Labour did not simply lose; it disgraced itself. It has been accused of sending leaflets appearing to come from a tactical voting organisation that did not exist, which “recommended” voting Labour based on “a new prediction”. Labour attacked the Greens for their principled opposition to a failed “war on drugs” that leaves a multibillion-pound trade in the hands of criminal gangs and condemns many addicts to early graves.
…
Labour feared a Green victory would be existential. It is. Gorton and Denton ranked 127th on the Greens’ target list. If Polanski’s party can capture one of Labour’s safest seats, then no Labour MP can feel secure. And it is worse than it looks. Canvassers repeatedly told me they met voters – Muslim and non-Muslim alike – who were frightened into backing Labour to stop Reform. They would have voted Green had they believed victory possible. Next time, those people will.
The Starmer project rested on crushing the left. As a mere frontman for the most reactionary and personally toxic elements in his party, he secured power by assuring members he would preserve the radicalism they had voted for – and then buried it. They assumed they could get away with it, confident much of the media would applaud the destruction of socialists as sober statecraft.
But deceit is all Starmerism had – and events in Gorton and Denton show the vacuity of that. There was no animating vision, no reckoning with a broken economic order. What Starmer’s Labour did not anticipate was the re-emergence of the left beyond Labour’s institutional walls. It was comfortable competing with the Conservatives and Reform, aping their anti-migrant rhetoric. It did not regard the left as a legitimate political force: being devoured by the radical left was never in the script. In the end, its war on the left has consumed it.
Labour now faces a reckoning between a Blairite faction urging further defiance of an estranged electorate and others demanding a frantic pivot to win back disillusioned voters. Even if the leadership desired the latter, the parliamentary party is crowded with too many cynical careerists to make it credible. In my view, Labour cannot be saved: it must be replaced. Gorton and Denton suggests that is possible.
President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber at the Capitol on February 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)
“This is a plot to interfere with the will of voters and undermine both the rule of law and public confidence in our elections,” said Sen. Mark Warner.
A group of right-wing activists is crafting an executive order that would let President Donald Trump unilaterally ban mail-in ballots and voting machines ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The Washington Postreported on Thursday that the order being drafted by Trump allies would give him “extraordinary power over voting,” even though the US Constitution explicitly gives individual states the powers to run their own elections.
An advocate for the order, Florida attorney Peter Ticktin, acknowledged in an interview with the Post that the Constitution does not give the president any role in shaping elections, but he said Trump needed to act to prevent China from supposedly interfering with American elections.
“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” Ticktin said. “But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes. That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.”
The activists drafting the emergency order said that they are working in coordination with the White House, although the extent of any cooperation isn’t clear.
However, the Post pointed to some evidence that the White House really is on board with such a strategy, such as the Trump administration’s efforts to investigate his 2020 election loss to former President Joe Biden, which the president has long baselessly claimed was due to foreign interference from a number of nations, including China and Venezuela.
As the Post noted, “a 2021 intelligence review concluded that China considered efforts to influence the election but did not go through with them.”
Additionally, Trump has publicly stated numerous times that he wants to completely do away with mail-in ballots and voting machines, both of which he has baselessly claimed are riddled with fraud.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the draft order was simply an attempt by the president’s allies to block democratic accountability in future elections.
“We’ve been raising the alarm for weeks about President Trump’s attacks on our elections and now we’re seeing reports that outline how they may be planning to do it,” Warner told the Post. “This is a plot to interfere with the will of voters and undermine both the rule of law and public confidence in our elections.”
Government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said that the drafted order was plainly unconstitutional and would fail in court.
“The Constitution gives states power over election law with oversight from Congress,” CREW wrote in a social media post. “Notice who’s missing? The president. Trump may try to cook up a sham national emergency to try to seize control of elections but it won’t stand up to scrutiny.”
MS NOW national security contributor Marc Polymeropoulos called the draft order “batshit authoritarianism” and cautioned that “this crazy shit is possible as Trump knows Congress is all but lost at this point in a free election.”
“To save himself,” Polymeropoulos added, “anything is possible.”
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker pointed to the Post report and warned, “Donald Trump’s c”
Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-Conn.) accused Trump of “setting the stage to steal the midterm elections and set fire to our democracy,” while vowing that Democrats would “fight for our democracy and safeguard the right to vote.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.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.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Original article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, was dropped miles from his home in Buffalo, New York by US Border Patrol agents after he was released from jail on February 19, 2026. His body was found on February 24. (Photo via missing person poster/Investigative Post)
“There must be a full investigation and real accountability from US Customs and Border Protection,” said one lawmaker.
