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2 days ago

Three Labour Peers Spoke at a Festival Sponsored by a Reform Mega-Donor – And Which Hosted a Far-Right Bookshop Read Our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HEL

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Three Labour peers have been criticised by one of their party colleagues after speaking at the 'Battle of Ideas' festival, which is sponsored by a Reform mega-donor and which partnered with a far-right bookshop, which sells books by Joseph Goebbels and Oswald Mosley. Labour MP Phil Brickell accused his colleagues of "legitimising" Reform's crypto billionaire Ben Delo by participating in last weekend's event, which was partnered with the far-right Oldspeak bookshop. The festival, run by Baroness Claire Fox's Academy of Ideas, partnered with the bookshop, as an official partner last weekend. Its guide pointed attendees their way, to source "works that challenge contemporary narratives and reinforce foundational beliefs". Several speakers also conducted book signings at the stall. As Byline Times recently reported, just days before, Oldspeak's owner received a visit from police over an allegedly racist post on X. Oldspeak's account frequently posts calls for "remigration" – the mass expulsion of people deemed not to be 'British' – but the visit focused on a photo the account posted of two Muslim men in the Suffolk village where it was previously based, captioned: "It's started." Responses included racist abuse. The organisers had been asked about the bookshop's more extreme content. This has included claiming that the black England footballer Marcus Rashford's parents' nationalities mean "he cannot be English", and approvingly sharing a video arguing that entire communities four generations deep should be stripped of citizenship, detained and deported. Another post included the hashtag "#millionsmustgo". Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. Three Labour peers spoke at the festival, which was presented "in association with" the foundation of Reform mega-donor Ben Delo. Lord (Jack) McConnell, former Scottish First Minister, spoke on two panels: one titled "Should we put Britain first? The 'national interest' question", and another on devolution. His first panel included Boris Johnson's former spokesman Lord Ross Kempsell, who had promoted Oldspeak on X in a post that now appears to have been deleted. When approached Kempsell told this outlet: "I obviously had no knowledge of these posts as I just bought a book from a book stall at a conference and, it goes without saying, I don't agree with the content." Blue Labour founder Lord (Maurice) Glasman, seen as on the right of the party, spoke at a keynote session titled "We don't 'do God': have we lost faith in secular liberalism?" In November last year, he addressed the Together Declaration's fourth-anniversary conference, DeSmog reported. The Together Declaration rose to prominence opposing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, and was listed as a festival supporter this year. Fellow Labour peer Baroness (Ann) Mallalieu, who spoke on a panel about the urban/rural divide, is president of the Countryside Alliance, which was also a named festival partner. She told this outlet: "I was invited to take part in the festival session on the town/ countryside divide by a member of the panel. It was the only session I attended . I was neither offered or received any fee or expenses for doing so." SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES Labour MP Phil Brickell told Byline Times: "Labour peers should – under no circumstances – be legitimising Ben Delo's involvement in British politics. Peers have every opportunity to engage in a battle of ideas each week, in the House of Lords chamber. There's simply no excuse for taking part in Delo's efforts to launder his reputation via such events. "As for Oldspeak Bookshop...
5 days ago

What Ukraine's Strikes On Data Centres Really Revealed About Russian Information Warfare Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Don't miss a story The Real Story About Russian Bot

