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Joanne Murphy ★ Writing In International Leadership Association.

In the end he was miles ahead. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, is now Member of Parliament for Makerfield in what had been billed as the most consequential UK byelection of all time. 

Burnham is a long stalwart of British Labour politics. A former cabinet minister and Blairite, he withdrew from the national stage 10 years ago, disillusioned and defeated in his campaign for the Labour leadership. Since then, he has remade himself as a local leader — taking on a new mayoralty, placing himself at the center of debates about the UK’s unbalanced regions, and earning himself the Game of Thrones-esque moniker “King of the North.” This political evolution has not come without consequences for the Labour establishment. Burnham gradually became a clear and present danger to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who consistently spiked his attempts to return to Westminster and had his people brief against him.

There is no love lost between the men. But the Labour Party’s catastrophic defeat in last month’s local elections meant that Starmer’s ability to stave off Burnham suddenly ran out of road. When a local MP fell on his sword to create a byelection, Burnham’s candidacy could no longer be denied.

Continue @ ILA.

Popularity, Popularism And Revolving Doors At 10 Downing Street

Barry Gilheany ✍ Writing this in wake of Andy Burnham’s convincing victory in the Makerfield by-election . . . 

. . . which in the opinion of politics observers and of his supporter may well presage his entry into 10 Downing Street, either by acclaim in a coronation or in a Labour Party leadership contest with the incumbent PM Sir Keir Starmer with all the potential for a typically Labour fratricidal struggle that comes with such terrain, I find the subject of this article, namely the involvement of outsourcing companies with the accommodation of asylum seekers. For tackling the extent of and the hollowing out of the British state to the outsourcing sector will have to be high on Burnham’s agenda for change; to rebalance the relationship between the state and the citizen and to roll back, in his words, “the failed forty-year neoliberal experiment.” Doing this will hopefully help to lance the boil of resentment and perceived sense of injustice around the housing of migrants.

For, arguably the biggest driver of anger around immigration and hostility towards, in particular, recently arrived migrant and/or asylum-seeking communities is the effect on local housing stock. Toxic narratives are ten a penny about the alleged provision of full board, lodging, and welfare benefits to young men of “fighting age” from “alien cultures" in hotels and Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMOs) in areas of deprivation where there acute shortages of affordable housing. 

The last three summers have seen demonstrations about the accommodation of asylum seekers in these sites and also in disused military barracks; some protestors have genuine concerns about the integration of these new arrivistes in their communities and of the sheer ennui of the conditions of their temporary residence. For others, the motivations are xenophobic and racist as is shown by the presence of far-right agitators such as Tommy Robinson other groups further to his right such as Britain First, the white supremacist Homeland Party and the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative. And, unfortunately, riots have been sparked by the convictions of asylum seekers for crimes, such as the murder of a hotel worker by a Sudanese national in Walsall in the West Midlands in October 2024 and the sexual assault of a 14 year-old girl in Epping by an Afghan national resident in the Bell Hotel three in 2025 and by events such as the attempted murder of a Belfast man by a Sudanese national captured in such horrific social media images a fortnight ago, and the Southport killings in August 2024. These disturbances, or pogroms, have of course been exacerbated by bad actors online who through their wilful dissemination of misinformation have sought to pour accelerant on the flames. Because lies and wilful ignorance has so often been the currency of debate over immigration and asylum, it is the aim of this article to shed some factual light on exactly how asylum seekers and migrants are housed. I aim to show the outsourcing of the running of asylum accommodation to private facilities companies such as Serco is a metaphor for the hollowing out of the British state; for the stark reality that, in the words of Anoosh Chakelian in her New Statesman article on the political temperature in the Greater Manchester satellite town of Wigan in the context of the Makerfield by-lection, the state has neither the capacity nor the political capital to build, buy or rent out specific asylum housing itself, and nor do councils. For her, the Home Office has been a “basket case,” that in the words of insiders with knowledge of the issue, “doesn’t know what to do” about the failing accommodation system and “isn’t doing anything about it,” despite all the official clamour about wishing to close the hotels.[1]

In her tour of the Makerfield constituency and especially Wigan its biggest town, Chakelian points to Darlington Street, a long road of redbrick terraces to house the major battalions of industrial England, mill worker, and miners, leading into Wigan town centre, as an archetypal symbol of Britain’s woes. For Darlington Street and its offshoots are believed locally to have Britain’s highest concentration of Serco run and other HMOs (Houses of Multiple Accommodation) Serco is one of the private outsourcing companies with a government contract to rent them out to asylum seekers. Serco leases houses from private landlords and runs them on their behalf. Chakelian reports being told that some landlords receive between £1,000 and £2,000 a month in rent on these properties, depending on number of bedrooms, location, and condition. This money comes from the Home Office, which agreed ten-year contracts to outsource the accommodation of asylum seekers in hotels and houses to Serco and two other firms: Clearsprings and Mears.[2]

The statistics tell the story of a very dysfunctional set up. There are 93,653 asylum seekers housed in Home Office asylum accommodation in the UK, around 22 per cent of whom are in hotels, some of which Serco runs. The hotels coast around £170 a night per person, compared with £14 per night on average in an HMO. Since closing the hotels is a priority for the government due to their roles as flashpoints for local discontent, the number of dispersals to houses has quietly risen annually – there are now 68,719 in tens of thousands of houses across the country. But with the number of irregular arrivals, 43,806 in the year ending March 2026, this number will continue to swell. A typical Serco HMO contract offers a seven-year lease with a one-year break [3] clause, and includes “monthly property inspections, council tax and utilities paid,” “no call-out payments to contractors,” no management, legal restriction, or set-up fees, and “day-to-day maintenance and repairs undertaken at no cost to the landlord.” The landlord is responsible for structural repairs and fundamentals such as pipework. No wonder, one landlord with HMOs in Norfolk has described Serco as “the fairy godmother.”[4]

