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2d ago

Mod-Backed Drone Maker Bought by US Group Now Developing Attack Drones for Israel Read Our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Rotron's Drones and the Ondas Acquisition ENJOYING THIS AR

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen A British drone maker that has received Ministry of Defence funding has been bought by a US group developing attack drones for the Israeli military. Rotron Aerospace, based in Wiltshire, develops long-range 'kamikaze' drones. It trialled its SkyLance system under the Ministry of Defence's Project Brakestop, which Rotron calls "a Taskforce Kindred funded project", and Ondas has itself referred to "taxpayer investment in Rotron technology". The Israeli military's drones have played a central role in the targeting of civilians and aid workers in Gaza, as previous Byline Times reporting has shown. On 11 August, five months after completing the acquisition, Ondas Inc said it had been selected by the Israeli Ministry of Defence for a multi-million-dollar programme, known as Digital Bat, that would lead to it developing and producing a new generation of tactical attack drones. Eight days earlier, it had announced the appointment of David Barnea, who headed Mossad – Israel's intelligence agency – from 2021 until 2026, as global president and chairman of its defence arm, Ondas Defence. The acquisition brings British engineers, intellectual property, propulsion technology and manufacturing capability into the same corporate group developing attack drones for the Israeli military. That creates the potential for technology to move within the Ondas group. There is no public evidence that Rotron's SkyLance or Defendor systems have been or will be supplied to Israel, nor that drones manufactured at Rotron's Wiltshire facilities form part of the Digital Bat programme. Rotron Aerospace, based in Semley, south-west Wiltshire, develops unmanned aircraft, propulsion systems and what the defence industry calls "one-way effectors", 'kamikaze' aircraft designed to strike a target rather than return. Its flagship SkyLance system is described by Rotron as a long-range autonomous strike platform capable of delivering "precision payloads" over extended distances. In June 2026, the company announced that it had successfully trialled SkyLance under the UK Ministry of Defence's Project Brakestop. Rotron says the programme has helped create more than 160 jobs in the British defence and aerospace sector. It says the propulsion system used by SkyLance is designed, developed and manufactured entirely in the UK. But Rotron is now part of a much larger international defence group. In March 2026, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based charity, traced Rotron's acquisition by US-listed defence technology company Ondas Inc. In a filing announcing the completed acquisition, Ondas said Rotron would add "one-way autonomous attack systems with long-range strike capabilities" to its portfolio. Rotron said the acquisition would help it "expand the development and deployment of long-range unmanned platforms". 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 Digital Bat programme is intended to provide Israeli combat units with relatively inexpensive attack drone swarms to be deployed at scale. Israeli business publication CTech has reported that the programme is expected to involve several thousand tactical attack drones for Israel Defense Forces units, including aircraft capable of operating in swarms. CTech reported that the Israeli tender provided "a concrete example of how Ondas intends to use [its] expanding network and technology portfolio". Defence publication Israel Defense reported that Rotron is expected to increase its manufacturing capacity following its acquisition by Ondas, a move the company said was likely to create significant "export opportunities"....
Oct 2

'Digital Armies' and Disinformation: How Big Tech Is Hitting Brazil's Upcoming Election Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Information Warfare in Brazil Revealed: Reform UK Cr

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Far-right populists worldwide are using AI to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and spread disinformation at scale. Nowhere is that more true than Brazil, which has been rocked by political disinformation in recent years and is expected to face even more daunting challenges with the rise of generative AI. These concerns are now reaching an inflection point just days ahead of Brazil's general election on October 4 — a contest that sits at the intersection of the race to influence democracy with AI and the race to control the technology itself. Thirteen candidates are running for the presidency, but the race is currently dominated by incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Worker's Party (PT) and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the right-wing Liberal Party (PL). Lula won by a narrow margin in 2022, just edging out Jair Bolsonaro (Flávio's father), who is now serving time for his role in plotting a coup in an attempt to overturn the 2022 election results. The upcoming election mirrors other recent elections in the region, with high levels of distrust in democratic institutions and the possibility of another right-wing candidate taking office and aligning closely with the presidency of Donald Trump. Brazil is also a strategically important location, particularly for AI companies, as it is becoming a priority market for data-center investment and is a crucial source of critical minerals that are needed to power and build AI. The United States and European Union, as well as private companies, are now looking to Brazil as they try to reduce supply-chain dependence on China, and Bolsonaro has indicated his support for such a realignment. Because of this, access to Brazil's Government is both politically and commercially important, making the upcoming election a prime target for interference by foreign governments and tech companies alike. For the past several election cycles, Brazil has served as a testing ground for information warfare tactics in the digital age. The digital environment there has been described as "a fertile ground for innovative strategies to spread polarizing content with the intent of manipulating public debate." Several factors converge to make Brazil uniquely vulnerable to political disinformation and malign influence, including a heavy reliance on hyperconnected chat applications, intense political polarization, and a powerful influencer-driven media market. Brazil was early to recognize the potential dangers of AI as a tool of election influence and interference. Ahead of its 2026 election, the Superior Electoral Court, known as the TSE, prohibited generative AI systems from providing certain election-related responses, including those that recommend or prioritise candidates, parties, and campaigns. The rules also prohibit these systems from expressing an electoral preference or recommending a vote, and impose restrictions on AI-generated content. In theory, those rules are supposed to help prevent AI systems from interfering in elections via misinformation, disinformation, or content plagued by bias, partisanship, or other forms of hidden influence. In practice, however, that's not how things are playing out. Research on these systems has found that most of the major AI models ranked or ordered candidates in nearly every instance during testing, and official sources were not reliably used when doing so. Additionally, responses were often inconsistent and varied based on the wording of the input, meaning that voters who turn to these systems for information could receive differing responses with variable source quality, yet no one would know because no one has access to view all of these responses, except for the companies themselves. In addition to AI chatbots violating Brazil's election rules, Meta's ad system was found to be approving advertisements containing content that violates bot...
2d ago