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen When Ukrainian drones struck Yandex's data centres in Russia recently, social media users were quick to declare victory over Russian bot farms, touting claims about reduced internet traffic as proof that Russian bots on platforms like X had been wiped out in the strikes. Those claims largely missed the real story, though, which is both more complicated and much more revealing than the narrative about bot farms. On October 8, Ukrainian drones struck Yandex's data centre in Sasovo, in Russia's Ryazan region. Yandex told Reuters that the attack started a fire and forced the facility to suspend operations. The next day, another strike caused damage to a Kaluga data center, and on October 11, Yandex's facility in Vladimir was forced to shut down completely after it was hit. In four days, three pieces of the country's digital backbone were hit. According to the BBC, the strikes were meant to hit "places that provide revenue streams for Moscow's war machine." The data suggests they had a major impact. Cloudflare reported that Yandex Search requests fell as much as 99% below baseline, and requests from Yandex.Cloud were 90 percent below baseline. Reuters also reported problems at Cian, Litmarket, Russian Railways, and Spartak Moscow's website, and the operator of a Russian dating app reported that he lost access to his app and the backup database needed to restore it elsewhere. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES Not long after, social media lit up with posts claiming that the drone strikes had wiped out "Russian bot" activity and cleaned up social media platforms like X. Some users claimed that bot accounts had disappeared from X, and that online discourse was "much better" since the Russian bot networks were taken down. The narrative quickly went viral and spread beyond social media users. U24, a Ukrainian government-run platform launched in 2022 "to raise money and influence international opinion for Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian war," produced a report claiming that "Russian bots went silent" on social media following the strikes. Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined in, saying that "everyone noticed" a sudden drop in bot activity on social media due to the strikes. A member of the European Parliament also pointed to what he claimed was a drop in support for the far-right AfD coinciding with the drone strikes. But the real story is not quite that neat and clean. Cloudflare's analysis measured web requests reaching websites protected by its network. The numbers it reported describe requests from Yandex networks—not people, social media posts, or propaganda accounts. Most of the "bot" activity measured was due to verified search crawlers, which are different than the social bots that most people are familiar with. In practical terms, the biggest impact of the drop in bot activity reported by Cloudflare was a loss of Yandex's ability to refresh its search index, not a disappearance of online propaganda or social media bots. On Yandex.Cloud, affected services included applications and automated traffic. In one particularly interesting case, a high-volume pattern of automated activity disappeared from Yandex.Cloud and reappeared on other Russian hosting networks with the same technical fingerprint. The requests targeted a gambling site. This case provides direct evidence that some software shifted providers when the outages hit, showing how malicious activity can bounce back and continue even after a physical attack on the infrastructure it depends on. The President's deep ties to Russian interests require far greater scrutiny given his ongoing betrayal of Ukraine, argues Zarina Zabrisky Zarina Zabrisky There is scant evidence that social media was significantly affected. In an analysis published on October 14th, Cloudflare reported that it found little change in Russian-origin or global social media traffic. "Based on ...
4 days ago

Jason Arday Again Cleared of Plagiarism as His Attackers Launch an 'Independent Inquiry' Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system The US Far-Right War on British Institutions ##LIGH

