Astronomers have advocated for a renaming of two galaxies, currently named the Large and Small Megellanic Clouds after Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, due to his record of “violent colonialism”. Astronomer Mia de los Reyes of Amherst College in Massachusetts expressed this viewpoint in the journal APS Physics, noting Magellan’s acts allegedly committed on “indigenous populations” during his 1519 voyage. She argued such historical figures should not be honored in astronomical nomenclature, suggesting that continuing this practice could somehow harm people today.
Opposition to the current naming system is also backed by Professor David Hogg (different David Hogg, we checked) of New York University, who said the clouds were not discovered by Magellan and were only named after him in the 19th century. Indigenous populations in the southern hemisphere, he says, already had names for these objects. Now, a potential alternative name has been suggested. That name is ‘Milky Clouds’.
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This call is in line with broader efforts to replace the names of public places and institutions named after individuals who have supposedly engaged in “harmful” acts in their past. The latest move is said to have been inspired significantly by the Marxist Black Lives Matter protests.
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On Wednesday, the British and French governments confirmed the end of the so-called “One In, One Out” migrant returns deal on boat migrants, casting doubt about the ability of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s Labour Party to end the boat migrants crisis in the English Channel.
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The “One In, One Out” deal was widely regarded as the British government’s flagship policy to address the Channel crisis. This is how it started, how it failed, and how Nigel Farage’s Reform Party could replace it:
Origins of the “One In, One Out” Deal.
The “One In, One Out” deal between Britain and France emerged from negotiations between former British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in July 2025. The deal was supposedly intended to stop the influx of small boats carrying illegal migrants from France’s northern coast across the English Channel to Britain.
The deal stated that Britain could return migrants who had illegally crossed the English Channel to France, while France could send an equal number of migrants with family connections in Britain onward via an agreed legal route to Britain. Critics complained from the outset that this would likely keep the overall number of migrants arriving in Britain the same, but it came into force by August of the same year regardless.
🚨 NEW: The Government has confirmed the "one in, one out" migrant deal with France has now ended
Following a year of operation, the number of migrants affected by the deal remained small compared to the total number illegally crossing the Channel. August 2026 data from the British government revealed that 1,117 people were allowed into Britain under the deal, while only 1,087 were returned to France, resulting in a slight net increase in migrants.
Also in August, it was revealed that the agreement was costing £56,000 (~$74,000) per migrant. This followed an extensive lawfare campaign by pro-immigration charities and numerous reports of people been returned to France under the deal simply crossing the Channel again.
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The End of the Deal.
On Wednesday, it was announced that the “One In, One Out” deal would not be renewed for another year, effectively ending the policy. This followed a previous three-month extension. The French Interior Ministry confirmed that Britain and France are discussing the terms of the deal’s termination, while the British Home Office has confirmed that it has stopped processing cases under it.
While both governments have mentioned future co-operation in dealing with the illegal migrant crisis, neither has proposed an exact alternative to the now-defunct deal, and reports of the French authorities turning a blind eye to Channel crossings are persistent.
Earlier this month, Jordan Bardella, President of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party in France and current favorite to become the country’s next Prime Minister, co-signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Reform Party leader Nigel Farage at Reform’s annual party conference in Birmingham, England.
The MOU states that France will prevent illegal migrants from crossing the English Channel, and that migrants deported by Britain back to France will ultimately be returned to their countries of origin. “Together, we must take back control of our borders,” Bardella declared in his speech to Reform members. While Macron and other establishment politicians have often seemed to allow the Channel crisis to spiral out of control on purpose, Bardella and Le Pen believe it is in France’s interest to stop the crossings, to deter migrants from entering France and setting up disorderly, often crime-ridden camps along the northern coast in the first place.
The month prior, Reform had announced “Operation Fortress,” a plan to deter the boats carrying illegal migrants with the Royal Navy. “We will ensure that not a single unauthorized vessel crossing the English Channel makes it to the shores of the United Kingdom,” declared Zia Yusuf, Reform’s Shadow Home Secretary, at the time.
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On Wednesday, the British and French governments confirmed the end of the so-called "One In, One Out" migrant returns deal on boat migrants, casting doubt about the ability of Prime Minister Andy Burnham's Labour Party to end the boat migrants crisis in the English Channel. show more
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On September 25, Tanweer “Tan” Ikram, Deputy Chief Magistrate of England and Wales, refused bail to Daniel Thomas, the anti-immigration activist better known as Danny Tommo, at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court. Thomas has pleaded not guilty to criminal damage over an allegation that he punctured a small boat used by organized criminals to ferry migrants across the English Channel. The migrants had already left it, with only one rescue worker who appeared to be in no danger still aboard. Nevertheless, Ikram said he was “satisfied there is a real possibility of an immediate custodial sentence in this case.” The trial is listed for March 2027.
With far more serious criminals, many of them migrants, being granted bail on a regular basis, the decision reignited the longstanding debate in Britain over “two-tier” justice, with Ikram, in particular, often being accused of treating suspects perceived as politically incorrect or right-leaning with disproportionate harshness. Significantly, he is one of the most senior magistrates in the country, a prominent diversity official, a member of the commission that selects judges, and an adviser to a Pakistani organization that attacked Reform MP and former Home Secretary Suella Braverman for calling out Pakistani grooming gangs.
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Beginnings.
Tanweer Ikram was born in Slough, west of London, to Pakistani parents. A 2018 profile in Counsel magazine, unearthed by independent journalist Steven Edginton, reveals that he grew up partly in Pakistan and then had to “re-integrate during his primary school years.”
His early career was not promising: he switched to law from engineering, graduated with a lower second-class degree, and initially failed to pass the Bar. He entered the legal profession eventually, however, admitting to using his ethnicity as “a bit of an advantage.”
