As first reported by the Daily Mail, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow has removed several ancient Egyptian human remains from display, citing a desire to treat the deceased with respect. Visitors are informed of the decision by a sign reading: “We have removed human remains from this display as a mark of respect.”

The decision reflects growing recognition within the museum sector that displaying human remains raises ethical questions, particularly when there is no evidence that the deceased consented to their bodies being exhibited.

But for the woke-bashing media, the move was an opportunity to wheel out a familiar culture-war bogeyman.

“Woke’ museum slammed after removing mummies due to ‘lack of consent’,” the Express’s headline declared.

The article explains that the exhibits removed include a mummified male head and right foot, a mummified right hand recovered from the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, and a painted coffin containing the remains of a priest.

It also reports Glasgow Life, the charity that runs the museum with funding from Glasgow City Council, says the decision reflects contemporary museum practice.

Nevertheless, the article gives prominent space to critics eager to portray the move as absurd.

Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser branded it “woke madness at its most ridiculous.”

“Even Egyptian mummies are now being cancelled by a society so obsessed with modern sensibilities that it has lost all sense of perspective,” he said.

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education and a former adviser to the Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street, similarly dismissed the decision as “more virtue-signalling, woke nonsense.”

He argued that it was impossible to seek permission from people who died thousands of years ago.

Yet this misses the point. The absence of consent is precisely the ethical dilemma, not a reason to dismiss it. The question is whether the fact that human remains can be displayed means they necessarily should be.

Glasgow Life has offered a clear explanation for its decision, pointing to the International Council of Museums’ revised Code of Ethics, published in June 2026, which states that museums should uphold the inherent dignity of human remains and respect their significance.

The charity also cited the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations’ 2025 report, Laying Ancestors to Rest, which raises concerns about displaying ancient Egyptian remains without sufficient regard for the wishes of the deceased or the communities that laid them to rest.

Glasgow Life’s draft Human Remains Policy proposes that such remains should only be displayed where documented, informed consent exists from the deceased or, where appropriate, their descendants.

“In the absence of such consent, we believe removing ancient Egyptian human remains from display is more respectful to the deceased individuals,” a spokesperson said.

That’s a considered ethical position, not an attempt to erase history. The remains have not ceased to exist, nor has the history of ancient Egypt been rewritten. The museum has simply decided that displaying human bodies is not the only way to educate visitors about the past.

Of course, museums must balance educational value, historical preservation and public access with respect for the dead.

Reasonable people can disagree about where that balance should lie. But dismissing the issue as ‘woke’ does little to engage with those competing responsibilities.

The Express and other critics also give little attention to those who welcome the decision.

Writing for Vice in an article entitled Why This Museum Is Removing Egyptian Mummies From Its Exhibits, journalist Jillian Drachman argues the move was entirely sensible, questioning why the remains of people who had been carefully mummified in accordance with their beliefs should be displayed for public consumption.

“If the ancient Egyptians took great pains to mummify the body so that it might rise again,” the writer asks, “why are we figuratively spitting on their belief systems under the guise of ‘education’?”

It’s a question worth considering.

But reducing that debate to a sneering headline and predictable denunciations of ‘wokeness’ is not an argument; it’s a way of avoiding one.

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: Right mock museum’s decision to remove Egyptian mummies appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

New figures shared by the Metropolitan Police show phone theft and robbery offences fell to their lowest August level since 2022. In the West End, where nearly half of all phone thefts in London take place, offences have fallen sharply, with over 9,000 fewer thefts recorded in the last 12 months.

Commander Andy Featherstone, the Met’s lead for tackling phone theft, noted how phone theft offences are now at a four-year low “because of the Met’s relentless campaign to crack down on these criminals’’.

“This was our biggest operation yet, with officers targeting every stage of the organised criminal chain, including street thieves, handlers and exporters.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan welcomed the progress, saying the “tide is definitely turning” on mobile phone crime in London with 16,000 fewer mobile phones stolen in the past year and neighbourhood crime falling further too.

“Record funding from City Hall is empowering the Met to go after every single part of the £50million-a-year trade in stolen phones.”

Yet this is precisely the sort of development that has struggled to attract the attention lavished on stories portraying London as a crime-ridden dystopia.

One of the few outlets to give the issue attention was LBC, which published an article by Khan, arguing that progress on phone theft and other crime “has not happened by chance.”

“Backed by massive investment and support from City Hall, the Met has launched the largest anti-phone theft operation in the history of the UK,” he wrote.

Predictably, the article’s comments section became a platform for racist abuse and hostility towards the London Mayor, with some contributors seeming more interested in attacking the mayor than engaging with the figures.

“Loving the comments on this thread, denying the facts and angrily stating their hate,” one commenter observed.

The reaction reflects a wider pattern in the political campaign against Khan, from the hostility directed at his Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expansion to the relentless attempts to discredit his record as mayor.

As we have previously explored, Khan has become a convenient whipping boy for the right, with opposition to ULEZ often descending into a campaign of personal attacks. The irony is that the policy was originally conceived under Boris Johnson when he was London mayor.

And this selective approach to London’s record on crime is nothing new.

Figures released earlier this year by City Hall and the Metropolitan Police showed that neighbourhood crime had fallen by around 14 percent over the preceding 12 months, equivalent to roughly 35,000 fewer offences across the capital.

