Tag: united kingdom

Masked Muslims Rally in Multicultural London Borough After Police Banned Populist UKIP Demonstration

Masked Muslim protesters took to the streets of Tower Hamlets in East London on Saturday, vowing to “defend” their community after police had banned an anti-Islamist march in the borough.

The multicultural Whitechapel area of Tower Hamlets was flooded with Muslim demonstrators, many of whom were wearing black clothing, masks and balaclavas. They were joined by members of the far-left Stand Up to Racism group, four of whom were reportedly arrested.

The demonstrators were seen waving Palestinian and Bangladeshi flags as they celebrated the fact that the Metropolitan Police had prohibited the populist United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) party, whose leader Nick Marcel Tenconi described as the start of a “crusade” against Islamists and Communists in Britain.

London’s Evening Standard newspaper quoted one of the demonstrators as saying: “They came specifically targeting Islam. They said we are coming on a crusade, they said we need to take back our streets.

“We stand firm to let them know that if you come then we will stand firm and we will be ready to defend our elders, to defend our women and to defend our community.

“We have never once said we were going on crusades or going into your areas to cause you problems. You are coming into our homes and you want to cause us problems. What is wrong with us standing up?”

The Muslim protesters were also filmed performing an Islamic prayer in the middle of the road, with adherents bowing to their knees to the chants of “Allahu Akbar”.

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LORD ASHCROFT: ID card scheme is a classic Starmerite intervention – it’s expensive, intrusive and utterly pointless

Kemi Badenoch‘s skewering of Keir Starmer at Wednesday’s PMQs was a highlight in what has been a relatively good couple of weeks for the Tory leader.

If the Conservatives don’t exactly have a spring in their step, they are at least enjoying a sigh of relief. Their conference produced some policy ideas worth talking about and Badenoch delivered a punchy and humorous speech that stilled the endless chatter about her leadership, at least for a time.

Of course, most people have better things to do than pay attention to party conferences. But in this case, the task was to shore up her position and consolidate the Tories’ diminished base.

My latest polling suggests she succeeded in this crucial (if limited and short-term) objective. The number of Conservatives who would rather see her than Starmer or Nigel Farage as PM has risen sharply, pushing her rating up among voters as a whole.

The bad news is that this has yet to inject any life into her party’s standing overall. Insiders now say she is in a race against time to make that happen before the local elections next May.

In my survey, voters tended to think yet another change at the top would show the Tories had learned nothing about why they lost. But when panic sets in, politics takes on a logic and momentum of its own.

That’s not to say Badenoch is entirely at the mercy of events.

One thing that holds the party back is that the numbers saying it has changed since its defeat has flatlined all year. 

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U.K. seeking to censor Americans again

Incredibly, the U.K. wants to enforce its draconian censorship laws in the United States.

According to Data Fidelity, an Australian tech site:

Internal communications now made public by the US House Judiciary Committee shed light on a pattern of escalating pressure by the UK’s “communications regulator,” Ofcom, aimed at pushing US-based tech platforms like Rumble and Reddit into adopting strict speech standards, even in apparent disregard for national boundaries and free speech protections.

The emails expose how Ofcom has been leaning on Rumble to align itself with the UK’s Online Safety Act, a censorship law that vastly expands the state’s oversight of online content under the guise of child protection and harm prevention.

Take to the internet or social media to criticize the LGBTQ community or Islam?

You may be paid a visit by the constabulary.

Criticize the U.K.’s leaders?

You might get to visit Scotland Yard.

Criticize gay, trans, or Muslim U.K. leaders?

God help you. (Not that many people in formerly Jolly Olde England believe in the God of the Bible anymore. Which may explain the current state of affairs in Britain.)

It is utterly preposterous that any nation, let alone one as diminished yet allegedly tolerant as the U.K., would seek to enforce and impose its own anti-speech, anti-freedom agenda on a foreign land.

Talk about digital colonization and cultural imperialism!

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Met Police reviews 9,000 cases in grooming gangs probe after Sadiq Khan denials

The Metropolitan Police is reviewing 9,000 cases in a huge new grooming gangs probe despite Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s previous denials any operated in the capital.

The announcement comes after an Express/MyLondon investigation exposed several potential grooming gang cases in London appeared to have been overlooked.

Khan has repeatedly stated there were “no reports” or “indications” that London was blighted by the type of abuse that affected towns like Rochdale and Rotherham.

But on Friday evening, the Met revealed it has 9,000 cases to reassess.

