Byline Times Audio Articles

Families of Palestine Hunger Strikers Beg for Meeting With David Lammy as Their Conditions Deteriorate

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY Family members of the Palestine Action-affiliated hunger strikers have called on Justice Secretary David Lammy to meet with the strikers before any of them die. Speaking at a press conference in Vauxhall on Thursday, the sisters of hunger strikers Kamran Ahmed and Teuta Hoxha and the next of kin of Qesser Zuhrah alleged ill treatment of their relatives by prison staff, and pleaded with the Government to agree to a meeting to negotiate over the hunger strikers' terms so that they can put an end to the strike. 29 Palestine Action-affiliated individuals are currently being held on remand for their alleged involvement in break-ins at a facility outside Bristol owned by the Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems and at RAF Brize Norton where military planes were sprayed with red paint. Of these 29, seven are on hunger strike in five different prisons. Demands from the strikers include immediate bail,a lifting of the ban on Palestine Action, the closure of Elbit Systems on UK soil and the ability to communicate freely with family and supporters outside the prisons. Ministers have so far refused to meet with the strikers or their representatives to discuss their demands. EXCLUSIVE Palestine Action Arrests Condemned as 'Deeply Alarming' While British Press Remains Silent The Liberal Democrats described the arrests of campaigners against the ban on the group as a "dangerous precedent" for free speech, yet the British press remains largely silent about it Josiah Mortimer Shahmina Alam, sister of Kamran Ahmed, a 28-year-old prisoner currently on day 39 of his hunger strike, stated that her brother: "saw the outpouring of videos from Gaza and the Palestinians being slaughtered; he couldn't look away […] it drove him to stand for humanity". She said that her brother is committed to "the liberation of Palestine" and to "our rights in this country as a British citizen" as well as the rights to a fair trial and to not be censored. She claimed that because these had been denied he had taken the "most difficult decision to starve his body of nutrients". Alam told the press conference that while her brother's ketone levels had previously stabilised, they are now rising rapidly to dangerous levels. She also said that his heart is giving in and that he is losing 0.5 kilograms in body weight each day. She called on David Lammy to "please have this meeting" saying: "we haven't asked for much. Stop declining the meetings from MPs. If you don't want to speak to us, then at least speak to your colleagues. This is not about your politics, it is about the lives of eight individuals". Medical professionals believe that all of the strikers are in imminent danger of death, or permanent, life-altering injuries including irreversible brain damage, as a result of the advanced stage of their strike. Six of the strikers - Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Jon Cink, Teuta Hoxha and Kamran Ahmed - have refused food for at least 39 days. Three of the strikers, Heba Muraisi, Amu Gib and Qesser Zuhrah are on days 46 or 47 of their strike. Martin Hurson, one of the IRA hunger strikers in the H-Block of Long Kesh prison, to whom the Palestine Action-affiliated strikers are increasingly being compared, died after 46 days of his hunger strike in 1981. Ella Moulsdale, 21, the next of kin of Qesser Zuhrah - who has been held on remand in HMP Bronzefield since November 2024, and who is on day 47 of her hunger strike - told journalists of the "excruciating pain" Zuhrah is in. Zuhrah was taken to hospital last night. Her supporters who protested outside HMP Bronzefield, including Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, claim that she was denied access to emergency medical care for several hours. Moulsdale told journalists: "[Qesser Zuhrah] was 19 when she was taken from us. She was just starting at university and she had her whole life ahead of her...

