It was perhaps inevitable, then, that one of Bristol’s most celebrated landmarks would eventually find itself accused of succumbing to ‘wokery.’

Brunel’s SS Great Britain recently underwent a £1.6m redevelopment of its visitor experience. Before the museum had even reopened, the Telegraph was sounding the alarm over what it described as a “controversial rebrand.” The paper reported that “Great Britain” had been dropped from the museum’s branding in favour of “Bristol Dockyard Museum,” supposedly to appeal to a more diverse audience after consultation found some local residents believed “SS” stood for “slave ship” rather than “steam ship.”

Readers were unsurprisingly reminded that the ship sits close to the spot where Colston’s statue was dumped into Bristol Harbour during the 2020 protests.

The consultation documents did indeed discuss broadening the museum’s appeal. They argued that the trust should attract a more ethnically diverse audience and proposed incorporating “new perspectives” on migration and Britain’s global connections. Yet to some commentators, that alone was enough to trigger accusations that Brunel was being erased and history rewritten.

When the redeveloped museum opened on July 18, the Telegraphreturned to the story with a provocative headline asking whether the attraction had “gone woke.” Travel writer Simon Horsford dutifully rehearsed the familiar complaints. Critics, he noted, feared that the redevelopment would diminish the legacy and engineering genius of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who came second only to Winston Churchill in the BBC’s 2002 poll of the greatest Britons. He also repeated the anecdote about some Bristolians confusing “SS” with “slave ship,” once again linking it to the city’s recent history of anti-racist protest.

Yet the same article itself quietly dismantled the very narrative its headline invited readers to believe.

Horsford praised the museum’s extensive archival research, the work of local historians and the richer storytelling that now accompanies the ship. His verdict could hardly have been clearer: “Has the SS Great Britain gone woke? I saw nothing to justify the concerns voiced a few weeks ago, when the rebrand was announced. The ship’s history is dealt with in a balanced manner, and the new museum adds to what’s on offer, rather than detracting from Brunel’s story.”

The supposedly ‘woke’ changes amount to little more than providing additional historical context, telling more of the stories connected to the ship, and making the museum more accessible to a wider audience. Brunel’s achievements remain central.

The only thing that truly appears to have changed is the headline. The SS Great Britain didn’t become another casualty of woke revisionism. It became another prop in a culture war that exists largely because some commentators refuse to stop inventing new fronts in it.

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: SS Great Britain didn’t ‘go woke,’ but the Telegraph couldn’t resist implying it did! appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Alongside the Mail‘s front page showing Andy Burnham with his hands clasped in prayer beneath the headline, “Let’s pray he knows what he’s doing,” Take wrote:

“Well done the Daily Mail! Burnham must be held to account for the failures of his regime so far. His removal of VAT from electricity bills has already come far too late and could have been done yesterday. If he hasn’t solved the cost of living crisis by Friday then he must go.”

Indeed, Burnham had barely assembled his Cabinet before the newspapers were treating his premiership as though it had already failed.

And as for the Cabinet itself… The reaction to Angela Rayner’s return as housing secretary came as little surprise. Regular RWW readers will remember the relentless campaign waged against her during her previous time in the role.

Right on cue, Telegraph personal finance editor Matt Coulson declared: “Bringing back Angela Rayner is Andy Burnham’s first mistake.”

He argued that her appointment “raises difficult questions about standards,” pointing to the stamp duty dispute that ultimately led to her resignation and which the Telegraph itself helped uncover.

HMRC, of course, concluded Rayner had not deliberately avoided tax. She paid what was due, and the matter was resolved.
Then came Ed Miliband, the right’s favourite political punchbag.

“It’s a disgrace that Ed Miliband is Foreign Secretary,” thundered the Spectator‘s Stephen Pollard.

Pollard described Miliband’s appointment as “the most nauseating appointment of my lifetime,” arguing that Miliband’s decision as Labour leader to oppose military intervention against Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in 2013 represented “the single most amoral decision of any mainstream party leader in living memory.”

Of course, this rather ignores the fact that it was Cameron’s government at the time which had to forego intervention in the face of parliamentary opposition following disastrous interventions into Iraq and Libya.

Readers may agree or disagree with Miliband’s judgement over Syria. But presenting a political disagreement as proof that someone is inherently unfit to serve as foreign secretary illustrates how much of the coverage is driven by outrage rather than analysis.

Although, it could be worse, thank God, Miliband’s not chancellor,” as the Mail cried.

Then there was the coverage of lesser-known Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Liberian-born Peckham MP who is now secretary of state for energy and net zero.

“Why Net Zero opponents fear we’ve gone from Mad Miliband to Miatta, even madder than Miliband!” screamed the Mail.

Rather than scrutinising policy, the beginning of the article recounts an awkward television moment in which Fahnbulleh briefly attempted to leave a Newsnight studio through the wrong exit, prompting laughter from those present. The piece then goes on to criticise Fahnbulleh consistent advocation for ambitious investment in green infrastructure. It highlighted her support for spending around five percent of GDP on green investment in 2019 and her calls for significant funding to accelerate Britain’s transition to net zero while supporting climate finance for developing countries.