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen A fresh investigation by scientific publisher Taylor & Francis has concluded without substantiating plagiarism allegations against Jason Arday, the former Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, vindicating Byline Times' reporting and further undermining The Times' portrayal of him as a serial plagiarist. Yet a "private inquiry" commissioned by a group involved in the campaign against the late Cambridge professor looks set to shield the press from accountability for weeks of inaccurate reporting. The organisation behind the "independent" investigation into the late Jason Arday's Cambridge appointment is backed by billionaire Reform UK megadonor Ben Delo, who also finances a Westminster political hub that has hosted Aporia, a platform promoting anti-black race science, Byline Times has established. The Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF) has previously publicly acknowledged Delo's support, though how much he has given to it is unclear. Delo, a cryptobillionaire who has donated £36 million to Reform UK, also finances a Westminster office and events space for right-wing groups called The Sanctuary. In July 2024, The Sanctuary hosted an Aporia event featuring Nathan Cofnas, the "race realist" whose allegations about Arday helped drive the campaign against the former Professor of Sociology of Education at Cambridge University. Aporia is a stealth race science magazine operating as a rebranded front organisation for a Nazi eugenics foundation set up in 1937. From the National Trust to the National Theatre, from the BBC to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Britain's landmark institutions are locked in the sights of an extreme ideological network. With your support, Byline Times is launching a dedicated #LightUpTheDark investigative series into the people, money and institutions seeking to transform British public life. Contribute to our #LightUpTheDark crowdfunder EXCLUSIVE 17 September 2026 EXCLUSIVE 10 September 2026 7 September 2026 19 August 2026 18 August 2026 EXCLUSIVE 9 July 2026 Byline Times has previously revealed that Delo also helped secretly finance a failed libel case against a Jewish artist, brought by two alleged neo-Nazi conspiracy theorists who had exchanged pro-Hitler messages. In an article in The Critic, CAF announced its own "independent inquiry" into Arday's academic standing; Cambridge University's handling of his appointment; and the role of equality, diversity, and inclusion ('DEI') policies in recruitment. The Critic is owned and financed by Jeremy Hoskings, who donated £1.7 million to Reform UK in 2025. The announcement was extensively reported by The Times, The Telegraph, Times Higher Education, and GB News – which published often sensationalist and inaccurate articles about Jason Arday in the weeks before he was found dead at his home in south London on 14 August this year. The same publications, however, have failed to report that claims made by The Times on 5 August about "impossible data" and "plagiarism" in several of Arday's papers have not been supported. As Byline Times has previously revealed, The Times had falsely claimed that a central 2018 paper by Arday had been "retracted". In reality, it had simply been "corrected", with no findings of plagiarism or data fabrication, and its scientific contribution considered valid. The Times had also flagged a 2020 paper by Arday. However, the newspaper had failed to acknowledge that this paper had already been investigated and cleared by scientific publisher Taylor & Francis. Yet following The Times' story, which triggered a spate of global reporting depicting Arday as a serial plagiarist, Taylor & Francis conducted a second investigation of the paper. That investigation appears now to have been concluded, once again with no substantiation of further charges of plagiarism or data fabrication. Neither The...
6 days ago

A Short History of Trump's Long-Held Connections to Russia Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Early Ties to Russia (1970s – 1980s) Moscow Visits & Alleged Recruitment (1980s

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen In the final weeks before the US midterm elections, Donald Trump has made a number of concessions which benefit the Russian President Vladimir Putin. These have included reported restrictions on the Ukrainian military's use of Starlink and interruptions in US intelligence sharing, a diesel fuel deal with the Kremlin, the waiver of major sanctions and open confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. These steps raise questions about Trump's relationship with the Kremlin, his political motivations, and the future of American democracy. Considering the Russian Federation is facing military and economic pressure, these questions gain even more urgency. So does Putin hold leverage over Trump? The mind-blowing convergence of American policy with Russian interests made the global community wonder. The number of theories and conspiracies in both respected mass media and social media is endless. Does Putin possess financial or personal kompromat on Trump, and could the Kremlin be threatening to release it before the midterms? Are there undisclosed financial obligations? Allegations of financial and business ties between Trump and Russian entities have been investigated by prominent journalists, including award-winning authors Craig Unger and Luke Harding. These investigations remain limited by a lack of direct access to Russian archives, but credible sources such as former intelligence officials have substantiated claims, urging public scrutiny. Could Putin have offered electoral assistance as Trump faces mounting political pressure? In November 2024, numerous bomb threats targeting polling stations originated from Russian email domains, according to the FBI. US intelligence agencies identified Russian influence operations designed to undermine the electoral process. Are there life threats involving Trump's family? Any investigation into the Kremlin-linked activity must consider that modern Russia operates as a mafia-style state. Trump's foreign policy positions that appear aligned with Russian interests raised questions about possible pressure for quite some time. While these and other theories remain speculative, they gain particular significance in view of Trump's lifelong history of ties with Russia, warm personal ties with Putin, and his administration's softening on sanctions. The evolving dynamics of such foreign policy decisions warrant closer scrutiny of Trump's long-standing connections to Russia. Understanding the nature of these connections is vital for assessing whether private interests may have influenced US foreign policy. In this context, a timeline of Trump's interactions with Russian entities offers valuable context. Trump's early business ventures reveal ties to individuals with connections to Soviet intelligence. In 1976, Soviet immigrants Tamir Sapir and Sam Kislin sold televisions on credit for Trump's Commodore Hotel. Tamir Sapir had previously studied at the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the USSR, while Kislin's electronics business served as a cover for KGB operations, according to former KGB spy Yuri Shvets. Shvets claimed that Kislin worked as a recruiter and identified Trump as a potential asset. Kislin later issued mortgages to the buyers of Trump World Tower apartments. In 1977, Ivana Zelníčková, Trump's first wife, was surveilled by Czechoslovakian secret police (StB), which cooperated with the KGB. The StB's records show that Ivana's movements and communications were closely monitored during her visits to Czechoslovakia, including surveillance of her family. Unclassified documents show that by 1979, the StB ordered at least one annual wiretap of her phone calls with her father Miloš Zelníček and monitored their mail. The Trump children's visits to their grandfather in Czechoslovakia were also observed by the secret police. A Prague-based secret police collaborator met numerou...
14 Oct

