Islam Beyond Phobia

When Muslims save lives, the Islamophobia machine looks the other way

(RNS) — The far-right response to a Muslim’s heroism in the Bondi Beach attack shows how Islamophobia depends on distortion and dehumanization.

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns visits Ahmed al Ahmed, who was identified as the bystander who seized a rifle from one of the gunmen during the deadly shooting at Bondi Beach on Sunday, at a hospital in Sydney, Dec. 15, 2025. (Photo via X/@ChrisMinnsMP)

Omar Suleiman
December 16, 2025
RNS



(RNS) — The truth about a society often reveals itself in moments of crisis, in the unscripted actions of ordinary people. On Sunday (Dec. 14) in Sydney, when gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, it was Ahmed al Ahmed, a 43-year-old Syrian-born Muslim and Australian immigrant, who ran toward danger. He tackled and disarmed one of the attackers, likely saving countless lives, and was lauded by Australian leaders and global onlookers as a hero.

Almost immediately, parts of the far-right internet went to work erasing that reality. Influencers and commentators fond of Islamophobic narratives began insisting, without evidence, that Ahmed must be a Christian. Laura Loomer, one of MAGA’s boundary guardians, wrote on X: “Credible reports suggest the man is actually a Lebanese or Coptic Christian. Don’t fall for the propaganda.”

These influencers could not tolerate the simple fact that a Muslim man risked his life to protect Jewish lives. It was too inconvenient for their worldview.

On the same day, two students were shot at Brown University. As speculation swirled online, some voices expressed open hope that the shooter would turn out to be Muslim. They needed the tragedy to fit their narrative; proving that he was shouting “Allahu Akbar” would allow them to spin it their way. Yet Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, one of the two students who were killed, was a Muslim himself. The fact received little attention from those who had been so eager to assign blame.

This is the dangerous core of Islamophobia today: The prejudice is so entrenched that reality must bend around it. Heroes must be stripped of their Muslim identity. Victims must be reframed as perpetrators. Truth becomes secondary to usefulness.

I have experienced this dynamic firsthand. A short, heavily edited clip of me continues to circulate on right-wing accounts designed to misrepresent my stance and inflame anti-Muslim sentiment. This is how manufactured outrage works. The few seconds shown in the clip are divorced from their context, allowing the confected narrative to take hold.

Video screen grab of Ahmed al Ahmed, white shirt, wrestling a rifle from one of the gunmen during the deadly shooting at Bondi Beach. (Video screen grab)

This is not accidental. Islamophobia is a political industry that depends on constant fear, distortion and dehumanization. Nor is it only a domestic political weapon, but a global information strategy. In the United Kingdom, Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defense League, continues to build a movement around portraying Muslims as incompatible with Western society, using exaggeration, fabrication and selective storytelling.

Multiple investigations and analyses show how anti-Muslim sentiment is deliberately amplified to distract from mass violence and suppress criticism. One exposé found that the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs funded online influence campaigns that pushed pro-Israel messaging alongside anti-Muslim content. The goal was to shape public opinion by portraying Muslims as inherently threatening, making it easier to deflect attention from atrocities in Gaza.

Scholars analyzing the rhetoric around Gaza argue that Islamophobia is central to rhetoric attempting to justify or minimize Palestinian suffering by reframing the structural realities of occupation and mass death as natural responses to an inherently barbaric people. Civil rights advocates have warned that some pro-Israel political actors are using Islamophobia to discredit critics, distract from documented war crimes and frame solidarity with Palestinians as extremism.

Western media outlets, in addition, often rely on Islamophobic framing when covering Gaza, sidelining Palestinian voices while centering narratives that serve power rather than truth, according to reporting by the Bridge Initiative at Georgetown University.

These studies show that Islamophobia is not a byproduct of confusion or lack of education about Islam. It is driven and amplified by a recognizable cast of figures and platforms. Far-right provocateurs such as Loomer make conspiratorial claims about Muslims, painting an entire faith community as a national security threat and pushing false narratives to millions of followers.

These figures cultivate an audience conditioned to believe Muslims are uniquely violent or suspect. So when someone like Ahmed al Ahmed acts like a hero in Sydney, the system malfunctions. The narrative must be rewritten.

Once a community is dehumanized digitally, it becomes easier to continue to marginalize, exclude or harm that community physically. But the truth must break through.

Ahmed al Ahmed did not stop to ask the religion of the people he shielded. He acted on faith, courage and conscience. He has been rightfully recognized widely for the hero he is despite constant attempts to vilify his community.

This is the crisis of our moment: When a Muslim is a victim, their humanity is erased; when a Muslim is a hero, their identity is erased.

Islamophobia thrives on erasure. It thrives on fear. It thrives on distortion and distraction. But narratives built on fear are brittle when confronted with truth. Muslims today are part of the social fabric of every place they call home. They are students, caregivers, neighbors and, yes, heroes. Their courage and compassion defy bigotry’s attempts to confine them tocaricature.

If we want a society worth living in, then truth must matter more than fear. Heroism must matter more than narrative convenience. And human dignity must matter more than political utility.

The Islamophobia machine is in full swing, but the truth keeps clogging its system.

