SubscriptionsColumn / Investigation: Strangers & Neighbours
Byline Times analysis of community cohesion and sectarian attempts to break it through the racialisation of poverty, Islamophobia as policy, the asylum system as spectacle, and the culture war waged against plural Britain.
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Why Don’t We Know How Many People have been Convicted for Smuggling People Across the Channel?
The Byline Intelligence Team used a range of methods to quantify how many convictions there have been for smuggling people across the Channel under this Government – but a lack of formal data raises transparency questions
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Doubts Cast Over Home Secretary’s Claim that EU has Resettled Refugees in Rwanda
The Home Office’s evidence for the claim pointed to the UNHCR’s Emergency Transit Mechanism – but this scheme differs from the UK’s plans to resettle people who arrive in the UK ‘illegally’ to Rwanda
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Constitutional Culture Wars: Johnson’s Next Divide-and-Rule Campaign?
AV Deggar considers how the Vote Leave coalition may react to emboldened separatist forces in Scotland and Northern Ireland
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Asylum Seekers Held in Hotels Struggling With Food-Related Poor Health, Report Finds
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration raises concerns about housing people seeking asylum in temporary accommodation
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‘We Can’t Live Like This’: Universal Credit Falls Short of Cost of Living Price Hikes
Rising energy bills, increased food costs – and yet benefits have not risen with inflation, leaving families struggling to make ends meet, Sian Norris reports
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Tory Think-Tank Extremism Chief’s Antisemitic Tirade, as Member of Violent Anarchist Group
Nafeez Ahmed reveals how the most influential think-tank in Boris Johnson’s Government has ties to an anarchist Nafeez Ahmed reveals how the most influential think-tank in Boris Johnson’s Government has ties to an anarchist movement, through its top ‘extremism’ expert
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Boris Johnson’s Real Brexit Betrayal Was to Abandon the Single Market
The Conservatives promised to keep the UK wedded to its biggest international market after Brexit, but have instead left us in ruinous isolation, reports Adam Bienkov
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Werleman’s Worldview: How the Extremist Great Replacement Theory Went Mainstream
CJ Werleman says Fox News has become the media arm for white domestic terrorism and would-be right-wing terrorists around the world
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Putin at War: Claiming De-Nazification, Reviving Antisemitism
The Russian President’s Victory Day Speech and his Foreign Minister’s comments suggest of a fully-fledged antisemitic ideology is rearing its head in Russia
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‘Let Them Eat Foie Gras’: Big Issues Avoided in Johnson’s Culture War Queen’s Speech
The Government’s new agenda focuses on stoking culture wars, while doing nothing to tackle the number one issue facing people in the UK, reports Adam Bienkov
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Risk to LGBTIQ Asylum Seekers Ignored in Home Office Rwanda Plan
The Home Office has published its equality impact assessment into plan to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda – but campaigners are concerned that it fails to account for the risks to LGBTIQ people, reports Sian Norris
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African Trade Deal Exposes Brexit Britain’s Myths
Joe Walsh explores how Africa is seeking closer economic integration with its regional neighbours, in contrast to the UK
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Will This be Northern Ireland’s Most Important Election Ever?
Luke Butterly reports on the expectations of a Sinn Féin victory in the imminent legislative elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly
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25 Afghan Men Claiming Asylum in UK on Sexuality Grounds Refused Since 2017
An investigation by Sian Norris with the Byline Intelligence Team explores the vulnerability of LGBTIQ people looking for a safe home in Britain
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Barriers, Ignorance… And More Barriers: The Every Day Experiences of Disabled People
Society and politicians need to wake-up to the fact that disability is a normal part of the human condition that can impact us all, says Penny Pepper
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Renters Hit Hardest by Cost of Living Crisis
Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that renters are more likely to be struggling to make ends meet than those with mortgages
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Male, Pale and Colonial: Russell Group Universities Dominated by Named Buildings Reflective of a Bygone Era
Max Colbert investigates the backgrounds of those commemorated on leading university campuses
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Risking Our Democracy
Former diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall argues that the time has come for serious discussions about reforming Britain’s political structures
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The Government’s Rwanda Plan is a Relic of a Colonial Age
Britain’s historic hostility towards migration – by politicians of all stripes – has laid the groundwork for Priti Patel’s controversial plan to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda, says Thomas Perrett
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Lessons for the Left from Scandinavia
Progressive parties in the Nordic countries have also been wrestling with reactionary views towards immigration in recent years, documents Shafi Musaddique
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The Rwanda Scheme: The Human Rights Concerns Around Government’s Transportation Deal
The plan to send people seeking asylum who arrive via ‘irregular’ routes in the UK to Rwanda has raised numerous human rights concerns – not least for LGBTIQ people and pregnant women
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The Rwanda Scheme: Electoral Racism to Policy Racism
Decades of shifting political racism have created a rich reservoir of racialised attitudes for Boris Johnson’s regime to exploit, says Martin Shaw
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Young People As Prime Targets: Student Loan Hike is the Latest Frontier of the Conservative ‘Culture War’
By allowing student loan debt to soar, the Government is seeking yet more division between young and old, says Maheen Behrana
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Government Turns Blind Eye to Offshore Migrant Processing Problems Faced by Australia and Israel
The policy of sending people seeking asylum to camps and centres ‘offshore’ has led to criticism and human rights abuses – but the UK Government is doing it anyway
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Extremism Tsar Met Anti-Muslim Witch-Hunt Agency Advised by ‘White Genocide’ Believer
The Government’s Commission for Countering Extremism appears to be consulting academics enthralled by far-right Great Replacement theories, even as it holds closed meetings with Britain’s security services
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How has the Black Lives Matter Movement Influenced British Education?