The Conviction of Estonia's 'Lord Haw-Haw' Links Russian Intelligence to Moscow's Interference in Brexit Read Our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Saying the 'Unsayable': Russian Int

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen The role of Sergey Nalobin, the senior 'diplomat' at the centre of my story about Russian political interference in the run up to the EU Referendum, was among the key evidence that clinched the successful criminal prosecution in a Russian interference case by Estonian law enforcement. The British authorities repeatedly refused to investigate Russian interference in the Brexit campaign and the UK's broader politics. However, court proceedings have revealed that Nalobin, who was looking for a way to channel money into the Conservative Party in the early 2010s, had also been at the centre of a political interference campaign in Estonia. Moreover, he was identified as an intelligence officer by Ukrainian and Estonian sources. Oleg Bessedin, arguably the country's most influential Russian propagandist, was sentenced to seven years in prison for non-violent activities against Estonia and breaches of international sanctions. Perhaps the most infamous propagandist that comes to mind in the British historical context is William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw"), who broadcast Nazi propaganda from Germany to UK audiences during the Second World War. According to Delfi, an Estonian investigative news outlet, Bessedin operated Estonia's most influential Russian-language propaganda platform, supported by individuals linked to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and Federal Security Service (FSB). Disinformation is a key element of Russian political interference operations, alongside covert political finance and cyber. In line with established practice, Russian intelligence did not pay Bessedin directly. Given that he did not have access to classified information, there was no need for a designated handler, either. Instead, the Russians helped Bessedin with setting up a large distribution for his YouTube channel. For example, in 2024, his two interviews pushing a well-timed Kremlin narrative about the apparent superiority of the Russian Oreshnik ballistic missile clocked 2.8 million and 2.4 million views respectively on the platform. The Civic Resilience Initiative with support from Google found that 34 of the 50 most-engaged Kremlin-aligned posts it monitored in Estonia came from Bessedin's YouTube channel. The set up paid off: YouTube provided him with a monthly income of EUR 5,000 – 7,000. He supplemented that with secretly selling the rights to two of his documentaries to RT, a Russian government propaganda broadcaster sanctioned on both sides of the Atlantic. About €77,000 of Bessedin's criminal proceeds were confiscated in the end. The police also seized large amounts in Russian roubles at his home, the origin of which was unexplained. Andy Burnham has broken a decade of establishment silence over Putin's plan to get Britain out of the EU. Peter Jukes reports Peter Jukes What is interesting from the British perspective is that the Estonians gave particular weight in the evidence to the fact that Bessedin was supported in his activities by none other than Sergey Nalobin, the same Russian diplomat who was at the heart of Russian political interference operations in London when David Cameron was at No 10. Chief Public Prosecutor Taavi Pern told the court how Nalobin secured high-profile and very hard-to-get interviewees for his programmes. There was extensive correspondence between the two, with Bessedin asking Nalobin for guidance in his activities, for contacts and even personal favours, such as helping to obtain a place for his wife's daughter at a university in Russia. It was also Nalobin who facilitated "technical" help from ANO Dialog, an organisation which was linked to Russia's Doppelganger (Twin) disinformation operation by the US authorities. Reporting to the Russian Presidential Administration, Dialog is at the heart of Putin's propaganda and political interference effort and is sanctioned by the European Union. I have...
Oct 21

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 again raised against Jason Arday, the former Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge earlier this year, vindicating Byline Times' reporting and further undermining The Times' portrayal of him as a serial plagiarist. A spokesperson for the publisher told this publication that after considering media claims about an article by Arday, raised this summer, they had found "no grounds" for adding to their previous assessment. "In August, a preliminary investigation was opened to consider concerns raised with us about the article, 'Attempting to break the chain: reimaging inclusive pedagogy and decolonising the curriculum within the academy'," the spokesperson said. "Following further review and in agreement with the journal's editors, we concluded that there were no grounds for adding to the correction notice published in 2024." However, despite this 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, ...
Oct 20