'They've Ruined Christmas': Nigerian Student Blocked By Home Office From Visiting UK Family for Holidays

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY A British academic and his Nigerian wife say the Home Office has "ruined Christmas" after refusing a visa for their cousin, a student of prosthetics and orthotics at a top-ranking university. Dr James Pickering and his wife Chioma had booked a return flight for their eighteen-year-old cousin and had stated that they could financially sponsor her visit. However, the Home Office denied the visa, saying that their cousin Chizaram had not provided evidence of an "ongoing and genuine relationship" with Pickering and his wife, which "damages the credibility of [your] application". They added: "I am not satisfied that you will leave the UK at the end of the visit." "Chizaram has never left Nigeria and never been on a plane, so we were really hoping she could have her first 'white Christmas' in the UK," said Pickering. "We sent all the evidence we could - WhatsApp messages, call logs, bank statements, photos - really belts and braces - but they still refused the visa. My wife has spent days in tears. They've really ruined Christmas for us." Shabana Mahmood's Asylum Seeker Military 'Warehousing' Plans Delayed Amid Opposition by Labour MPs Home Office sources tell Byline Times that local Labour MPs are opposing plans by the Home Secretary to use barracks and army bases to house asylum seekers amid rising community tensions Nicola Kelly In May the Home Office launched a crackdown on student visas from countries it deems "high-risk". Whitehall officials claimed that students from Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were more likely to overstay their visas and claim asylum. Official data at that time showed that people from those countries were the most likely to enter the UK on a work or study visa and then switch to the asylum system. The cuts to international student visas were announced as part of a package of measures in the gGovernment's immigration white paper, which followed a series of losses to Reform in the local elections in May. Labour vowed to reduce overall immigration figures and tackle what former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described as "abuses in the system". Pickering and his wife have applied for five visas in the last year for members of their family in Nigeria to visit them in Britain for short stays. All of the visas have been denied. Each time their family members have reapplied, having addressed the original concerns set out in their decision letters, the department has raised new concerns which had not been addressed originally. Last year a large number of family members were unable to attend the couple's wedding following repeated rejections. The family have only once managed to have a "particularly egregious refusal" overturned following intervention from their local MP Neil O'Brien. "My wife Chioma is completely cut off from her family here," said Pickering. "It's difficult for her to maintain a relationship with those she loves, especially when the power and connection goes down. We just want to be able to spend time with her family." Pickering believes that the recent increase in the use of AI to assess visa applications could be the cause of the repeated visa rejections. ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account. PAY ANNUALLY - £39.50 A YEAR PAY MONTHLY - £3.75 A MONTH MORE OPTIONS We're not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe. "I believe they approach applications looking to refuse them rather than trying to assess them fairly," said Pickering. "We sent through a hundred pages of evidence. At no point did they ask for more information and we have no right to appeal. It feels like they just bank on ...

