Demonstrators march with a banner reading, “We Block Everything,” during a May 1, 2026 Rome protest in solidarity with the Global Sumud Flotilla. (Photo by Andrea Ronchini/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“This is a double violation of international law: First, Israel abducted them illegally at sea. Second, Israel is now transporting them, violently, illegally, to one of its notorious prisons.”
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis on Friday slammed European leaders—and the West at large—for what he said is their complicity in Israel’s abduction of two leaders of the Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla seized off the coast of Greece.
In what numerous critics called an act of piracy, Israeli authorities intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla on Thursday in international waters 45 nautical miles west of the Greek island Kythira and 600 nautical miles from Gaza, according to Greenpeace, whose MY Arctic Sunrise was the aid convoy’s most prominent vessel.
Around 175 activists aboard 22 vessels were seized by Israeli forces. The BBC reported Friday that most of them have been released in Greece.
Some of the flotilla members said they were beaten and dragged while handcuffed. The Washington Postreported 34 people—including citizens of Australia, Colombia, Italy, Ukraine, and the United States—required medical attention for broken ribs, noses, and other injuries. Detained activists also said they were denied food and water and were forced to sleep on deliberately flooded floors.
Flotilla organizers said 31 of the remaining vessels will continue heading toward Palestine in a bid to “break the illegal siege of Gaza.”
Two members of the flotilla steering committee—Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila—were taken to Israel for interrogation.
Abu Keshek is a Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin. Ávila is Brazilian. Israel’s Foreign Ministry claimed that Abu Keshek is “suspected of affiliation with a terrorist organization” and Ávila is “suspected of illegal activity.”
As is very often the case with Palestinians it has killed, Israel provided no evidence to support its claims against the accused.
Varoufakis noted on X that Ávila “has distinguished himself with repeated attempts to break the illegal, genocidal, Israeli blockage of Gaza.”
“Unlike the remaining abducted members of the Sumud Flotilla crew, which the Israeli navy disembarked in Crete, Saif and Thiago are detained and bound for an Israeli prison,” the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 co-founder continued. “This is a double violation of international law: First, Israel abducted them illegally at sea. Second, Israel is now transporting them, violently, illegally, to one of its notorious prisons.”
It is not known where Israel will send the two men. Ávila was previously held at Ayalon Prison in Ramla, along with other activists seized from the Madleen last summer. Ávila reportedly refused deportation papers and launched a hunger strike, prompting prison authorities to place him in solitary confinement.
While it is not as notorious as the Sde Teiman military prison—where former inmates and Israeli staff have describedtorture, rape, murder, and other abuse of Palestinians—Ayalon Prison’s alleged human rights violations include torture, medical neglect, and deliberately degrading conditions.
“Meanwhile,” Varoufakis said Friday, “the Greek government is cooperating fully in Israel’s criminal behavior, effectively surrendering its search and rescue obligations and conniving with Israel to victimize the brave crews of the Sumud Flotilla who are steadfastly, through their activism, defending international law as well as the verdict of the International Court of Justice, which has clearly and unequivocally declared Israel’s continued naval blockade of Gaza and its occupation of the Palestinian territories illegal.”
“Through their complicity and their silence, the Greek government, the European Union, the mainstream media, the West more generally, are flouting, indeed they are trashing, their supposed, much publicized, ‘Western values,’” he added.
Varoufakis is calling on the world to demand:
The immediate release of Saif and Thiago;
An end to Israel’s criminal behavior in international waters;
The termination of Israel’s illegal Gaza blockade; and
That the Greek government and the European Union cease and desist from lending logistical and moral support to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its ethnic cleansing campaigns in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Varoufakis’ call was echoed by the Global Sumud Flotilla, which demanded that “all governments do all they can to pressure the Israeli regime to release all the illegal abductees.”
Spanish officials including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also decried Thursday’s raid and demanded the release of the flotilla activists while calling for an end to EU-Israel Association Agreement, a bilateral trade and economic policy framework.