On top of this, some property investors are buying up cheap properties, contracting them with Serco then advertising them to cash buyers as attractive investment opportunities with guaranteed steady rent. Anoosh Chakelian cites one property investor promising as high as 10.5 per cent returns on cheap housing for as little as £148,600. Landlords have also added to the perception of migrants being prioritised for housing by kicking out existing tenants (before the recent prohibition of no-fault evictions) in order to rent to Serco instead. All of this forms part of the picture portrayed by the Wigan MP and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy to Anoosh Chakelian while out door knocking for the eventually victorious Andy Burnham, “you’re often on a road where every other house been taken up as an HMO” – for asylum seekers, as well as for other housing schemes for ex-offenders, drug addicts and the homeless. “Because the properties are cheaper, they all target the same areas,” Nandy says, which drives up rents. According to her, her constituents now feel part of “a very transient community,” where they don’t know their neighbours, new people keep arriving, “and a lot of social problems [are] concentrated in one area.”[5].

That one vignette speaks to the progressive degradation of public and community spaces and the resultant seething discontent, cynicism and hopelessness that is so prevalent in affected areas such as Wigan. It speaks volumes of the lack of capacity of the central state and of local authorities to tackle  systematic blockages such as public housing and its necessary accompanying infrastructure. In his review of Sam Freedman’s book Failed State: Why Britain Doesn’t Work and How We Can Fix It, Steve Conley runs the ruler over Freedman’s central claim: that decades of over-centralisation and reckless outsourcing, have hollowed out the state, leaving public services expensive, inefficient, and unaccountable. By centralisation, Freedman explains that because successive governments have stripped local councils of powers and funding, making communities dependent on Whitehall. In what he describes as the “Outsourcing Trap,” Freedman describes how from the 1980s, core municipal services once provided in-house were forced into the market. Refuse collection, cleaning and – most disastrously children’s homes – were handed to private contractors. Today, three quarters of residential care homes are run by private equity firms, charging councils up to £6,000 per child per week while making double digit profits. Vulnerable children are often displaced hundreds of miles from family networks, with damaging consequences.[6]

Freedman sets three competency tests for outsourcing: real competition, measurable outcomes, and the shift of risk to the provider. Where these conditions are absent, as has happened in children’s care, probation, and security to name three of the most blatant examples, outsourcing is doomed with sometimes catastrophic consequences as in the aforementioned trio. Yet the same conglomerates keep winning contracts despite repeated scandals involving Serco, G45, Atos and others.[7] Serco, in particular, is so integral to the British state that Margaret Hodge ,the Labour politician and former Chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee who led an investigation into Serco, has called it “too big to fail", because, “there are too many services that would collapse” if it went bankrupt. This despite the Serious Fraud Office investigation into Serco over a multimillion-pound fraud and false accounting, overcharging to tag criminals who didn’t exist which led to a fine of £19.2m for Serco (and the eventual clearing of bosses for fraud).[8]

This frank admission by Margaret Hodge speaks volumes about the democratic deficit that swirls around outsourcing. Parliament struggles to hold the executive to account while governments chase headlines in the 24-hour news cycle. The result is a state run by media reaction, not coherent planning. The weakening of British institutions by privatisation and short-termism has made it easier for poor leaders (and bad actors like former No 10 Chief of Staff Dominic Cummings) to stick to easy, technocratic fixes (which the likely outgoing PM Starmer has often been berated for) rather than embarking on the necessary structural reform of the UK’s fractured state without which it will continue to be locked into a circle of dependency on private profiteers and weak accountability with possibly terminal effects on democracy.

To return to Makerfield for the last time, Anoosh Chakelian gives a necessary corrective to the “luxury hotels” falsehoods spread by the far right. There were nearly 5,000 complaints against asylum contractors escalated to the Home Office between 2022 and 2025, including payments issues, “property suitability”, food not meting the legal standards, and staff behaviour towards asylum seekers, according to documents she obtained via a Freedom of Information request. Serco featured in 1,816 of the 4,962 complaints escalated, surpassed only by Clearsprings’ 1.975. She cites a former Serco hotel worker at the Metropole Hotel in Blackpool who blew the whistle to the online publication the Lead last year on “terrible conditions” at the hotel, including collapsing ceilings and raw sewage leaks.[9]

Chakelian also comments on the experiences of those at the sharp end of Serco services – asylum seekers, immigration detainees, people wearing GPS ankle tags when on immigration bail. Hana, an Albanian airport worker who was tricked by a gang into slave labour on a cannabis farm in England, says she was made by Serco to feel “like I was the criminal” when detained. Mariam, now a trafficking campaigner, said her own experience of being detained as a trafficking victim (while her victors walked free) has given her “lasting trauma” – feeling haunted when she hears keys jangle, and when she sees a Serco escort van in public.[10]

Thus outsourcing has served as multiple lightening rods for dissatisfaction at the malfunctioning of the British state which when mixed with populist sentiment on immigration has created toxic environments in many parts of the Sceptred Isle. It must be a priority for PM Burnham (or whoever succeeds Keir Starmer) to start rebalancing and transforming the state through the devolution of power and decision making back to communities; a shift in the organisational culture of public services from profit maximisation to citizen stewardship; the rebuilding of in-house capacity to deliver them and the creation of public trust through transparency; long-term planning and hybrid public-private innovations.[11] Otherwise Labour or even British democracy could be drinking in its last chance saloon.

