When 2+2= Equals Denial: Labour’s Gaza Rhetoric and the Death of Truth

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Orwell’s darkly prophetic words from 1984 ring with chilling relevance as we witness the British government’s linguistic gymnastics over Gaza. But perhaps the most pertinent Orwellian observation for our times is this: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

Today, Sir Keir Starmer, self-declared Zionist and leader of what was once the party of the working class, is attempting to convince us that two plus two equals five. The arithmetic of atrocity is being rewritten before our eyes, with the Labour government not merely engaging in genocide denial, but something far more insidious: genocide revisionism.

In last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions. Starmer was directly asked:

“Will the Prime Minister share his definition of genocide with this House?” he asked.

In his response, Starmer said: “It would be wise to start a question like that by reference to what happened in October of last year. I’m well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I’ve never described this as and referred to it as genocide.”

If that wasn’t headline enough consider the breathtaking audacity of Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s attempt to redefine genocide as something that only happens when “millions of people” lose their lives.

This neat semantic trick would erase not only the current horror in Gaza but also retroactively delete recognised genocides like Srebrenica from the historical record. It’s a masterclass in Orwellian doublethink: simultaneously knowing and not knowing, holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Over three dozen British human rights and aid groups have called on Foreign Secretary David Lammy to clarify his understanding of genocide and Britain’s related legal obligations as pressure mounts over comments he made in relation to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Last week, a Conservative MP asked the foreign secretary to clarify that “there is not a genocide occurring in the Middle East” and said ‘that that terminology’ like “genocide” referring to Gaza was “not appropriate”.

Lammy said he agreed and added: “Those terms were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the way that they are used now undermines the seriousness of that term.”

On Tuesday, the 37 organisations, which include Christian Aid, Action Aid UK, the Council for Arab-British Understanding, and Medical Aid for Palestine, said Lammy’s focus on death tolls appeared to show “a dangerously misguided understanding of the crime”. The Genocide Convention does not use numerical thresholds to define the crime.

In an open letter, they said his comments “injected a deeply troubling ambiguity… in light of the mass atrocities perpetrated against civilians in Gaza”.

The UN’s definition of genocide is crystal clear: Under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. No minimum death toll is required. No arbitrary threshold must be crossed. The definition encompasses killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children. Yet Starmer, “well aware” of this definition, chooses to pretend it means something else entirely.

As Richard McNeil-Willson of Edinburgh University points out, this goes beyond mere denial into the realm of active historical revision. It’s an attempt to retroactively sanitise not just current actions but past colonial atrocities as well. Under Starmer and Lammy’s novel interpretation, many of Britain’s own historical crimes would conveniently cease to qualify as genocide. How convenient for the establishment.

Richard McNeil-Willson, who lectures in the Islamic and Middle Eastern studies department at Edinburgh University, said Starmer’s position on Gaza is becoming “politically untenable” after a UN special committee report said the policies and practices carried out by Israel are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide”.

The Labour leadership’s position becomes even more grotesque when we consider the evidence before us. The UN special committee reports Israel using “starvation as a weapon of war” and running an “apartheid system.” Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of “crimes against humanity” in causing massive, deliberate forced displacement. Over 43,000 Palestinians dead, according to health officials. Yet somehow, in Starmer’s mathematical universe, this doesn’t add up to genocide.

The committee, set up in 1968 to monitor Israel’s occupation said in its annual report that there were serious concerns that Israel was “using starvation as a weapon of war” and was running an “apartheid system” in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A report by Human Rights Watch also accused Israel of “crimes against humanity” in causing the massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

But perhaps the most Orwellian aspect of this situation is the cold political calculation behind it. As McNeil-Willson observes, the government has decided that genocide denialism is politically cheaper than accepting genocide and dealing with the legal implications. They’ve calculated that the moral cost of denial is less than the political price of truth. This is the arithmetic of amorality: where political expedience trumps human lives, where party messaging outweighs documented mass death.

The thought police aren’t just at Sarah Wilkinson’s door anymore. They’re in Downing Street, rewriting definitions, massaging meanings, and telling us that two plus two equals whatever number best serves the current narrative. When Starmer says he’s “well aware” of the definition of genocide while simultaneously mangling it beyond recognition, he’s performing exactly the kind of doublethink that Orwell warned us about.

The tragedy isn’t just in Gaza. It’s in the death of truth itself. When political leaders can brazenly redefine genocide to exclude ongoing atrocities, when they can perform semantic somersaults to avoid their legal and moral obligations, when they can tell us with straight faces that what we’re seeing isn’t what we’re seeing – that’s when we know we’re living in Orwell’s world.

As Labour haemorrhages support over its stance on Gaza, as international bodies pile evidence upon evidence, as the death toll mounts, Starmer’s position becomes increasingly untenable. But perhaps that’s the point – in a world of doublethink, nothing needs to be tenable. It just needs to be repeated often enough, with enough authority, until the very concept of truth loses all meaning.

Orwell’s Winston Smith finally broke when he was made to see five fingers instead of four. How many dead Palestinians will it take before we accept that two plus two equals five?

Paul Knaggs

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The Death of Debate: How Britain’s Police Are Stopping Free Expression

When they came for the left-wing journalists, the right stayed silent. When they came for the right-wing journalists, the left contemplated their own silence. Now, as the shadows of authoritarian overreach lengthen across Britain’s once-hallowed tradition of free expression, we must ask ourselves: Who will be left to speak at all?

The recent police investigation of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson – for the Orwellian crime of causing “offence” through social media – marks a chilling new chapter in Britain’s descent into thought-crime territory. This isn’t some mass round-up of rioters caught hurling bricks through windows at Southport or those who chose to incite violence through their social media platforms. No, this is something far more insidious – an investigation into an undefined offence, against an unnamed victim, for a crime that may not even exist. The mere accusation of causing offence has become offence enough. Kafka himself couldn’t have scripted it better: there must be a victim, therefore there must be a crime, therefore there must be a criminal. The circular logic of authoritarianism in its purest form.

Many of us have spent countless hours behind our telescreens, fingers worn from typing endless pleas for Julian Assange’s freedom. How darkly ironic that as the ink barely dries on his release papers, we find ourselves writing those same desperate words about liberty and rights for journalists across the political spectrum. The faces in Westminster may change, but the machinery of state oppression runs as smoothly as ever – Red Tories or Blue Tories, their methods remain unchanged, their goal eternally fixed: the preservation of power at any cost. They trade podiums and offices while we trade liberty for security, until we wake up one day to find we have neither.

