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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Leading Lawyers Back Open Letter to Home Secretary Opposing Ban on Palestine Action
Senior barristers and campaigners warn Keir Starmer’s Government is ‘conflating peaceful protest with genuine terrorism’
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Claims that Online Misinformation Fears Are Overblown ‘Radically Understates’ the Scale of the Threat
Entire communities are now becoming locked into dangerous belief systems that are almost impossible to challenge, argues Eliot Higgins
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How Billionaires ‘Look Sideways as People Die in the Very Supply Chains of Our Businesses’
The ‘Excessive Wealth’ Conference hears from a millionaire heir about how global corporations exploit consumers and undermine democracy
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Reform UK’s Darren Grimes Seems to Have Forgotten Something on his Register of Interests – and He’s Not the Only One
The former GB News host is among a series of newly-elected Reform councillors who appear to have left basic information off of their registers of interest
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Cryptocurrency Loophole Could Allow Foreign Billionaires to Secretly Bankroll UK Political Parties
Anti-corruption campaigners warn of untraceable foreign interference, as Nigel Farage’s party seeks big money crypto donations
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Public Trust in Government Collapses to Record Low as Demand for Electoral Reform Surges
New research finds record levels of support for a fairer voting system as trust in Government collapses to new lows
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Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf Accused of Politicising Council Staff With Propaganda Picture
EXCLUSIVE: Photos show council chief executive posing with Nigel Farage’s ‘DOGE’ team in image used for Reform party promo
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Repression Without Borders: How Putin Targets Russian Opposition Figures Abroad
The Kremlin has successfully launched a campaign to export Russia’s repressive state machinery into the global sphere, reports Denis Mikhailov
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£2 Billion of Fraudulent Covid Loans Remains At Large With Government Accused of ‘Passivity’ in Claiming Funds
Huge sums of money have yet to be returned by businesses five years after the last Conservative Government’s Covid ‘bounce back’ loan scheme was launched
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Cambridge University Takes Own Professor to Court for Joining Pro-Palestine Protests
Protesters accuse university colleges of being “complicit in Israeli genocide” due to their investments in arms companies
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From Lawnmower Mishaps to Expenses Scandals: 10 Fresh Embarrassments for Reform UK
Nigel Farage’s newly-expanded party is already struggling with costly U-turns, police investigations and increasingly bizarre behaviour
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‘Traditional Gender Norms Are the Exact Opposite’ of What UK Economy Needs, New Report Finds
A study shows that gender inequality is worsening financial hardship in deprived regions
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Gambling Firm 1XBet Branded ‘The Wagner Group Of Sports Betting’
Gambling industry experts suggest 1XBet is the world’s biggest ‘visible illegal sports betting operator’ in the world
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Americans Oppose Trump Joining Israel-Iran War and Do Not See the Iranian Nuclear Program as an Immediate Threat
New polling suggests that voters do not want the President to further involve the US in the Middle East conflict
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Inside the Collapse: How Putin’s Russia Turned Its Opponents into Exiles
There is a deliberate policy by the Kremlin to exile, neutralise, and effectively erase alternative political life within the country, reports Denis Mikhailov
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Reform UK Councils Are Facing Protests After Cancelling Climate Change Preparations
Nigel Farage’s party is culling anything to do with tackling climate change, including local planning for rising sea levels
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Resignations, Cancelled Meetings and Culture Wars: How Reform UK Councils Are Descending Into Chaos
Nigel Farage’s band of newly-elected councillors are already starting to struggle, reports Josiah Mortimer
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JD Vance’s ‘British Sherpa’ Chairs Organisation Funded by Billionaires Urging a Second US Civil War
The man described as the Vice President’s “philosopher king” is linked to a series of right-wing billionaires who have condemned democracy and called for a “limited dictatorship” in the US
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Rachel Reeves Has Quietly Ended the Thatcherite Consensus and Opened the Door to the UK Becoming a Nordic-Style Economy
The Chancellor’s Spending Review was far more radical and transformative than anyone has yet realised, argues Josiah Mortimer
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Raining on his Parade: Trump’s Military Blunder
A clear majority of Americans are opposed to the US President’s army parade, and his handling of immigration and the economy
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‘Donald Trump’s Los Angeles Military Deployment Is an Assault on American Democracy’
It’s time to shake off our ‘Trump denial syndrome’ and wake up to the clear and present danger posed by the President, argues Alexandra Hall Hall
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‘Nigel Farage’s Patronising Coal Mine Fantasy Says a Lot About What He Really Thinks of Working People’