Soon after reaching the bench, he became the Deputy Lead Diversity and Community Relations Judge. Under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, he was made a CBE—Commander of the Order of the British Empire—“for services to judicial diversity.” In December 2023, still under the Conservatives, he joined the Judicial Appointments Commission for a three-year term, allowing him to help select new judges.
EXCLUSIVE: Tan Ikram, deputy chief magistrate, is an adviser to a Pakistani organisation that referred to “so-called ‘grooming gangs’” and called Suella Braverman’s comments about British-Pakistani gangs “reprehensible”.
On July 15, 2024, speaking to Women in Law Initiative Pakistan, Ikram described a recruitment trip to Bradford, a city in northern England known for its large Pakistani population. “Bradford is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the UK. [There are] lots and lots and lots of Pakistani practitioners in practice in that area, and I specifically went there to reach out to that particular group of lawyers,” Ikram said, adding: “I’ve worked with the British Pakistani Professionals Forum… to try to reach out to Muslim Pakistani background lawyers to try to encourage them to apply.”
The British Pakistan Foundation lists him as an adviser, and in a 2021 foundation webinar, he stated: “The judiciary has to represent the community it serves. We want there to be true diversity in the judiciary and as an old adage goes, we need you.”
Significantly, the foundation’s public line on Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs in Britain is highly contentious. In 2023, after Suella Braverman, then Home Secretary, spoke about the involvement of British-Pakistani men in group sexual exploitation of girls, the foundation objected to what it called “so-called ‘grooming gangs.’” In an open letter to then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, it wrote: “The divisive and dangerous way in which the Home Secretary is seeking to portray all British Pakistani males and insinuating that the community is complicit in their actions is reprehensible.”
Fiona Goddard, a survivor of Pakistani-led grooming gangs, told Edginton: “I find Tan Ikram’s association with the British Pakistan Foundation deeply concerning as a survivor of Pakistani grooming gangs.” She added: “To call them ‘so-called grooming gangs’ is an insult to all survivors. Why is a senior judge connected to such a partisan group?”
Ikram is also listed as visiting faculty at the Pakistan College of Law. At an event in Pakistan in October 2018, he complained to an audience of Pakistani politicians and jurists about media attacks on the judiciary for its rulings against Brexit during the EU withdrawal negotiations, complaining, “One cannot underestimate the power of [the] media, but problematically the Government stayed silent, giving into the right of [the] media’s freedom of speech.”
Ikram is most infamous for what his critics perceive as “two-tier” sentencing, handing down draconian punishments to alleged racists while treating ethnic minority terrorists with a light touch.
In February 2024, he handed non-custodial sentences to three women convicted of a terrorism offense for glorifying Hamas paragliders after the October 7 massacres in Israel. “You crossed the line, but it would have been fair to say that emotions ran very high on this issue,” he told them, confirming that he had “decided not to punish” the defendants.
Soon afterward, it emerged that he had ‘liked’ a strident pro-Palestinian post on his LinkedIn account. He received a formal misconduct warning in June 2024.
In December 2024, he handed a suspended sentence to Victoria Thomas Bowen after she pleaded guilty to assault by beating and criminal damage for throwing a milkshake over Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK party. Farage said at the time, “We now live in a country where you can assault a Member of Parliament and not go to prison. The latest example of two-tier justice.”
In August 2023, Ikram acquitted transgender activist Sarah Jane Baker of intentionally encouraging an offense. Baker had told a rally: “If you see a TERF [Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist], punch them in the fucking face.” Ikram insisted that it was possible Baker had been seeking attention and publicity without intending anyone to act on the words.
Meanwhile, in June 2022, he handed a former police officer James Watts a 20-week prison sentence for sharing allegedly racist memes in a private WhatsApp group.
Setting the Tone.
As Deputy Lead Diversity and Community Relations Judge, Ikram helps oversee a national network of diversity judges. In 2018, he cited Labour lawmaker David Lammy’s review of racial disparity in the criminal justice system and asked: “Why is it that a country which prides itself on diversity, equality and justice has so many people of colour languishing in prisons?” He added: “We don’t reflect the face of the society that we serve.”
He has also organized meetings between Islamic clerics and judges, and discussed his Islamic faith in official channels.
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Ikram holds a leadership rank in the magistrates’ courts, a seat on the commission that chooses judges, and an advisory role at a foundation that downplays “so-called” grooming gangs. Coupled with his seemingly unequal treatment of the people appearing before him, many will question whether he is truly suitable for the bench.
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On September 25, Tanweer "Tan" Ikram, Deputy Chief Magistrate of England and Wales, refused bail to Daniel Thomas, the anti-immigration activist better known as Danny Tommo, at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court. Thomas has pleaded not guilty to criminal damage over an allegation that he punctured a small boat used by organized criminals to ferry migrants across the English Channel. The migrants had already left it, with only one rescue worker who appeared to be in no danger still aboard. Nevertheless, Ikram said he was “satisfied there is a real possibility of an immediate custodial sentence in this case.” The trial is listed for March 2027.
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By Popular Demand.
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On Tuesday, former Special Counsel Jack Smith told Congress he would prosecute President Donald J. Trump again if given the chance, reaffirming his commitment to the Biden government’s failed lawfare campaign against the America First leader and the Republican Party. This followed the decision of Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to refer Smith to the Department of Justice back in July, potentially resulting in prosecution.
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Smith’s time as Special Counsel was marked by a stream of legal controversies, from allegations of election interference and partisan surveillance to his illegitimate appointment and obtaining congressional material.
Targeting Conservatives and Elected Republicans.
In April 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) commenced Operation Arctic Frost, which fed into Smith’s lawfare campaign against President Trump. Senate Judiciary investigators revealed that Smith’s team issued 197 subpoenas covering at least 430 Republican individuals and organizations. Smith’s investigation sought communications, financial records, and other information. Some subpoenas sought information concerning conservative media, donors, and organizations, including any communications with members or employees of the legislative branch.