References
  
[1] Anoosh Chakelian - The failed state. How Britain outsourced its politics – and lost control. The New Statesman. 12-18 June 2026 pp.21-27

[2] Ibid, pp.21-22

[3]

[4] P.22

[5] Pp.21-22

[6] Steve Conley. How Britain Outsourced Its Way Into Failure. Academy of Life Planning 19 August 2025

[7] Ibid

[8] Chakelian p.24

[9] Ibid, p.25

[10] Pp.25-26

[11] Conley, op cit

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Immigration, Asylum, Housing And The Outsourcing Of The British State

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Eleven

 

A Morning Thought @ 3184

Frankie McKillen ✍ Governments confronting secretive organisations face a recurring dilemma.

Informers provide access that surveillance, arrests and technology often cannot. Yet the most valuable informers are rarely innocent. The closer they stand to power, the more likely they are to be implicated in violence. The question therefore becomes unavoidable:

How far will a state allow an informer to go in pursuit of a greater objective?

It is a question that appears repeatedly throughout the history of organised crime, intelligence operations and political conflict. It lies behind controversies surrounding Gregory Scarpa, Stakeknife and Brian Nelson. It lies behind allegations of collusion, claims of state protection and arguments over intelligence priorities. It lies behind some of the most bitter disputes arising from both the struggle against organised crime in the United States and the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Most comparisons between Cosa Nostra and Irish paramilitary organisations fail before they begin. The Mafia was not the IRA. The UVF was not Cosa Nostra. The political objectives, historical circumstances and social environments were entirely different. Yet the more interesting comparison is not between the organisations themselves but between the ways states responded to them.

Whether confronting Mafia families in New York or paramilitary organisations in Belfast, governments repeatedly encountered the same problem: how do you defeat a secretive, disciplined and violent organisation without becoming compromised by the methods required to penetrate it? Three comparisons help illuminate that question.

The relationship between Gregory Scarpa, Stakeknife and Brian Nelson reveals the problem of intelligence dependency. The comparison between Roy DeMeo's crew and the Shankill Butchers reveals how fear becomes an instrument of organisational power. The existence of parallel authority structures within organised crime and paramilitary-controlled communities reveals why governments became so determined to penetrate these organisations in the first place.

Together they reveal less about organised crime or the Troubles than about the behaviour of modern states.

Why States Fear Parallel Authority

Modern states claim a monopoly over legitimate force. Police arrest. Courts sentence. Governments govern. Armies fight. Everything else rests upon that foundation. The challenge posed by organised crime and paramilitary organisations was not simply that they committed crimes or acts of violence. The challenge was that they exercised authority.

Cosa Nostra settled disputes, enforced agreements, punished transgressors, collected revenue and regulated behaviour. It created consequences outside the formal legal system. For decades it exercised influence across entire sectors of economic and social life, becoming involved in labour unions, construction projects, ports, transport systems and local businesses. It frequently acted as a parallel authority in communities where state power was perceived as distant, ineffective or untrustworthy.

Republican and loyalist organisations frequently performed similar functions within their own communities. They imposed discipline, administered punishment attacks, mediated disputes, regulated criminality and exerted influence over local economies.

Many residents rejected their authority. Many feared it. Yet its existence was undeniable. Governments can tolerate dissent. Governments can tolerate criticism. What they struggle to tolerate are competing systems of power.

A burglar challenges the law. A disciplined organisation capable of commanding loyalty challenges the state itself.

Understanding this point is essential because it explains why intelligence became so important. These organisations were not viewed merely as collections of criminals or gunmen. They were viewed as alternative centres of authority.

The greater the perceived threat, the greater the pressure to penetrate them. And once penetration becomes essential, informers become indispensable.

Intelligence Dependency

No secret organisation can be defeated entirely from the outside. Eventually governments require access from within. This creates an uncomfortable reality. The best informers are often the worst people. Low-level sources provide fragments. High-level sources provide access. The closer an individual stands to power, the more useful he becomes. The closer he stands to power, however, the more likely he is to be implicated in violence.

This is where Gregory Scarpa, Stakeknife and Brian Nelson become useful comparisons. Most readers of the Troubles literature require little introduction to Stakeknife or Brian Nelson. Scarpa is less familiar.

A made member of the Colombo crime family, Gregory Scarpa spent approximately three decades providing intelligence to the FBI while simultaneously maintaining a prominent and violent position within organised crime. Nicknamed "The Grim Reaper," Scarpa was implicated in murders, extortion and other serious criminal activity while continuing to function as a highly productive source. His relationship with federal authorities later became one of the most controversial informer cases in American law-enforcement history because it raised persistent questions about what was known, what was tolerated and what may have been overlooked in order to preserve intelligence access.

Their organisations were different. Their motivations were different. Their political environments were different. Yet all occupied positions that provided extraordinary access to information. Each became valuable because of proximity to power. Each therefore confronted the state with the same dilemma.

How much should be tolerated in order to preserve intelligence access?