The Reform leader’s pledge to restart Welsh blast furnaces ignores the practical realities of flooded pits, collapsed infrastructure – and the actual wishes of working people, argues Josiah Mortimer
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‘Geert Wilders Thought He Could Finally Push Through His Destructive Agenda – But He Ran Out Of Patience’
No government in recent history has produced so little new legislation – yet the damage caused is immense, writes Chris Keulemans
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Reform UK’s Elon Musk-Style ‘Doge’ Team Is in Turmoil Following Major Resignations
The team set up by Nigel Farage to slash spending in the local authorities his party now runs across England is already falling apart
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Police to Get Powers to Ban Masks at Protests as Starmer’s Government Accused of ‘Copy and Pasting’ Conservative Plans
Human rights groups fear those wearing masks for health or religious reasons, and dissidents seeking to protect themselves from hostile foreign states, will be swept into the criminal justice system
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Reform-Led Kent Council Cancels Swathes of Meetings Amid Claims They ‘Don’t Know What They’re Doing’
Nigel Farage’s party accused of running a “decision-free” administration, after being forced to scrap a third of its upcoming scheduled meetings
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Nigel Farage’s ‘£7 Billion DEI Savings’ Don’t Actually Exist
The media is widely reporting Reform UK’s claims they could save billions by cutting equality schemes. The real figure appears to be around 250 times smaller, reports Josiah Mortimer
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Government Urged to Adopt Automatic Voter Registration to Fix ‘Woefully Inefficient and Outdated System’
Campaigners believe ‘millions more could be enfranchised with no additional burden on individuals or extra cost’
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‘The Draconian Anti-Protest Laws That Are the Real Threat to Free Speech in the UK’
A new report calls on the Government to ‘look again’ at repealing laws passed under the last Conservative Government
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How Wales Became the Target of a Right Wing Culture War
Rachel Morris on the politicians and media organisations now cynically trying to exploit Wales for their own political gain
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‘I Was Targeted by a Hostile Crypto Spambot Swarm That Revealed How X’s Algorithm Has Been Truly Broken’
The automated block attack tricks the algorithm into thinking your account should be suppressed, reports Iain Overton
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Why the Home Office’s ‘AI Asylum Success Story’ Was Anything But
The Home Office briefed the media that their AI tool would save officials 44 years of working time. What they didn’t mention was all the mistakes that it made
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How French Activists Are Leading an ‘Urgent’ Fight Against the Surging Far Right
Melissa Chemam details the multifaceted resistance mobilising against far-right groups, Islamophobia and racism across the Channel
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‘Why We Must Call the National-Populist Far Right by Its Name’
The centre left should stop being afraid of accurately describing and countering the global far right threat we now face, argue Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar
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‘As Trump Wrecks the Global Order, Big Business Must Decide Which Side It’s On’
Where are the voices defending the huge benefits that globalisation has brought to the world, asks Matthew Gwyther
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Controversial Spy-Tech Firm’s Inclusion at NHS Confederation Expo Leads to Speaker Pulling Out
An internal NHS Confederation email acknowledged that ‘many colleagues will have concerns’ about Palantir’s inclusion
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‘America Is Ignoring the Warning Signs of Giving Up Its Commitment to Fighting Human Rights Abuses – At Home and Abroad’
The Trump administration appears concerned that it would be hypocritical to criticise governments abroad for doing things which it would like to do in the US, writes Washington-based Alexandra Hall Hall
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What People Really Think of Trump’s First 100 Days in Office
Despite distain for many of Trump’s policies, Independent voters still don’t think the Democrats are the answer
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The Beginning of the End or ‘Trump 2028’? 100 Days of an Unprecedented Presidency
There may be a far more sinister motive for Donald Trump to go as far as to try to violate the constitutional ban on running for a third term, writes Washington-based Alexandra Hall Hall
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‘Trump’s War on Academic Institutions Is Even Worse Than You Think’
This is the greatest assault on academic freedoms in generations, argues Emma DeSouza
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Reform UK Facebook Groups Are Full of Racist Far Right Posts and Islamophobic Conspiracy Theories
Groups set up by Reform UK officials contain posts calling for Muslims to be lynched and suggestions that Jewish people are trying to “dilute out country with foreign invaders”
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Power, Visas, and the Politics of Exclusion: How Borders Are Being Used to Silence Dissent
Borders are now being used not just to prevent the passage of people, but of ideas too, argues Iain Overton
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Company That Supplied Hundreds of Millions of Pounds of Unusable COVID Tests Saw Profits Skyrocket to £178 Million After Lobbying Conservative Peer for Contract
Primer Design’s turnover jumped by 4,800% after supplying tests that were later deemed “unfit for public use”