🚨 BREAKING: New records prove disgraced Special Counsel Jack Smith not only obtained FINANCIAL RECORDS from EVERY DAY AMERICANS donating to Republicans — but Smith spied on communications between JOURNALISTS and GOP or Trump-aligned officials, per Fox
In August 2023, just one year before the elections that ultimately saw President Trump returned to the White House, Smith moved to prosecute the then-former President. The controversy intensified after Smith’s team sought an early trial and filed a 165-page brief in September 2024, a few months before the elections were scheduled to take place in November.
Smith’s attempt to call an early trial was widely seen as an attempt to influence voter behavior to benefit the Democrats. The Office of Special Counsel opened an investigation into whether Smith had improperly used his authority to affect the election.
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Illegitimate Appointment as Federal Prosecutor.
In July 2024, Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland violated Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution, known as the Appointments Clause.
Specifically, Cannon ruled that Smith lacked the authority to exercise the powers of a federal prosecutor because he had not been nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The judge also took issue with the funding mechanism used for his office.
This ruling was highly significant, as it dismissed the classified documents case brought against President Trump in June 2023 and confirmed suspicions that the U.S. government was being weaponized against critics of the Biden government illegitimately.
🚨 BREAKING: Records provided to Chairman @ChuckGrassley via whistleblower disclosure reveal Jack Smith and his team collected 4,782 personal checks from Americans nationwide who donated to Trump and Trump-aligned entities between September 2019 to August 2023. pic.twitter.com/zNWs7PkpE7
In July 2026, it was revealed that Smith’s team obtained and reviewed text messages involving 44 members of Congress, bypassing the Department of Justice’s review process “filter team.” This review process is intended to identify potentially privileged material, such as official documents, records, or communications affecting the rights, safety, and integrity of Congress.
Smith’s team also issued subpoenas seeking telephone records for at least 20 current or former Republican members of Congress, creating significant constitutional concerns and reinforcing perceptions that the Office of Special Counsel was circumventing standard norms and procedures.
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On Tuesday, former Special Counsel Jack Smith told Congress he would prosecute President Donald J. Trump again if given the chance, reaffirming his commitment to the Biden government's failed lawfare campaign against the America First leader and the Republican Party. This followed the decision of Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to refer Smith to the Department of Justice back in July, potentially resulting in prosecution.show more
By Popular Demand.
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Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham has told the Labour Party’s annual conference that a return to full European Union membership is back on the table. “We could go all the way,” he said, alleging that Brexit had done “more harm than good.” Full EU membership means a return to the EU’s Free Movement migration regime, in which virtually any EU citizen can move to any EU country with almost no restrictions or vetting. The National Pulse has modeled the likely impact of this on immigration, and the results are staggering across high, middle, and low EU immigration scenarios.
The National Pulse built this immigration model using published assumptions and official baselines to give you a full picture of the potential consequences of reversing Brexit. This work takes time; to support it, please JOIN THE NATIONAL PULSE or MAKE A ONE-OFF DONATION.
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The Starting Point.
Significantly, the immigration status quo is already unmanageable, even after the unprecedented inflows of the “Boriswave” years under the former Conservative Partygovernment. For the year ending December 2025, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) provisionally recorded 813,000 long-term arrivals and net immigration of 171,000. Non-EU+ nationals account for almost all of the inflow at present, with net negative migration from the EU+ (the EU plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, which are also party to the Free Movement migration regime).
Compared with staying outside the EU, modeling suggests that, in a middle EU immigration scenario, Britain would take in an extra 82,000 migrants a year by year five, net, if it rejoined the bloc. Over ten years, the additional inflow totals 714,000. The high-immigration scenario is larger still: 200,000 extra migrants a year by year five, and 1.76 million extra over a decade.
Notably, immigrants to the European Union naturalized by EU member state governments hold full EU citizenship and Free Movement rights across the bloc. Ordinary non-EU residents do not automatically gain the same mobility rights, but qualifying family members of EU citizens can.
This means moves by Germany to naturalize migrants, and the pathway to citizenship created by Spain’s amnesty for illegal immigrants, for instance, could open up Britain to significant additional immigration of EU migrants who were originally from countries outside the bloc.
The Numbers.
*Ranges span the middle 80 percent of 20,000 modeled simulations. They are not statistical confidence intervals.
The middle scenario may be the most important to consider. It shows total immigration climbing toward 944,000, with net immigration hitting 253,000. That is the “reasonable center” for Britain back in the EU, not an extreme scenario.
The high scenario—and immigration to Britain is usually significantly higher than projected—shows more than 1.1 million arrivals in a single year, with net immigration hitting 371,000, an extra 200,000 people a year against Britain’s baseline outside the EU.
Easier availability of EU migrant workers may result in the number of non-EU migrant workers falling, as accounted for in the low EU immigration, strong replacement of non-EU migrants scenario. However, if employers keep hiring from outside Europe at today’s pace and regain easy access to a large EU labor pool, the two streams will stack. That is how a country already taking in 627,000 non-EU immigrants a year ends up facing seven-figure inflows.
Importantly, there is scant evidence of increases in EU immigration causing non-EU immigration to fall in the years prior to the Brexit referendum, with an increase in EU immigration from roughly 201,000 to 284,000 from 2013 to 2016 being accompanied by a rise in non-EU immigration from 248,000 to 289,000 over the same period.
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Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham has told the Labour Party's annual conference that a return to full European Union membership is back on the table. “We could go all the way,” he said, alleging that Brexit had done “more harm than good.” Full EU membership means a return to the EU's Free Movement migration regime, in which virtually any EU citizen can move to any EU country with almost no restrictions or vetting. The National Pulse has modeled the likely impact of this on immigration, and the results are staggering across high, middle, and low EU immigration scenarios.
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By Popular Demand.
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Over the course of the 2026 election cycle, the far-left Democratic Socialists of America have secured a number of high-profile primary victories. However, the DSA is anything but united, with several rival caucuses each seeking to shift its focus and strategy in distinct but overlapping ways.