Several outlets, including the BBC, LBC and the Independent, reported the figures prominently. Yet, much of the right-wing press showed considerably less enthusiasm for reporting evidence that challenged its preferred narrative.

The Daily Mail, the Sun and the Daily Express have all found plenty of column inches for stories depicting London as a city in decline. Evidence of falling crime, however, has proved far less enticing.

Consider the Daily Express’s coverage of the previous year’s crime figures, when it declared that Khan had been “humiliated” by supposedly “buried” statistics exposing the “true extent of lawless London.”

Rather than offering a balanced assessment of crime trends, the paper presented the figures as ammunition against the mayor.
When crime figures worsen, the public deserves to know. When they improve, the public deserves to know that, too.

Yet the disparity in coverage suggests that, for much of the press, crime is newsworthy primarily when it reinforces an established political narrative. Stories that portray London as a lawless mess are useful weapons against a Labour mayor; evidence of progress is considerably less convenient.

The post Right-Wing Media Watch: London phone theft hits four-year low, yet the media remains silent appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Research suggests this political appropriation of Christianity, in which central teachings of compassion, humility and care for the vulnerable are being repurposed as a political weapon against immigrants, Muslims and those deemed insufficiently patriotic, has little to do with regular religious practice.

A recent report by the think tank Theos, Beyond ‘Christian nationalism’: Measuring attitudes to Christianity and Britishness today, identified a group it calls “identity integrationists,” accounting for 11 percent of respondents. They see Christianity as fundamental to British identity and believe its heritage must be defended against threatening outside influences.

Yet just 13 percent of this group regularly attended church. Its members were also strongly hostile to immigration and Islam, while only 19 percent agreed that Christian values required welcoming and supporting asylum seekers.

For many, Christianity, it seems, appears to function less as a faith to practise than an identity to defend.

One Tommy Robinson supporter told the BBC he didn’t necessarily believe in God but felt compelled to attend church because he feared Christianity was being replaced.

This is religion shaped less by spiritual conviction than by cultural anxiety: an attempt to reclaim a supposedly lost national identity, with Muslims and immigrants cast as threats.

And church leaders have pushed back. In September 2025, Church of England bishops joined other Christian leaders in condemning the “co-opting of the cross” at Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally to divide people and exclude others.

Their message was that the cross represents sacrifice for others, while Jesus called on people to love their neighbours. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams similarly urged people to recognise migrants as vulnerable human beings.

But conservative figures have challenged the Church’s authority to speak on these issues. Ceirion Dewar, a bishop in the traditionalist Confessing Anglican Church, led a prayer at Robinson’s rally, describing his participation as a Christian duty. He argued that people there sincerely believed Britain’s Christian foundations were being eroded.

From the clergy to the courtroom

The battle is not confined to rallies and online influencers. It’s playing out within the Church of England itself.

Project Spire, a £100 million initiative addressing the Church’s historical links to transatlantic slavery, has become a target for Conservative politicians and religious traditionalists.

After 24 Conservative MPs and four peers criticised the project, Dame Sarah Mullally defended the Church’s “calling to confront historic injustice.”

Critics argued that spending the money was wrong when churches across the country were struggling to keep their doors open.

Jamie Franklin, a Church of England priest, went even further, taking legal action against the Church over the project. Writing in the right-wing magazine The Critic, he described it as legally, historically and morally dubious.

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While the dispute might raise legitimate questions about how the Church should allocate its resources, it also illustrates how efforts to confront Britain’s historical injustices have become another front in the culture wars, with critics framing attempts at restitution as an attack on the institution itself.

Franklin’s claim to be defending the Church sits uneasily with his decision to take it to court. If the aim is to protect the institution, the question is whether this approach strengthens it or deepens its divisions.

A familiar right-wing playbook

Sadly, the fight over the Church of England fits a wider pattern. Institutions that embody aspects of Britain’s social and cultural life have repeatedly found themselves targeted by right-wing campaigns against so-called ‘wokeness.’

The National Trust has faced years of attacks from campaigners who object to its treatment of colonialism, slavery and Britain’s past. The NHS, meanwhile, remains a source of national pride, yet chronic underfunding under consecutive Tory governments has helped undermine public confidence and create opportunities for greater private-sector involvement.

The BBC has also long been a target. In November 2025, following controversy over its clumsy editing of a Donald Trump speech, Boris Johnson demanded that director-general Tim Davie either explain the changes or resign, declaring he would not pay his licence fee. Within days, Davie and the corporation’s news chief, Deborah Turness, had announced their resignations.

The recurring pattern is notable; institutions are portrayed as corrupted by progressive values, their authority undermined, and their defenders cast as enemies of the nation.

The Church of England is now caught in the same struggle, with its commitment to confronting historical injustice and welcoming vulnerable people increasingly at odds with a political movement that claims Christianity as its own. It does seem though that the far right’s capacity to co-opt fundamental values as exclusively their own – see patriotism, free speech, democracy itself – is meeting real resistance from Christians and their churches.

A global struggle for Christianity – ‘Judeo-Christian’ values

This battle is not uniquely British.

Across Europe, far-right parties increasingly invoke ‘Judeo-Christian values’ not as a commitment to religious principles, but as a cultural identity marker, defining a supposedly shared European civilisation against an imagined Islamic threat.