‘AI superintelligence regulation is what we owe voters of this generation and those to come’

Alex Sobel 15th December, 2025

© everything possible/Shutterstock.com

The Labour Government’s strong view is that AI can transform the lives of Britons for the better. AI can help foster growth; boost productivity; make services and utilities more efficient; unlock cheap energy; and propel medical advances. This is why we are investing in AI infrastructure all across the UK and encouraging adoption across the whole economy. We need AI we can leverage as tools to empower British citizens. But there is a problem – this is not what leading AI companies are aiming for.

Instead, they are rushing to create ever more competent and autonomous AIs that can outcompete humans at most cognitive and economically valuable tasks. This is their explicit end goal – superintelligence, or smarter-than-human AI.

Not only are these smarter-than-human AIs not what we want, but they also pose enormous risks for British citizens. This is because even AI developers do not know how to control AIs that are smarter than them. In a recent blog post, OpenAI wrote that “Although the potential upsides are enormous, we treat the risks of superintelligent systems as potentially catastrophic […]. Obviously, no one should deploy superintelligent systems without being able to robustly align and control them, and this requires more technical work.” Indeed, experts, including the very CEOs of the leading AI companies, warn that advanced AIs pose a risk of human extinction on par with “pandemics and nuclear war.”

Governments have the right and responsibility to protect their citizens from such risks. But what can be done? I recently joined AI experts, policymakers, and public figures in signing an open letter proposing a solution: an international prohibition on the development of superintelligence for the foreseeable future. This would vastly reduce the gravest risks from advanced AI, and redirect the productive energy of the tech sector towards genuinely valuable AI development and applications.

In the face of this pressing challenge, we need principled leaders who will show others the way. The UK is uniquely well placed to lead in negotiating an international agreement on prohibiting the development of superintelligence. Notably, we established the world’s first AI Security Institute, which conducts cutting edge research on AI risks, how to measure them, and what to do about them. It has inspired the creation of institutes modelled after it across the world, including the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation and the Chinese AI Safety Network.

This is why our Manifesto promised to “ensure the safe development and use of AI models by introducing binding regulation on the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI models”.

Unfortunately, because of competing priorities, this issue has not moved as quickly as it needs to. More than a year later, the Government has yet to introduce a Bill in Parliament regulating advanced AIs.

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The UK deserves growth. But it deserves the right kind of growth. And we cannot safely leverage AI for growth without regulation on the most advanced systems. So it is time for us to deliver on the promise we made to the British public, and propose regulation that redirects AI companies away from developing uncontrollable superintelligence.

Concretely, this AI Bill can achieve its aim by making the pursuit of superintelligence illegal, and by creating a regulatory regime to monitor development and enforce this prohibition. The AI Security Institute is well positioned to become the regulator of choice, leveraging its wealth of technical expertise. And by targeting specifically the most powerful AI systems, the AI Bill could let specialised and tool-like AI development thrive, which is exactly what we need.

I am not alone in believing this matters.  A coalition of more than 100 cross-party parliamentarians joins me in supporting a statement by the UK non-profit ControlAI that “The UK can secure the benefits and mitigate the risks of AI by delivering on its promise to introduce binding regulation on the most powerful AI systems.”

Whatever shape it takes, AI regulation is not just one more item on the agenda; it is what we owe British citizens now and to safeguard future generations.

Alex Sobel

Alex Sobel is MP for Leeds Central and Headingley. He is a founding member of Mainstream and the UK Trade Envoy to Ukraine.@alexsobel

View all articles by Alex Sobel

Labour’s identity crisis – caught between Blairism and Blue Labour

Emma Burnell  15th December, 2025

Photo: Sean Aiden Calderbank/Shutterstock

The problem most tribes in the Labour Party have is that they rarely get to fully define themselves. Choices they make early on, when they are still feeling their way — ones that may have felt trivial or tangential to their mission — come to assume outsized importance. The projections placed upon them by those who either know very little about what their aims are, or who understand and oppose those aims (and so wish to paint them as negatively as possible), can come to define them more strongly than anything they do or say themselves, if they are not vigilant and unrelenting in their own self-definition.

I was thinking about this as I read the fascinating piece by my colleague Daniel Green about the recent ‘in conversation’ event between leading Blue Labour figure Shabana Mahmood and the architect of New Labour, Tony Blair.

There are whole books in existence about both factions — and many more will be written. I return to my first paragraph as a warning that I too will use shorthand when defining what those movements are about: shorthand that will be informed by my own experiences, perceptions and prejudices.

In essence (or shorthand, if you will), New Labour’s belief was in using the free-market economic system they inherited from Thatcher to grow the economy and then better redistribute the results, both directly through measures such as the introduction of the minimum wage, and indirectly through using increased tax receipts (and private funding models) to inject cash into state functions such as schools and hospitals, while reforming how those institutions worked.

Their largely unspoken deal with the left was that they would, at the same time, increase the state’s support for socially liberal values through things like the Human Rights Act, the repeal of Section 28 and the introduction of civil partnerships (which may seem almost quaint now, but at the time were considered a giant leap forward for gay equality), as well as a series of pieces of legislation that first introduced the notion of hate crimes into UK law.

