Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.
Responding to the release of detailed proposals for Heathrow Airport expansion, Green Party MP, Ellie Chowns, reiterated the Green Party’s opposition to airport expansion, saying,
These expansion plans are, at their heart, aimed to deliver profit for shareholders to enable a small group of people to fly more and more. In the UK we have a few frequent flyers that make up less than 3% of the UK population but take 30% of all journeys. On top of this, they seem oblivious to the impact that these plans will have on the communities currently living around Heathrow. Government must be grounded in reality and look hard at the climate science. No credible net-zero plan can include rampant airport expansion, and it’s time Labour looked to the many, many alternative ways to create high-paid green jobs.”
A demonstrator holds a Union Jack flag, during an anti-immigration protest outside the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf, London, Britain, July 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
‘My concern is the safety of bringing fascism to my neighborhood.’
Earlier this month, the Mail on Sunday claimed to reveal “the shocking scale of serious crime committed by migrants living in hotels in communities across Britain”.
The newspaper’s investigation claimed that the scale of a “migrant crime wave” had “until now been unknown”. It showed that at least 312 asylum seekers have been charged with an “astonishing” 708 alleged criminal offences in just three years.
The investigation was endorsed by shadow home secretary Chris Philp. Scratch its surface and all it reveals is the prejudice of the Mail, campaigners say.
They point out that the Mail’s figures include innocent people who’ve been acquitted, as well as those yet to be found guilty of any crime. They add that the 312 who’ve been charged represent a fraction of the tens of thousands of people who have passed through asylum accommodation in the three years reported on by the Mail.
“Describing this as a ‘migrant crime wave’ is not only completely dishonest but incredibly dangerous, at a time when families forced to live in asylum hotels are being threatened on their doorstep by violent crowds,” Nathan Phillips, head of campaigns at migrant charity Asylum Matters, told Novara Media.
By this point, it was too late. The Mail’s scaremongering appears to have had a direct role in sparking at least one anti-migrant protest, due to take place on Saturday. The protest has been endorsed by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson, currently in Tenerife while police investigate his alleged assault of a man at St Pancras station.
Alongside its piece on the migrant “crime wave”, the Mail published an accompanying report focusing on the number of crimes linked to one hotel that also houses asylum seekers: the Barbican Thistle in Islington, north London. The day after the article was published, a Facebook group sprang up organising a protest at the accommodation, carrying the Mail’s headline as its header image.
The Mail’s report on the Barbican Thistle said that 41 residents of the hotel had been charged with 90 crimes over the past three years. Once again, the sensationalist framing only told part of the story. A coalition of local residents, community groups and anti-racist campaigners who are opposing Saturday’s demonstration called the Mail’s claims “inflammatory, misleading, and politically motivated.”
Smoke rises amid destroyed buildings following an Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, August 1, 2025
HAMAS branded US President Donald Trump’s special envoy visit to Gaza a “publicity stunt“ today.
Steve Witkoff’s visit comes as the humanitarian crisis in the enclave rapidly deteriorates and killings continue.
Medical sources in Gaza reported that at least 38 people were killed by the Israelis today, including 12 aid seekers, with more than 80 people wounded.
The US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) denied anyone was killed at their sites today and said most recent incidents had taken place near United Nations aid convoys.
Mr Witkoff visited the south of the strip today as international outrage continues to grow over starvation, shortages and deadly chaos near aid distribution sites.
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All four of GHF’s sites have become flashpoints during their months of operation, with starving people scrambling for scarce aid.
Hundreds have been killed by Israeli gunfire.
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Hamas said today that the visit by Mr Wikoff to Gaza “is nothing more than a publicity stunt aimed at containing the growing outrage over US-Israeli complicity in starving our people in the strip.
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El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele gives a press conference in San Salvador, El Salvador, January 14, 2025
THE party of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele changed the country’s constitution on Thursday, extending his term to six years and letting him run an unlimited number of times.
Ana Figueroa, from the New Ideas party, proposed the changes to the country’s Legislative Assembly which quickly approved them with 57 lawmakers in favour and three opposed.
President Bukele, who once dubbed himself “the world’s coolest dictator,” overwhelmingly won re-election last year despite a constitutional ban after Supreme Court justices, selected by his party, ruled in 2021 to allow re-election for a second five-year term.
Smoke rises amid destroyed buildings following an Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, August 1, 2025
