Byline Times Audio Articles

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...

Nigel Farage's £9m Donor Profits From Putin Propaganda Platform While Holding MoD Stake

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY Nigel Farage's record-beating election war chest is being bankrolled by a donor whose fortune is entangled with a major video platform which has hosted Russian state broadcasters supporting Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine and an influence operation hatched by Russian intelligence. Christopher Harborne - the Thailand-based billionaire who has given Reform UK £9 million in cash, making him Britain's single largest political donor - is already known as a cryptocurrency investor and long-time Farage backer. He is also a major shareholder in the stablecoin company Tether and the British defence firm QinetiQ, which supplies the Ministry of Defence and allied militaries. What has not been scrutinised until now is how Harborne's stake in Tether ties his profits to Rumble: a "free speech" video platform that refused to ban Russian state media after the invasion, and has since hosted a Kremlin-backed influence operation exposed by the US Department of Justice. Byline Times has examined company filings, market disclosures and previous reporting to map the investment chain running from Tether into Rumble. The picture that emerges is of a donor whose financial interests straddle Britain's defence interests and a platform projecting Russian state propaganda. The £9 Million Man In early December, Electoral Commission data confirmed that Harborne had donated £9 million to Reform UK - the largest single political donation in recent British history, eclipsing recent gifts to the Conservative and Labour parties. Harborne is no stranger to Farage's projects. Under his Thai name, Chakrit Sakunkrit, he previously bankrolled the Brexit Party with nearly £10 million and also wrote substantial cheques to the Conservatives under Boris Johnson. Behind that largesse sits a sprawling portfolio. As well as aviation fuel, technology ventures and property, Harborne holds a substantial stake in Tether - the company behind the world's largest "stablecoin", a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar. According to multiple reports drawing on leaked corporate documents, he acquired around a 12% share in Tether's parent group in the mid-2010s, making him one of its largest private investors. Harborne is not understood to be in any way involved in Tether's management or operations Tether has itself been scrutinised by regulators and law enforcement agencies for the way its tokens have been used in money laundering, sanctions evasion and other illicit finance, including schemes said to benefit Russia's war economy - although there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Harborne. The World Upside Down: How a Top Official at Trump's FBI Laundered Far-Right Disinformation The United States' entire security apparatus is now being used to spread far-right propaganda rather than tackle genuine threats, reports Caroline Orr Bueno Caroline Orr Bueno Let's Get Ready to Rumble Rumble began life in 2013 as an obscure video-sharing site. For most of the decade it barely registered outside niche online communities. Then came the 2020 US election. As Donald Trump and senior Republicans railed against "censorship" by Silicon Valley, thousands of MAGA influencers, far-right commentators and pro-Trump media outlets decamped en masse to a platform that promised them something YouTube would not: a home with no gatekeepers. In 2021, billionaire Peter Thiel and JD Vance's Narya Capital poured money into that promise, hailing Rumble as the backbone of a "parallel tech ecosystem" for the American right. Then, in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine - and Rumble made a decision that set it apart from nearly every major platform in the democratic world. As the EU, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter moved to block RT and Sputnik, Rumble refused. The company announced it would only act if a court forced its hand. When France's media regulator instructed Rumb...

The World Upside Down: How a Top Official at Trump's FBI Laundered Far-Right Disinformation

