Tag: united kingdom

Education Secretary Spent £500,000 of Taxpayers’ Money Trying to Scrap University Free Speech Laws

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has run up a bill of more than £500,000 in taxpayers’ money attempting to block free speech protections for university academics. The High Court has ordered the Government to pay the Free Speech Union’s legal costs of £353,748 after it successfully resisted her bid to scrap the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. The Mail has the story:

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has spent more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money trying to water down laws which protect free speech in universities, it was revealed last night.

Ms Phillipson embarked on the legal battle after trying to dilute Tory legislation which put a duty on universities and student unions to actively promote, as well as protect, free speech on campuses, describing it as a “Tory hate speech charter”.

A free speech watchdog allows universities to be fined up to 2% of their income for censoring academics.

The laws came after university staff were hounded out of their jobs for expressing their opinions.

They included Professor Kathleen Stock, who resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after harassment and protests by trans activists, saying she felt pressure to “self-censor” her work.

The philosophy lecturer, who believes single-sex spaces are necessary in places such as prisons and public toilets, was accused by students of making trans people feel “unsafe”.

Ms Phillipson’s move to block the laws was successfully opposed by the Free Speech Union (FSU), run by Tory peer Toby Young.

Now the High Court has ruled that the Government should pay the FSU’s costs of £353,748, which takes the total bill to more than £500,000 when its own legal costs are included.

Within weeks of Labour entering office in July 2024, Ms Phillipson declared that she would revoke the planned introduction of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which had been passed in 2023.

Internal documents, disclosed during the litigation, revealed that officials had been instructed before the election to have a statutory instrument ready to pause the Act “on ‘day one’”, and that the Secretary of State did “not wish to implement the Act, at least in full”.

But in January 2025, nine days before the case was due to be heard, Ms Phillipson capitulated and told Parliament that the majority of the Act’s provisions would be enacted after all.

At that point, the FSU offered to withdraw its claim in return for a fixed costs payment of £84,000.

The Government refused, offering instead a “drop hands” settlement under which the FSU, having won in substance, would recover nothing. Since then, the costs have spiralled as expensive KCs wrangled over the details.

Lord Young of Acton, general secretary of the FSU, said: “The significance of this judicial decision is that it confirms our view and the view of our lawyers that we won this case and the Education Secretary lost – costs are awarded to the winners, with the losers having to pay.”

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UK Covid Inquiry blatantly discounted evidence that didn’t fit their narrative

Four dissenting groups, including HART, requested core participant status for the ‘UK Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4’ on vaccines and therapeutics. This was refused but each group was asked to submit a Witness Statement under Rule 9 which we all duly did.

Each one of us was initially asked not to publish our statements, as the Inquiry team wished to publish statements contemporaneously as the hearing progressed. We were assured that our statements would be used to inform lines of questioning. However, when the inquiry hearings were postponed from July 2024 to January 2025, we set up the People’s Vaccine Inquiry and published our statements, as we were unwilling to further delay placing all this information in the public domain.

In the event, none of the authors of these statements were called to give oral evidence but even then, it was suggested that they might be published at the end of the hearings or at the time of publication of the Module 4 Report.

The Module 4 Report was published in April 2026 and our witness statements have still not appeared on the Inquiry website. We enquired as to why they had not been published and were told, “The Inquiry only publishes witness statements and documents on its website if they are formally adduced during the hearings and/or when the Chair is preparing her report.” 

In response to further questions from Dr. Ros Jones, the legal team graciously replied, “While CCVAC’s [Children’s Covid Vaccines Advisory Council] witness statement was not formally adduced, we are grateful to you for taking the time to provide it. The Inquiry does not object to CCVAC sharing its witness statement publicly, should it wish to do so.”

Hence, we are reposting all four statements here on the HART website as a public record of those who spoke out to raise multiple concerns about the safety and efficacy of these products, and the regulatory and ethical failures.

In addition, on the People’s Vaccine Inquiry website is a long and detailed multi-authored statement from Doctors for Patients UK. All the co-authors of this document are clinicians working in front-line services throughout 2020-2025, with hugely concerning testimony about the changes they were seeing in their day-to-day work from 2021 onwards. Speaking out on this subject has been at great personal risk to their careers.