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The National Political Committee (NPC) is the governing body of the DSA. The NPC is comprised of 27 members (25 delegates plus two youth delegates) and elects its own Steering Committee, which is responsible for interim decision-making. The following caucuses are represented on the NPC:
Groundwork.
NPC Members: Five (Ashik Siddique, Cara Tobe, Eleanor Babaev, Frances Gill, Kareem Elrefai)
The most explicitly “green” caucus of the NPC, Groundwork describes itself as “ecosocialist” and calls for the DSA to “embrace ecosocialism as a guiding principle” across all policy areas. Groundwork supports a “Green New Deal” to decarbonize the economy and combat “the existential threat to human civilization posed by the climate crisis,” which it lists as its first priority.
Groundwork endorses a “party surrogacy” strategy, which involves building a far-left political movement “separate from and hostile to the Democratic Party itself” while also infiltrating the party’s ballot line. The caucus has steadily increased its representation on the NPC since it was founded in 2023. Groundwork strongly supports Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and advocates issuing an endorsement poll of DSA members on “Day One” of an AOC presidential bid
Siddique is national co-chair of the DSA and a member of the Steering Committee.
Last Sunday, GW's NPC members voted for the NPC to decide on a potential presidential endorsement by March 2027— following the precedent by which DSA endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020. Our statement on the vote is below: pic.twitter.com/6ftYLl33TH
NPC Members: Five (Cerena Ermitanio, Ella Teevan, Hayley Banyai-Becker, Mae Bracelin, James Hernandez)
Bread and Roses is the oldest caucus currently represented on the NPC and the largest faction on the National Political Committee advocating a “dirty break” from the Democratic Party, a strategy involving the eventual creation of a separate far-left party. The caucus describes itself as “Marxist” and supports what it calls “the democratic road to socialism.”
Bread and Roses emphasizes a “rank-and-file labor strategy,” which involves having DSA members infiltrate strategic industries, such as education, healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing, to radicalize their respective trade unions and build a militant working-class movement. Bread and Roses is generally more skeptical of Democrat politicians and has even criticized far-left Democrats, such as Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, for being insufficiently left-wing. The phrase “Bread and Roses” was coined in 1910 by American socialist Helen Todd.
Teevan is a member of the Steering Committee. Bracelin and Hernandez are the DSA’s youth co-chairs.
Socialist Majority Caucus.
NPC Members: Four (Christian Araos, Clayton Ryles, Jeremy Cohan, Katie Sims)
The Socialist Majority Caucus is defined by its support for “mass, democratic politics” and building “a popular front against the right,” the latter of which includes potential co-operation with more liberal and moderate tendencies.
Like Groundwork, the Socialist Majority Caucus supports a strategy of “realignment,” which means transforming the Democratic Party into a vehicle for far-left politics. The group also explicitly supports a so-called “democratic road” to socialism. It is generally viewed as more willing to cooperate with mainstream Democrats and more focused on electoral organizing and reform than on militant politics.
The Socialist Majority Caucus sits firmly in the pro-AOC wing of the DSA and has endorsed other Democrats in recent years, such as Nithya Raman in the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral election. The caucus also endorsed a resolution to run “Hundreds of Zohrans” in elections at every level of government across the United States.
Sims is a member of the Steering Committee.
AOC 2028: Build the Movement for a Democratic Socialist Presidency
We’re calling on AOC to run in 2028 and organizing to build the movement for a democratic socialist presidency
NYC-DSA 2026 City Convention 📅 Saturday, November 14, 2026
NPC Members: Four (Ahmed Husain, Andrew Thompson, Francesca Maria, Luisa Martinez)
Springs of Revolution is one of the newer groups on the NPC. The group formally rejects being described as a caucus, identifying instead as a “cross-tendency” team held together by opposition to so-called “imperialist repression” and advancing “anti-imperialist politics.”
Compared to other factions of the NPC, it is the most overtly pro-Palestinian, describing the Palestinian cause as “our compass” and supporting radical positions such as the abolition of ICE.
The Springs of Revolution identifies “the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to the George Floyd uprisings and Student Intifada” as predecessors to its brand of politics. The Springs of Revolution logo features a rose growing out of a keffiyeh, the Arabic headscarf which has become a staple of the international anti-Zionist movement, and has experienced a sharp increase in representation over the past few years.
Thompson is a member of the Steering Committee.
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Red Star.
NPC Members: Three (Megan Romer, Hazel Williams, John Lewis)
Red Star describes itself as “Marxist-Leninist.” In its “Points of Unity,” the group states: “Our primary goal, the goal which informs all of our organizing work, is to abolish capitalism and, ultimately, to achieve communism.”
It is one of the DSA factions openly critical of the Democrats, and has criticized the realignment strategy associated with the Socialist Majority Caucus, as well as the party surrogacy strategy associated with Groundwork, regarding them as effectively indistinguishable. However, despite this, the caucus has demonstrated reluctance to endorse a “dirty break” strategy.
Overall, Red Star is seen as less focused on electoral politics than many of its counterparts in the NPC and more preoccupied with the DSA itself and its ability to “cohere a vanguard” in preparation for the overthrow of capitalism.
Romer is national co-chair of the DSA and a member of the Steering Committee. Lewis is also a member of the Steering Committee.
Marxist Unity Group.
NPC Members: Three (Amy Wilhelm, Cliff Connolly, Sidney Carlson White)
Similar to Red Star, the Marxist Unity Group has been highly critical of Democrat politicians, including DSA-aligned figures like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. However, unlike Red Star, the Marxist Unity Group explicitly endorses a dirty break strategy. It “strives to transform DSA into an independent socialist party” which is “completely disconnected from loyalty to the Democratic Party,” which it identifies among various “capitalist influences.”