“Israel is once again violating international law by assaulting a civilian flotilla in waters that do not belong to it,” Sánchez said on X. “Our government is doing everything necessary to protect and assist the detained Spaniards. But that is not enough. The EU must suspend the association agreement NOW and demand that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu comply with the law of our seas.”
On the other hand, US State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggott condemned the flotilla as a “pro-Hamas initiative” and called on allied countries “to take decisive action against this meaningless political stunt.”
The United States provides Israel with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic support including repeated vetoes of United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions for Gaza.
Israel maintains that its actions were legal. Its officials have repeatedly invoked the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea—often shortened to the San Remo Manual—to justify the interception and seizure of flotilla vessels attempting to reach Gaza on the high seas.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of cities including Athens, Barcelona, Gaza City, Istanbul, Madrid, Milan, Naples, Paris, and Rome on Thursday as protesters showed solidarity with the flotilla members and condemned Israel’s actions.
"We will block everything". Mass protest in Rome after the seizure of the Global Sumud Flotilla
Meanwhile, Gazans continue to suffer from Israel’s bombing and blockade, which have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened around 2 million others.
Earlier this week, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari said that despite “some improvements in access and aid delivery… food security remains a challenge, while essential services, particularly water, sanitation, and health, are again on the brink of collapse.”
Article by republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Vessels taking part in the Global Sumud Flotilla 2026 Spring Mission to Gaza depart from the marina in Augusta, on the island of Sicily, Italy, on April 26, 2026. (Photo by Baris Seckin/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“How on Earth,” asked the UN’s top Palestine expert, “is possible that Israel is allowed to assault and seize vessels in international waters just off Greece/Europe?”
Palestine defenders on Thursday condemned Israeli forces’ raid of the latest Global Sumud Flotilla—which was sailing off the Greek coast while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza—and the arrest of more than 200 of its participants, with some prominent critics calling the seizure an act of piracy.
Greenpeace International—whose MY Arctic Sunrise is the flotilla’s most prominent ship—said that the maritime convoy’s 58 vessels were “boarded and harassed by Israeli forces in international waters 45 nautical miles west of the Greek island Kythira and 600 nautical miles from Gaza.”
Flotilla organizers said on X: “Our boats were approached by military speedboats, self-identified as ‘Israel’, pointing lasers and semi-automatic weapons ordering participants to the front of the boats and to get on their hands and knees. The boat communications are being jammed and an SOS was issued.”
The Israel regime’s attack on yet another humanitarian flotilla is a grave breach of international humanitarian law, a violation of the law of the sea, an extension of its genocide in Palestine to international and Greek waters, and a product of the impunity granted to it by… https://t.co/PTsS9zyDbh
The organizers said 211 flotilla participants were seized by Israeli forces. Flotilla activist Yasmine Scola said members were “kidnapped.”
Global Sumud France spokesperson Helene Coron said that 10 French nationals, including communist Paris City Council Member Raphaelle Primet, were seized.
“We don’t have the information for the other nationalities, but the boats were mixed in terms of nationality, so there were crew members from all 48 delegations,” Coron added.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that “approximately 175 activists from more than 20 boats… are now making their way peacefully to Israel.”
Responding to Israel’s interception, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakissaid on social media that his country’s government “is either complicit or incapable of defending our seas from Israel.”
“So much for freedom of navigation and international law,” he added.
ALARM! How on earth is possible that Israel is allowed to assault and seize vessels in international waters just off Greece/Europe? Besides what you can think of Apartheid Israel and its genocidal leaders, this should send shock waves across Europe.
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) April 30, 2026
Independent British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbynsaid of the flotilla members: “They were not intercepted. They were abducted in international waters. This is piracy—and is a flagrant violation of international law.”
Another British lawmaker, Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, wrote on X that “last night, Israel’s navy committed an act of armed piracy in international waters, threatening unarmed civilians aboard.”
“Our government must condemn this attack, extend diplomatic protection to British participants, and work to ensure safe passage,” she added.
The migrant search and rescue group SOS Mediterranee France said on X that “attacking or threatening” Global Sumud Flotilla vessels “in international waters constitutes a violation of maritime law.”