However, New Labour’s economic model died with the 2008 crash.But so dominant had it been that there had been no thinking done throughout the New Labour years about how to pursue a politics of redistribution in a time of scarcity. So all we had left was a model of cuts and a fight over who would introduce those more fairly, Alistair Darling or George Osborne. I would take the former any day – of course. But the orthodox terrain being fought over was very narrow.

Into that breach stepped Blue Labour – a complete inversion of New Labour politics, but one deliberately situated on the old Labour right. This was a politics of strong statism economically, with an equally strong state distaste for social liberalism. Blue Labour came into being at the tail end of the New Labour government and was formed as a reactionary counter to it. Its name, though, almost killed it at birth because, as a piece of marketing shorthand, it is an incredibly poor way to sell the philosophy behind the organisation. It made it sound as though they wanted Labour to be more like the Tories, when economically they were arguing for a break with free market economics.

Labour from 2010 to 2019 was not about building on and moving on from the New Labour years, but about repudiating them. First this came in a gentle rebuke from the soft left in the form of Ed Miliband (who capitalised on Labour members’ understandable disgust at the Iraq War), and then from the hard left under Jeremy Corbyn, who was able to point to the ease with which the Tories (and the Lib Dems) had undone so much of the progress of the New Labour years and argue that this was the result of the shallowness of those changes.

This, in turn, simply led to a full-throated defence of the whole New Labour project from those who felt the rejection of their politics keenly. Then everyone spent about a decade distracted by Brexit and the new political and social fissures it exposed.

So when the wheel turned again and the party moved on from Corbynism, there wasn’t a new set of institutions, policy ideas and political fundamentals from the right of the party that had been developed in response to the challenges of the 21st century. As Starmer has refused to develop such an ideological framework, he has instead been trapped between the ideologies of those who surround him — two opposing camps of old New Labour hands and Blue Labour devotees. It is perhaps this incoherence that has driven many of Labour’s problems in government.

Starmer’s government is often accused of doing ‘un-Labour’ things by those on the left of the party. I don’t think that’s quite right. What they mean is that it is doing things that don’t gel with their particular vision of Labour — socially or economically. But, as they were accused frequently of in the aftermath of the Budget, they are doing things that are quite old Labour in terms of welfare and state provision. That may or may not be to the taste of all members; it may or may not go down well with the public. But it is not un-Labour. Nor, too, is being socially conservative. It’s just not the flavour of Labour in government that we have become used to or that many of us are comfortable with. 

What they aren’t doing is picking an ideology and sticking with it. That might suit Starmer’s distaste for such things, but it is driving the persistent feeling that there is a lack of coherence and consistency. It is exceptionally hard to discipline people for not singing from the same hymn sheet if you refuse to provide the words.

If the powwow between Mahmood and Blair is the start of a reconciliation between New Labour and Blue Labour, it might just have a chance to develop into an ideology that can meet in the middle between the two and move both into a  politics that match the moment we’re in now rather than harking back to a pre-crash past. Or we might end up with the worst of both worlds. I suspect 2026 will provide an answer pretty quickly.

‘Labour needs to regain the narrative from Lib Dems and Reform on Europe’

Ben Cox,  17th December, 2025

Photo: Shutterstock

As we reach the tenth anniversary of the 2016 Brexit referendum, we have observed war erupting in Europe with Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the rise of populist right-wing movements across Europe, and the US stepping back from its role as a hegemonic force.  

With all the geopolitical tension and the sense of a growing polycrisis looming over the world order as we know it, the Labour Party finds itself in a unique position to take an active role in shaping the future.

While the Lib Dems call for us to start arguments with the US that will only lead to more global unrest and hardship for the British public, Labour’s role in diplomacy has been crucial in giving the Western world time to recalibrate after a turbulent year in US and Euro relations. At the same time as the Lib Dems lose all sense of diplomacy, Reform seeks to attack our nation by deliberately trying to stoke tension between the US and the UK by suggesting that the UK is like “North Korea” when giving “evidence” at a US Congressional Hearing in September 2025. 

While it is important to maintain diplomatic relations and a close bond with the US, the UK must assess its independent stance and consider a future where the Western post-war consensus may have broken down beyond repair. Where depending on any single nation for global security becomes irresponsible. The Labour Party faces a critical period where we must forge a way through these challenging times. Slogans, media stunts, and foolishness are not an option for a government, and we as a party need to be confident in our resolve going forward. 

The only way the Labour Party can progress in this evolving environment is by addressing past wrongs. That means Brexit must be tackled, and discussions about a long-term plan for European and EU/UK security should be central to our purpose moving forward. Whilst it is comforting knowing Labour have pledged to reach 3.5 per cent of GDP spending on defence by 2035 – with an extra 1.5 per cent on resilience against online warfare, it is clear that money alone isn’t enough. 

The government need to develop a long-term strategy for strengthening relations with Europe and the EU. This involves reorienting our nuclear weapons programme towards European security, investing in making it truly independent of US control, and granting the UK full autonomy. Additionally, we must address European steel and British steel capabilities in an uncertain global landscape. 

While it is essential for the Labour Party to address our relationship with Europe for security reasons, the UK has paid a heavy cultural price due to Brexit, with many young people considering moving overseas as opportunities and growth decline. The UK’s creative sector has lost an estimated €184 million from the EU “Creative Europe Budget,” with touring barriers and studies showing 47.4% of musicians having fewer EU opportunities and 39% being turned down for work due to visa and cost issues. This attack on the creative industry, which accounts for 15% of all UK service exports, isn’t only damaging to culture but also harms our capacity for economic growth and causes our talented young people to move their skills abroad.