The caucus has a pronounced focus on upending the United States’ constitutional settlement, such as calling for the abolition of the Senate, subordinating the President to an all-powerful House of Representatives, and replacing the country’s system of republicanism with a majoritarian democracy. It also supports unifying behind a “maximum program” of “a world free of the market, borders, classes, and all other oppressive structures that exist under capitalism—in a word, communism.”
Connolly is a member of the Steering Committee.
Marxist Unity Group deliberated & voted on the following statement to demonstrate our commitment to abolition as a central tenet of DSA's program.
The working class cannot rule while a large part of it remains policed & caged.
Carnation is among the newest groups represented on the NPC. The caucus supports “A Socialist Campaign for the Presidency” with AOC as the candidate. “There is currently no other known candidate who may run who a majority of DSA members’ support who supports an arms embargo [against Israel],” notes the caucus’ website.
The group calls for the DSA to “Make 2026 About Medicare for All and an Arms Embargo” and identifies State Representative Claire Valdez (D-NY) and Oliver Larkin, who lost to Jared Moskowitz in the Democrat primary for Florida’s 25th Congressional district earlier this year, as “high-profile DSA surrogates” whom AOC could promote to positions of influence if elected President.
Carnation supports narrowing the focus of the DSA to capture the U.S. presidency without “abandoning our vision for the socialist transformation of our government and society.”
Carnation does not have any representation on the Steering Committee.
We have the opportunity to lead an inspiring campaign for AOC for president, powered by DSA members, that will engage and grow the base for socialist politics. There is currently no other candidate who is running who a majority of DSA members support who supports an arms embargo. pic.twitter.com/v2Xn3EeqPw
Reform and Revolution represents the “Trotskyist” tendency within the DSA’s NPC. The caucus supports a “united front,” which is distinct from the “popular front” advanced by groups like the Socialist Majority Caucus.
Whereas a popular front seeks alliances beyond the left, a united front seeks alliances purely within the left. Reform and Revolution supports a dirty break from the Democrats, and echoes support from other caucuses for a rank-and-file labor strategy.
Reform and Revolution have historically combined more moderate policies, such as increases in the minimum wage, with more extreme proposals, such as replacing the market with a planned economy and “taking the largest 500 corporations that dominate the US economy into democratic public ownership.” The caucus is a splinter group of Socialist Alternative, a Trotskyist political party founded in the 1980s.
Reform and Revolution is not represented on the Steering Committee.
Libertarian Socialist Caucus.
NPC Members: One (David Jenkins)
The Libertarian Socialist Caucus describes itself as “a political home… for all socialists who are opposed to the state” and represents the overtly anarchistic tendency within the DSA. The caucus advocates “dismantling all structures of incarceration, including prisons, jails, and detention centers, as well as for the dissolution of all levels of law enforcement,” which it regards as the “core of modern American fascism.”
The group has issued a statement criticizing AOC for distancing herself from “Woke 1” and called for an investigation into whether her positions differ substantially from the official positions of the DSA.
In the “Community Agreements” section of its website, the Libertarian Socialist Caucus bans “exclusionary jokes or comments” and “Comments that reinforce social structures of domination (related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age, religion).”
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Over the course of the 2026 election cycle, the far-left Democratic Socialists of America have secured a number of high-profile primary victories. However, the DSA is anything but united, with several rival caucuses each seeking to shift its focus and strategy in distinct but overlapping ways.show more
By Popular Demand.
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The 2026 midterm elections are giving rise to a new political force in America: an explicitly woke form of so-called Christianity, with over a dozen Democrat candidates directly linked to ultra-progressive churches, some of whom are pastors themselves.
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The candidates range from major Senate races to various House seats across the country, and while many come from different Christian denominations, they all support a radically progressive agenda that is making some denominations, primarily mainline Protestant churches, politically louder even as their congregation numbers fall.
The Woke ‘Christian’ Candidates.
James Talarico, the Democrat nominee for the Senate in Texas against Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, is a former Presbyterian seminarian and perhaps the most high-profile woke “Christian” candidate in the midterm elections. Talarico has made a number of bizarre and controversial statements in recent years regarding his interpretation of the faith.
Comments from Talarico include statements that Allah and other religious concepts, such as the pagan “Great Spirit,” are equal to Jesus Christ as a pathway to God. This contrasts starkly with Christian scripture, with Christ stating in John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.”
The Texas Democrat has made a number of positive statements on Islam, in particular, stating that “Islamic mystics” have shaped his Christian faith, such as the Sufi Muslim poet Rumi. The St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, which Talarico attends, explicitly supports progressive causes, funding pro-abortion groups and LGBT children’s camps. The pastor of the church has even declared that he does not believe in Christ’s literal resurrection, a key pillar of the Christian faith.
Talarico has previously contended that the Bible does not explicitly address abortion on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in 2025. According to Talarico, the Annunciation, which saw the Archangel St. Gabriel visit the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the latter choosing to accept her role as the Mother of Jesus Christ, justifies abortion because Mary was allowed to choose.
Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico’s pastor (PCUSA) preaches during his Easter sermon that Jesus NEVER rose bodily from the dead and that he does NOT believe in a literal resurrection. pic.twitter.com/Z6ZH7hMJXg
Adam Hamilton, a woke megachurch pastor in Kansas, is also looking to win a race in the U.S. Senate, facing incumbent Senator Roger Marshall (R). Hamilton was the senior pastor at America’s largest United Methodist church and, in prior sermons, told parishioners to repent for eating beef and driving their cars because of climate change. Significantly, the beef industry is one of Kansas’ largest employers, providing thousands of jobs and making tens of billions of dollars for the state.
Sarah Trone Garriott, who is running for Congress as a Democrat in Iowa, is an active Lutheran pastor who has been sharply criticized by her Republican opponent, Representative Zach Nunn, who told WHO NewsRadio 1040 in Iowa that while in seminary, Trone Garriott had presided over a wedding for a pair of self-professed Satanists. Nunn claimed that Trone Garriot joked about the affair, saying, “She even joked about picking Bible verses so the Satanists could feel more at home.”
