Britain
The Free Speech Martyrdom of Lucy Connolly
Keir Starmer’s law-and-order theatrics have handed the far right its new saint: a self-styled free speech Joan of Arc—except this saint didn’t want to be burned, she wanted others to be.
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Keir Starmer’s law-and-order theatrics have handed the far right its new saint: a self-styled free speech Joan of Arc—except this saint didn’t want to be burned, she wanted others to be.
Paul Bristow cites the Epping Forest ruling to demand hotel closures for asylum seekers, but offers no plan for what follows. The Conservatives built the hotel system; Labour inherits it; local politicians weaponise planning law while migrants disappear from view.
The arrest of a part-time cleaner for sharing Facebook posts backing Palestine Action shows how Britain’s response to Gaza has drifted from foreign policy into domestic repression.
Farage brings the noise, Starmer brings the law. The country falls apart to the sound of flags snapping and doors slamming while capital quietly clears the till.
Robert Jenrick’s Union Jack pantomime isn’t patriotism; it’s a confession of weakness. A dying political class turns to flags and ladders because it has nothing left to offer but theatre.
By sanctioning International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors, Trump’s America has openly declared that empire stands above the law. Europe and Britain now face a stark choice: defend the court’s independence, or accept a world where justice stops at Washington’s door.
The Alaska talks were not a breakthrough but a trap. A “peace deal” that rewards Russian aggression is appeasement by another name. Ukraine’s fight is for survival, and any settlement must be on its terms—not Moscow’s.
The High Court’s ruling in Epping shows how Britain has turned planning law into a border regime, feeding jealous politics of scarcity and erasing the very category of the refugee. Now with Labour councils as willing collaborators.
Governments like to frame their cruellest policies as pragmatic necessities, but what they call ‘efficiency’ is always someone else’s suffering.
The idea that work is a moral duty rather than a means of survival is so deeply ingrained we rarely question it. But as technology advances and work becomes more precarious, exhausting, and intrusive, it is worth asking why productivity remains the measure of a person’s worth.
Labour’s latest signal that it intends to impose sweeping cuts to welfare represents a stark betrayal of working-class interests and a capitulation to the logic of capital.
The new Employment Rights Bill announced by the Labour government is being trumpeted as a victory for workers, and on the surface, there are some real wins: day-one unfair dismissal rights, guaranteed hours for agency workers, stronger collective bargaining, and improved sick pay. But a closer look shows there’s still plenty missing, and, as ever, it will all come down to enforcement.
I see Blue Labour is back in the news, once again trying to position itself as the saviour of the Labour Party.
Labour’s embrace of hardline immigration rhetoric isn’t a show of strength but a performance of weakness—an attempt to appease Reform UK’s base while maintaining credibility with big business. By mimicking the far right’s script, Starmer risks alienating the very voters Labour needs, offering border crackdowns instead of the economic transformation that could actually address their grievances.