The latest chapter in what one historian called “the ongoing horror story of American immigration enforcement” unfolded in Buffalo, New York this week after Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56-year-old Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, was released from a county jail where he’d been held for a year.
As Buffalo-based outlet the Investigative Postreported Wednesday, the nearly blind man was found dead on Tuesday evening, five days after US Border Patrol agents who had picked him up from the jail dropped him off at a coffee shop. They neglected to inform his lawyer or family where he was, making it impossible for Shah Alam to find his way home in sub-freezing temperatures.
Shah Alam, who was blind in one eye and had partial, blurry vision in the other, had gotten lost one day in February 2025 and ended up on a woman’s porch with a curtain rod he used as a walking stick.
The woman called the police, who ordered Shah Alam to drop his “weapon”—the walking stick—and then Tasered, beat, and arrested him.
Shah Alam, who could not speak English and did not understand the police officers’ orders, was charged with assault, trespassing, and possession of a weapon and taken to Erie County Holding Center.
His family, which includes a wife and two sons, chose not to bail him out of the county jail. His arrest had come a month into President Donald Trump’s second term, and they feared US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would detain him if he was released and send him to a detention center out of state.
Benjamin Macaluso, an attorney with Legal Aid Bureau who was representing Shah Alam, told the Investigative Post that he had been released on bail last week after reaching a deal with the Erie County District Attorney’s office, agreeing to plead guilty to trespassing and possession of a weapon. The agreement allowed him to avoid detention by federal immigration agents even though authorities had previously placed an immigration detainer on Shah Alam.
Despite that, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office contacted US Border Patrol to pick Shah Alam up from the Holding Center. When the agents determined Shah Alam was not eligible for immigration detention, Border Patrol told the Investigative Post, they “offered him a courtesy ride, which he chose to accept to a coffee shop.”
An agency spokesperson claimed the nearly blind man “showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance.”
Mohamad Faisal, one of Shah Alam’s two sons, toldAl Jazeera that his father was not able to read, write, or use electronic devices.
Macaluso told the Investigative Post that Shah Alam’s family spent days searching for him in the cold before his body was found. The lawyer also said he had expected Shah Alam to be taken to an ICE detention center in Batavia, New York to be released.
A spokesperson for City Hall in Buffalo told the Investigative Post that homicide detectives were “investigating the circumstances and timeframe of events leading up to his death, following his release from custody,” but said homicide and exposure to the elements had been ruled out as the cause of death by a medical examiner.
US Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) was among those who called for a “full investigation” into Border Patrol’s decision to leave Shah Alam miles from his home despite his disability.
I am disturbed by the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam in Buffalo. Leaving a nearly blind man who didn’t speak English stranded far from home without telling his family was a shocking breach of responsibility and basic humanity by federal enforcement. There must be a full…
Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan, a Democrat, accused US Customs and Border Protection, which oversees Border Patrol, of a “dereliction of duty” and said the agency’s treatment of Shah Alam was “inhumane.”
“US Customs and Border Protection must answer for how and why this happened,” said Ryan. “Buffalo is a city that welcomes refugees and believes government should protect human dignity, not endanger it. US Customs and Border Protection failed that basic standard.”
Chuck Park, a Democrat who is running for Congress in New York’s 6th District, said the New York for All Act, which would prohibit state and local law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigration agencies, would have prevented the sheriff’s office from calling Border Patrol upon Shah Alam’s release.
This blind refugee wasn't just "picked up" by Border Patrol before he died. The Erie County Sheriff honored an ICE detainer & handed him over.
This is exactly what "New York For All" would prevent.
Alexandre Burgos of the New York State Hate and Bias Prevention Unit invited community members to a gathering to demand accountability to Shah Alam’s death.
“We are coming together to demand accountability and transparency in the case of Nurul Amin Shah Alam,” reads a flyer for the event, scheduled for Thursday evening at 5:30 pm Eastern at Lafayette High School in Buffalo.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.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.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Members of Homeland Security Investigations listen as FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a press conference on October 23, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Lawyers for the family said it wasn’t clear whether the grand jury had been shown footage of officers “dragging Ruben onto the ground and handcuffing him immediately after shooting him three times.”
