But aside from Burnham's own words, one report perhaps offers the best glimpse we have yet of what a Burnhamite – to coin a word – policy agenda might look like.

The report from the Burnham-aligned 'Mainstream' group, which works closely with centre-left groups like Compass and Open Labour, looks at 'Manchesterism', i.e. Burnham's approach to governing in Manchester. It sets out a vision on a range of issues for radical economic and political change.

Co-authored by Mathew Lawrence and Alex Williams of the Common Wealth think tank, 'The Productive State' was drafted independently of Burnham. But it is likely to be front of mind for the new Makerfield MP, given how close Mainstream are to the outgoing Greater Manchester mayor's team.

The report could be read as a policy menu for the first months of a Burnham premiership.

So how would it be different to what Keir Starmer has been doing?

Cost of Living and Tax Reform

That plan starts with an immediate cost-of-living package – fully tax-funded with no new borrowing to keep bond markets calm (there were jitters last year when Burnham said the UK should not be "in hock" to lenders).

The call draws on Centre for the Analysis of Tax analysis, which suggests a comprehensive reform of capital gains tax – currently branded "complex, inefficient and unfair" – could raise an additional £14bn in annual revenues, whilst simultaneously taking over 100,000 people out of CGT altogether. In other words, this form of wealth tax (levied when investments and assets are sold) would vanish for those on the bottom end, and be hiked for those at the top.

The authors say the cost of living package would include "stripping the remaining levies off household and business energy bills with cheaper pricing on an essential block of consumption." That 'essential block' (or 'lifeline tariff') idea comes from the left-wing New Economics Foundation, and is potentially a cheaper alternative to a universal subsidy for all home-energy use as backed by the Green Party.

A Burnham Government might then introduce an "emergency brake on rents" so they can't outpace earnings.

And it backs a lower national bus fare cap (it's currently £3 in England) with even lower fares for under-25s. A close Burnham ally recently suggested to Byline Times that Burnham may even offer free bus fares for under-25s.

Public Ownership and Energy

After the cost of living package, public ownership. The near-collapse of Thames Water is flagged as the obvious starting point here. It could be taken into public control (if not technically government hands) through the 'special administration' regime and restructured, without upfront pressure on the public finances.

Labour's year-old GB Energy would be powered-up further to become more of an owner in energy assets, something it has already started through the linked 'Great British Energy - Nuclear', which will own the Small Modular Reactors being built by Rolls Royce upon completion.

A "properly empowered GB Energy" is one of the first concrete moves under Mainstream's energy plan, gradually increasing the role of public ownership in an expensive and complex sector.

As well as being a direct energy producer, GB Energy could also be an energy "dealer" — buying energy when prices are low, releasing supply when they spike, building strategic reserves itself, and stabilising prices from within the market.

Mainstream also wants to see national public corporations for energy and water, regional public housing corporations borrowing at the public cost of capital, and much more building on public land.

The care sector could be overhauled through setting up new municipal and co-operative providers, eventually taking the care sector out of the hands of (increasingly private-equity dominated) private firms.

Related reading: Burnham Wins in Makerfield: Can the ‘Politics of Place’ Now Offer an Antidote to the Poverty of Possibility?

Fiscal Rules and Devolution

Then there's some fiscal jiggery-pokery, which may allow Burnham to stay within his fiscal rules while simultaneously being able to borrow billions more.

How? To simplify, it would involve reassessing how the Government sets out its balance sheet and borrowing.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has already done this to an extent. In 2024, she moved to include financial assets and credit the Government owns (such as student loans) on its books. It has the effect of making debt as a percentage of GDP seem lower.

The Mainstream report suggests going further, moving from a 'Public Sector Net Financial Liabilities' (PSNFL) model to a full 'Public Sector Net Worth' framework.

Under that model, acquiring a productive asset (like the water industry) shows up as what the report argues it actually is: "a swap, not expenditure." Buying up a water firm means swapping cash or bonds for an asset of comparable value, so net worth barely moves. Rather than, say, £100bn (or whatever nationalisation costs) being formally added to the Government's overall debt tally with no visible gain.

And it proposes a major expansion in devolution, something for which Burnham has made his desire clear. Backers foresee devolved areas being granted major tax and borrowing powers, control over water or energy pricing, and new public housing corporations.

Manchesterism, the authors argue, stands against "Westminster's hoarding of power."

City-regions could be given new "constitutional protection to build and sustain public institutions without fear of future dismantling." This is tricky, to say the least, when Westminster remains sovereign and can repeal any law it likes, but it is a statement of intent. Regions could be granted far greater borrowing and tax-raising powers, putting them closer to the German model of devolution than England's current fragile patchwork.

Transport and the Burnham Legacy

On transport, Burnham's Bee Network of publicly-controlled buses is now seen as his flagship policy. Could it be rolled out across the country – ending (or at least mitigating) decades of bus privatisation that started under Margaret Thatcher?

Labour is already nationalising passenger rail, but a common critique from rail-watchers has been that the actual rolling stock – the trains themselves – will remain privately owned, often leased at exorbitant rates. The Mainstream report suggests changing that, arguing rolling-stock leasing companies (ROSCOs) have no incentive to invest in long-life trains.

The proposed fix is the "producer" model — track and operators (the current Great British Railways plan) joining rail stock in one coherent unit.

If that sounds too in-weeds, together the proposals would represent a "restoration of public control over essential goods". Keir Starmer has arguably got the ball rolling on many of these changes, often without many people noticing. Under a 'Productive State', Britain's next PM could go further, and make clear what these changes are really all about.

If 'Manchesterism' was previously a vague buzzword, it is no longer. With just a few weeks to prepare for power, Andy Burnham might be grateful for that.

The report is available to read here.

Got a story? Get in touch in confidence on josiah@bylinetimes.com 

The force has privately admitted an error when it failed to take Cllr Journet’s phone and any other devices when Reform’s Cllr Sam Journet was arrested in September last year over the allegations, for which he was not charged and subsequently faced no further action.

It followed a series of complaints from staff and fellow councillors over filming council officials without their consent using Meta-style smart glasses, and accessing staff-only offices without permission.

During his arrest, Cllr Journet handed his mobile phone to fellow Reform councillor and close ally Zoe Hockton, who is chair of Basildon Reform. It was not retrieved from her during the investigation, apparently owing to a technicality as officers should have seized it at the time. Cllrs Journet and Hockton have been contacted for comment but have not responded.

Cllr Sam Journet is now the Mayor of Basildon, as well as the Cabinet Member for Special Educational Needs on Essex County Council following Reform’s victory there in May.

Cllr Callaghan subsequently complained to police regarding the conclusion of the investigation into Sam Journet for stalking, harassment, and common assault.

He complained that the investigation was beset by a litany of errors, culminating in a decision of no further action. That included the police’s failure to seize the suspect’s phone at the point of arrest.

In February this year, in an email to Cllr Gavin Callaghan, an inspector in the Counter Corruption Unit reported that this failure was “despite officers witnessing him hand it to a political associate, Ms Zoe Hockton, a decision that [Cllr Callaghan believes] directly compromised the integrity of potential evidence.”

The inspector noted Cllr Journet’s comments about the investigation after it had been closed last November.

Cllr Journet had claimed: “Even the police now are coming up to me and saying, ‘Sam, we respect you, we enjoy what you’re doing locally and we support you.’ It was only on Remembrance Day when I had three or four officers come up to me, shake my hand, and say thank you for your contribution to local politics because without people like you we will not see change.”

In correspondence seen by Byline Times, the inspector noted: “An extensive review has been conducted. All available body-worn video footage showing interactions between officers and Cllr Journet on the dates in questions [sic] have been examined [and] no behaviour consistent with the comments referred to has been identified.”

On May 5th the inspector wrote to Cllr Callaghan saying: “The report for your complaint has been submitted for finalisation,” and another update was due at the start of June. This does not appear to have happened.

Callaghan’s Letter To Police

The formal complaint followed then-council leader Cllr Gavin Callaghan, now in opposition, writing to police on 16th September during the investigation into Cllr Journet last year.

He told Essex Police: “I am writing to demand clarity on the current police investigation into Cllr Sam Journet. When we spoke last week, I made clear my concern that Essex Police appeared to give in to his request to attend council meetings despite the seriousness of the allegations against him. The position remains wholly unsatisfactory, and I need straight answers…

“Has his phone (and laptop) been seized? If not, why not? You yourself acknowledged this was a serious error. How can harassment and stalking be investigated properly without access to his digital communications?”

He claimed to be aware of “25 phone calls and abusive messages” from Cllr Journet to a council officer overseeing standards complaints against him.

“Has the fact he is targeting officers on their personal social media been added to the charges against him?”

Related reading: Reform UK’s Basildon Leader Accused of Bullying After Filming Council Staff and Residents With Meta-Style Smart Glasses

He added: “Is he free to continue posting about individuals named in police statements, including witnesses who may be called at trial? If so, why is this being tolerated while he remains under active criminal investigation?” (To be clear, Cllr Journet had not and has not been charged over this incident and ‘no further action’ was determined).

Cllr Callaghan went on: “I need to know whether Essex Police are truly investigating this matter or simply paying lip service. Journet’s behaviour did not begin last week…To date, Essex Police have appeared unwilling or unable to act decisively and when you did, it was littered with mistakes, from the failure to seize his phone to his poor bail conditions.

“The situation cannot continue. Residents, council officers, and elected members need reassurance that Essex Police are taking this matter seriously…If he was a member of the public the response from the police would be very different. Councillors are not above the law. We should be treated in the exact same way.

“I look forward to your urgent response.”

Police’s Response

A senior police official responded that same day, writing: “In relation to his mobile…I believe it was a mistake for officers not to seize his phone at the time, however, we have no legal power to return and seize it after the fact.

“As he had it in his possession at that time it could have been seized under section 19 of the Police and Criminal Evidence act, but as stalking and harassment are both summary only offences, we have no power to search for those items now.

“It is frustrating that the opportunity was missed and I have already discussed this with the officers concerned. You are welcome to make an official complaint in regards to this if you so wish. As with the phone, this offence type does not give us any power to search for and subsequently seize his laptop.”

On alleged harassment of members of some of those involved in the case, the senior official added that it was for individuals to report “if they feel harassed” and “they will each be assessed based on the information and evidence available.”

“It is for those responsible to report any offences they feel they are victims of. I am not aware of either of the incidents you are referencing being reported, but if they have, we will investigate them. To be clear, Councillor Journet has not been charged with anything at this point.”

Related reading: The Property Moguls and Landlords Funding Reform UK Who Would Gain From Its Housing Policies

The officer also made clear they could not “curtail Councillor Journet’s right to free speech.”

“Essex Police are taking this matter seriously, as evidenced by the arrest of Journet. I agree that councillors are not above the law and should be treated as every member of the public, which is why the investigation into this matter is being managed alongside a number of other investigations in the officer’s workload and prioritised based on the ongoing threat, harm and risk.”

A spokesperson for Essex Police did not respond to specific questions but told Byline Times: “We have received a complaint relating to an investigation which is being progressed appropriately.

“Separate to this complaint, whilst the reported incident in this case was initially recorded as a crime, it was subsequently declassified as a crime in accordance with national crime recording standards.”

Cache of Complaints

Separately, Basildon Council’s Standards and Privileges Committee — the body responsible for adjudicating complaints about councillor conduct — is currently chaired by Councillor Jeff Noble (Reform UK, Pitsea North West) and vice-chaired by Councillor Eileen Brown (Reform UK, Fryerns). Both are members of the Reform UK group on the council.

While the council will not confirm the exact figure, the committee is understood to have before it dozens of standards complaints, many involving Mayor Sam Journet.

Councillors Noble and Brown are his party colleagues, with Cllr Noble serving as deputy leader of the very group that Cllr Journet leads.

A complaints-update report from the council ahead of a standards meeting this week (24th June) reveals that EY, the council's external auditors, identified "high levels of member complaints" as an area of risk requiring urgent attention in their update to the Audit and Risk Committee. And the report states that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government itself raised concerns about the behaviour of Basildon members with the council's statutory officers.