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How the Denominations Went Woke.
Mainline Protestantism consists of the United Methodist Church (UMC), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Episcopal Church (TEC), the Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA), American Baptist Churches USA, the United Church of Christ (UCC), and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). These are the primary denominations that have championed woke ideology in recent years, but their progressive history often goes back decades.
As early as 1972, the UCC ordained its first openly homosexual minister, William R. Johnson. While LGBT advocacy remained largely marginal across the other denominations, things changed rapidly at the turn of the 21st century, with the Episcopal Church ordaining its first openly homosexual bishop in 2003. In 2005, the UCC declared that marriage was between two people regardless of their gender, endorsing same-sex marriage. The ELCA opened ministry to “partnered” homosexual clergy in 2009. The Presbyterians (PCUSA) opened ordination to homosexuals in 2011, followed by approval of same-sex marriage in 2015. Finally, the United Methodists, who had declared homosexuality “incompatible with Christian teaching” in 1972, removed all prohibitions on same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy in 2024.
Roman Catholics, too, have seen woke movements within the Church, though unlike the mainline Protestants, the Vatican has not supported openly homosexual clergy or same-sex marriage or taken institutional stands on other woke issues. The American Jesuit priest Father James Martin is one of the most high-profile Catholic priests advocating for LGBT issues, though he does not have any formal institutional power in the Church. Fr. Martin has connections to many Democrats, including former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and once stated that he believed Buttigieg and his homosexual partner were married, despite the Catholic church not recognizing same-sex marriage as legitimate.
Immigration, however, is an issue that unites many of the mainline Protestants with progressive Roman Catholics and many Roman Catholic charities, which have been given billions of dollars by past Democratic regimes like the Biden government. That money was later cut by the second Trump administration.
Mainline Protestant pastors have been even more direct in their opposition to President Donald J. Trump’s policies on immigration, with many openly opposing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions and operations. Reverend David Black, senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, participated in protests against ICE in September of 2025, when he was shot with pepper balls by federal agents. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin argued at the time that Black was part of a protest that was blocking federal government vehicles and that they had been ordered off federal property repeatedly.
Woke pastor preaches ROBOCOP-themed service to protest the militarization of ICE and government efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants. pic.twitter.com/5NJ60MKA8z
While the new breed of ultra-progressive political Christianity appears to be getting louder and louder, the number of people actually attending progressive churches is suffering a sharp decline. Mainline Protestantism in America has seen its attendance fall rapidly for years, dropping from 18 percent of America’s adult population in 2007 to just 11 percent in 2023-2024.
In the 1970s, mainline Protestants accounted for nearly a third of the population.
Among the individual denominations, some of the most progressive, like the United Methodists, have lost over two million members from 1990 to 2020, a decline of 29 percent.
Others, like the ECLA, have also lost well over a million parishioners.
Could Christian Wokeism Triumph in 2026?
Traditionally, the Evangelical movement and much of the “religious right” has been a reliably Republican voting bloc. Woke Christianity, however, is turning into the ultra-progressive Democrat antithesis to traditional Christian politics. While the number of people attending woke churches is clearly declining, their influence appears to be growing, and if representatives like James Talarico and megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton win their Senate races in November, that influence could spread further.
Instead of a Church that calls on politicians to ground their morality and policies on the Bible and Christian tradition, woke Christianity takes the opposite approach, using existing progressive political beliefs to reinterpret Christianity to suit ideological leftism.
This is causing many voters to ask, “Is woke Christianity really Christianity at all?”
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The 2026 midterm elections are giving rise to a new political force in America: an explicitly woke form of so-called Christianity, with over a dozen Democrat candidates directly linked to ultra-progressive churches, some of whom are pastors themselves.
show more
By Popular Demand.
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The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam has warned on Stephen K. Bannon’s War Room show that Britain is now struggling with a deeply embedded “fifth column,” arguing that mass migration, restrictions on speech, and a two-tier justice system have left many Britons afraid to openly challenge the transformation of their communities.
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Kassam said there is “multi-tiered policing and multi-tiered justice going on in the United Kingdom,” adding that the issue extends beyond the preferential treatment of Islam and minorities to “how white people are being treated as second-class citizens in their own home nations at the moment.” Complaints against “two-tier policing” have become a growing political controversy in Britain in recent years.
Kassam argued that Britain’s speech laws also contribute to an atmosphere in which people think twice before discussing immigration, Islam, or some political leaders in a negative way. “It is one of the most stifling environments to speak that I’ve ever experienced,” he said, explaining that he is “certainly aware” that something he writes could potentially be construed in a way that results in criminal prosecution while he is in England.
Those concerns exist against a real legal backdrop: Britain’s Malicious Communications Act and Communications Act criminalize certain communications deemed offensive. Freedom of Information data reported in 2025 indicated police were making more than 12,000 arrests annually under the two laws.
Britain has also established 150-meter “safe access zones” around abortion facilities where conduct intended or likely to influence someone accessing so-called abortion services can be criminalized. Significantly, government guidance says that, depending on the circumstances, this can include silently praying inside your head.
Kassam said the larger danger is what happens after alien communities become sufficiently entrenched that assimilation and political integration become increasingly difficult. “I think that there is a fifth column in this country, Steve, that we’re not allowed to talk about, we’re not allowed to mention,” he told Bannon.
Kassam connected that warning directly to his 2017 book No Go Zones, for which he traveled through immigrant-heavy neighborhoods in the likes of Britain, France, Belgium, Sweden, and later Dearborn and Hamtramck in Michigan. Recalling a warning he attributed to the late Christopher Hitchens, Kassam argued that “if you allow these people into your midst, this fifth column into your midst, it is incredibly difficult to cut that cancer out of your society once the roots have taken hold.”
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The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam has warned on Stephen K. Bannon's War Room show that Britain is now struggling with a deeply embedded “fifth column,” arguing that mass migration, restrictions on speech, and a two-tier justice system have left many Britons afraid to openly challenge the transformation of their communities.