We’ve already witnessed the detention of left-wing journalists like Sarah Wilkinson, Richard Medhurst, Asa Winstanley and Craig Murray under expansive terrorism laws. The establishment’s machinery of suppression knows no political boundaries – it seeks only to silence those who question power, regardless of their ideology.

The British left has a proud history of fighting against censorship, from the Levellers to the battle against the oppressive Combination Acts, from the Chartists to the anti-fascist movements of the 20th century. We’ve long understood that free speech isn’t just a liberal luxury – it’s the cornerstone of working-class emancipation and social progress.

Remember John Lilburne, “Freeborn John,” who in the 1640s endured whipping, pillorying, and imprisonment for the simple act of publishing unauthorised books. His crime? Daring to speak truth to power. The Levellers’ demands for free speech and press freedom were radical then – and apparently remain radical now, nearly 400 years later, as police officers interrupt a journalist’s Remembrance Sunday to investigate her tweets.

Those who celebrate the persecution of journalists they disagree with should remember the words of Noam Chomsky: “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” This isn’t about defending Pearson’s views – it’s about defending everyone’s right to express views without fear of state persecution.

It was George Orwell, that great democratic socialist and defender of truth, who warned us about this. “If liberty means anything at all,” he wrote, “it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Yet here we are, in 2024, watching police officers operate as the “Thought Police” – though the ideology matters less than the suppression itself.

When police can knock on your door to investigate your tweets while refusing to tell you what you’re accused of, we’ve entered Kafka’s territory. When journalists must “live in fear for months without ever being told what has been said against them”, we’re no longer living in a free society – regardless of whether we agree with those journalists’ politics, or not.

Of course, many will say that she needs shutting up but when they shut us all up who says anything…

The tragedy is that this creeping authoritarianism serves the powerful by dividing natural allies against state overreach. Left and right alternatively cheer or jeer at each other’s persecution, while the machinery of suppression grinds ever onwards, crushing dissent beneath its wheels. Meanwhile, our streets grow dangerous, our children go hungry, and corporate criminals walk free – but God forbid someone posts an offensive tweet. Real crimes go uninvestigated as our police force transforms into thought police, and the public sphere withers into a desert of timid conformity.

And while our mouths are sealed shut and our protests are criminalized, accountability dies a quiet death in the shadows. We wake each morning to find ourselves wearing the very shackles our forefathers once cast off, traded for the false promise of security and the hollow comfort of not being offended. The irony would be laughable if it weren’t so terrifying – that in the name of protecting sensibilities, we’ve surrendered the hard-won liberties that generations bled to secure.

We stand at a crossroads, but the signposts are clear enough for anyone with eyes to see. We can either unite to defend the fundamental right of free expression – even for those we despise – or we can watch as Britain descends into a police state where thought crimes trump actual crimes, where offence-taking trumps truth-telling, and where the only safe speech is silence. The choice between these paths grows starker with each knock on a journalist’s door, with each “voluntary interview,” with each undefined offence against an unnamed accuser.

If history teaches us, anything once these freedoms are lost, they are regained only through struggle and sacrifice. Let us not be the generation that surrendered what Freeborn John, the Chartists, and countless others bled to secure. The time to speak is now – while we still can.

Paul Knaggs

Editor & founder of Labour Heartlands. 𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙧𝙣 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩. Citizen journalist and veteran writing from the working-class coalface challenging the corruption, liberal elitism, and political complacency that dominate Britain today. Dyslexic but driven… I write because silence serves the powerful. Defender of free speech, civil liberties, and real democracy. Committed to an open, accountable democracy, not the manufactured version handed down from party machines, think tanks, or the Westminster bubble.

Why Starmer’s £75M Crackdown on Smuggling Gangs Won’t Stop Channel Crossings Only Safe Routes Can

Prime Minister Starmer says we must stop smuggling gangs “before they act.” His solution? Throw another £75 million at the problem. A familiar tune, isn’t it?

Labour, like the Tories before them, seem intent on perpetuating the same failed policies that have led to the tragic loss of life in the English Channel. More money for border security, more rhetoric about cracking down on smugglers – but where are the concrete proposals to actually stop people risking everything to reach our shores?

The truth is, Starmer’s announcement is little more than political theatre. He promises to “treat people smugglers like terrorists,” deploying counter-terrorism tactics, as if the gangs behind these deadly crossings are anything like organised jihadists, let’s be really honest there’s more chance of a terrorist coming over on a boat than it being someone who puts them on one. It’s a false equivalence designed to sound tough, not solve the crisis.

And what about the former immigration chief, Kevin Saunders, who rightly points out the limitations of this approach? The harsh reality is that the majority of smugglers operate beyond our borders, putting them largely out of reach of even our most aggressive law enforcement efforts. Jailing a few small-time operators won’t deter the criminal networks driving this trade.

And while Starmer talks tough about fighting criminal gangs, he remains silent about the real profiteers of this crisis – those getting rich off human misery right here at home. Consider Graham King, the former caravan park owner turned asylum accommodation mogul. His company, Clearsprings Ready Homes, received an astounding £1.74 billion last year from the Home Office, catapulting him onto Britain’s Rich List with an estimated worth of £750 million. His contract runs until 2029, virtually guaranteeing his ascent to become Britain’s first immigration industry billionaire.

This is the dark secret of Britain’s asylum system: it’s not just a humanitarian failure – it’s a racket. In 2023 alone, £4.3 billion of the UK foreign aid budget – more than four times the amount spent on overseas development aid – was diverted into this industrial complex of detention centres, unsuitable hotels, and private contractors. While refugees languish in limbo, private companies profit from their delayed applications and prolonged detention.

King filled a gap in a broken system. The cruel irony is that this money could fund a comprehensive network of overseas processing centres and safe routes many times over. Instead, it’s being funnelled into the pockets of government contractors who have every incentive to maintain the status quo. When housing asylum seekers becomes more profitable than helping them, is it any wonder the system remains broken?

No, the only way to truly break the smugglers’ business model is to remove their product – the desperate people willing to risk their lives on flimsy boats. And that means creating legal, safe routes for asylum seekers to reach Britain.