A 24th March standards committee meeting, set to discuss two complaints, was not quorate for a key item, with Reform's Cllr Shields marked as absent. That meant they were deferred, adding further delay to complaints handling.

One complaint, from November, concerns derogatory comments allegedly made in council by Cllr Journet concerning trans people. In a decision notice to refer the complaint to the standards committee, the then-monitoring officer wrote: “There is a potential breach of the Code of Conduct, which needs to be looked into further.

“The Councillor [Journet] suggested that the complaints may be vexatious or politically motivated which has been taken into considered [sic]."

The Monitoring Officer continued: “However, [I] considered that the allegations are more than minor or trivial, and are capable of amounting to a breach of code. The Monitoring Officer has taken into account Article 10 of the ECHR, incorporated in the Human Rights Act. Councillors have strong rights to free speech, especially on political matters, but these rights are not absolute. They are balanced against duties under the Code to act respectfully and uphold public confidence.”

The Council’s next standards committee on the 24th June will assess these complaints. Opposition councillors fear it could be a whitewash. The meeting will mostly be held in private and nothing is expected will be published unless there is a finding against the councillor in question.

A Basildon council spokesperson told Byline Times: ‘The Council has a properly constituted standards committee which observes the proportional representation of the parties on the council. It is a matter for individual members to declare any conflict of interests and to recuse themselves from speaking/voting on a matter if required.

“Public assurance is strengthened by the role of the Independent Persons appointed to the council who’s views are recorded and taken into consideration in relation to any decisions of the Standards Committee.’

New social media guidance has been issued by Basildon Council, explicitly "developed in response to increasing online noise, arguments and toxicity." Labour Cllr Emma Callaghan has been the victim of extensive online abuse. At a council meeting on 19th June she says members of the public gallery called for her to be "shot" or "killed". Comments online have drawn on conspiracy theories to brand her “disgusting”, “vile” and “unfit to be a mother”.

Got a story? Get in touch in confidence on josiah@bylinetimes.com 

Thiel himself is barely there – no hand in running Dialog, rarely present – and the network sits at the loose end of a wider web he backs. Others in that web, working far more directly to place allies in positions of power, have drawn little of the scrutiny now falling on it.

Byline Times contacted multiple former participants and obtained copies of emails sent to invitees. Each contained long lists of names intended to encourage attendance at a range of events, including regular retreats, local dinners, one-off gatherings, and online discussions.

Importantly, while the conference itself is billed as off-the-record, none of those who spoke to Byline Times suggested that attendees were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Furthermore, marketing emails sent to prospective participants (which contained detailed information about participants and programming) carried no explicit expectation of secrecy. While invitations are clearly denoted as non-transferable, Dialog seems to rely on an aura of exclusivity and mutual respect to keep its gatherings on the down-low.

Marietje Schaake, a former member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, attended the Dialog retreat in 2019 in Venice. She said she was left less than impressed, and found it to be an “in-crowd that wasn’t hers”. She also did not know that Peter Thiel was associated with the group and if she had, she would have “100% been triggered”. Schaake is the author of the 2024 book The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley, and has been a vocal advocate for European digital sovereignty and guardrails for American tech companies.

Kim Scott, the bestselling author of Radical Candor, attended a Dialog dinner held alongside South by Southwest in Austin, Texas in 2024, and other small dinner events in the San Francisco Bay Area. She found them to be interesting and stimulating. Scott had been receiving invitations from Dialog since 2012, and while she had some idea it was connected to Thiel, she has never met him and he was not present at any of the dinners she attended. Scott, too, has been deeply concerned with increasing income inequality and the corrosive effects of Silicon Valley billionaires on democracy globally.

DeRay Mckesson, an author and a prominent organiser in the Black Lives Matter movement, has been invited to Dialog for several years, and declined. He said he was not aware that Thiel was involved, and was nominated by two other ‘Dialogers’ (as they are called by the group) – investor Kanyi Maqubela and social justice entrepreneur Garrett Neiman. Mckesson expressed relief that he had never attended, as he and the Black Lives Matter movement would likely have faced negative scrutiny now had he done so.

Related reading: As Extreme Heat Hits London, Fossil Fuel Interests and Global Far-Right Politicians Gather for a ‘Glastonbury of Climate Science Deniers’

Action and Intent

While Dialog is similar in many ways to other exclusive gatherings and conferences, it is also uniquely focused on direct action. A 2014 invitation from Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman describes the event: “There are no speakers. No panels. All attendees participate in break-out facilitated discussions. And we limit the discussion to only 150 global leaders who can have an impact now, and emerging leaders who can help implement the plans we develop.”

But some sessions lean towards the personal, confessional, and salacious. Marriage, sex, and family are commonly addressed, and most of the retreats include sessions dedicated to heterodox and sensational topics. Given the group’s attendee base, which includes some of the world’s most powerful people, such personal details could easily be used as leverage, whether by Dialog and its sponsors, or by other attendees.

Steve Hassan, an author of multiple books on cult techniques, said Dialog’s sessions reflect techniques used by high-control groups. “Eliciting personal confessions and controversial statements in the context of a group setting can become a powerful weapon if they are misused,” Hassan said in an email. Security analyst Pierluigi Paganini suggests that such personal data could be used by adversarial intelligence agencies to target and manipulate powerful individuals.

According to sources, Dialog does not have a money-making business model. Reporting from Wired suggests that it is methodical about grading participants (A is low-grade; B is mid; C is high-status) and continuously grooms its invitation lists to determine who is in and who is out. It has also promoted dating and matchmaking between participants, presumably as a mechanism for further cementing in-group social ties.

Attendance fees can reach more than $16,000 for those paying full price, but can be heavily discounted for desirable attendees who cannot afford to pay as much. Schaake said she did not recall paying any registration fees, and that her flight and hotel were likely covered as well.

Dialog is run by Stonebrick, LLC, an established entity owned by Auren Hoffman that appears to house his various business concerns. Raffi Grinberg, the group’s executive director, oversees much of its day-to-day operations and leads a team that includes Juliette Levine. Levine is a 2015 graduate of Princeton University. Her senior thesis, titled ‘How to Give Well: Increasing transparency, accountability, and efficiency in NGOs’, explores the application of Effective Altruism concepts in the NGO context.

Byline Times obtained a set of interview questions used in hiring Dialog staff, which ranged from the mundane to the more exotic: “What is a heretical view that you have?” Applicants are also asked to “design your own session”, offering ideas and discussion questions for two Dialog sessions – one topical and one personal, focused on experience-sharing.

Thiel appears to have no operational role in the organisation and seldom attends events. Investor Ian Osborne forwarded a Dialog invitation to Jeffrey Epstein in 2014 with the complaint: “Same sh*t. Peter doesn’t even attend. I will tell him that he should stop them using his name.”

None of those who spoke to Byline Times had met Thiel at any Dialog event, so the assertion that Dialog is operating as a “secret society” personally directed by him (another concept Epstein had brought up with Thiel, in a 2016 email) is not supported by available evidence.

However, Dialog’s operational design (with its lack of a profitable business model and heavy focus on identifying and recruiting powerful individuals with high name-recognition and encouraging them to be vulnerable around each other) is consistent with the hypothesis that it is a well-oiled influence machine.

Relationship With Thiel’s Other Networks

According to organisation materials obtained by Byline Times, Dialog claims to have had more than 2,500 participants in its 20-year history and more than 1,000 paying members, aims to have 1,300 members by the end of 2026, and holds more than 150 dinners per year. However, it is just one network among many backed by Thiel.

Functionally, Dialog is too large to be a ‘secret society’, but some of Thiel’s other networks take on that air. Teneo, founded in 2008 by the Thiel allies Evan Baehr and Josh Hawley (now the Republican Senator for Missouri), is specifically focused on placing conservatives into positions of power across business, government, and culture. Its members include Ted Cruz, the Republican Senator for Texas and a Dialog member, and it is led by Leonard Leo, a member of both Opus Dei and Dialog.

Will Scharf, a member of both Teneo and Dialog, and a former candidate for Attorney General in Missouri, currently serves as White House Staff Secretary. Teneo has said its goal is to “crush liberal dominance”.

Hereticon, another conference network funded by Thiel and his Founders Fund, expands Dialog’s heterodox sessions into a full-blown conference with a festival-like atmosphere. Announced in 2019 (and delayed by COVID-19), it debuted in January 2022 in Miami and bills itself as “a conference for people banned from other conferences”, “a conference for thoughtcrime”, and convening “persecuted weirdos” on the premise that “dissent is worth protecting”.

Where Dialog’s edginess ends, Hereticon picks up with sessions on UFOs, immortality, doomsday, natalism, parapsychology, genetic modification, “sex, God” – and “existential risk”. Curtis Yarvin, who has gained notoriety for advancing the “neoreactionary” cause, moved from off-programme attendee in 2022 to a featured speaker.

Founders Fund published the 2022 Hereticon programme online. Several Dialog members are Hereticon session leaders. One session was titled ‘How to Steal an Election’. Peter Thiel led a session titled ‘Apocalypse’ with libertarian economist Tyler Cowen. Other Dialog holdovers include life extension advocate Bryan Johnson, psychedelics advocate (and Thiel co-investor) Christian Angermayer, Thiel fellowship co-founder Jim O’Neill, and network state (Próspera) investor Niklas Anzinger. An attendee list has not been published.

Other Thiel networks include (but are not limited to) Thiel Fellows, a programme that encourages young people to skip college in favour of pursuing a startup, Founders Fund (his venture capital investment fund), Thiel Capital (his personal investment instrument), and Per Aspera (a disclosure-free political spending arm which funds aligned candidates).

While many Dialog participants do turn up in Thiel’s other networks, available evidence does not demonstrate a clear linear progression from normie recruit to true believer, moving people from one group to the next, as is often the case with influence networks and high-control groups.

Rather, Dialog seems to be a kind of machine designed to search the realm of power and influence to find candidates who might already be like-minded, and for those who are not, to initiate them into the core network’s worldview, perspective, and goals. The focus on heterodox and confessional topics may accelerate that process, and with Dialog’s minders paying close attention to who clicks with whom, it seems to waste little time on people it considers to have a low return on investment. And taken together, Thiel’s groups seem to function more as a network of networks than as a strict hierarchy.

Justifiable Anger

Powerful private networks have become targets for the resentment and anger people feel over income inequality and lack of accountability by elites. Invitation-only networks such as Dialog draw suspicion because of their stated intent and clubby atmosphere. Dialog, Teneo, and Hereticon seem especially egregious, as they operationalise an agenda set by one powerful man.

And there are many more exclusive conferences, networks, and events spanning sectors – many without specific political intentions. Dialog, which may seem super-secretive at first, is ultimately just one of many networks competing for power and attention. And as more participants are revealed (Byline Times has identified about 635 of approximately 2,500), the bigger and less exclusive it ultimately seems.

Various people who had one-time associations with Dialog are now in the position of having to contextualise and defend their experience. Others have been incorrectly named. Wes Moore, now Governor of Maryland, spoke at a Dialog event in 2013 in support of his book The Other Wes Moore. He denies ever having met Thiel.

Kaja Kallas, currently Vice President of the European Commission, denies having attended, despite having appeared in a leaked Dialog dataset. The actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt has issued a statement saying he never met Thiel, and the actor Josh Brolin said he also did not attend; he was nominated by former Uber chief executive Ryan Graves.

The actress Sophia Bush, who attended a Dialog event to discuss Another Body, her 2023 documentary about deepfake pornography, was blunter. She wrote that Thiel “was not present, was never brought up during my experience there at all, and as I’ve since learned he has not been involved whatsoever in approximately 15 years.”

Ezra Klein, the New York Times columnist, offered a similar account. He confirmed attending Dialog twice, in 2018 and 2022, and said “no one ever asked me to keep it or my presence a secret.” However, many argue that his recent book, Abundance, highlights the kind of fluffy, substance-free proposals that might appear in a Dialog session.

Dialog is an important network and should be monitored. The group has plans to purchase land and build a campus in the Washington DC area, and sources suggest that process is still ongoing. Its upcoming event in August 2026 outside Dublin deserves sunlight. Attendees who choose to participate given the intensity of the scrutiny under which Dialog has now come should have good answers for why this is how they want to spend their time.