I Met Migrant Women in Calais Hoping to Reach the UK and This Is What I Learnt

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY I was in a car with charity workers somewhere between Calais and Dunkirk. We were on our way to a women's centre: a small sports pavilion that offers women in the camps a chance to shower, do their hair, put on make-up, have a gossip, a brief moment of normality in a hostile place. My companions were chatting in French, which I struggled to follow. So, when they exclaimed, "Huit." I had to ask, "Eight what?". Pregnant women, they said. My heart sank. I asked whether they would cross in the small boats. They told me the women hope so. It is safer to cross before the babies are born. Some, though, are forced to take babes in arms. At the centre we met women from all over the world. I spoke with another Rachel (Raheli), a physics teacher from Afghanistan, fleeing the Taliban with her daughter, a midwife. She squeezed my hand tightly as she described the fear of the journey. Another woman spoke of her longing to return to Eritrea, to work and support her family back home. There were two mothers with babies already born. EXCLUSIVE Nigel Farage-Backed 'Raise the Colours' Campaign Pivots to Racially Abusing Migrants and Harassing Aid Workers on French Beaches Far-right activists were seen stabbing dinghies and releasing dogs to intimidate migrants and aid workers Nicola Kelly and Olly Haynes Women on the move. Pregnancies shaped by danger and displacement. A search for safety in a world that insists there is "no room". Standing there, listening, it struck me that this is, at its heart, a Christmas story. Migration and asylum are not modern anomalies. They are as old as humanity itself. Yet we have allowed our politics to strip them of their humanity, turning people into numbers, threats, slogans. These women in Calais are in crisis, but they are not a crisis. Each is a person. And how we treat them tells us everything about the kind of country we are choosing to be. Our Government has poured £476m into making the border as hostile as possible: aggressive policing, tents ripped away, water stations destroyed, and the horrific use of military-grade tear gas on children as young as two months old. Still, people cross, only now they do so more dangerously, with greater suffering. Humanitarian organisations, including those working with Calais Appeal, do everything they can to counter this violence with scant resources. Their work is lifesaving. As 2025 draws to a close, it is impossible not to reflect on how sharply our political language has hardened. Cruelty has been rebranded as "toughness". Indifference as "pragmatism". Moral abdication as "realism". That showing basic humanity to pregnant women living in appalling conditions is now considered "radical" should alarm us all. Too often, policies are justified not by whether they work, but by whether they sound punitive enough to satisfy an increasingly volatile media ecosystem. People seeking safety are framed as a problem to be managed, rather than lives to be protected. That is also why earlier this year, I opposed the policy of housing people seeking asylum in army camps. The 'Pink Ladies' Laundering Anti-Migrant Views Into the Mainstream An anti-migrant movement backed by Reform and Conservative politicians and regularly invited onto news channels is funded by a far-right group and has platformed a Neo-Nazi activist Nicola Kelly I believe in dignity. Placing traumatised people, including pregnant women, children and survivors of torture, in isolated, militarised settings without proper support is neither humane nor effective. It entrenches fear, worsens mental health, and makes integration harder, not easier. Worse still, this cruelty is profitable. Clearsprings and just two other providers have made a combined £383m from Home Office asylum contracts, while delivering what has been described as "miserable" conditions. How did we end up paying c...

Nigel Farage-Backed 'Raise the Colours' Campaign Pivots to Racially Abusing Migrants and Harassing Aid Workers on French Beaches

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY The 'Raise the Colours' flag-raising campaign, which claims to be a "grassroots" campaign for "unity" and has drawn the support of mainstream political parties and widespread coverage in the British media, has pivoted to stabbing through dinghies and harassing and racially abusing migrants and aid workers in the camps of Northern France, an investigation for Byline Times has found. The campaign, which coordinated the raising of British and English flags across the country, was praised by Reform leader Nigel Farage as "extraordinary", suggesting in the Sun newspaper that it was a "patriotic… grassroots movement driven by ordinary people". However, charities working in the camps of Calais and Dunkirk report that the anti-migrant, vigilante group, whose members include Danny Thomas, who was jailed for two years for an attempted kidnap, have made five visits to Calais since the beginning of November, where they have been filmed racially abusing migrants, calling them "criminals" and "invaders" and harassing aid workers. Lachlan Macrae from Calais Food Collective said: "They [Raise the Colours activists] came up and asked me if I was ashamed of myself, and said they would 'report my face' to the British government. They're unpredictable; we don't know what they will do, but there is a clear criminal intent. We have filmed them damaging equipment and stealing lifejackets, which will have dangerous consequences." The 'Pink Ladies' Laundering Anti-Migrant Views Into the Mainstream An anti-migrant movement backed by Reform and Conservative politicians and regularly invited onto news channels is funded by a far-right group and has platformed a Neo-Nazi activist Nicola Kelly Raise the Colour's website states that it is a "grassroots movement for unity and patriotism" which is "determined to show their pride by flying the flag from one neighbourhood to the next ." The movement has drawn the support of leading politicians, including Farage and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who wrote in the Daily Mail that the campaign should be "welcomed" and described attempts to take down their flags as "shameful". However, evidence sent to Byline Times shows far right supporters of the campaign in France releasing dogs to intimidate migrants and aid workers. Earlier this year Calais Food Collective say a dog attack on one of their staff members making meals for people in the migrant camps, left them hospitalised The group has already caught the attention of the French police. Danny Thomas and two other members of Raise the Colours say they were arrested and had their passports seized by the French authorities two weeks ago. They were later released without charge. Raise the Colour's mission, codenamed 'Operation Overlord', is funded by supporter donations with over 5,500 people on their Facebook page claiming that they are willing to travel to France to "stop the boats". The group says that donations are used for stab-proof vests, torches, cameras, drones and radios. Activists from Utopia 56 have seen Thomas and his Raise the Colours associates on the beaches around Gravelines, close to Dunkirk. "Last month, eight of them arrived in the camp during the daytime waving a huge flag," said a spokesperson for the charity. "They went around asking people if they were planning to cross and told them they didn't want them in their country." "They came up to our volunteers on the beach," another source from Utopia 56 said. "We told them to stay in the van, don't interact and film them. They are so aggressive, we fear they could become physically violent if things don't go their way." Activists said that Raise the Colours members have also been seen waking up migrants at a bus stop in Dunkirk, attempting to take a man's bag and becoming verbally abusive when the person refused to give it to them. The source added that Ut...