The Cruel Hypocrisy of Britain’s Two-Tier Refugee System

Britain’s Two-Tier Refugee System – Have you ever noticed how some refugees are more welcome than others? It’s not a comfortable truth, but it’s one that demands our attention as Yvette Cooper performs the latest act in Labour’s ongoing theatre of cruelty.

When questioned about new safe routes for asylum seekers, our Shadow Home Secretary offers the political equivalent of a shrug, muttering about criminal gangs while promising to make “existing ways” work better. This would be merely disappointing if it weren’t so nakedly hypocritical.

Consider this stark reality: we don’t see Ukrainians or Hong Kong nationals risking their lives in the Channel’s treacherous waters. We don’t find them huddled in dangerous dinghies, prey to smuggling gangs and the elements. Why? The answer is devastatingly simple – they have safe, legal routes into Britain.

This isn’t accident; it’s architecture. When Britain wanted to welcome Hong Kong citizens, we created the BNO visa scheme. When Ukraine’s civil war escalated into a Russian invasion, we established multiple legal pathways. The machinery of state can move with remarkable efficiency when there’s political will.

Yet when it comes to refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, or other global crisis points, we’re told that new safe routes are impossible, impractical, or would somehow encourage criminal gangs. This is nonsense on stilts, and Cooper knows it.

The evidence stares us in the face: safe routes don’t encourage criminality – they destroy the smugglers’ business model. Every refugee who can apply legally is one less desperate soul forced to risk death at sea. Every formal pathway created is a nail in the coffin of the trafficking gangs.

Labour’s position mirrors the Tories’ moral failure, just with a gentler tone. They wring their hands about drownings in the Channel while deliberately maintaining the very system that makes such tragedies inevitable. It’s like expressing concern about people jumping from a burning building while refusing to install a fire escape.

The defenders of this system will argue about “pull factors” and “finite capacity.” But these arguments collapse under their own contradictions. If Britain can process tens of thousands of applications from Hong Kong and Ukraine, why not from other crisis regions? The answer isn’t about capacity – it’s about political choice.

But one thing is for sure; processing refuges is far better than allowing thousands of undocumented people to cross the channel. Safe routes allow only refugees entry. Anyone else crossing on a dingy represents a clear and present danger to the security of the UK.

What makes this especially galling is Labour’s pretence of offering change. Cooper speaks of “effective” management of existing routes while knowing full well that these routes are deliberately insufficient. It’s the politics of gesture – appearing to care while carefully maintaining the status quo.

The truth is uncomfortable but clear: Britain operates a two-tier refugee system. One tier offers dignity and safety to those we deem politically acceptable. The other forces desperate people into the hands of criminals and the mercy of the sea.

So what would an honest approach look like? Here’s a practical, step-by-step plan:

1. Establish refugee application centres in key transit countries like Greece, Italy, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. This gives asylum seekers a clear, regulated pathway to make their claims before embarking on dangerous journeys.
2. Create transparent, efficient procedures for processing these applications. The UK has demonstrated the capacity to do this for refugees from Ukraine and Hong Kong – there’s no reason the same can’t be done for those fleeing other crisis zones.
3. Implement a fair quota system that distributes responsibility equitably across regions, in cooperation with our European partners. This shared burden approach is crucial for maintaining public support.
4. Once these safe, legal routes are firmly established, work with international allies to make irregular entry a criminal offence. Crucially, this must be coupled with the creation of proper application centres – without viable alternatives, criminalization is merely cruel.
5. Legislate that asylum claims made outside these recognised routes are automatically invalid. This closes off the “bad faith” avenues that anti-immigration advocates often cite as justification for deterrence policies.

The beauty of this approach is that it tackles the problem at both ends. First, we remove the incentive for people to risk their lives on dangerous crossings. Then, we close off the irregular entry paths that feed the criminal smuggling networks.

It’s a humane, pragmatic solution that respects both the rule of law and our moral obligations. Refugees don’t drown in the Channel when they have access to safe options. And by working with our partners, we diminish the power of the smuggling gangs that thrive on their desperation.

Starmer’s announcement is nothing but empty rhetoric, a pale imitation of the Tories’ own failed policies. If he’s serious about solving this crisis, he needs to show real leadership and put forward a comprehensive plan that addresses the root causes, not just the symptoms.

The choice is clear: continue down the path of deterrence and delay, or embrace a solution that upholds our values, secures our borders, and saves lives. For all his tough talk, Starmer has shown he lacks the courage to take that step. The blood of future Channel tragedies will be on his hands and as it stands, every susesfull crossing will be a vote for Reform…

Paul Knaggs

The False Choice: Both Candidates Offer More War

How America’s Election Could Reshape Global Conflicts…

Have you ever noticed how, despite all the heated rhetoric about “choice” in democratic elections, when it comes to matters of war and peace, voters are increasingly offered what amounts to no choice at all?

As Britain watches the American electoral drama unfold – with implications both foreign and domestic that will inevitably wash up on our shores – we’re witnessing a disturbing pattern that should give pause to anyone concerned with democratic accountability in foreign policy. The current presidential race presents a masterclass in the illusion of choice, a devil’s bargain for those concerned with peace and international stability.

In Gaza, where over 43,000 Palestinians have died and millions face displacement, both candidates offer variations on the same theme – unwavering support for Israel, differing only in rhetoric and tone. Harris speaks of humanitarian concerns while continuing to supply weapons; Trump promises Netanyahu free rein while coyly suggesting he alone can broker peace.

The Ukraine question is equally troubling. Harris, the continuity candidate, pledges ongoing support for Kyiv, but her vision offers little more than an open-ended commitment to a conflict that has already cost thousands of lives and billions in expenditure. This is not a strategy, but a forlorn hope of Russian attrition – The prospect of a “forever war” in Ukraine, without a clear pathway to lasting peace, represents a dangerous liability for British interests.

And while Trump boasts about ending the conflict through personal diplomacy with Putin that too raises alarming questions. What concessions might a desperate Ukraine be forced to make to secure an American-brokered settlement? The redrawing of Europe’s security architecture to accommodate Russian demands could have profound implications for Britain. Our commitment to NATO and the post-war order in Europe would be sorely tested, while the US would be exacerbating already strained relations with the EU.

Harris’s approach may provide a semblance of continuity, but it papers over the fundamental flaws in the West’s Ukraine policy. As the war drags on, the human toll mounts and the risk of escalation grows. Britain cannot simply defer to Washington’s lead, whether it’s Harris’s open-ended support or Trump’s unpredictable horse-trading.