The failure to publish these and other statements was covered recently in The Telegraph. Camilla Turner elicited the following from an Inquiry team spokesperson: “The inquiry publishes witness statements that are entered into evidence during or after the inquiry’s hearings. The inquiry publishes evidence that the chair considers sufficiently relevant to its hearings and reports. It does not comment on material which is not sufficiently relevant to be published.”

Please do go to the People’s Vaccine Inquiry website, where you will find other witness statements not submitted to the UK Inquiry, and also links to conferences and presentations which we held to ensure the public could access all the information which Baroness Hallett has deemed irrelevant.

We invite our readers to judge for themselves whether our evidence is irrelevant. For example, is it irrelevant that the vaccines rolled out were different products from those tested in the clinical trials, or that southern hemisphere deaths started with vaccine roll-out, not covid, or that covid infection rates and cardiovascular problems were higher in the vaccinated, or that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (“MHRA”) missed safety signals?

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Finnish MEP Warns Britain Is ‘Worst Example’ Of Free Speech In Europe After Entry Ban

Finnish MEP Sebastian Tynkkynen has warned that Britain is fast becoming the worst example in Europe when it comes to defending free speech after he became the latest elected European politician to be banned from entering the country ahead of his appearance at the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Great Britain.

In a video posted on social media, the conservative politician said, “I was just banned from entering the U.K. I am an elected member of the European Parliament and was invited to speak at the very first conservative CPAC conference in the U.K.

“We had the adverts out, flights and hotel booked, and I was supposed to head to the airport in just two hours.

“Then, only moments ago, I was informed that my presence wouldn’t be conducive to the public good.

“Throughout my political career, I have defended our girls and women from the threats posed by mass migration. For some, like U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, this is hate speech.

“For me, it is simply what all politicians should be doing: addressing the problem, changing the legislation and sending them home.”

Tynkkynen then warned the British people that something is “deeply wrong” with their country, and that it was “becoming the worst example in Europe of the death of freedom of speech.”

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HOPE Not Hate Deletes Page Listing Slain Brexiteer Ann Widdecombe’s ‘Dangerous’ Opinions

The radical leftist HOPE Not Hate (HnH) group has deleted a section of its website detailing the supposedly offensive opinions of former Brexit Party politician Anne Widdecombe, who was allegedly murdered in her country home earlier this month.

Following the killing of Ann Widdecombe, 78, a former Conservative government minister and Member of European Parliament for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, HOPE Not Hate removed a publication in which it accused the Christian politician of expressing “homophobic” and “sexist” opinions, while listing numerous supposed offences.

The HnH post stated: “Despite remaking her image in recent years through her appearances on reality TV shows, Widdecombe has a long history of homophobic and sexist remarks that jar with [Nigel] Farage’s claims that his party is ‘intolerant of intolerance’.

“Indeed, embracing the dangerous and divisive politics of her new vehicle, in the first Brexit Party speech in the European Parliament, Widdecombe made a risible comparison of Britain’s departure from the EU to the emancipation of slaves.”

In a statement to The Telegraph, a spokesman for the leftist group said that it was a “straightforward editorial decision” to remove the Widdecombe section of their website, and that it was done as a “mark of respect”.

“The article was a factual account of her political record, party affiliations and public statements, and we stand by its accuracy. Its removal reflects no change in our approach: scrutinising the public records of politicians is a legitimate and essential part of journalism and of our work, and it will continue.”

“Our thoughts are with Ann Widdecombe’s family and friends, and we share the widespread shock at her death,” the organisation added.

Despite initial insistence from police that there were no indications of a political motive, the alleged murderer of Widdecombe is now being investigated as a potential act of terror by Counter Terrorism Policing South East. It has also been reported that police sweeps of the current suspect’s home contained far-left communist material.

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You WILL NOT BELIEVE What Is Happening In This TINY English Village

Residents of the small leafy Oxfordshire village of Piddington have delivered a thunderous rebuke to Westminster’s latest asylum experiment.

With roughly 180 adults casting ballots on July 4, 175 backed holding a referendum on breaking away from the United Kingdom in protest against plans to house up to 1,250 single adult male asylum seekers at an adjacent former Ministry of Defence Site.

That works out to a 96% yes vote in a community of around 370 people where decisions about their future are being made without them.

