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3d ago

'Republicans Pushing the 'Red Scare' About Democrats Should Look First at Trump' Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Trump Went to War In Order to Break Iran and Left It More P

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen With their party's popularity in freefall, leading Republicans have identified a new message to unite around. The Democrats, according to House Speaker Mike Johnson, will lead America down "the dark road of death to communism." President Donald Trump, Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with religious right leaders such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's spiritual leader Doug Wilson, have made equally histrionic claims. The Red Scare has returned to America, only this time it is pure farce. Definitions of "communism" are a bit like definitions of pornography: hard to pin down but everyone is pretty sure they know it when they see it. For the Republicans echoing this new midterm strategy, communism just means Democrats. For the donors who fund Trump and the MAGA movement, communism means anything that hints that the gargantuan fortunes they have acquired are anything less than the righteous reward for their genius. For the MAGA faithful, communism happens whenever some big-city or brown progressive person says something critical about the cost-of-living crisis or Papa Trump. For many immigrants from formerly communist regimes, along with those whose political identities were forged by the Cold War, it means rule by thuggish authoritarians claiming to represent 'the people'. Because the term is such a vague catch-all for 'everything that scares me' it proves so useful for the demagogues who now control the Republican Party. The messaging strategy is also circulating in some of the more conservative circles in the UK and the EU. At this year's Alliance for Responsible Citizenship gathering, which drew about 4000 attendees to London's Olympia conference center last June, several speakers merged their praise for Western civilization with dark threats about the spread of communism and its apparent equivalent, socialism. EXCLUSIVE Brynn Tannehill explains how Trump's war has resurrected an Iranian regime that sanctions and drought had been on course to topple Brynn Tannehill "It is almost universally recognised that the West shows the world the way of economic development," said Ignat Solzhenitsyn, a pianist and composer and the son of Aleksandr, the famous Soviet dissident and Nobel laureate. "Socialism of any style and hue leads to a comprehensive destruction of the spiritual essence of man." Like Christian nationalists in the US, he laid the blame on humanism. "The turn effected by the Renaissance," he asserted, led to a "headlong dash from the spirit toward matter" and a "dangerous tilt toward worship of man and material goods." Tell that to the well-dressed attendees who flew business class to this £1500-per-ticket event. The American video producer and podcaster John Papola similarly invoked "communists," "Marxists," and "New Jacobins," along with the insufficiently pious, as the supposed enemies of fathers and families. Where precisely can you find these nefarious types? At the "woke madrasas" otherwise known as America's educational institutions. The history of Red Scares is grim. In the scare of 1918-1920, the federal government under President Woodrow Wilson criminalized political dissent, engaged in warrantless searches as a matter of policy, and put thousands of individuals, many of them immigrants, under detention without due process. (Does any of this sound familiar?) In the 1950s, too, red-baiting deprived thousands of individuals of their civil rights and careers. More than that, Red Scares were used to undermine American movements for civil rights and labor rights, allowing reactionaries to sideline and silence opponents without having to engage with the facts. The Red Scares of earlier times always came wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. It is no accident that they often invoked the language of religious authoritarianism. If God is on our side, according to the paranoid style of Ameri...
2d ago

Chairman Farage: How Reform UK Operates as a Democratic Party in Name Only 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 story

