Nigel Farage’s Russian hack claim ‘without any merit’, former NCSC chief says
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/25/nigel-farage-russian-hack-claim-disclosure-5m-gift
Ciaran Martin says Reform UK leader’s allegation over Guardian report on £5m gift ‘entirely unsubstantiated’
Nigel Farage’s claim that a Russian hack was behind a Guardian report on the £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire has been described as “without any merit” by a former head of the National Cyber Security Centre.
Ciaran Martin, founding chief executive of the agency, which is part of GCHQ, said Farage’s allegation, if true, would have major implications for UK policy towards Russia but that the Reform UK leader had yet to provide “a shred of evidence”.
It is understood that Farage is yet to ask the NCSC to investigate his apparent belief that the Guardian’s revelation of the multimillion-pound donation by crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne was the result of a Russian “hack-and-leak” operation.
Martin said such an operation by the Kremlin would amount to an “unprecedentedly aggressive intervention” into Britain’s democracy and that Farage should both contact the NCSC to investigate and make public the technical evidence he has for his claim.
Martin said: “An aspiring prime minister has essentially claimed that Russia has launched an unprecedentedly aggressive intervention – a malicious intervention – in British politics, and he’s not produced a shred of evidence to support that claim.
“He’s made a serious foreign policy and national security allegation which if true would have massive implications for British policy towards Russia.
…
A spokesperson for the Guardian described Farage’s claim as “an attempt to deflect attention from legitimate scrutiny of his financial affairs”. They added: “Nigel Farage is once again hiding behind a baseless attack on the media rather than facing up to scrutiny from journalists and politicians.”
…
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/25/nigel-farage-russian-hack-claim-disclosure-5m-gift
“… if true …”
Farage under mounting pressure to prove Russian hack claim
Morning Star Editorial: US threats to Cuba and Raul Castro must meet global defiance
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/us-threats-cuba-and-raul-castro-must-meet-global-defiance
A marcher holds a framed composite image of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel, during the May Day parade at Revolution Square in Havana, May 1, 2025US THREATS to Cuban revolutionary leader Raul Castro reek of the extraterritorial arrogance of a thuggish imperial power.
They indicate too that the extreme economic war Washington is waging to break the Cuban people could escalate to a direct military attack very soon.
The charges levelled at the 94-year-old former president of Cuba — a veteran of the 1959 revolution and a communist even before his great brother Fidel — are a sick joke.
Claiming the Cuban military shooting down a plane belonging to the terrorist, Miami exile-based Brothers to the Rescue outfit that had violated Cuban airspace back in the 1990s amounts to murder is to deny Havana the basic rights of a sovereign state — to protect its borders and its people.
But then, Washington has denied Cuba those basic rights for over 60 years.
…
The United States hates Cuba because it demonstrates that another world is possible — that a country can export doctors not bombs, stand for peace not war, socialism and equality not capitalist exploitation.
Those are exactly the reasons Cuba must survive. Every pressure must be brought to bear on our government to call out Trump’s lawless aggression and maximum solidarity and practical assistance to the island mobilised via the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.
Article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/us-threats-cuba-and-raul-castro-must-meet-global-defiance
Trump Counterterrorism Strategy Puts ‘Anti-Fascists’ on Par With ISIS, Al-Qaeda
Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“The global War on Terror has come home.”
The Trump administration on Wednesday released an official counterterrorism strategy that puts “anti-fascist” organizations on par with terrorist organizations such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda.
In outlining its strategy, the document argues that the US faces three “major type” of terrorist threats: “Legacy Islamiast Terrorists,” such as al-Qaeda and ISIS; “Narcoterrorists” that sell illegal drugs; and “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.”
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When it comes to the purported domestic left-wing threats, the document says the administration will “prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.”
“We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home,” the document adds, “identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent.”
The document makes no mention of the threat posed by members of right-wing groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, many of whom received pardons from President Donald Trump in 2025 for their role in violently storming the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
A report published last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that, while left-wing political violence has grown since Trump’s first election in 2016, it “remains much lower than historical levels of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers.”
Journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on Wednesday that the strategy “is the brainchild of White House counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka, an eccentric figure I have reported on, who last year hinted at terrorism charges being levied for political opponents of the administration.”
Digging into the details of the document, Klippenstein said it was essentially a strategy for prosecuting “pre-crime,” which he noted “aims to build cases against people for what they might do, most ominously based on speech or beliefs.”
At the end of his analysis, Klippenstein warned that the document makes clear “the global War on Terror has come home.”
The counterterrorism strategy document builds on the framework established by National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), a directive signed by Trump in September that demanded a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
Rights groups have for months been sounding the alarm about the implications of NSPM-7, which they said could be used to initiative a widespread crackdown against the Trump administration’s critics.
Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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- Broadening Assault on the Left, Trump Designates EU Anti-Fascist Groups as ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations’ ›
- Trump Officials Push Allies to Pursue Antifa and Far Left as Terrorist Threats – The New York Times