The controversy surrounding these figures stems from a common source. The issue is not whether they informed. The issue is whether governments became dependent upon them.

Once an intelligence asset is viewed as indispensable, ordinary standards can begin to erode. Arrests may be delayed. Investigations may be restricted. Decisions may be taken that prioritise intelligence collection over immediate intervention.

Supporters argue that such decisions save lives in the long term. Critics argue that they permit criminality in the present. Both sides claim necessity. The result is a moral grey area that has fuelled controversy for decades. The question remains the same.

At what point does protecting an informer become participating in the consequences of his protection?

When Intelligence Becomes Complicity

Every intelligence service confronts a version of this problem. If a source is sufficiently valuable, should he be protected? If protecting him allows criminality to continue, is the intelligence worth the price? If intervention exposes him, does the state sacrifice long-term security for short-term justice?

There are no easy answers. Compromise rarely arrives dramatically. It develops gradually. A prosecution is delayed. An arrest is postponed. An operation is monitored rather than disrupted.

Each decision appears defensible in isolation.

Collectively they can create circumstances in which intelligence gathering begins to resemble complicity. This is why debates surrounding Scarpa, Stakeknife and Nelson remain so contentious. The issue is not merely what these men did.

The issue is what governments were prepared to tolerate in pursuit of a greater objective.

Fear As Organisational Power

Violence kills. Fear governs. This distinction explains why Roy DeMeo's crew and the Shankill Butchers remain historically significant. Many organisations committed murder. Many individuals committed murder. What distinguished these groups was their relationship with reputation. Their names became symbols. Stories circulated. Legends developed. Fear multiplied their influence.

Most readers require little introduction to the Shankill Butchers. Roy DeMeo and his crew may be less familiar.

Operating within the Gambino crime family during the 1970s and early 1980s, the DeMeo Crew became notorious for what investigators later described as the "Gemini Method" of murder. Victims were typically lured to a location, shot, stabbed, dismembered and disposed of with chilling efficiency. The crew's reputation for extreme violence became legendary even within organised crime circles. Whether every story told about them was true became almost irrelevant. Their reputation acquired a life of its own.

The Shankill Butchers generated a similar atmosphere of fear. Their notoriety extended far beyond the number of murders attributed to them. Their name alone communicated a message.

In both cases violence functioned as communication. The objective extended beyond the immediate victim. Entire communities received the message. People adjusted their behaviour accordingly. The most effective violence is often violence that does not need to be repeated. Reputation becomes a force multiplier. Fear becomes an organisational asset.

There were, of course, important differences. The DeMeo Crew operated within a criminal environment. The Shankill Butchers operated within a sectarian conflict. The motives differed. The social context differed. Yet both demonstrate how violent organisations convert brutality into authority.

For governments attempting to penetrate such organisations, this created additional pressure. The more effective fear became as a mechanism of control, the more difficult it became to recruit sources. The more difficult it became to recruit sources, the more valuable existing informers became.

Again, the same question reappears. How much should be tolerated to preserve access?

Intelligence Wars

Many conflicts are remembered through bombings, murders, arrests and trials. Yet increasingly they become wars of information. The struggle against organised crime evolved into an intelligence contest. The struggle against republican and loyalist organisations followed a similar trajectory.Understanding networks became more important than confronting individuals. Mapping relationships became more important than counting weapons. Recruiting sources became more important than conducting raids. Information emerged as the decisive weapon.

This transformation explains why informers became so important and why controversies surrounding them continue to resonate decades later. The decisive battles increasingly occurred not in streets but in shadows.

The State And Its Necessary Devils

Scarpa, Stakeknife and Nelson illustrate intelligence dependency. The DeMeo Crew and the Shankill Butchers illustrate fear as organisational power. Parallel authority structures illustrate why governments regarded these organisations as threats demanding extraordinary attention. Together they reveal a broader truth.

The real comparison between Cosa Nostra and the Troubles is not about gangsters and gunmen. It is about power. It is about authority. And ultimately it is about the uncomfortable reality that states often deal with devils because they believe they cannot prevail without them. The central question remains unresolved.

How far should a democratic state allow an informer to go in pursuit of a greater objective?

Every intelligence service eventually confronts that question. Few answer it publicly. Fewer answer it honestly. Yet it remains one of the most enduring questions raised by organised crime, intelligence operations and the Troubles alike

🕮 Frankie McKillen is a Belfast Rockabilly

Necessary Devils 🪶 Informers, Organised Crime And The Limits Of State Power

Heartlands Tribune ☭ Written by Paul Knaggs.

Pride and Fall

Pride, the old proverb warns, comes before a fall. And so it has proved. A movement born so that a man could love a man and a woman could love a woman has been captured twice over: by capital, which rented its flag, and by an ideology that now brands same-sex attraction itself a heresy. It is a story of pride and prejudice both, and what is falling is not gay people. It is a product, and a betrayal.

Pride’s Corporate Collapse: Who Killed the Rainbow?

Something is falling, and you can measure it precisely. Among Britain’s ten largest corporations, the FTSE 100’s usual suspects of banking, brewing and retail, social media posts mentioning Pride collapsed by ninety-two per cent in two years, from fifty-two in 2023 to just four in 2025. Three quarters of Pride organisers report their corporate money drying up; a quarter of them have lost more than half.

Manchester Pride, forty years old, went into liquidation last October owing creditors more than three million pounds, leaving performers unpaid and chasing wages through a union. Across the Atlantic, donations to smaller Pride events have dropped between seventy and ninety per cent in a single year.