In other words, the secretary of state for energy and net zero supports investing in green infrastructure and achieving net zero.

Quite the scandal.

One cannot help noticing that Fahnbulleh also embodies several of the characteristics that reliably attract hostility from the right-wing press. She is Black, left-wing, female, highly accomplished, the only MP from Labour’s 2024 intake to receive a full Cabinet post, and a close political ally of Ed Miliband, described by the Mail as a “fervent Ed Miliband loyalist.”

Whether those factors consciously influence coverage is impossible to know. What is undeniable is that politicians fitting this profile often find themselves subjected to a level of scrutiny and ridicule that extends well beyond legitimate policy criticism.

Then there was Matthew McGregor’s appointment as Downing Street’s director of political strategy.

McGregor previously served as director of campaigns and communications at Hope Not Hate. 

That was enough for UnHerd to splash: “Andy Burnham’s embrace of Hope Not Hate is deeply concerning.”

The article argued that Hope Not Hate presents itself as a non-partisan charity while functioning in practice as “a Labour-aligned campaign operation.”

Barely days into Burnham’s premiership, the verdict has already been written. Every appointment is a disaster, every minister a threat, every policy announcement proof of national decline.

If this is the standard being set in week one, it raises an obvious question: if the outrage machine has already reached maximum volume before the government has truly begun, what exactly is left to turn up when there are real decisions to scrutinise?

The post Right-Wing Media Watch: Burnham’s cabinet has barely begun, but the meltdown is in full throttle appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

When Gary wrote those words in the aftermath of the Second World War, he was drawing a clear moral distinction between two very different political instincts. Patriotism, for Gary, meant affection for one’s country and a commitment to its people. Nationalism, by contrast, defined itself not by what it loved but by what it feared and excluded. It required an enemy.

For decades, liberal democracies broadly accepted that distinction. Governments could argue about immigration levels, border security or asylum policy without abandoning the principle that citizenship should not be defined by ethnicity or race, nor that people should be removed simply because they did not belong to the ‘right’ national or cultural group.

Today, however, that dividing line is becoming increasingly blurred.

The final Right-Wing Watch before our summer break – returning in September – takes us to one of the most disturbing developments in contemporary European politics – the mainstreaming of remigration.

Originally promoted by white nationalist activists advocating the mass removal of non-white immigrants and ethnic minorities from Europe, the term remigration was once confined to neo-Nazi circles and the darkest corners of the far right. It was long dismissed as a fringe fantasy rooted in the racist ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory.

That is no longer the case.

While few mainstream politicians openly embrace the term itself, many of the policies once associated with remigration, mass deportations, offshore detention centres, expanded detention powers and making residency increasingly precarious for migrants, are steadily becoming embedded within mainstream politics across Europe. The language remains controversial, but the policy direction increasingly reflects the same underlying logic: reducing immigration not simply by limiting future arrivals, but by facilitating the large-scale removal of those already living in Europe.

The question is no longer whether remigration exists as an extremist ideology. It is how rapidly elements of that ideology are infiltrating mainstream politics.

Europe’s rightward shift

The 2024 European Parliament elections marked a watershed moment.

Far-right parties secured roughly a quarter of all parliamentary seats, increasing their influence over the European Union’s political agenda. Immigration quickly became the defining issue, with centre-right parties adopting positions previously associated with the populist and far right.

In May 2024, the EU formally adopted its new Migration and Asylum Pact, expanding border detention and placing deterrence at the heart of European migration policy. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen argued the reforms would prevent a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis, when around one million people arrived in Europe following the Syrian civil war.
And the political trajectory did not stop there.

In June 2026, negotiators from the European Commission, Council and Parliament reached agreement on another major overhaul of EU migration policy. The reforms would accelerate deportations and formally allow the establishment of so-called ‘return hubs’ in third countries, enabling failed asylum seekers to be transferred to detention facilities outside the European Union, even where they have no previous connection to the destination country.

Critics argue these proposals represent a worrying shift away from Europe’s post-war human rights framework.

French Green MEP Mélissa Camara described the agreement as “a historic setback” for human rights, warning that “the legal arsenal serving a xenophobic ideology is now complete.” She pointed to the legalisation of external return hubs, expanded detention powers, including for minors, and enforcement measures resembling those used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles similarly condemned the reforms as “Byzantine in their complexity and Orban-esque in their cruelty.”

Silvia Carta, spokesperson for the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, warned that Europe was constructing “a draconian detention and deportation machine,” arguing that rather than learning from the controversy surrounding US immigration enforcement, the EU was building its own version.

The most worrying aspect, perhaps, is not just the content of these reforms but the political coalition that delivered them. Centre-right parties increasingly worked alongside the far right to overcome opposition from liberals, Greens and the left.

The policies now being implemented are not identical to the maximalist vision promoted by extremist remigration activists. But they move unmistakably in the same direction. Ideas once dismissed as politically untouchable are increasingly informing mainstream legislative agendas.

How remigration entered Britain

Britain has followed a different political path, but the underlying trend is similar.