Research by Dr Toby Greene, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, found widespread references to Europe’s ‘Judeo-Christian’ roots among radical-right parties. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), for example, declares it:

“Opposes Islamic practice which is directed against our liberal-democratic constitutional order, our laws, and the Judeo-Christian and humanist foundations of our culture.”

Greene identifies comparable rhetoric from Marine Le Pen in France and Nigel Farage. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has similarly cultivated an image of herself as a Christian mother, using religious identity as a political badge rather than advocating a consistent commitment to Christian doctrine.

The Catholic Church has also faced fierce opposition from conservative and traditionalist factions over its direction.

Pope Francis, who led the Church from 2013 to 2025, angered right-wing critics through his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics, his support for blessings for same-sex couples and his emphasis on climate change and economic inequality.

His successor, Pope Leo XIV, has likewise attracted attacks from MAGA-aligned figures in the United States. Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer have criticised Leo over his support for migrants and opposition to nationalist rhetoric, branding him “anti-MAGA,” “pro-open borders” and a “globalist.”

Such hostility exposes the political fault line running through Christianity: between a faith that calls for solidarity across borders, and one increasingly harnessed to nationalism, exclusion and cultural grievance.

The question is not whether Christians should engage in politics, nor whether churches should be immune from criticism. It’s whether religious institutions can retain their moral independence when political movements seek to define faith on their own terms.

If the right truly wants to defend the Christian tradition, it might start by taking its central teachings on compassion, humility and care for the vulnerable seriously.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

The post How the Right are trying to take over the Church of England appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Enter Sean Duffy, Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, former Fox News host and enthusiastic culture warrior. Duffy has made dismantling what he calls ‘woke’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies a priority, targeting Biden-era initiatives, bike infrastructure and university research grants as supposedly wasteful spending.

“Remember when Biden and Boot-edge-edge used YOUR MONEY for DEI bike lanes and climate change? THAT’S OVER,” Duffy posted on X in July, claiming he had redirected $1.73 billion in federal transportation grants away from “Biden-era DEI pet projects” towards roads, bridges and ports.

His department has also restricted funding for speed cameras and pedestrian safety projects, while dismissing investment in cycling infrastructure as “crap” and “DEI pet projects” associated with his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg.

Apparently, even making roads safer for people who don’t drive has become a culture-war offence.

Duffy’s priorities have already attracted criticism. Earlier this year, he faced accusations of being spectacularly out of touch after announcing The Great American Road Trip, a reality TV show following his family on a seven-month journey across the country by van, amid transportation crises and rising fuel prices.

“How much more unfocused, unserious, and out of touch can you be?” asked Chasten Buttigieg, husband of the former transportation secretary.

But the concerns go beyond tone-deaf television appearances. Critics argue Duffy is jeopardising road safety by allowing MAGA ideology to dictate transport policy.

Barbara McCann, who worked on road safety policy at the US Department of Transportation for more than a decade, has warned the administration’s attacks on cycling infrastructure risk sidelining evidence-based approaches to preventing deaths and injuries.

“You pick someone who’s vulnerable and attack them,” McCann told the Guardian. “They decided that bicyclists are vulnerable and that they could use that as a political wedge. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with actual safety.”

Duffy insists his department remains committed to safer roads and reducing fatalities. Yet critics fear that decades of road-safety evidence are being sacrificed to a political agenda that treats cyclists, pedestrians and climate-friendly transport as ideological enemies rather than legitimate parts of the transport system.

McCann also sees parallels between the administration’s attacks on bike lanes and its crackdown on immigrant truck drivers. Both, she argues, reflect an effort to assert dominance over vulnerable groups.

“That’s just a classic feature of the autocratic playbook,” she said. “They pick scapegoats and go after them. That has absolutely nothing to do with safety.”

As a cyclist, I know that sharing roads with motorists can be challenging enough without politicians actively turning cycling into a culture-war target. Potholes, dangerous junctions and inconsiderate driving are problems that need practical solutions, not partisan point-scoring.

When making roads safer becomes ‘woke,’ it’s clear that MAGA’s culture warriors have lost sight of common sense, leaving cyclists in the firing line of a political crusade against progress.

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: MAGA’s war on cyclists moves up a gear appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Called GB Music Radio, the new 24-hour station promises to be a “Fearless Champion of British Music,” playing exclusively artists from Great Britain and Northern Ireland. U2 fans, presumably, will have to look elsewhere and Christmas without the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York just won’t be the same.

The station will feature programmes including the Great British Breakfast and the Great British Drive Home, combining its music output with hourly news bulletins and traffic and travel updates. A dedicated website, GBMusicRadio.com, will also carry the station’s broadcasts.

According to GB News, the launch is the first in a series of initiatives designed to take the broadcaster’s content into new formats and celebrate Britain’s cultural contribution.

The station will stream around the clock, with every track performed by an artist from Great Britain or Northern Ireland, or by a band whose main proportion of members are British.

A GB Media spokesperson said: “We are a media company that has demonstrated its commitment to celebrating Britain and its rich culture.”

They added that the station would showcase artists from Great Britain and Northern Ireland “across the generations,” describing British music as one of the country’s “extraordinary achievements on the world stage.”

GB News chief revenue officer Ross Sergeant was equally enthusiastic, saying: “GB Music Radio gives advertisers something genuinely new: a station built around a single, warm idea that almost everyone in this country can get behind.”

British music, but who decides what counts?