“Furthermore, the Geneva Conventions are clear: Any person engaged in a humanitarian mission must be protected. Solidarity is not a crime, Preventing aid, however, is,” the group added.
Israel has intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, and unarmed civilians were held at gunpoint.
This is not contested. This is a breach of international law.
Australians are on those vessels. The government cannot look away.
In the United States, Council on American-Islamic Relations executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement that “Congress must demand that the Israeli apartheid government immediately release the American citizens and other humanitarian activists it kidnapped in international waters in a blatant violation of international law.”
“Our nation would not tolerate, much less fund, the kidnapping of American citizens in international waters off the coast of Greece by any other state,” Awad added. “It is long past time for the out-of-control Netanyahu regime to face consequences of its crimes, including American citizens.”
The United States supports Israel with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid, and diplomatic cover including repeated vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions for Gaza.
Last year, dozens of boats carrying hundreds of activists from over 40 nations took part in the last Global Sumud Flotilla—sumud means “perseverance” in Arabic—as it attempted to break Israel’s naval blockade and deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid including food, medicines, and baby formula to starving Gazans amid a growing famine.
Israeli forces intercepted and seized the flotilla vessels in international waters in early October, arresting all aboard the boats and temporarily jailing them in Israel.
In 2010, Israeli forces raided one of the first convoys carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea. The attackers killed nine volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan.
Members of past Gaza flotillas have reported abuse at the hands of their Israeli captors, although they have urged the world to focus not on them, but rather the people of Gaza, who have endured nearly 31 months of genocidal war and siege.
More than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, including thousands who are still missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Most victims are civilians. Around 2 million other Gazans have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
The Israeli government continues to blockade Gaza by land and sea, strictly limiting the entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged coastal strip.
“We renew our call on world leaders to take concrete and immediate action in the face of the genocide being inflicted by Israel on the people of Gaza,” Pujarini Sen, project lead aboard the Arctic Sunrise, said Thursday. “The international community’s ongoing failure to enforce international law leaves it culpable for Israel’s actions.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
Public sector pensions have ploughed billions into opaque investment funds which are financing ruinous gas projects on the US Gulf Coast
In brief
UK public sector pension schemes are bankrolling rapid expansion of liquefied natural gas production in the US South, posing a major climate threat
US gas projects are reaping rewards from price shocks caused by Trump’s war in Iran
Gas terminals are frequently built in poor neighbourhoods, causing health problems in nearby communities
Trump’s war in Iran has boosted the fortunes of US gas companies – and UK savers are unwittingly bankrolling their expansion.
Sixty local government pension funds have invested a total of £8bn into funds paying for the rapid construction of gas infrastructure on the Gulf Coast of the US. Residents say these terminals are already causing health problems in their communities. Experts say they represent one of the biggest threats to the future of the planet.
Over 7 million school staff, civil servants and other public sector workers either save with, or receive their pension from, local government pension schemes. Our revelations have sparked concerns among local councillors, who have urged fund managers to divest from fossil fuels.
While the companies behind these projects are enjoying a boost from the war in Iran, they could tumble in value as the world switches to renewable forms of energy. Councillor Andrew Scopes, who sits on an advisory panel for West Yorkshire Pension Fund, said: “We will still be paying benefits out in 60 years’ time. We need to be looking beyond the possible short-term gains, at the long-term risk.”
Members of the scheme were dismayed to find what they were bankrolling. “The UK could be funding a safer, healthier future for all via renewable energy generated in the UK that is cheap, safe, clean and owned by us,” said Jane Thewlis, a retired social worker.
The news comes as the government is making changes to the law governing pension schemes. During a debate in the House of Lords, peers from several parties raised the issue of pension fund investments in climate-wrecking companies.
Baroness Hayman, a crossbench peer, told us: “Many UK pension funds are already reducing their exposure to fossil fuels, recognising the risks these investments pose. But with £3 trillion held in UK pensions, and the climate and nature challenge growing, there is a clear opportunity to better protect savers from rising financial and environmental risks.”