The stark reality facing Britain is this: our so-called “special relationship” with America may soon be tested in ways we haven’t seen since Suez. Consider how quickly our strategic position could shift. Under Harris, we’d likely maintain our current course – supporting Ukraine, backing Israel in the genocide in Gaza, and generally following Washington’s lead. But what happens if Trump, true to his “America First” doctrine, suddenly cuts a deal with Putin that leaves both Ukraine and NATO’s eastern flank and Britain’s alliance with Ukraine exposed?

More concerning still is the Middle East powder keg. Britain, as a permanent UN Security Council member and significant diplomatic player in the region, cannot simply wash its hands of the expanding conflict. Yet neither candidate offers a coherent strategy for containing it. Harris’s careful statements about Palestinian suffering, while continuing to approve funds and arms sales to Israel, suggest a continuation of the morally ambiguous status quo allowing for escalation. Trump’s embrace of Netanyahu’s maximalist position, combined with his mercurial approach to Arab states, could also accelerate the region’s descent into wider conflict.

The financial subtext cannot be ignored either…

While Israel insists this war is about destroying Hamas and the safe return of hostages…The discovery of Gaza’s Marine 1 and 2 gas fields promised economic prosperity. The UN estimates Gaza’s gas could provide over $4 billion in income per annum, a lifeline for Palestinians mired in poverty. Yet Israel keeps these riches out of reach. The Leviathan field is valued at over $524 billion. The discoveries of natural gas in the Levant Basin are in the range of 122 trillion cubic feet while recoverable oil is estimated at 1.7 billion barrels, according to the study, entitled “The Economic Cost of Occupation for the Palestinian People: The Unrealized Oil and Natural Gas Potential.” makes this military action more than viable for Israel along with Britain and the EU potential customers.

And let’s not forget Ukraine’s estimated $26 trillion in mineral resources represents the kind of strategic prize that shapes great power politics. Britain’s post-Brexit economic interests require stable access to these emerging markets. After all while our poor suffer in an energy company-induced cost of living crisis we are pumping billions into the Ukrainian war…we will want to see a return on our investment, and so will the ever-expanding EU. With or without US support.

Let’s be brutally honest: When both candidates support expanding military engagements – whether in Gaza, Ukraine, or beyond – what meaningful choice do peace-minded voters actually have?

This isn’t a uniquely American problem. Here in Britain, we’ve watched Sir Keir Starmer perform similar philosophical gymnastics, promising both robust military support abroad while claiming to represent progressive values at home.

But what’s particularly troubling for British observers is how this election could force a fundamental reassessment of our foreign policy assumptions. Since 1945, we’ve built our strategic thinking on the bedrock of American leadership – yet both candidates seem poised to shake that foundation in different ways.

Consider our position: a mid-sized power with global ambitions, dependent on international trade, and increasingly caught between American unpredictability and European integration. The next US president could force Britain into impossible choices. Support Ukraine against Trump’s wishes? Back Harris’s continuation of unconditional Israeli support? These aren’t merely foreign policy questions – they’re existential challenges to Britain’s place in the world.

The implications for British domestic politics are equally profound. Starmer’s Labour, having embraced a firmly centrist foreign policy, could find itself torn between US demands and domestic pressure. The substantial British Muslim population’s justified anger over Gaza, the growing anti-war movement, and traditional Labour internationalism all pull in different directions from Washington’s stance.

Yet perhaps the most crucial question isn’t being asked: what if neither candidate actually serves British interests? Our diplomatic establishment’s reflexive alignment with Washington increasingly looks like a relic of a dying order. The post-war Pax Americana that underpinned British foreign policy is crumbling, regardless of who wins tomorrow.

The defenders of this system will argue that foreign policy requires “continuity” and “bipartisan consensus.” This is precisely the sort of thinking that has led us into endless cycles of military intervention. When both parties agree on the fundamental premise that military force is the primary tool of foreign policy, they’re really just haggling over the details of implementation.

What’s particularly galling is how this consensus shapes media coverage. Notice how discussions about cutting military budgets are dismissed as “naive,” while proposals to increase military spending are treated as serious and pragmatic? This isn’t accident; it’s architecture.

The Ukraine situation perfectly illustrates this trap. Harris promises more weapons, while Trump promises a “deal” – but neither questions the underlying assumption that America (and by extension, NATO) must be the primary actor in determining Ukraine’s fate. Meanwhile, the military-industrial complex profits either way, whether through direct arms sales or the “reconstruction” that inevitably follows any “peace deal.” They are literally the same companies that destroy and then get the contracts to rebuild…

The Gaza crisis further exposes this bankruptcy of choice. Both candidates fundamentally support Israel’s military actions, differing only in their level of public hand-wringing about civilian casualties. Where is the candidate proposing to leverage America’s considerable influence to achieve an actual lasting peace? They don’t exist because the system isn’t designed to produce them.

For British voters watching this unfold, there’s a crucial lesson: When foreign policy consensus becomes too rigid, democracy suffers. We’ve seen this in our own politics, where challenging military interventions often leads to accusations of being “unserious” or “naive.” This narrowing of acceptable debate serves power, not people.

Britain at the Crossroads

The stark reality is that Britain’s traditional diplomatic playbook – crafted in the certainties of the Cold War and refined in the brief unipolar moment of the 1990s – is dangerously outdated. Consider our current predicaments:

When it comes to war, we’ve outsourced our moral and strategic thinking to Washington, leading to policy paralysis. While our streets fill with protesters demanding action to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, our government simply echoes whatever line emerges from the White House. This isn’t diplomacy; it’s abdication.

The Ukraine situation is equally telling. Britain’s support for Kyiv could be undermined overnight by a shift in US policy. We’ve failed to build sufficient European consensus to maintain support for Ukraine independent of Washington’s whims. The prospect of Trump cutting a deal with Putin that sacrifices Ukrainian sovereignty terrifies British strategists – yet we have no clear Plan B.

The comfortable illusions of post-war British foreign policy are crumbling before our eyes. For decades, we’ve told ourselves a reassuring story: that our interests and America’s were essentially identical, that our “special relationship” gave us unique influence in Washington, and that American leadership would always provide a reliable framework for British diplomacy. The upcoming US election exposes these assumptions as increasingly dangerous fantasies.

