and despite the DSA officially advocating abolishing the police. The DSA’s NYC branch (NYC-DSA) has since condemned the expansion of the force. Mamdani has also softened his position on the NYPD’s gang database, opting for reform over abolition, and has yet to abolish the Strategic Response Group, a tactical patrol unit created in 2016 to conduct counter-terrorism operations and police riots and protests, despite previously promising to do so.

In response, the DSA is set to increase pressure on the mayor to continue developing his Office of Community Safety (OCS) into a full department. Mamdani campaigned to create a permanent Department of Community Safety with a $1 billion initial budget. By contrast, the OCS has a budget of approximately $260 million, far below what was initially promised. The OCS is also currently used to coordinate existing programs, rather than replace traditional policing methods, further reinforcing perceptions within the DSA that Mamdani is not radical enough.

Mamdani’s Anti-Anti-Semitism Strategy.

On September 29, Mamdani unveiled his strategy to combat anti-Semitism in New York City. The citywide program included an extra $1 million in security funding for synagogues, doubling Partners Against the Hate (PATH) grants to $6.4 million, $2 million to complete the Queens Holocaust Memorial, $2.5 million for the Center for New Jewish Culture, and strengthening ties between City Hall and Jewish cultural institutions, such as ensuring more student visits to the Museum of Jewish Heritage. This follows Mamdani’s failure to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite promising to do so.

Mamdani’s strategy does not include a formal definition of anti-Semitism, having reversed the executive order by former NYC Mayor Eric Adams that recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition back in January. As such, the DSA and adjacent groups and figures have criticized Mamdani’s strategy for failing to officialize a difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. “Zohran Mamdani campaigned on promises to the Palestine movement… He has betrayed his own alleged values, failing to make those promises a reality. Instead, he has repeatedly capitulated to Zionist pressure,” announced the coalition of protestors.

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Demolition of Fulton and Elliot Chelsea Houses.

Back in June 2023, several years before Mamdani took office as NYC Mayor, it was announced that Fulton-Elliot Chelsea Houses would be demolished as part of a $1.2 billion redevelopment project. Despite the change in leadership, City Hall is set to continue with the project. The project aims to rebuild the complex’s 2,056 public-housing apartments, while also creating roughly 3,000 additional mixed-income homes. Mamdani has presented the redevelopment as a necessary investment due to the public housing complex’s repair backlog.

Despite this, more than 300 DSA members, including the authors of a formal resolution, are now opposing the redevelopment project, arguing it will displace tenants. Critics have also argued that tenants were not sufficiently consulted ahead of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) decision. According to the New York Post, the proposal has gained over 300 co-sponsors, making it one of the most proposed resolutions for the NYC-DSA’s upcoming convention in November. As such, the proposal has the potential to turn the disagreement into a formal confrontation between Mamdani and his fellow DSA members.

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Image by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

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Earlier this month, the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA), the youth wing of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), in coalition with other far-left groups, announced they would protest New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on October 7 for "capitulating" on policing, Israel, and housing, exposing the far left's internal tensions.

show more
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