Attorneys for the family of Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old US citizen who was fatally shot by a Homeland Security Investigations agent last March in South Padre Island, Texas, called for state authorities to release the findings of their investigation into the killing after a grand jury on Wednesday declined to indict the officer who shot the young man.
The lawyers also said that it was not clear whether the grand jury had viewed a draft affidavit signed by the only other passenger in the car Martinez was driving when he was shot, which disputed the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) account of the incident, or footage of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent “dragging Ruben onto the ground and handcuffing him immediately after shooting him three times.”
“We believe that it is essential now that the Texas Department of Public Safety publicly disclose the full findings of their investigation, so that Ruben’s family and the public can determine for themselves whether ICE’s story is accurate and why Ruben was killed that night,” said the attorneys with the law firms Thompson Stam and Hayes Law. “We have sought that information, and we will continue to do so… Today’s event changes nothing.”
Luis V. Saenz, the district attorney of Cameron County, said in a statement that the grand jury had declined to bring charges, while a spokesperson for DHS said the jury had “unanimously found no criminality.”
The decision was handed down days after the other passenger in Martinez’s car, his friend Joshua Orta, was killed in an unrelated car crash after the vehicle he was driving reportedly left the road and struck a utility pole at high speed.
Orta had been planning to assist Martinez’s mother, Rachel Reyes, in her legal fight and provided a written statement to her lawyers saying that when he and Martinez encountered Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents who were conducting immigration enforcement with local police on March 15, 2025, the officers gave Martinez conflicting orders.
Orta wrote that contrary to HSI’s account, he and Martinez were approached by a police officer who told them to leave the area. Martinez tried turning the car and another officer approached them, slapped the hood of the vehicle, and “seemed to be trying to get in front of the car,” according to his affidavit.
He wrote that Martinez’s car was “only crawling” during the encounter, when an officer on the driver’s side of the vehicle drew his weapon and fired without “giving any warning, commands, or opportunity to comply.”
Martinez “did not hit anyone,” said Orta in the statement.
Reyes told the Associated Press last week that her son was shot three times.
Internal documents at HSI, an office within ICE, conflicted with Orta’s account and said Martinez initially declined instructions to stop driving, then “accelerated forward” and struck an HSI agent “who wound up on the hood of the vehicle.”
Another supervisory HSI agent then fatally shot Martinez, according to the documents.
DHS also said in a statement that an agent fired “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public.”
Martinez’s death was reported in local news outlets last March, but it was not until the watchdog group American Oversight filed a public records request and published federal documents that it was publicly known that a federal agent had killed the young man.
The family’s lawyers told the Washington Post that they expect to soon be able to view footage of the shooting from body cameras worn by South Padre Island police, who have declined to publicly release video evidence of shooting due to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s investigation. That probe will likely end due to the grand jury’s decision.
“Ruben’s family is devastated,” the attorneys said in a statement. “They are proud Americans, strong supporters of law enforcement, and Trump voters. They believe there are honest and decent officers out there. They just want to be treated honestly and decently.”
American Oversight also said it had filed Freedom of Information Act requests for police footage and internal communications regarding the killing.
We need to know more about Ruben Ray Martinez’s death — including how and why ICE kept it hidden.
We sent FOIA requests for police bodycam footage and any internal communication related to Martinez’s death.https://t.co/Z8a6FyQklI
Reyes expressed hope in a statement Wednesday that “attention being raised now into Ruben’s death will help bring the justice we want for him and the answers we haven’t had.”
“Since Ruben’s death a year ago, all we have wanted is justice for him and we have struggled with the silence surrounding his killing,” she said. “Now, the country is in crisis and, terribly, heartbreakingly, other families are enduring what we have.”
Martinez is one of at least four US citizens fatally shot by federal immigration agents since President Donald Trump began his anti-immigration crackdown soon after taking office in January 2025.
In a running tracker, the American Prospect has counted at least 27 people who have been killed by federal immigration agents under the second Trump administration, including in shootings, car crashes, and drownings. At least 46 people have died while in ICE custody, according to TAP.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.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.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Top polling party’s moves to ‘undeclare’ the climate emergency and scrap net zero targets could be a sign of things to come
Reform UK’s disregard of the climate crisis is already taking effect across the country. Since gaining control of 10 councils last May, the party has scrapped vital environmental goals. It has courted support from fossil fuel investors with a promise to “drill, baby, drill”. And its councillors have hijacked public debates with outright climate denialism.