But it seems wrongheaded to suggest that everyone who has ever touched this network over the past two decades is complicit with Thiel’s increasingly bizarre eccentricities and anti-democratic goals, especially given that Thiel’s association with the group has been minimal, to the point of barely there.

Ultimately, the most interesting thing about Dialog is where it, and its members, choose to go next.

Kim Scott, the Radical Candor author, also raised a fair point: “Why is Peter Thiel, of all people, the only person convening conservative and liberal people to talk to each other?”

Why, indeed? Maybe it is time for some principled competition.

Commentator Jordan Peterson is one of the co-founders of the event, along with the Spectator and Unherd owner Paul Marshall - also a co-owner of GB News - Conservative peer Philippa Stroud, and the Legatum Institute (now the Prosperity Institute).

The UK-based conference is charging attendees as much as £1,500 per ticket with up to 4,000 figures from 85 countries expected to attend.

Representatives from the UK include Reform UK politicians Nigel Farage, Sarah Pochin, and Andrew Rosindell, as well as a host of the Party’s activists and advisors. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will also be in attendance, as will former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In total, more than 40 UK parliamentarians are expected to feature among those present. 

They will be joined by senior Trump administration officials, as well as guests from European far-right parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Spain’s VOX, and the Netherlands Party for Freedom. 

Speaking to Byline Times, Geoff Dembicki, Global Managing Editor at DeSmog, observing the event in his capacity as a journalist, spoke about the importance of the event as a networking opportunity for those who want to roll-back net zero policies and climate action. As he describes it, ARC represents: 

“A global gathering of people who want to bring like populist right-wing policies and values all over the world, and they're here to kind of coordinate, share ideas, and network. What's quite interesting,” he says “is that it shows a deepening of alliances between key figures in the Trump administration, and then Reform UK and other parties in Europe who are sympathetic to what the Trump administration is doing. One of the key areas where we're seeing this coordination in learning is on the fight against net zero policies globally”. 

Related reading: Whatever Happened to the Brexit Battalion Media Corps?

One of the first day’s big speakers is Chris Wright, Energy Secretary for the Trump administration, who recently told ministers at a meeting of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, to abandon Net Zero modelling entirely, reportedly after threatening to quit the organisation unless it dropped its focus on the energy transition. 

The Trump administration has taken a hardline stance in its attacks on renewable energy, including investments in wind and solar, despite the fact that in May of this year, the country generated more power from renewable energy than from gas. 

Chris Wright, as Dembicki describes, has been “aggressively against any kind of energy transition away from fossil fuels”, and that it’s important that “a group of powerful conservatives who travelled all over from the world” have come here “to learn from what people like him are doing to fight net zero, and then bring that back to their own countries.”

Similarly, James Orr, an influential advisor to Farage, also in attendance at ARC this year, has frequently attacked the UK’s goals of reaching Net Zero emissions by 2050. Reform politicians have laid out plans to do away with climate targets and tax solar farms, and multiple Reform-led councils scrapping climate targets. The party has also called for new North Sea oil and gas drilling. 

GB News, the broadcaster co-owned by Paul Marshall and Legatum, also frequently attacks climate science and climate action, with one report stating that the channel launched 953 attacks against climate change around the 2024 election alone.

Recent reporting indicates that more than two-thirds of the Reform’s income from donors comes from those with interests in oil and gas. ARC’s funding more broadly also comes heavily from those invested in the sector.

As previously reported by Byline Times, Paul Marshall, a major financial backer of ARC, contributed £1,000,000 to it in 2023. He is also listed as giving a £2,000,000 donation to the conference in 2025. Marshall’s hedge Fund, Marshall Wace, has held over $2.2 billion in fossil fuel investments.

Recent material uncovered in a joint DeSmog and Unearthed investigation also revealed that further donors to the 2025 ARC conference included Reform megadonor Ben Delo, french billionaire and right wing political funder Pierre-Édouard Stérin, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and US evangelicals and hardline republican Trump donors. 

Attending this year’s event alongside political figures on the far right are members of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organisation instrumental in rolling back abortion rights in the UK, and which are making increasing inroads into the UK, developing close ties to the Reform Party.

Also present will be Sarah Rogers, a senior State Department official leading attempts to promote radical right-wing parties internationally, Republican speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, former Palantir employee and Anduril co-founder Trae Stephens, Trump-allied venture capitalist Marc Andreesen, and Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind Trump’s ‘Project 2025’ agenda. 

Speaking from the event, Dembicki describes this convergence of interests as a “melding of Christian right groups here, in AI companies, Silicon Valley, fossil fuel interests and broader conservative groups as right-wing intersectionality… it's all these disparate parts of the global populist right who are coming together in finding common cause and strategies for political power that they can all collaborate on.”

“It's this big convergence of social conservatives, leading tech figures, climate deniers, and political leaders from the Trump administration and Reform UK. All coming together to sort of coordinate on strategies to expand their power worldwide.”

However, unlike last year, following hot on the heels of the 2024 victory of Donald Trump, he describes that, while still very much an ascendant force, “we’ve now seen a lot of cracks in this global coalition”, citing how disastrous the war in Iran has been for energy prices, the massive backlash to AI and data centres, and the ongoing opposition from local communities to Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration. 

“There's controversy,”, Dembicki explains, “and so I think people are still feeling confident this year, but there are definite headwinds that the sort of powerful people gathered at ARC this year are having to contend with, so it'll be interesting how that's reflected in a lot of the talks that happen at this year's event.”

Outside of the venue, there is also a growing sense of awareness of the conference in 2026, and backlash to the vested interests behind it. A coalition of climate justice groups have today held a demonstration against this year’s event. 

The action, led by climate justice group Fossil Free London, along with over 10 other groups including Greenpeace, Queers for Palestine, and Take Back Power, have protested outside ARC holding placards, and displaying banners reading “oily fascists out of London” and “Fossil Fuels Fund Fascism”, also wearing frog-themed costumes (a nod to themes seen at recent anti-ICE immigration protests in the US).

Speaking to Byline Times, a representative from Fossil Free London said: “Our concern at Fossil Free London is the networks this conference perpetuates, the philosophies it espouses and the entrenchment of narratives it promotes.”

“The global fascist conference (also known as ARC) brings together an elitist network of politicians, billionaires, oil corporations, arms companies and tech firms, to peddle dangerous, hate-filled narratives to serve one purpose: to maximise their own power, profit and self-interest.”

Robin Wells, Director of Fossil Free London, said of the event that: 'Suited men are gathering in our city today. Their oily money is fuelling the extreme heat we're sweating through, and we're left poorer than ever before whilst they profiteer from war and crisis.

As this climate-change-induced heat suffocates us, they're funding climate denial, bankrolling attacks on minorities and setting up narratives of division - all to ensure we're looking in every direction except at them.

Brexit was not the sole cause of this global shift towards nationalism, authoritarianism and exclusionary politics. It was, in many ways, a symptom of it. Yet it has become a powerful symbol for movements seeking to weaken rights protections and frame equality as an obstacle to popular will.

In the UK, Brexit has contributed to a sustained decline in rights protections, particularly for marginalised groups. Human rights have increasingly been portrayed as incompatible with the outcome of the referendum, creating a political environment in which rights themselves are treated as negotiable.

Immigration was central to the Leave campaign and remains an issue through which many of these debates are framed. Yet the post-Brexit years have demonstrated that concession after concession has failed to satisfy those demanding ever harsher restrictions.

Net migration has fallen significantly and is now lower than it was before Brexit. Nonetheless, increasingly hostile immigration policies continue to dominate political debate. Calls to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) have moved from the political fringes into mainstream discussion, while the Labour Government has proposed restricting access to ECHR protections for some asylum seekers.

Related reading: Whatever Happened to the Brexit Battalion Media Corps?

This is despite evidence that the ECHR has had only a limited impact on UK immigration policy. Over the past four decades, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against the UK only a handful of times in immigration-related cases. Yet facts have repeatedly been overshadowed by grievance politics and symbolic battles over sovereignty.

The consequences extend far beyond migration, however. Before Brexit, UK courts were required to interpret equality legislation consistently with EU directives and case law from the Court of Justice of the European Union. That framework helped strengthen anti-discrimination protections and created important safeguards for marginalised communities.

One area where the change has been particularly visible is LGBTQIA+ rights. In 2016, the UK ranked among Europe's leaders on ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Map, measuring each country’s ranking on LGBTQIA+ rights. A decade later, it has fallen dramatically to 22^nd place.

Trans rights have become a particular flashpoint. The Supreme Court's ruling on the meaning of "sex" within the Equality Act has already been used to justify further attempts to exclude trans people from organisations and public spaces. Legal experts and human rights advocates have argued that the judgment departed from long-established understandings of how trans people were protected under equality law.

The subsequent response from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, including proposals that would effectively exclude trans people from many public facilities, has intensified concerns that rights once considered settled are now vulnerable to political pressure.

Brexit did not create anti-trans sentiment. Nor is every EU member state a model of LGBTQIA+ inclusion. However, leaving the EU removed an important layer of legal alignment and accountability that helped anchor equality protections. While countries including Spain, Denmark and Finland have expanded legal recognition and protections for trans people, the UK has increasingly moved in the opposite direction.

A similar pattern can be seen in disability rights. Since Brexit, the UK has drifted away from evolving European standards on accessibility and inclusion. Recent court decisions have prompted warnings from disability rights organisations that fundamental protections are being weakened, raising concerns about the security of rights many assumed were firmly established.

The broader lesson is that rights cease to be universal when they become conditional on who someone is. Once governments succeed in restricting rights for one group, the precedent exists to restrict them for others.

None of this means the UK lacks domestic equality or human rights legislation. Rather, it highlights how vulnerable those protections can become when detached from wider regional frameworks and international scrutiny.

Nor should Brexit be viewed in isolation. Across Europe and beyond, populist movements are attacking human rights protections and targeting minority communities. The EU itself is far from immune. Increasingly restrictive migration policies and proposals for offshore-style "return hubs" demonstrate how readily governments can sacrifice rights in pursuit of political expediency.

Yet Brexit's significance extends beyond Britain. For decades, threats by far-right nationalist parties to withdraw from the EU were dismissed as unrealistic. Brexit demonstrated that such projects were achievable. Across Europe, mainstream parties have responded by adopting elements of populist rhetoric in an attempt to neutralise the far right. More often than not, this has simply legitimised and strengthened it.

Any honest assessment of the referendum's legacy must recognise how it has been used to undermine human rights, normalise discrimination and weaken the principle that rights belong to everyone. Understanding that legacy is essential if we are to prevent the next decade from seeing further erosion of the protections many once took for granted.

By then, the EU referendum, a close result with only a margin of one voter in fifty needing to swing the result, was already marred by findings of unlawful election overspends and data misuse. It unleashed a period of political chaos, which has resulted in the country now preparing for its seventh Prime Minister in ten years.

No one knows who footed the bill for this expensive meal at Browns Hotel in Mayfair, but its owner — Rocco Forte — has since relocated to Italy, saying he didn’t “ like the way things have been going” in the UK.

But we do now know Brexit has cost the country a fortune.

When the result came in on the night of 23 June 2016, sterling experienced its largest single-day fall since free-floating exchange rates were introduced in the early 1970s , dropping 11% against the dollar and 8% against the Euro within days , and — unlike the stock market — it never recovered. 

The Centre for Economic Policy Research estimated that the Brexit depreciation increased UK consumer prices by 2.9%, representing an additional £870 a year for the average household. 

The longer-term damage to growth has proved larger than even the most pessimistic pre-referendum forecasts. 

A 2025 working paper by economists from Stanford University, the Bank of England, and the universities of Nottingham and Bristol — drawing on a decade of macroeconomic data and a survey of more than 3,000 UK firms — concluded that by the end of 2025 Brexit had reduced UK GDP per capita by 6–8% compared with similar advanced economies, with business investment 12–18% lower, employment 3–4% lower and productivity 3–4% lower

Applied to current Treasury figures by the House of Commons Library, that output gap translates into between £65 billion and £90 billion less in annual tax receipts in 2024–25 — equivalent, at the upper end, to roughly £250 million a day.  An 8% GDP per capita decline represents a loss of approximately £3,300 per person. 

