Tag: united kingdom

Why Are They Getting Free Sh*t?

A major British telecoms giant is supplying thousands of free SIM cards loaded with six months of data to a charity that hands them out to illegal migrants arriving in the UK via boats, it has been revealed.

The charity Care4Calais has distributed more than 162,000 items to nearly 30,000 people, including 2,221 Vodafone SIM cards, 3,765 hoodies, 3,532 pairs of joggers, 1,174 T-shirts, 1,173 Ramadan food packs around Calais, 2,770 cold-weather “snug packs,” and 1,169 weatherproof garments.

The charity also ran 80 drop-in sessions and 17 large-scale distributions at British military bases housing asylum seekers, providing around 23,000 items, plus free haircuts, phone charging, English lessons, Ramadan food packets, and “new arrival packs” for about 1,800 people reaching England’s South Coast.

Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf has accused Vodafone of “facilitating the invasion of Britain.”

In a letter to chief executive Margherita Della Valle he wrote that customers “will no doubt be astounded to hear that a British company of generally good repute is helping to facilitate the invasion of Britain by unvetted, military-age men” and that they “will be shocked to hear that their phone or broadband provider is actively endangering British women and girls.”

Yusuf demanded the company cancel the cards, end its relationship with Care4Calais, and hand over tracking data.

Under a Reform government, he said, “we will hold each and every officer and director of Vodafone Group Plc and all relevant subsidiaries personally and criminally liable for distributing SIM cards to illegal migrants. If found guilty, you would be liable to go to prison.”

The party has also pledged to review public contracts and exclude the firm from defence, national security and emergency services procurement.

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BOOTLICKERS: Busybodies Flood 999 To Report Neighbours’ BBQs After Stupid Government Alert

Millions of phones across England and Wales blared a sudden siren on Friday evening as the government unleashed its emergency alert system over ‘wildfire risk’. What followed was a wave of neighbour-on-neighbour reporting that left fire services and police inundated with non-emergency calls about barbecues in gardens and parks.

The same compliant instincts that flourished during COVID appear alive and well.

The alert, described by First Secretary of State Louise Haigh as “the most extensive use of the UK’s emergency alert system in response to an active incident,” warned of a “very high risk of wildfires nationally.”

It instructed residents, landowners and visitors not to undertake any activity that could start a fire, including disposable barbecues, firepits, garden incinerators or fireworks. Even a small flame, it said, could rapidly develop into a major wildfire placing lives, homes, businesses and emergency responders at risk. People were told to report signs of fire immediately by calling 999.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the alert was triggered at the request of firefighters and urged the public to take it “seriously.” He has repeatedly described Britain as a “tinderbox right now” after a record stretch of extreme heat and multiple major incidents, including a West Midlands blaze that destroyed 19 homes across more than 500 acres.

Within hours, the practical result became clear. Fire and rescue services reported a high volume of 999 calls about neighbours using BBQs, lighting bonfires or campfires.

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Exclusive: Palestine Action facing new rigged ‘terrorism’ trials

As the British state seeks to destroy Palestine Action, a new trial is underway in which a judge has threatened defendants with a ‘terrorism connection’ if they explain the motives behind their activism. 

It is one of three such trials in which the government has muzzled defendants, blinded jurors and banned local media coverage to guarantee convictions.

The Grayzone can exclusively reveal that hearings have been underway in the trial of the so-called Teledyne Three. These three defendants damaged the clean room of a UK factory which produces parts for the F-35 aircraft which Israel has used to carry out an array of crimes against civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip, and beyond. They are members of the direction action protest collective, Palestine Action, which the British state has designated as a “terrorist entity” in the face of international condemnation. 

The presiding judge in the Teledyne Three case, Driver, has imposed restrictions on the defense which threatens them with a “terrorism connection” if they attempt to explain the motives behind their actions.

The British media is currently forbidden from reporting on the trial or the draconian measures applied by the judge.   

