If you want to see one of the major contradictions on the liberal left today, then just look at what happened in Europe this weekend.

On Saturday night, as thousands of people attended a Pride festival to celebrate gay rights, the liberal left was confronted with an entirely different worldview.

A Muslim man, later identified by police as ‘Abdul B’ and a known member of Berlin’s ‘Islamist scene’, ploughed a van into the crowd before going on a stabbing spree. He killed one person and injured many more before being shot by police.

In the immediate aftermath, one politician after another lined up to give the usual platitudes. Love will beat hate. Diversity is our strength. Or, in the words of Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission: ‘Hate and violence have no place in our societies. We stand united at the side of the LGBTQI+ community’.

There’s no doubt the attack is utterly horrific and everybody’s thoughts will be with those affected. But the events in Berlin also throw light on a contradiction which people on the liberal left have spent years trying or pretending to ignore.

The same liberal progressive politicians who are lining up to offer their condolences have been championing two causes simultaneously that are clearly incompatible.

On the one hand, they call for ever more tolerance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and increasingly radical ideas about gender, sexuality, and what we teach children about these issues.

But on the other, at the same time, progressives have become increasingly strident in their support for mass immigration, porous borders, expanding asylum routes, and multiculturalism — which is importing millions of people into Europe who hold radically different if not openly hostile attitudes towards rights for gay people, women, individual choice, and individual freedom.

And now, increasingly, as we see in Berlin and beyond, these two irreconcilable projects are colliding — sometimes with devastating consequences.

While few people on the liberal left are willing to talk about it, the evidence for the contradiction is now becoming overwhelming.

At the extreme end, we see it in a growing list of examples of migrant violence against sexual minorities in Europe.

The 21-year-old Syrian who murdered a gay couple in Dresden. The Iranian Islamist who committed a mass shooting at a Pride event in Oslo, Norway. The gang of Moroccans who beat a gay couple holding hands in the Netherlands. The gay refugees who had to be separated from their straight Muslim counterparts in shelters. And now the terror attack in Berlin, among many, many more cases.

But we also see the contradiction reflected in the wider attitudes of people who liberal progressives have been importing into Europe in recent years, who are simply much more likely than everybody else to be hostile towards rights for gay people.

Take, for the example, the findings of a brand new survey of more than 1,200 Muslims in Britain, that was just released by research group Yonder, on behalf of the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre.

It paints a deeply troubling picture about the kinds of views and attitudes the liberal progressive establishment has been importing into Western nations.

When asked whether they are in favour of equality for homosexuals, just 26 per cent of Muslims said they were. Just one in four. In contrast, nearly six in ten said they were not in favour of treating gay people as equal members of society.

The same survey, furthermore, found that nearly one in three Muslims would like girls and boys to be taught separately in schools. Nearly one in three. These are findings you will simply never hear about on BBC Verify.

And nor are they the only ones.

In recent years — as I’ve previously shown (see here and here)— other major surveys and polls have consistently found that Muslims are far more likely than everybody else to oppose rights for sexual minorities, and also women.

Such as the ICM poll which found more than half of all Muslims disagree that homosexuality should be legal, and nearly half disagree that a homosexual should be allowed to teach children in schools. Or the poll by JL Partners which found one in three Muslims want men and women to be kept separate in public places.

Even establishment figures such as Dame Louise Casey, in her review of integration, have drawn attention to these deeply troubling findings, warning that discrimination against women, forced gender segregation, and anti-LGBT attitudes appear rife among some Muslim communities, and especially among younger Muslims.

And you don’t only need to look at polls and reports.

Look at what happened in Birmingham only a few years ago when Muslim parents protested outside local schools against their children being taught about LGBT issues and same-sex relationships. Things got so bad the High Court had to put an exclusion zone around one primary school because the protests were so intense.

Clearly, not all Muslims think this way, and many Muslims will be utterly appalled by the way in which Islamists are targeting sexual minorities and Pride events.

But what is also true — as an overwhelming amount of evidence shows — is there does exist a fundamental contradiction at the heart of Europe’s liberal establishment which the likes of Zack Polanski, Hannah Spencer, Owen Jones, Carol Vorderman, Alastair Campbell and countless other advocates for mass immigration ignore.

Liberal progressives cannot simultaneously demand ever more progressive attitudes towards sexuality and gender while imposing increasingly extreme migration policies that are importing these kinds of attitudes and values into Western nations and then, on top of that, denounce anybody who happens to point out the inconsistency.

You can have respect and rights for LGBT communities, for women, for individual choice, and for individual freedom. Or you can import millions of migrants from outside Europe who cling to radically different attitudes and cultural norms. But you cannot have both.

And you cannot try and shut down the few people who do have the courage to talk or write about this blatant contradiction within the Western establishment.