Continue @ Heartlands Tribune.

Pride and Fall 🪶 How Rainbow Capitalism And Gender Ideology Killed The Gay Rights Parade

Dr John Coulter ✍ Now that Red Andy has become a Westminster MP again after his comprehensive win in last week’s Makerfield by-election in England, could Northern Ireland’s sensible Left finally be within a political stone’s throw of seeing the British Labour Party contest elections in the Province.

Whilst Andy Burnham is viewed by a section of Unionism in Northern Ireland as being on the Hard Left of Labour, during the Makerfield campaign, he clearly portrayed himself as being Soft Left.

But maybe that was a convenient tactic in any plot to oust current Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stressing that Red Andy is really a broad church of socialist opinions when it comes to appealing to the present crop of Labour MPs in the Commons.

Given the fact that Red Andy secured 55 per cent of the vote in Makerfield, some 9,000 plus votes ahead of the Right-wing Reform UK, the perception is being fuelled that Burnham is the man to ensure the political future of the so-called Red Wall of Labour-held constituencies.

There can be no doubting that after Labour’s electoral mauling in May’s elections in mainland Britain, when hundreds of Labour councillors lost their seats, the Scottish Nationalists remained in power north of the border, and Welsh Nationalists finally took control of the Welsh parliament, the clock was ticking rapidly on Starmer’s premiership.

Many Red Wall MPs were looking over their shoulders about the impact on their Commons seats if May’s disastrous results were replicated in the General Election, with Labour potentially losing dozens of seats on the Right to Reform UK and on the Left to the Green Party.

Okay, so it was only one by-election in England and the proverb states - one swallow does not make a summer. But Burnham was able to fend off any swing to the Right as happened in the council elections. The combined Right-wing vote of Reform UK and Restore Britain could only muster 42 per cent, while Burnham pushed the Labour showing up 10 per cent from the 2024 General Election.

Put bluntly, is Red Andy the man who can stop Reform UK boss Nigel Farage getting the keys to 10 Downing Street at the next Westminster showdown? More significantly, what would be the political implications for a Burnham administration for Northern Ireland?

A couple of generations have passed since there was a significant Labour presence in Ulster. The original Stormont Parliament saw the development of the Northern Ireland Labour Party as potentially a credible opposition to the Unionist Party.

But with the proroguing of Stormont in 1972, the NILP faded. For years, Northern Ireland socialists were told to join the moderate nationalist SDLP if they tried to join the British Labour Party.

There have been a few attempts at forming a Labour Party in Northern Ireland since 1972, but what is really needed is for British Labour to not just organise in the Province, but to contest elections.

Perhaps the fear among the Labour leadership at Westminster is that any move to contest elections could end up crashing and burning politically like the same fate which has befallen the Northern Ireland Tories.

Ulster socialists really don’t have much of a choice at the moment. Most parties are on the looney Left. Sinn Fein is communist; People Before Profit is a Trotskyite movement; the SDLP is Sinn Fein light, and Alliance is an integral part of the pan nationalist front.

On the unionist side, the Left-leaning Progressive Unionist Party is closely aligned to the terror gangs, the UVF and Red Hand Commando.

And long gone are the days when the pressure group, Unionist Labour, was a key component of the original Ulster Unionist Party which ran Northern Ireland for decades since partition in the 1920s.

Tactically, Burnham will have noted that on the night of his return to Parliament, the Scottish Nationalists also held their two Westminster seats in Commons by-elections.

If Burnham does manage to topple Starmer and become PM, he will have to put the brakes on the Reform UK bandwagon as well as combat the nationalist swings in Scotland and Wales.

With some opinion polls suggesting a hung Parliament after the next General Election, perhaps 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland becomes a key link in the chain for retaining Labour’s Commons majority - especially when Sinn Fein MPs still maintain their historically outdated abstentionist policy of not taking their Westminster seats.

If Burnham was to give the green light to Labour contesting elections in Northern Ireland, which council areas, Assembly seats and even Commons seats are winnable?

With many working class loyalists abandoning the ballot box and becoming part of an increasing ‘stay at home brigade’, could Labour be the key to encouraging the Protestant working class to re-engage with the electoral system?

Again put bluntly, has Burnham - if he does finally get his hands on the keys to 10 Downing Street - the ability to create a Red Wall in Northern Ireland?

In Unionism, the DUP historically under the late Rev Ian Paisley and currently the TUV under Jim Allister both gave a voice to working class loyalists.

If Burnham was to allow Labour to contest elections in Ulster, would it force the present Ulster Unionist and DUP leaderships to take more notice of Northern Ireland’s working classes?

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Will ‘Burnham Bounce’ See Labour Contest Ulster Seats?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Ten

 

A Morning Thought @ 3183

Cam Ogie ✍ The Difference Is In The Spelling, And The Art Is In Turning Conquest Into Belonging.

One of the most striking features of modern political discourse is the willingness of certain societies to condemn historical injustices committed by others while remaining reluctant to confront the foundations of their own existence. Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than in the relationship between sections of Ulster Unionism, American political culture, and their unwavering support for Israel.