Far-Right Bookshop Praised by Reform's James Orr Faces Police Warning Over 'Racist' Post About Muslim Men Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen A far-right bookshop endorsed by a series of prominent right-wing figures – which sells books by Hitler, Goebbels, and Mosley, and whose social media account called for millions of people to be removed from Britain – has found itself being looked into by police. Until August, Oldspeak Bookshop had a physical presence in the leafy and affluent Suffolk village of Long Melford, which has a trade in quirky independent shops. Oldspeak became a darling of the far-right, stocking white nationalist and Nazi literature before the store said it had been hounded out by "constant hostility" in the area. Its name is taken from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which "Oldspeak" is the ordinary English that the regime's engineered language, "Newspeak", is designed to replace. Before its closure, the shop displayed a Union flag in its window bearing the words 'Remigration Now' – the term typically used to demand the forced expulsion of significant numbers of people, including those here legally, who are not deemed to be 'British'. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. The store's account on Elon Musk's social media platform X has frequently endorsed far-right material, including: Posting a photograph of the shop front in June with the caption "Mood #millionsmustgo". Replying to GB News' Tom Harwood, saying that the black England footballer Marcus Rashford's parents' nationalities mean "he cannot be English". Quote-tweeting a clip of commentator Connor Tomlinson – a Restore Britain-linked activist and backer of the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory – arguing that entire communities four generations deep should be stripped of citizenship, detained, and deported and posting: "Not sure what the problem is here." Replying to a social media user who noted that people dislike a business that backs the disappearance of millions of foreign nationals with: "I don't think they should simply disappear. Plenty of them should be hanged too." Replying "not yet" with a laughing emoji, when asked whether Nazi flags (including a British Union of Fascists lightning bolt, and Swastika-emblazoned Union flags) are among the ones "these people are terrified about". Oldspeak Bookshop continues its trade via its website, where its list of independent publishers includes Antelope Hill Publishing – which the US-based Southern Poverty Law Centre has described as a white nationalist publisher. Alongside some critical histories of Nazism, titles available through the website include Adolf Hitler's collected speeches (a blurb states "he may have been Man of the Century"); The Rise of the Reich written by the SS itself (with a description praising its 'mythic grandeur and martial clarity'); British Union of Fascists Leader Sir Oswald Mosley's My Life; Joseph Goebbels' Battle for Berlin; and publications on 'anti-white racism' and demands for 'remigration'. The shop has run a promotion with the discount code "RemigrationNow". Despite losing its physical presence, Oldspeak's owner, Joanne May – who is not from Long Melford and has previously run businesses in Essex – said she is "honoured to return" to the Battle of Ideas festival in London later this month, with a stall selling books by speakers. It is organised and hosted by the Academy of Ideas think tank – the founder and director of which is Baroness Claire Fox, an independent peer in the House of Lords. Neither responded to requests for comment. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES In September, May – who runs Oldspeak's X account – posted a photograph of two young Muslim men waiting at a bus stop in Long Melford, ...
16 Oct