As a result, Brexit is increasingly unpopular on the 10th anniversary of the EU referendum. As of June 2026, 57% of people in Great Britain think it was wrong to leave the European Union, against 30% who think it was the right decision. 

New polling by the European Council on Foreign Relations, found that voters report negative effects from Brexit on the cost of living (66%), the economy (65%), opportunities for young people (57%) and illegal immigration (56%) — and that when asked to name the main benefits of Brexit, the most common answer was “don’t know”.

Yet these pundits, journalists and writers thought Brexit was something worth celebrating six years ago.

Following the tradition of what British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin “power without responsibility” of the press, Byline Times takes a quick look back to see how the veterans of the Brexit Battalions have fared since since backing one of the most momentous political mistakes in British history.

Brexit Battalions Dinner – 20 January 2020: Where Are They Now?

Roles at dinner date drawn from public records. Current positions as of June 2026.

The claim, which was an apparent reference to the anti-semitism scandal under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, is revealing on a number of levels.

While it is certainly the case that Jewish people were badly let down by Corbyn’s leadership, it is also the case that Starmer was himself a very senior figure within the party during that period.

And while he today disowned that era as having been entirely “politically, financially and morally bankrupt” this is not a position he publicly took at the time, or when he campaigned to take over as Labour leader.

Indeed, the most notable part of Starmer’s own bid for the leadership back in 2020 was how closely it aligned with the outlook of his immediate predecessor.

In both policy and rhetoric, Starmer posed as being the heir to Corbyn, insisting that he would maintain what he described as his predecessor’s “radical” approach to politics.

Yet of the ten key pledges Starmer campaigned on to become Labour leader, almost every single one was later dropped.

Despite pledging to defend free movement, raise taxes on the wealthy, abolish the House of Lords and nationalise public utilities, Starmer instead governed as a Prime Minister who has taken freebies from millionaires, whilst claiming that immigration has done “incalculable damage” to the country.

Because the truth is that while there was initially huge optimism in the country that Starmer’s premiership would be a return to the sort of morality-based and principle-based politics that was largely absent during 14 years of Conservative government, in reality it was Starmer’s own failures on these terms that ultimately ended up bringing him down.

'Shaking off the Fleas'

These failures could be most clearly seen in his early refusal to condemn Netanyahu’s brutal response to Hamas’ October 7 attacks. His comments that Israel ‘has the right’ to withhold power and water from Gaza, caused a massive breach with many of Labour’s core supporters. After large numbers of Muslim Labour councillors resigned in protest, a senior Labour source described it as the party merely “shaking off the fleas”.

This line was part of a divisive approach to politics that would go onto define his leadership. In the run up to the 2024 general election there was a concerted campaign by those around Starmer to purge left-wingers from the party, including Corbyn. The plan, which proved a massive distraction from the job of actually winning the election, culminated in an ultimately failed attempt to expel one of Labour’s longest serving members in Diane Abbott.

Later, when a small number of Labour MPs voted for an amendment to scrap the two child benefit limit that has driven hundreds of thousands of children into poverty, the MPs were immediately expelled from the party. In Starmer’s Labour, factional politics often trumped any other considerations.

Related reading: Makerfield By-Election Result: How Voters Rejected Nigel Farage’s Politics of ‘Pure Cold Rage’

This approach also applied to his approach to the media.

Elected on a pledge never to talk to the Sun newspaper, because of its behaviour on Hillsborough, Starmer immediately abandoned this upon becoming leader, giving repeated interviews and preferential access to both the Sun and many other publications like the Telegraph, whose owners had long been deeply opposed both to Starmer and the Labour party. As Prime Minister he would go onto appoint multiple former journalists at Murdoch papers to his administration.

These attempts to appease those forces that most wanted to destroy him was often extended to policy too.

Under the advice of his long-time aide Morgan McSweeney, Starmer focused heavily on attempting to win over so-called “hero voters” who were sympathetic to Reform by taking a hardline stance on immigration and other culture war issues.

This strategy, which culminated in Starmer’s disastrous “Island of Strangers” speech, not only “shook off the fleas” who still believed in Starmer’s Labour leadership campaign pledge to “defend migrant rights” but also led to a broader fracturing of Labour’s electoral base.

By the time of last month’s local elections, the progressive defection of large numbers of left-wing voters from Labour to the Greens had caused the party not only to shed large numbers of votes to Zack Polanski’s party, but even larger numbers of seats to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Trumped

In his resignation speech this morning Starmer sought to set out some of the real achievements he has made as Prime Minister over the last two years.

He listed new rights for workers, declining NHS waiting lists and his lifting of hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.

However, it was telling that the one geniune achievement he will probably most be remembered for - keeping the UK out of Trump’s disastrous war in Iran - was not included on the list.

Its absence tells us much about Starmer’s leadership. Whereas other world leaders, like Canada’s Mark Carney, responded robustly and openly to Trump’s verbal attacks on them and their countries, the British Prime Minister often appeared reluctant to even mildly criticise, let alone strongly stand up to a US President who often held him in open contempt.

This failure added to a sense among many voters that he simply lacks the strength required for the job.

For his defenders this was always deeply unfair. What seemed to his critics as weakness, was to them merely pragmatism. And indeed it is notable that Starmer will likely be remembered most fondly for his approach to politics on the world stage.

Yet his refusal to ever loudly stand up to Trump, was part of a wider failing that ultimately led to his downfall.

That failing could be seen clearest in his disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Trump.

For all his claims of moral rectitude this morning, the truth is that Starmer went ahead with Mandelson’s appointement despite being repeatedly warned about his close associations with the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his financial ties to Russian billionaires and US tech firms.

And while he now accuses the left wing of his party of being “morally bankrupt”, it was precisely that wing of the party that most loudly warned against the bankruptcy of Mandelson’s appointment.

At the time Mandelson's appointment was defended as an act of pragmatism, with the suggestion that it was done to please Trump. In truth Mandelson's predecessor in the job was a hugely liked figure in Trump's White House and Mandelson's first job as ambassador involved smoothing over their disappointment over her being replaced.

In truth Starmer’s decision to push ahead with the appointment was actually due to both personal and factional concerns. Recommended for the job by McSweeney, who was his close friend and protoge, Mandelson's appointment was also part of what one senior Labour figure told this newspaper at the time was a “calculated f*** you” to the left.

As often with Starmer’s leadership, the factional trumped the moral and it did so to the wider detriment of both his Government and the country.

Related reading: Burnham Wins in Makerfield: Can the ‘Politics of Place’ Now Offer an Antidote to the Poverty of Possibility?

The Rise of Reform

However it is Starmer’s response to the dramatic rise of Reform UK and the far-right over the past two years where his failure has been greatest.

This rise, which has culminated in repeated racist riots and even a racist pogrom on UK streets earlier this month, has left many migrant and ethnic minority communities in real and growing fear for their safety.

Yet rather than crack down on these forces, Starmer has too often sought to appease them.

His refusal to act against billionaire X owner Elon Musk, even as he actively incites racist hate on our streets, has contributed significantly to the far-right poisoning of our national political debate over recent years.

This failure has not only ended up hurting Muslim and other ethnic minority communities across the UK, but it has also ended up hurting the very Jewish community who Starmer this morning boasted about having protected.

Over the last two years Islamophobic and antisemitic hate crimes have both risen and they have done so, not just because of the actions of far-right tech billionaires, but because of deep failures of political leadership that go directly to the front door to Number 10.

As the sixth British Prime Minister to have stood down in the last ten years, Starmer may never feature as a major part of our political history.

Yet if Downing Street does end up falling into the hands of Nigel Farage and his fellow travellers on the far-right, then the truth is that Starmer and his own moral failures will have played a significant role in that fall.

The responsibility for preventing that outcome will now likely fall to Andy Burnham.

Burnham's huge victory in Makerfield, following a campaign that majored on hope, rather than hate, offers a real opportunity for the Labour party to recover from the moral failures of Starmer's leadership and embrace a much more unified and pluralistic approach to politics.

It is an opportunity he would be well advised to take.

By choosing Makerfield as the place of his return to Westminster, what does the constituency and its voters tell us about his likely politics?

Overwhelmingly white, mainly working-class, marginalised in the march to post-industrialisation, Makerfield appears to be the epitome of a ‘Red Wall’ constituency: part of a belt of ‘left behind’ towns and villages that commentators commend or criticise for rejecting the ‘metropolitan elites’ and the UK’s growing social and ethnic diversity. 

But the constituency of Makerfield is not a town or a village. With only the peak of Winterhill as a common landmark, the constituency is a scatter of villages and small towns thrown up within ribbons of terraced housing around pits and mills that no longer exist. 

Though the parties of the right play on the nostalgia for a lost sense of cohesion, most of Makerfield never acquired the civic fabric – a market square, a planned centre, shared gathering places – that would knit people together in the first place.

It is an area afforded neither old security nor progressive aspiration. Can Burnham deliver either or both as its new MP?

Common Ground

Nearly a hundred years ago, this part of Lancashire was grimly and vividly depicted in George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier as a classic case study in exploitation, poverty, pollution, and the squalor of the ‘dark satanic mills’ of Britain’s Industrial Revolution. 

But while the slag heaps, filthy canals, sink holes, and sulfurous chimney stacks have gone, the legacy of those rapid and often rapacious extractive industries still disturb the underlying social landscape. 

The surviving Victorian housing stock, with its characteristic combination of dark red brick, sit right on the road without front gardens, driveways, or parking spaces: they were built for an era in which ‘armies of labour’ could walk to a huge nearby pit head or mill. 

When those places of work closed under Thatcher, and all the clubs and meeting places with them, these communities lost their heart. 

Despite a spate of council housing and warehouses for light industry springing up in the surrounding fields, there has been little municipal effort to create new common ground around schools, music venues, sports centres, libraries, cinemas, or renovated high streets. 

In Ashton, the main focus of the constituency, the town centre is dominated by a car park facing a short parade of shops which includes a Boots and Costa Coffee, alongside a charity shop or two. Only Iceland, Home Bargains, Aldi, and Lidl stores can be found off major roundabouts and roads. Pubs are dotted here and there at intervals.

Now part of Greater Manchester, and served by the distinctive Bee Network buses introduced by Burnham as Mayor, Ashton feels very far away from a great metropolis. 

Come evening, the place is deserted.

The Totem of Truth 

With the world descending on Makerfield as it went to the polls, the locals were friendly, if a little fed-up of it all. 

Engaged on local and national issues, and sceptical about whether politics could do anything to change anything, the people of Makerfield weren’t bitter. 

As one elderly lady put it out shopping in Ashton, “we all need to live together”.

With not a whiff of ‘these metropolitan Londoners coming up and only now taking an interest in our town’, this reception was a stark contrast to the “accent snobbery” described by one Labour MP, who represents a northern consistency, the night before over a pint in Burnham’s teeming campaign HQ at Stubshaw Cross Community and Sports Club.

“People in Westminster basically think we’re thick when they hear us speak,” is how the Oxbridge-educated MP put it.

In between the town’s two charity shops, the ‘Totem of Truth’ had been temporarily erected by campaign group Reform Watch, displaying the Reform UK candidate Robert Kenyon’s history of misogyny.

One couple stopped to question where the totem of truths were for Burnham and the other candidates. “It’s about fairness,” the elderly woman said. It was a word that surfaced several times in different contexts during the weekend. 

Another woman, terrified at the prospect of a Reform win following its success in the recent local elections in the area, was horrified by Kenyon’s comments – including his claims that women have abortions for “vanity purposes” so they can “shag anyone they want”. 

Several women voters raised the issue of Kenyon’s misogyny during our trip and said it had put them off. It does not seem to have helped him, with the Reform candidate winning 15,696 votes compared to Burnham's 24,927 in the by-election.