Throughout history, settler societies have often presented themselves as pioneers, civilisers, or victims seeking security, while indigenous populations have frequently viewed the same processes as conquest, dispossession, and colonisation. At first glance, these may appear to be entirely separate historical experiences, differing significantly in time, context, and scale. The Plantation of Ulster was a seventeenth-century colonial project; European settlement of the Americas unfolded over several centuries; and Israeli settlement in Palestinian territories belongs to the modern era. It can be argued that they share common characteristics associated with settler colonialism. Beneath the differences lies a common thread: the establishment and consolidation of settler societies on lands already inhabited by indigenous peoples, followed by the creation of legal, political and cultural narratives designed to legitimise the outcome.

A recurring feature in all three cases is the arrival of a population supported, either directly or indirectly, by a powerful state. The Plantation of Ulster involved the confiscation of land from Gaelic Irish families and its redistribution to settlers from Britain. European settlement of the Americas involved the gradual displacement of indigenous nations through war, coercion, treaty violations, forced removals and, in many instances, outright massacres. Israeli settlement in Palestinian territories represents a modern manifestation of a similar process, whereby land is acquired, settlements expanded, and demographic realities altered under the protection of state power.

Central to each narrative is the question of land. Indigenous communities often viewed the land as theirs by inheritance, tradition, and continuous occupation. Settler communities, however, frequently relied upon legal frameworks created by the conquering authority to justify ownership. What one side viewed as lawful transfer or development, the other viewed as confiscation and theft. This divergence in understanding remains a source of conflict centuries later.

In each case, the use of force played a central role in establishing and maintaining the new political order. The Plantation was preceded by military campaigns that defeated Gaelic resistance and enabled land redistribution. European expansion across North America was accompanied by countless conflicts, forced removals and atrocities against indigenous populations, culminating in events such as the Wounded Knee Massacre. In Palestine, military occupation, settlement expansion, checkpoints, house demolitions, the destruction of indigenous societies and what some human rights organisations, legal scholars, and activists describe as state-sanctioned killings of Palestinian civilians have been presented as mechanisms through which settlement expansion and territorial control have been facilitated and protected. In all three cases, the presence of military power has been essential to establishing and maintaining a new political and demographic reality.

The similarities extend beyond land and violence. Settler societies frequently rely upon legal structures created by the dominant power to justify what indigenous populations experience as dispossession. What is conquest in one narrative becomes lawful administration in another. What is theft in one account becomes development in another. What is occupation in one perspective becomes security in another.

History demonstrates that legality and morality are not always the same thing. The response of the British government during the Great Famine illustrated how adherence to economic orthodoxy, property rights and colonial priorities contributed to immense and catastrophic human suffering while maintaining the existing social order. Whether viewed as neglect, ideological rigidity or deliberate policy, the episode remains a powerful example of how legal and political systems can be used to defend structures of power at the expense of indigenous populations. The confiscation of Irish land was legal under English law. The removal of Native Americans was frequently legal under American law. Segregation was legal. Colonial rule was legal. Apartheid was legal. Throughout history, legal systems have often reflected the interests of those who possessed power rather than the interests of those subjected to it.

This raises uncomfortable questions about modern support for Israel among sections of Unionism and American political culture. Such support is not simply rooted in shared democratic values, strategic alliances or security concerns. Rather, it reflects a deeper historical identification.

The Ulster planter and the Israeli settler occupy remarkably similar positions within their respective historical narratives. Both emerged from settlement projects supported by powerful states. Both established communities whose legitimacy is contested by populations who regard themselves as indigenous. Both reject the description of themselves as colonisers and instead present themselves as people exercising a legitimate right to exist in the land they inhabit.

Likewise, many within the United States see in Israel a reflection of their own historical experience. America was built through territorial expansion across lands already inhabited by indigenous peoples. That process involved warfare, broken treaties, forced displacement, cultural destruction and massacres. Yet over time the settler became the native in the national imagination, and the indigenous population became marginal to the dominant historical narrative.

Supporters of Israel reject such comparisons. They argue that Jewish historical ties to the land are ancient, that Israel emerged following centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust, and that Israeli security concerns are real and cannot be ignored. They further contend that comparisons with colonial projects oversimplify a complex conflict involving competing national claims and existential threats.

These arguments deserve consideration. Yet, security concerns and historical suffering do not exempt a state from moral scrutiny. Nor do they erase the experiences of those who have been displaced, occupied or subordinated. The existence of historical Jewish connections to the land does not negate Palestinian connections to the same land, just as the passage of time did not erase the memory of dispossession among Native Americans or the descendants of those affected by colonisation in Ireland.

Indeed, one of the defining features of settler societies is their ability to transform conquest into legitimacy through the passage of time. Once enough generations have passed, the descendants of settlers cease to see themselves as settlers at all. Their presence becomes normalised. Their ownership becomes unquestioned. Their version of history becomes common sense.

This process of historical normalisation helps explain why allegations against Israel are often received differently by those whose own societies were built through settlement. To acknowledge the possibility that Palestinians have experienced dispossession, ethnic cleansing or even genocide would require confronting difficult and uncomfortable questions about the treatment of Native Americans in the United States and the colonial origins of Unionist settlement in Ireland. This helps explain why allegations against Israel are often met not simply with scepticism, but with outright hostility: acceptance of those allegations would cast a shadow over foundational narratives upon which other settler societies have built their own legitimacy.

The result is a form of moral exceptionalism. Actions condemned elsewhere are justified when undertaken by an allied settler society. Civilian deaths become regrettable necessities. Land seizures become security measures. Occupation becomes self-defence. Allegations of war crimes, ethnic cleansing or genocide are dismissed not necessarily because the evidence has been examined and disproven, but because accepting such allegations would challenge foundational myths upon which other settler societies have built their own identities.