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen In February 2025, Reform's then-Chairman Zia Yusuf wrote: "We are pleased to announce that, as promised, Nigel Farage has handed over ownership of Reform UK to its members. "Reform UK is now a non-profit, with no shareholders, limited by guarantee." Previously, Nigel Farage literally owned Reform UK. He held the vast majority of shares, in a highly unusual arrangement for a political party. Farage pledged to change that. The party remains a company, but the majority-shareholder model is gone, and a formal constitution, member conferences, and voting rights are now in place. Up to a point. Byline Times has got hold of a copy of Reform UK's constitution, adopted in September last year, and it shows that Reform UK is still not the member democracy its leading lights have suggested. 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 resolution adopting Reform's new constitution states that it "robustly democratises participation within the party by the membership." What the actual constitution itself suggests however is that Reform UK is a DINO – Democracy in Name Only. While the new governing document introduced a party Board, containing (some) elected members, and formalised member ballots for the leadership, Nigel Farage retains an extraordinary degree of power. Some of the arrangements will be familiar to frustrated members of other parties. Motions carried at Reform's conference are advisory only, and simply have to be discussed by the Board. Members vote in internal elections – but those are at the whim of the party Board. Article 4.3 of the constitution notes the Board has absolute discretion over party ballots. But the democratic sheen comes off completely when we look at how Farage could be removed. The answer is: it's almost impossible. To call an emergency general meeting or to issue a vote of no confidence in the leader, requires written requests to Farage's appointed Chairman, currently ex-Conservative MP Lee Anderson, from at least 50% of all members "in good standing" (There is another mechanism to call such a vote, but only once Reform has over 100 MPs). Reform has around 270,000 members, according to recent tallies, meaning around 135,000 members would have to write to Anderson, within 60 days, to demand a no-confidence vote in the Chairman's boss. Imagine, if you will, Lee Anderson combing through 135,000 hand-written letters and deciding if each of the writers are a) members and b) in 'good standing'. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES Members are deemed of 'good standing' if their subscriptions are up to date, they are not subject to any suspension or exclusion by the party, and they owe no debts to the party older than 30 days and more than £100. The leader-appointed Chairman has extensive powers over what counts as 'good standing'. He can refuse new membership and renewals, revoke membership in specified circumstances, exercise emergency disciplinary powers "in cases of exceptional gravity and urgency", suspend candidates (subject to Board approval after the fact), oversee the membership database and exercise overall responsibility for party organisation. The Discipline Committee of the Board, composed of serving members, calls most of the shots on member suspensions or expulsions – and it is chaired by the party secretary. That role is appointed by Nigel Farage. (There is an appeals process which is more independent, for those who want to keep fighting). Should a no-confidence motion in Farage be called – after meeting that impossibly-high bar – the decision goes to the Board. Farage sits on that Board, and there's no requ...
2d ago

Jason Arday: We Must Rage – Rage Against the Journalism of Cruelty Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system There Will Be Another Jason Arday The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science N

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The death of Jason Arday has prompted an uncomfortable question for British journalism: when does legitimate scrutiny become something cruel and destructive? The 41-year-old resigned from Cambridge University as Professor of Sociology of Education after allegations of plagiarism and questions about aspects of his public biography. Arday denied plagiarism, while acknowledging errors in his work. He described "an unrelenting level of public scrutiny and personal attack", saying that the "relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love". In the days before his death, friends described a man overwhelmed by what had happened. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre, said that Arday told him "they've destroyed my life". He said that "the personal attacks on him have been so immense". Academic and author Kehinde Andrews said that Arday "felt that there was no way out". Arday's family has said that a "campaign of misinformation" became too much for him. London Mayor Sadiq Khan described what happened as "an unacceptable public hounding and campaign of abuse" – "a pernicious public shaming". The Prime Minister called for "a moment for reflection". In that reflection, perhaps we might contemplate the author George Eliot's comment that "cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside itself; it only requires opportunity". And there was plenty of cruelty; white hacks lining up to outdo each other in their cruelty towards Arday. The volume and tone of the attacks on the man were quite shocking. There is no check to fetter power when unfettered power resides in the check Hardeep Matharu In the fortnight before his death, the Spectator published a succession of articles in which its writers repeatedly turned Jason Arday into an object of personal ridicule. On 31 July, Toby Young wrote that "the more I read about Jason Arday… the more convinced I am he's [Sacha Baron Cohen's] greatest creation". He later imagined him as an "Ali G-like character". On 6 August, John Power penned a purported fact-check of Arday as a guide to the claims of "our modern-day Walter Mitty". That same week, the Spectator's Commissioning Editor Lara Brown described Arday as a "charlatan" and wrote that "even in the world of racial grievance peddling, Arday was mediocre". On 10 August, Owen Matthews called him "the serial fantasist poster cry-bully of our times" and dismissed his work as "twaddle". That same day, Peter Wood put Arday in the tradition of "imposters", "tricksters", and "cozeners". On 11 August, Julie Burchill called him "daft Jason Arday" and "the nutty professor". Together, it took on the appearance of a gang of leering, bullying faces crowded over a cowed man, each eager to be the next to weigh in, each finding clever ways to turn their anger and violence into something that might, in a London salon, sound even witty. Clearly, it wasn't to Jason Arday. To add injury to their insult, the Spectator published a piece after it was announced that Arday's body had been found with the headline 'The tragedy of Jason Arday.' In it, Melanie McDonagh said that "in death we all should be remembered in our humanity, even in our flawed humanity. And Jason Arday was very human; he bled". She did not note that it was the Spectator that was there doing the stabbing, the cutting, the slashing, and the gouging. It was not just The Spectator. In the three weeks before Jason Arday's death, the Telegraph published dozens of articles, columns, and news reports about him. "Cambridge's diversity poster boy in plagiarism row" on 24 July. "The Cambridge fantasist is proof that stupid intellectuals…" on 4 August. "Jason Arday reflects a much deeper rot within universities" on 5 August. "Jason Arday is living proof that you reap what you sow" on 6 Aug...
6d ago

