Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Fuentes isn't attacking Jews on the street, isn't chanting for genocide out in front of synagogues. He is an admitted incel and is taken far more seriously by people who think he is some grave threat to society als Julius Streicher than he is in conservatism writ large. Most conservatives don't know who he is unless they are young, very online, or someone who is a general political junkie.

He has way less political influence than someone like Jeremy Corbyn, Zohan Mamdani, Francesca Albanese etc.

all these things were true for Hitler at some point.

[Valmy]

Yeah well the normies are not running the show, the political junkies and online freaks are.

That is why we are where we are.

[Valmy]

My slight issue is that in this "protest" a policewoman was attacked with a sledgehammer and paralysed for three months - and that attack is all on camera. I think that is a serious crime that should have been punished.

 

That isn't a serious crime?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Yeah well the normies are not running the show, the political junkies and online freaks are.

That is why we are where we are.

just in time for the '30s too   

[crazy canuck]

The assertion that most conservatives don't know who Fuentes is can only be true if most conservatives live under a rock. That would be the only explanation for why they missed the interview with Carlson and the condemnation of what he said by many Republicans. It would also mean they don't read any newspapers.  But I admit that is more than likely.

[Sheilbh]

Yes and no and maybe but I mostly think this is Trump derangement making everything appear bigger than they really are.

Canada spent a decade being the US lapdog while also trying to do for China what PET did for Cuba. We're just trying to go back to a relationship where they buy our stuff and we can buy theirs. It's 49k cars for access to their Canola market. It's no CUSMA. 

Yeah - and as I say I think the calculation may well be different for Canada for many reasons. I suppose the other side of that is whether it is possible to "go back" as you say. Because it seems to me that the basis of that relatively "straightforward" period of relations with China was American hegemony that wasn't feeling challenged by China and China operating within that American order in a way that was not perceived (by the US) as revisionist). The challenge of trying to "go back" is that large parts of the US political class think they're basically in a Cold War with China - so is it a bit like just wanting to go back to the friendly open relationship we had with Uncle Joe in 1943 when it's now 1950? (I think on this it may be easier for Europe to make that pivot than Canada because the US isn't right there.)

I don't necessarily disagree that China may be more reliable - but I think that reliability is also the bet Russia is making in the "friendship without limits", the significant deepening of ties and the building of pipelines that will come online in the next year or two.

And I'm not sure what the answer is. From a European perspective I think there's a coherent policy mix that involves supporting Ukraine and re-industrialising/building up European strength, but I think that would be at the expense of energy transition and significant disentanglement now with the US. And vice-versa - I think you can meet net zero goals and disentangle from the US rapidly, but that would rely on China and would come at the expense of European re-industrialisation and Ukraine. It's where I think our leaders need to display nimbleness, opportunism and flexibility - because I think the goal is obviously to do all four, but there are trade-offs and it'll require very skilled leadership...

[Grey Fox]

China might not be reliable but the US has abused its position and blames us for it.

[Jacob]

Sheilbh, it's clear that the US see themselves as being in a cold war with China.

The bottom line is super simple. If the US wants its allies to remain as allies in their cold war with China, they'll have to not treat us like shit.

"China's actually bad you know" is not going to cut it.

It doesn't mean a complete break with the US. It probably means some kind of Turkey style allies. Sure we're on the same side, but we're going to do whatever benefits us and treat with the other side when we think it makes sense.

[crazy canuck]

The key point being there is only one nation in the world threatening to annex Canada.

[Tamas]

The Reform government will truly be our Trumpist takeover:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/14/reform-uk-figures-attend-book-launch-how-to-launder-money

[garbon]

I saw someone kicked out of Reform has now started his own party.

[Tamas]

I saw someone kicked out of Reform has now started his own party.

I expect he has read that book already.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not sure we disagree, we might just be getting to the same place by a different route.

My read is that the days of stable, long-term allies/partners and a settled order are gone. The world is in flux. The two powers capable of building and imposing order, the US and China, are dangerous (in different ways). Therefore other powers need to work together where they can but above all be nimble and opportunistic to spot and take advantage of possibilities that may arise - but not trust in any sense of stability or setledness because I don't think that's coming any time soon. I've always pointed to Turkiye as an example of a state that I think gets this and does it well already.

FWIW I don't think China's bad. I think the Chinese state has a record of effective competence over the last 50 years that I think is really impressive. I think their interests and objectives in Europe and Asia are bad - but what worries me most is that I think they're competent (but also incredibly flexible and able to turn quickly).