The concept of remigration has become worrying visible within British online political debate. A recent study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found more than 76,000 social media posts in 2025 calling for Britain to adopt remigration policies involving the forced deportation of people with migrant backgrounds.

Nearly one in five of those posts originated from US-based accounts, confirming the increasingly transnational nature of anti-immigration networks. Rather than emerging organically within Britain, remigration messaging is being amplified across borders by interconnected online networks.

The study also found that anti-migrant rhetoric had intensified rather than diminished following the far-right riots of summer 2024. Protests around asylum accommodation in places including Epping and Canary Wharf have become fertile ground for radical messaging that would once have remained confined to extremist circles.

The emergence of Remigration Now

That changing environment has created space for organisations explicitly campaigning for remigration.
One of the most prominent is Remigration Now, a pressure group founded by Steve Laws.

The organisation describes itself as a movement dedicated to securing the implementation of remigration policies and presents supporters with the slogan “Help Save Our Country” alongside fundraising appeals.

And its founder, Steve Laws, is no political newcomer. The anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate describe him as a notorious fascist influencer from Folkestone, whose political journey has taken him through For Britain, UKIP, the English Democrats, Reform UK and the Homeland Party before establishing Remigration Now after concluding that even Homeland had become insufficiently committed to remigration.

He has also maintained close links with Patriotic Alternative, one of Britain’s most prominent neo-Nazi organisations.

Hope Not Hate credits Laws with helping popularise so-called “migrant hunting,” filming and harassing refugees arriving on the Kent coast to generate online content. Beginning in Dover in 2019, these videos quickly attracted a large audience on YouTube. In late 2025, Laws enjoyed greater visibility still, when he was quote-tweeted by Elon Musk and made a series of media appearances on more moderate right-wing podcasts.

More recently, investigations suggest that activists associated with Remigration Now have begun embedding themselves within Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain movement.

According to Hope Not Hate, Laws has claimed to enjoy “daily” contact with senior figures around Restore Britain. After becoming a vocal supporter of MP Rupert Lowe, Laws signed up to Restore Britain, telling his supporters:

“It’s not enough to just join Restore. You need to get out and campaign. Leafleting, door to door canvassing, help out with local and national elections and everything in between. Take the online momentum to the streets. Restore has given us the vehicle. It’s on all of us to secure the victory.”

Investigations have also identified members linked to racist abuse, praise for Adolf Hitler and other explicitly fascist activity being connected to Remigration Now. The Times reports that Simon Birkett, leader of The Woodlander Initiative (TWI), which is buying up land to build enclaves for white people, has told his followers that Restore Britain is the far right’s last hope for a political route into power. 

Urging his thousands of YouTube followers to support Restore Britain before the next general election, Birkett said: “Those elections in 2029 are our last shot. It has to be now. It has to be 2029. It’s the last chance.” 

Worryingly, it seems activists promoting an ideology once confined to extremist organisations are increasingly seeing mainstream political movements as viable vehicles through which their ideas can gain influence.

Remigration by stealth?

Britain is not pursuing official mass deportation on the scale advocated by remigration activists. Yet recent immigration reforms raise uncomfortable questions about whether aspects of the same political logic are becoming embedded through less explicit means.

In his paper Remigration by stealth? The government’s earned settlement proposals, James Bowes of the University of Warwick, argues that proposed reforms to settlement rules represent one of the most significant changes to migrants’ legal status in decades.

Unlike previous immigration restrictions, these proposals would affect not only future arrivals but more than two million migrants already living legally in Britain. Longer pathways to Indefinite Leave to Remain would leave migrants facing years of additional visa costs, continued legal insecurity and a substantially greater risk of ultimately losing the right to remain.
As Bowes notes, many people who moved to Britain under one set of expectations may ultimately be forced to leave altogether unless substantial transitional protections are introduced.

The government insists this is not an attempt at mass removal. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of these policies resemble what remigration advocates have long argued for, making long-term residence more difficult, more precarious and ultimately more temporary.

When the fringe becomes the mainstream

With mass deportations, offshore detention, external processing, expanding detention powers, stricter settlement rules, and the growing emphasis on “return,” the organising principle of migration policy all point in the same direction. Remigration is no longer only an extremist slogan. It has become a point of reference in European migration politics, even when politicians avoid using the term itself.

That should concern anyone who cares about liberal democracy. When the language of exclusion becomes ordinary, the ideas behind it rarely remain at the margins for long.

As Romain Gary warned more than eighty years ago, “Patriotism is the love of one’s own, and nationalism is the hatred of others.”

Europe would do well to remember the difference.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

The post The disturbing mainstreaming of remigration in Europe and Britain appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

When Netflix announced last year that it was rebooting Little House on the Prairie, former Fox News host and MAGA cheerleader Megyn Kelly fired off a warning to the streamer: “If you wokeify Little House on the Prairie I will make it my singular mission to absolutely ruin your project.”

Right on cue, with the release of the eight-episode reboot, the outrage machine has lurched into action. Purists and culture warriors alike are denouncing the series for being “woke.”