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...
6d 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...
5d 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...
Oct 21

'Andy Burnham Has an Opportunity to Lead the Fight Against Russian Interference' Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system Reform UK's Crypto Billionaire Donor Could Profit From Mili

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Andy Burnham's statement that Russia interfered in British elections over recent years caused a huge amount of controversy. However, what commentators objecting to his observation have forgotten is that Boris Johnson, when Foreign Secretary in 2017, said very much the same thing. In an extraordinary joint press conference in December 2017, Johnson crossed swords with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on the issue. Lavrov told reporters that Johnson had told him that Russia did not interfere in the EU referendum. "Not successfully," Mr Johnson shot back. At the time Sky News reported that the then UK Foreign Secretary also insisted there was "abundant evidence" that Russia had attempted to influence polls in the US, Germany, Denmark and France. As was often his way, Johnson is now saying exactly the opposite when it is politically expedient for him. However, successive Conservative ministers settled on a collective policy that there had been no "successful" interference in UK elections, including the Brexit Referendum. How they determined whether interference was "successful" or not was never made clear. What has changed now is that we have a Prime Minister who appears to welcome an open, frank and honest consideration of what has actually been going on around our elections in the past decade. In that time, elections in our liberal democracies have resulted in profound, often unexpected, change. Brexit and the presidencies of Donald Trump are examples. Trump's election in 2016 marked the start of a profound reordering of politics worldwide and the assumptions which underpinned post World War II diplomacy no longer apply. The NATO alliance is under threat in a way never previously experienced during the Soviet military build ups between 1945 and 1989. We know from the independent Congressional Mueller Commission in the United States that Russia interfered in the US Presidential Election in 2016 – a position that is accepted across the political divide in the US. Russian policy in the Putin years – territorial expansion coupled with online and offline interference in democratic processes across the globe – has been hugely successful in undermining opponents' alliances. Division, uncertainty and distrust permeate relations between what had previously been close allies.The European Union and NATO are just two organisations shaken to the core by the events of the last decade. When, as a member of the DCMS Select Committee's inquiry team on disinformation in 2018/9, we heard evidence from technology company Cambridge Analytica's executive Alexander Nix, it was very clear that its work in the 2016 Presidential election was being used by Nix to promote it worldwide for use in other elections. The advent of targeted online campaigning was what appeared to be a novel "silver bullet" which could have the capacity to sway elections in liberal democracies. For the first time in history, technology platforms could collect information on individual voters' opinions and motivations by tracking their computer use and use that information to target them with political messages. This could influence opinions on a scale and with a specificity never before available. Not only could arguments be put to individual voters, they could be put in private, as political opponents were not aware of the arguments made online as they had no access to them. Democratic debate on the arguments made was excluded, eliminating a key aspect of the process. EXCLUSIVE British Defence firm QinetiQ, which Christopher Harborne owns a large stake in, received a military export licence involving Israel long after the UK suspended certain arms sales to the country Iain Overton Furthermore, the ultimate source of messaging to voters was not constrained in any way: it could come from any country, from individuals, businesses, even governments. Lack of regulati...
5d ago

'We Intend to Succeed': French Student Protesters Explain Why They're at the Barricades Read our Monthly Magazine And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system The Far-Right Billionaire Who Is Buying Up French Cu

