Margaret Thatcher

Zia Yusuf Cosying Up to Group Behind ‘Authoritarian’ Project 2025 Agenda

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Article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog. [Article was published 10 June 2026]

A DeSmog collage of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and the party’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf. Credit: Reform UK / YouTube (Farage), Yusuf (Z979)

Reform has been chasing even closer ties to Trump’s allies.

Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf is set to speak tomorrow at the Heritage Foundation, the group behind the “extreme” ‘Project 2025’ playbook for Donald Trump’s second term.

Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, is jetting to Washington, D.C., for an event with Nile Gardiner, director of the Heritage Foundation’s ‘Thatcher Center’.

The event description states that the pair will be discussing “key transatlantic priorities, including mass migration, border security, deportation policy, and the broader challenge of safeguarding Western institutions and values.”

The Heritage Foundation organised Project 2025, the 900-page document which proposed a series of radical, ultra-conservative policies that have served as a blueprint for Trump’s second-term agenda.

The dossier recommended banning abortion pills, restricting access to contraceptives, and removing federal funding for groups providing abortion services. “Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America,” it stated.

It also proposed bulldozing U.S. climate policies – slashing restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrapping state investment in renewable energy, and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency. 

The Heritage Foundation said that the federal government should “eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere” – a policy carried out by Trump, who has called climate science a “hoax”.

A core recommendation of Project 2025 was to “dismantle the administrative state” by centralising power with the president, slashing government funding, and replacing career civil servants with ideological loyalists. Russell Vought, a Heritage Foundation alumni and one of the main co-authors of Project 2025, now serves as Trump’s director of Office of Management and Budget – wielding significant power in restructuring the federal government.

Much of this agenda is shared by Reform and its leader Nigel Farage. After years of silence on abortion, Farage recently called for the UK’s abortion limit to be reduced, labelling the current 24-week limit “utterly ludicrous”. The Reform leader has been forging alliances with U.S. anti-abortion groups, while appointing anti-abortion figures to key positions in the party – including its head of policy James Orr, who doesn’t think abortion should be allowed at any stage of foetal development, even in pregnancies resulting from rape.

“Zia Yusuf should be ashamed to share a platform with the Heritage Foundation,” said Abortion Rights chair Kerry Abel. “The architects of Project 2025 are a global threat to abortion rights, climate action and democracy.

“You cannot flirt with the far right in Washington and pretend it has no consequences here. Anyone giving credibility to this extreme agenda must be called out.”

Reform is a pro-oil party that calls for the UK’s climate targets to be scrapped. Farage has said it’s “nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant. The party has also launched a ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE) to identify public spending cuts in local authorities – mirroring Trump’s agency with the same name, which has overseen billions in cuts to vital public services.

“Advocates of this brand of right-wing politics, championed by Donald Trump and embraced by Reform UK politicians, are aiming to spread their divisive rhetoric and regressive policies, from opposing abortion to actively undoing climate progress,” said Cary Mitchell, executive director of operations at Best for Britain, which campaigns against populism. “Brits have been clear that they don’t trust Trump – and a knock-off version of his authoritarian approach here in the UK would only risk all our rights.”

Farage has received £52,000 in speaking fees and £12,500 in flights and accommodation for addressing pro-Trump, MAGA events since being elected to Parliament in July 2024.

In recent days, Farage announced that he would be making a keynote address to CPAC GB, a pro-Trump conference being held in London in July. The British spin-off is being organised by disgraced former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss, and Farage initially indicated that he would be “steering well clear” of the event, only to now reverse his decision.

A version of this article was published by The New World.

Farage, a longstanding Trump supporter, has recently been attempting to put some distance between his party and the U.S. government, following the president’s unpopular war in Iran, which Farage has supported.

However, Yusuf’s appearance at the Heritage Foundation – and Farage’s at CPAC GB – underscores Reform’s MAGA loyalty. According to The Spectator, key figures behind Project 2025 have been “shuttling between London and Washington” to bestow their wisdom on Farage, while Gardiner has reportedly been acting as a bridge between the White House and Reform.

Reform politician Matthew Goodwin and its economic spokesperson Robert Jenrick have also made speeches to the Heritage Foundation in recent years.

Gardiner and the Heritage Foundation have regularly been given a platform on the right-wing media channel GB News, Farage’s largest income source since becoming an MP in July 2024.

Gardiner, who served as a foreign policy researcher and aide to former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has made dozens of appearances on GB News. During those appearances, he has called for the UK to reintroduce the death penalty, labelled the UK government “a bunch of cowardly appeasers” for not supporting Trump’s military intervention in Iran, and called for pro-Palestine protestors to be deported if they have been arrested and are foreign nationals.

Reform has been forging close ties to a number of pro-Trump groups for a number of years. In December 2024, Farage helped to launch the Heartland Institute, a co-author of Project 2025, in the UK and is now being advised by the climate science denial group.

As reported by DeSmog, two thirds of the party’s funding has come from those with financial interests in fossil fuels.

“Reform make out like they’re your mate down the pub, standing up for everyday people. But they’re actually working closely with the establishment think tanks that helped put Trump into power, and raking in millions in donations from billionaires,” said Green Party peer Natalie Bennett. “We can see who’s pulling the strings and who they’re really working for.”