The Labour Party needs to protect jobs, as  a core value of our party that should take precedence over any manifesto pledge. Jobs are what Labour stands for, and if that means going back on the manifesto about freedom of movement or even our future membership of the EU, then that is a price worth paying for Labour’s core values of work and employment. 

The Labour Party needs to be bolder in its approach to the EU, but that isn’t the only bold action the party must take. With the illegal Russian war in Ukraine, Labour must become a true leader on this issue. The coalition of the willing requires us to show genuine commitment by declaring we will push for meaningful negotiations with Russia, Ukraine, and the Coalition, as it is entirely inappropriate to have negotiations about European and Ukrainian security without either one at the table. The era of gesture politics is over and the coalition needs to be more than just words. Failing to take control of the narrative in this war will make Europe less safe, more people will die, and the UK with be weaker. 

There is a strong Labour case for European friendship and close ties both with the EU and the rest of Europe, which goes to the core of what our movement stands for—creating safe and secure jobs; improving social conditions; and fostering solidarity with those around us.

The Lib Dems and Reform fail to grasp these fundamental values, and the Conservatives have abandoned any credible stance on the international stage. It is for the Labour Party to be brave enough to champion the benefits of Europe, emphasising the need for closer European ties for our national and global security, and to champion the future of our national renewal through equitable growth. 

It isn’t too late to reconsider our future, especially in today’s challenging geopolitical world. Changing your mind can be a strength, not a weakness. It is our duty as a party to rewrite the narrative and unite Europe against the rise of the populist right, hate, and war. This is our moral mission and the only way to build a safe and secure Europe from Ukraine to Portugal with the Labour Party and the UK at the centre of it.

Recently, Labour List published an article stating that a third of Labour members want to rejoin the EU, and multiple polls across the nation show a willingness to do so. If the Labour leadership truly wants to put the UK back on the world stage, now is the time to act and become the strong voice of leadership that Europe and the EU needs and that the world expects us to be.

Ben Cox

Ben Cox is a councillor on Wealden District Council and candidate for Labour Movement for Europe Council representative for the South East

View all articles by Ben Cox

Reform candidate refuses to apologise for saying David Lammy should ‘go home to the Caribbean’

Olivia Barber Yesterday
Reading Time: 2 minutes


Chris Parry would not confirm that the former foreign secretary's “primary loyalty” is to the UK

Foreign secretary David Lammy (Jonathan Brady/PA) (PA Archive)

A Reform candidate who said that David Lammy should “go home” to the Caribbean where his “loyalties lie”, has refused to apologise for his remarks.

Chris Parry, a retired Navy admiral and Reform’s candidate for mayor of Hampshire and the Solent, doubled down on his comments in a TalkTV interview, saying that people should “look at the context” they were made in.

He made the comment on X in February, after Lammy said he was “open” to having slavery reparations talks with former British colonies.

Parry claimed that a journalist at a major newspaper has “a bit of an obsession about this”, adding “you really shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers”.

In response, TalkTV’s Peter Cardwell asked him: “Did you write it, did you write that?”.

The Reform candidate responded: “I’m not going to talk about it, people should go to Twitter and see what was written and the context in which it happened.”

He added: “All I’m saying is that if you’re the foreign secretary of this country, your primary loyalty must be to this country.”

Lammy was the foreign secretary between July 2024 to September 2025, and is now the justice secretary.

Cardwell asked: “Do you believe his primary loyalty is to this country? Because he was born in this country, his parents weren’t of course.”

Parry refused to say whether Lammy’s primary loyalty is to the UK, and instead answered: “Ask him.”

Reform is facing calls from Labour, including MP Calvin Bailey to sack him as their candidate due to his “vile” comments.

Labour chair Anna Turley said: “No matter what Reform’s senior leadership say, telling a black British man from London to ‘go home to the Caribbean’ is racist, and no ‘context’ can excuse it.”

Parry has also used the sexist term ‘harpy’ to refer to several female Cabinet ministers including the chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

Opinion

What’s behind Reform’s Christians for Reform UK launch?

Olivia Barber 

15 December, 2025 
Left Foot Forward


The right is increasingly using Christianity as a political tool

Reform UK launched a new ‘interest group’ within the party last Thursday: Christians for Reform.

At the launch at St Michael’s Cornhill Church in the City of London, Reform MP Sarah Pochin declared: “Reform will always stand up for Christianity in this country, we are fundamentally a Christian country and we are proud to be Christian.”

Former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe, went as far as to say the launch marked “the day when Reform and Christianity are merged”.

On the right, Christianity is increasingly being used as a political tool. Far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson and UKIP’s Nick Tenconi firmly align themselves with Christianity. Two days after Reform’s ‘Christian fellowship’ launch, Robinson, a co-founder of anti-Islam group the English Defence League, held a carol service in Whitehall, which he claimed was about “putting Christ back into Christmas”, but featured lots of Union jacks. Tenconi calls himself a “defender of masculinity, Christianity, and conservative values”.