The Teledyne Three case is one of three ongoing trials in which the British state is intensifying its assault on Palestine Action by muzzling defendants and blinding jurors. Stretching the definition of terrorism to the point of absurdity, and applying it as promiscuously as possible, forms the heart of the government’s strategy.

This February, the government’s relentless attempts to designate Palestine Action as a terrorism entity was found “unlawful”. However, the Home Office’s July 2025 designation of the protest group as a “terrorist entity” remains under final appeal. Meanwhile, separate ongoing court proceedings against PA actionists testify to a systematic campaign of dubious legal tactics to sentence defendants as terrorists, drastically increasing their penalties if found guilty.

As first revealed by The Grayzone, British authorities stacked the legal deck against a group of PA defendants known as the Filton Six. A judge imposed severe restrictions on what the defense could say, what the jury was allowed to hear, and which defenses the jurors were allowed to consider. The jury was not even able to know that the defendants could be sentenced as terrorists if found guilty of lesser criminal convictions. The entire case appeared engineered to guarantee convictions. 

In June, four were convicted, receiving jail sentences as “terrorists” of five to eight years.

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UK Left Blames Death of Ex-Cambridge Professor Arday on ‘Racism’, Media Scrutiny of Plagiarism Claims

British leftists have attempted to blame racism and media scrutiny for the untimely death of former Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who sensationally resigned last week amid plagiarism allegations and accusations of fabricating his backstory.

On Friday afternoon, Cambridge’s youngest-ever Black professor, Jason Arday, was found dead at a London address at the age of 41, just days after resigning from his post as professor of sociology of education amid swirling controversy and claims that he had engaged in plagiarism.

According to a Substack article last month from University of Ghent philosopher Nathan Cofnas, who was fired from Cambridge’s Emmanuel College in 2024 after expressing race-realist views on IQ differences, Arday’s thesis had been flagged by plagiarism-detection software.

It then emerged that Cambridge had been alerted to potential plagiarism in his thesis and in other papers by Plymouth Marjon University Emeritus Professor Dave Harris in 2023, yet the university only launched an investigation into the matter earlier this month.

London’s Daily Telegraph reported that it had “identified more than 100 passages that are identical or nearly identical to a 2009 PhD thesis by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, a Brunel University student.”

On top of allegations of plagiarism, questions were also raised over Arday’s supposedly remarkable early life, as he claimed to have risen to the top of academia despite allegedly being unable to talk until the age of 11 and being unable to read or write until he was 18 as a supposed result of autism. Arday also previously boasted of having run 30 marathons in 35 days, partly while suffering from a leg fracture.

Amid the controversy, the previous media darling resigned on August 5th, claiming that the “relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.”

Less than ten days later, he was found dead. A spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police said on Friday that his “death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious.” The left-wing Guardian newspaper reported that the force is “understood not to believe anyone else was involved in the death.”

Despite limited information about the circumstances of his death, prominent left-wing figures were quick to blame the media scrutiny and “racism” for Arday’s death. For example, far-left Labour MP Nadia Whittome said that Arday was “hounded by the British press in a way that went far beyond scrutiny, was disproportionate, and simply would not have happened to a white, middle class person in the same position.”

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Russia Threatens to Board British and French Ships in Revenge For ‘Shadow Fleet’ Seizures

President Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation against British and French ‘pirates’ over the seizure of Russian ‘shadow fleet’ oil tankers, saying his navy was ready to start capturing European ships in return.

European states are engaged in “nothing less than piracy and robbery” when they seize Russian shadow fleet tankers moving sanctions-busting oil, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. Speaking from the navy cruiser Varyag on a visit to observe the culmination of a major series of exercises off Russia’s east coast, Putin said his forces were ready to “respond in kind”. Several other Kremlin figures quickly followed their leaders’ remarks to add their own threats.