Reform and the Heritage Foundation were approached for comment.

Article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.

Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Nigel Farage objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Continue ReadingZia Yusuf Cosying Up to Group Behind ‘Authoritarian’ Project 2025 Agenda

A UK climate security report backed by the intelligence services was quietly buried – a pattern we’ve seen many times before

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[dizzy; That’s the MI6 Building at Vauxhall, London and a goose.]

Marc Hudson, University of Sussex

Last autumn, a UK government report warned that climate-driven ecosystem collapse could lead to food shortages, mass migration, political extremism and even nuclear conflict. The report was never officially launched.

Commissioned by Defra – the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs – and informed by intelligence agencies including MI5 and MI6, the briefing assessed how environmental degradation could affect UK national security.

At the last minute the launch was cancelled, reportedly blocked by Number 10. Thanks to pressure from campaigners and a freedom of information request, a 14-page version of the report was snuck out (no launch, not even a press release) on January 22.

That report says: “Critical ecosystems that support major food production areas and impact global climate, water and weather cycles” are already under stress and represent a national security risk. If they failed, the consequences would be severe: water insecurity, severely reduced crop yields, loss of arable land, fisheries collapse, changes to global weather patterns, release of trapped carbon exacerbating climate change, novel zoonotic disease and loss of pharmaceutical resources.

In plainer terms: the UK would face hunger, thirst, disease and increasingly violent weather.

An unredacted version of the report, seen by the Times, goes further. It warns that the degradation of the Congo rainforest and the drying up of rivers fed by the Himalayas could drive people to flee to Europe (Britain’s large south Asian diaspora would make it “an attractive destination”), leading to “more polarised and populist politics” and putting more pressure on national infrastructure.

The Times describes a “reasonable worst case scenario” in the report, where many ecosystems were “so stressed that they could soon pass the point where they could be protected”. Declining Himalayan water supplies would “almost certainly escalate tensions” between China, India and Pakistan, potentially leading to nuclear conflict. Britain, which imports 40% of its food, would struggle to feed itself, the unredacted report says.

The report isn’t an outlier, and these concerns are not confined to classified briefings. A 2024 report by the University of Exeter and think-tank IPPR warned that cascading climate impacts and tipping points threaten national security – exactly the risk outlined in the Defra report.

River flows through jagged mountains
Melting glaciers in remote mountains ultimately pose a security threat for the UK, say intelligence services. Hussain Warraich / shutterstock

The government has not publicly explained why the launch was cancelled. In response to the Times article, a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “Nature underpins our security, prosperity and resilience, and understanding the threats we face from biodiversity loss is crucial to meeting them head on. The findings of this report will inform the action we take to prepare for the future.”

Perhaps there are mundane reasons to be cautious about a report linked to the intelligence services that warns of global instability. But the absence of any formal briefing or ministerial comment is itself revealing – climate risks appear to be treated differently from other risks to national security. It’s hard to imagine a report warning of national security risks from AI, China or ocean piracy getting the same treatment.

This episode is not even especially unusual, historically. Governments have been receiving warnings about climate change – and downplaying or delaying responses – for decades.

Decades of warnings

In January 1957, the Otago Daily Times reported a speech by New Zealand scientist Athol Rafter under the headline “Polar Ice Caps May Melt With Industrialisation”. And Rafter was merely repeating concerns already circulating internationally, including by a Canadian physicist whose similar warning went around the world in May 1953. Climate change first went viral more than seven decades ago.

By the early 1960s, scientists were holding meetings explicitly focused on the implications of carbon dioxide build-up. In 1965, a report to the US president’s Science Advisory Council warned that “marked changes in climate, not controllable though local or even national efforts, could occur”.

Senior figures in the UK government were aware of these discussions by the late 1960s, while the very first environment white paper, in May 1970, mentions carbon dioxide build-up as a possible problem.

But the story we see today was the same. Reports are commissioned, urgent warnings are issued – and action is deferred. When climate change gained renewed momentum in the mid-1980s, following the discovery of the ozone hole and the effects of greenhouse gases besides carbon dioxide, the message sharpened: global warming will come quicker and hit harder than expected.

Margaret Thatcher finally acknowledged the threat in a landmark 1988 speech to the Royal Society. But when green groups tried to get her to make specific commitments, they had little success.

Since about 1990, the briefings have barely changed. Act now, or suffer severe consequences later. Those consequences, however, are no longer theoretical.

Why does nothing happen?

Partly, it’s down to inertia. We have built societies in which carbon-intensive systems are locked in. Once you’ve built infrastructure around, say, the private petrol-powered automobile, it’s hard for competitors to offer an alternative. There’s also a mental intertia: it’s hard to let go of assumptions you grew up with in a more stable era.

Secrecy plays a role too. As the Defra report illustrates, uncomfortable assessments are often softened, delayed or buried. Then, if you do accept the need for action, you are then up against the problem of responsibility being fragmented across sectors and institutions, making it hard to know where to aim your efforts. Meanwhile, social movements fighting for climate action find it hard to sustain momentum for more than three years.