Perhaps the greatest power of settler colonialism is not its ability to seize land but its ability to rewrite memory. The indigenous population remembers dispossession. The settler remembers survival. The indigenous population remembers conquest. The settler remembers civilisation. The indigenous population remembers what was lost. The settler remembers what was built.

The conflict, therefore, is not merely over territory. It is over history itself.

Whether in Ireland, North America or Palestine, the central question remains the same: who has the authority to define the past, and whose version of that past becomes accepted as legitimate? The issue is not simply whether Israel's actions are justified or unjustified. It is whether settler societies are capable of recognising in others the very patterns of dispossession, domination and historical revisionism that shaped their own emergence. Until that question is confronted honestly, the struggle between indigenous memory and settler legitimacy will remain unresolved, shaping politics, identity and conflict long after the original acts of settlement have passed from living memory into history.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

Planter Or Settler?

Tommy McKearney ☭ A recent article in the Belfast Telegraph informed its readers that 400,000 people in the 6-counties – that is, 26.5% of the area’s population – were using antidepressants.[1]



In other words, does this mean that three out of every four residents of that dysfunctional political entity are able to get through the day without resorting to the same?


Hardly a week passes without yet another report of system failure. There is an endless list of defective organs of governance. Health, infrastructure, education, policing – all are either underperforming or actually malfunctioning. In the past few months, there has been a series of failures within the local administration that bears evidence to its incompetence and downright inadequacy.

Nothing better illustrates the hopeless nature of the 6-county body politic than its repeated failure to provide anything resembling adequate and acceptable policing. A source of division and dispute since partition, the sorry tale continues. Not only is there the ongoing obstruction in its dealings with legacy issues, but in other areas of what may be defined as civil policing, the PSNI is found to be woefully inadequate.

After decades of biased, political policing, there might have been an expectation, in what is supposed to be a new era, that there would be some improvement. Any such hope was dashed after a report last month examining how the force dealt with the murder of a young woman, Katie Simpson, in 2020. In spite of the fact that her boyfriend had several convictions for physically abusing previous partners, and despite concerns raised by medical staff, investigating detectives initially dismissed Katie’s death as suicide.

Worse still, an acquaintance of both the victim and her killer had conveyed his suspicions to police in the local station within days of her death. Not only was this not followed up, but, sinisterly, the killer was let know about this report. Eventually, but only after much pressure, a murder charge was brought. Before the trial got under way, the accused took his own life.

So, adding to its many other failings, a subsequent review commissioned by the north’s Department of Justice found “institutional misogyny”[2] and “systemic failures” within the PSNI.

Let us then look at what passes for the north’s health service. A recent editorial in the Belfast-based Irish News[3] delivered a damning but accurate assessment of the state of the service: 

Thousands of people are waiting years for operations, appointments and treatments that would be delivered far more quickly elsewhere.

An accusation supported by figures from the Northern Ireland Audit Office, which reveals that “51% of those on NI waiting lists were waiting over 52 weeks for assessment or treatment compared to 5.4% in England.” Further evidence of malfunction, if needed, was again provided by the Audit Office last month, reporting that only 29.5% of patients started treatment within 62 days of an urgent red-flag referral.[4]

Nor does the tale of despair and decline end there.

Ulster University, the north’s biggest third-level institution, announced in April that it is to make around 450 staff redundant. This in an area in dire need of academic input to stem the debilitating brain drain.

Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in these islands, supplying approximately 40% of the north’s population with drinking water, is heavily polluted with green algae. An asset that once also provided employment for several hundred families fishing its rich waters is no longer fit for purpose, as its eel population is devastated by pollutants.

We could continue – for example, with the extraordinary level of suicides, the disproportionately high per capita levels of violence against women, or the failure to build a much-needed motorway to upgrade the dangerous A5. The Assembly cannot agree a multi-year budget, ensuring little progress is possible.

However, enough said. The picture should be clear.

Presiding over this omnishambles is the incompetent, dysfunctional local devolved administration sitting inertly in Stormont. Since 2022, when Sinn Féin won the largest number of seats in the Assembly, unionism of all shades has been deeply disconcerted. Fearing being outmanoeuvred by the still more reactionary TUV, the DUP has resisted every initiative that might appear to indicate Sinn Féin having a modicum of leverage in the north. Now the Ulster Unionists have joined in the conflict by threatening to deselect any so-called moderate MLAs hoping to contest next year’s Assembly elections.

As a consequence of unionist obduracy and absolute refusal to share power productively, governance in the 6-counties is virtually moribund.

It is difficult to see how this administrative deadlock can be resolved this side of re-unification. In the meantime, the 6-counties remain in a pitiful state of disrepair. Even Charles Windsor experienced the downside of the place on his recent visit, when falling victim to the droppings of a treasonous seagull.

Little surprise that so many in the area resort to antidepressants.

Footnotes (as in original, formatted for clarity):

[1] “It’s no surprise 400,000 people here are on antidepressants – political failure has left this place in a terrible state…” Gail Walker, Belfast Telegraph, May 23rd, 2026.

[2] “Katie Simpson’s death exposes ‘institutional misogyny’ in PSNI…” 5 May 2026, Kelly Bonner and Brendan Hughes, BBC News NI.

[3] The Irish News, editorial, 21/05/2026.

