Outside the system
Section: Reportage
Immersive and current news, informed by frontline reporting and real-life accounts.
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‘Habibi’: The Anatomy of an Influence Operation on X
An exclusive six-month investigation by Byline Times has mapped the workings of pile-ons and cancellations of public figures on social media
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Gibraltar Lawyer Named as Owner of Trust Behind Pro-Israel Parliamentary Group as MP Demands Funding Probe
Further questions raised about who is ultimately funding Parliament’s main pro-Israel group and whether it breaks rules on foreign political interference
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Death Threats, Doxxing and Burnout: Charities Say They Feel Under Threat Amid Far-Right Attacks
Exclusive: Charities are diverting resources to security and changing how they work in response to intimidation, a report by Asylum Matters and Praxis finds
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Oleshky: The Kremlin’s Potemkin Plan Failed, but Will Its Trojan Horse Succeed?
Is Kherson facing another major Russian assault? And is it ready to resist, yet again, asks Zarina Zabrisky
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Simon Woolley: ‘It Still Feels Unsafe… A Black Person Such as Myself Could Not Call Out What Happened to Jason Arday Without Being Attacked, Vilified and Invalidated’
Lord Simon Woolley, Principal of Homerton College at Cambridge University, finds himself in a ‘catch-22’ of media scrutiny. But now five years into the role, he is continuing to focus on his ambition of ‘reimagining education’
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‘Impartial’ Council Lawyer on £1,350 a Day Posed With Nigel Farage at Reform Mayor’s Invitation
Mark Greenburgh is paid to keep Basildon council’s work politically neutral but critics say the visit showed officials rolling out the red carpet for Reform UK
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The DOGE Reckoning: Congress Is About to Put Elon Musk’s Government Takeover on Trial
Elon Musk is finding out the hard way that not everyone can be bought by the highest bidder, reports Caroline Orr Bueno
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The Migrant Care Workers Left ‘Living In Limbo’ by Shabana Mahmood’s Immigration Reforms
The Home Secretary’s partial climbdown this week will still leave thousands of care workers open to exploitation and abuse, reports Jessica Bradley
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UK Government, Amazon and eBay Investigate AI Chatbot Toy Bunny Marketed for Toddlers Which Gave Sexualised Responses to Questions
Plush toy sold on Amazon and eBay is one of at least 28 AI chatbot toys found on sale in UK with no evidence of safety testing
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Andy Burnham Could Make Wealthier Households Pay More to Cut Poorer Families’ Energy Bills
Energy Independence Bill will create a framework for ‘progressive’ support schemes, which would transform the current system
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American-Run European Far-Right Platform Books UKIP Leader Who Wants Reform and Restore United
The Republican founder of the new Rome think-tank oversees a global far-right group whose English co-ordinator ran as a Reform candidate
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The Funder of Parliament’s Pro-Israel Group Was Reimbursed With Cash Sent From Israel Via Gibraltar
Exclusive: A Byline Times investigation raises serious questions about who is ultimately funding Parliament’s main pro-Israel group and whether it breaks rules on foreign political interference
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A Construction Firm That Gave Reform UK £100,000 Has Collapsed Owing Taxpayers More Than £400,000
Exclusive: FK Building made the donation months before going into liquidation, with experts saying the gift could now face clawback efforts
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UK Pushes Bulgaria to Sell Lukoil Refinery to British-Linked Buyer
Letters seen by Byline Times show the UK Government urging Bulgaria to engage with London- and Washington-linked bidders for Lukoil’s refinery as the Russian company’s UK sanctions waiver nears expiry.
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Reform UK Named ‘Authoritarian-Leaning’ Party in Index of Far-Right Cooperation Across Europe
Experts say Farage’s pact with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is part of a pattern of far-right parties lending each other legitimacy before taking power
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Rupert Lowe and Restore Britain Figures Listed as Backers of Europe-Wide Far-Right ‘Remigration’ Campaign
The Save Europe Act was founded by Austrian white nationalist Martin Sellner, and its activist chatrooms contain antisemitic conspiracy theories and anti-Muslim slurs
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Local Reform Deputy Accused of Misleading Councillors Over Poll Used to Defend £150,000 Security Patrols Near Asylum Site
Exclusive: The councillor who suggested there was strong support for private security patrols told a committee to “take our word for it”. So we got the receipts
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The Conviction of Estonia’s ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ Links Russian Intelligence to Moscow’s Interference in Brexit
A ‘diplomat’ who launched the ‘Conservative Friends of Russia’ group has now been identified as a Russian intelligence officer involved in an attempted European disinformation campaign
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Mod-Backed Drone Maker Bought by US Group Now Developing Attack Drones for Israel
The owners of the British drone maker, which has received UK Government funding, has put former Mossad chief David Barnea in charge of its defence arm.
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Three Labour Peers Spoke at a Festival Sponsored by a Reform Mega-Donor – And Which Hosted a Far-Right Bookshop
Labour MP Phil Brickell says “no respectable person” should be associated with the event and accuses his colleagues of “legitimising” Reform’s billionaire crypto donor
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‘We Intend to Succeed’: French Student Protesters Explain Why They’re at the Barricades
French students in Paris tell Byline Times why they’ve joined the protests hitting the headlines around the world
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Inside the notebook of Josiah Mortimer, Chief Reporter
When Kemi Badenoch railed against Reform UK’s “authoritarian” blocking of journalists from its conference this summer, we rather hoped she might U-turn on her party’s own decision to bar Byline Times from the Conservatives’ gathering. No such luck.