While right-wing figures promote Christian nationalism, they characterise Islam as a threat and push anti-Muslim and anti-migrant rhetoric. Reform spends a lot of its time railing against migrants from countries that have different cultures, values and practice different religions to Christianity.

Pochin came under fire when she recently used her first PMQ to ask if Keir Starmer would ban the burqa. Before the general election last year, Nigel Farage said former prime minister Rishi Sunak had allowed more migrants into the country who “are going to fight British values”. He said: “We have a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values, [who] in fact loathe much of what we stand for.” Farage confirmed he was talking about British Muslims.

Farage said he stopped attending church in March last year, attributing his decision to the Church of England’s “surrender” to the “woke agenda”. “I used to believe in it. I used to attend – not every Sunday but regularly,” Farage said. His comments came after the Archdeacon of Liverpool, Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, said she had been to a conference on whiteness, and that the church should focus on being “anti-whiteness” and “anti-oppression”. Despite Farage’s boycott of the Church of England due to its “woke agenda”, the Christians for Reform launch was held at an Anglican, CoE church.

Reform MP Danny Kruger, who is an evangelical Christian, said in a controversial speech to Parliament in July that Christianity is declining, and Islam is one of the religions taking its place. He said the UK is “fundamentally a Christian country, if it is a country, and I cannot be indifferent to the extent of the growth of Islam in recent decades”.

Reform’s appeal to Christian voters mirrors strategies used by Donald Trump in the US. In the US, Christians are the bedrock of Trump’s support base and this goes hand in hand with his anti-Muslim rhetoric. At his inauguration in 2017, Trump had pastors pray for him. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, he made a direct appeal to Christians to vote for him, “I love you Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote.” According to statistics from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), the largest religious group among Trump voters in the 2024 election was white evangelical protestants, 81% of whom voted for him.

The launch, and Reform politicians’ remarks on Christianity and Islam, shows that Farage’s party is seeking to consolidate its voter base among nationalist Christians, while also using religion to advance its anti-migrant and anti-Muslim agenda.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

‘MAGA is almost a cult movement’: LabourList interview with Mehdi Hassan

Muddassar Ahmed  17th December, 2025

LabourList roving correspondent Muddassar Ahmed interviews Mehdi Hassan.

Mehdi was a journalist covering the British political scene until he moved to the USA in 2015. He talks about the difference between US and UK politics and media, political pluralism, the essential need for good political communications and the dangers of the MAGA movement.

Muddassar Ahmed

Muddassar Ahmed is president of the Concordia Forum, a Labour Party member and the LabourList international columnist.

View all articles by Muddassar Ahmed

Donald Trump claims Liz Truss as ‘voice of authority’ as part of his $10bn claim against BBC

Basit Mahmood 

Yesterday
Left Foot Forward





Someone should remind Trump that Truss has no credibility in the UK.


U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed that disgraced former Prime Minister Liz Truss is a ‘voice of authority’ as part of his defamation lawsuit against the BBC.

Trump wants to sue the BBC after Panorama broadcast a misleading edit of a speech he made before the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.

During the speech, before a riot at the US Capitol, Trump told a crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”

More than 50 minutes later in the speech, he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”

In the edited Panorama clip, it showed him as saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

The BBC has apologised with two of its top figures, including the director-general, resigning amid concerns about impartiality.

Truss, an ally of Trump, accused the BBC of peddling ‘fake news’ and of being ‘left leaning’.

Legal experts have said that Trump’s lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, given the high bar Trump would have to meet to prove that there was intentional malice, and given that the Panorama documentary is not available in the U.S., Trump would also have a difficult time proving reputational harm.

Nonetheless, Trump has followed through on his legal threat and on Monday evening filed a lawsuit against the BBC totalling up to $10bn (£7.5bn).

Trump reckons the voice of Britain’s shortest serving prime minister, Truss, is proof that the BBC needs to be ‘held accountable.’ The same Liz Truss whose disastrous mini-budget led to market turmoil and the pound collapsing, resulting in her being booted from office after just 45 days.

The lawsuit states: “No less an authority than the United Kingdom’s former Prime Minister, Liz Truss, discussed this bias, the need to hold the BBC accountable, and the BBC’s pattern of actual malice.”

Someone should remind Trump that Truss has no credibility in the UK.

Liz Truss claims that living in the UK is now like ‘East Germany’ in latest bizarre rant

Basit Mahmood 

15 December, 2025

Left Foot Forward

Truss is totally deluded

.

Liz Truss could do with some quiet self-reflection after her disastrous time in office that resulted in her being booted out after just 45 days, yet the disgraced former Prime Minister continues to make bizarre and ludicrous claims.

After repeatedly claiming that her premiership fell apart because of the ‘deep state’ rather than her own disastrous policies contained in the mini-budget, which sent mortgage bills soaring and the pound collapsing, Truss now says that living in the UK is like living in East Germany with free-speech under attack.

Despite the fact that Truss was able to reach the highest office in the land, say what she liked and push her flawed policies which ultimately resulted in her downfall, Truss claims that free speech has been eroded and that you can now be arrested for “expressing perfectly normal views online”.