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY In the past week a top official at Trump's FBI helped to launder a right-wing disinformation narrative, claiming at a congressional hearing that the antifascist movement known as "antifa" is the biggest domestic terrorism threat in the United States. Michael Glasheen, the director of operations in the FBI's National Security Branch, told lawmakers that antifa is the agency's "primary concern" and "the most immediate violent threat that we're facing." However, when questioned, Glasheen was unable to provide any evidence to back up his claim and could not answer lawmakers' inquiries when they pressed for more information. To those who study extremism and disinformation, what happened was immediately clear: the FBI, under Donald Trump's renewed political influence, is now publicly endorsing a narrative born not out of genuine threat assessments but from right-wing propaganda. In fact, Glasheen's statement can be traced directly to a years-long disinformation campaign - one cultivated by Trump officials and Republican lawmakers, as well as right-wing media - that has aggressively portrayed "antifa" as a nationwide organised terror network despite the lack of any real evidence supporting such an assertion. The claims made by Glasheen offer a striking reminder of how the dominant disinformation narrative surrounding antifa continues to infiltrate and distort US national security priorities by legitimising far-right extremist propaganda while suppressing and even criminalising legitimate dissent. Glasheen's testimony echoes previous statements made by Trump and his allies, who for years have coordinated with right-wing outlets like Fox News and a long list of pro-Trump social media influencers to launder and propagate a false narrative aimed at portraying antifa as a leading terrorist threat in the US, even though the evidence flatly contradicts this. Nigel Farage's Russian Influence Advent Calendar Byline Times has compiled a festive offering of the prize moments when the Reform leader has gifted the political agenda to Vladimir Putin and Russia Byline Times Team Distorting Reality The facts are clear: right-wing extremists are by far the greatest domestic terror threat facing the US, and it's been this way for quite some time. Over the past decade, right-wing extremists were responsible for 76% of all extremist-related killings, compared to 4% attributable to left-wing extremists. Going even further back, in an analysis of 900 politically motivated attacks and plots in the US since 1994, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found just one deadly attack attributable to antifascists - and the single fatality was the perpetrator himself. During the same time period, right-wing extremists carried out attacks that left 329 people dead. In multiple recent years, including 2022 and 2024, right-wing extremists were responsible for every single recorded extremist murder in the country. Looking at those statistics, it's pretty clear where the threat is coming from - and it's not antifa. But that clarity has been muddied in recent years thanks to a coordinated and persistent disinformation campaign propagated by the Trump administration, right-wing media, far-right social media influencers, and even Russia. This disinformation campaign dates back to at least 2016 and has accelerated significantly since then. Over the years, antifa has been falsely blamed for starting wildfires, busing in violent protesters, looting, making bomb threats towards politicians, coordinating nationwide riots, carrying out mass shootings, and more. On repeated occasions, conspiracy theories about antifa have even duped law enforcement agencies, resulting in everything from unnecessary shutdowns of major highways and panic among the public, to armed vigilantes showing up to defend their towns from a threat th...

What Putin Really Wants From Trump's Ukraine 'Negotiations'

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY Talks about negotiations over Ukraine have now become a daily fixture in the public sphere - not only among experts, but also in the media and in official statements. Dozens of analysts discuss diplomatic moves by Russia, the United States, Ukraine, and European leaders every day, closely tracking new meetings between special envoys, official drafts of peace plans, and the responses to them. At the same time, frustration has been voiced repeatedly in the White House over the length and complexity of the negotiating process. Donald Trump himself has stated that the endless discussions are exhausting him. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian side has delivered to Washington its response and proposals regarding the latest draft peace plan developed jointly with European leaders. In Moscow, that response was evaluated instantly - even before it had been read. Vladimir Putin's foreign policy aide and one of Moscow's chief negotiators, Yuri Ushakov, commented that he was confident the document would contain no constructive proposals. However, before even discussing the substance of a possible end to the war, it is essential to state a simple but uncomfortable reality upfront: Vladimir Putin is not negotiating in order to end the war. For him, negotiations have become a tool to lock in the results of his aggression, buy time, and restore a degree of international legitimacy - without abandoning his core objectives. EXCLUSIVE Trump Envoy Has Financial Ties With Former Adviser to Putin's 'Money Man' Now Leading Kremlin Peace Talks Steve Witkoff's real-estate empire is bankrolled by a former adviser to Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and a key architect of Moscow's Ukraine negotiations Philip Haworth There is another equally simple reality that must be acknowledged: from the Kremlin's perspective, negotiations are not a search for compromise, but a literal continuation of the war by other means, with diplomacy embedded directly into the military backdrop. Not long ago, Vladimir Putin openly admitted that he is satisfied with the current state of affairs - referring to the war and all the consequences associated with it. I see no reason to doubt his sincerity here. The American administration appears increasingly willing to pursue compromises with the Kremlin in the hope of halting active hostilities in Ukraine. This became even clearer after the publication of a leaked recording of conversations between Trump's representative, Steve Witkoff, and Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov. That recording offered a more explicit picture of Washington's current approach to the process - one in which the U.S. representative appears prepared to accept virtually any compromise with the Kremlin in order to reach some form of outcome. And today, against the backdrop of the bombardment of Ukrainian cities, missile and drone strikes on both sides of the front line, and bloody battles for populated areas, we hear less about any concrete progress and more about the fact that the parties continue contacts, working meetings, and diplomatic consultations. These are then presented as "results of negotiations" in and of themselves - even though they are not. So What Does Putin Actually Want? Putin's primary objective is the recognition of a new status quo - which can be described as his minimum plan. This does not necessarily imply the formal, legal recognition of the occupied territories. The Kremlin likely understands all too well how toxic such recognition would be for Western governments. What matters far more is de facto acceptance of a frozen front line and the transfer of the remaining part of Donetsk region under Russian control without armed resistance. Any ceasefire that locks in the current situation works in Russia's favor. It allows Moscow to consolidate control over occupied territories, restore logistics, ...