Russian state media reported that President Putin said: “I would like to draw attention to the EU’s recent decisions. We see that the authorities of some countries are attempting to restrict the movement of our economic operators’ ships in violation of international maritime law. I want to emphasise that these ships are peaceful. Recently, they’ve even considered seizing our ships and selling property stolen from us.”

President Putin called these acts “nothing less than piracy and robbery” and warned, “If this begins to happen in practice, we will be forced to respond in kind”, stating he’d already given such instructions to his Defence Ministry and that seizures could happen “wherever we deem it appropriate”, including the Pacific Ocean.

Admiral Viktor Liina, who commands the Russian Pacific Fleet and was hosting President Putin, specifically cited British and French ships as potential targets and said his forces were ready to commence operations.

Western powers, including the European Union, placed sanctions on Russian oil quickly after the commencement of its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but the Russian Federation quickly found ways around those attempts to hamper its trade, including by shifting its oil exports into a large network of so-called “shadow” tankers. European critics say these ships, typically older vessels that would likely have otherwise been taken out of fleets permitted to transit around European coasts, attempt to defy sanctions by obscuring the origin of the oil cargoes they carry and the ownership of the vessels themselves through convoluted layers of ownership and obscure flagging.

Western states retaliated to this by sanctioning individual ships known to be carrying Russian oil as part of this shadow fleet, with over 630 vessels now listed. Still, much of this trade passes right under the nose of European navies, with hundreds of Russian shadow ships passing through the English Channel every year.

One of these ships was the oil tanker Smyrtos, a Chinese-owned, Indian-crewed vessel sailing under the flag of Cameroon. The Cameroon government came under pressure from European states to strike the Smyrtos off its national register, and when it finally did, the British government took this as a pretext to board and seize the ship for sailing under false or no colours under Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Royal Marines fast-roped onto the deck to capture the vessel and cargo, and then guided the tanker into the English harbour of Weymouth, where it remains, months later.

The Indian citizen captain Ajay Pant has been arrested and charged, and is due to appear in a British court in December for defying Western sanctions on Russian oil, the first such case in the world. The remainder of the non-officer crew has been repatriated.

Several other Russian ships have been seized by other Western nations, including France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. While the U.S. has recently gone so far as to sell off former shadow fleet ships for scrap value, Russia appears more wary of lashing out at Washington and has confided its criticism of European powers.

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Who Killed Jason Arday?

The strange and fascinating tale of the greatest con-man and fantasist of the twenty-first century has come to a macabre and shocking end. On Friday, Jason Arday was found dead in his London home. Police said that while his death was “unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious,” which, whatever else it may mean, indicates that he wasn’t murdered, and apparently that he committed suicide. Yet the question of who really killed him, in a moral if not in a criminal sense, is still very much on the table.

Arday’s family immediately went into aggrieved victimhood mode, issuing a statement that clearly put the onus on those who had ridiculed and mocked Arday in the wake of the exposure of his truly breathtaking web of lies: “Jason was subjected to a campaign of sustained abuse” the family claimed, referring not simply to when his lies and plagiarism were exposed, but to his becoming the youngest black professor ever at Cambridge University four years ago. “The campaign of misinformation,” they added, “was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone.”

Wait a minute. Whose “campaign of misinformation”? Jason Arday was in no conceivable sense a victim of any “campaign of misinformation.” The only “campaign of misinformation” in the entire bizarre story of Jason Arday was the one he waged himself, in spinning what The Atlantic dubbed “a fabricated backstory filled with hard-to-believe details.”

Hard to believe is an understatement. The Atlantic provides a helpful summary: “He claimed to have been mute until age 11 and illiterate until 18, disadvantages that did not deter him from getting a Ph.D., which he earned by age 30. He claimed, too, that he had suffered from various medical conditions throughout his life, including autism, epilepsy, locked-in syndrome, testicular cancer, and a brain tumor. He was, by his account, a world-class endurance athlete who had racked up a variety of impressive feats, including running 600 miles in six days.”