Keir Starmer Is Setting a Trap for Nigel Farage With Foreign Interference Inquiry

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY The announcement that Keir Starmer's Government is launching a review of "foreign financial interference" in British politics didn't make much of a splash in today's paper, but it may turn out to have been one of the most significant political for moments in this Parliament. For years the Labour party has been under pressure to take the issues of foreign interference, and dark money in our politics, more seriously. However, a nervousness inside Downing Street about being seen to question the Brexit result, as well as a resistance to take any steps that might also harm Labour's own funding streams, has meant that little so far has been done. Even after reports spread last year that the far-right US billionaire Elon Musk was considering bankrolling Reform UK, via his UK companies, Downing Street hesitated to do anything about it. That now finally appears to be changing. Labour sources who are close to Number 10 say that the conviction of Reform's former Welsh leader for taking pro-Russian bribes, and the record breaking £9 million Reform donation from a Thailand-based crypto investor have combined to "galvanise" Starmer into taking action. Crypto Investor Donates £9 Million to Reform UK as Nigel Farage Plugs His Company and Tells Industry 'I Am Your Champion' The Reform leader recently used media interviews to back Christopher Harborne's company while promising to cut taxes and regulations on crypto firms Adam Bienkov The realisation, as one Labour MP put it to Byline Times, that foreign financial interference could pose both an "existential threat to democracy" and an "existential threat to their jobs" has finally spurred Number 10 into action. The review, which will be led by the Former Permanent Secretary at the Brexit department, Philip Rycroft, is just the first step in what is likely to see the Government taking significant action to close at least some of the glaring loopholes allowing foreign interference in our politics. As things stand it is remarkably easy, and cheap, for hostile foreign actors to interfere in our politics. As a recent sting operation by Democracy for Sale exposed, it only takes a little bit of money and a little bit of access to gain real influence over our politics. Unlike in the corporate world, where there are strictly-enforced protocols against corruption, there are only a few very weak guardrails preventing malicious actors gaining influence. One good example of this is the All Party Parliamentary Group system, whereby foreign governments are effectively able to buy significant influence among elected parliamentarians for relatively small amounts of money. By hosting events inside Parliament and paying for MPs to visit their host countries, foreign governments and corporations can buy huge amounts of access with very little scrutiny. Similar access is also gained through the world of opaquely funded think tanks, which have become a hugely prominent force inside Westminster and at party conferences, despite there being little obligation on these groups to disclose where their funding ultimately comes from. The checks and balances are only slightly better when it comes to the direct funding of our politics. Under current rules, only British citizens and entities can donate to a political party. Yet in reality this rule can be easily bypassed by funnelling money through a UK company, as Musk was reportedly considering. These restrictions were even further loosened under the last Conservative government, which allowed people who had been living abroad for more than 15 years to continue donating to UK political parties. The political funding watchdog, the Electoral Commission, an already fairly toothless body, was further enfeebled under the last Govenrment. However, it has been the onset of crypto donations that poses perhaps the most significant new threat to o...