Former Ofcom Standards Chief Condemns Watchdog's 'Two Tier' Approach to GB News Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Change in the

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Ofcom has created a false distinction between 'current affairs' and 'news' which is allowing highly-partisan political figures to present what are effectively news shows on TV, according to the former official who wrote the regulator's broadcasting code. Chris Banatvala, Ofcom's founding Director of Standards, told Byline Times that the position taken by the watchdog had created a "two tier" situation whereby channels like GB News are allowed to get away with things that the BBC and others would never be able to. Banatvala was speaking as a report from cross-party think tank Demos finds that the UK is an outlier in Europe in allowing serving politicians to present news and current affairs programmes on regulated radio and television services. The report, from Dr James Painter of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, draws on evidence from 37 media regulators in Europe. The survey found that in 35 of the national bodies which responded, regulators identified no examples of serving politicians presenting news or current affairs programmes, with isolated examples reported in only Iceland and Malta. In contrast, almost a third of GB News' currently-listed presenters (10 of 32) are current or former representatives for right-wing parties, Byline Times analysis suggests, including (most famously) Reform UK's Nigel Farage MP and Lee Anderson MP, as well as former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg. The right-wing channel has notched up losses of over £142 million since its launch in 2021, according to Press Gazette. Also on the list are former Brexit Party MEP (and ex-'lads mag' editor) Martin Daubney, former Conservative MP Miriam Cates, recent Reform UK candidate Matt Goodwin, ex-Brexit Party MEP candidate Michelle Dewberry, Leo Kearse who stood for Laurence Fox's hard-right Reclaim party, and 2018 Conservative local election candidate Tom Harwood. Only one presenter appears to have been closely associated with Labour, ex-MP Gloria De Piero. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. Ex Ofcom standards chief Chris Banatvala told Byline Times Ofcom "allows politicians to present and report on current affairs programmes" – despite there being "no difference" in law between the impartiality requirement for news and for what are deemed "controversial matters". He suggested Parliament tweaks the Communications Act so that Ofcom is "fully aware that due impartiality in news should be at the same level" as what it calls current affairs. The former regulator told this outlet: "When the Ofcom code was originally drafted and published, nobody expected that politicians would regularly present current affairs programmes, day in, day out, on a news channel. It was never envisaged." The original guidance was dropped, he said. "There was a view that having politicians regularly interviewing guests from the same party would be a clear breach of impartiality. That understanding seems to have disappeared." A Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport spokesperson suggested policy change was coming, telling this outlet: "We are exploring what action to take, to make sure people know whether what they are watching is opinion or fact." The Government spokesperson added: "Trusted, unbiased news that holds elected politicians to account is vital to ensuring we have a functioning democracy. The modern media landscape has become more complicated by a blurring of polemic and fact, with viewers struggling to separate a politician's political allegiance from objective news reporting." The Government say...
3 days ago

UK Universities Accused of 'Silencing' Pro-Palestinian Students and Academics Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Don't miss a st