Advance UK's 'Great British' Successor Group Refuses to Rule Out Foreign Funding 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 Who Are GB P

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The campaign group replacing Advance UK – a party registered only in December – has refused to rule out foreign funding for its 'Great British' efforts. It comes amid a fiery conflict over the remains of Advance UK, the far-right Reform competitor party that formally deregistered with the Electoral Commission in July. Advance UK was established by Ben Habib, who was the co-deputy leader of Reform UK from October 2023 until he was removed and replaced by Richard Tice in July 2024. Habib quit the party in November 2024, after falling out with leader Nigel Farage and then chairman Zia Yusuf – with businessman Habib backing a hardline stance in favour of mass deportations. Habib, who was born in Pakistan, had also called on far-right MP Rupert Lowe to be readmitted to Reform. On 30 June 2025, Habib took over what was then the Integrity Party, relaunching it as 'Advance UK'. That same day, former Reform MP Rupert Lowe launched his own project, 'Restore Britain' – which soon outflanked the party in every respect. Restore began as a 'pressure group' but formally registered as a party this February, and secured 9% of the vote in the recent Greater Manchester Mayoral election. 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. It is polling around three per cent across Britain and is seen by Reform as a threat to its chances of securing a majority – with Lowe and Nigel Farage recently engaging in a very public spat over potentially working together. This July, Ben Habib announced his intention to merge Advance UK with the non-party campaign group 'Great British PAC', which he chairs. He launched a ballot of members to certify the move. Around 8,000 members voted from the 38,000 potential voters, with the vast majority eventually backing the transfer. Advance UK will continue to exist as a company – with, this outlet understands, around £250,000 in funds – but will no longer be regulated by the Electoral Commission. And it will give cash to GB PAC on a case-by-case basis. GBPAC was set up in 2024 as a pressure group, "in the mold of American political action committees", as Hope Not Hate puts it. The group writes: "GB PAC spends much of its time opposing the government's Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius. It has also supported Tommy Robinson events and a protest opposing puberty blockers for trans youth. "Plans to launch an academy to teach future right-wing leaders, host a conference, and publish a list of legislation it wishes to overturn appear to have stalled," the anti-hate group said in a February briefing. Its advisory group includes far-right activists like Carl Benjamin (AKA YouTuber Sargon of Akkad). Despite Habib's stated aversion to 'ethno-nationalism', a regional director of GBPAC has previously shared a website containing Hitler's speeches and pointed his online followers towards a video asserting Hitler "never ordered the extermination of a single Jew". Another, the group's England director has also bemoaned the supposed decline of the British "gene pool", writing on X: "By importing loads of sub Saharan Africans plus Muslims that inter breed the IQ is in severe decline." GBPAC's founder and sole director Claire Bullivant told this outlet Advance UK's funds were "not being transferred to GBP Corporation Limited or to Claire Bullivant personally, nor is the Great British PAC acquiring that sum [£432,000 outlined in the last accounts] as part of the arrangements between the organisations." "We understand that Ben Habib and the Advance UK College will determine how any remaining funds should properly be applied, including potentiall...
6d ago