Their evidence is, apparently, the presence of a Black doctor, a Black storekeeper, an Osage family, and a French Canadian woman who wears trousers and embraces free love. As a Slate critic put it, Netflix “did indeed woke-ify” the story by surrounding the Ingalls family with a more diverse cast of neighbours than viewers of the 1970s television series might remember.

As is so often the case when the culture warriors get their knickers in a twist, the irony is hard to miss.

The original television series, which ran from 1974 to 1983, was hardly an exercise in reactionary nostalgia. Based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s semi-fictionalised accounts of frontier life in the 1870s and 1880s, it regularly tackled racism, antisemitism, addiction, misogyny, sexual assault and domestic violence. Far from being apolitical comfort television, Little House frequently used its wholesome setting to confront difficult social questions.

This was already something of a reworking of Wilder’s books which were never apolitical. Published between 1932 and 1943, they have sold more than 73 million copies and helped shape America’s mythology of the frontier. But that mythology was deeply selective. As the Conversation notes, Wilder presented “a vision of the frontier, and by extension America, as a place defined by an exceptional freedom – but only for white settlers.” Her portrayal of Indigenous and Black people has long attracted criticism, culminating in the American Library Association removing Wilder’s name from its prestigious children’s literature award in 2018.

In that context, Netflix’s decision to broaden the story’s perspective is less a radical rewrite than an acknowledgement of historical realities the original books largely ignored. The reboot introduces Indigenous homesteaders, reflecting the Indian Homestead Act of 1875, which allowed some Indigenous people to claim land in the so-called public domain. Its multi-racial cast is an attempt to tell a fuller story of the American frontier rather than perpetuate an exclusively white one.

Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls in the original television series, was quick to call out Kelly’s outrage. Responding on social media, she wrote:

“Ummm…watch the original again. TV doesn’t get too much more ‘woke’ than we did. We tackled: racism, addiction, nativism, antisemitism, misogyny, rape, spousal abuse and every other ‘woke’ topic you can think of. Thank you very much.” 

Gilbert’s point exposes the hollowness of much of today’s anti-woke narrative.

“Woke” has become less a meaningful criticism than a reflexive label attached to anything that departs from an imagined version of the past.

The reboot’s showrunner, Rebecca Sonnenshine, said what a lot of us think. “I’m not even sure what ‘woke’ means to people anymore,” she told Variety. While the term originally referred to being alert to social injustice, she argued it has degenerated into “a catch-all word for things that I don’t quite understand.” What many critics seem to fear, she suggested, is simply that “something from their childhood will be portrayed in a way that scares them.”

Indeed. The Little House on the Prairie backlash says less about Netflix than it does about the hollowness of today’s anti-woke movement, which clings on to an imaging version of the past.

The American frontier was never as uniformly white as popular culture suggested. Acknowledging that fact is not “wokeifying” history. It’s recognising that history was always more complicated than the myths Americans, and television, liked to tell.

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: Culture vultures sweep on Little House on the Prairie, not realising the original was as ‘woke’ as they come appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

It certainly sounds like a scandal. The paper’s ‘exclusive’ claims to reveal that benefits claimants have been given permission to ignore hosepipe bans.

Except that’s not what the story says.

A few paragraphs in, readers discover the truth: the exemption applies to customers on the WaterSure tariff, a long-established scheme that caps water bills for households on low incomes with high essential water use. That includes many disabled people, families with medical needs and larger households whose water consumption is unavoidable. Customers using water for non-essential purposes, such as filling swimming pools or running sprinklers, are not exempt.

The Telegraph even quotes Southern Water and Affinity Water, whose customers have been subject to hosepipe bans since last week. Both companies explain that the exemption exists to protect vulnerable customers and avoid unnecessary confusion. Affinity Water says the vast majority of WaterSure customers are also on its Priority Services Register, while Southern Water says a complicated exemption system would create “confusion and anxiety” for vulnerable people.

That seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation.

But the Telegraph is not interested in a fair discussion about protecting disabled people or ensuring households with essential water needs are not penalised. Instead, it turns the story into another culture war over benefits.

Enter Suella Braverman, who declares it is “ridiculous” that people on benefits are allowed to ignore the hosepipe ban, before claiming it is another example of “Labour’s two-tier Britain” where “aspiration and hard work are punished.”

Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake is also drafted in to denounce the policy, saying: “It beggars belief that people getting reduced water bills at the expense of everyone else are exempt from this hosepipe ban.”

By the time the water companies’ explanations appear near the end of the article, the damage has already been done. Many readers will have absorbed the front-page implication that benefit claimants are receiving yet another unfair privilege, even though the exemption is based on essential need rather than welfare status.

The numbers make the outrage look even more contrived. WaterSure is a niche scheme used by an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 households across England and Wales. It’s hardly a mass giveaway, nor is it a loophole allowing people to water their lawns and fill their swimming pools, while rubbing their hands in glee that they’re cheating the system.

For once, I find myself agreeing with the water companies. Their approach is about making sure disabled people, and other vulnerable customers are not put at risk.