But not everyone shared the sentiment. The Reform Watch team recalled, to both laughs and disgust, how earlier in the day, two young women had stopped by the Totem of Truth and said they didn’t care about Kenyon’s remarks because he was so good-looking.  

As locals got talking in small groups around the totem, oft-repeated sentiments were aired: about politicians who are “just in it for themselves”, how both Labour and the Conservatives had offered the area nothing, the unpopularity of Keir Starmer in particular, and why Reform or Restore should now be given a throw of the dice – like voting for Brexit a decade earlier – just to shake things up.

When talk turned to immigration, as it frequently did, the distinction was often made between “illegal” immigrants who don’t get jobs or contribute to society and the problem of “small boats”; and immigration and diversity in the UK more broadly, which many said they welcomed. 

Shortly after a Restore Britain activist appeared on the scene with a megaphone and camera – telling Reform Watch that this would be “his first punch-up of the day” – the Totem of Truth was last seen being carried off into the sea of cars in Ashton’s town centre.

The Pit and the Pendulum 

But Ashton at least has some central gathering space, and during the local elections Reform had its narrowest lead there at approximately 14%. The wards which have virtually no civic centres swung hardest away from Labour. 

Reform’s lead in the council elections doubled in the old mining areas of Hindley and Abram that developed rapidly in the middle of the 19th Century.

In 1911, Abram was described as “distinctly unpicturesque”, its trees “stunted and blackened with smoke”, made of “collieries, pit-banks and railway lines”. In the shadow of the last working pits, where coal was a living wage into the early 1990s, Reform achieved its highest share – 56.1% – earlier this year.

Bickershaw and Parsonage, the last two pits in the Wigan Coalfield, closed in March 1992, ending more than 200 years of mining. The 1984-85 strike left its mark here too, including the mass picket of June 1984 known as ‘the Battle of Bickershaw’. Hindley, the ward which employed men in the Bickershaw pit until its closure, records Labour’s lowest floor anywhere in the constituency, at 21.4%.

You can see why the Conservatives have fared badly here, since Thatcher is held responsible for the closure of the pits, with little provision for alternative employment. The area was abandoned to itself. In the years that followed, few benefited from the aspirational promises of New Labour either. 

None of the urban renewal and regeneration of northern cities such as Manchester and Sheffield has ‘trickled down’. The stagnation of wages and growth since the credit crunch of 2008 has only compounded the problem. 

With few places for men to gather, local rugby league teams provided one last outlet for cohesion. But as with football, far-right activists also penetrated team support and tapped into the frustrated male anger. The estates where the EDL thrived in the 90s are now marked with lampposts covered with St George’s flags, and had the biggest number of Reform and Restore placards.

The Chess Board of Englishness

But not all those attracted to the new parties of the right are repelled by Thatcherite Conservatism. Some want to bring it back to an area still devastated by its policies.

In The Brunch Box in Bryn, we got talking to a trio of campaigners flying the flag for Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain over a late English breakfast. 

One of the three, with the veneered smile of the Cheshire Cat and wearing a cap bearing the party’s name, grinned as he stood to attention and performed a faux military salute at each mention of “Trump” and “Musk” as the conversation progressed.

Keen to chat and respectable in their manners, the men – all up from the south to campaign – longed to “restore” Britain to the days of Thatcher, both in economic and social terms, when “government didn’t get in the way”.

Why weren’t they supporting Nigel Farage’s party? Lowe was a better businessman than Farage, they claimed, with Lowe apparently even having been Farage’s boss during one stint in the City.

On national identity and how that feeds into their support for Restore, the men made the distinction – increasingly voiced in factions on the right, including by people of colour in these factions – that no one is against a civic nationalism that can be expressed through ‘Britishness’, but that is different from the ethnonationalism (not their word) when it comes to ‘Englishness’.

One offered the scenario that a man born in Britain to Pakistani parents was absolutely British, but couldn’t be said to be English – in the same way that if this person then went and lived in Pakistan, he couldn’t be said to be ‘Pakistani’. The multiple identities used by many children of immigrants – such as ‘British Pakistani’ (although, admittedly, not often ‘English Pakistani’) – passed the man by. 

“The thing is,” the chap next to him said, “that we’ve got a chessboard. And, recently, all these other pieces and counters like Tiddlywinks have been put on the board. And we want to get back to playing chess.” 

Sitting in the opposite corner of the cafe was Anne, a former NHS psychiatric nurse, who was born in 1940.

She’d had enough of all the by-election politics, she told us, while waiting for her omelette and chips. Still, Burnham had done a lot for the area over the years, both as Greater Manchester Mayor and as the former MP for Leigh. Farage was a “fake” who couldn’t be trusted. And Rupert Lowe was looking like a good bet.

Recalling how she used to walk around a bombed-out London as a child, Anne said she would now be too scared to visit the capital because of “all the groups of men” coming into the city. 

She rarely puts the TV on these days, she said, tapping the phone next to her on the table. For a woman who has had enough of politics, she’s constantly engaged: watching a dedicated online channel covering the Iran war every day; as well as different GB News shows because “the BBC doesn’t tell you everything”. When we pointed out that GB News’ portrayal of events should also be questioned, Anne said she knew that. But she enjoys its Sunday politics show.    

Out of the Mainstream

Areas such as Makerfield haven’t so much been passively ‘left behind’, but used and then abandoned to themselves. It’s time they were heard. 

Andy Burnham has spoken of the failures of ‘trickle down’ neoliberalism, and that for people in communities such as Makerfield this has felt like more of a ‘siphoning off’ – of amenities, services, jobs, and opportunities. 

The physical poverty of Orwell’s day has gone, but it has been replaced by a poverty of imagination and possibility. 

Given this quiet desperation, we should understand how people were inclined to vote in the local elections for any challenger to a two-party system that has let them down.

Whether, as Makerfield’s MP, Burnham will be able to build something new in the area – let alone in the UK as a whole – is still to be seen. But it’s clear that neither Reform nor Restore could either restore or reform the constituency by pandering to prejudice.  

The popular image of the ‘Red Wall’ conjures up a bulwark. But no one wants to be just a brick in the wall, and the far-right solution – building up fear of strangers and demographic change – will only diminish commerce and communication with the wider world. 

Why reject the mainstream when, more than anything, Makerfield is crying to be let in.

Andy Burnham has warned Labour that his win is its "final chance". A weekend in Makerfield shows why so many areas of the country like Makerfield have given up on calling for something, anything, to change. Yet, they will likely hold the key to the future direction of British politics in the years to come.

With thanks to Anna Schurer of North West Bylines

We are witnessing the destruction of a prime minister. In real time. It is so humiliating that it’s horrible to watch.

Starmer found himself in an invidious position by the final days of the Makerfield by-election. His only route to survival was a victory for Labour's deadly enemy, Reform.

Everybody in the Labour Party knows that, without Andy Burnham, Labour would have crashed to defeat. With Burnham, Labour won an easy victory. The astonishing scale of that victory explains why we will be witnessing the arrival of a new British prime minister.

Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster creates a new political arithmetic. It opens a fresh set of political horizons. It gives hope not just to Labour but to Britain.

Let’s pause and spare a thought for Keir Starmer.

It’s less than two years since he led Labour to one of its largest general election victories. That made him seem immortal. With the Tories crushed, there was talk of a decade in power.

These high hopes make his failure all the harder to comprehend. 

In Labour Party history, he will go down as a pariah. A lesson in how not to be a politician. It will be painful for him to remain in Parliament, sitting on the backbenches, watching someone else do better. 

The sigh of relief from the Labour Party is audible. 

Andy Burnham talks of change, but I wish he wouldn’t. He does not offer a new kind of leadership for Labour. He is a reversion to the mid-20th Century when Labour prime ministers were men of the people. 

Burnham is a giant step backwards to a better sort of British politics.

Harold Wilson with his pipe, his Yorkshire accent, and his support for Huddersfield Town.

Comfortable Jim Callaghan, the union official who served as an ordinary seaman in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, and went on to become the only British politician to fill all four great offices of state – home secretary, chancellor of the exchequer, foreign secretary, and prime minister.

Roy Hattersley, who died this month, fits in this mould. Born in desperate poverty in 1930s Sheffield, he rose to become Labour Deputy Leader. 

Tony Blair dismantled that world, and the deep morality and wisdom that went with it, by turning the Labour Party into the political wing of the London metropolitan elite. 

People from northern, working-class backgrounds – John Prescott being the classic case in point, David Blunkett another – were privately mocked and publicly patronised.

Keir Starmer, with his expensive suits and strangled vowels, was the final doomed manifestation of the Blairite universe. 

Burnham’s critics are already pointing out that he too went to London and served as a special advisor. They are missing the point. 

Burnham left Westminster and went back to Manchester, 30 miles from where he was born in Culcheth, and proved a huge success as Mayor.

There’s no side to Burnham. He knows who he is. He’s not a fake. Voters like him.

Even so, it’s not going to be easy for him. 

The structural problems mount. He can’t spend his way out of trouble as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown could do in the 1990s. Britain’s £3 trillion national debt makes that impossible. If he has sense, he will be honest about this when he speaks to voters. He won’t pretend to have instant answers. 

One of Keir Starmer’s deepest problems was the Blairite belief that politicians must lie in order to secure power. 

Another was the idea that power can only be secured through alliances with Britain’s mutant mass media, in particular the Murdoch press.

A third problem was the Blairite proscription that, in order to secure power, a Labour leader must turn viciously on the party’s left. 

Andy Burnham will be in Downing Street soon. He can succeed and anyone who loves Britain will hope he does so. 

But he can only succeed by adopting a new kind of politics. And that means turning the clock back 50 years.

After a campaign in which the British press focused relentlessly on the question of whether or not Rupert Lowe and the far-right would somehow “gift” the result to Labour, Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election by a massive majority of over 20 points.

The result marks not just a clear rejection of the politics of “pure cold rage” called for by Nigel Farage during the campaign, but also a rejection of the cosy media consensus that his party is somehow inevitably heading for Government.

In reality Reform’s heavy defeat in Makerfield is the third time in recent months that Farage’s party has lost what should have been an incredibly winnable by-election to other parties of the centre and left.

In Caerphilly, Gorton and Denton and now Makerfield, Reform sought to exploit the politics of hatred, division and race and were roundly rejected by voters as a result.

Of the three rejections, Reform’s rejection in Makerfield was the biggest.

At the last general election Reform won their sixth highest share of the vote across the country in this constituency. 

Were Farage really heading for Downing Street then he would be winning places like this with ease. That he has not suggests that his hopes of winning power in three years time are far lower than we have all been so strongly encouraged to believe.

Of course the particular circumstances in Makerfield played a huge part in the result.

Reform’s candidate was an ill-prepared bigot whose long history of misogynistic comments played terribly amongst voters in the constituency. Just as in Gorton and Denton, where Reform’s choice of an oddball GB News commentator with a series of extreme views helped motivate anti-Reform tactical voters to come to the polls for the Green Party, so too did Farage's choice of candidate in Makerfield help turn what would have been a small defeat for his party into a big one.

Farage's own actions also played a big part in the result. The Reform leader's call for "pure cold rage" in response to the death of Henry Nowak, followed by his equivocation about the subsequent racist pogrom that played out on the streets of Belfast, proved alarming to many otherwise Reform-sympathetic voters across the country.

Related reading: ‘After Burnham’s Win in Makerfield, the Answer Cannot be Managerial Politics with a Different Accent’

Burnham too was a major factor in transforming Labour’s standing in the constituency.

At last month’s local elections Reform won almost double Labour’s vote in the area. At this election Burnham won double what his own party won back then.

Yet the very scale of his victory means that his version of Labour politics is now overwhelmingly likely to be the version that is put before the British people at the next general election. 

If and when that happens, Farage’s hopes of taking power must surely be dramatically reduced.

Rejecting the Politics of Rage

In his victory speech, Burnham promised to take Britain “away from the path that takes us towards the divided politics of the United States” towards something we have lost: hope for the future”.

What the results in both Gorton and Denton and Makerfield shows is that this is a vision that the British people are ready to embrace.

Faced with a viable choice between the politics of rage and riots, or the politics of hope and unity, it is still likely that the British people will opt for the latter.