For that reason I think there is a difference in the challenge/risk of trying to engage more with China for Europe and Canada. For Europe I think it's a strategic risk because Chinese policy is de-industrialising Europe and working for a Russian victory in Ukraine. For Canada I think the problem is that you're "so close to the United States", there are no two militaries more closely intertwined than the US and Canadian, geography and economic gravity exist and will make any change challenging - but as CC says the US is the one threatening Canadian sovereignty.

[Sheilbh]

I saw someone kicked out of Reform has now started his own party.

Yeah - he's the guy Musk has been promoting because Farage isn't racist enough. Big on "re-migration" and allegedly could not work with Reform's then chair Zia Yusuf for reasons I can only guess.

Also total aside - but he's former owner of Southampton FC. I've spoken to a friend about this who is a Saints fan. Because you've got Lowe - but also Saints icon Matt Le Tissier who has become a really unhinged conspiracy podcaster, Rickie Lambert went off the deep-end with covid/chemtrail conspiracies and I think there's been some weird stuff Dejan Lovren's said over the years. I just wonder if there's something in the water at their training camp.

[Sheilbh]

On very prosaic British politics - this story is wild. And I think quite dangerous in a democratic society - this seems very Orban/Erdogan-ish. Commission opposition research on a journalist that alleges without any basis Russian involvement, then pass it on to the intelligence agencies (who don't do anything about it because it's baseless) so you can then brief rumours about that reporter having dodgy sources/motivations that the intelligence agencies know about.

The number of stories about Labour Together plus the other stuff in recent weeks and I get that all Labour factions mainly care about their fights with other factions of the Labour Party to the exclusion of literally anything else. But I feel like there are problems with the Labour Right:

Labour activists paid for smear campaign against journalists
Labour Together, the group that helped make Keir Starmer leader, hired lobbyists who falsely suggested reporters were linked to Russia
Emanuele Midolo, Investigations Reporter
Saturday February 14 2026, 8.30pm, The Sunday Times

The lobbyists were commissioned after a Sunday Times article that posed questions of Morgan McSweeney, left
THOMAS KRYCH/STORY PICTURE AGENCY/SHUTTERSTOCK

The group that helped to get Sir Keir Starmer elected as Labour leader hired lobbyists to investigate the personal, political and religious background of a Sunday Times journalist behind an article about secret donations that funded its work.

Labour Together paid £36,000 to Apco, a US public affairs firm, to examine the "backgrounds and motivations" of reporters behind a story before the general election.

The aim was to discredit The Sunday Times's reporting by falsely suggesting its journalists might be part of a Russian conspiracy or had relied on emails hacked by the Kremlin.

Apco produced a 58-page report including almost ten pages of deeply personal and false claims about Gabriel Pogrund, the Sunday Times Whitehall editor. He and Harry Yorke, the newspaper's deputy political editor, were named as "persons of significant interest".

The report's contents were informally shared with Labour figures in 2024 including present cabinet ministers and special advisers, forming the basis of a whispering campaign in Westminster against Pogrund, Yorke and The Sunday Times.

Labour Together engaged Apco in November 2023 when The Sunday Times revealed that the group had failed to declare £730,000 of donations between 2017 and 2020. The Electoral Commission found the group guilty of 20 breaches of campaign finance laws and issued a fine in 2021.

The Sunday Times report posed questions of Morgan McSweeney, who quit last week as Starmer's chief of staff. At the time, McSweeney had been responsible for making the declarations as chief executive. The article also questioned whether the oversight had been deliberate to cover up the extent of fundraising from other factions, including the left.

Days after the article appeared, Josh Simons, who had by then succeeded McSweeney as head of Labour Together and is now a Cabinet Office minister, commissioned Apco to look into it. McSweeney was aware of the decision. The Sunday Times has a copy of the full report, dated January 2024, codenamed "Operation Cannon" and marked "private and confidential". It was prepared by Tom Harper, Apco's senior director and a former Sunday Times employee. Labour Together has admitted hiring the firm but the details of its report — and the scale of Apco's efforts to discredit the story — have never been told.

Contemporaneous documents seen by The Sunday Times show one of the prime minister's closest aides and another government special adviser were among those who repeated — and appeared to believe — the report's contents.

Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, described the report as "appalling" and a form of "harassment and intimidation" of a free press. It is likely to form part of an inquiry into Apco by the lobbying industry's professional body.

Baseless Russia allegations

Harper wrote that he had examined the "sourcing, funding and origins of The Sunday Times story" using documents and "discreet human source enquiries".

He then sought to portray Pogrund and Yorke as part of a Russian campaign to damage Starmer.