Here’s the final irony. Conspiracy theorists and climate deniers insist governments are exaggerating the threat. In reality, the evidence increasingly suggests the opposite. Official assessments tend to lag behind scientific warnings, and the most pessimistic scenarios are often confined to technical or classified documents.

The situation is not better than we are told. It’s actually far worse.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

Marc Hudson, Visiting Fellow, SPRU, University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Continue ReadingA UK climate security report backed by the intelligence services was quietly buried – a pattern we’ve seen many times before

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Andrew Feinstein slams Rory Stewart’s excuse for MP corruption

…

The agency to decide how our world is organised

Finally, Feinstein finished with a rallying cry to voters and activists across the country:

And I think that’s what we need to do. We need to realise that one of the things that the sort of late era neoliberal capitalism does is it intentionally stifles our imaginations and our creativity to make us believe there is no alternative. As Margaret Thatcher famously and evilly said, to believe that this is the only way the world can be organised. And it’s not. We have the agency to decide how our world should be organised and we need to take that agency.

Referring to his upcoming book set for release in Autumn this year, he added:

And this book [Making a Killing] is an attempt to give people the information and to propose some of the ways in which we can take agency about something that is destroying our societies and our politics. And I’m always reminded when people feel very depressed and defeated, which of course I sometimes do too, I’m always reminded of what Nelson Mandela said when he was asked how he retained hope in an apartheid prison and in very dark and depressing days.

And he [Mandela] said, because anything is always impossible only until it’s done.

And I think we have the ability, we have the brains amongst us ordinary people to change the world profoundly and fundamentally. And I hope that this book will be a very small contribution towards that.

Rory Stewart and his neoliberal ilk can consider themselves ‘told’ after this brilliant takedown from a man who makes fighting corruption his day job.

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Morning Star Editorial: Unison’s Andrea Egan speaks truth to power

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unisons-andrea-egan-speaks-truth-power

 Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers his keynote speech during the Labour Party Conference at the ACC Liverpool, September 30, 2025

NEW Unison general secretary Andrea Egan has done a service to the entire labour movement. Barely a week in office, she has spelt out exactly what is wrong with the Starmer government, and what needs to change.

We make no apology for quoting her words, written for Tribune, extensively. First the crisis: “The first far-right government in our history is a very real prospect. Nigel Farage in power would be the biggest triumph for the enemies of the working class since his idol Margaret Thatcher took office… 

“It would be a global victory for a billionaire-backed ethnonationalist project represented by the administration of Donald Trump…for every worker, active trade unionist or anyone who wants to live in an open and democratic society, the political stakes of the coming months and years are potentially existential. We are staring down the barrel of a historically devastating offensive against our class.”

Then, the blame: “From witnessing the recent behaviour of Labour’s ruling faction, you wouldn’t know it. Spearheaded from Downing Street, this narrow Westminster grouping often gives the impression it would rather hand the country over to Farage and put the labour movement’s survival on the line than consider any change in policy direction or lose the slightest control over the party machine.”

Egan slams the “stitch-up” which blocked Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election, with the reasons offered “an insult to the intelligence.”

Then the warning: “Trade unions will not tolerate this self-destructive approach any longer. The costs are simply too high, and it is our members — our whole movement — who will pay the price. 

“Labour’s rotten internal culture is a significant cause of its failure to deliver for workers while in government, which in turn drives its historic unpopularity and lays the ground for the far right.

…

Original article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/unisons-andrea-egan-speaks-truth-power

Nigel Farage blames the Muzzies.
Nigel Farage blames the Muzzies.
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Unison’s Andrea Egan speaks truth to power

UK plotted ‘covert’ measures against Irish republican hunger strikers

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-plotted-covert-measures-against-irish-republican-hunger-strikers/

A mural in Derry depicts Raymond McCartney, who took part in the 1980 hunger strike. (Photo: Deirdre Hamill / Alamy)

The UK government planned “covert” measures to monitor “everything” which was said and written by Irish republican hunger strikers in prison in 1980, declassified files reveal.

The strike had been called in response to the removal of political status for convicted paramilitary prisoners, with seven men in HMP Maze refusing their first meal on 27 October.

It ended 53 days later, with some of the hunger strikers claiming the UK government had gestured towards meeting their demands before reneging.

The incident set the scene for the 1981 hunger strike, which saw ten Irish republicans including Bobby Sands starve themselves to death amid a showdown with Margaret Thatcher.

Files released to the National Archives in London now detail how the UK government was acutely concerned about the domestic and international implications of the 1980 hunger strike.

It produced weekly bulletins on the situation, monitored media coverage, liaised with the Catholic church, and even considered meeting some of the strikers’ demands, the files show.

Plans were also made to employ “covert techniques” in order to “find out as much as possible about the day-to-day state of mind of each striker”.

This would apparently include eavesdropping on the prisoners’ private conversations and intercepting mail so that the British state could know “everything” that was said and written.

…

Article continues at https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-plotted-covert-measures-against-irish-republican-hunger-strikers/

Continue ReadingUK plotted ‘covert’ measures against Irish republican hunger strikers