The Telegraph meanwhile is repackaging a narrowly targeted exemption designed to protect some of the country’s most vulnerable households as evidence of preferential treatment for “people on benefits.”

But, sigh, why are we surprised?

The post Right-wing media watch: Telegraph’s latest benefits shock story is all hot air appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Instead, it risks becoming one of the biggest miscalculations of his career.

When Farage announced he was making a statement about his future in public life, speculation centred on whether he would step down as Reform UK leader. Instead, he resigned as MP and triggered a by-election he fully expected to win comfortably. The gamble has not unfolded as planned.

Polling suggests his personal approval ratings have fallen to their lowest point since the general election, while even the traditionally sympathetic right-wing press appears to be losing patience. What was supposed to demonstrate political strength has instead invited scrutiny of both his leadership and his future.

Does Farage actually need to return to Parliament?

But does he really need to return to Parliament? To become prime minister, a politician must be an MP, as Andy Burnham’s recent scramble over the Makerfield seat demonstrated. Yet Farage’s ambitions for Number 10 remain ambiguous. The Spectator‘s political editor Tim Shipman has said he has asked the Reform leader three times whether he wants to be prime minister and received the same evasive answer each time. In Shipman’s view, forcing a by-election in Clacton appears to be more about maximising influence than maximising his chances of reaching Downing Street.

Nor has Farage ever appeared particularly enthusiastic about the day-to-day responsibilities of being an MP. Since entering Parliament he has maintained no constituency office, recorded one of the Commons’ poorest voting records, and has barely mentioned Clacton in the Commons.

Walking away would free him from the obligations of constituency representation, remove him from the day-to-day scrutiny that comes with being an MP, and allow him to return to the roles he has always seemed to enjoy most – campaigning, broadcasting and cultivating his international profile.

Westminster is already awash with speculation that Farage has grown tired of leading Reform. Since resigning he has spent time in the United States, mixing with the MAGA crowd, with Trump himself publicly endorsing him, sharing an article on Truth Social entitled: “They’re Running the 2024 Anti-Trump Playbook on Nigel Farage.”

Which raises another question: is Farage preparing to jump ship before he’s pushed?

The succession battle has already begun

If Farage were to step aside, Reform would immediately face a leadership contest that exposes divisions already visible beneath the party’s rapid rise.

Three obvious contenders emerge: deputy leader Richard Tice, treasury spokesperson Robert Jenrick and home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf.

None would inherit a united party.

Robert Jenrick: frontrunner or Trojan horse?

Jenrick may be the most experienced parliamentarian in Reform’s ranks, and, if he were to lead the party, he would likely push it towards an even stronger emphasis on border security, tougher asylum laws and civil service reform. But he also attracts the greatest suspicion from the party’s grassroots.

His political journey, from David Cameron supporter and prominent Remainer to one of Britain’s most outspoken anti-immigration politicians, has prompted questions about whether his changing positions are one of conviction or political calculation.

Farage himself was once among his fiercest critics, dismissing him as “Robert the Generic”, “Robert the Remainer” and questioning whether he stood for anything beyond personal advancement.

Many long-standing members remain wary of what they see as the growing influence of former Conservative politicians inside the party, fearing Reform risks becoming “Conservative Party Mark II” rather than the insurgent movement they originally supported.

Nor would Jenrick inherit a harmonious leadership team. His relationship with Zia Yusuf has been marked by public clashes over immigration policy, while leaked messages from 2025 revealed Jenrick had sought private information on Yusuf and privately stated they should “destroy” him.

Richard Tice: the familiar face

Richard Tice offers some continuity at least, having previously led Reform before stepping aside for Farage ahead of the 2024 general election. On policy, Tice would likely represent the closest thing to maintaining Reform’s existing platform of lower taxes, deregulation, tighter immigration controls and opposition to net zero policies.

His earlier leadership, however, failed to expand the party’s profile, and was dogged by turbulent media appearances, scrutiny over his business and tax arrangements, and a brutal slamming by environmental experts for claiming it is “absolute garbage” to say human activities are the main cause of climate change. He also remains closely associated with the current controversies surrounding the party’s finances and donations.

Yet supporters argue he has become a far more recognisable political figure since serving as deputy leader. “Richard Tice has developed significantly,” one source told the iPaper. “When he was temporary leader before Nigel returned, he didn’t have that much of a profile. That’s changed.” 

Zia Yusuf: organiser, donor and divisive figure

Zia Yusuf has become one of the architects of Reform’s organisational growth, having said to have been the driving force behind growing its national infrastructure and membership. He has also championed preparing Reform for government, telling the spiked Summit in June that if the party won the next general election it would be “the most prepared incoming government”, with “thousands of pages of primary legislation ready to go” within its first year.

Yet his own leadership credentials have been called into question by a remarkable inconsistency. In 2025 he abruptly resigned as party chairman, declaring that pursuing a Reform government was no longer “a good use of my time,” before reversing his decision less than 48 hours later, insisting that “the mission is too important.”