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen A raft of UK universities have restricted solidarity with Palestinian people amongst students and academics, including speech that could be perceived as critical of Israel, according to a new report from Amnesty International. The Silencing Dissent report finds that universities have cancelled meetings and events, framed peaceful protest as 'disruption', shut down encampments and taken pre-emptive punitive measures. It presents 26 case studies across nearly two dozen universities, covering 7 October 2023 to 30 September 2025. Amnesty found that the restrictions often did not meet the high bar in international and UK law for interfering with political speech and peaceful assembly. Sanctions have included suspensions, campus bans, threats to withdraw degrees, visa statuses being jeopardised, in moves "often causing great personal harm." In several cases, sanctions were imposed before disciplinary hearings had concluded, "effectively transforming precautionary measures into punishments and contributing to the chilling effect." Some universities prolonged investigations without clarifying timelines, outcomes or routes of appeal, which – combined with campus bans and restricted access to services – had "severe impacts on people's education, mental health and future prospects." Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. Some universities relied on overly broad disciplinary codes, characterising protests as 'disruptive' or 'offensive' despite what the NGO says was "no apparent evidence of targeted harm". Others treated peaceful protest as trespass, even in campus squares, foyers and union buildings used for protests for decades. Some now require advance approval for protests, while others have sought court injunctions imposing blanket bans across large parts of campus, exposing students and staff to the risk of fines and imprisonment. Kerry Moscogiuri, CEO of Amnesty International UK, said: "This is an attack on our freedom of speech and the right to protest from the very institutions who are supposed to encourage free thought. "Students and academics care about the victims of Israel's genocide in Gaza. It's beyond belief that some of our prominent universities see this as a threat that requires punitive measures like court injunctions, and harsh punishments that leave students with their lives turned upside down." She said the findings were "part of a wider crackdown on communities coming together to make their voices heard on Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and other issues they care about." Amnesty is asking universities to commit to its 'Defend Dissent Charter'. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES According to the human rights body, some universities have shared legal strategies, received instructions from the Department for Education, and shared security planning, with the effect of clamping down on those perceived to be showing support for the victims of Israel's apartheid and genocide in Gaza. The authors argue Palestine-related expression frequently came under greater scrutiny than other student protest, with Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and other racialised students and staff, as well as non-British students, experiencing "particular and disproportionate impacts." Usama Ghanem, a 22-year-old student, was suspended by King's College London in 2025 over his involvement in pro-Palestinian activism, and told to "return to [Egypt] during this period of suspension", where he had previously been detained and tortured. His suspension was lifted after review in September 2026. Usama said: "I left an authoritarian regime in Egypt to find o...
5 days ago

The Media 'Manufactured' Millionaire Exodus From UK, Campaigners Tell IPSO in Open Letter Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Don

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen An open letter to Culture Secretary Nandy and Chancellor Healey Since 2024, around the world about 30 news articles have been published every day about an exodus of millionaires and billionaires fleeing taxes. The UK, we're told, has had the worst of it thanks to the Labour Government's tax policies. This coverage was almost entirely based on the claims of a single study, the Henley Private Wealth Migration report. The study has now finally admitted it does not have the data to back up its claims. The study was propelled to the national and global stage by parts of the UK press, who chose to extensively cover it, without fact-checking and doing journalistic due diligence, and despite multiple warnings from experts against trusting it. But the press didn't just spread the study widely – some reporting radically distorted it. Eight UK publications – The Times, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Evening Standard, The Spectator, The Daily Express and This is Money – attributed findings to the study that ultimately had an effect of misleading the public. Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. SUBSCRIBE TODAY We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. The publications in question said the study blamed the Labour Party's electoral victory for kicking off the exodus in 2024. But the study – even if their data is discredited – said it started with Brexit. The publications said the study warned that migrating millionaires would take £66 billion out of the UK with them. But the study said they would not do so. The publications said the study determined that millionaires were leaving because of tax. But the study said tax was only one of several reasons. Even the publisher of the study thought the publications were "deliberately" spinning the study's findings: "We have never claimed that Labour tax policies were the sole or root cause. If papers such as the Telegraph, Times, Mail, decide to add their own layer on to that, and deliberately exclude from their story our standard reminder to them that these were the Conservatives' tax changes, then I think your argument is with them not with us… We have consistently reported a net outflow of millionaires from the UK from 2016 (and not just since Labour took office last year)." The publications' misleading reporting was repeatedly cited by MPs and Lords in parliamentary debates. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES In response to the manufactured narrative, the Labour Government weakened plans announced by the Conservatives to reduce the special tax break we give to wealthy individuals who live in the UK but who are allowed to pay tax as though they live abroad – ie, "non-doms". A recent HMRC review has confirmed the exodus of the press's scaremongering has not materialised. Despite this, and despite the Henley study's admission that it does not have data to support the exodus claims, much of the press have continued to report the same fabricated story. Some papers have continued to use the study's now-abandoned claims unashamedly. The wealth exodus narrative has continued to feature prominently in reporting, with coverage increasing ahead of the Autumn Budget. They reported millionaire exodus claims from a "millionaire tracker" whose only evidence of an exodus was the abandoned claims from the Henley study. They reported that billionaire David Reuben, who has been resident in Monaco since 2014, moved to Monaco this past summer. They reported that billionaires were taking £120 billion out of the UK according to a Bloomberg report, even though this is inconsistent with Bloomberg's own data. The truth is nine in 10 (88% of) millionaires in the U...
4 days ago