Let’s be blunt – our reliance on China has left us dangerously exposed. The lack of a coherent industrial strategy over the past four decades has ceded control of critical supply chains to Beijing. Chinese factories could bring our economy to its knees merely by halting exports for a few months. This is the uncomfortable truth our political class has been unwilling to confront.

Equally troubling is the way Britain has oscillated between courting Chinese investment and treating Beijing as an adversary. This reactive, ad hoc approach to the world’s rising superpower reveals the poverty of our strategic thinking. Neither Harris nor Trump offers a credible plan to manage this geopolitical challenge. Britain must develop its own China policy, one that protects our interests while maintaining vital economic links.

Rebuilding our diplomatic capacity is the essential first step. The Foreign Office needs a dramatic influx of resources, expertise, and – crucially – the political mandate to chart an independent course. Gone are the days when we could simply follow Washington’s lead, whether on Ukraine, the Middle East, or relations with China.

Our military posture must also be radically reassessed. Being America’s reliable auxiliary may have made sense during the Cold War, but today it constrains our options. Britain needs armed forces configured to defend our actual security requirements, not fighting wars on the other side of the world to support American global hegemony.

This rethinking must extend to our nuclear deterrent. Trident’s dependence on American technology and political support represents a strategic vulnerability in an era of uncertain US leadership. Whether Harris’s multilateralism or Trump’s unilateralism prevails, Britain needs a serious, evidence-based debate about the future of our nuclear strategy.

Economically, we must be willing to leverage our strengths. The City of London’s role as a global financial hub offers far more diplomatic and economic clout than we typically acknowledge. From Russian oligarchs’ money to Gulf sovereign wealth, Britain has economic tools we’ve been reluctant to wield.

Perhaps most crucially, we need a comprehensive industrial strategy to wean ourselves off debilitating dependencies – whether on China for manufacturing or America for our nuclear deterrent. The outsourcing of jobs and communities in pursuit of short-term profits has left us strategically vulnerable. Rebuilding domestic industrial capacity isn’t just an economic imperative; it’s a matter of national security.

The Labour Party’s current position is especially concerning. Starmer’s determination to prove Labour’s pro-American credentials risks trapping Britain in outdated policy frameworks. Yet the left’s traditional internationalism could offer valuable perspectives on building new security architectures, perspectives that are increasingly marginalised.

The fundamental question facing Britain isn’t which American candidate might better serve our interests – it’s whether we’re prepared to think seriously about what those interests actually are. The coming decade will likely see multiple crises that challenge the post-1945 international order. Britain’s response can’t simply be to wait for instructions from Washington.

Consider the domestic implications. Our democracy is increasingly strained by the gap between public opinion and government policy, particularly on international issues. The massive protests over Gaza, the question of support for Ukraine, the growing concern about climate change – these reflect a public more sophisticated in its understanding of global issues than our political class often acknowledges.

The risk isn’t just to our foreign policy but to our democratic legitimacy. When government policy appears dictated by Washington rather than shaped by British interests and values, it feeds a dangerous cynicism about our institutions. This is particularly acute among younger voters, who increasingly question the assumptions that have guided British foreign policy for generations.

The choice facing Britain isn’t between Harris and Trump – it’s between strategic independence and continued subordination to an increasingly unpredictable ally. The coming American election, whether it results in Harris’s cautious continuity or Trump’s disruptive nationalism, offers us an opportunity – perhaps our last – to begin this necessary transformation.

The alternative is continuing strategic drift, with our foreign policy increasingly disconnected from both our interests and our values. The sooner we confront this reality, the better prepared we’ll be for the turbulent decade ahead. Britain’s future place in the world hangs in the balance. It’s time we took responsibility for charting our own course, slipping the lead from being America’s poodle.

Paul Knaggs

A major espionage scandal has erupted in Italy, implicating Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad in what Italian officials are calling “a threat to democracy.” The operation allegedly involved the systematic hacking of government databases and collection of sensitive information on high-ranking Italian officials, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

The Digital Dragnet: How a Private Intelligence Firm Exposed the Shadowy World of Modern Espionage

In the narrow streets of Milan, far from the marble halls of Rome’s government buildings, a small private intelligence firm called Equalize was allegedly pulling off one of the most audacious hacking operations in modern European history. What began as a local cybersecurity breach has erupted into an international scandal that reads like a John le Carré novel – except every character is real, and every threat is present.

Last Wednesday, Italian authorities revealed a sprawling network of digital espionage that has shaken the foundations of European security. At its centre: a cast of former police officers, intelligence operatives, and hackers who allegedly turned their expertise against the very institutions they once served.

The scope is breathtaking. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s personal data, compromised. The Interior Ministry’s servers, breached. The Vatican, implicated. Mossad agents, meeting in Milan office buildings. And at the heart of it all, a €1 million contract to track Vladimir Putin’s inner circle and the shadowy Wagner Group’s finances.

The focus is on ‘Equalize’, a Milan-based private intelligence firm staffed by former security service officials. The company is accused of breaching servers of Italy’s Interior Ministry and police databases between 2019 and 2024, collecting classified information on thousands of prominent Italians – from politicians and entrepreneurs to celebrities.

Italian law enforcement has already arrested four individuals, with dozens more under investigation. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto has called for an urgent parliamentary probe, warning that the exposed personal information may be “just the tip of the iceberg.”

The man at the centre of this web, Nunzio Samuele Calamucci, is no ordinary suspect. A self-proclaimed veteran of Anonymous who once boasted of penetrating the Pentagon’s defences, he now stands accused of orchestrating what Italian media have dubbed “a conspiracy of the highest level.” His firm, Equalize, didn’t just hack – it allegedly built a sophisticated marketplace of secrets, where everything from politicians’ private lives to state intelligence was available for the right price.

The confidential data, which was allegedly sold to clients or used to blackmail businessmen and politicians, including former Milan Mayor Letizia Moratti, went back to at least 2019 and continued up to March 2024, a court document seen by Reuters showed.

The Milan prosecutors allege the business intelligence agency tapped into three key databases: one gathering alerts over suspicious financial activities; one used by the national tax agency with citizens’ bank transactions, utility bills, income statements; and the police investigations’ database.

According to prosecutor documents, one of the suspects, Nunzio Samuele Calamucci, had a “huge amount of data to manage equal to at least 15 terabytes.”

The country’s anti-mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Melillo, told the press conference that the case had revealed “a gigantic and alarming market of confidential data.”

It is claimed up to 800 thousand people were spied on.