In a letter from Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to the Mayor, London’s top cop tells Khan he is “responding to questions about child sexual exploitation” adding that “any sexual offending against children is abhorrent but group-based offending, including that characterised as ‘Grooming Gangs’, is particularly insidious. And devastating in its profound impact on the children affected.”

He adds that he knows that “historically and across the UK, the cases of these child victims have not always been recognised and thoroughly investigated. Too often, victims have been disbelieved and even judged at times.”

But he added that “the Met is committed to safeguarding all victims of these terrible offences and wherever possible bringing those responsible to justice.”

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UK Expands Online Safety Act to Enforce Preemptive Censorship For “Priority” Offenses

The UK government is preparing to expand the reach of its already controversial censorship law, the Online Safety Act (OSA), with a new set of rules that push platforms toward preemptive censorship.

The changes would compel tech companies to block material before users can even see it, under the claim of stopping “cyberflashing” and content “encouraging or assisting serious self-harm.”

On October 21, the government laid before Parliament a Statutory Instrument titled The Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2025.

This legal mechanism, used to amend existing legislation without requiring a full new Act, adds two additional “priority offences” to Schedule 7 of the OSA:

By classifying these as “priority illegal content” under Section 59 of the OSA, the government triggers the law’s strictest obligations for online platforms.

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How the Free Speech Union Turned the Tide on Non-Crime Hate Incidents

As the Metropolitan Police announce the demise of non-crime hate incidents, the Telegraph has run a feature on the Free Speech Union, crediting its years of campaigning against NCHIs and support for cancel culture victims. Here’s an excerpt.

Sir Mark’s decision may well signal a wider turning of the tide on police investigations into “hate crime”. But the force’s decision to backtrack on Linehan’s case, and others like it, got only a lukewarm welcome from Linehan himself, who said he planned to continue his legal action against the Met.

That, however, is not because he has limitless pockets – cancel culture, he says, has cost him much of his lucrative writing gigs. Instead, his lawyers come courtesy of the Free Speech Union (FSU), the British campaign group set up to defend freedom of expression – be it from armed police, an overzealous student campus or HR managers intent on enforcing diversity policies.

Set up five years ago by the former journalist, Toby Young – now Lord Young, having been nominated for a life peerage by Kemi Badenoch last December – the organisation has handled more than 4,500 cases, from members of the public arrested over tweets deemed to be politically incorrect, to office workers disciplined for querying seminars on critical race theory.

For some clients, the FSU has simply won a written apology. But for others, it has secured a £500,000 payout at industrial tribunal.

If there’s one thing most cases have in common, according to Young, it is that they shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Linehan’s arrest, in which the Met acted “like the Stasi”, being a case in point.

“I think this statement from the Met shows that they have got fed up with this stuff – they recognise that the public want them to prioritise serious crimes like burglary, car theft and mugging,” says Young, who has called for all police forces in the country to follow Scotland Yard’s lead.

“I also think that in Linehan’s case, the police realised they’d been manipulated by a trans-rights activist who understood exactly how to weaponise the police guidance on investigating hate crime incidents, and to turn the police into an enforcement wing for their own agendas.”

Young is referring to Lynsey Watson, a transgender ex-police officer who is understood to have reported Linehan to the police over his social media posts, one of which read: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”

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Graham Linehan Cleared After Heathrow Arrest as CPS Drops Case After Free Speech Controversy

Graham Linehan, the Irish writer best known for Father Ted and The IT Crowd, says police have now confirmed he will face no further action following his controversial arrest at Heathrow Airport last month.

The 57-year-old comedy creator had been arrested by armed officers after landing in London from Arizona, accused of using social media to incite violence, a claim now dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Linehan’s arrest became a flashpoint in a growing concern over the decline of free speech in modern Britain.

What might have been a brief police encounter instead exposed a deeper problem: the creeping normality of criminal investigations into words rather than actions.

The image of an airport surrounded by armed officers confronting a comedy writer for tweets struck many as absurd, even dystopian.

In a post on X, Linehan announced that “the police have informed my lawyers that I face no further action in respect of the arrest at Heathrow in September,” adding that “after a successful hearing to get my bail conditions lifted (one which the police officer in charge of the case didn’t even bother to attend) the Crown Prosecution Service has dropped the case.”

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Labour Gov’t Accused of ‘Sabotaging’ Child Rape Grooming Gang Inquiry as Victims Resign

The fledgling official inquiry into the child rape grooming gang scandal is facing accusations of being compromised as members of the victims’ panel resigned on Monday, citing “disturbing conflicts of interests” among those set to lead the investigation.

Following months of domestic and international pressure, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer backtracked from his initial opposition to conducting a national inquiry with statutory authority on the grooming gang scandal, after previously tarring the idea as “far-right”.