The move comes after the Home Office announced in late June it would convert the redundant military storage facility — sitting right between Piddington and Upper Arncott — into basic accommodation for single men aged 18 to 65.

Utility companies have already received instructions to prepare power, water and sewage connections, with work eyed for late August or early September. No detailed public proposal or full impact assessment has been published. Locals say the site was never built for this purpose and sits next to a children’s play area and reserve.

Piddington resident Ian Darby captured the frustration felt by many when he spoke out against the total lack of engagement from officials.

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Jim Jordan Fights UK Plan to Force Legacy Media Into Feeds

Britain’s government has decided that a functioning adult with thumbs and a phone cannot be trusted to pick your own news. So it has drawn up a plan to pick it for you.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport published a paper on June 23 proposing that social media platforms and video sharing sites be forced to push a hand-picked list of broadcasters to the top of your feed.

The list runs BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4, S4C and Channel 5. The government files them under “public service media.” You might file them under the channels people have spent two decades scrolling away from.

Now the argument has crossed the Atlantic. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sent Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy a letter on July 14 warning that the plan “would serve as a major threat to online speech and expression and infringe on the rights of American companies and their users.” He wants a briefing by 10 a.m. Washington time on July 28.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The platforms being ordered around are American. Their users are everywhere. A British minister rewriting how YouTube ranks video reaches straight into feeds in Ohio and Osaka.

The DCMS says the goal is to help people “discover trusted news sources” and to fight “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

Translated, the state has chosen your news and would rather you stopped wandering off. Who gets to decide what counts as “trusted”? The same government running the scheme, of course.

The paper leans on real numbers. Ofcom found that social media is now the main news source for 51 percent of adults and 75 percent of people aged 16 to 24. People left. The government’s response is not to ask why they left. It is to guarantee the approved broadcasters a spot at the top while everyone else scraps for whatever attention is left over.

The trick lies in the technology. On television, “prominence” is old furniture. You can legally park BBC One near the top of the channel guide, and the Media Act 2024 dragged that habit onto smart-TV home screens. A recommendation feed works nothing like a channel list. It sorts content in real time by what you personally watch, click and share. Forcing “prominence” onto that means reaching into the ranking and hoisting chosen publishers above where your own behavior left them. Less a nudge, more a shove.

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Politically Correct Crime Reporting and the British Grooming Gangs’ Migrant Connection

On June 22, 2026, three brothers, Amar, Kamar, and Kamran Ilyas, of Sheffield, were sentenced to a combined 40 years in prison for the rape and sexual abuse of five girls between 2004 and 2008, when the victims were as young as 12. One victim was abused by all three brothers. Amar Ilyas, who fled to Pakistan while on bail and was sentenced in absentia, was convicted of 20 offences against the five victims.

The case was not officially described as a grooming gang by prosecutors or investigators, although it shared several characteristics with cases that carry that label. It involved multiple offenders acting against multiple underage victims over a prolonged period, repeated sexual exploitation, and familial coordination, with one victim abused by all three brothers. The perpetrators were Pakistani, the ethnicity most commonly associated with such cases.

Grooming gang crimes typically involve children coerced or deceived into sex through gifts, alcohol, drugs, or a claimed relationship, and then passed to other men for further abuse. Other ethnicities associated with these cases include Iraqi, Bangladeshi, Indian, Iranian, and Turkish.

Political correctness has enabled these gangs because the police and the liberal media are avoiding attributing the crimes to migrants or Pakistanis. In fact, many on the left claim that the grooming gangs are a right-wing conspiracy theory or that most of the perpetrators are white.

However, the 2018 Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, case illustrates how British authorities have prevented the public from learning that most of the defendants were Pakistani. In October 2018, 20 men were convicted of more than 120 offences against 15 girls as young as 11, committed over a seven-year period from 2004 to 2011.

Ringleader Amere Singh Dhaliwal was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 18 years, while the other sentences ranged from five to 18 years. The court heard that many perpetrators in the case were never identified.

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Henry Nowak and the tyranny of state ‘anti-racism’

You thought the Henry Nowak atrocity couldn’t get any worse. You thought you’d heard every horrifying thing about this barbarous incident, when the state manhandled a dying boy who’d been stabbed and falsely branded racist. You thought Henry’s hoarse, agonised cry of ‘I can’t breathe’ was as bad as it could get. Think again. Now we discover Henry said something else, too. In his last moments, as he gagged on his own blood, he made a pained plea. ‘I am not a racist’, he whimpered.