In the latest instalment of the weekly ‘The Liz Truss Show’ on Youtube, the former Tory leader claimed that foreigners were “afraid to step onto our shores for fear of being arrested”, and that “hate crime cases and cracking down on free speech” was being prioritised by police “over burglary and rape”.

She was joined on her latest episode by three guests, Allison Pearson, Graham Linehan, and Lucy Connelly.

Connolly was sentenced in October 2024 to two and a half years behind bars after admitting to inciting racial hatred. She took to X to urge people to “set fire” to hotels housing asylum seekers during the Southport riots last summer. She pleaded guilty to the offence of distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred.

Yet despite her breaking the law and pleading guilty, Truss and others have sought to portray her as a free speech martyr.

Truss says in her video: “It does feel like we’re living in East Germany.”

“Laws have been passed which are now being used against ordinary citizens expressing perfectly normal views online.”

Truss’ latest bizarre rant, will only add to the feeling that she’s completely out of touch with reality.


Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

UK

‘Labour’s blind spot on rents is becoming a political liability’

Nye Jones 16th December, 2025

When Olivia, a surveyor, first moved into her flat in Manchester in 2020, her rent was £750 a month. The home was “very basic”, but she was happy to have her own place. But in just five years her landlord has raised her rent to £1100, an almost 50% increase, despite not improving the home.

Incensed at her latest rent rise, Olivia did some digging into the man who owns her home and found out he doesn’t have a mortgage to pay off. “It’s profiteering, pure and simple” she says. Having to spend more and more of her income on rent has left her hopeless: “Despite having a good job, my rent means I simply can’t save for my own home. It’s a deterrent to work hard because what’s the point?” 

Unfortunately, Olivia’s story is all too common for private renters across the country. A July 2025 report from the property website Rightmove found the average monthly rent a new tenant faces paying is £417 more than in 2020. This is around £1,200 a year more than average wages have increased in the same time period. It’s therefore no surprise that, on average, we renters spend over 36% of our income on rent. This figure jumps to well over 40% in places like London and Bristol.

READ MORE: One in five Labour members see Greens as biggest electoral threat

The government’s Renters’ Rights Act, which comes into force in May 2026, will be a vital first step in addressing the power imbalance between renters and landlords. But, the glaring hole in the law is that it does not tackle the soaring cost of renting. 

Ministers have repeatedly cited the government’s ambitious housebuilding programme as the best way to bring rents down. However, Generation Rent’s modelling found that, even if the Government meets its target of building 1.5 million new homes, this will reduce rent inflation in England by just 1.8 percentage points. This analysis is based on a large share of these homes being for social rent, which has already come under threat as affordable housing targets for developments in London have since been significantly watered down. 

At Generation Rent, we believe a common sense solution to this problem is a cap on how much landlords can raise the rent, linked to the lower of inflation or wage growth. This would protect renters from sudden, unaffordable rent hikes, while still giving landlords room to raise the rent modestly in line with inflation. 

We recently urged parliament to seize the opportunity of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill to allow Mayors of combined authorities to introduce limits on rent increases in their areas. Sadiq Khan has said this power is “top of his list” of what he wants from the government, while Andy Burnham has also called for them in the past. However, we were told that introducing rent caps were out of scope of the bill. 

But kicking the can down the road on this issue could lead to a real headache for the government as the next election looms. Private renters were the most likely tenure type to vote for Labour in 2024. Meanwhile, recent YouGov polling found Labour is losing twice as much support to parties on the left than on the right, with research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation finding economic insecurity is the key factor in people switching away from Labour. With Green Leader Zack Polanski enthusiastically supporting rent controls, polling shows the Greens have already taken one sixth of Labour’s support from the last election and are likely to win many traditionally Labour seats in urban areas.

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Keir Starmer has been clear that this is a government for working people. But its opposition to put a common sense limit on rent increases is tying his own hands.

Starmer categorically said that people who receive additional income from assets such as property wouldn’t come within his definition of working people. Half of private renters have no savings whatsoever, while the vast majority are working. Meanwhile, just 42% of landlords declare mortgage interest payments on their tax returns, meaning close to three in five, like Olivia’s landlord, don’t have a mortgage. Furthermore, according to the latest Private Landlord Survey, two thirds are retired and only three in 10 are in full-time employment.

Unchecked rents are leading to a huge transfer of wealth from traditionally Labour voting younger, working people to more conservative leaning asset rich people. A household paying the average rent in London will send over £100,000 to their landlord in just four years. In the main, this is money that is sucked out of the economy, with 56% of landlords saying they use their income to invest in their own pension.

Labour entered government on a landslide in 2024. But  each month, renters up and down the country continue to send a huge chunk of their income to a landlord who they may have never met. For renters like Olivia, alongside millions of others across the country, it creates a sense of hopelessness, of an economic system that is rigged against us.

Nye Jones

Nye Jones is Head of Campaigns at Generation Rent.

View all articles by Nye Jones

Five Brent Labour councillors quit party and defect to Greens

Daniel Green 15th December, 2025

Five Labour councillors in Brent have resigned from the party and defected to the Greens.

The councillors, including a former council cabinet member and the Labour group’s former chief whip, accused Keir Starmer of a lack of ambition to deliver change, and criticised the government for “copying far-right policy and rhetoric on migration”, being “complicit” in the war in Gaza and for “silencing internal debate dissent”.

Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam, Harbi Farah, Mary Mitchell, Tony Ethapemi and Erica Gbajumo have joined Green Party leader Zack Polanski at a press conference in Wembley to announce their decision.

Polanski claimed that “good Labour councillors” could see the party had abandoned progressive politics “in its doomed attempt to out-Reform Reform”.

Ahmadi Moghaddam, who served as chief whip until the defection, said: “I joined Labour to build a fairer society, but Starmer’s government has abandoned any ambition to change the system. This government has doubled down on austerity whilst the cost of living devastates families, sides with big developers instead of fixing Brent’s housing crisis and scapegoats migrants to distract from its own failures. While Israel commits genocide in Gaza, this government arms the perpetrators and criminalises peaceful protest.”

‘My values have not changed, the party has’

Farah, who previously served as a cabinet leader for safer communities, said that, while he joined Labour because it “represented the ideals of social justice, equality and collective well-being”,  she now felt an “overwhelming and accumulating sense of disappointment”.

He said: “We were offered a transformative agenda, a genuine shift in power dynamics, but time and again, when faced with political headwinds or internal pressures, those commitments seemed to vanish, such as welfare reform, scapegoating immigrants, the race to the far right, scrapping jury trials and silencing internal debate dissent.

“I am leaving the Labour Party because my values have not changed, the party has. I still believe in a society structured around solidarity and genuine systemic change. I am a socialist, and I seek a political home that unambiguously champions these ideals.”

It comes after dozens of Labour councillors across the country have quit the party or defected in protest against different decisions being made by the government in Westminster.

‘Labour in Brent has focused on delivery rather than posturing’

A London Labour spokesperson told LabourList: “Zack Polanski has today announced a slate of Green councillor candidates in Brent. For the avoidance of doubt, all but one of the individuals unveiled were not selected to stand for the Labour Party at the next election, as they fell below the standards we require of those seeking to represent Labour.

“The Labour Party operates rigorous and transparent selection processes and maintains the highest standards for its candidates. Mr Polanski’s approach suggests a far lower bar for entry, raising serious questions about the level of scrutiny and judgment applied in the Green Party.

“In contrast, Labour in Brent has focused on delivery rather than posturing. Through the Cost-of-Living Advice Hub and Resident Support Fund, we have provided direct help with bills, food, debt and employment at a time of real pressure for families. We are delivering 5,000 genuinely affordable homes by 2028, including new council homes, tackling the housing crisis head-on. Backed by £1.5 million of Pride in Place funding from a Labour government, we are investing in town centres, high streets and neighbourhoods that residents are proud of.

“We look forward to the 2026 local elections, where we will stand on a proud record of delivery and on our work hand in hand with a Labour mayor and a Labour national government to deliver for the people of Brent.”

HubMP2012

Keir Starmer’s self-inflicted ‘nightmare’

December 16, 2025

“Nightmare for Keir Starmer as he’s hit by five Labour defections,” headlined the Daily Express.  Five councillors in the London borough of Brent have defected from Labour to the Greens and Green Party leader Zack Polanski says his party is ready to “bury” Labour at next year’s local elections as he welcomed them.

Another Campaign Improvement Board disaster

Four of the five councillors were barred by Labour from running again in 2026 after the Party instituted a ‘Campaign Improvement Board’ to replace the local Party’s usual democratic selection process. Normally, Labour allows local branches to select its candidates, but this time the Board interviewed the would-be candidates and then either approved or barred them from standing. The process was rubber-stamped by Labour’s National executive Committee, with no right of appeal.

This controversial and undemocratic process has been used elsewhere, most notoriously in Leicester. A Campaign Improvement Board was set up there ahead of the 2023 city council elections, and local Party members were denied the opportunity to select their candidates. Nineteen sitting councillors were barred, including all the Hindu councillors, and a high proportion of BAME councillors. The demoralisation and disgust at these manoeuvres meant the Party lost 22 seats in the subsequent election. In the 2024 general election, Leicester East was the only Tory gain from Labour in the entire country and Leicester South was won by an Independent.

Notwithstanding the damage done, a similar process was imposed on Brent earlier this year. Eight sitting councillors were excluded. All of them had signed a statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in October 2023. All eight were from minoritised communities.

The flimsy justifications for the top- down process, such as alleged concerns over the previous selection process in 2022, look absurd, given that all steps in that process were fully coordinated with and signed off by regional Party officials. Instead, the entire exercise smacks of a factional strike against councillors who are out of step with the increasingly right wing politics of the Party’s national leadership.

Statements from those leaving

Yesterday, four of the sitting councillors, along with one who was not barred by Labour from re-standing, announced they were leaving the Party to join the Greens. A statement from the group said: “Like thousands of others, we joined the Labour Party because we believed in building a fairer society. As councillors, we took that mission into Brent, determined to stand up for the people who placed their trust in us…

“We have now come to the realisation that we can no longer play that role effectively while remaining within the Labour Party. We always knew being a party of government would put the principles and values of the party to the test, but we have watched as on every issue this government goes further away from the founding Labour Party principles of democracy, social justice and equality…

“We did not enter public life to serve a party machine – we entered it to serve our residents and we will not abandon that duty. That is why we are today resigning our membership of the Labour Party, and joining the Green Party, becoming the first Green Group of Councillors in Brent…

“We invite all who share this vision to work with us in offering Brent a real alternative. Together, we can build a Brent that puts people before profit, public good before private greed and hope before fear.”