A gas explosion
The giant white orbs containing liquefied natural gas (LNG) look almost alien. Scores of these terminals are popping up along the 1,200km Louisiana and Texas coastline, a building frenzy turbo-charged by Trump’s second term. If all the planned terminals are built, the LNG produced in the US would generate the same amount of greenhouse gases each year as every EU country combined, says Jeremy Symons, a former official at the US environmental regulator.
UK pension funds have supported this expansion for years. In 2019, a little-known infrastructure fund called Stonepeak put up $1.3bn to complete the construction of the Calcasieu Pass gas terminal in the south-west corner of Louisiana. Twenty miles inland, building has started on another terminal also funded by Stonepeak.
Calcasieu Pass LNG terminalVenture Global
UK savers in 12 local government pension schemes, including West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Worcestershire, have invested over £360m in Stonepeak funds that financed these plants, according to figures from council records and data provider Pitchbook.
Since starting operations, Calcasieu Pass has reported hundreds of emissions violations and paid authorities a $245,000 settlement. That’s unlikely to make much difference to its owner, Venture Global, a major Trump donor. Its shares rocketed by more than 80% after the US and Israel started bombing targets in Iran.
Roishetta Ozane, a resident turned activist, lives near both terminals. She told us that pollution from the nearby gas, petrochemicals and oil infrastructure has caused asthma and an increase of cancer in the area – an account borne out by academic research.
“We’re seeing more women develop health issues that are living near these facilities, having pre-term babies or having miscarriages,” she said. “We’re seeing our air quality deteriorate. We have a drinking water crisis.” She said residents had to deal with noise pollution from construction and the flaring of excess gas from the terminals.
Roishetta Ozane (second left)
Two of her children have asthma. She told us the doctor said pollution may have exacerbated the seizures suffered by her son, who died last year. “When my son passed away, I was like, what are we doing this for?” she said. “We’re fighting for our children, for our future, for our community, but yet they’re dying.”
Further down the coast, a huge fireball at Freeport LNG in June 2022 made the risks of these installations vividly clear. IFM Global Infrastructure Fund – which counts among its investors more than 20 UK pension funds, including Avon, East Sussex and Aberdeen – paid $1.3bn to help build Freeport LNG in 2013. It continues to hold a stake in the project.
Travelling south, the construction boom continues. Right next to the Mexican border, Rio Grande LNG is building a sprawling complex that the NGO Sierra Club estimates will match the emissions of 50 coal-fired power plants every year. Campaigners say the project is already contributing to habitat loss in an area critical for endangered animals such as ocelots, falcons and sea turtles.
French bank Société Générale backed out of funding the controversial project. But it was able to proceed thanks to a $5bn commitment from BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners Fund V – which is supported by nearly £200m of UK savers’ pensions, from Waltham Forest to Greater Manchester.
In total, we found eight US-based LNG terminals backed by UK pension money. Taken together, those terminals would give rise to more CO₂ every year than the entire UK several times over, according to Sierra Club data.
A spokesperson for IFM Investors told us that the fund publicly discloses its infrastructure equity assets. They added: “Natural gas is increasingly utilised as a transition fuel for decarbonisation globally … These assets benefit from investment from long-term, trusted capital partners like pension funds, who can reinvest in them and pave the way for carbon emissions reduction.”
LNG is often promoted as a cleaner alternative to traditional fossil fuels. However, a peer-reviewed study found it is 33% worse in terms of planet-heating emissions over a 20-year period compared with coal.
Worcestershire Pension Fund said it invests through structures that mean “exposure to any single asset is indirect, limited, and a very small component of a broader portfolio.” It said the Stonepeak fund in question “publishes detailed annual reports and complies fully with statutory disclosure requirements”.
A greener pension
When it comes to curbing carbon emissions, council pension funds and campaigners have tended to focus on selling their shares in companies like BP and Shell. But a growing portion of pension funds are invested in so-called “private markets”. Typically this involves putting money into a number of big funds, which in turn invest in everything from private equity to property to company loans.