'Trump's Russia Strategy Is Opening Himself Up to an Inevitable Humiliation' Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system What Ukraine's Strikes On Data Centres Really Revealed About Ru

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Maybe Donald Trump likes being humiliated? Maybe that's another thing to add to the very long list of possible reasons why the US President is seemingly always open to doing the bidding of his opposite number in Moscow. If, as the most powerful man on the planet, you ask someone to do something and they publicly rebut the request, that's a very public humiliation. So when Trump announced last week that he has secured an agreement from Russia and Ukraine for an energy ceasefire, and Russia follows that by spending all week carrying out waves of attacks deliberately targeting energy facilities in Ukraine, that would be embarrassing for Trump. So how does he react? On Friday night, a time when news is dropped in order to be buried, Trump announced that "in the national interest" he was signing an Executive Order to waive the sanctions on Russia that were contained in a bill designed by the late Lindsey Graham. One wonders, which nation this is in the interests of? That bill went through the Senate with an 86-11 margin. In seeking to help Vladimir Putin, Trump is defying an overwhelming vote from a bipartisan group of lawmakers. This comes in the wake of Trump, along with Elon Musk, calling for Ukraine's President to be replaced. Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed, saying he will call elections that could see an end to his own rule, if Russia can be persuaded to agree to and respect a 60-day ceasefire in order to create the necessary conditions for the vote. And once again the Kremlin refused. Another humiliation for Trump. Once again his wishes were taken into account by Kyiv but there was rejection by Moscow. And yet, pressure continues to mount on Ukraine, rather than on Russia. As well as having to deal with the realities of a brutal war being waged by the Russian Federation, it is clear that the United States is now acting in tandem with Russia in an attempt to end the war through forced Ukrainian capitulation. The nature of the latest act of sabotage against Ukraine is the limitation of the Starlink/Starshield technology that is provided and controlled by Musk's SpaceX company, but is largely paid for (on regular commercial terms, there's no altruism involved) by Poland. Starlink services are employed throughout Ukraine in a variety of ways. As well as being integrated in logistical operations dropping food and water to frontline troops, Starlink is an essential component in the weapons systems that have been designed to combat the evolving threat to civilians from Russian and Iranian drones. Those drones are now being equipped with jet engines, enabling them to fly at speeds of up to 600 Km/h. With Starlink usability being limited to a maximum of 160 Km/h, the interceptors simply cannot catch the drones. Suggestions that Ukraine's attack on a Russian data decimated social media 'bots' failed to understand how Moscow's misinformation campaigns really work, reports Caroline Orr Bueno Caroline Orr Bueno As a result, civilians that could have been saved have been killed or injured. By Russia. With assistance from the United States. What's noteworthy about this deliberate obstruction to Ukraine's defensive capabilities is that nobody wants to own up to having made the decision or given the order. Musk has pointed the finger at the White House. Trump has said that he doesn't know who did it (a shocking admission that he's unaware of who does what within his government, were he telling the truth) and Secretary Rubio insists that Ukraine didn't even have the system that was being hobbled. According to reporting in The Telegraph and Wall Street Journal newspapers though, it was Musk's idea, he brought it to Trump, and Trump gave the thumbs up. Civilians that would have been defended were killed or injured. By Russia. With the United States playing the role of collaborator. If this is all an effort to pressure Zelenskyy to capitul...
9 Oct