Seven of the councils now controlled by Reform have abandoned important green measures. This includes ditching ambitious net zero targets and withdrawing the declaration of a climate emergency – which could threaten green investment and undermine action taken locally to deal with the crisis.
With Reform leading the polls and more local elections to come this year, what we’ve seen so far could be the tip of the iceberg.
For Lord Adair Turner, co-chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, the return of climate denial to public debate is “undoubtedly bad news” and presents a major setback for tackling the crisis. “We’ve got to work out how to convince people that there is a real, massive climate problem and that we do have the solutions now, which are available at relatively low cost,” he said.
We’ve been looking at how Reform has treated climate issues at a local level to gauge what might happen if it wins more councils this year – and if it comes to power in 2029.
The ‘global warming hoax’
One of Reform UK’s key campaigning pledges is the scrapping of net zero in order to cut energy bills. West Northamptonshire’s council leader Mark Arnull said: “Every resident who voted Reform UK voted for that and they must be heard.”
Of the 10 new Reform-controlled councils, seven promptly abandoned their climate promises. Of the remaining three, Lincolnshire did not have any significant climate pledges to scrap but Reform leaders there say they have “declared war” on green energy projects; Derbyshire confirmed its commitment to cutting emissions but ditched the objective to “work to address the causes, and adapt to the impacts, of climate change”; and Doncaster – which has a Reform majority but a Labour mayor and cabinet – has maintained its climate pledges.
The Reform councils’ position contrasts sharply with those controlled by other parties. Climate Emergency UK – a campaign organisation for council climate action – says it is not aware of any other local authorities that have scrapped their climate pledges. Across the UK, more than 300 councils have declared a “climate emergency” and many of those are backed up with ambitious net zero targets.
Polling suggests almost three quarters of people in the UK believe climate change is caused by human activity; a study of more than 88,000 climate-related studies found that 99.9% of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree.
Yet in public debates, some Reform councillors have put forward the opposite view. In Nottinghamshire, councillor Bert Bingham said: “I’ve been involved in sustainability projects for 25 years and I’ve never seen such nonsense as the anthropogenic global warming hoax.”
In Kent, Councillor Chris Hespe said: “It is often stated that anthropogenic climate change is ‘settled science’ and that the whole scientific community believes it. However, this is far from the case.”
Outright climate denial has permeated local debate. After Rachael Hatchett, a Green councillor in Derbyshire, spoke up in a debate about solar farms last year, she was heckled by another councillor shouting: “There is no climate change!”
Reform’s claim that scrapping net zero will cut energy bills is also misleading, according to energy experts. Dhara Vyas, chief executive of industry body Energy UK, told Carbon Brief it is “crystal clear what has driven electricity bills up in the UK … it’s the wholesale costs, driven by the price of gas”.
Liberal Democrat councillor Alex Ricketts said Reform’s climate denial would have real-world impacts for Kent’s constituents. Parts of the county are recognised to be at risk of flooding and local authorities have received funding from the Environment Agency to shore up sea walls and maintain other defences.
Ricketts said this money was allocated based on the science and policymaking that Reform criticises: “There are very real effects on the people of Kent by trying to debunk these things.”
In Durham, Reform proposed retracting the climate emergency and instead declaring a “care emergency” with a focus on special educational needs. Independent councillor Chris Lines said: “Politically, the rhetoric from Reform was that if you voted against it, you were labelled as someone who didn’t care about young people. Conflating the two issues was frankly appalling.”
Lines is concerned about the impact of these declarations on the economy, pointing to research showing that the low-carbon industry was worth £1.7bn to County Durham in 2021/22. “If I was a business in that growing sector looking to invest in an area, would I really want to come here, given the direction this council is going?”
Not all the debates on net zero have involved outright climate denial. In West Northamptonshire, councillors questioned how feasible climate policies were and raised concerns about their cost – an approach that academics have labelled “climate delay”, which can hinder action on climate change.
Alan Graves, the Reform UK leader in Derbyshire, said: “We do not deny that the climate is changing… The council continues to support practical, affordable measures that cut waste, improve efficiency, and reduce costs for residents.”