The announcement attracted considerable attention online, although not all of it has been the enthusiastic reception GB News might have hoped for.

“British music for British people…” posted campaign group Leeds for Europe, capturing the nationalist overtones of a station whose central selling point is the nationality of the people making the music.

“Can artists refuse to have their music played on it?” asked one commenter, probing at the practicalities of a patriotic playlist.

Another wondered: “What happens if the British artists are signed to US labels or singing songs written by foreigners?”

The station’s inclusion of Northern Ireland also prompted mockery. “The press release explicitly mentions ‘Northern Ireland’, so I’m expecting loads of Kneecap,” one person joked.

Another commenter imagined artists “queuing up to remove the rights for this station to play their music.”

British music has, of course, never been a neatly bounded national product. The Blues, born out of African American experience, helped shape British rock and roll, while Caribbean rhythms transformed everything from ska and reggae to punk and British pop. Yes, British music has been enriched by migration, international collaboration and artists who routinely cross national borders. GB News’ promise only to play British music for British people, is therefore a little short-sighted, to put it mildly.

And whether the artists themselves will be keen to join the party, well that remains to be seen.

The post Right-Wing Media Watch: British music for British people? GB News’ latest culture war comes with a playlist appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Reform UK’s £72m donation from cryptocurrency investors Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo in September was an enormous political story. It exceeded the total received by all UK political parties in 2025, while the pair have accounted for more than 80% of Reform’s funding since its founding in 2019.

But while the scale of the donation made headlines, its potential political significance is an even bigger story. The money is more than a spectacular boost to Reform’s finances. It shines a light on the growing influence of cryptocurrency interests in politics, and the increasingly close relationship between wealthy crypto investors and right-wing politicians.

The concern goes beyond the ability of the ultra-rich to bankroll political parties. It’s whether politicians who benefit from such extraordinary generosity will shape policy in ways that advance their donors’ financial interests. The real story is not simply how much money crypto can buy politicians, but what that money might buy in return.

Crypto’s political spending spree

As is so often the case with the latest developments on the right, America provides an indication of what could lie ahead in Britain.

Analysis of Federal Election Commission records by CNBC found 14 of the 20 biggest donors and donor groups in the 2026 US midterm election cycle had backed exclusively, or almost exclusively, Republican candidates and aligned organisations.

A new wave of political money is coming from cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and online gambling executives and companies. Together, these interests have poured more than $377m into candidates, political action committees and industry-backed groups.

Super PACs, which are political organisations that can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and other permitted sources, can spend vast sums supporting or opposing candidates, provided they operate independently of the campaigns they seek to influence. Although they can’t donate directly to candidates or coordinate their spending with them, they offer wealthy interests a powerful means of shaping electoral outcomes.

The scale of this spending raises an obvious question: what do these donors expect in return?

We only have to look at Trump as a troubling case study.
Trump’s crypto conversion

In 2021, Trump dismissed cryptocurrency as a “scam,” telling Fox News: “I like the currency of the United States.”

Fast-forward a few years and the picture looks very different. The President has embraced the industry, championed its expansion and rolled back regulatory constraints, while his family has established commercial interests in the sector.

In 2024, Trump formally announced his support for the family-linked cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial. Its website describes the business as “Inspired by Donald J Trump,” presenting it as part of a new era of finance.

Trump also turned cryptocurrency into a campaign issue. As the 2024 presidential election approached, his campaign announced that it would accept digital currency donations, declaring: “We proudly offer you a chance to contribute to the campaign with cryptocurrency.”

On Truth Social, he promised that all remaining Bitcoin should be “MADE IN THE USA,” claiming this would help America achieve energy dominance. For Trump, crypto was no longer a threat to the American financial system but an industry his administration should actively promote.

The financial stakes are enormous. Analysis published by Public Citizen shows cryptocurrency interests accounted for $274m of corporate political spending in the 2024 election cycle, representing 44 percent of the total covered by its analysis. That dwarfed the $28.25m in contributions cited for Koch-linked political organisations.

Trump’s family has also profited hugely from its crypto ventures. Deutsche Welle reported that Trump made more than $1bn from cryptocurrency sales in 2025.

This is where the relationship becomes particularly troubling. A president who can influence the rules governing an industry while his family benefits commercially from that same industry, presents an obvious conflict-of-interest concern.

As Peter Geoghegan, editor of Democracy for Sale, put it: “What Big Oil took decades to achieve, crypto has done in one election cycle: it’s bought the political process.”

Could Britain could be heading in the same direction?
Farage’s crypto revolution

Reform is among a small number of British political organisations to have accepted cryptocurrency donations, alongside the far-right Homeland Party and the Other Party, which describes itself as a direct-democracy movement.

Byline Times reports that Reform uses the Polish company Radom Pay to process crypto donations and check donors’ eligibility. Byline’s report also raises questions about other parties’ arrangements. Advance, the short-lived party founded by former Reform deputy leader Ben Habib, also reportedly considered accepting Bitcoin and Ethereum. Habib said the party was wound up in July 2026 to avoid splitting the right and clear the way for Rupert Lowe’s Restore party.

For Reform, however, cryptocurrency is about more than a convenient way to collect donations. Farage has made the industry’s interests a clear part of his political agenda.

The Reform leader has insisted that Harborne expects nothing in return for the millions he has donated to the party and the separately reported £5m personal gift disclosed in April. But there is no need to assume an explicit bargain to recognise the potential for a conflict of interest when a politician receives such extraordinary financial backing from an industry stakeholder.