While Yusuf commands strong support among many activists, his elevation could prove divisive. Just as a Jenrick victory might unsettle Reform’s traditional base, a Yusuf leadership could alienate parts of the broader coalition the party has assembled under Farage’s leadership.

Restore Britain lingers

Waiting in the wings, enjoying Reform’s turmoil, is Rupert Lowe, leader of righter-than-Reform, Restore Britain. Frozen out after his split with the Reform leadership but backed by figures like Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk, Lowe would almost certainly view any post-Farage instability as an opportunity to reassert himself.

That said, Restore appears unlikely to replicate Reform’s electoral success. Its platform is more radical, advocating a dramatic reduction in immigration and the ‘remigration’ of millions of people as part of a vision for an ethnically homogeneous, Christian Britain. Such positions are likely to appeal to a far narrower set of voters than the broader coalition Farage has assembled.

For now, Restore’s support is likely to remain concentrated in a handful of strongly pro-Brexit areas, like Great Yarmouth, where Lowe is MP.

Farage’s enemy on the right has already distanced himself from the current Clacton drama, saying he would refuse “to participate in a Reform-sponsored media circus.” But if the Commons standards process were ultimately to trigger another Clacton by-election, Restore could yet find itself drawn into the contest.

Reform’s biggest challenge: life after Farage

For all the talk of Reform becoming a serious party of government, its greatest vulnerability remains its dependence on one individual.

Farage has dominated every major strategic decision, every media moment and every electoral breakthrough. Remove him from the equation and the policy tensions, personality clashes and competing ambitions that have largely been contained by his authority will become impossible to ignore.

Farage built Reform around his own political brand. If he now decides to walk away, the real contest may not be the Clacton by-election at all, but the struggle over who, if anyone, can hold the movement together without him. For the good of the country, Farage’s departure could finally bring the curtain down on the divisive brand of politics he spent decades building.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

The post What happens if Farage quits? appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

In what CNBC described as “a major blow to one of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ signature culture war policies,” the US Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, upheld an injunction preventing Florida from enforcing the higher education provisions of the so-called Stop WOKE Act.

Passed in 2022 as the Individual Freedom Act (IFA), but labelled the “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act” or “Stop WOKE,” the legislation sought to restrict how race, gender, diversity, equity and inclusion could be taught in Florida’s public colleges and universities.

The court rejected the state’s central argument that professors’ classroom speech belongs to the government simply because they are public employees.

Writing for the majority, Judge Britt Grant, an appointee of Trump, dismissed that claim.

“Because the government pays the professors’ salaries, Florida says, their speech is the state’s speech. Emphatically no.”

Grant accused the state of trying to turn academics into government mouthpieces, adding that if the First Amendment provides any protection for public university classrooms, “this statute crosses it.”

The ruling is the latest legal setback for the legislation. It follows the same appeals court’s 2024 decision blocking the Act’s workplace provisions, which found Florida had attempted to sidestep constitutional free speech protections by reclassifying protected expression as prohibited conduct.

It also reinforces a district court injunction first issued in November 2022, representing a victory for the civil liberties and free speech organisations that challenged the law.

The ruling was warmly received online, with many questioning politicians continued use of the term “woke” without defining it.

“I really feel like if politicians are going to keep justifying laws with the term ‘woke’, they should have to create a legal definition,” wrote one social media user.

Another added: “Why are they calling it woke? It’s sad that they can’t even use actual words to describe what their problem is.”

Indeed.  

The post Woke-Bashing of the Week: DeSantis ‘Stop WOKE’ law suffers major defeat – again! appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Two major stories broke on the same day. Prince Harry lost his £50 million phone-hacking case against the Daily Mail, while Farage announced he would resign as MP to force a by-election in Clacton. Despite the royal drama, Farage once again managed to dominate the media agenda through sheer political theatre.

True to form, the announcement was carefully stage-managed. Speaking from a Reform UK stage, in front of Reform’s own cameras and without journalists present, Farage framed his resignation not as a response to mounting scrutiny but as a democratic exercise. He claimed he wanted the people of Clacton to judge him directly, while accusing the media and the “liberal elite” of orchestrating a coordinated campaign against him.

The immediate trigger was The Sunday Times‘ investigation into support Farage received from George Cottrell, a longtime associate who served time in a US prison after being convicted of fraud. The investigation intensified questions over Farage’s financial declarations and prompted renewed scrutiny of millions of pounds in donations currently under parliamentary investigation. Farage insists he has done nothing wrong.

Yet what made this episode especially interesting, was not simply Farage’s response, but the reaction from parts of the traditionally sympathetic right-wing press.

Even the Telegraph, rarely hostile to Farage, appeared willing to puncture his narrative. Under the headline “Farage gamble turns into farce,” it noted that both Labour and the Tories have declined to contest the by-election and reported critics branding the resignation a “circus” and a “desperate stunt.”

“Farage losing the support of the Telegraph is like Trump losing Meloni as an ally,” was a comment on social media in response to the front page.