Such an offer will not be open for long, however.

As Burnham conceded in his victory speech, the result in Makerfield amounts to a “final chance” for Labour to embrace the politics they promised back in 2024.

Over the last two years Keir Starmer’s Government has failed to live up to its promise of uniting the country around a vision of shared progress and prosperity. A Government elected on the promise of rejecting the kind of divisive politics seen under 14 years of the Conservatives has too often fallen into exactly the same traps.

In particular, the relentless focus on issues like immigration that most concern what Starmer’s adviser Morgan McSweeney called “hero voters” has helped to massively boost Reform over the last two years. At the same time, Starmer’s failure to effectively stand up against those forces, both at home and abroad ,which have actively been seeking to foment racist riots on our streets, has been a colossal and shameful failure.

Burnham now has a chance to change all of this. 

Of course that chance could still easily be missed.

Briefings that he intends to keep on the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and her deeply hostile immigration policies, should he become Prime Minister, suggests that he does not yet fully understand where the Labour Government has gone wrong in recent years.

Yet in other respects there are reasons for optimism. His promise of pluralism and electoral reform is a positive step in the right direction as are his commitments to deal with the issue of big money donors buying our politics.

The full nature of Burnham's agenda will take time to become clear. However, it now looks inevitable that he will have an opportunity to put it in place.

If and when he does, it will pose a serious challenge not just to Farage and Reform, but to the deeply divisive Trumpian form of politics that they and their many media supporters have sought to impose on the UK.

For the last two years the global far-right has sought to stoke hatred and violence on Britain's streets, in an attempt to push our politics irretrievably to the far-right.

Labour, under Burnham, now has one last chance to prevent that from happening.

If Reform UK won this heartland seat, a place Labour had already been told it had lost, its victory would not stop there. It would harden the story Reform wants the UK to believe: that the old Labour towns have gone; that the ‘Red Wall’ has collapsed; and Nigel Farage’s party is no longer a protest vehicle but the next force in British politics.

That is why the by-election mattered.

In the campaign, I compared Makerfield to Stalingrad. I probably went too far. Wartime analogies should be handled with care. But the point was simple. Stalingrad did not win the Second World War by itself. It broke the belief that the German advance could not be stopped.

Makerfield did something similar, on a smaller scale. 

Labour held a seat it was expected to lose. Reform had already won seven of Wigan’s eight wards in May’s local elections. Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain also stood, splitting the right-wing vote. We should be honest about that. A divided right can save you in a by-election. It can sink you in a general election.

So yes, there is cause to celebrate. Briefly. Now comes the harder question: what next?

The answer cannot be managerial politics with a different accent. 

Now that he is returning to Westminster, Andy Burnham cannot simply fit back into the system. His strength is that people see him as outside of it: outside of the advisors, triangulators, and Treasury priests who keep telling constituencies such as Makerfield that change must wait. He must not lose that at the door of Number 10.

A prime minister can legally take office mid-Parliament. But legality is not legitimacy. Legitimacy is political. 

The democratic charge of a general election weakens when the programme changes halfway through a Parliament. Burnham will need to move quickly, clearly and decisively.

The 2024 Labour manifesto was built as a small target. It promised first steps, reviews, and repair. It gave room to govern, but not much mandate to transform. If Burnham becomes Starmerism with a Lancashire accent, he will fail. If he uses the space to build a new settlement, Labour may remember what it is for.

The first truth is simple. Reform grows where the last 40 years have failed.

People do not turn to authoritarian populism because they lack judgement or missed a lecture on moderation. They turn to it because work no longer guarantees security, public services no longer guarantee dignity, and politics no longer feels like a route to power.

Structural change is not a distraction from fighting Reform. It is the fight.

Start with water.

Private water companies have polluted rivers, raised bills, leaked supply – and rewarded shareholders. The old instinct is tougher regulation. But you cannot regulate away a problem rooted in ownership. The public understands this now. They see the sewage. They see the bills. They know who is being rinsed.

If he makes it to Downing Street, Burnham should begin there. In the first 100 days, name the worst-failing companies. Put the ‘special administration regime’ route in motion. Set out a pathway to public ownership. Stop pretending that the regulator can fix what privatisation broke. Show the country, from day one, that the government has picked a side.

Because in politics, the enemies you choose tell people who you serve. 

Pick a fight with migrants, benefit claimants, or protestors – and the country knows who you are. Pick a fight with water bosses, landlords, private equity, tech monopolies, and the rentier class – and the country knows that too.

The order matters. Win the fights people already understand. Build trust. Build confidence. Then move to harder ground: the fiscal rules, Treasury orthodoxy, the Bank of England’s mandate, and the financial architecture that narrows democratic choice while pretending to be neutral.

Then comes devolution. Burnham has something few Westminster politicians possess: proof. Greater Manchester is not perfect, but it exists. It shows that power can move closer to people and still work. That model should be extended, with real fiscal and economic powers for city regions, towns, and communities.

The constitutional question cannot be ducked either. The Lords, the voting system, a written constitution, and regional assemblies may not be delivered before the next election. But they must be signalled early. Citizens’ assemblies and a national conversation should begin in the first 100 days. Labour cannot fight authoritarian politics while defending a system that feels remote, feudal, and rigged.

Finally, Andy Burnham must decide whom he trusts. 

A Government that wants transformation cannot rely only on people who discovered transformation once it became convenient. The Labour left, including those who argued for public ownership, constitutional reform, and economic democracy when it cost them, must have real power inside the project.

Makerfield was not a victory. It was permission to fight.

Climate breakdown, war, energy insecurity, financial shocks, technological upheaval, and democratic decay are here. They will not wait for Labour to finish its management seminar.

The next two years will decide whether the UK meets those shocks as a democracy or slides into something darker.

No pressure, then.

Clive Lewis has been the Labour MP for Norwich South since 2015

The citizens, for their part, were fed up to the point of staging mass demonstrations. This led the Government to kill thousands of its own people to retain its hold on power.

Then the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Government was single-handedly saved by the United States under President Donald Trump.

Trump led off by killing its sclerotic clerical leadership, which paved the way for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to take full control. The public that had been screaming for revolution largely rallied around the Iranian flag as US bombs fell. Iran’s new leaders responded by flexing their military muscle, sending waves of drones and ballistic missiles against nations across the Middle East and shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping chokepoint through which around a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil passes.

The new Iranian Government hunkered down and fought a war it had spent years planning and preparing for. American stockpiles of interceptors and cruise missiles proved insufficient to defeat it, or even to protect America’s allies. Iran absorbed the best punch the Americans could throw, and emerged with a peace deal that guarantees it will rule over its people with an iron fist for the foreseeable future.

A War Of Choice

During the course of the conflict, it also learned that it could withstand whatever the US could throw at it. Iran was able to close the strait down, and the US was unable to open it. The US administration was not willing to take the steps to win the war it had started: deploying ground troops, using nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons, or destroying water and electrical infrastructure.

Because of this, Iran was able to threaten its Gulf state neighbours with the destruction of their own desalination plants, energy production and petroleum products. It worked; no one was willing to take the risk of joining the US against Iran, and the US itself was unwilling to strike Iranian critical infrastructure.

In other words, the US was a bully, but it was not willing to fight to the death – and Iran was. It was a war of choice for the US, and a war of survival for the Iranian regime. American politicians had not learned the lesson from Ender’s Game about how to fight strategically: “Knocking him down won the first fight. I wanted to win all the next ones, too.”

Iran also learned what every other US adversary has discovered in the past: the US will only fight for as long as it does not hurt the chances of the incumbent party in the next election. When US politicians think a war is hurting their chances, and the public loses the will to fight, US leadership will declare victory and go home. This happened in Vietnam in 1973, in Afghanistan in 2020–2021, and now with Iran. Americans, with their gas-guzzling vehicles, get tetchy when gas prices rise above $3 a gallon, and with the strait closed for months they were set to keep climbing at least through November. It rapidly became clear that US leadership had no idea how to get out of the mess it had made, and that it wanted – nay, needed – a peace deal far more than Iran did.

A One-Sided Deal

All Iranian leadership had to do was stick to its maximalist demands and wait. It worked, beyond its wildest dreams of avarice. The US achieved none of its major goals, while Iran achieved virtually everything it had demanded since day one. The highly ambiguous wording of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) favours Iran at every turn, and every one of its 14 points can be exploited for long-term advantage.

The agreement commits the US to reining in Israel, but says nothing about Iran ceasing to support proxies such as the Houthis in Yemen or the Shia militias in Iraq. It requires the US never to attack Iranian soil. It commits the US to lifting the blockade and removing forces from the “surrounding areas” – wording so ambiguous it could mean leaving the entire Middle East. At the same time, it places no requirement on Iran to reduce its stockpile of missiles and drones.

Economically, Iran is being showered with manna from heaven. It will receive up to $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets, conditional on compliance, and is promised at least $300 billion more in “reconstruction” funds. The MOU leaves it effectively in charge of the strait in perpetuity, and allows it to charge whatever fees or tolls it wants for passage either in or out. A $2 million toll on ships is another $14 billion a year. It removes the sanctions that had crippled the Iranian economy, while allowing Iran to sell all the oil it wants. After months of selling oil via covert means and stockpiling the rest, Iran is about to deluge an oil-starved world in a sea of black gold. What is coming is nothing short of economic salvation, delivered by the US on a platter.

The one thing Iran supposedly gave up was the pursuit of nuclear weapons, which it was not doing in the first place. Having won this war, it has even less need of them. It is rather like promising to give up skydiving when you have never been on a plane, never intended to board one, and someone is now promising you $325 billion not to do it in future.

Related reading: All US Options for Ending the Iran War Are Terrible, Warns US Defence Analyst

Locked In

The deadline for the peace deal can be renegotiated, and Iran will keep kicking issues such as the fate of its nuclear material into the long grass indefinitely. Should the US object to anything it does, Iran has the option of shutting down the strait again. It also knows that the US is unwilling to take the next step required to win – eradicating Iran, which the US could do with EMP and strikes on water infrastructure – making any American threat entirely hollow.

The US knows all of this too, and the odds of it resuming bombing are essentially zero. The agreement also locks the US into obtaining UN approval to withdraw, which Russia and China will never allow for as long as the deal is making the US suffer. Future administrations will not be able to back out of it as Trump backed out of the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

In turn, Iran will make the lives of American negotiators hell over the coming months. Everything will be up for debate, and nothing stays agreed or finalised any longer than Iran needs it to be. If the US objects to anything whatsoever, the MOU is so vaguely worded that Iran can claim the US is already in violation of it – why are your ships still in the Gulf? – and threaten to close the strait again until it is satisfied the US is complying.

Whether Iran believes anything it says is beside the point: everything from here will be about exploiting the leverage it holds. It knows where it stands, it knows where the US stands and, as it has decisively proved, it “has all the cards”, to borrow one of Trump’s favourite phrases. Trump is not willing to fight a war to win it. He, and the US as a whole, will accept abject humiliation to avoid further conflict.

What Comes Next

With money pouring in, national honour upheld and the IRGC in full control, any public opposition to the Government will either dissolve or be effectively put down. The danger of the Government being overthrown has passed, and there is no foreseeable future in which it returns.

The trillion-dollar question, literally, is this: what will Iran do with the windfall? Much of it will be siphoned off in graft, corruption and self-dealing. But if the IRGC is not completely stupid, it will use some of it to address the water infrastructure problems that previously threatened the regime’s survival. It will prop up public support with subsidies and low-paid jobs that keep people employed and too occupied to plot revolution.

A great deal of the money the US gives Iran will go towards building up the military capabilities it knows will work: drones, mines, ballistic missiles and small explosive-laden boats. Iran knows the limits of US capability to find and destroy these weapons, and will use that knowledge to disperse and protect the assets that let it repeat the strategy: close the strait and threaten Gulf states with massive, unstoppable economic – and worse – ruin should they target desalination and petroleum infrastructure. The future of the Iranian military lies in the weapons of an extortion empire: the mob running a gas station.