Private markets can offer healthy returns. They’re also something of a black hole for information, which makes following the money much more difficult. And they’re often excluded from the scope of council climate commitments.
The upshot is that even pension schemes that have promised not to invest in fossil fuels have ploughed money into funds that are paying for major gas projects.
Take Waltham Forest Pension Fund, which in 2016 became the first local authority to make such a commitment. Simon Miller, a former councillor who chaired the pension fund committee, said the council already had a number of green goals to improve the lives of residents. “[But] we had a pension fund that was merrily invested in fossil fuels that was absolutely out of lockstep with the political direction and philosophy of the borough.”
The council’s pension fund proceeded to sell its investments in fossil fuel companies over the following five years.
According to its latest report, however, Waltham Forest is still invested in funds managed by Global Infrastructure Partners that have financed Rio Grande LNG and Allete, which owns an 18,000-acre coal mine in North Dakota.
Lewisham Pension Fund has also brought down the emissions associated with its investments after committing to sell its holdings in fossil fuel companies. But it remains invested in a huge infrastructure fund operated by JP Morgan Asset Management. While this fund has substantial investments in renewable energy, it continues to hold a 50% stake in Third Coast, which spilled over 1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2023.
In February 2024, West Yorkshire Pension Fund said it would no longer lend to the oil, gas and coal sector. According to the new standards set by the authority, councillor Andrew Scopes said, the decision to invest in a Stonepeak fund that bankrolled an LNG plant on Ozane’s doorstep would be “very difficult to justify”.
Jane Thewlis, a campaigner and member of the scheme, said: “We are particularly concerned if [West Yorkshire Pension Fund] is funding LNG infrastructure in the US, which is not compatible with a livable climate. We expect our elected representatives to use our money to fund a safe future – not to hasten the end of humanity.”
West Yorkshire Pension Fund said its environmental, social and governance policy “takes account of the current status and role of gas and oil within the energy transition, particularly with regard to reliability, affordability and coal displacement”. It said LNG is seen as “a bridge between today’s fossil‑fuel‑dominated energy system and a future low or zero‑carbon one”.
JP Morgan, Stonepeak and Waltham Forest council declined to comment on the record. Lewisham council said it cannot comment in a pre-election period. Third Coast, the LNG port operators, Global Infrastructure Partners and other local councils did not respond to requests for comment.
What next?
We are providing our research to campaigners and pension fund advisory panels so they can challenge decision makers on investments in infrastructure funds
New rules mean that council pension funds will be combined into pension fund pools, limiting councillors’ power over investment decisions. We will investigate what that means for funds that have committed to invest responsibly
Parliament is discussing the first of a number of pension reforms, where campaigners are pushing for greater recognition of climate risk
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Reform has run councils for a year. As local elections near, we ask: how has the party performed in power?
Broken promises, broken roads, and broken council leadership teams – that’s the outcome of Reform UK’s first year in power, an investigation by openDemocracy reveals.
Twelve months ago, Nigel Farage’s latest party took control of 10 English councils, meaning they now hold a total of 985 seats across Britain. Now, as Reform seeks to increase its foothold at elections in other English local authorities and pick up seats in the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments next week, we have examined its track record in office, finding that it failed to deliver on its pledges across the board.
Reform is still a young party, founded in 2022. To win so many seats after just three years – and on a promise to do things ‘differently’ – demands scrutiny, particularly when early polls suggest they could win government at the next general election.
While Reform was never going to be able to meaningfully deliver on many of its 2025 campaign points, which focused on policy areas not devolved to local government – such as illegal immigration, net-zero “madness” and law and order – we have been able to shed some light on its local priorities by reviewing election leaflets that it distributed in different areas of the country.
These materials reveal that Reform intended to slash council tax, fix potholes, and cut council waste by emulating Elon Musk’s ‘DOGE’ drive in Donald Trump’s White House. Yet even in these areas, our analysis shows it frequently fell short on its promises.
Instead, Reform raised taxes in every council where it holds or shares power. Potholes continue to cause accidents and damage, and councillors’ struggles over where to make promised savings have put much-loved local services at risk of closure.