In addition to examining the scourge of mostly Pakistani Muslims sexually exploiting and raping mostly young working-class white girls, the inquiry is set to examine the failures of local officials, police, and care workers, many of whom have been found to have ignored or covered up the scandal out of politically correct concerns. Victims, who were often exploited for years, were frequently dismissed by authorities at the time as “prostitutes” despite being under the age of consent.

On Monday, Fiona Goddard, a grooming gang survivor, resigned from the inquiry’s Victims/Survivor Liaison Panel, after discovering that the planned chairs of the inquiry are reportedly set to include a police officer and a social worker, which she asserted were the “very two services that contributed most to the cover up of the national mass rape and trafficking of children.”

“This is a disturbing conflict of interest, and I fear the lack of trust in services from years of failings and corruption will have a negative impact in survivor engagement with this inquiry,” Goddard wrote in her resignation letter.

She noted that in the 2019 trial against her abusers, members of the jury were dismissed if they had any connection to the police or social services to prevent bias from impacting the decision.

“This inquiry should be held to the same stands as a criminal case, if not higher,” Goddard said. “Having a police officer or social worker leading the inquiry would once again be letting services mark their own homework, the shortlisting of these potential chairs shows the government’s complete lack of understanding of the level of corruption and failings involved in this scandal.”

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Who Counts as English?

Back in February, Konstantin Kisin and Fraser Nelson sparked a national debate over the meaning of Englishness. During a podcast discussion, Kisin — who has Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish ancestry — proclaimed: “I am not English, and I will never be English, and I don’t think Rishi Sunak is English”. Nelson disagreed, opining that “Rishi Sunak is as English as Tizer and Y-fronts”. Kisin responded, “He’s a brown Hindu. How’s he English?” To which Nelson replied, “Because he was born and bred here.”

Kisin and Nelson’s positions reflect two distinct views of what it means to be English. On one view, someone can only be English if they have English ancestry. On the other, they needn’t have English ancestry so long as they were born in England, have a British passport and are well-versed in English culture.

Naturally, Kisin’s remarks caused a certain amount of controversy, provoking the usual charges of ‘racism’. This is despite him having clearly stated that he does not consider himself English. Kisin addressed his critics in a follow-up video, pointing out that Sunak had explicitly stated that he ticks ‘British Indian’ on the census. And in the original debate with Nelson, he’d already admitted that “we’re all British, that’s fine with me”.

Indeed, the distinction between British and English is one that both Kisin and his defenders have relied upon. For example, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman wrote in the Telegraph that “I am British Asian” but “I cannot be English”.

To my mind, however, the debate can’t be so easily resolved because this distinction depends on the historically contingent fact that England is a nation within Britain. How would Braverman identify if the UK broke up and England became a separate country? How should French citizens who are not ethnically French identify? Should they say, “I cannot be French”? What about German citizens who are not ethnically German? And so on.

Furthermore, it turned out that Kisin had spoken too soon when he quoted Sunak in his follow-up video. The former Prime Minister subsequently came out and said, “Of course I’m English”, dismissing the notion that he wasn’t as “slightly ridiculous” since it would imply that even players in the England cricket team do not count.

It’s true that the native English are a distinct people, who can be demarcated not only from Indians but also from other European peoples, like Poles, Swedes, Italians and Russians. In a genetic study that sampled participants according to the rule that all four grandparents were born in the same country, Britons formed their own cluster. This cluster overlapped to a large extent with the cluster formed by Irish participants, and to a lesser extent with the clusters formed by participants from other nearby countries.

Hence if ‘indigenous’ means anything — and I do think it means something — then people with significant ancestry from the British cluster are indigenous to Britain.

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British troops given powers to shoot down drones on sight: Telegraph

British troops will be given new powers to shoot down drones threatening Britain’s military bases, The Telegraph reported on Oct 19, citing an upcoming announcement on Oct 20 from British Defence Minister John Healey.

Mr Healey is expected to unveil his vision on how to protect Britain’s most critical military bases in response to a growing threat posed by Russia, the newspaper said.

Although the new powers will initially apply only for military sites, the British government was “not ruling out working to extend those powers” to other important sites like airports, the Telegraph said, citing a source.

Currently, troops can use specialist counter-drone equipment which can track incoming drones, hijack signals, and divert them, according to The Telegraph.

The new proposal will give soldiers or Ministry of Defence Police a “kinetic option” to shoot them on site, which they can only do now in extreme circumstances, The Telegraph further added.

Mr Healey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Britain’s Defence Ministry could not immediately be reached.

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