Novara Media

The Labour party should do more to support US wars while promoting fossil fuels and AI if it wants to win the next election, Tony Blair has suggested.

In a 5,700-word essay for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the former prime minister said the party had abandoned the so-called “radical centre” and gone too far left.

Blair criticised new workers’ rights laws, an above-inflation increase in the minimum wage, and a reform of non-dom tax status, saying they were bad for British businesses.

And as Britain experienced its hottest ever May temperatures, Blair called for the party to abandon parts of its net-zero commitments.

“We must prioritise cheaper energy and electrification over net zero and use what is left of our North Sea oil and gas resources,” he said. “This is essential for our competitiveness and for taking advantage of AI.”

Blair, who many believe is a war criminal because of his role in the illegal invasion of Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, also wrote that the UK should have done more to help Trump wage war on Iran.

He added that strengthening the “American relationship… means building defence capability and being prepared politically to argue for the alliance even when controversial, of which Iran is the latest example.”

The US is “the dominant force” in the Anglo-American partnership and “therefore is the ‘shot-caller’”, he said.

Blair also said the Labour party was wrong to take what he described as a ‘soft left’ position while in power. “The government is governing from an essentially traditional Labour ‘soft left’ position, parked firmly in the party’s comfort zone.”

Labour lost nearly four times more voters to the Greens than to Reform UK in the May local elections, YouGov found.

Only 46% of those who voted for Labour in 2024 remained faithful to the party in 2026, with 22% defecting to the Greens and only 6% switching to Reform, the polling revealed.

Richard Burgon, Labour MP for Leeds East, wrote on X: “Tony Blair has nothing to offer Labour in 2025.

3 hours ago | [YT] | 1,930

Novara Media

Hundreds of people are on hunger strike at an ICE detention facility in the US state of New Jersey, with crowds rallying outside to support them facing violence from federal agents.​

The detainees at Delaney Hall and their relatives say they are being given rotten food infested with worms, being denied due process under the law and are woken at 6am and forced to clean the facility without pay.

Some 300 detainees signed an open letter earlier this month outlining their alleged poor treatment.

“We feel vulnerable and, in a way, kidnapped – detained without justification,” they wrote, “not to mention that we are being tortured physically and psychologically due to the poor food resources provided in these detention centres.”

Hundreds have gathered in recent days outside the facility in Newark to support the hunger strikers, and have been met with a violent crackdown by federal agents using batons and pepper spray.

Among those caught up in the violence was Democratic senator Andy Kim, who says he was pepper-sprayed while outside the facility on Monday to speak with relatives of people detained there.

Last week, he went inside Delaney Hall and met with dozens of detainees who described mistreatment.

“Often they were talking about poor food that they're getting, really disgusting food,” he said. “They’re not getting the medical treatment that they need and deserve.” This included a pregnant woman who “was not getting the care that she needed,” he said.


He added: “This place needs to shut down and these people need to be able to get out and be back with their families.”

7 hours ago | [YT] | 7,574

Novara Media

Labour MPs are preparing to defect to the Greens unless Andy Burnham wins a byelection that will enable him to challenge Keir Starmer for the party leadership, according to a report from the Telegraph.

Several backbenchers have been in talks with Green leader Zack Polanski in recent months, but are now reportedly waiting for the outcome of the vote on 18 June in Makerfield, where Burnham is polling first and ahead of Reform UK’s candidate by three points.

If Burnham loses, MPs including Clive Lewis and Richard Burgon are prepared to defect, the Telegraph reported, citing unnamed sources.

Burnham, currently the mayor of Greater Manchester, is seen by some Labour progressives as a figure who can halt or slow the party’s lurch to the right.

​But critics say he is unlikely to provide a meaningful alternative, pointing to the fact that he voted for the Iraq war in 2003 and became a member of Labour Friends of Israel in 2015, when he also described the movement to boycott Israel as “spiteful”.

​During his unsuccessful attempt to win the Labour leadership the same year, he said Israel is the first country he would visit if he won.

Last week, the Guardian reported that Burnham would stand behind home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s draconian immigration reforms if he won the leadership, according to his allies.

23 hours ago | [YT] | 3,188

Novara Media

If I Speak is going on the road again!

Ash and Moya will be in Sheffield for Crossed Wires festival on Saturday 4 July at Playhouse Theatre.

As usual, they’ll be sharing big theories, exploring the frustrations of modern life and answering your dilemmas.

Get your tickets: crossedwires.live/podcast/if-i-speak

23 hours ago | [YT] | 495

Novara Media

The Malaysian government is gathering evidence to take Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its treatment of Gaza aid flotilla activists, who say they were sexually assaulted and severely beaten, among other forms of torture.

Amirudin Shari, chief minister of the state of Selangor, made the announcement while welcoming Malaysian flotilla activists home at Kuala Lumpur airport after they were freed from Israeli detention.

“They were kidnapped more than once, they were tortured,” Amirudin said, according to the Malay Mail. A legal team is gathering “documentation on violations of international law”, he said.

“We will not remain silent, we will not stop,” he added.

Earlier this month Israel kidnapped 428 flotilla activists sailing on boats attempting to bring aid to besieged people in Gaza.

​Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, later released footage of the detainees being brutalised by guards as he visited the detention facility.

​Malaysia’s foreign ministry said on Monday that 29 of its citizens were freed from Israeli captivity on 21 May.

​Released captives from various countries showed visible injuries and were treated by medics in Turkey last week. They said Israeli guards raped or sexually assaulted at least 15 people, tasered people in the face, severely beat people and aimed guns at people’s heads.

Organisers from the Global Sumud Flotilla said on Monday that some former captives are still in hospital with “severe” injuries.