[4] Northern Ireland ‘probably’ worst in western Europe for cancer wait times – committee chairman

Tommy McKearney is a left wing and trade union activist.
He is author of The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament.
Follow on Twitter @Tommymckearney

Governance In The 6 Counties Is Virtually Moribund!

Ukraine Solidarity Group ✊ A Digest of News from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 15-June-2026.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ Freedom of speech and the Ukrainian Civil Code.
⬤ The budget crisis in Russia.
⬤ Internal migration within Ukraine.
⬤ Russian killing of Ukrainian children.
⬤ Russian execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
⬤ Europe and Russian fossil fuels.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Three children orphaned for Russia's new Crimean `treason trial’ and huge sentence (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 11th June)

Russia uses Gestapo-like torture for `international terrorism’ trial and massive sentences over death of a Ukrainian traitor (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 10th June)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea on June 9th, 2026 (Crimea Platform, 9th June)

News from the front

Ukraine’s security service reports hit on oil and gas terminal in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai (Ukrainska Pravda, 13th June)

Ukraine’s defence forces strike oil facility in Russia’s Volgograd oblast (Ukrainska Pravda, 13th June)

Russian losses in the war with Ukraine. Mediazona count, updated (Mediazona, 5th June)

News from Ukraine

Zelenskyy sanctions Russian telecoms operators and internet service providers (Ukrainska Pravda, 13th June)

Inside Ukraine’s campaign to force Putin to the negotiating table by fall 2026 (Meduza, 12th June)

This June marks our fourth anniversary (Solidarity Collectives, 11th June)

Drink to the death of dictators (Solidarity Collectives, 11th June)

A former brick seller, a Navalny supporter, holidays in Crimea: the Rosatom employees who helped occupy the Chornobyl nuclear power plant (Ukrainska Pravda, 9th June)

Statement on threats to freedom of speech in the draft new Civil Code of Ukraine (Zmina, 8th June)

War-related news from Russia

Communist party lawmaker warns Russia is `on the brink of a social explosion' and demands a `clear plan’ to end the war (Meduza, 12th June)

Abducted Melitopol journalist Anastasia Hlukhovska went on hunger strike in notorious Russian prison (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 12th June)

“My charge is a prison regime screw-up in itself”. Political prisoners moved to supposedly “lighter” prisons are isolated in cold dark cells for months (Mediazona, 11th June)

Russia’s central bank chief disappears from public view as resignation rumors swirl: one report links her future to fears of border closures and martial law (Meduza, 11th June)

Russia just rushed through a law to lift limits on borrowing and spending. Is the budget starting to crack? (Meduza, 11th June)

Escape from the “Digital GULAG”: Ordinary Russians are finding ways to bypass the Kremlin’s internet restrictions (The Insider, 11th June)

Criminal kingpin Artur Denisultanov killed in the war in Ukraine. He had been accused of an assassination, kidnapping and murder attempts (Mediazona, 10th June)

High oil prices and tax hikes aren't enough to offset war spending and keep Russia’s budget on track (Meduza, 9th June)

“You are not Russian anymore”. How Alexandra Pugach, the daughter of Vladimir Putin's trusted representative, was convicted for supporting Ukraine (Mediazona, 5th June)

Analysis and comment

Outpacing Albania. How Ukraine should meet most critical benchmarks in EU accession negotiations (European Pravda, 11th June)

In the end, only crumbs may arrive for military aid sent to Ukraine: not enough money in the European Peace Facility (Eastern Frontier Initiative, 11th June)

“Invisible migration: Analysing mobile operator data in light of the need to verify the state voter register (Opora, 10th June)

Updating the state voter register in the context of relocation of citizens: Scale, behaviours and barriers (Quantitative Study) (Opora, 10th June)

Statement by the Priama Diia trade union at the meeting organised by the International Trade Union Network for Solidarity and Struggles on 8th June 2026 (Labour Solidarity, 8th June)

Russia attacks gas production. Will Ukraine have enough gas and money for the winter? (Ukrainska Pravda, 7th June)

Report: Europe’s break from Russian fossil fuels (Razom We Stand, June 3rd)

How the UK and Europe play vital roles in Russia’s LNG exports: Sakhalin 2 (Razom We Stand, June 1st)

Research of human rights abuses

How Russia is killing Ukrainian children (Tribunal for Putin, 12th June)

Russians cause abducted Melitopol woman's death, hold her husband incommunicado for 3 years (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 12th June)

Law enforcement agencies are investigating 306 instances of the execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian forces (Tribunal for Putin, 11th June)

11th EU-Ukraine human rights dialogue held in Brussels (Crimea Platform, 11th June)

Ukrainian sentenced to 16 years for resisting Russian occupation gets new sentence for `extremist’ tattoo (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 9th June)

Tortured but unbroken: Four Ukrainians expose Russian fabrication of trial over death of a traitor (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, 8th June)

International Solidarity

Russian musician's performance in Budapest is cancelled after Ukrainian efforts’ (Ukrainska Pravda, 13th June)

All the warning lights were on: Toward Kharkiv, Two thousand kilometers in a dying ambulance (Nomadic Mind (Substack), 4th June)

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Have you seen TRY ME FOR TREASON yet?

Free to watch and download on Youtube. Russian anti-war protesters’ speeches in court. More information at Try Me For Treason

YouTube

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YouTubeFree to watch and download on Youtube. Russian anti-war protesters’ speeches in court. More information at trymefortreason.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FHacVH8tK8
  
🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 200

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