Dr Cheryl Diane Parkinson considers how grassroots campaigners are applying anti-racist principles to the schooling system
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Boris Johnson is Fighting a ‘Culture War’ to Cling On to Power
The Prime Minister’s divisive comments about trans people are part of a broader attempt to replace his losing political war with a winning cultural war, reports Adam Bienkov
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The Church of Putin
Reverend Joe Howard explores how the Russian President has won support from US evangelicals and his playbook matches that of the European far-right
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Rishi Sunak’s Family Tax Affairs Raise Questions He Can’t Avoid
We need to know how the Chancellor can defend raising taxes for ordinary Britons while his own family avoids paying large sums in taxes, argues Adam Bienkov
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From Nostalgic Disability Direct Action On Screen – To Rishi Sunak’s Cold Shoulder in the Spring Budget
A new BBC film, ‘Then Barbara Met Alan’, looking at the beginnings of disability direct action, contrasts sharply with Rishi Sunak ignoring disabled people from his Spring Statement, says Penny Pepper
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Backwards Britain: Having Rejected a European Future, We Can Only Hark Back to an Imperial Past
Hardeep Matharu explores how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed the UK’s perilous retreat – at a time when collaboration and a new vision of itself is required to navigate the dangerous realities of a changing world
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GB News Lost £3 Million Before Launch
Sam Bright tracks the financial fortunes of the right-wing broadcaster
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Are the Royals Trapped in a Gilded Cage – Or Is Britain?
Is the Royal Family trapped by Britain’s past or is the problem our inability to conceive of a social order without monarchy?
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Jeremy Clarkson, The Sunday Times and the Slave Trade: Some Basic Failures of Journalism
In his eagerness to whitewash British history, Clarkson didn’t do quite enough research to get his facts straight, says Brian Cathcart
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‘Completely Inhumane’: Government’s Relaxed Approach to COVID Represents a Regression for Disabled People’s Rights
By asking people with learning disabilities and their families to live in a ‘constant state of lockdown with no support’, the Government is following an approach to the vulnerable that should be consigned to the past, says Saba Salman
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New Stats Show Rich Getting Richer as Cost of Living Crisis Bites for the Rest
New data shows highest paid payrolled employees saw wages soar by just under £3000 a month since 2014, while the poorest got a paltry pay rise of £167, Sian Norris reports
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Medicalisation and Hidden Agendas: The Down Syndrome Bill Faces Multiple Criticisms
The Private Members Bill promises to ensure the specific needs of people with Down syndrome are considered – but parents, campaigners and people with learning disabilities are sceptical about what the law will achieve and the motives behind it
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Open Arms to Russian Wealth, Cold Shoulder to Asylum Seekers
Migration statistics show that 347 Russian citizens have been granted asylum since 2008 – compared to nearly 2,600 ‘golden visas’ for Russian millionaires in same period
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Stuck in Limbo: UK Asylum and Immigration System in Post-Brexit Turmoil
The UK’s floundering border arrangements offer little solace to desperate Ukrainians fleeing war, reports Sam Bright
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The Care Carnage
As the Health and Care Bill returns to the House of Lords, Penny Pepper dissects why it will hit disabled people the hardest
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Only 30 Successful UK Asylum Applications Granted from Ukraine Since 2014
As Putin’s forces invade Ukraine, the UK Government is being urged to do more to help refugees – while the Nationality and Borders Bill risks making it harder for them to come to Britain
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Is Priti Patel trying to Militarise Britain’s Domestic Counter-Extremism?
An ex-Royal Marine Special Forces operations planner turned spy agency consultant is advising on the appointment of the next top counter-extremism commissioner
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Opening Our Eyes to the Cost of Empire: Why We Must Demand the Return of Nigeria’s Benin Bronzes
Paddy Docherty explains how research for his book on the 1897 invasion of the Kingdom of Benin left him ashamed – an emotion he believes must be converted into action