Arno Meys, who captained one of the boats, is being treated for a punctured lung, they said. Others have suffered broken bones and internal bleeding, they added.

​"I don’t think there’s a single person without some kind of injury," said Catríona Graham, a participant who was assaulted on camera after she shouted “free, free Palestine” during Ben-Gvir’s visit.

Israel has continued to kill civilians in Gaza on a regular basis despite agreeing to a so-called ceasefire last year. It has also imposed severe restrictions on shelter, food and medicine entering the strip, contributing to the spread of disease.

​The UN’s relief agency for displaced Palestinians, UNRWA, says its teams have seen increasing rates of infections “such as scabies, as well as rodent bites, chickenpox cases, and acute watery diarrhoea among both children under five years and individuals above five years”.

1 day ago | [YT] | 50,339

Novara Media

A bitter feud between Nigel Farage and his former friends Rupert Lowe and Elon Musk could cost Reform the Makerfield byelection – and pave the way for Andy Burnham's entry to Downing Street.

Simon Childs reports: novara.media/4e554PP

1 day ago | [YT] | 1,186

Novara Media

British spies have tried to recruit Riz Ahmed three times, with a senior BBC figure involved in one of the attempts, the actor has said.

Ahmed made the claim during a recent interview with Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan.“It’s happened three different times and they’re all slightly ridiculous,” he said, “it’s just like inherently comedic.

“One was when I came back from my first film, The Road to Guantánamo, we landed at Luton airport, celebrating,” he added.

“They took me into a side room, put me in an arm lock, threatened to break my arm, took my phone, were pretending to bash the buttons, accidentally changed the language to Danish, and then kind of like, were like: ‘Did you become an actor to further the Muslim struggle?’

“I was like, ‘this is hilarious,’ and then when I finished that, they were like, ‘okay, would you like to keep an eye out for us? ‘Cause it was really great the way you were answering those questions.’ No, thank you.”

Ahmed won an Oscar for his short film The Long Goodbye and is also known for his roles in Four Lions, a dark satire about British jihadists, and The Night Of, which follows a young man's journey through the US criminal justice system.

He told Hasan that the second attempt to recruit him involved a family friend. “And the third time was someone senior, high up at the BBC,” he said, without naming the figure but adding that they had “just left” the organisation.

Asked by Hasan how people could be certain he had not accepted any of the offers, Ahmed joked that it would make a “sick biopic if I was actually a fed”.

1 day ago | [YT] | 9,302

Novara Media

Parliament will debate the need for an inquiry into Israeli influence on UK politics next month, after more than 116,000 people signed a petition calling for a probe.

The 22 June debate, which will be broadcast on the UK Parliament YouTube channel, comes after the Labour government said it does not support a public inquiry.

The petition raises concerns “about reported Israeli state-linked and pro-Israel lobbying activity in UK politics. We believe it is important to determine the scope and impact of any such influence campaigns.”

It adds: “We feel that the horrific devastation in Gaza, the ongoing suppression of Palestinians in the West Bank, and the UK’s political response underline the urgent need to scrutinise how pro-Israel organisations, networks, and lobbying efforts may shape government decisions, party policy, and public debate.”

In a response on 17 April, the government said: “There is an existing framework for transparency around lobbying of the UK government and Parliament.”

Petition author Andy Kalil told the National that the government’s response was “a whole load of hot air and deflection”, adding that there is an “extreme conflict of interest between pro-Israel lobbying donations and the government’s positions on Gaza, the West Bank, Iran, and southern Lebanon”.

Current and former members of the Labour cabinet have received over £300k in donations from pro-Israel groups and individuals since 2013, figures compiled by Declassified UK show. Prime minister Keir Starmer received a £50k donation from pro-Israel tycoon Trevor Chinn for his 2020 Labour leadership campaign.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has killed, at a conservative estimate, more than 73,000 people. The UK government has supported Israel’s military throughout, including by flying surveillance drones above Gaza.

In 2023 Starmer said that Israel had the right to deny water, food and electricity to the besieged enclave’s civilian population.

2 days ago | [YT] | 28,059

Novara Media

Something shocking has happened.

It's not Israel raping and torturing flotilla activists, as they routinely torture Palestinians. It's that thanks to national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's shameless gloating, the rest of the world has been forced to pay attention.

Charlotte England reports in the latest Cortado: novara.media/43s676l

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2 days ago | [YT] | 21,605

Novara Media

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani has collected $9m (£6.6m) in unpaid fines from Amazon, which has been violating the city's clean air laws by leaving engines running on its parked vehicles.

His office announced the recovery of the money last week, days after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos appeared to criticise Mamdani’s push to tax the rich in order to fund education.

“Amazon is worth $2tn. Yet it did not deign to pay the millions of dollars it racked up in unpaid fines as its trucks illegally polluted our air and forced New Yorkers to breathe in their exhaust,” Mamdani said in a statement.

“We are going to collect every dollar they owe the people of this city.”

Lisa F Garcia, commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, said: “I applaud Mayor Mamdani and the Department of Finance for securing more than $9m in illegal idling fines from Amazon, which has long been among the top worst idling offenders in the city.”

In an interview with broadcaster CNBC last week, Bezos criticised New York’s public education system and said that even doubling his taxes would not help local teachers.

​“If we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system, your packages would take six weeks to arrive,” he said.

Mamdani’s administration has prioritised enforcing existing laws against large companies as part of a bid to rein in corporate power and improve public finances. Earlier this month, his office said it had secured a record-breaking $31m (£22.9m) in penalties against negligent landlords.

2 days ago | [YT] | 125,234