For some Reform councillors, the broken promises were too much. The party has lost more than 70 of its elected local politicians in the space of a year, according to research by Liberal Democrat peer Mark Pack, although some were forced to resign or sacked.
One former Reform councillor, David Taylor, resigned from the party during a live BBC interview in February over the 9% council tax rise in Worcestershire, where Reform is the largest party but lacks overall control.
Taylor, who now represents the ward of Redditch East as an independent councillor, told openDemocracy of his discomfort at being expected to pass both the tax increase and bonuses of up to 10% for the council’s senior staff, who reportedly have six-figure salaries.
“I run a small recruitment company, and the party wanted me to sit on the council’s employment panel,” he said. “The discussion was on bonus payments. This was to pay a retention bonus to all staff, but realistically in that panel you are only dealing with senior staff. I was not going to vote for that, not when there is so much debt, redundancies and people being put on shorter hours – and then put up council tax.”
The policy shift felt at odds with the reasons why Taylor ran for office in the first place.
“I live in my community, all my family live in my constituency, all my friends live in my constituency. I talk directly with people who are impacted every day and who know the things we want to change,” he explained. “As a councillor, I could focus on helping people who matter most to me. We campaigned on lowering taxes and saving money, and none of it happened.”
‘If anything, it’s worse’
As last year’s local elections neared, Farage seized on one particular issue that he said was “getting worse all over the country”. He rode into a Reform rally on a JCB Pothole Pro and posted videos of himself playing ‘pothole golf’ and planting flowers in holes in the road.
Since then, though, Reform has struggled to keep its promise to drivers, according to Freedom of Information data obtained by openDemocracy.
We asked the ten Reform-led councils how many complaints they received about potholes in the years before and after the party took power. Only five councils responded; complaints had increased in four.
Staffordshire, where Farage filmed himself planting flowers in potholes, was among four councils to fail to respond to our FOI request within the 20-day legal time limit, while a fifth rejected our request.
In West Northamptonshire, residents made an average of 1,193 complaints about potholes each month after Reform took power – a sharp increase since the council was controlled by the Conservatives, when it received an average of 860 pothole-related complaints each month, according to data obtained by openDemocracy.
The data also shows that many of the complaints made since Reform took office concerned potholes that the council claimed to have already fixed, and that council staff marked 381 as “unable to fix”..
In March of this year, one aggrieved local complained: “Pot hole has been reported, a bodge job infill was done, this was not done to any standard, when your workmen arrived today they were very rude to my husband when he asked if he could help. THIS POT HOLE IS STILL THERE.”
“I had an email though today, marking this pothole as fixed at 15:12,” wrote another resident. “I can confirm that I drove past this pothole at 15:49 and it definitely has not been repaired, and if anything has got significantly worse!”
This sentiment was echoed by Sally Keeble, the leader of the Labour group at West Northamptonshire council. “They are not repairing potholes,” she told openDemocracy. “If anything, it has got worse.”
Doncaster City Council received an average of 165 pothole complaints a month before Reform took power, rising to 147 complaints a month after. It did, however, also fix more potholes under Reform. Other councils recorded smaller numbers of complaints.
While complaints persist, one company benefiting from the pothole crisis is JCB, which donated £200,000 to Reform in 2025 and whose owner, Conservative donor Lord Bamford, paid £8,400 for Farage and an aide to visit the firm’s factory via helicopter in October 2024.
The Reform-run council in Lincolnshire has invited the heavy machinery outfit back to re-trial its Pothole Pro despite it previously being rejected by the council after a nine-week trial in 2021, when engineers concluded “better tools” were available. The same model is now also being trialled by the Reform councils in Derbyshire and Staffordshire.
Culture wars
Reform also promised to cut council waste by slashing spending on projects linked to “diversity, inclusion and equality” and “net-zero”. Once in power, however, the party found little to cut.
