SubscriptionsColumn / Investigation: Crypto Politics
Dark money, lobbying, regulatory capture, state institutions hollowed by donor factions, foreign interference, and the financialisation of political power.
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Nigel Farage Took £50,000 from Crypto Firms Then Said He Was ‘Not Aware’ of the Industry Funding His Party
The self-proclaimed ‘straight-talking’ Reform UK leader has been far from straight about who is funding his attempted rise to power, reports Iain Overton
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Reform Council Sacks Long-Serving Vicar as Standards Chief, in Wave of Cuts to Scrutiny
Reverend Canon Hilary Barber says he was given no warning or thanks by Nigel Farage’s party for his years of service
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Reform UK’s ‘Meta Glasses’ Councillor Who Was Accused of Shaming Disabled Man and Dyslexic Colleague Is Put in Charge of Special Educational Needs
Sam Journet has been accused of bullying, intimidation and filming residents and staff with Meta-style camera glasses
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Reading the Riot Act: Reform UK’s Makerfield By-Election Candidate During the Summer of Trouble
The archive of Robert Kenyon’s suspended X account reveals intense activity after three children were murdered in Southport in 2024
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Reform UK Councillor Shares Racist and Islamophobic Content and Backs Tommy Robinson
The newly-elected Wakefield councillor repeatedly shared extreme and racist content, and backed multiple far-right figures
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Reform UK Councillors Told to Speak Only to GB News’ as Party Shuns Local Press
Local news editor in Ipswich says Reform party chair instructed his councillors to shut out the press in favour of only speaking to the right-wing news channel
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Reform UK Councillor Who Claimed Social Media Post Had Been ‘Misinterpreted’ as Racist Shared Multiple Other Offensive Posts
Posts uncovered by Byline Times show newly-elected Reform UK Councillor Ken Tranter comparing Muslims to cockroaches, who would “take over” the country
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The More Than 30 Scandal-Hit Reform Candidates Elected Last Week
Voters last Thursday returned dozens of Reform councillors who have variously pushed Islamophobia, antisemitic conspiracy theories, Covid denial and praise for Tommy Robinson and Enoch Powell
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Rick Wilson’s Warning From America: Nigel Farage Will Be Your Donald Trump, Unless You Act Now
The former Republican strategist and Lincoln Project founder has some hard lessons for Conservatives and Labour alike
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American Democracy: A Race to the Bottom
A gerrymandering war between Republican and Democrat states risks devastating consequences for the functioning of our democracy, argues Alexandra Hall Hall
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Reform UK Treasurer and Donors Share London Address with Sanctioned Russian Oligarchs
Reform UK’s Treasurer and three other donors have handed £1.55 million to Nigel Farage from Britain’s most expensive apartment block which is home to sanctioned Russian oligarchs and massive post-Soviet wealth
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Reform UK Candidate Accused of Mocking Disabled Residents as ‘Benefit Scroungers’ and ‘Skanks’
Harry Phillips, who is standing for Nigel Farage’s party in Surrey, allegedly described a constituent and his wife as ‘ponces of society’ in leaked messages seen by Byline Times
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‘There Is No Land Called Palestine’: The Reform Pastor Preaching the End Times in Coventry
Reform candidate John Quintanilla tells his congregation that Islam brings “darkness” and the existence of Palestine is a “media lie”
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Reform UK Candidate Shared Antisemitic and Anti-Muslim Posts And Campaigned for Far-Right Restore Britain
Caspar Thomas, who Nigel Farage’s party says has now been expelled following inquiries by Byline Times and HOPE not hate, shared posts including grossly offensive racist slurs
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Reform UK Refuses to Explain Why Nigel Farage Met and Posed with Man Criminally Convicted for Violent Attack on Anti-Racism Meeting at a Church
For a year-and-a-half, Byline Times has attempted to get to the bottom of a photograph showing the party’s leader with far-right activists. Now, this newspaper’s findings cast fresh doubts on Farage’s claim that he refuses to associate with extreme elements of the populist right
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Nigel Farage’s Foreign Policy Chief Hosted Pro-Trump Think Tank Promoting Tariffs and Greenland Invasion
Alan Mendoza brought together serving British generals to the event where material was distributed endorsing the seizure of NATO-owned territory
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Reform’s Plan to ‘Punish’ Green Voters With Detention Centres is ‘Election Interference’ Complaints Argue
Watchdog asked to investigate after party’s home affairs spokesperson ‘guarantees’ areas electing Reform MPs will be exempt from 24,000-capacity migrant facilities
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‘Reform UK Wouldn’t Leave Me Alone’: My Experience Being Hounded to Stand for Nigel Farage’s Party
Reform UK repeatedly cold-called journalist Lucy Gape asking if she would stand as a local candidate. When she looked into it, it revealed a world of poor vetting and murky data practices
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‘I Set Up a Fake Far-Right News Channel to Interview Reform UK Candidates and This Is What They Told Me’
The Reform hopefuls were quick to condemn scandals supposedly overseen by Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat councils, without realising they were actually condemning the actions of their own party
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Reform UK’s Basildon Leader Accused of Bullying After Filming Council Staff and Residents With Meta-Style Smart Glasses
EXCLUSIVE: Cllr Sam Journet, who is leading Reform’s bid to take two Essex councils, was arrested last year following multiple complaints about him filming in private areas
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All The Kings’ Horses and All the Kings’ Men Can’t Put the US-UK ‘Special Relationship’ Together Again