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen Bins were piled up in front of the Lycée Claude-Monet in the 13th arrondissement of Paris when I arrived. Students milled around, standing on top of them, some performed dances. Others had placards and banners. This was not part of some elaborate drama class performance, it was in fact a 'blocus', part of the largest wave of student protests in France since May 1968. The current protest wave in mainland France began in Lycée Antoine Saint-Exupery in Creteil, on the outskirts of Paris, and has since spread to schools and universities across the country. Between closures and 'blocuses' – the tactic in which students pile bins, chairs, lime bikes and other obstacles to create an improvised barricade – at least two thirds of French high schools have experienced some kind of disruption, according to a statement by education minister Édouard Geffray last week. At Lycée Saint-Exupery, one of the main demands was for the government to fill vacant teaching and support posts. Chloe,17, a protester at Lycée Claude-Monet, told me that students in the banlieue were protesting because their buildings were crumbling and they have no teachers". The 2026 budget removed 4000 teaching posts from the beginning of the academic year in September. She added: "In Paris we have some privilege, but it's not perfect. We are lacking some teachers too". Vincent Bollore is helping push France to the right as he gathers a growing empire of publishing houses, newspapers, and film studios across the country Olly Haynes Self-awareness about their own position and solidarity between students was a recurring theme. Speaking to me in a cafe in the 13th arrondissement, Camille, 17 from Lycée Gabriel Fauré acknowledged that her school sits broadly in the middle of the pack in terms of affluence, and said: "the birth of the movement in schools more deprived than ours made us think. Yes we have some privileges, but we are also subject to things that are far too normalised, and which shouldn't be". "For example the middle school building [Gabriel fauré combines middle and high school] is in an absolutely catastrophic state and needs to be renovated". Nathan, also from Lycée Gabriel Fauré, added: "we are comparatively lucky to have a good team of teachers who check on us and support us (including in our protest) this is not always the case in some schools where, when a student starts to fall behind, the teachers say well hard luck to those who are falling behind, but I've got to carry on working with those who can keep up". Another of the factors that has made students start thinking more about their conditions of education, was the sweltering heatwaves in June of this year, which hit French cities particularly hard. Camille said "we endured a very hot summer this year. We want cooling systems for our school because this summer we were 35 students per class with a classroom temperature of 32 degrees. It's very difficult to work properly in these conditions". According to Nathan: "the majority of high schools in France are 'thermal sieves' that means that they're cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Too cold in the winter to work properly, too hot in the summer to concentrate properly". "This summer, a student doing the French baccalaureate exam fainted because of the heat". One of the demands across the movement is the abolition of the Parcoursup platform, through which students apply to university. Students are ranked based on marks and teachers comments' and they are either rejected or accepted by the courses and universities to which they have applied. The platform has been criticised for alleged bias and lack of transparency in how decisions are made. Another girl at Claude-Monet, who was also called Chloe, told me: "It's really biased. If you're in a good school you'll have more chances [of being accepted to university] if you're in Paris you'll ha...
Oct 19

Mysterious Right-Wing Think Tank Demanding Charity 'Transparency' Won't Say Who Runs or Funds It 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 M

Support Our Mission Read Our Latest Edition BYLINE TIMES IMPACT: Find out about the changes you made happen A new right-wing think tank which has made the headlines over recent months demanding charities be more transparent about their backers has gone to significant lengths to hide the people behind it. Cambridge Circus Research (CCR) launched at the end of May 2026 with Breaking the Blob, a report calling for charities whose main activity is deemed to be political campaigning to lose charitable status. It also wants compulsory disclosure of grants, annual "political-activity returns" and a test of where advocacy charities get their money. The report's appendix names more than two dozen individual charity trustees who, it claims, "illustrate the personnel network connecting migration, civil-liberties, environmental, development, and legal-advocacy organisations". Yet CCR applies none of this transparency to itself. It doesn't name any of its own funders, publishes no address, and appears to have no formal legal status. No charity or company is registered to it. The credited authors of its flagship report, "Charles Talbot" and "Zack Salisbury", are pen names, according to Reform UK board member Gawain Towler in a review CCR itself promoted. Even so, it has won reams of coverage in right-wing outlets and a joint investigation with GB News. A leading transparency group, Who Funds You? has now urged media outlets to be "very cautious about using any of the research outputs produced by this organisation," and given CCR its lowest grade, E, for transparency. 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. CCR's website domain was registered through Njalla, a privacy service set up by Peter Sunde, a co-founder of the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. Rather than simply masking an owner's details, Njalla registers domains in its own name, so no individual can be identified behind the think tank's web address. The only registrant details shown point to Njalla's base in St Kitts and Nevis. The group's only contact is an encrypted ProtonMail address. The file data of its September paper, The Care Worker Visa Disaster, appears to have been deliberately stripped of creation dates and software details. Towler, Nigel Farage's long-time press chief, wrote in his 4 June review that "Charles Talbot" and "Zack Salisbury" are "Noms des Plumes" because "it is not safe in large parts of industry to speak out of turn". CCR shared it the same day as a "wonderful review of our work". Towler also praised the report's analysis of charities as "precisely the kind of auditable transparency the authors are demanding of others". Yet the report names private individuals as part of a supposed lobbying network. CCR's site also hosts a placeholder page for an interactive "Who's Who in Charity Land", alongside one billed as mapping "Iranian-linked UK charity & protest networks". At the time of writing, the "Who's Who" page still shows the developer's instructions, apparently unchanged since July. CCR's reply to Byline Times was signed "Thomas Maitland". Sir Thomas Maitland, known as "King Tom" (1760–1824), was Governor of Ceylon and Malta and Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. Talbot and Salisbury are also the names of British historical figures. SIGN UP TO EMAIL UPDATES The report proposes a statutory "safe harbour" for charities whose policy work is evidence-based, non-party-political, "not primarily designed to mobilise public pressure" and "not a vehicle for a predetermined ideological or legislative campaign". This, it says, "would protect genuine think tanks, educational bodies, animal-welfare charities, free-speech charities, poverty charities". In othe...

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