Interestingly, The Atlantic then continues this list with examples of how rapturously the academic world received Arday, as if these were more examples of his “hard-to-believe” life story, when actually these are examples of how supposedly rational, evidence-based academics react when they encounter an obvious mountebank who just happens to confirm everything they want to believe about the world: “Then there were his academic accomplishments: Arday was billed as a once-in-a-generation talent, whose research in his field—the sociology of education—was ‘the best in the world,’ according to Hilary Cremin, the head of Cambridge’s faculty of education. He claimed to have received a book advance of 1.4 million in unspecified currency for his memoir, released this week by Simon & Schuster. It was a meteoric rise, until it wasn’t.”

Yes, and it was a meteoric rise, and a spectacular fall, not because of Arday’s talents, or lack thereof, or because of the skillfulness of his lies and plagiarism. In fact, he wasn’t actually very good at either. His purloining of other people’s work was clumsy and obvious, and his autobiographical claims strained credulity well beyond the breaking point for anyone who dared to ponder them rationally, but clearly, no one around him was willing to do so. He was more powerful than a locomotive? Okay. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound? Sure.

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The Policewoman Who Remembered Britain Was Still Britain

A Metropolitan Police officer stood on Whitechapel Road surrounded by men who wanted a Christian preacher stopped. One of them gave her his reason plainly: “This is Whitechapel. This is a Muslim area.”

Her answer shouldn’t have required courage.

“In this country, we have freedom of speech.”

From The Standard:

The video, filmed in Whitechapel, shows the officer defending a Christian preacher’s freedom of speech while being surrounded by a group of men.

The encounter, filmed in Whitechapel Road, has been widely shared on social media, and appears to have been shot last Monday, a day before the beginning of Ramadan.

In the footage, uploaded to YouTube channel Auditing Britain, a man holding a Bible can be heard preaching the Gospel just yards from the East London Mosque, one of the largest mosques in Western Europe, accommodating up to 7,000 worshippers for daily prayers.

The officer tells the group: “I understand that you guys don’t want to hear it, so I would just recommend that you walk away and don’t listen to him. He’s not in your home.”

A man wearing a facemask can be seen replying: “This is Whitechapel, this is a Muslim area.”

People are seen yelling at the preacher, with one bearded man shouting: “Talk about Jesus, don’t talk about Muhammad”, and another shouting “Your God is a Jew.”

One man accuses the preacher of “spreading hatred”, alleging that he was calling the Black Stone in the sacred Kaaba building in Mecca “a box”.

The preacher is also physically attacked by one man wearing a black duffel coat and mask, who shoves him in the back, causing him to stumble forward.

The officer continues to defend the preacher, explaining to the group: “In this country we have freedom of speech, the same way you guys have your freedom of speech.

“You guys don’t need to see eye-to-eye, and you don’t need to agree. You’re all more than welcome to stand here and have conversations with them, but they’re not being aggressive.”

She adds: “I understand that you guys don’t want to hear it, so I would recommend that you just move away and don’t listen to him.”

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Canada is taking censorship lessons from the U.K.

Heritage Minister Marc Miller flew to Scotland in July, officially to attend the Commonwealth Games. According to an access to information memo obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter, however, he also scheduled confidential briefings on a U.K. Labour Party plan to promote what it calls “social cohesion.”

Ezra Levant broke it down on Thursday’s episode of The Ezra Levant Show.

The Labour document, titled Protecting What Matters, calls for “new tools and powers to disrupt organizations that spread extremism, hate, and threaten public safety.” It also proposes to combat what it labels “digital grifters,” “hostile states,” and “politicians of grievance” — a phrase that, Ezra noted, technically describes almost every opposition politician who has ever existed.

“Isn’t every politician sort of supposed to have grievances and then try to solve them?” he asked.

Miller denied discussing censorship during the trip, saying on social media he met with a Scottish cabinet secretary and first minister, discussed nothing of the sort, and that “the most controversial thing I did was drink an Irn-Bru.” Ezra was unconvinced, though.