Farage has already signalled where he stands on one issue of direct relevance to crypto investors, that is the proposed digital pound, dubbed ‘Britcoin.’

In June, Farage reportedly urged Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey to abandon the plans. Speaking at the Zebu Live cryptocurrency conference in 2025, he told an audience of crypto enthusiasts that he would be “prepared to go to prison” to stop a central bank digital currency being introduced under a digital ID system.

Farage presents his opposition as a defence of personal freedom and privacy. But while such concerns may deserve consideration in any debate about digital money and state surveillance, the wider commercial implications also matter.

Harborne is a major shareholder in Tether, holding an estimated 12% stake in the company behind USDT, the world’s most widely traded stablecoin. Stablecoins are digital currencies designed to maintain a stable value, typically by being pegged to a conventional currency such as the US dollar.

Industry representatives have argued that a digital pound could threaten demand for privately issued stablecoins. A state-backed alternative could therefore have consequences for companies operating in this market, like Tether.

Tax breaks, Bitcoin reserves and lighter regulation

Speaking at a cryptocurrency conference in Las Vegas in 2025, Farage unveiled a draft Crypto Assets and Digital Finance Bill, promising a ‘crypto revolution,’ if Reform entered government.

His proposals included cutting capital gains tax on crypto assets to 10%, compared with the then maximum rate of 24%, and establishing a Bitcoin digital reserve at the Bank of England.

The announcement came a month after then chancellor Rachel Reeves published draft legislation to bring crypto asset firms within a regulatory framework similar to traditional finance.

While clear regulation can protect consumers without stifling innovation, it’s very different from offering tax cuts and other favourable policies to an industry whose wealthy participants have helped finance a political party.

Farage’s proposals would raise fundamental questions about who benefits from his vision of Britain’s financial future. A lower capital gains tax rate could deliver substantial savings to investors, while a state-backed Bitcoin reserve would expose public policy to a notoriously volatile asset.

Reform must explain how these measures serve the public interest and why their benefits justify the risks. The extraordinary financial support Reform has received from crypto investors makes those questions all the more pressing.

Could crypto undermine British democracy?

The more immediate problem with cryptocurrency donations is establishing who is really behind the money.

Digital wallets can facilitate rapid cross-border transactions, while the use of intermediaries and complex ownership structures can make it harder to establish the ultimate source of funds. Crypto transactions aren’t inherently anonymous, and many can be traced on public blockchains. But tracing a transaction is not necessarily the same as establishing the identity, eligibility or intentions of the person ultimately funding a political donation.

That creates risks in a system that restricts foreign donations and requires political funding to be transparent. Crypto donations could provide a route for ineligible foreign interests to influence British elections, particularly where checks are inadequate.

The government has moved to address these concerns. Before Parliament’s summer recess, ministers announced plans to amend the Representation of the People Bill to ban cryptocurrency donations and introduce an annual £100,000 cap on political donations from British citizens living overseas, alongside a corresponding limit on regulated transactions such as loans.

The measures are intended to protect UK democracy from foreign interference and financial influence. A ban would close one potential route for money of uncertain origin to enter politics, although effective enforcement and transparency would remain essential.

Electoral integrity requires more than preventing fraud. Voters must also trust that political parties cannot be financially captured by powerful private interests.

In America, Trump’s transformation from crypto sceptic to presidential champion has coincided with the expansion of his family’s commercial interests in the sector. In Britain, Farage is promising tax cuts, a Bitcoin reserve and a crypto-friendly economic revolution as his party receives extraordinary sums from cryptocurrency investors.

Crypto may promise a financial revolution. But if its richest investors can use their wealth to influence politics and secure favourable treatment, the rewards risk flowing to those who already have the most – at everyone else’s expense.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

The post Coining in: How crypto is buying right-wing politics appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Wiley is known for his large-scale paintings celebrating Black identity, often placing Black subjects in compositions inspired by traditional European portraiture. His portrait of Obama was unveiled in 2018 and now hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

But the artist’s work has become a target of the Trump administration’s cultural purge. In August, a painting Wiley created for the US State Department in 2013 was removed from the US Embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on ideological grounds.

Young Artists After Siamesas 1960 depicts four Dominican models against an elaborate floral backdrop. Before its removal, the painting was hidden behind a tarp emblazoned with an image of the American flag.

Announcing the move on social media, US ambassador to the Dominican Republic Leah Campos said: “In the Trump Administration and under my leadership we are turning away from globalist and woke ideologies and instead embracing American patriotism and the beauty of our great country!”

Yet neither Campos nor Erin Scavino, director of the State Department’s Art in Embassies programme, has clearly explained what makes Wiley’s painting objectionable. As the New York Times has reported, the criticism has instead focused on the artist himself and his association with Obama.

Scavino took over the programme at the beginning of Trump’s second term. She has emphasised acquiring and displaying art featuring patriotic imagery. Her previous experience includes working as an attorney and appearing as a contestant on Trump’s reality television show the Apprentice. She is also married to White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino.

This summer, she organised an exhibition in Washington titled Passport to Patriotism: 250 Years of Diplomacy, featuring 56 works incorporating 68 representations of the American flag.