 The councillors, including a former council Cabinet member and the Labour group’s former chief whip, accused Keir Starmer of a lack of ambition to deliver change, and criticised the government for “copying far-right policy and rhetoric on migration”, being “complicit” in the war in Gaza and for “silencing internal debate dissent”.

In a personal statement, Iman Ahmadi Moghaddam, who served as the Labour group’s chief whip until his defection, said: “I have given thousands of hours of my life to this party – knocking doors, delivering leaflets, recruiting members, volunteering at conference, facilitating meetings, giving presentations, and taking on countless other roles. I did this because I believed Labour, in government, could deliver meaningful change and move us towards a fairer society rooted in socialist values.

“I stayed even when I disagreed with decisions taken locally or nationally. I stayed while experiencing bullying, racism and Islamophobia that many long-standing members will recognise. I stayed because I believed that, ultimately, Labour’s success would be in the service of the people we exist to represent.

“But it has become impossible to ignore the reality that Labour has already left the principles that brought many of us into public life. Remaining a Labour member no longer feels like a route to change, and increasingly feels actively harmful.

“Under Keir Starmer, Labour has abandoned any serious ambition to transform society. It has embraced austerity during a cost-of-living crisis, sided with big developers and corporate interests, and hollowed out internal democracy so that dissent is punished and conscience is treated as a liability. The party is now dominated by a narrow, self-serving clique more concerned with control and careerism than with delivering real change.

“This is clearest on Gaza. What is taking place is a genocide, with British roots and ongoing British involvement through arms sales and the criminalisation of peaceful protest. Members and elected representatives who have spoken out (from a position of basic human decency) have been bullied, suspended or silenced. I include myself among them.

“At the same time, the leadership has chosen to pander to the far right by scapegoating migrants and stoking division to mask its own economic failures. This is not only a betrayal of Labour’s values; it actively legitimises forces that threaten our communities and our democracy.

“There remain many members, Councillors and MPs in Labour who are principled, well-intentioned and committed to socialist values. Many of you will read this. This statement is not written in anger towards you, but in sadness at what the party has become.”

Councillor Mary Mitchell said: “The Labour Party has left the values that I stand for, and what the Party historically has stood for and achieved. 

“In copying far-right policy and rhetoric on migration, scrapping jury trials and the draconian policing of protest, we have seen the Labour Party move to the right.  

“In downgrading investment in the energy transition and deepening fossil-fuel interests, the party has gone against manifesto promises on tackling climate change and nature depletion.  

“The appalling complicity in Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza and suspension from the party of those who call this out is a stain on Labour’s historic record of free speech and human rights advocacy.”

Cllr Harbi Farah, former Cabinet Leader for Safer Communities, said: “I am leaving the Labour Party because my values have not changed; the party has. I still believe in a society structured around solidarity and genuine systemic change. I am a socialist, and I seek a political home that unambiguously champions these ideals.”

All the defecting councillors criticised the restrictive internal culture of the Labour Party that had abandoned its former inclusivity and openness.

Consequences

 A London Labour spokesperson responded to the defections, saying: “For the avoidance of doubt, all but one of the individuals unveiled were not selected to stand for the Labour Party at the next election, as they fell below the standards we require of those seeking to represent Labour. The Labour Party operates rigorous and transparent selection processes and maintains the highest standards for its candidates.”

Most local members would disagree. There was no transparent selection process for the 2026 local elections – it was replaced by a secretive, factional operation that carved out a number of excellent councillors, many of whom enjoyed wholehearted support from their local members.

Brent councillor Shama Tatler is widely thought to have had a hand in this undemocratic process, as she did in the Leicester carve-up. She has now been rewarded with a peerage, as one of the 25 Labour nominees to the House of Lords last week. The list was one of the most narrowly factional in many years – it includes Geeta Nargund, the mother of the failed Labour candidate who ran against Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North last year – she runs a private fertility clinic.

One of the ostensible justifications for imposing a Campaign Improvement Board on Brent Labour Party was the significant drop in Labour’s vote share and the problem of left-leaning voters migrating to the Greens or independents. The consequence of the whole shoddy process is that this trend is likely to accelerate.

Brent Labour has a massive majority in Brent, but the Party’s national unpopularity is unprecedented. Locally, the Greens and Lib Dems are campaigning hard and upsets are expected across the capital next year: Brent is not the only borough experiencing defections from Labour.

The upshot is that politics for the foreseeable future is likely to get unusually messy, with a number of credible parties fielding progressive candidates.  October’s Caerphilly byelection showed that in the right circumstances, progressive voters can find a way to defeat both Reform and their imitators within Labour, in that case voting for Plaid Cymru. This historic loss for Labour, it should be remembered, was again the result of factional interference in the local selection process, where an experienced and popular local councillor was barred from running on spurious grounds.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the narrow faction currently in control of the Party sees the latest resignations as a positive, given their utter hatred of the left.  If this proves to be a “nightmare” for Keir Starmer, it’s very much a self-inflicted one.

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