Reform UK has suspended one of its councillors while the party investigates him over alleged online comments about wanting to kill Keir Starmer.
The suspension came after the party was presented with details indicating that John Allen, a Reform UK Northumberland county councillor, had posted comments online about wanting to shoot the prime minister.
Nigel Farage, the party’s leader, last week challenged police to arrest social media users who he said had been using TikTok to call for him to be shot.
Reform was presented with details of the alleged comments after an investigation by the antifascist group Hope Not Hate.
A Reform UK spokesperson said on Friday: “Cllr Allen has been suspended pending investigation.”
Allen, who is also an appointee to the Northumbria police and crime panel and sits on a number of committees, neither confirmed nor denied that he was behind the YouTube account @johnallen7807 when he was asked by the Guardian.
That account has made repeated calls for Starmer to be killed. In recent years, it has posted comments indicating it is likely to be Allen’s account, such as an announcement last month that the handle user had been elected to Northumberland county council for Reform.
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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. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Zack Polanski is the new leader of the Green party in England and Wales after winning a leadership election promising a programme of “eco-populism”. Polanski beat incumbent leader Adrian Ramsay and his partner on the ticket, Ellie Chowns.
It’s been just over a year since the party celebrated its best ever results in the most recent general election. In July 2024, it doubled its vote share and quadrupled its representation in the House of Commons to four MPs.
The same election saw terrible results for the Conservatives and even for Labour, despite its win, raising questions about whether two-party politics was well and truly over. Since then, as professor John Curtice has vividly described, things have started to look even shakier.
This year’s local election saw a “record-breaking” fragmentation of the vote in which less than a quarter of local council seats went to the two main parties. The Greens now hold over 800 seats in more than 170 different councils, adding to their electoral portfolio – which also includes two members of the House of Lords and three London Assembly members.
While Polanski will be celebrating today, party members will look to him to raise their electoral fortunes even further. The electoral challenge for the Greens in England and Wales is two-pronged.
First, the party needs to maintain its position in the seats it has already secured. Its four MPs have fairly comfortable majorities, the smallest being Chowns’ 5,800 majority in North Herefordshire. Second, and perhaps most importantly, it needs to maximise its success in the 40 constituencies where it came second. All but one of these constituencies were won by Labour, which makes Labour voters the prime targets.
My research has shown how the Green party has followed a policy of “total engagement” in recent years. It takes its parliamentary work very seriously, using any and every opportunity to get its message across, even in lower-priority policy areas.
The goal here is to build credibility with the electorate. Small parties tend to want voters to think they are bigger than they are, so they can present themselves as realistic contenders for taking on the heavy work and responsibility of government. Caroline Lucas did a fantastic job of this, punching well above her weight as the party’s only MP between 2010 and 2024.
Together, the Green MPs have made over 380 contributions in the House of Commons. Chowns in particular has been a prolific backbencher, making 161 contributions, while the previous co-leaders Carla Denyer and Ramsay have been much quieter.
With Polanski sitting in the London Assembly rather than the House of Commons, this will inevitably change. The four Green MPs will collectively have more time on their hands and, with the right direction from their new leader, will have the space to be more strategic in their parliamentary activities.
Outsiders
But the Greens have always acted as something of an atypical party too, keeping one foot outside Westminster. Lucas was regularly involved in activism, joining protesters campaigning against tuition fee increases and fracking and to support refugees, to name just a few. She was even arrested in 2013 after joining a protest against energy firm Cuadrilla in Sussex (she was later cleared of all charges in court).
The new Green MPs have continued in this vein, with Sian Berry joining a peaceful protest against far-right agitators in Brighton last year and Chowns pressing the government to water down anti-protest laws.
The new leadership will need to decide whether this strategy enhances their electoral appeal. Does it highlight the Greens’ distinctiveness from the establishment parties, or does it imply they aren’t responsible enough to manage being a party of significant size? The answer depends on who you ask. Polanski has participated in several protests in the past, so chances are this activism will continue to be a core feature of Green party politics.
An added complication for the Greens is that two other parties are also chasing left-leaning voters. One of these is Reform UK. Although associated with rightwing views on social issues, the party came second in many Labour seats in 2024 and needs to appeal to both sides of the political spectrum.
This may explain why the Greens have focused their efforts on highlighting Reform’s failures. Berry, for instance, recently challenged Nigel Farage and his colleagues to publish a log of all their meetings since entering the Commons, arguing that it would be in the public interest.
The other outside threat is Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new and currently nameless party of the left. While we know little about this party’s policy platform right now, it seems to be veering towards a similarly bottom-up democratic model of organisation which has long been favoured by the Greens – possibly even with co-leaders.
The challenge for the Greens will be to better establish their niche on the left, to ensure they capture voters who are disillusioned with Keir Starmer’s wobbly start. Part of the solution could be to focus on a handful of key policy areas which go beyond the Green party’s niche of environmental issues. At the moment, its MPs take something of a scattergun approach in the Commons, contributing on everything from local buses and universal credit to Ukraine and the Middle East.