He alleged, without evidence, that the emails which underpinned the published story were likely to have emerged from a suspected Kremlin hack of the Electoral Commission.

"The likeliest culprit is the Russian state, or proxies of the Russian state," he wrote.

There is no evidence that Harper considered an alternative scenario or at any point sought basic IT or cybersecurity expertise. Apco is not a cybersecurity company.

Apco's report included baseless claims about Pogrund's faith, upbringing and personal and professional relationships. It referenced the journalist's status as a Jew, quoting a supposed Sunday Times source who alleged there was an "odd" mismatch between Pogrund's faith and what they falsely described as his political and ideological position.

The report said Pogrund's reporting on other matters — including the royal family — "could be seen as destabilising to the UK and also in the interests of Russia's strategic foreign policy objectives". Harper also falsely claimed that previous stories had come from pro-Russian actors.

Pogrund was and remains sanctioned by Russia, which included him on a no-travel list as tensions grew after the invasion of Ukraine. He was not made aware of Apco's work. Nor was Yorke, who was also linked to the alleged foreign interference.

Claims shared with GCHQ

Apco also investigated Paul Holden, a South African investigative journalist who supplied material used in the Sunday Times story, and who recently published a book called The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy. It examined Matt Taibbi, an American reporter and writer, who had written articles with him. Harper wrote: "We have examined the sourcing, funding and origins of the Sunday Times story — plus the forthcoming works by Paul Holden and Matt Taibbi — to establish who and what are behind the attacks on Labour Together."

A shorter version of the report — stripped of the personal claims about Pogrund but with a section on "The Sunday Times article" — was shared with the National Cyber Security Council, part of GCHQ, which declined to launch a full investigation.

Labour Together, however, used the fact of the GCHQ referral to create suspicion about the story and its sources, with cabinet ministers and special advisers among those who quietly alleged the report was linked to the Russian state.

Steve Reed, the housing secretary, and Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, were among the legal directors of Labour Together for most of the period in which funds were not reported. There is no suggestion they were responsible for compliance with electoral law at the time.

Timothy, the Conservative MP for West Suffolk, said: "The freedom of the press and the ability of journalists to work free from harassment and intimidation is a vital foundation of our free society. That anybody thought they could do this is absolutely appalling and raises further questions about the role played by Labour Together in bringing Keir Starmer to the leadership of his party."

McSweeney has never publicly explained why he did not declare the donations or heed warnings by members of Labour Together's executive. Labour Together dismissed the matter as an "admin error".

Internal emails published by the Conservatives last year reveal McSweeney was advised by a party lawyer to use this phrase if he could not give a better explanation.

Josh Simons, now the Labour MP for Makerfield in Greater Manchester, said Apco had strayed beyond its brief. He said: "I was surprised and shocked to read the report extended beyond the contract by including unnecessary information on Gabriel Pogrund. I asked for this information to be removed before passing the report to GCHQ. No other British journalists were investigated in any document I or Labour Together ever received."

He said he welcomed the investigation launched last week by the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA).

'This is dark s***'

The revelations pose questions of Starmer, who has spoken of the importance of press freedom. He has never spoken about his relationship with Labour Together or its donors such as Martin Taylor, a hedge fund manager who made his fortune at Nevsky Capital, a £1.5 billion Cayman Islands fund known for investing in Russian companies such as Gazprom, and Sir Trevor Chinn, a businessman.

The former Labour MP Jon Cruddas, who helped found Labour Together in 2015, told the investigative website Democracy for Sale — which first broke the story of the investigation — that the revelations were "shocking" and "extraordinary".

"I have heard of black briefings, but never heard of anything like this," Cruddas said. "This is dark shit."

Alison Phillips, now head of Labour Together, said the group was "ready to support the PRCA — and other relevant governance bodies — with its review of this issue."

Apco did not respond to requests for comment.

Edit: Incidentally, with this story and the shadiness of Labour Together, plus Lord Mandelson, the Lord Doyle and the extent to which the Labour HQ rigged selections for candidates I think there is going to be a very major scandal this parliament involving some of that new intake. In particular because a huge number of Labour's new MPs have backgrounds in lobbying. The extent to which the ruling faction of Labour Party at 2024 seems to have been willing to overlook big red flags or risks to push their advantage - plus loads of MPs from the "public policy" world just makes me think there are undropped shoes in this intake.

I'd add that I think this is also a bigger explanation of attitudes in British politics to American tech than anything to do with Brexit or Trump - it's because until the day before they become MPs and, if they're succesful, from the day they leave office those companies are their employers.