Other than Iran, the biggest winners are Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. They will receive much of the largesse, on the condition that it is used against Israel to drive a deeper wedge between Israel and the US. Well-funded and well-equipped Iranian proxies will launch attacks; Israel will want to respond; and Iran will declare that Israeli action against its proxies violates the MOU, allowing it to close the strait again.

If Israel responds without US permission, Iran has only to close the strait for a few days to persuade the US to yank Israel’s choke chain. After several rounds, taking Iran’s side will become an automatic reflex for the US. It is hard to see how US relations with Israel can survive this MOU, which is set to alter the balance of power in the Middle East in Iran’s favour for decades.

Had the US left sanctions in place and waited for the Iranian Government to collapse under the weight of its own mismanagement of water, a successful revolution would likely have taken place within three to five years. Instead, the US declared war and saved the Iranian regime, ensuring that it will dominate the region for many decades to come.

If I were Iran, I would send Trump a gift basket. Build statues of him. After all, they are probably happy to praise a useful idiot who turned out to be their unwitting saviour.

The Charity Commission has confirmed in light of Byline Times' investigation that they are assessing grant-giving information in relation to a charity used as a funding conduit for this activity, to determine whether there is a need for regulatory action.

For two decades the Tufton Street network has been central to free-market lobbying, the campaign for a hard Brexit and the rejection of climate science, its influence trained on the Conservative Party.

It is now central to something broader: an alarming convergence of the British right – from the Conservatives, through Reform, to the far-right Restore Britain – driven by what the strategy’s own architects call a “right-wing arms race”, an escalating competition to outbid one another over the removal of Britain’s ethnic-minority population.

Smith, the Herefordshire businessman behind the aerospace manufacturer HR Smith Group, bankrolls and houses the New Culture Forum, the think tank that platforms the strategy’s architects.

His company’s money reached Reform UK two days after Farage’s return as leader, and the same firm sold restricted technology to the main trading partner of a sanctioned Russian arms agency, a New York Times investigation found.

HR Smith Group has disputed NYT's allegations, stating the equipment was for Indian search-and-rescue, not military use, and that customs codes used to suggest a match were inconclusive.

‘A Spirit of Competition’

In August 2025, as Reform embraced mass deportations, the New Culture Forum’s flagship podcast Deprogrammed convened to assess the new policy. The hosts were Harrison Pitt – a fellow of the think tank and now policy chief of Restore Britain, where his formal title is senior policy fellow – and Charlie Downes, Restore Britain’s campaigns director and spokesperson since June 2025. Their guest was the disgraced broadcaster Dan Wootton.

“What I think we should be encouraging is more of a spirit of competition,” Pitt said.

“What Charlie and I and Connor have been calling a sort of right-wing arms race in which people like Rupert at Restore Britain, and indeed Farage, and indeed Robert Jenrick to some extent, and [Advance UK leader] Ben Habib indeed, feel a great deal of motivation to try and outbid one another from the right in order to win the sympathies of an increasingly radicalising electorate.”

Downes told viewers Britain needs a political force “prepared to go into territory that is largely, especially in the eyes of the mainstream, viewed as being beyond the pale”. He went further:

“A lot of the people who have come here legally, especially over the last 30 years, and those who have been born here, they don’t belong here. And they do need to go back to the… countries of their ancestors. And that is the righteous and moral thing. And I think we are going to see that idea enter mainstream discourse in literally the next couple of years.”

Wootton cast Farage as the vehicle. Recalling the Reform leader’s praise for Enoch Powell, he said: “That guy who views Enoch Powell as his political hero, who when he was still a very young politician was writing to Powell, begging to receive his endorsement, that must be how he really feels. So part of what we need to do is lay the groundwork, prove that the country is ready for that Farage again.”

Enoch Powell was a Conservative minister who in 1968 warned of “rivers of blood” due to mass immigration. In 1993, Farage personally chauffeured him to speak at a UKIP campaign rally.

What Downes described is know on the far-right as remigration. Coined by former neo-Nazi Martin Sellner, the term covers the forced removal of non-white citizens and people born in Britain, alongside recent migrants, sent to what Downes called “the countries of their ancestors”. The forced removal of a population defined by ancestry matches the recognised definition of ethnic cleansing – the use of force to make a territory ethnically homogeneous.

The Think Tank at 55 Tufton Street

The New Culture Forum was founded in 2006 by the late Peter Whittle, a former UKIP deputy leader and close ally of Farage, and operates from 55 Tufton Street – home to a cluster of think tanks that refuse to disclose their funders. Tufton Street organisations, central to the campaigns for a hard Brexit and against climate science, have been linked to fossil fuel interests and anonymous US foundations.

The New Culture Forum’s neighbours include the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), which supplied the intellectual engine of Thatcherism, and the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the UK’s principal climate science denial group.

A 2009 presentation by the conservative organisers Tim Montgomerie and Matthew Elliott – whose Political and Economic Research Trust (PERT) is funded by Richard Smith - described the forum as a key part of the “infrastructure of the conservative movement in Britain”. The Tufton Street network was instrumental in campaigning for a hard Brexit, widely recognised now as crashing Britain's GDP by as much as 8%.

The 'dark money' behind the network is hidden by design. A joint investigation by DeSmog and Democracy for Sale found Conservative donors channelled almost £7 million into Tufton Street think tanks since 2019, while anonymous American foundations have put more than $14 million into the groups since 2012.

Smith’s role in building the network predates his Reform funding: the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s 2010 move to Tufton Street was described by its founder Matthew Elliott as Smith’s “brainchild”.

A Disability Charity and Aerospace Fortune

Smith sustains the New Culture Forum through at least three channels. He owns its premises, has served on its advisory committee, and sponsors it through his aerospace group’s funding of the Street Foundation – a registered charity, the stated purpose of which is to make grants to individuals and organisations involved with children and young people with a disability or special needs.

It is unclear why a registered charity dedicated to children is funnelling money to a think-tank which platforms members of a far-right political party calling for a "right-wing arms race" to facilitate ethnic cleansing.

A Charity Commission spokesperson told Byline Times: “We are currently assessing information relating to The Street Foundation’s recent grant-making to determine if there is a regulatory role for us.”

The Good Law Project found in 2024 that the foundation had given the New Culture Forum £250,000 – part of £749,000 channelled to right-wing pressure groups over five years, more than 40% of its grants in that period. The charity receives the majority of its funding from HR Smith Group and its subsidiary Techtest; its trustee board, which includes Smith and members of his immediate family, administers it from Street Court, Kingsland – the same Herefordshire address as the company.

The New Culture Forum did not respond to request for comment.

A spokesperson for HR Smith Group told Byline Times: “We donate to a number of organisations and always comply with UK law. As a charity the Streets Foundation makes donations to a range of organisations in line with its charitable aims, details of which are available on the Charity Commission website.”

The spokesperson added: "Streets Foundation has a very broad remit, and has donated to everything from hospices for babies and young children like Zoe's Place Trust Liverpool, to research centres like the Oxford University Development Trust and cultural institutions like the Natural History Museum and Royal Worcester Museum."

Farage was announced as Reform UK’s leader on 3 June 2024. Within 48 hours, Smith’s company donated £100,000 – accepted by the party on 5 June 2024. Techtest has given £890,000 to Reform, UKIP, the Conservatives and campaigns to leave the EU over time, the Good Law Project found, while Smith has donated £31,500 to the Conservatives personally.

Related reading: ‘Grassroots’ Pressure Group Opposing Equality Act Is Bankrolled by Tufton Street-Linked Funder

From Podcast to Party

The "right-wing arms race" Harrison Pitt described in August 2025 has since moved from the podcast studio to the ballot paper. Pitt was appointed senior policy fellow at Restore Britain in October 2025. In January 2026, Robert Jenrick, the former shadow justice secretary named by Pitt in the broadcast, joined Reform UK after being expelled by the Conservatives, days after the former Conservative Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi defected.

Restore Britain, registered as a political party in February 2026, continues to be run by individuals involved in the Deprogrammed and New Culture Forum network: Pitt as the party's policy chief, Downes as its campaigns director.

Rupert Lowe’s 133-page mass deportation programme, co-authored with Pitt, proposes 150,000–200,000 forced removals per year and “austere tent camps” for those awaiting removal. Downes has said the desirable outcome is “an ethnically homogenous Christian Britain”. At the party’s launch, Lowe said of those facing deportation: “Millions will have to go.”

The party has been embraced by Britain’s organised neo-Nazi movement – and Lowe has welcomed its members in personally. As Byline Times reported in February, Chris Mitchell – a former East of England organiser for Patriotic Alternative, convicted of hate crime offences in 2023, who has described himself as a “Nazi-Buddhist” – has been recruiting fellow ethno-nationalists into Restore Britain through Lowe’s flagship Great Yarmouth First organisation. When Mitchell signed up, Lowe replied to him directly: “Welcome to the team mate!” The pair posed for a selfie at a party conference in February.

Sam Melia, a leading Patriotic Alternative figure recently released from prison, has joined Restore and declared his wish to stand for Parliament for it, Searchlight reported. HOPE not hate has documented members of the British National Party, the National Front, the fascist Homeland Party and Blood & Honour active within Restore Britain – and found Patriotic Alternative members campaigning for the party in Makerfield itself.

When the anti-fascist group exposed one extremist, Restore Britain’s leadership blocked a local attempt to expel him. Lowe told The Spectator he “can’t and won’t audit who supports us”. A party spokesman put it more plainly: members “endorse our position”.

In the Makerfield by-election, Restore Britain stood its first parliamentary candidate to the right of Reform.

Restore Britain did not respond to request for comment.

The campaigning for the Makerfield byelection has become a microcosm of a new  “right-wing arms race” strategy that is now being supported by the same dark money lobby groups which had previously pushed for a hard Brexit.

The network around 55 Tufton Street that built the infrastructure of Thatcherism is now platforming open advocates of far-right ‘remigration’. The stated goal is not simply to outflank the party funded by its landlord, but to pave the ground for Reform UK's leader, Nigel Farage, to reclaim his status as Enoch Powell’s successor.

This article was updated on 19 June 2026 to incorporate comment received from the Charity Commission confirming their consideration of whether action should be taken.

This article was updated again on 19 June 2026 in relation to further comment and feedback received the HR Smith Group. The Group's denials in response to the NYT's story on equipment supplies to the partner of a Russian arms agency was added.

Last August, five Reform councillors in Kent joined a 'stop the boats' protest in Maidstone. They appeared in photographs next to a man draped in a flag of the British Movement, described as 'one of the UK's longest-standing neo-Nazi organisations', as local outlet Kent Current reported at the time.

The councillors were Oliver Bradshaw, Dean Burns, Amelia Randall, Garry Sturley and Pamela Williams. They posed with protesters including a heavily-tattooed man wrapped in a British Movement flag, who Byline Times identified as a former National Front activist.

Commenting on a graphic in a presentation from Reform-run Kent County Council in May, Green councillor Stuart Jeffery told the chamber: "I couldn't see a photograph of the five Reform councillors alongside the neo-Nazi that was taken out the front here last summer."

The Reform chairman of the council, Cllr Eustace, then intervened, saying: "No, please…Mr Jeffery, just sit down a second…Can we just take the heat out a little bit? I don't want to hear the term Nazis in this chamber at all, so just be careful about the words that you choose, because it provokes a reaction, and I think that goes for everybody here.

"But, in particular, because you've just done it, I'm calling you out. So, please let's calm it down, speak to what you're actually being asked to do, which is denote the progress made or otherwise, depending on your view."

The Email to the Chairman

In an email to the chairman seen by this outlet, Cllr Jeffery said: "At last month's full council meeting you stopped me using the phrase neo-Nazi during a speech. The context of this was describing an incident last year where five Reform councillors posed for photos with a known neo-Nazi (Mike Gott of the British Movement) outside of County Hall. This happened, I was there, I have the photos, and it has been reported in the national media...I have been told that you don't believe that neo-Nazis exist – the government disagrees.

"I would therefore welcome your explanation as to why you feel that facts cannot be stated in a council meeting.

"In addition, I am told that you don't currently have a list of words that you won't allow to be stated. This is not helpful and I can only assume that you will make up the rules as you go. I am therefore unsure how I can comply with your curtailment of free speech if I don't know which words are banned.