Reform UK Paid £440,000 to Firms Linked to Party Insiders 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 story Oak Hall Studio

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Reform UK paid at least £440,000 to firms with directors linked to the party since 2023, Byline Times can reveal. 'Electoral Commission filings show that Nigel Farage's party paid over £72,000 to Touchpoint Strategy, a 'media strategy and crisis consulting' firm for 'market research/canvassing' work around the 2024 general election. Companies House filings show that Touchpoint was only founded in March 2024. Within three months, Reform UK spent £72,000 with the firm.' Touchpoint has never filed any accounts, and its most recent filings were due in December 2025 but are still not published. The firm also received a compulsory strike-off notice in February 2026, which has now been suspended. The firm has two directors, Josephmarie Gerard John Dulston and Tess Wheldon. Dulston is a Reform Party activist who stood as a local Reform candidate in the May 2025 elections for Market Drayton South, under the name he commonly goes by – Joseph Robertson. He was appointed as a director in July 2024, after the June spending by Reform. Robertson is a key figure in Liz Truss's CPAC Great Britain (CPAC-GB), a conference group attempting to import MAGA-style politics via its home-grown largest annual conference to the UK. 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. Robertson is also a former member of the anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion Orthodox Conservatives, and appeared alongside Nigel Farage at the 2025 UK launch of the Heartland Institute, an American climate denial think tank. Tess Wheldon, who has also worked as an analyst for rural policy at the Orthodox Conservative group, was an influential voice during the farmers protests during the early days of the Labour government. Touchpoint was behind the organising of the recent CPAC-GB conference, which, in bringing together members of the global far right, vowed to "Save Britain, save the West". Both Robertson and Wheldon are listed as its only directors on Companies House. Robertson has previously said in interviews with a Swedish media outlet that "there are essentially parts of the UK where Sharia Law is being enforced", and Wheldon has described abortion as murder on Instagram, as well as perpetuating the debunked claim that recent reforms to abortion legislation in the UK legalise "abortion up to birth". Filings also show that Reform has paid another firm, Jupiter Visual Communications Limited, over £125,600 for work on 'rallies and other events', 'campaign broadcasts', and other general administration costs between August 2023 and July 2024. Jupiter Visual Communications itself later went on to become a Reform donor, with the company giving £50,000 to the party in January 2026. It is, this outlet understands, the first time it has emerged that a supplier paid by Reform UK has then gone on to donate to the party. However, this isn't its only link to the party. One of the directors, Bennett Ingram Harley Moss – AKA Ben Moss – also sits as a director of another Reform-donating business, Prema Properties, which between September 2024 and April 2025 gave £50,000 to Reform. Ben Moss has also promoted CPAC-GB on his LinkedIn page. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES Another firm that Reform has paid for campaign broadcasts and 'overheads and general administration' costs, to the tune of £202,000 between January 2023 and July 2024, is Oak Hall Studios. The sole director of the company is Dr David Bull, who was party Chairman between June 2025 through to May 2026, also formerly sitting as deputy leader from 2021 to 2023. Bull was also a former Brexit Party MEP and is a regular fixture as a commentator on GB ...
Aug 13

A Police Report, Legal Threats and a Splinter Party: Inside the Demise of Advance UK 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 mi