'The Trump Administration Must Abandon Its Delusions About Destroying the EU'

Read our Digital & Print Editions And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system SUBSCRIBE TODAY Members of the Trump administration are guilty of making the same mistake as backers of Brexit in the UK, in assuming other people share their own prejudices about the European Union. This perception bias has led the administration to conclude that Europeans are yearning to be "free" from the "shackles" of the EU, and that the US has a crucial role to play in achieving this. In its recent National Security Strategy, the administration blames what it calls Europe's decline on the supposedly malign "activities" of the European Union, which it accuses of undermining political liberty and sovereignty, and imposing stifling over-regulation. It hints at its desire to break the bloc apart, in order to restore European nations' "individual character and history." According to the defense analysis organization, Defense One, this aspiration is made even more explicit in a longer unpublished version of the NSS which it claims to have seen, which lists Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland as countries the US should "work more with…with the goal of pulling them away from the [European Union]" However, recent opinion polls confirm that across the EU, a majority of people still have a broadly positive view towards it, even in countries like those above targeted by the US. An opinion poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in September revealed that among the nine member countries surveyed, seven-in-ten or more in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, and over half in Spain, Italy, Poland, France and Hungary, have a favourable view of the EU. The only country where views were more negative than negative was Greece. Nigel Farage Accepts Another £135,000 From Gold Bullion Firm for Just 12 Hours Work The Reform UK leader has pocketed £415,500 so far this year to act as the company's "Brand Ambassador" Russell Scott The same poll revealed that even in countries outside the EU many held a broadly positive attitude towards the bloc. In Canada, Nigeria, South Korea and Australia, roughly three-quarters had a favorable opinion of the EU. Six-in-ten or more agreed in five other nonmember countries, including the United Kingdom, and even the United States itself. Views were more finely balanced in Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Turkey and South Africa. A similar poll conducted EU-wide earlier this year by the EU's in-house surveyor, Eurobarometer, revealed that over 74% of respondents think that their country benefits from EU membership - the best result ever recorded since this question was first asked in 1983. Figures ranged from a staggering 92% in Malta, over 90% in Ireland, Lithuania, Estonia and Denmark, to the lowest percentage in Bulgaria, at a still solid 61%. In the same survey, 89% said they believed that more unity was crucial to tackle global challenges, with 75% or more citizens agreeing with this in every Member State. Another poll conducted by the same organization this year found that over 70% of respondents in the 20 euro member states also believed that the euro was a good thing both for the EU and for their own country. In a third poll, a majority of correspondents in nearly every EU member state supported further EU enlargement, with Ukraine the most favoured country for accession, provided it can meet the membership criteria. Amongst those more sceptical about enlargement, concerns included uncontrolled migration (40%), corruption, organized crime, terrorism (39%) and the cost to European taxpayers (37%). This suggests that the US administration may be onto something, when it highlights concerns in its NSS about Europe's stagnating economy, migration policies, and loss of self-confidence. But, just as Brexit was never the right solution to the UK's genuine domestic problems in 2016, when the Brexit referendum took place, so, breaking apart the EU would not resolve Europe's current ills. Emp...