Responding to whether climate denial had spread in local councils, he said he could only speak for Derbyshire but that they weren’t focusing on “culture-war labels”.
Graves added: “We do not remove policies for ideological reasons. Where we have amended plans, it is because they were vague, unfunded, sometimes unfounded or undeliverable. Our responsibility is to be honest with the public about what can realistically be achieved within local government budgets.” Reform UK and the other councils mentioned did not respond to requests for comment.
A familiar playbook
Reform UK has proudly borrowed slogans from Donald Trump’s campaigns in the US. At a recent council meeting in Durham, Reform councillor Kyle Genner painted a vivid picture of the county’s “dilapidated and deprived estates … the joblessness … the lack of dignity and hope”. He urged his fellow councillors to support the reindustrialisation of the county – including the extraction of coal, oil and gas – to “make Durham great again”.
“I’m clearly not Donald Trump,” he said. “But I do like the idea of ‘drill, baby, drill’. I do like the idea of ‘jobs, baby, jobs’.”
Reform are in the climate denial camp and the Conservatives have moved into – not climate denial, but saying they want to get away from net zero
Lord Turner
The Reform leader of the council, Andrew Husband, said this local debate held a national significance. “It’s telling the North Sea oil and gas producers, ‘Don’t give up just yet’. We’re preparing County Durham for a Reform government in 2029 so we can hit the ground running. Simple as that.”
Back in Kent, former Reform councillor Fothergill said it was “ridiculous” the county was not exploiting its abundance of gas, coal and mineral resources.
In further echoes of the Trump administration, Reform councils across the country are erasing the words climate and environment from cabinet roles, committee names and planning documents.
Where Trump set up the Department of Government Efficiency spearheaded by Elon Musk, Kent county council introduced its own Department of Local Government Efficiency, or DOLGE.
Andrew Husband speaks during the Reform UK County Durham Conference last FebruaryIan Forsyth / Getty Images
Kent’s first head of DOLGE, Matthew Fraser Moat, highlighted what he said were “several, maybe tens of millions of pounds” wasted on the county’s declaration of a climate emergency. In September last year, he said this spending should be stopped, “given that there is no discernible benefit to the world’s climate from all of [Kent county council’s] efforts over the last seven years”.
Weeks later, Kent’s council leader said Reform had saved the county £32m over four years by “undeclaring the climate emergency”, and a further £7.5m by scrapping the county council’s transition to electric vehicles.
Fraser Moat, however, told the Financial Times this month that the Reform council “had not actually made any cuts”. The DOLGE team reportedly expected to find vast amounts of waste but didn’t. Fraser Moat has since stepped down from the council’s cabinet, saying his comments were the result of a “lapse of judgement” and that his words had been twisted.
Blocking the bulldozers
Across the country, Reform-controlled councils have opposed solar projects. In Durham, the party has abandoned a plan to install solar panels on council buildings, which aimed to save the council money on energy bills.
In Lincolnshire, Reform councillor Sean Matthews told the BBC about a new solar farm development: “I’m going to do whatever I can to stop it, and that does include laying in front of those bulldozers.”
While it may not always stray into the outright climate denial Hatchett faced in Derbyshire, Ricketts said Reform’s opposition to solar is largely political. “They know that resonates with one part of their base that don’t want solar farms built on fields, but also with the other part that are anti-climate change measures.”
Time and again, the environmental issues raised in local councils came back to party politics. Independent councillor Ian McCord welcomed West Northamptonshire’s move to scrap net zero targets. “Those that are crying into their tofu and quinoa forget that they lost the May election,” he said.
This has shifted the debate on net zero across the political spectrum. Lord Turner said: “Reform, obviously, are in the climate denial camp but the Conservatives have moved into, not climate denial, but saying they want to get away from net zero.
“It’s a bit ironic that, in the face of catastrophic weather events around the world, we are losing [the cross-party] consensus. I’m under no illusion that we’re facing a more tricky situation than we were five or 10 years ago.”
This story was updated on Wednesday 25 February 2026 to reflect the fact that Nottinghamshire county council has not rescinded its climate emergency declaration.
Reporters: Josephine Moulds and Grace Murray Environment editor: Rob Soutar Deputy editor: Chrissie Giles Editor: Franz Wild Fact checker: Ero Partsakoulaki Production editor: Alex Hess
TBIJ has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.
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 explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