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‘I Found It Easy to Pray at St George’s, Feeling the Weight of the Millions of Prayers That Must Have Been Dispatched to God’
In 1588, the year of the Armada, Philip II of Spain was the most powerful monarch in the world. Forty years later, Spain went bust with the English and the Dutch squabbling over the carcass of the first global superpower. The British Empire reached its greatest territorial extent in 1922. A quarter of a century…
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UK Universities Accused of ‘Silencing’ Pro-Palestinian Students and Academics
Suspensions, campus bans and threats to the visa status of students are being imposed for chanting, clapping and wearing keffiyehs, human rights group says
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Jason Arday Again Cleared of Plagiarism as His Attackers Launch an ‘Independent Inquiry’
Backed by Reform UK megadonor Ben Delo, the Committee for Academic Freedom defended Arday’s accusers and has now commissioned a report into his appointment by Cambridge University
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Reform UK’s Crypto Billionaire Donor Could Profit From Military Exports to Israel Approved After Arms Suspension
British Defence firm QinetiQ, which Christopher Harborne owns a large stake in, received a military export licence involving Israel long after the UK suspended certain arms sales to the country
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What Ukraine’s Strikes On Data Centres Really Revealed About Russian Information Warfare
Suggestions that Ukraine’s attack on a Russian data decimated social media ‘bots’ failed to understand how Moscow’s misinformation campaigns really work, reports Caroline Orr Bueno
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Mysterious Right-Wing Think Tank Demanding Charity ‘Transparency’ Won’t Say Who Runs or Funds It
EXCLUSIVE: A group with no legal status and using fake names for the authors of its first published report, has won widespread media coverage, despite refusing to say who is behind it
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James Orr, Silence, and Sponsorship: Hungary Confirms End of Media Agreement with ‘Times Higher Education’
Orr, the former Reform UK policy chief, praised the Hungarian Government led by Viktor Orbán as a ‘counterexample to the ideology in my own country that rejects national pride’
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Former Ofcom Standards Chief Condemns Watchdog’s ‘Two Tier’ Approach to GB News
Former regulator calls for a clampdown as Andy Burnham’s Government tells Byline Times that ministers are now ‘exploring what action to take’ about MPs like Nigel Farage double-jobbing as presenters on GB News
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How Reform UK’s Leaders Embraced Far- Right Racists
As Nigel Farage’s party faces a new racism scandal, Byline Times investigations reveal how Nigel Farage and his senior colleagues have long cultivated extremist allies and promoted their far-right ideas
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Reform UK’s Richard Tice’s Property Firm Pays £800,000 in Dividends Despite Falling Profits
Quidnet REIT, which Nigel Farage’s Deputy controls, made a pre-tax loss in 2025, but still paid shareholders more than three times its adjusted earnings
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Far-Right Bookshop Praised by Reform’s James Orr Faces Police Warning Over ‘Racist’ Post About Muslim Men
Oldspeak, which sells Hitler’s speeches and flew a ‘Remigration Now’ flag, has been endorsed by senior right-wing figures, including Lord Frost, James Orr and Tommy Robinson
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Reform’s ‘Independent’ Donations Inquiry Was Led By The Lawyer Who Defended Donald Trump Over Russian Collusion
Reform UK said its internal inquiry would proceed “independently and without prejudice” yet it was led by a barrister who has previously represented Nigel Farage and Donald Trump
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Brexit Turning Point as MPs Line Up to Make the Case for Rejoining the EU
Parliamentarians cite Russian interference and post-Brexit red tape, as Andy Burnham opens up a debate which Westminster has avoided for a decade
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‘Trump’s Crazy Russia Deal Leaves Kyiv Angry and Moscow Gleeful’
After a weekend of fast-paced madness, Paul Niland examines Donald Trump’s non-starting diesel deal and the ceasefire that never was
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‘A Clear Answer’: Russia Intervened in the Brexit Vote
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has broken ten years of establishment omertà over Putin’s plot to get Britain out of the EU, reports Peter Jukes
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Reform UK’s James Orr’s Foundation Hosted Sanctioned Israeli Minister
The latest National Conservatism conference, held in Jerusalem, was co-sponsored by an Israeli NGO sanctioned by the EU and Canada
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Green Party Would Force Daily Mail Owner to Sell Up Papers
Zack Polanski’s party also backs plans to force media companies to operate under a licence granted by a regulator
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Why Did Polymarket Trading Surge an Hour Before the Iran War Started?
There was a major spike in Polymarket bets predicting the Iran War, an hour before Trump’s strikes began, new analysis finds
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Russia Scrambles to Cover Up Potential Plague Outbreak After Years of Spreading Biolab Conspiracy Theories
The Kremlin launched its full invasion of Ukraine claiming it was facing biological attack. Now the disinformation has come back to bite it
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‘Even Nazi Psychologists Acknowledged Jewish Intelligence’: The Posts of the Academic Who Targeted Jason Arday
Nathan Cofnas, whose Substack set off the media firestorm over Jason Arday, made a series of posts about “Jewish IQ”, “Mischlings”, and the “emptying” of Gaza
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Andy Burnham Urged to Put Compulsory Voting at Heart of His Electoral Reform Plans
Democracy campaigners say changing how Britain votes will not be enough unless the Prime Minister also changes who votes as well