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By Popular Demand.
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Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally (RN) party has significantly increased its presence in the French Senate, winning enough seats to form a group for the first time in its history.
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On Sunday, elections were held for the French Senate, the upper chamber of the French legislature. The results saw National Rally secure a record 14 seats, clearing the 10-seat threshold needed to form a Senate group, a formal association of senators with broadly similar political views. Several different parties can belong to the same group, allowing allied parties and independent senators to work together.
How Does the French Senate Work?
Unlike the Deputies elected to the French National Assembly—roughly equivalent to the House of Commons in Britain and the House of Representatives in the U.S.—who are elected directly by the French people, members of the French Senate are elected indirectly. Senators are chosen by approximately 172,600 “Grand Electors.” These electors make up the Electoral College. Municipal representatives account for around 95 percent of the Electoral College, although the body also includes regional councillors, departmental councillors, Deputies, and incumbent senators.
There are 348 senators in total, each serving a six-year term. The Senate is renewed by half every three years. In 2026, 178 seats were contested across 63 constituencies, including 58 metropolitan departments and overseas territories, and six seats representing French citizens living abroad.
Sénatoriales 2026 : la majorité de droite reste stable. Le RN obtient un groupe et LFI enregistre sa première entrée au Sénat. pic.twitter.com/z2VIwi4u2C
The French Senate makes, amends, and votes on legislation alongside the National Assembly, and also votes on and debates government policy. Unlike Deputies, who directly represent the French electorate, the Senate is constitutionally intended to represent the country’s municipalities, departments, and regions; the lower, intermediate, and upper levels of territorial government, respectively. However, unlike the U.S. Senate, which has equal legislative power with the House of Representatives, the French Senate is less powerful than the National Assembly, which can override the Senate to pass legislation. The French Senate does not approve Cabinet appointments, either, although it does participate in the impeachment process.
What Were the Results?
The establishment center-right Republicans group secured 125 seats, down six from the last election, while the establishment center-left Socialists group secured 63 seats, down one. The Centrists, another establishment-aligned grouping, secured 57 seats, down two. Horizons, another establishment center-right group aligned with presidential hopeful Edouard Phillipe, secured 21 seats, up one. Phillipe served as Prime Minister of France under President Emmanuel Macron, whose liberal Renaissance group secured 17 seats, down two. The Communists, the main far-left group in the Senate, secured 19 seats, up one. The National Rally secured 14 seats, more than doubling the ten it secured in the last election, representing the biggest gains of any contesting party. The party tied with the European Democratic and Social Rally Group (RDSE), another establishment centrist group, and the left-wing Greens group, down three and up two from the last election, respectively.
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Why Does It Matter?
While group membership is not necessary to serve in the Senate, it is highly advantageous. Senate groups receive representation on parliamentary committees, speaking time, increased recognition, parliamentary funding, and other resources. Groups are also guaranteed the right to request parliamentary investigations. As such, the results have given the National Rally a boost ahead of next year’s presidential election, which Le Pen is projected to win against all potential rivals. “This is a historic victory, and a major milestone with the formation for the first time of a group in the Senate… The results have exceeded our expectations,” said the National Rally leader in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday.
C’est une victoire historique et une étape majeure qui est franchie avec la constitution pour la première fois d’un groupe au Sénat. Les résultats vont au-delà de ce que nous pouvions espérer, la percée est générale, confirmant l’accélération de l’implantation du Rassemblement…
The results demonstrate that National Rally is managing to build a significant network of municipal support, giving the party a long-term foothold in the French political system. Significantly, the Senate is almost designed to shut out parties like National Rally, and its gains signal it will perform even more strongly in the more powerful National Assembly, where it is already the single largest party, despite a joint effort by the establishment centrist and far-left blocs to prevent the party from gaining seats during the last legislative election in 2024.
Nigel Farage and Jordan Bardella have just signed a Memorandum of Understanding to stop the boats.
Reform UK and the National Rally will end the invasion of Britain and France together. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/18Z2ykBWH2
These election results come just weeks after Jordan Bardella, President of the National Rally and the current favorite to become France’s next Prime Minister under a Le Pen presidency, delivered a speech at the annual party conference of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party in Birmingham, England.
Bardella and Farage signed a “memorandum of understanding” to stop the boats that have been carrying thousands of illegalmigrants across the English Channel, and return them first to France and then their countries of origin. Bardella promised to ensure France is “no longer the gateway for illegal immigrants into the United Kingdom” and noted that sovereignty does not have to mean “standing alone” and “rejecting alliances.”
National Rally’s increased representation in the Senate can only increase the opportunities for long-term co-operation between Reform and the National Rally, which remains in a close contest with Britain’s governing Labor Party in the general election polls.
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Marine Le Pen's populist National Rally (RN) party has significantly increased its presence in the French Senate, winning enough seats to form a group for the first time in its history.show more
By Popular Demand.
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The British government is intentionally crushing the public under an avalanche of “petty indignities” so they are unable to push for broad national reforms, argued Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, during a recent appearance on former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon’s War Room show.
“How am I going to pay my gas bill? How am I going to pay my car insurance? What am I going to do when my mother or my father or my grandmother gets sick? … [I]t’s death by a thousand cuts, because then you can’t worry about anything outside of that. You can’t worry about what your community looks like. You can’t worry about three streets down, or three doors down even, from your own house. The entire ability to care about and curate your community, let alone your country, is ripped away from you with that particular tactic,” Kassam explained.
“The tax burden in this country is unbelievable. The levels of energy debt are unbelievable, through the roof, skyrocketing… Getting worse,” Kassam noted. Official statistics support the statement, with Britain’s Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), a fiscal watchdog comparable to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, having forecast that taxes will reach a post-war high of roughly 38 percent of economic output by 2030–31.