Established in 1963, Art in Embassies was designed to advance cross-cultural dialogue and strengthen international relationships through art. Wiley’s painting formed part of the embassy’s permanent collection, and in 2015 the state department awarded him its Medal of Arts in recognition of his contributions to the programme.

Now, according to the New York Times, the department wants to sell the very work it commissioned.

Virginia Shore, who commissioned the painting and served as the programme’s director of acquisitions and chief curator between 2000 and 2017, said the work was nonpartisan. She also noted that there was no precedent for selling embassy artworks.

“Calling this woke is difficult for me to understand,” she said. “This is a program validated and financially backed under Bush.

“There is a science of building trust and empathy across borders.”

Her comments highlight what is at stake. A programme intended to build relationships between the US and the wider world risks being repurposed to promote a narrow, politically approved vision of American identity.

Wiley has previously attracted criticism from conservative commentators over his 2012 painting Judith and Holofernes, which depicts a Black woman holding the severed head of a white woman. Wiley described the work as a play on the “kill whitey thing”.

He also faced scrutiny in 2024 over allegations of sexual assault, which he denies.

In an executive order issued in March, Trump directed the Smithsonian to remove what he called “improper ideology” and “divisive narratives,” while placing greater emphasis on what he described as American greatness. That same month, his administration reduced the federal workforce responsible for preserving a collection of 26,000 publicly owned artworks.

Ultimately, this brand of patriotism looks less like celebrating American greatness and more like deciding whose art, identities and stories deserve to represent the country.

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: Trump’s war on ‘woke’ art escalates appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

The article centres on warnings to Andy Burnham that reversing Brexit would allow the EU to “plunder” Britain and betray his Makerfield constituents. The source of this alarm is Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who accused the PM of wanting to plunge the country into another era of “tedious and divisive Brexit debates,” ahead of the landmark UK-EU summit next month.

What the Express conspicuously omitted was the growing evidence that public opinion has shifted since the 2016 referendum.

A recent YouGov poll found that most Britons would vote to rejoin the EU if given another referendum, with just 27% opting to remain outside.

Nor does the Express’ scare story stand up particularly well in Burnham’s own constituency. Although 65% of Makerfield voters backed Leave in 2016, a Best for Britain poll found that just 38% would now vote to stay outside the EU, compared with 45% who would vote to rejoin.

These figures hardly support the idea that closer ties with Europe would amount to a betrayal of local voters. Instead, they suggest the political ground has shifted considerably since Brexit, something the Express’ front page was in no hurry to acknowledge.

Needless to say, the article prompted criticism online.

 “The Express and its readers are running scared,” wrote Sheffield for Europe.

 “If it’s in the Express, I automatically believe the opposite,” was another comment.

One reader joked that the Express was useful for “lining the rabbit hutch.”

A selection of previous Daily Express front pages also circulated online, reminding how confidently the newspaper has thrown its weight behind political figures and predictions that have subsequently aged rather badly.

Among them were “Only Cameron can save Britain,” “Vote May or we face disaster,” “Down but not out! Why we MUST put faith in Boris,” and, perhaps most memorably, “Put faith in Truss to deliver for Britain.”

The common thread is a style of political campaigning that relies on dramatic warnings, urgent appeals and emotive language, rather than a sustained examination of the evidence. The paper’s latest Brexit headline follows the same familiar formula: present renewed engagement with Europe as a looming catastrophe while giving little attention to polling suggesting that public attitudes have moved on.

For a newspaper so fond of predicting disaster, Express front pages offer a timely reminder that its political certainties have a habit of ageing badly.

The post Right-Wing Media Watch: Express’ Brexit scare stories are ageing as badly as its front pages appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

It may sound like political propaganda delivered free to your door. That, in essence, is the plan.

According to The Spectator, Reform UK is preparing to distribute The Reformer to 15 million households nationwide, a potential reach exceeding that of Metro, Britain’s most widely distributed free newspaper. Former Spiked editor Mick Hume is expected to play a leading role, with the publication featuring Reform policies, party announcements and comment pieces by Farage.

The party’s stated ambition is to bypass the traditional press and online gatekeepers. But this is about more than getting its message out. Reform is building a media operation capable of putting its own narrative directly in front of millions of voters, with little of the scrutiny that independent journalism is supposed to provide.

From Mussolini to Trump: the politics of controlling the message

Reform’s plans might be dismissed as an expensive propaganda exercise, but the wider implications deserve serious attention.

There are troubling parallels with the media strategies of other populist and authoritarian leaders.

Benito Mussolini founded Il Popolo d’Italia in 1914, initially as a pro-war newspaper. It later became a key instrument of fascist propaganda and political mobilisation. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has used his Truth Social platform to communicate directly with supporters, bypassing conventional press channels and issuing announcements that are quickly amplified across the wider media. As News24 has reported, Truth Social helps sustain a right-wing media ecosystem in which Trump’s posts are repeatedly circulated and echoed by sympathetic outlets.

Hungary offers another warning. Over 16 years in power, Viktor Orbán’s government and its allies consolidated much of the country’s media landscape through regulatory changes, financial pressure and takeovers. Pro-government outlets benefited from state advertising, while public service media increasingly served the government’s interests.

These examples demonstrate how political power can be strengthened when leaders don’t simply seek favourable coverage but build systems designed to control the flow of information itself.