The Daily Express, however, largely echoed Farage’s own framing. Reporting that “the people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions,” it stressed his insistence that the donations under investigation were personal and that he had done nothing wrong. Just a day earlier, its front page had carried Farage’s claim that allegations over his links to a convicted fraudster amounted to a “hit job”.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail quickly reverted to more familiar territory. Rather than sustaining scrutiny of Farage, it shifted its attention to Prince Harry, declaring itself “VINDICATED” after his legal defeat and portraying Harry’s case as part of a wider conspiracy against the newspaper.

While some outlets have become more willing to question Farage when political liabilities become difficult to ignore, others continue to present events largely through his preferred narrative, that he is the victim of an establishment determined to silence him.

That dynamic didn’t go unnoticed by Sky News Australia. Host Paul Murray, who openly declared himself a supporter of Farage during an interview, argued that the scrutiny had actually strengthened Reform’s leader.

“Ironically,” Murray said, “the very people he is talking about as being the people who are trying to bring about his end have delivered him this incredible megaphone.”

Anxious not to left behind in this recasting of a farce as a triumph, the Daily Express declared that in running scared of their Nige, the major parties had handed him the keys of number 10 at the next general election.

It seems that even when elements of the right-wing press begin to lose patience with Farage, he can still count on a few media die-hards to keep the faith.

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From 16 – 18 July, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Great Britain makes its UK debut. Its launch was announced in Budapest at CPAC Hungary by former prime minister Liz Truss, who appeared alongside Argentine president Javier Milei, Alternative für Deutschland co-leader Alice Weidel and former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, while Donald Trump addressed delegates by video.

Truss used the occasion to argue that Britain needs the same political revolution now taking place in the United States under Trump, and that the British public has rejected the country’s current direction.

“They want to have a family, they want a nice car, they want to go on a nice holiday, they want to live in a Christian country,” she told delegates, adding people “don’t want their country taken over.”

For decades, CPAC was an exclusively American institution. Founded in 1974, its original keynote speaker was Ronald Reagan, then governor of California. Today it has evolved into the principal gathering of the international Trump-allied right, exporting its brand through conferences in Hungary, Brazil, Japan, Australia, and now Britain.

The launch has been accompanied by a depressingly familiar narrative. Public affairs magazine MACE describes CPAC Great Britain as “uniting common-sense politics with a fiercely pro-growth, pro-sovereignty agenda,” while promising to “Save Britain, Save the West”.

It might make convincing marketing, but CPAC GB is not simply another conservative conference. It’s part of a growing transnational political network whose participants, funders and speakers can be traced to pro-Kremlin interests, narratives and personalities.

Its arrival also raises another question. Why is Britain suddenly hosting two major right-wing conferences within weeks of one another? Are ARC and CPAC cultivating different constituencies within the same wider political movement, or are they competing for influence, donors and activists on Britain’s increasingly fragmented right?

Either way, CPAC’s network merits scrutiny.

A founder with Russian connections

CPAC Great Britain was established by a man who spent years working for a charitable foundation created by a sanctioned pro-Russian oligarch.

Companies House records show that CPAC London Ltd was registered in March with Liz Truss and lawyer Alexander Walsh as its directors. Walsh resigned as a director of CPAC London Ltd on June 5.

Democracy for Sale reports that for five years Walsh served as secretary of the Firtash Foundation, funded by Ukrainian-born gas magnate Dmytro Firtash, whose fortune was built through gas deals involving Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom.

The UK sanctioned Firtash in 2024, describing him as “an infamous oligarch” who extracted hundreds of millions of pounds from Ukraine through corruption while concealing substantial assets in Britain. His wife, Lada Firtash, was also sanctioned for holding UK assets on his behalf, including the former Brompton Road Underground station.

Ukraine has likewise sanctioned Firtash, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy having described him as a “pro-Russian oligarch.”

Walsh previously worked for the London litigation firm Enyo Law, which has represented numerous Russian state-controlled banks and companies, and later established the Vorontsov Foundation to promote cultural relations between Britain and Russia.

But Walsh is not the only figure connected to CPAC GB whose Russian record raises questions.
A platform for familiar voices

Nigel Farage, who had reportedly considered avoiding the event, has since been announced as one of its keynote speakers.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, described Farage’s appearance as evidence that “this is where he belongs.”

“Farage said he wouldn’t turn up to CPAC GB, Liz Truss’ embarrassing attempt at a comeback, but he just couldn’t stay away because this is where he belongs – with the grifters of recently failed governments,” said Dearden.

Farage’s record on Russia is well established. For years he argued that NATO and EU enlargement helped provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, famously warning that “when you poke the Russian bear with a stick, don’t be surprised when he reacts.”

Asked in 2014 which world leader he most admired, Farage replied: “As an operator… Putin.” During the Syrian civil war, he also praised Vladimir Putin’s strategy as “brilliant”.

Another CPAC GB speaker is George Simion, leader of Romania’s far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). Simion has become one of Europe’s most prominent nationalist politicians, championing Donald Trump while taking aim at Brussels, threatening to break EU laws he disagrees with.

His political career has also been dogged by allegations of links to Russian interests. Romania’s Foreign Intelligence Service reportedly investigated claims that he met Russian military intelligence officers, while a Moldovan court upheld findings that associated him with “Moscow agents.” Simion denies any relationship with Russian intelligence.