Four of the 10 councils had no equality officers even before Reform took control, according to their Freedom of Information responses to openDemocracy. The three that did have a small number of equality staff still employed them one year later (three councils did not respond to our request). DEI training programmes were also still being run at the same levels.
“Everyone thought we’d come in and there were going to be these huge costs we could cut away, but there just aren’t,” one anonymous Reform cabinet member at Kent County Council told the Financial Times in October last year. Months later, a cabinet member at the council, Matthew Fraser Moat, told the same paper that Reform had “not actually made any cuts”. He later resigned from cabinet over the comment, which he said had been “twisted to fit what I believe to be an anti-KCC narrative”.
Durham council chose to attack “DEI” by withdrawing the £2,500 funding set aside for the annual local Pride march, a celebration of LGBTQ+ rights, which is due to take place on 30 May this year. It justified its decision in an email to organisers, and seen by openDemocracy, by saying that “the focus of the modern Pride movement has shifted in a way that many find divisive”.
The council said it was taking “a principled stand that the council should not be in the position of subsidising events that have become primarily associated with the promotion of a specific and contested political ideology.”
This week, it was reported in local media that Reform’s leader of the council, Andrew Husband, had been accused of homophobia after using an offensive slur on a social media post that openDemocracy has reviewed but is choosing not to repeat for legal reasons. We put this allegation to Husband, who called it “desperate deflection from the Labour Party which doesn’t deserve a response”.
Despite the cut, Pride is going ahead, with organiser Mel Metcalf saying: “We are fighting hate with love. We have a lot of support. A lot of unions are coming together to support us.” Still, Reform’s attitude to LGBTQ+ rights has had an effect, he said.
“Some of our volunteers no longer feel confident wearing their rainbow T-shirts or lanyards in public for fear of being challenged. That’s the difference. There is a hesitation now in Durham, about not being as out or open as previous,” he said. “It is sad that people are feeling that way.”
But, Metcalf insists, “what will get us through is love, not hate.”
Reform councils have become embroiled in culture wars on issues surrounding flags, misogyny and racism.
“The equalities stuff is appalling,” said Sally Keeble in West Northants. “Reform’s Peter York was in trouble for saying women should never have left the kitchen. Female councillors have resigned and when I challenged the leader of the council Mark Arnull about what he was doing to get more women into the cabinet, he accused me of promoting toxic identity politics. I thought it was an appalling response when you have to provide services to all communities.”
Further north, in Derbyshire, councillor Stephen Reed apologised at the end of last year after using a council meeting to declare that if having a “view that says our citizens should come first rather than people jumping on boats and getting into the country illegally is racist, then guess what? I’m a racist and I’m proud of it!”
The climate crisis is another front in Reform’s culture war.
Derbyshire council scrapped its climate change committee, with Labour group leader Anne Clarke telling openDemocracy: “They don’t believe in climate change. The committee ran for four years and was looking at the reductions on carbon in the council portfolio. Work was progressing’.” She added that the savings Reform made by scrapping the committee “are small”, describing the decision to do so as “disappointing”.
Reform councillor Carol Wood, Derbyshire County Council’s cabinet member for net zero and environment, said: “Making sure this council is as efficient as it can be and that every pound of council tax-payers’ money is accounted for and spent wisely is our top priority.” Focus on environmental issues, she said, has moved under the “existing ‘Place’ scrutiny committee to streamline operations.”
Kent council has similarly abandoned its Net Zero 2030 Plan in favour of an Energy Efficiency Plan, branding the original as “unattainable” and a source of “financial and operational risk.”
In Lincolnshire, rejecting what Conservative MP-turned-Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyns called “the net-zero bandwagon” has opened the doors to US fracking interests. According to reports in The Guardian, Jenkyns has courted Egdon Resources and its parent company, US fracker Heyco Energy, in the hope of bringing fracking to the region. The controversial energy method was effectively banned in England in 2019 due to earthquake concerns.
Losing out
Despite promises to put Britain’s people first, our investigation learnt that Reform is failing local residents, including by threatening to close much-needed local services such as Glossop tip.