Frozen income tax thresholds are helping to drive that increase through a process of “fiscal drag.” This means that as wages rise, a larger share of earnings are becoming subject to higher tax rates, despite the value of those wages having falling due to inflation. For workers trying to cover ordinary expenses, this means their budgets are eroding via “stealth taxation,” without the government having to announce a controversial increase in headline income tax rates.
With respect to Kassam’s warning on energy bills, Ofgem, Britain’s energy regulator, has pushed average July–September 2026 rates on covered household tariffs to the equivalent of approximately 35 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity and 10 cents per kilowatt-hour of natural gas. Significantly, the regulator’s typical annual household price-cap figure, equivalent to $2,463, is a benchmark based on assumed usage, not a limit on what every household can spend. The rises are being driven chiefly by higher wholesale gas prices, caused by the Ukraine war, the Iran war, and the sabotage of the domestic North Sea oil and gas industry by the incumbent Labour Party and previous Conservative Party governments.
The Labour government is currently pressing ahead with its Clean Power 2030 program. Taxpayers are already subsidizing some so-called green energy, with approximately $689 million spent through June 2026 under the Renewables Obligation to Exchequer scheme, which shifts part of the cost of green energy subsidies from energy bills to public finances. Crucially, this shift can lower the charge visible on a household bill, but still leave the public covering the cost via taxation.
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The British government is intentionally crushing the public under an avalanche of "petty indignities" so they are unable to push for broad national reforms, argued Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, during a recent appearance on former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon's War Room show.
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By Popular Demand.
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Over the weekend, it was revealed that a former personal bodyguard to slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh received first asylum and then full British citizenship under Britain’s former Conservative (Tory) government. He allegedly went on to plot terrorist attacks against Jews and Israeli-linked targets in Europe from the English suburbs. Much of the media coverage of the scandal has focused on the courts’ decision to protect the identity of this “Mr. X”—identified as “Mohammed A.,” the son of Hamas politburo member Basem Naim, by the German press—for 100 years.
Less attention has been paid to the politicians who were in charge in the British government when it waved through a Hamas operative’s asylum and citizenship applications, or the fact that both of them are still members of Conservative leader Olukemi “Kemi” Badenoch’s top team.
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The Same Old Faces.
Then-Prime Minister Theresa May’s special adviser on counter-terrorism at the time was, as noted by Reform Party leader Nigel Farage on Monday morning, Nick Timothy, now a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) “recently promoted by Kemi Badenoch with a shadow justice brief.” Timothy was responsible for developing Conservative policy on police reform, criminal justice, and immigration up to 2015, when “Mr. X” first received asylum.
“You simply cannot make it up,” Farage said.
.@EllieHodgesxx and I discuss the story of the Hamas operative living in England since 2015.
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary tasked by Badenoch with representing the Conservatives’ position on the scandal, has blamed the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which continues to bind the United Kingdom to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights despite Brexit, for the Conservatives’ supposed inability to turn away “Mr. X.”
“There’s nothing any government can do about it, and that is precisely why we need to dismantle the entire legal system, come out of the ECHR,” he told Comcast’s Sky News.
The problem is that not only did the Conservatives make no moves to leave the ECHR during their 14 years in government from 2010 to 2024, but Philp personally voted against amendments to a Conservative bill aimed at facilitating deportations to Rwanda, which in the end never went ahead, besides four people leaving voluntarily in exchange for £3,000 (~$4,000) each. Crucially, these amendments would have stopped the ECHR from being used to block removals. Yet, far from expressing concerns that the ECHR could be used to thwart the Rwanda plan, he was frequently deployed to the media to defend the watered-down policy as a junior Home Office minister, just as he claims to oppose the ECHR in the media today.
Examining the parliamentary record, The National Pulse has found Philp in 2021, as an even more junior Home Office minister, declaring that “the United Kingdom has been a beacon of human rights for many centuries now and we intend to honour our ECHR obligations”—hardly the words of a determined opponent of the Convention.
You’ve probably seen the Hamas chief story today. But what you might not know is how this kind of person ever got asylum and citizenship in Britain.
Not only was it under the Tories, but it was the 2 most senior Tories Kemi Badenoch just put in charge of the Justice and Home… pic.twitter.com/6Yb93untkD
Badenoch, who gained British citizenship as a result of her Nigerian mother traveling to London to give birth in 1980, shortly before changes to citizenship law ended automatic citizenship by right of birth on British soil, served in the Conservative governments of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak, until the party’s crushing defeat in the 2024 general election.
Despite efforts to present her as a no-nonsense, anti-woke politician who just happened to serve in governments that increased immigration to its highest levels in history, her personal record on immigration is clear. In 2022, she thanked then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid in the House of Commons for lifting caps on migrant workers and foreign students, boasting that she had lobbied for the changes.
She also boasted about achieving record ethnic minority recruitment into the police and the magistracy in an ‘Inclusive Britain’ report in 2023, when she served as Minister for Equalities, and celebrated the ouster of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—likely Europe’s strongest leader on illegal immigration, as well as one of Britain’s few friends in Europe during Brexit.
The question facing right-leaning British voters in 2029—possibly much sooner, should Prime Minister Andy Burnham call an early election—is clear: Why should they trust a center-left Conservative Party masquerading as center-right on the ECHR and immigration, when it not only presided over the naturalization of a Hamas operative and unprecedented mass migration, but still has the same personnel who enabled or defended those catastrophes at the top of their party totem pole today?
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Over the weekend, it was revealed that a former personal bodyguard to slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh received first asylum and then full British citizenship under Britain's former Conservative (Tory) government. He allegedly went on to plot terrorist attacks against Jews and Israeli-linked targets in Europe from the English suburbs. Much of the media coverage of the scandal has focused on the courts' decision to protect the identity of this "Mr. X"—identified as "Mohammed A.," the son of Hamas politburo member Basem Naim, by the German press—for 100 years.
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By Popular Demand.
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