He has also pledged to end Romanian military and financial support for Ukraine if elected, a position analysts argue would benefit the Kremlin’s strategic objectives.

Then there is Jack Posobiec, the American far-right commentator due to speak in London. Posobiec has a history of boosting Russian-backed conspiracy theories about the war in Ukraine, including claims that Boris Johnson sabotaged a peace agreement in 2022.

So, do the two groups collaborate?

There is no evidence that the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) and the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) are formally linked. They are distinct organisations with different leadership and histories. But they clearly inhabit the same political space.

Both conferences draw from a similar pool of politicians, commentators, campaigners and culture-war entrepreneurs. Nigel Farage, for example, used his appearance at ARC 2026 to champion many of the same themes that dominate the CPAC circuit: the defence of Western civilisation, the centrality of the family, the revival of small business, national sovereignty and energy independence.

But the connections extend beyond headline speakers. Together Declaration, for example, originally established to oppose COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccination policies, has since become closely associated with campaigns against digital identity schemes and other perceived threats to civil liberties.

Its backers include climate science sceptic Ben Pile, co-founder and principal writer of the Climate Resistance blog, which describes itself as “challenging the climate orthodoxy,” Reform UK’s 2024 London mayoral candidate Howard Cox, and former UKIP leader Lois Perry.
In a recent Instagram post, the organisation announced:

“We’ll be spreading the message at both the ARC Conference and CPAC GB conferences this summer on Digital ID, free speech, and key issues that matter to all of us.”

Activist organisations clearly see no contradiction in treating ARC and CPAC as complementary platforms for reaching the same audience.

ARC presents itself as an intellectual movement seeking to renew Western civilisation. CPAC is a more overtly partisan political operation focused on campaigning and electoral mobilisation.

Different conferences. Different branding. But both draw from many of the same politicians and activists, including figures with close ties to Russia or records of promoting pro-Kremlin narratives. That deserves far closer scrutiny than it has so far received.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

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Weiss resigned from The New York Times opinion section in 2020, claiming she had been driven out by an “illiberal environment” and bullying from colleagues. Her departure transformed her into one of the most prominent critics of what she describes as ideological conformity in mainstream journalism. She subsequently founded The Free Press, presenting it as a corrective to ‘media groupthink’ and a champion of open debate. In October 2025 she became editor in chief of CBS News, an appointment that has proved controversial.

Critics argue that The Free Press has merely replaced one perceived orthodoxy with another. As Haaretz writer Matt Johnson noted, Weiss correctly identified an audience frustrated with parts of the mainstream media. Yet rather than transcending the culture wars, The Free Press has built its success by offering what Johnson describes as “a more artful and less shrill version of the anti-woke alarmism that permeates the right-wing media ecosystem.”

That ideological project has a distinctly British flavour.

Among those reportedly brought into Weiss’s orbit are former Daily Mail investigative journalist Josh Boswell, broadcaster Trevor Phillips, and perhaps most predictably of all, Douglas Murray, who writes a weekly column for The Free Press. Former Spectator editor Oliver Wiseman has also become deputy editor of the publication.

The Guardian reports how Weiss has cultivated a network of British writers and commentators whom she believes challenge what she regards as a stifling liberal consensus, particularly on issues such as Israel, identity politics and transgender rights. Whether one sees that as broadening debate or importing Britain’s own highly polarised culture wars depends largely on perspective.

Douglas Murray’s appointment is especially telling. As associate editor of The Spectator, Murray has built his career on uncompromising attacks on multiculturalism, immigration and progressive politics. As Right Wing Watch has repeatedly reported, Murray holds no prisoners in his virulent attacks on those he possibly deems as a threat. An especially memorable target was Humza Yousaf, the former first minister of Scotland, who he suggested was an “infiltrator,” and described his Palestinian wife Nadia El-Nakla as a “nasty piece of work.”

Nor does the network end there. Weiss is reportedly close to Neil Blair, JK Rowling’s literary agent. It was The Free Press that produced the influential podcast The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, which framed Rowling as a victim of ideological persecution. Her wider circle reportedly includes former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove, now editor of The Spectator, as well as Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.

Then there’s Trevor Phillips. Once celebrated for his work on racial equality, Phillips has become one of Britain’s most divisive commentators on multiculturalism and immigration. He was suspended by Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, over alleged Islamophobia, once commenting that UK Muslims were “a nation within a nation.” He also famously caused controversy by stating that the UK was “sleepwalking towards segregation” and argued for a more homogeneous culture built on shared values. Although later readmitted to the party, his comments remain deeply contentious.

Collectively these appointments point towards the construction of a transatlantic network of media figures united less by a commitment to ideological diversity than by a shared opposition to what they characterise as “wokeness.”

As one anonymous CBS News staffer reportedly put it: “If [Weiss’s] goal is to push CBS News to the right, including in global coverage, then these steps make sense, because in no other universe would they.”

For someone who built her reputation railing against ‘newsroom groupthink,’ the irony is difficult to ignore.

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