Reform is not operating in the same circumstances as Mussolini’s Italy or Orbán’s Hungary, but its ambition to combine direct-to-voter publishing, digital journalism, video broadcasting and an enormous financial war chest raises legitimate questions about the balance between political communication and independent scrutiny.

A £72m war chest and a newsroom of its own

The Reformer freebie newspaper is only one part of the operation.

Reform has announced plans for a national publishing operation, including an expanded digital newsroom and a video channel, Reform TV, on YouTube.

Press Gazette reports that the party has built a video studio in Westminster and intends to recruit around 25 staff, including editors, multimedia reporters, social media specialists and a data and analytics lead. The aim is to turn its website into a national publishing operation ahead of the next general election and beyond.

The scale of the financial backing is terrifying. Reform is reportedly seeking to raise £100 million for the next election, with £72 million already raised. Two £36 million donations from cryptocurrency billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne have provided colossal firepower.

That level of funding could give Reform a communications operation with a reach few political parties could hope to match.

The concern is what happens when a political organisation with such resources builds an integrated media operation designed to dominate the conversation, while simultaneously attacking the credibility of independent outlets that scrutinise it.

GB News: Farage’s awkward double act

Yet, ironically, Reform TV could also create an awkward problem for GB News, where Farage has presented a prime-time programme for five years.

After a break of more than six months for campaigning, the Reform leader recently returned to his three-evenings-a-week presenting schedule. But how will the channel respond when its star presenter becomes the face of a rival operation with its own studio, newsroom and substantial funding?

Writing in the i, broadcaster Michael Crick has suggested Reform’s financial resources could threaten GB News, potentially setting up a battle between two right-wing channels built around the same political figure.

Farage’s media ambitions could undermine one of his most prominent platforms. But the more consequential issue perhaps, is the role political figures play in broadcasting, and the rules designed to prevent news coverage from becoming an extension of party campaigning.

Unlike newspapers, broadcasters in the UK are subject to statutory requirements for due accuracy and impartiality. Those safeguards are intended to protect audiences from the unchecked political influence that can accompany broadcast power.

Yet GB News has repeatedly attracted complaints and regulatory scrutiny. Between its launch in 2021 and March 2024, Ofcom received 21,671 complaints about the channel, according to figures previously reported by Left Foot Forward.

In March 2025, following a High Court ruling overturning earlier findings against Jacob Rees-Mogg’s GB News programme, Ofcom discontinued six remaining investigations into politicians presenting news programmes, including those involving Farage. The case intensified debate about whether the regulatory framework is adequate for a broadcasting landscape in which politicians can combine presenting roles with direct party leadership.

Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has warned that Britain has, almost by stealth, allowed one political party to acquire what amounts to its own television station. The concern isn’t just that a broadcaster has right-wing views, but that political campaigning and news presentation can become increasingly difficult to distinguish.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown has also called for stronger media regulation, and for Ofcom to “be given more teeth.”

“I think we’ve got to look very carefully at GB News and all these broadcast companies that are emerging, because we’ve got a far wider range of broadcasters and the system of regulation is not good enough to cope with it,” he told Sky News.

Attack the watchdog, discredit the press

Farage’s ambitions extend beyond building his own platforms. He has repeatedly attacked the BBC, accusing it of left-wing bias, election interference and double standards, with Reform pledging to scrap the TV licence.

His response to critical reporting has followed a familiar pattern.

During the 2024 general election campaign, Channel 4’s undercover investigation captured a Reform canvasser making racist remarks about then-prime minister Rishi Sunak and saying the army should “just shoot” asylum seekers crossing the Channel.

Farage dismissed the investigation as a stitch-up, alleging that the canvasser was a paid actor. After facing criticism on Question Time, he accused the BBC of rigging its audience and attacked both broadcasters as partisan institutions.

Repeatedly portraying critical journalism as a conspiracy, risks eroding public trust in the very institutions responsible for holding politicians to account. And that is particularly concerning when the same politician is expanding his own media platforms and seeking to discredit the outlets that might scrutinise them.

Observer editor-in-chief James Harding has warned against assuming Trump-style attacks on the media could never happen in Britain. He argues the BBC’s independence was at stake and called for reforms to strengthen its protection from political interference, including removing the prime minister’s power to appoint its chair and board.

The question isn’t whether the BBC or other broadcasters should be immune from criticism. It’s whether independent journalism can survive if political leaders systematically undermine its credibility while building alternative channels over which they exercise far greater control.

The right-wing press: Farage or Badenoch?

Farage’s relationship with the established right-wing press seems to be a bit more complicated. The Daily Mail, Telegraph and Express have often amplified Reform’s agenda, but their loyalties can shift between Farage and Kemi Badenoch.

Following the Conservatives’ recent party conference, the Mail enthusiastically declared “Kemi’s the new Thatcher,” embracing Badenoch’s promise to return the party to old-school values.

That enthusiasm coincided with polling suggesting the Conservatives had overtaken Reform to take second place nationally.

The Times reported that the figures would worry Farage’s strategists as the party struggled to halt its decline in support.

But when the Conservatives suffer setbacks or prominent figures defect, the same newspapers can quickly return to treating 
Farage as the dominant force on the right. In January, the Telegraph gave former Conservative leadership contender Robert Jenrick a platform to declare: “I’ve joined Reform, and you should too.”

Brexbox TV – who?

Yet there is, perhaps, one tangible reason not to assume Reform’s media ambitions will succeed.