Some of the most recent questions asked during Prime Minister’s Questions by Greens hint at the options they might pursue. Ramsay has pushed for a wealth tax on the super rich, and an end to the two-child benefit cap. Both Corbyn and Sultana have, of course, been outspoken on these issues in the past.
If the Greens can’t forge a different path to this new left party, they may have no choice but to consider an electoral pact to avoid splitting the anti-Labour vote right down the middle.
Reform UK has laid out plans for an “emergency programme” to address illegal immigration. The party argues its plans, which include expanding immigration detention capacity from the current roughly 2,200 places to 24,000, would enable the deportation of up to 600,000 people over a parliamentary term.
Beyond the apparent logistical challenges are serious political repercussions. The Good Friday Agreement requires the rights and freedoms in the ECHR and recourse to the European Court of Human Rights to be part of the law in Northern Ireland. Withdrawing would require a renegotiation of the agreement. A showdown would also ensue with the devolved assemblies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Reform has touted its plan as a “legal reset”. But it is better understood as a total rejection of the UK’s postwar international commitments to protect the human rights of everyone within its jurisdiction.
These commitments, and others, have cemented the UK at the heart of the rules-based international order. This is the foundational idea that countries are bound by the legal commitments they make to each other and everyone within their jurisdiction. Successive governments have viewed this as both a moral imperative and a core aspect of the UK’s foreign and defence policies.
Reform’s plan would be an unprecedented and drastic rupture with almost eight decades of commitment to human rights protections. It would have far-reaching implications for all people in the UK, not just refugees.
How the ECHR protects everyone
If the UK withdrew from the ECHR, everyone living in the UK would lose the ability to take cases to the European Court of Human Rights if they fail to get justice domestically.
The ECHR alone has provided redress to victims of crime who have been failed by state investigations, like the survivors and bereaved families of the Hillsborough disaster or the victims of the “black cab rapist” John Worboys. Ironically, Reform UK has repeatedly argued for protection of free speech, which is protected primarily by the ECHR.
The wider cost of UK withdrawal from international treaties would be the loss of influence and reputation. These treaties are benchmarks for international cooperation, and foundational to international order. Pulling out of the UN convention against torture and the anti-trafficking convention would signal the UK’s abandonment of global principles to combat torture, modern slavery, sexual exploitation and trafficking, including the illegal trade in human organs.
Far from enabling the UK to control migration, a do-it-alone stance would harm the ability of future governments to do so. Removing the UK from the negotiating table would forfeit the opportunity to shape and benefit from cooperation to tackle a global challenge. We have seen this before: UK withdrawal from the EU took it out of the Dublin system and ongoing EU-wide efforts to manage migration and returns, just as small boat arrivals increased.
Beyond this, removals require treaties with other countries. Treaties require political will, mutual benefit, time and trust that the signatories will hold to their commitments. Where these are lacking, as evidenced by the failed and costly Rwanda policy, receiving countries can extract a very high price from the UK.
Could the rights be replaced?
To implement these plans, a Reform government would need to pass legislation through parliament to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA). If successful, this would pave the way for the UK to give notice to the Council of Europe to withdraw from the ECHR.
Without the HRA, there is no equivalent protection to the ECHR elsewhere in UK law. The common law, a body of law developed over centuries by judicial decisions as distinct from laws passed by parliament, would continue to provide some protection for rights, including personal liberty, access to justice, the right to a fair trial and the prohibition of torture.
Common law principles would still guide British judges when making decisions about mass detention and deportation without due process. It is also possible that a new bill of rights could be enacted, containing a similar or identical catalogue of rights to the ECHR.
The most important difference would be how rights would be protected in practice. Would any replacement, like the HRA, oblige public authorities and the government to uphold rights in their decisions and actions? And would it allow higher courts to declare a law incompatible with human rights, flagging to parliament that the law should be reconsidered?
Human rights protections are invisible to most people living in the UK. The expectation that police and your local council must treat you fairly, that health and care services must respect your dignity, and that there will be legal remedy if the state fails you, is so normalised that it would be inconceivable to think it could disappear within the UK.
But it is the invisible integration of individual rights within the UK system that makes this both a lived and legal reality. Stripping away these protections would leave us all naked.
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Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.
Responding to plans announced by Nigel Farage to rip up swathes of international law and deport thousands of migrants if Reform UK ever gained power, Green Party MP Ellie Chowns said:
“More inflammatory rhetoric from Farage at a sensitive time in many communities. This dangerous toxic bluster is clearly aimed at whipping up anger, hatred and even disorder. The way he talks about asylum seekers – our fellow global citizens – is reprehensible.
“The policy proposals themselves are unworkable. They rely on ripping up swathes of international law and would likely face many legal obstacles in the UK courts that could use British common law to block such cruelty.
“Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan and Syria feature in the top ten countries for asylum seekers in the UK – all places where people face oppression, conflict, extreme poverty or famine. Asylum claims from people arriving from these countries have high approval rates – almost 100% in the case of Sudan and Syria [1].
“Yet former Reform UK Chair Zia Yusuf has suggested that a Reform government would pay brutal regimes like the Taliban to accept the return of migrants – including unaccompanied children. They must know what could happen to these people when they are returned – they will likely be abused, tortured or executed.
“This is not who we are as a nation. The vast majority of the British public are willing to show compassion towards those fleeing the terrible situations they leave behind.”
Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.
Nigel Farage at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels. Credit: Belga News Agency / Alamy
The Reform leader will be skipping Parliament again in favour of a conference in Washington DC.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will speak next week alongside the authors of Donald Trump’s plans to “dismantle the administrative state” and scrap climate policies.
Farage is a featured speaker at the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference in Washington DC – at least his tenth visit to the U.S. since being elected as an MP.
As reported in The Mirror, Farage’s trip – during which he will also reportedly speak to Congress about free speech in the UK – means he will miss Parliament’s return from summer recess.
A version of this article was published by The Mirror
DeSmog’s analysis reveals that more than a fifth of the speakers at the NatCon event have roles at groups which contributed to Project 2025, the radical blueprint for Trump’s second term convened by the Heritage Foundation.
They include Russell Vought, Trump’s budget chief. Before entering office, Vought was a key author of Project 2025 and the vice president of Heritage Action, the campaign arm of the Heritage Foundation, whose president Kevin Roberts will be speaking at NatCon.
The listed speakers also include senior members of the Trump administration, including his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who launched her book For Love of Country at a Heritage Foundation event with Roberts last year; and Tom Homan, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who is a former visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a contributor to Project 2025.
NatCon is organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington DC. Its UK chairman James Orr runs the pro-Reform think tank the Centre for a Better Britain, is a close friend of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, and recently told BBC Radio 4 that he admires the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. Farage spoke at a NatCon event in Brussels last year.
The lengthy Project 2025 policy document, titled ‘The Mandate for Leadership’, proposed reversing climate policies, unleashing fossil fuel extraction, scrapping investment in clean energy, and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – policies imposed by the Trump administration.
As DeSmog has reported, 70 percent of Trump’s cabinet has ties to Project 2025, which also seeks to “dismantle the administrative state”, further restrict abortion, and access to contraception.
A Liberal Democrat source told DeSmog: “Nigel Farage is far more interested in pleasing Trump and jostling for his affections than he is in turning up to Parliament on time or standing up for British values.”
Farage in DC
Farage will speak on a panel alongside Larry Arnn, who sits on the Heritage Foundation’s board of directors.
It will be the second time Farage has shared a stage with Arnn following a fundraiser in September 2024 for the Heartland Institute, which also contributed to Project 2025 and has described itself as “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting scepticism about man-made climate change”.
At the fundraiser, Farage claimed that the UK’s efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions don’t “make any bloody difference at all” – and reiterated Trump’s call to “drill baby drill” for fossil fuels.
Farage and Trump have both denied basic climate science. The Reform leader has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, while Trump has called climate change a “giant hoax”.
Next week’s event in Washington lists at least 22 speakers with current or recent roles at the Heritage Foundation and other Project 2025 member groups.
Other UK speakers at the event include Rupert Darwall, who has claimed there is “strong evidence for the non-existence of a climate crisis,” and former GB News presenter Calvin Robinson.
Senior members of the Conservative Party including shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick and shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel have met with Heritage Foundation leaders or spoken at their events in recent years.
Reform UK did not reply to DeSmog’s request for comment.
Kevin Roberts – president of the Heritage Foundation
Russell Vought – director of the Office for Budget Management, and former vice president of Heritage Action
Tom Homan – director of Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE), and a former visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation
Christopher DeMuth – Heritage Foundation Fellow
John Backiel – visiting fellow for the Capital Markets Initiative at the Heritage Foundation
Robert Greenway – director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation
Rob Bluey – executive editor of the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal
Victoria Coates – vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy
Tom Klingenstein – chairman of the board of directors at the Claremont Institute
Spencer Klavan – associate editor at the Claremont Review of Books
Ryan Williams – president of the Claremont Institute and publisher of the Claremont Review of Books
John Eastman – senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and a contributor to the Heritage Guide to the Constitution
Will Thibeau – director of the American Military Project at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, and previously a policy analyst in the Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center
Kristen Waggoner – CEO, president, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom
Gene Hamilton – president and co-founder of America First Legal
Curt Mills — executive director of the American Conservative
Mark DiPlacido — policy advisor at American Compass, and a former Heritage Action staffer
Rachel Bovard — vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute
Rupert Darwall — strategy consultant and policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Mark Krikorian — executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies
Alex Petkas — a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America
Clare Morell — fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. 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.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