“It wouldn’t be the first time in history that a politician lied,” he said, adding that the confidential memo listed the briefings on Miller’s official schedule. “I don’t trust Marc Miller when he says he didn’t have discussions about censorship when his own schedule said that’s what they would be talking about.”

Responding to a Canada Proud social media post about the story, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke responded with one word: “Dystopian.”

Miller replied to Lutke directly, dismissing the story. Ezra noted that Lutke, of German descent, has particular reason to be alert to the language of state censorship — both the Nazi SS and East German Stasi were in that business.

The phrase “social cohesion” is not new in Miller’s vocabulary. In a parliamentary committee exchange obtained by Rebel News, Conservative MP Rachel Thomas asked Miller to define it after he said the CBC’s role was to foster social cohesion.

Miller replied that an age of “disinformation” required a strong state-funded broadcaster and suggested that questioning the CBC contributed to the spread of “falsities.” He also referred to “illegitimate sources” of information — without defining who decides what is legitimate. Thomas noted that the term is used by the People’s Republic of China to mean state control.

Ezra said he first encountered the phrase “social cohesion” in the United Kingdom — and that it has a very specific meaning there. A sitting UK Labour MP named Naz Shah from Bradford West once liked and retweeted a post arguing that the 1,400 young girls raped in Rotherham by gangs of predominantly Pakistani Muslim men should “shut their mouths for the good of social cohesion.”

“That’s what social cohesion means,” Ezra said. “It means shutting down anyone who has a grievance — including, in that case, the rape of 1,400 girls.”

Ezra also noted that he himself was banned from the U.K. earlier this year for being “not conducive to the public good” — which he described as another way of saying he was not part of their social cohesion.

Justin Trudeau introduced four separate censorship bills during his tenure — more than on any other subject. The pattern, Ezra said, is not subtle. The U.K., he said, offers Canadians a view into the future “like a dystopian time machine.”

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Family of dead ex-Cambridge professor Jason Arday says he was victim of ‘misinformation’ campaign despite plagiarism allegations

The family of ex-Cambridge University professor Jason Arday, accused of plagiarism, blamed his unexpected death Friday on a “campaign of misinformation” that “was too much for Jason.”

Arday, 41, was found dead in his south London home just over a week after quitting his job over the allegations — as Cambridge announced it had launched an investigation.

“Jason was subjected to a campaign of sustained abuse for more than three years since he accepted the role of professor at Cambridge University by those who would leave no stone unturned in their quest to undermine him,” Arday’s family said in a statement Friday, according to the UK Guardian.

“The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone,” they said. “We are in shock to have lost this amazing father, partner, brother, uncle and son.

They added, “We won’t comment further at this point beyond asking the press to leave us alone now, and to stop the campaign of harassment which has been waged against Jason and his family for too long.”

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Jason Arday, ex-Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism, found dead in UK week after investigation launched

Embattled ex-Cambridge University professor Jason Arday was found dead Friday after quitting his job at the school over allegations that he plagiarized and lied about past jobs, according to a report.

Arday, 41 — the youngest ever black professor at the lauded university— was found “unresponsive”  in his south London home and later pronounced dead at the scene, according to the UK Telegraph.

“Sadly, a 41-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene. His next-of-kin have been informed and are being supported by officers,” a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police told the paper.

“At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious. The case is being investigated by officers from the Met’s Central South Command Unit. A file will be prepared for the coroner.”

University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice expressed sympathy over his death Friday.

“We are desperately saddened to hear this tragic news. Our heartfelt sympathies go to Jason Arday’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time,” Prentice said in a statement.

The sociology professor, who became a poster boy for diversity,  resigned from the job on Aug. 5 as the school launched an investigation into accusations that he plagiarized parts of his Ph.D dissertation and lied about positions he held at other schools.

He cited an “unrelenting level of public scrutiny” as his reason for resigning.

“[It’s] simply the decision of someone who has reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure,” he said at the time.

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