Those five words should haunt our collective conscience. For they confirm that this kid was forced to confront not only the physical horror of his own impending death, but also the psychological horror of being tarred as racist. He was made to beg for his moral reputation alongside his mortal existence. He faced two death sentences that night: the literal death sentence of Vickrum Digwa’s knife attack, and the social death sentence of being damned as a racist. A white lad using his last breaths to bat back a malicious slur of racism – what a grim monument to the tyranny of woke racialism.

The new revelations came at the weekend, following the release of the full trial transcripts. The horror of Nowak’s death is well known. In Southampton, on the night of 3 December 2025, the 18-year-old student was stabbed four times by Digwa, a Sikh. Digwa then falsely accused Nowak of making racist jibes and attacking him. The cops arrived and took the word of the knifeman over the writhing, fatally injured teen. They cuffed Nowak. He told them he’d been stabbed. ‘I don’t think you have, mate’, came the staggeringly inhuman reply of one of the state’s brainwashed heavies.

Millions have watched the bodycam footage of Nowak’s pitiless arrest. We’ve witnessed the full savagery of state wokeness, as cops drag and cuff a teenager as he pleads ‘I can’t breathe’ (nine times) and ‘I’ve been stabbed’ (four times). What we didn’t hear, though, was what Henry cried shortly before the arrival of the police. A witness told the court he heard a young man in distress say: ‘I am not a racist.’ Picture the raw terror of the scene: Henry had been stabbed at this point – four times – yet he felt compelled to devote his flagging energy to convincing onlookers he was not racist scum.

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Yet Another Shocking Video Of UK’s Two-Tier Policing Drops

Fresh footage from Northern Ireland captures police sprinting past a group of knife- and stick-wielding feral youths to cuff a local man who had grabbed a stick to protect the native women and children in his street.

The scene in Dungannon underscores a now-familiar pattern: authorities appear quicker to restrain locals standing up for their communities than to neutralise imported threats.

The video, shared widely on X, shows a large group of youths described as “foreigners” arriving armed in a Protestant area of the town. One man, who also appears to be of foreign descent, picks up a stick in response. A police officer runs straight past the armed mob and detains the defender instead.

Official police accounts confirm serious disorder in the area yesterday evening.

District Commander Superintendent Peter Stevenson stated: “At approximately 7.45pm police received a report of altercation involving approximately 10 men armed with knives and bats at a property in the Killyman Road area. The men smashed the windows and caused damage to the front door of a property. Officers attended and a 32-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. Two other men, aged 32 and 35, were arrested on suspicion of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. They remain in police custody at this time.”

The Superintendent continued, “At approximately 11pm, officers on patrol came across a large group of males gathered in the Newell Road area. Further reports had also been received of a number of males in the area carrying knives and bats. One man had been assaulted and sustained cuts to his hands and face. He attended hospital for treatment for his injuries. An 18-year old man was arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon with intent to commit an indictable offence. He remains in police custody.”

DUP MLA Deborah Erskine voiced growing local frustration: “There is no place for violence, intimidation or criminality on the streets of Dungannon. Criminality is criminality, regardless of who is involved or which section of the community they come from. It must be called out and condemned consistently.”

“There can be no selective condemnation when it comes to lawlessness and public disorder,” Erskine continued, adding “People have a right to feel safe in their own homes and neighbourhoods, and any allegations of violence or intimidation must be thoroughly investigated. Too often, when residents raise such legitimate concerns, or when I raise those concerns in the Assembly Chamber, elements of the Assembly are quick to dismiss them with accusations of racism or bigotry.”

“That approach does nothing to solve problems or build community confidence. It is time for people to listen to genuine concerns, stop applying labels, and start taking meaningful action,” Erskine further urged.

Dungannon hosts a substantial migrant population, including a large East Timorese community drawn to local meat-processing plants, making up a significant share of the town’s non-national residents.

Social media reports tied to the footage describe the armed group as foreigners, many from East Timor, turning up in a Protestant area, while some official framing casts the clashes as internal community matters.

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Cannibal killer who claimed he was possessed by occultist Aleister Crowley ate victim’s finger during savage murder

A cannibal killer who murdered a man then torched his flat is facing a life sentence.