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The wind-up of Advance UK has led to legal threats and recriminations between former activists and senior figures – with Byline Times able to reveal that party founder Ben Habib reported his own Chief Operating Officer to the police. Advance UK, a competitor party to Reform and Restore Britain, formally deregistered with the Electoral Commission in July, amid fears it would only haemorrhage support to Rupert Lowe MP's Restore Britain. It was set up by businessman Ben Habib, who was the co-deputy leader of Reform UK from October 2023 until he was removed and replaced by Richard Tice in July 2024. Habib quit Reform in November 2024, after falling out with leader Nigel Farage and then chairman Zia Yusuf – with Habib backing a hardline stance in favour of mass deportations. Habib, who was born in Pakistan, had also called on far-right MP Rupert Lowe to be readmitted to Reform. On 30 June 2025, Habib took over what was then the Integrity Party, relaunching it as 'Advance UK'. That same day, former Reform MP Rupert Lowe launched his own project, 'Restore Britain' – which soon outflanked the party in every respect. Restore began as a 'pressure group' but formally registered as a party this February, and secured 9% of the vote in the recent Greater Manchester Mayoral election. This July, Ben Habib announced his intention to merge Advance UK with the non-party campaign group 'Great British PAC', which he chairs. He launched a ballot of members to certify the move. In an extraordinary intervention, Tim Power, the party's Chief Operating Officer, wrote to all members shortly after the ballot went out, saying: "I am writing to inform you that the membership ballot launched on 5 June 2026 has been cancelled… 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 ballot was not conducted in accordance with that Constitution…Any decision to de-register the Party or merge it with another organisation requires a special resolution – a 75% supermajority – of a properly constituted College of Electors under Articles 1.7 and 2. The College has never been properly constituted." He added: "Advance UK is a company limited by guarantee. This means the Party's assets – its funds, its membership database, its intellectual property and its brand – are held for the benefit of the Party's objects as a registered political party. They do not belong to any individual and cannot simply be transferred to another organisation" – i.e. Great British PAC. "GBPAC is not a registered political party. It does not stand candidates in elections. Its objects are materially different from those of Advance UK," Power wrote. He also claimed "any transfer of member personal data to GBPAC would require the individual consent of each member under UK GDPR. No such consent has been obtained." Power told Advance UK members: "What has happened over the last few days has exposed serious governance failings within this Party – failings that should have been addressed months ago and were not. "A Board of Directors should have been properly constituted. A Treasurer should have been appointed. A College of Electors should have been properly elected by you, the membership, for the first time. None of that happened. And the result is that the Party arrived at this moment without the governance structures it needed to handle a decision of this magnitude properly." SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES Ben Habib soon restated the ballot, claiming Power was "wrong on all points and should be ignored." He claimed the party was considering the "legal position." Around 8,000 members voted from the 38,000 potenti...
06/01/2024

Week 1: Conservative Dire Polling - Labour Overcontrolling?

Byline Times Executive Editor Peter Jukes, Editor Hardeep Mathuru, Political Editor Adam Bienkov and Chief Reporter Josiah Mortimer gone the headlines about Iain Dale, Jonathan Gullis and Diane Abbott to reveal the broader deeper currents revealed in the full week of campaigning in the 2024 General Election Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
08/03/2024

Fiscal Black Holes and the Southport Riot

Peter Jukes and Hardeep Matharu are joined by Simon Nixon, former Wall Street Journal and The Times columnist and chief leader writer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Season 1 Trailer

Utter Bollocks

Otto English, author of Fake History and Fake Heroes, and former head of research for the hit BBC quiz show QI and cohost of the podcast Backlisted, publisher John Mitchinson, pit their wits against AI Jo (played by the BAFTA award-winning actor Joanna Scanlan) in a quest to separate fact from fiction, and truth from myth and urban legend in a quest to find the holy grail of 'Utter Bollocks' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
11/14/2024

PMQ's Analysed - With Adam Bienkov & Josiah Mortimer | Byline Live

Join Byline Times political editor Adam Bienkov and chief reporter Josiah Mortimer for a live, in-depth analysis of Prime Minister's Questions! Dive into the key moments, tough questions, and heated exchanges from the weekly PMQs session, as Adam and Josiah break down what it all means for UK politics. With expert insights and real-time commentary, this is the go-to show for anyone wanting to understand the dynamics at play behind the headlines. Don’t miss out on the sharpest takes and political insights! #PMQs #BylineTimes #keirstarmer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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