"I look forward to your response."

The Green group leader, Cllr Mark Hood, has since met with the chairman and leader of the council to discuss these concerns among others.

'Deeply Frustrated'

Cllr Jeffery told Byline Times he was "deeply frustrated" by being shut down. He pointed to Green motions also being seemingly dismissed.

"We proposed a motion on water. After being proposed and seconded the chairman decided it should be deferred to a following meeting. They basically kicked it further down the road. He claimed we couldn't put it in two times running. But that ignores the fact we didn't formally propose/second it the first time, and last time it was deferred because Reform wanted to discuss saying the Lord's Prayer in council meetings instead," Cllr Jeffery said.

He added that he believed the ban on saying 'neo-Nazis' "came out of [the chair's] desire to not be controversial."

But the Green councillor points to members of the chairman's own Reform group who have been exposed for racist and homophobic posts and comments.

"I have zero faith in him as chairman."

Chairman Cllr Eustace told Byline Times: "I am constitutionally required to intervene when speeches criticise the motives or behaviour of any Member or Officer, under section 14.57 of the KCC Standing Orders. My intervention at the full Council meeting was made on that basis and applied in accordance with the Constitution.

"The suggestion that I do not believe neo-Nazis exist is entirely false. I have never made any such statement, publicly or privately. I cannot comment further at this time."

He added that all elected Members of Kent County Council are bound by the Members’ Code of Conduct in respect of all communications made in their official capacity.

"Section 21.56 of the KCC Constitution is unambiguous: the Code applies to every form of communication and interaction undertaken by a Member in their official role. Every Member is expected to know and comply with that obligation without exception," he said.

However, Green group leader Cllr Hood is categorical that the chairman claimed "There are no real Nazis in the UK" during their recent meeting. Hood told this outlet: "As an anti-fascist campaigner all my life, I know what a Nazi is. I see them on a weekly basis now," campaigning in Kent.

Cllr Eustace claims it would be "wholly inconsistent" with his duty to uphold the council's constitution for him to "engage publicly with correspondence that Members are themselves constitutionally bound to handle with discretion. I will not do so."

A quote from Cllr Hood has been amended post-publication to clarify precisely what he argues Cllr Eustace said in their meeting.

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A cross-analysis of company records and Electoral Commission donations data by Byline Times found that 55% of Reform UK’s corporate donors operate in the property and construction space. Of the 40 companies donating to Reform UK, 22 are involved in such businesses.

The finding lands as Farage repositions announces new housing policies which he claims puts his party as the voice of the white working class. In his first Substack essay, published on 14 June, the Reform leader argued that Britain is a “two tier state against white people” and suggesting that social housing has been redistributed away from the white British families who first occupied it.

His proposed remedy moves foreign nationals out of social housing and into the private rented sector - a market dominated by the landlords and property developers who fund his party, and one its policies would tilt further in their favour.

Reform UK's corporate donor base includes property developers, construction contractors, plant-hire businesses, commercial landlords, investment companies and firms, all with fortunes closely tied to planning decisions, land values and development activity.

The party has received £5.873 million in corporate donations between 2019 and 2026. Byline Times can confirm that nearly £2.418 million, some 41% of the total value of Reform UK's corporate donations in this period, is property-related.

These figures cover corporate donors only, and exclude 85 individual donors who have given to Nigel Farage’s party. Reform UK was originally founded as the Brexit Party in November 2018, before officially changing its name in January 2021. All donations to both parties are included in the calculations.

The top five property corporate donors are TISUN Investments Limited (£613,000), E.I.R.P Limited (£295,000), J.C. Bamford Excavators Ltd (£200,000), London AC Ltd (£200,000) and Interior Architecture Landscape Ltd (£200,000).

Planning, Housing And Net Zero

This high number of corporate donations from the property and construction industry has to be read in the context of many of Reform UK’s flagship economic policies that could, if the party came to power, directly affect the profitability of those sectors. In its 2024 election programme, Reform pledged to "unleash housebuilding", introduce a more flexible planning regime for major developments and fast-track housing schemes on brownfield land.

Until recently, Reform’s housing and infrastructure spokesperson was Simon Dudley, who was a prominent advocate of housing deregulation. The former chair of Homes England has argued the "pendulum has just swung too far the wrong way" on building regulations since the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people in 2017, and has repeatedly called for relaxing planning restrictions.

The residents who would bear the consequences of looser building standards are, disproportionately, the working-class tenants of blocks like Grenfell. Perhaps distancing himself from such a position, in April 2026 Nigel Farage sacked Dudley as spokesperson for Reform UK, but Dudley continues to describe himself as such on both LinkedIn and X.

Either way, Reform UK still seems to stand for what it has described as "loose fit" planning policies designed to make it easier for large housing developments to secure building approval. Such changes could significantly reduce planning risk for developers and landowners, but it is unclear how this would benefit new-home buyers or renters.

Farage also blames immigration for housing problems and insists – at least in regard to housing, if not everything else – “foreign nationals must go to the back of the queue”.

Related reading: Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin Advised the Wealthiest 1% While Claiming to Stand Against ‘The Elite’

Richard Tice, a property developer whose companies have donated some £2.8 million to Reform UK, used a February 2026 speech in Birmingham to pledge a “Great Repeal Bill” scrapping the Renters’ Rights Act. That Act, which took effect in May 2026, ended Section 21 “no fault” evictions and gave private renters in England security of tenure, limits on rent rises and protection from bidding wars. The renters’ campaign group Generation Rent called the pledge to repeal it “a threat levelled at England’s 11 million private renters”.

Farage’s social housing message to working-class voters is that migrants have displaced the people who paid for those homes, which can be solved by moving foreign nationals into the private rented sector. Yet the policies his donors favour would strip protection from that sector, returning to landlords the power of no-fault eviction and adding demand in the tenure where working-class renters compete for homes. Many of those voters rent from private landlords; some of those landlords fund the party.

Reform UK has also repeatedly promised to scrap net-zero policies. In its manifesto it claims energy prices are high as a result of “bad ideological policy”. Their supporters argue that environmental regulation, biodiversity requirements and carbon-reduction targets add costs to major developments. Reform says removing those constraints would reduce costs and accelerate economic growth.

The Donors And Their Records

Several of the donating companies identified by Byline Times are controlled by directors who have been involved in high-profile controversies, investigations or public disputes.

Among the most prominent is Richard Tice, a director of donor companies including Britain Means Business Ltd and TISUN Investments Ltd. Tice built his career in property development and has become one of the country’s most vocal opponents of net-zero policies. He has repeatedly questioned mainstream climate science and the scientific consensus on human-driven climate change.

Another company of Tice’s – Quidnet RITE Limited – has recently been at the centre of another scandal where it was claimed he did not correctly pay £91,000 in dividend tax. Dismissing the Sunday Times exposé, Tice posted a lengthy statement on X, saying: “A long career with multiple businesses is bound to feature some errors. Naturally I am always happy to put things right and if numbers need rechecking, of course I will pay what is owed – be that more or less.”

“I have always paid everything that I was advised to pay,” Tice wrote.

The Reform UK donor network also includes companies linked to the Bamford family, owners of construction equipment giant JCB. Lady Carole Bamford, Lord Anthony Bamford and Mark Bamford have all been associated with businesses that have donated to right-wing political causes. JCB has donated £200,000 to Reform.

JCB has faced sustained criticism from human-rights organisations over allegations its machinery was used in demolitions in the occupied Palestinian territories. Lawyers acting for Palestinian groups have sought international investigations into the use of the equipment. JCB has denied wrongdoing and said it expects distributors and customers to comply with applicable laws.

Separately, the Bamford family’s offshore financial arrangements and tax structures have been the subject of tax investigations, with a “complex network of offshore tax havens and companies”, although no wrongdoing has been established against the individuals concerned.

Another donor is the property investment company R20 Advisory, which has Robert Tchenguiz among its directors. Tchenguiz was one of the most high-profile figures caught up in the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation into the collapse of Icelandic bank Kaupthing. He was arrested in 2011 before the case collapsed amid serious errors by investigators. No charges were ever brought and the SFO later paid substantial damages to Tchenguiz.

Today, according to Companies House, the accounts for R20 Advisory stand overdue. While this does not necessarily make the £100,000 donation accepted by Reform UK in June 2025 unlawful, the company’s limited public profile, its location in the British Virgin Islands, and its overdue filings raise concerns.

Related reading: Reform Chairman Who Boasts of Expertise in Business ‘Compliance’ Had Ten Firms Struck off for Breaking Company Law

Another donor-linked figure is Marc Joseph Meyohas of Greybull Capital. Greybull donated £100,000 to Reform UK and became a focus of national controversy following the collapse of British Steel in 2019. Trade unions, MPs and former employees accused the private-equity firm of failing to secure the long-term future of the company while benefiting financially from its ownership. Greybull rejected those criticisms and argued that global market conditions were responsible for the collapse. Nevertheless, the failure of British Steel remains one of the most politically sensitive industrial collapses of recent years.

Another director of a Reform UK corporate donor is Francis Anthony Keenan of FK Building Ltd. His company donated £100,000. Several companies within the FK Group entered administration in 2026 after facing mounting financial pressures, resulting in redundancies and the restructuring of parts of the business. FK Group, FK Construction and FK Facades all folded.

Sotheby’s International Realty donated £100,000 to Reform in August 2025. Grigori Azar, a director linked to the luxury property estate agent, was reported on in a 2026 investigation relating to allegations of historic sexual misconduct and other concerns. Azar has been accused of allegedly waving a bottle of champagne in front of a female colleague 20 years his junior, while questioning her about the amount of sex she was having, making remarks about her body and allegedly saying he wanted to perform sex acts with another female colleague who was not there.

These claims – detailed in the report by Bloomberg – remain allegations and do not constitute findings of wrongdoing. Sotheby’s said “the CEO has no recollection” of some of the allegations listed by the news service. Azar, via his libel lawyer, refused to offer comment to Byline Times about the sexual misconduct allegations beyond what he had told Bloomberg.

David Alan Haythornthwaite, who is connected to Tangerine Holdings and whose company donated £100,000 to Reform UK, was involved in a high-profile dispute with the University of Lancashire in 2025. Haythornthwaite criticised what he described as the university’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the opening of its new veterinary school, arguing that the institution should prioritise excellence in veterinary education.

Following an internal email in which he was accused of racism, Haythornthwaite brought a defamation claim against the university. In February 2026, the University of Lancashire issued an unreserved apology, accepted that the allegations were "wrong and unfounded", and agreed to pay £32,000 in compensation, which he donated to a charity of his choosing, along with his legal costs.

The Climate-Sceptic Backers

Andrew Perloff, chairman of property investment company Panther Securities, has repeatedly attracted attention for outspoken comments on climate policy and environmental activism. Panther Securities donated £70,000 to Reform UK. Perloff has criticised climate campaigners and questioned aspects of the UK’s net-zero agenda, positions that align closely with Reform UK’s own policy platform.

First Corporate Consultants Limited, a company owned by Terrance Mordaunt, has been one of Reform’s largest corporate donors, donating some £230,000. Mordaunt, owner of the Bristol Port Company, was the chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a climate-sceptic think tank, questioning British policies on climate action.

Donations And Policy

Across these donors, there is no evidence that any company or individual has acted improperly, or that Reform UK’s policies have been designed to benefit particular companies should the party take power.

Political parties routinely receive support from businesses with commercial interests that align with their policy positions.

However, the concentration of donors from construction, property and development is especially notable given the party’s commitment to repealing existing legislation that protects renters from landlords and the wider removal of environmental constraints on development.

The Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, said that “Reform hoovering up vast sums of private donations isn’t a sign of political strength, but a sign of a weakness in the foundations of our democracy...and tilts the entire system towards the interests of those elites”.

If Reform were ever to exercise power nationally, its decisions on planning rules, environmental regulation, infrastructure investment and development policy would directly benefit many of the companies and sectors that currently fund the party.

Byline Times approached Reform UK, R20 Advisory and Richard Tice for comment. None had responded by the time of publication.