The evidence reads like a modern spy thriller. Police wiretaps captured meetings between Calamucci’s team and two Israeli operatives in a Milan office in February 2023. The topic of discussion? A million-euro operation targeting Russian oligarchs and tracking dark money flowing to the Wagner Group – information destined, bizarrely, for Vatican eyes. The same tapes revealed an offer to trade explosive documents from the EU’s Qatargate scandal, suggesting a vast network of information trafficking stretching from Brussels to the Holy See.

But what makes this case truly extraordinary is its reach into the machinery of state power itself. Former police investigators, including Carmine Gallo, allegedly turned their badges into skeleton keys, using their security clearances to access government databases at will. From their offices in Milan, they reportedly built a network extending to Colchester, England, where dozens of hackers worked in their service, using servers strategically placed in Lithuania to evade detection.

The Israeli Connection

According to intercepted communications reported by Politico and Corriere Della Sera, two Israeli intelligence agents met with Equalize representatives at their Milan office in February 2023. The meeting, coordinated by Lorenzo De Marcio, a senior police official with ties to Italian intelligence, allegedly centred on a proposed €1 million deal.

Politico reported that according to the leaked wiretaps, members of the hacking network met with two Israeli agents at the firm’s office in Milan in February 2023 to discuss a deal worth 1 million euros.

“The job was a cyber operation against Russian targets, including President Vladimir Putin’s unidentified ‘right-hand man,’ and unearthing the financial trail leading from the bank accounts of wealthy figures to the Russian mercenary group Wagner. The information was then supposed to be passed on to the Vatican,” Politico wrote.

In a report released on Wednesday by Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, two unidentified Israeli intelligence agents were intercepted while visiting the firm.

In 2022, Wagner – founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin – mobilised mercenaries to fight on behalf of Russia against Ukraine. Prigozhin was assassinated shortly after carrying out a mutiny where forces were sent to Moscow.

According to the leaked wiretaps, the Israelis had offered to provide original documents from the “Qatargate” scandal, in which European Parliament officials, lobbyists, and their families were bribed to act on behalf of the gas-rich Gulf state in Brussels, Politico added.

The Israelis also allegedly offered Equalize information on the “illicit trafficking of Iranian gas with Italian companies,” potentially benefiting one of its major clients, national energy company Eni.

The defenders of our current system will argue that intelligence agencies need private sector partnerships to stay effective in our digital age. They’ll point to national security concerns and the need for technological expertise. This is a convenient fiction that serves only to obscure a darker truth: We’ve created a parallel power structure that operates beyond democratic oversight, where former spies monetize their skills and connections in the private sector while maintaining ties to their old agencies.

Remember when surveillance was supposed to be about catching terrorists? Yet here we are, with private firms allegedly hoarding compromising information on elected officials, entrepreneurs, and public figures – all for sale to the highest bidder. The going rate? A cool million euros for operations targeting Russian figures and tracking Wagner Group finances, according to the wiretaps.

This isn’t just mission creep; it’s mission leap.

Defense Minister Guido Crosetto’s warning that the exposed information is merely “the tip of the iceberg” takes on a chilling new meaning when we consider the scale of the operation. This wasn’t just about gathering data – it was about power. The ability to blackmail, pressure, or destroy public figures at will. As Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani put it, this was an “unacceptable” assault on democracy itself.

This scandal exposes not just stolen data but the rot at the heart of our intelligence apparatus: the commodification of surveillance and the privatisation of state power.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Wednesday that the “unacceptable” hack, which intended “to blackmail, attack or pressure” politicians, and the hackers’ connections beyond national borders made it “much more serious.”

Tajani has ordered the creation of a task force to protect his ministry and Italy’s embassies abroad.

Other countries are likely to be pulled into the Italian investigation.

Calamucci, who previously boasted of penetrating the Pentagon with the Anonymous hacktivist collective, frequently referenced dozens of hackers working for him in Colchester, England. The firm also made use of servers in the United States and Lithuania, where they felt they were less vulnerable, according to leaked documents.

Prosecutors have ordered the seizure of a server in Lithuania and are evaluating whether to make a request to investigators in the U.K., according to reports in Italian media.

Now, as Italian prosecutors work to untangle this web, the four suspects under house arrest maintain a telling silence. Their lawyers speak of “empirically unfeasible” allegations, yet the evidence continues to mount. Just yesterday, prosecutors ordered the seizure of servers in Lithuania, with Britain likely next in their sights.

The four people under house arrest as part of a probe into alleged illegal access to state databases, and are investigating dozens, including Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, son of the late billionaire founder of Luxottica. Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio is the son of Leonardo Del Vecchio, who founded Ray Ban-owner Luxottica. The tycoon died in 2022.

A lawyer for Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio said he was “eagerly awaiting the completion of preliminary investigations to be able to prove he has nothing to do with the events in question and that charges laid against him have no basis.

“He seems to be rather a victim given initial allegations and the negative outcome of the search conducted,” lawyer Maria Emanuela Mascalchi said in a statement.

Milanese authorities placed dozens, including Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, pictured below, under investigation © Angel Weiss/AFP/Getty ImagesThe timing of this scandal is particularly significant, emerging as it does against the backdrop of growing concerns about private intelligence firms operating in the shadows of state power. The alleged targeting of Wagner Group financials gains extra weight when we consider the fate of Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose challenge to Moscow’s authority ended in flames.

What this scandal reveals isn’t just a breach of security – it’s a glimpse into the murky world where private intelligence firms have become the hired guns of the digital age. From Milan to Moscow, from the Vatican to London’s financial district, these modern-day mercenaries operate with near impunity, armed not with bullets but with bytes.

The implications stretch far beyond Italy’s borders. When a private firm in Milan can penetrate national security databases, trade in state secrets, and broker deals between intelligence agencies, we must ask ourselves: who really holds power in our digital age? The democratically elected governments we entrust with our security, or these shadow operators who trade in the currency of information?

As prosecutors work to unravel this labyrinth, four suspects sit under house arrest, their silence speaks volumes. Their lawyers’ carefully worded statements about “empirically unfeasible” allegations ring hollow against the mountain of evidence – wiretaps, server logs, and the damning paper trail of their international operations.

The creation of Tajani’s emergency task force to protect Italy’s embassies abroad isn’t just a bureaucratic response – it’s an admission that the traditional boundaries between private and state intelligence have completely broken down. When a firm like Equalize can allegedly access everything from bank transactions to police investigations, from politicians’ private data to state secrets, the very foundation of national security becomes questionable.