Farage has been there before. In 2019, his Brexit Party launched Brexbox, a short-lived YouTube and social media venture intended to bypass traditional journalists and deliver political commentary directly to voters.

“We thought we’d take matters into our own hands,” said Brexit Party MEP Belinda De Lucy at the launch.

But rather than being a broadcasting revolution, the show produced just 13 episodes before fading away into oblivion.

Its surviving broadcasts, which you can still watch on YouTube – if you dare – provide a glimpse of a predictable format: Brexit triumphalism, attacks on the press and theatrical denunciations of the EU. In one episode, presenting from the European
Parliament in Brussels, host David Bull announced, “the big bananas are in town,” as the UK and EU approached a Brexit deal.

Nigel Farage propped up the panel, decrying the deal as a dark chapter in what he’d spent 25 years of his life fighting for.
Brexbox’s demise is no guarantee that Reform TV will meet the same fate. The party now has vastly greater financial resources, an even more prominent leader and a more robust media strategy.

But it does illustrate that bypassing journalists doesn’t automatically create an audience or a lasting media operation.

The stakes are nevertheless considerably higher this time. Reform is not merely launching a newspaper or a YouTube channel, it’s attempting to build an interconnected political media machine, backed by extraordinary sums of money and fronted by a
leader who already enjoys extensive exposure in the legacy media.

Independent journalism isn’t perfect, and broadcasters and newspapers should always be held to account. But a democracy cannot function properly if political parties become their own newsrooms, their leaders their own broadcasters, and criticism is routinely dismissed as bias.

So, if The Reformer lands on your doorstep, you’ll know exactly where to shove it.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

The post Farage’s propaganda machine sets its sight on 15 million homes appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

The phrase has become a favourite among critics of corporate social responsibility, implying that companies face a binary choice: embrace progressive values or make money.

The latest company to be wheeled out as supposed proof is Nike, following footballer Kylian Mbappé’s decision to leave the sportswear giant for rival brand On.

The Telegraph was quick to frame the move as further evidence of Nike’s supposed malaise, pointing to the company’s removal from the S&P 100 after 18 years, its falling share price and the more than £150bn wiped off its market value since 2021.

Nike has had a difficult few years but presenting its current struggles as the inevitable consequence of being ‘woke’ is a very different proposition, and one the evidence doesn’t support.

Nike’s ‘woke’ problem, according to the Telegraph

The Telegraph’s headline says it all: “Go woke, go broke”: The fall of Nike.

The article dredges up the Republican boycott of Nike following its 2018 decision to feature former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in its ‘Dream Crazy’ advertising campaign.

Kaepernick had protested racial inequality and police brutality by taking the knee during the US national anthem. His decision to work with Nike provoked fury on the American right, with some Trump supporters burning their Nike trainers and clothing in protest.

Donald Trump declared that Nike was being “killed” by anger and boycotts and wondered whether the company had anticipated the backlash.

There was just one problem with that particular culture-war prediction.

Nike’s US sales rose by 31 percent in the three days after the Kaepernick advert was released.

The Telegraph’s own article therefore contains evidence that rather neatly undermines its central thesis.

The ‘go woke, go broke’ myth

The piece quotes Republican Senator Ted Cruz celebrating Nike’s falling share price and boasting about buying other trainers after the Kaepernick controversy.

“Go woke, go broke,” the article concludes, has become a popular expression for Nike’s ‘malaise’ and its supposed prioritisation of social justice over making good trainers.

Except there is a rather large hole in that argument.

Nike remains one of the world’s biggest and most profitable sportswear companies, generating more than $11bn in quarterly revenue and maintaining one of the most impressive portfolios of athlete endorsements in global sport.

According to Players Couture, Nike remained the undisputed leader in athlete endorsements in 2025, with a strategy built around elite sporting talent, cultural relevance and storytelling.

And Nike is hardly unique.

Research challenges the wider “go woke, go broke” narrative. A 2025 study by film data analyst Stephen Follows, presented at the Zurich Film Festival, examined whether supposedly “woke” films really perform worse at the box office.

The answer was considerably more complicated than the culture warriors would have us believe. Follows’ research suggested that some genres, including horror, sport, drama and music-themed films, could actually benefit commercially from diverse casting and identity-driven storytelling.

Meanwhile, economic research has found no direct causal relationship between inclusive policies and corporate financial failure, while identifying economic benefits from greater inclusion, reduced discrimination and lower poverty.

So perhaps progressive values aren’t quite the corporate death sentence the right keeps promising.

Which brings us back to Mbappé.

After almost two decades with Nike, a relationship that began when the French football star was just eight years old, he has reportedly signed a deal with On.

It is entirely possible that this has rather more to do with business than wokeness.

Nike has paid Mbappé hundreds of millions of dollars since he turned professional and continues to sponsor the youth team he played for.

But On has reportedly offered Mbappé a deal involving both cash and equity, similar to the arrangement Roger Federer received when he left Nike for the Swiss brand in 2019.

Sportswear companies also have commercial limits on how much they can spend on individual sponsorships. Nike reportedly has a rule of thumb of spending no more than 10 per cent of a department’s revenue on sponsorships, a factor that has previously been cited in the loss of Federer.

Perhaps, then, Mbappé’s departure is not evidence of Nike being punished by the woke gods after all. Perhaps one of the world’s most commercially successful footballers simply decided another company was offering him a better deal.

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