“The local tip is something that everyone uses; it impacts on everyone,” Derbyshire’s Anne Clarke told openDemocracy. “It has really sparked local concerns and the savings made will be small. It’s in a Reform councillor’s patch and even he is campaigning to keep it open!”
Clarke is concerned that a longer drive to a local tip will lead to more fly-tipping, which affects quality of life and tourism. “We are reliant on our visitor economy, so even a small increase in fly tipping could affect our local businesses.”
Also facing permanent closure is the Grange care home, a centre that is close to the heart of Labour district councillor for North East Derbyshire and parish councillor for Eckington, Kathy Clegg. Her grandmother, also a councillor, helped to open the home.
“It’s a special place,” she said. “Everyone would consider this as the place to go to for care. It’s local, we all know each other. It’s hugely sad to see it closed. Residents had to move out and were effectively homeless. There’s an issue of relocation stress syndrome. People die due to the stress when moved out of care homes.” Some of the residents have lived there for more than two decades.
The Grange is one of eight care homes facing closure following a decision by the previous Conservative administration. Local businessman Matt Davison has since offered to buy the Grange, to rescue it for the community and residents, but said he was rebuffed by the Reform council, which planned to sell all eight homes to one buyer. When that sale fell through, Davison again made an offer, telling local media that he was ignored and Reform wants to “close the home.”
This is in contrast to a second care home, with the council currently in negotiations with a private buyer.
Derbyshire council’s cabinet member for adult care, Joss Barnes, told openDemocracy that “all offers to buy [the care homes] were carefully considered – whether singly, in groups, or as a whole package. Unfortunately, despite intensive negotiations with a provider to take over the running of the homes, the sale fell through and we are now in the process of ensuring residents find new, suitable homes to live in.”
“I think people feel let down, people feel terrified,” said Kathy Clegg. “Some of the Grange carers went to visit a former resident in his new care home. He was inconsolable. I am choking up thinking about it, because he was saying ‘I want to go home, I want to go home.’ Our local Reform councillor is silent. He’s done nothing at all.”
“Derbyshire County Council led by Reform has failed in every promise they made before the election,” she added.
A year of broken promises, attacks on equalities, and unfair spending decisions is a warning for the UK as a whole, said Sally Keeble. “What we are seeing is the reality of how Reform behaves, and what they would do if they got into power.”
openDemocracy approached Kent, Durham, West Northants councils and JCB for comment, as well as Peter York and Mark Arnull. We did not receive a response before publication.
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Iranians carry flags as they participate in a march pledging loyalty to new leader Mojtaba Khamenei, stretching from Imam Hussein Square to Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran, on April 29, 2026. [Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]
A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force warned the United States on Thursday against potential military action amid reports Washington is considering new strikes against Tehran, Anadolu reports.
The warning followed a report by US news website Axios that US President Donald Trump is expected to receive a briefing from US Central Command (CENTCOM) on options for a “short and intense” series of strikes aimed at breaking the current stalemate.
In response, Majid Mousavi, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, said Tehran would respond to any such operations “even if short and rapid” with “prolonged and painful blows.”
“We have seen the fate of your bases in the region; we will also see your vessels,” he added in his comments carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
According to Axios, CENTCOM has prepared plans that could include strikes on Iranian infrastructure, as well as broader options such as increased naval pressure in the Strait of Hormuz.
The proposals are reportedly aimed at forcing Iran back to negotiations with greater flexibility, particularly on the nuclear issue.
The report also said Washington is considering steps to secure maritime routes in the Strait of Hormuz and is preparing for possible Iranian retaliation.
The US and Israel began strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, prompting retaliation from Tehran against US allies in the Gulf and closing the Strait of Hormuz.
A ceasefire was announced on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, followed by talks in Islamabad on April 11, but an agreement could not be reached. Trump later unilaterally extended the truce without any new time frame, at Pakistan’s request.
He also rejected a proposal from Iran, in which Tehran suggested reopening the Strait of Hormuz while leaving questions about its nuclear program for later negotiations.
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Calcasieu Pass LNG terminalVenture Global
Roishetta Ozane (second left)