Italian media outlets described the case as a “conspiracy of the highest level that involves members of the mafia and officials in the intelligence services, along with foreign intelligence services including the Mossad.”

Giorgia Meloni described the plot as “unacceptable” and a “threat to democracy.”

Perhaps most disturbing is how this scandal illuminates the commodification of state secrets. Information about Iranian gas deals, Russian oligarchs’ finances, and European political corruption wasn’t just stolen – it was packaged and traded like any other commodity. The €1 million price tag for the Wagner Group operation suggests a thriving market for this digital contraband.

As Italian authorities continue their investigation, one thing becomes clear: this is not just about reforming cybersecurity protocols or arresting a few rogue operators. This is about confronting a fundamental shift in how power operates in our interconnected world. The walls between private and state intelligence have crumbled, leaving us to question who really guards the guardians in our digital age.

The answer to that question may determine not just Italy’s future security, but the very nature of state power in an era where information has become the ultimate weapon. As this investigation unfolds, we would do well to remember that today’s headlines about Milan hackers and Vatican intrigue are tomorrow’s blueprint for how power really operates in our digital century.

Paul Knaggs

How Labour’s Tax Policy Threatens Our Country Side and Food Sovereignty

The most profound changes in a nation’s character rarely announce themselves with dramatic flourish. They creep in through the quiet corridors of power, wrapped in bureaucratic paper and stamped with legislative seals. Today, we face such a moment as Labour’s inheritance tax proposal threatens to fundamentally reshape British agriculture – not through bold declaration, but through the subtle arithmetic of tax policy.

The Death of the Family Farm by a Thousand Cuts

What appears on paper as a simple tax adjustment – capping inheritance tax relief at £1 million – represents nothing less than an existential threat to British farming. As Karl Polanyi warned in “The Great Transformation,” when we reduce land to mere commodity, we risk destroying the very fabric of society.

Such is the nature of Labour’s latest inheritance tax proposal – a measure so precisely targeted at Britain’s agricultural heritage that it threatens to rewrite the future of our countryside more definitively than any natural disaster or economic crisis could achieve.

What appears on paper as a simple tax adjustment – capping inheritance tax relief at £1 million – represents nothing less than an existential threat to British farming. This isn’t hyperbole – it’s a reality now facing every small farm struggling to make ends meet.

Let’s be clear about what £1 million means in farming terms: it’s a distortion that can be easily misinterpreted by those who don’t look deeper. With agricultural land values hovering around £10,000 per acre, basic farm equipment costs soaring, and necessary infrastructure requirements, this cap barely covers the smallest viable farms. As Ben Sharples, an agricultural specialist at Michelmores, notes, this “relief” is woefully inadequate when considering modern farming realities.

The numbers paint a stark reality. Out of Britain’s 209,000 farms, approximately 70,000 stand to be affected by Labour’s proposed inheritance tax changes, according to the Country Land and Business Association. These aren’t sprawling estates owned by the wealthy; they are family farms, where hard work, not high returns, underpins Britain’s food security. They are asset-rich yet cash-poor, with land that has been passed down through generations—not a readily available fund that can be tapped to pay the taxman after the £1 million cap.

To illustrate, you won’t see many Welsh hill farmers jetting off to Dubai; a day out to Bangor might be more realistic. The average Welsh farm is 48 hectares, smaller than the 77 hectares typical in England and Scotland. For these farmers, their land is both their legacy and livelihood, yet for the taxman, it’s simply taxable property once it crosses that £1 million threshold.

Consider the financial reality: in 2021-2022, hill sheep farms in Wales had an average Farm Business Income (FBI) of £1,143 per hectare. With total costs—variable and fixed—amounting to £723 per hectare, their profit post-rent and finance dropped to just £377 per hectare. The figures are hardly more promising for other types of farms in Wales:

• Lowland sheep/beef farms saw an average income of £18,700 in 2022-2023.
• Dairy farms fared better, averaging £164,900, but carry higher operational costs.
• Other farm types averaged £47,800 in income.
• Across all types, the average farm income was £46,600 in 2022-2023.

In 2022-2023, farm costs rose by an average of 15%, driven primarily by higher expenses for feed, fertilizer, and fuel. With rising costs and shrinking margins, these families are barely managing to sustain their livelihoods. Yet under the new tax policy, it’s these same families who could be forced to sell their land to cover an inheritance tax bill, threatening not only their futures but also the stability of Britain’s food supply.

This isn’t merely about taxation – it’s about the systematic dismantling of generations of agricultural knowledge and tradition. When family farms are forced onto the market because their inheritors can’t afford punitive tax bills, we lose more than land – we lose the very foundation of our food sovereignty. Each farm will be snatched up and sold to corporate interests or property developers. This represents another thread snapped in the fabric of rural Britain, another step toward what Polanyi foresaw: a world where land becomes just another entry in an accountant’s ledger.

The False Promise of Labour’s Rural Vision

NFU President Tom Bradshaw said: “Farmers and growers have been left reeling from the changes announced in the budget which demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of how the British farming sector is shaped and managed. The current plans to change APR and BPR need to be overturned and fast.

“Farmers are rightly angry and concerned about their future and for the future of their family farms, having been reassured by ministers in the lead up to the budget that APR and BPR changes were not on the table.

“The Treasury’s figures which claim this will only affect one in four British farms are misleading. The £1million cap to APR shows how little this government understands the sector. Very few viable farms would be worth under £1m, but lots of smallholdings and houses with a few acres let for grazing might be.

The asset value of genuine food-producing farms will be high, given the size they need to be to remain viable businesses; but that’s the value of the asset, it doesn’t reflect its profitability which is often, and increasingly so, very low.

“It’s clear the government does not understand that family farms are not only small farms, and that just because a farm is an asset it doesn’t mean those who work it are wealthy. I have said, every penny the Chancellor saves from this will come directly from the next generation having to break up their family farm. It simply mustn’t happen.

“MPs need to understand the consequences of these actions which is why we are mobilizing our members for a mass lobby in the coming weeks. British farmers will ask their MPs to look them in the eye and tell them whether they support this.

“There’s still time for the government to accept they’ve got this wrong, and my message to ministers is that they should do the right thing and reverse this awful Family Farm Tax.”