It will take far more than some clever speechifying from the King to repair the deep damage the US President has done to relations with his country’s former closest ally, argues Alexandra Hall Hall
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Nigel Farage Promotes Reform UK Donor’s Pothole Repair Machine on Election Leaflets
The promotions of JCB’s flagship ‘Pothole Pro’ followed hundreds of thousands of pounds being gifted to the party
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Reform UK Candidate Runs Firm Hired by Sanctioned Pro-Putin Bosnian Serb Leadership
Kenneth Morris, who is standing for the party in Erdington, Birmingham, co-ordinates the UK arm of a transnational far-right political network
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Bereaved Covid Families Demand Nigel Farage Sack Conspiracy Theory Reform Candidates
Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice tell the Reform leader that the conspiracy views revealed by Byline Times are “an insult” to the 230,000 people who died in the pandemic
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Economists Slam Reform UK’s ‘Fantasy’ Claims That ‘Boriswave’ Migrants Will Cost Households £20,000
“Reform have simply invented their own numbers…” say experts
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A US Defence Analyst’s Warning to Britain: ‘I Watched Our Democracy Die. You’re Next’
A US defence analyst argues that the United States has become a zombie democracy, locked into decline – and that Reform UK is now planning the same for Britain
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Reform UK Candidate Claimed COVID Was ‘Pentagon-Led Plot’ in Conspiracy Theory Journal
Exclusive: Reform candidate David Booth is listed as the author of a paper arguing the pandemic was “staged” by Western military and intelligence agencies
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Why Americans Need to Get Much Angrier About Donald Trump
Hope is not a strategy and my fellow Americans need to wake up to the far greater damage to the US this President could still cause, argues Alexandra Hall Hall
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EXPOSED: How Viktor Orbán Bankrolled the Network Around Reform UK
As Hungary’s Prime Minister suffers a historic electoral defeat, Byline Times maps out how his government’s funding arm channelled hundreds of thousands of pounds into organisations at the heart of Britain’s hard right.
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Reform-Run Kent Council Sells Off Antony Gormley Sculpture After Raising Taxes
Nigel Farage’s flagship council quietly sold Two Stones, one of the sculptor’s earliest commissions, as part of a wave of publicly owned art disposals that critics call “shameful”
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The British Tax Havens Shielding Big Oil’s Iran War Windfall
As Shell and BP prepare to pocket billions from Trump’s war in Iran, a Byline Times investigation reveals how British jurisdictions are quietly doing the work of protecting them
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Matt Goodwin’s Lucrative Hungarian Fellowship Could Be in Line for the Chop Following Orbán’s Defeat
The Orbán-controlled body for which the Reform UK and GB News commentator is a ‘visiting fellow’ is facing investigation over alleged misuse of public funds
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Reform UK Energy Prize Winners Had Nominated Party’s Own Branch Chair
As Greater Manchester Police confirm they are reviewing a complaint into the prize draw, Byline Times can reveal that the party’s Wigan branch chair – nominated by the winners – was present at the doorstep prize ceremony
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Protest Leaders Convicted Over Gaza March Pledge to Appeal ‘Extraordinary’ Ruling
Palestine Solidarity Campaign director and Stop the War vice-chair convicted over Gaza demonstration that Met Police and Judge say broke restrictions
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Voters in Reform Seats Don’t Like Nigel Farage’s Plan to Rip Up Workers’ Rights
Even voters in Nigel Farage’s own constituency support the new workers rights that he has committed to tear up, a major new poll suggests
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Deaf Residents in Reform Councils Say They Have Been ‘Shut Out’ as Party Replaces Collapsed Deaf Charity With Just £22,000 in Funding
Local hearing impaired people say they are losing a vital lifeline, with opponents of Nigel Farage’s party accusing them of a political attack on perceived ‘woke’ services
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Blow to Nigel Farage After Government Bans Crypto Donations in Urgent Crackdown on Foreign Political Interference
Keir Starmer’s Government acted following publication of a review launched in the wake of Reform’s Welsh Leader Nathan Gill being jailed for taking pro-Russian bribes
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Reform UK Councils Are Dismantling the Fight Against Climate Change
Nigel Farage’s party is spreading climate change denial, while blocking any localised action to deal with the threat, an academic analysis of Reform councils has found
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MattGPT: The Sorry Tale of Matt Goodwin’s AI-Assisted, Fake-Quote-Filled New Book
It turns out that even ChatGPT has a more stringent approach to accuracy than the former professor, Matt Goodwin, reports Mic Wright
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Trump’s Iran War Is Pushing the Post War International Order to Breaking Point
The US President’s reckless actions risk destroying the global political order, but could something good emerge from the wreckage, asks Alexandra Hall Hall
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Reform Kent Council Suffers Walk Out After Party Declares ‘Immigration Emergency’ During Meningitis Outbreak
The motion by Nigel Farage’s party blamed the spread of “infectious diseases” on undocumented migrants
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How Trump Is Manufacturing Enemies Out of His Own Citizens
The Trump administration is using disinformation against anti fascists in order to criminalise dissent, argues Caroline Orr Beuneo
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Reform UK Skip Mandatory By-Election Debate After Nigel Farage Called Defectors Who Avoid the Ballot Box ‘Disgraceful’
Nigel Farage previously said that defectors who refuse to hold by-elections are “disgraceful” and guilty of a “complete insult” to the electorate