Reform UK's James Orr's Foundation Hosted Sanctioned Israeli Minister Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Don't miss a story Smotrich, Orr and the Edmund Burke Foundation 'If A

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Reform UK's suspended head of policy James Orr is the UK chairman of a foundation which hosted an Israeli minister, Bezazel Smotrich, sanctioned by Britain for inciting violence against Palestinians, Byline Times can reveal. Orr's fellow director at the Edmund Burke Foundation, and its founding chairman, is Yoram Hazony, an Israeli-American Bible scholar who previously praised Rabbi Meir Kahane – the late creator of the Kach movement that was banned by Israel as a terrorist organisation. The foundation's latest National Conservatism conference known as "NatCon" took place in Jerusalem earlier in the first week of October and was sponsored by an Israeli NGO sanctioned by both the EU and Canada due to lobbying for the demolition of Palestinian property. The event has fast become an alliance between the Israeli extreme right and established right-wing forces in the US, Britain and Europe, from President Donald Trump's administration to Reform and the Conservatives. Previous NatCon events have been addressed by JD Vance (just before he was appointed Trump's Vice President), Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and three Conservative MPs who have since joined his party. Vance has also credited NatCon founder Hazony's work with influencing his politics. The conference programme for NatCon's Jerusalem event also advertised Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, who publicly defended Lehava, a group Britain has sanctioned and whose leader, Ben-Zion Gopstein, is a disciple of Meir Kahane. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES At the NatCon event in Jerusalem, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Yoel Smotrich called for permanent Israeli sovereignty over territory held in Gaza and Lebanon, and urged Muslim countries to receive Gazans wishing to leave, presenting the proposal as voluntary rather than forced removal. Britain sanctioned him in June 2025 over his role in inciting violence against Palestinian civilians, imposing an asset freeze and travel ban. Orr, an Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Cambridge, is UK Chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation and a director of its British company, alongside the foundation's founder, Yoram Hazony. Hazony is also chairman and a director of the US foundation, which organised the Jerusalem event. Orr stepped aside as Reform UK's head of policy on 4 September, after a Channel 4 News undercover report on foreign donations filmed him apparently soliciting illegal donations. An internal investigation by Reform UK this week concluded there was no wrongdoing. However, a spokesperson for Reform UK told Byline Times that "James Orr stepped down from his role in September and his status hasn't changed." Orr is a prominent intellectual architect of the National Conservatism movement and has been a primary organiser for major NatCon events in Europe and the UK. He did not respond to requests for comment regarding his role in the NatCon event in Jerusalem and his continued role as UK chairman of the host foundation. Nigel Farage's Head of Policy endorsed extremist 'Great Replacement' theory, called for the reversal of a quarter-century of British migration, and named himself UK chair of a pan-European far-right alliance, in conversation with now deceased 'MAGA' activist Charlie Kirk. Nafeez Ahmed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, chief rabbi of Safed, spoke on the Jewish character of the Israeli state at the NatCon event in Jerusalem. In September 2021, he had joined senior rabbis in a public letter opposing moves in Israel to outlaw Lehava as a terrorist organisation. Lehava campaigns against relationships between Jews and non-Jews. The UK Government sanctioned Lehava in May 2024, citing its role in facilitating, inciting and promoting violence against Arab and Palestinian communities. On 8 September this year, Britain also sanctioned the group's leader, Ben-Zion Gopstein, for supporting and inciting violence against Palestinians...

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