The NFU has republished a series of videos of Sir Keir Starmer’s speech at our 2023 Annual Conference to remind the Prime Minister of his commitments to British farming ahead of the Autumn Budget on 30 October.

The videos have been published on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok, and have been viewed more than 100,000 times in one week.

This follows repeated NFU calls for a multi-annual budget of £5.6 billion, as outlined in our letter to the Chancellor, and more than 2,000 members using our campaigning email tool to contact their MP. 

NFU President Tom Bradshaw has also written a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, calling on him to stand by his commitments to British farmers and growers.

The Politics of Contradiction and Corporate Predation

Labour’s contradiction is stark. Prime Minister Starmer promised to support locally sourced food for the public sector and pledged to “make environment land management schemes work for farmers and nature.” Not for the first time his government’s actions tell a different story:

• A 76% reduction in basic payment schemes for 2025
• £600 million in “savings” carved from farming and flood budgets
• The dismantling of inheritance protections that kept farms in family hands

This isn’t policy coherence – it’s death by a thousand cuts.

The Labour’s environment secretary’s about-face is particularly galling. Steve Reed, promised no interference with agricultural tax protections. Keir Starmer pledged support for locally sourced food and environmental schemes to support farmers. Yet here we are, facing a policy that threatens to unravel the very fabric of British agriculture.

Labour’s promises ring hollow against the hammer blows of their actual policies. They paint a pastoral vision of locally-sourced food filling school cafeterias and hospital wards – pledging that 50% of public sector meals will come from nearby farms. Yet simultaneously, they craft tax policies that will force those very same local producers to sell their lands. The cognitive dissonance would be laughable if it weren’t so devastating.

If urban dwellers understand gentrification – the slow, methodical displacement of local communities by moneyed interests – then consider this rural transformation its agricultural cousin, but on steroids. While cities witness the gradual transformation of working-class neighbourhoods into luxury developments, our countryside faces a far more rapid and ruthless transformation.

This isn’t just about replacing corner shops with coffee chains – it’s about removing entire families from lands they’ve tended for generations, about erasing centuries of agricultural knowledge in the stroke of a tax assessor’s pen. This is gentrification on an industrial scale, orchestrated not by local developers but by global financial giants.

Consider the stark reality: You cannot source food locally when you’ve systematically dismantled local food production. You cannot enhance environmental stewardship while slashing the subsidies that make sustainable farming possible. These aren’t mere policy contradictions – they’re a blueprint for the corporate takeover of British agriculture.

Labour’s attempts to frame this as closing a “tax loophole” reveals either a stunning ignorance of rural economics or, more troublingly, a calculated deception. Every family farm forced onto the market becomes another opportunity for corporate vultures. BlackRock and The Vanguard Group aren’t waiting idly – they’re already orchestrating a massive land grab across Europe, with particular focus on Ukraine’s rich agricultural lands. We can see their strategy playing out in real time: flood European markets with industrially-produced food, undercut local producers, then buy up their lands when they can no longer compete.

The evidence is damning. Between 2005 and 2020, the European Union lost 37% of its farms. More telling still, 87% of these losses were small, family-owned operations – the very backbone of sustainable local food production. This isn’t some natural evolution of agriculture – it’s a calculated transfer of power from local communities to global corporations.

When these investment giants speak of “economic recovery packages” and “peace settlements,” they’re really talking about market dominance and control. Every acre lost to corporate farming is another thread cut in our tapestry of food sovereignty, another step toward a future where our dinner tables are at the mercy of shareholder profits.

This isn’t progress – it’s predation, dressed in the language of fiscal responsibility and market efficiency. And unless we recognise it for what it is, we risk losing not just our farms, but our very ability to feed ourselves.

It’s a Budget for Multinationals…

Another hit for UK farmers came with Defra’s confirmation that the nature-friendly farming budget is not protected. The budget reveals the government’s plan to squeeze £600 million in savings post-2025/26 from the farming and flood protection allocations. While the EU’s former £2.4 billion per year fund remains for now, it’s only guaranteed through next year, after which it will be “reviewed”—Treasury code for likely cuts. Although this sum is small change for the Treasury, cutting it means fewer protections for nature, pushing farmers to intensify production rather than maintain wild land that supports biodiversity.

Labour’s policies aren’t just mirroring Conservative cuts; they’re wielding a harsher axe against basic payment scheme funds—an EU-era payment system that’s being phased out and replaced by new “nature-friendly” payments. However, for 2025, Defra plans a drastic 76% reduction on the first £30,000 of these payments, with no funds for amounts over that threshold. For example, a £40,000 payment would be slashed down to just £7,200—a far sharper cut than the 50% reduction farmers faced this year.

These cuts represent a blow to an industry that operates on thin margins and plans years ahead. Many farmers, already grappling with economic uncertainty, now face further difficulty in sustaining their businesses and the environmental care their lands provide.

This isn’t just about farming – it’s about food sovereignty, national security, and the character of Britain itself. When Tom Bradshaw, NFU president, says “every penny the chancellor saves from this will come directly from the next generation having to break up their family farm,” he’s describing the dissolution of centuries of agricultural knowledge and tradition.

The consequences are predictable:

• Increased dependence on food imports
• Loss of local farming expertise
• Degradation of rural communities
• Reduced food security Corporate control of our food supply

The Way Forward We need:

• Immediate revision of the inheritance tax threshold
• Long-term agricultural policy supporting family farms
• Protection of agricultural land from corporate acquisition
• Integration of renewable energy that preserves food production
• Fair pricing mechanisms for agricultural products
• Support for next-generation farmers

The choice before us is clear: we can protect our agricultural heritage and food sovereignty, or we can surrender it to global capital. We can maintain a countryside of diverse family farms producing food sustainably, or we can watch it transform into a patchwork of corporate mega-farms and industrial installations.

As Polanyi understood, once we reduce land and labour to mere commodities, we unleash forces that destroy the very fabric of society. Labour’s inheritance tax policy isn’t just an attack on farmers – it’s an assault on Britain’s food security, rural heritage, and national resilience.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to protect family farms. The question is: can we afford not to?

Because when the last family farm is sold, when the last piece of agricultural knowledge is lost, when our food supply rests entirely in corporate hands – then we’ll understand the true cost of this “tax reform.” And by then, it will be too late.

The time to act is now.

I offer my support and solidarity to the protesting farmers…let’s not see another industry go down the Great British drain…sold out by another Tory government…

Paul Knaggs