Gabriel Brown stabbed Joseph Johnston 22 times during a ‘punishment’ attack at the 58 year-old’s home in Annan, Dumfries and Galloway in November 2024.

Sick Brown, 35, also chopped off the victim’s ring finger, cooked and ate it.

The body of Mr Johnston – known as Ernie – was later discovered in the burned out flat.

Such was the graphic nature of the details jurors had to endure, that the judge in the case excused them from ever having to take part in a jury again.

Although Brown had never met Mr Johnston until the night of the attack, the victim had previously been in a relationship with his step-mother.

The High Court in Glasgow heard that ex-bouncer Brown decided to target Mr Johnston amid claims of what he had been told about their time together.

Brown – a convicted sex offender – had denied murder and had lodged a special defence that he had been suffering from a mental disorder at the time.

The killer told the court he had been possessed by the spirit of 19th-century born occultist Aleister Crowley, who apparently told him to ‘take Ernie’s soul’.

However, jurors rejected his claims and today found him guilty of murder following the near two-week trial.

Brown will learn the minimum time he will spend behind bars when he is sentenced next month.

The trial was told how Mr Johnston and Brown’s step-mother had previously been together.

She had at one stage pointed out to the killer where Mr Johnston lived. She had also referred to Mr Johnston using a derogatory name.

Brown – who had been diagnosed with mental health issues when he was a teenager – had downed alcohol and smoked cannabis before he went to the victim’s home late at night.

Mr Johnston allowed him in and the pair appeared initially to be getting on – even opting to take a photo together.

However, later that night Brown launched what was described as a ‘savage’ attack on his defenceless victim.

As well as the multiple stab wounds and cutting off a finger, the killer also carved letters onto Mr Johnston’s face.

To try and cover up what he had done, Brown started fires in four different areas of the property including torching furniture, turning on cooker hobs and putting metal cutlery in a microwave.

He also ripped out smoke alarms to prevent them going off before fleeing the scene and returning to his step-mother’s home.

He also texted another person that night making an accusation about Mr Johnston and adding ‘he sleeps forever’.

The body of Mr Johnston was later discovered in his charred kitchen.

During the trial, Brown claimed to remember taking a knife out of the victim, but said he had ‘no recollection’ of putting the blade there.

Asked by his KC Thomas Ross how the weapon would have got there, Brown stated: ‘I attribute it to Aleister Crowley. I put it down to possession. I have previous incidents which my friends have told me about.’

Questioned whose hand the knife was in, the killer added ‘Aleister Crowley’s. We share a body. When removing the knife it was my hand.’

Brown recalled hearing a ‘death rattle’ and Mr Johnston bleeding heavily.

He went on to graphically describe what he did to the man’s left ring finger.

He told the trial: ‘Later on I did something I would describe as a favour to him.’

Mr Ross: ‘What was that?’

Brown: ‘I removed and consumed his finger.’

The sick murderer admitted he ‘cooked’ the digit, but that ‘Aleister was going to take his soul’.

The court heard Brown was arrested after being found sleeping in his step-mother’s attic.

In cross examination, Brown refuted the accusation by prosecutor Eric Robertson that he had gone to ‘square up’ to Mr Johnston that night.

After the verdict, it emerged Brown had previous been jailed for offences involving young girls.

Lord Mulholland deferred sentencing for reports, but warned Brown he may never be released.

He told him: ‘This was sustained, vicious and merciless attack on a defenceless man on his own home.

‘It was motivated, in your own words, by a desire to punish the victim for what you believed had happened to your step-mum during her relationship with him.’

‘You brutally assaulted him with a knife, stabbing him at least 22 times, inflicting blunt force injuries and severing his finger.

‘The fact that it was his ring finger is evident of your motivation that it was a punishment attack.

‘Carving initials on his face is redolent of the extent of your savage attack.’

After Brown was taken back to the cells, Lord Mulholland said he was excusing jurors from further jury service for life due to the ‘harrowing and graphic’ evidence they had heard.

Following the verdict, Police Scotland Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Inspector Graeme Robertson, said Brown will now ‘face the consequences of his despicable actions’.

He added: ‘While this verdict does not change the outcome, I hope it brings Joseph’s family some form of comfort.’

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