Because the double standard is now unavoidable. When Christians, social conservatives, or gender critical writers share their views about issues such as homosexuality, the sexualisation of children, or transgender ideology, liberal progressives will not hesitate before condemning them as “reactionaries”, “divisive”, “far-right”, “toxic”, “misinformed”, and “ignorant thickoes”.

But when ugly and regressive attitudes emerge within minority communities, liberal progressives look the other way or use radically different language. They tell us to respect “cultural sensitivities”, avoid “Islamophobia”, be wary of “the dangers of generalisation”, not “speculate”, and definitely not give “ammunition to the far right”.

In the aftermath of attacks like the one in Berlin, liberal progressives immediately deflect, appearing more comfortable attacking right-wing politicians and media than addressing the actual issue and the major contradiction within their worldview.

It is suicidal empathy in action: importing millions of people into Western nations in the name of showing empathy and tolerance to outsiders while simultaneously eroding the safety and security of people who actually come from those nations.

If we were living in a serious nation with serious leaders, attacks like those in Berlin and the evidence I’ve discussed would force this conversation out into the open.

We would be talking about how to limit immigration and demographic flows so as to protect our own people and preserve our own cultural values and civilisation.

But in the increasingly warped world of suicidal empathy, where displaying tolerance and empathy towards outsiders no matter what harm it might cause is the only thing that liberal progressives now value, this debate will simply never be tolerated.

Instead, we will get all the usual platitudes. All the usual talk about ‘Islamophobia’, of ‘love beating hate’, of ‘diversity making us stronger’. All the usual attacks on right-wing politicians, columnists, television channels, and Substackers.

Once again will have to watch the liberal progressive establishment do anything and everything except notice and address the glaring contradiction that sits at the heart of its own project. No matter the devastating consequences for everybody else.

Paid subscribers can join Matt Live EVERY Monday evening at 7pm UK time on the Substack App to discuss the big issues of the day. Tonight we will be discussing the arrival of Andy Burnham, what it means, what to expect, and YOUR predictions!

I just watched one of the most interesting speeches for a very long time. Addressing a conference on the topic of political extremism, America’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, took the opportunity to dismantle one of the big establishment narratives.

For too long, Marco Rubio said, when it comes to the threats facing the West, our leaders have suffered from a major blind spot. While they have focused on Islamist terror and become obsessed with the far-right, they have also ignored, downplayed, minimised, and even sought to justify what is now arguably one of the biggest threats of all — extremist violence and terror from the political left.

Just look at the last few years.

A pensioner in Greece, murdered by a firebomb targeting members of the country’s governing conservative party. The murder of American conservative activist, Charlie Kirk. The murder of the young conservative activist, Quentin Deranque, in France, beaten to death by far-left activists. Repeated attempts to assassinate President Trump. The cold-blooded assassination of a healthcare chief executive in America, which was then celebrated by many on the left. And in Europe, the 21 left-wing terrorist attacks that were recorded last year, which is close to the 24 Islamist terror attacks and vastly higher than the just one right-wing terrorist attack.

It’s not just that far-left extremism is becoming more visible; it’s that, unlike other forms of extremism, it is routinely presented as a legitimate or understandable expression of rage against ‘the system’, something that can be justified.

Think about the George Floyd protests that resulted in the mass destruction of several American cities, which parts of the media class told us, with a straight face, were ‘mostly peaceful’. They weren’t condemned; politicians even took the knee.

Time and time again, while other forms of extremism are treated much more harshly, far-left extremism, cloaked in the language of ‘equality’, ‘justice’, and ‘liberation’, ends up being excused, legitimised, ‘contextualised’, or simply swept under the carpet.

And if you want further evidence of this glaring double standard then just look at the last few weeks in Britain. When Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered, in June 2016, by a man who was overheard shouting “Britain first”, the establishment spontaneously entered a prolonged and intense period of soul-searching about the ‘far right’.

I cannot recall any politician warning people not to talk about the case and risk prejudicing a future trial. On the contrary, the debate became so intense that more than 17 million decent Brexit voters quickly found themselves being dragged into this debate about the ‘far right’, which was clearly used by some to try and discredit the wider campaign to leave the European Union.

Now fast forward to today. After Reform politician Ann Widdecombe was murdered earlier this month by a man who reportedly had communist literature, where is the equivalent debate and soul-searching about the ‘far left’? Where is the widespread condemnation of left-wing extremism? The expert panels on BBC Newsnight? The viral media clips from BBC Verify explaining the murky networks of the far left?

There isn’t any. There’s just a deafening silence, while Keir Starmer, Shabana Mahmood, and countless others warn people “not to speculate” or risk influencing the eventual trial, which has been kicked into next year. When it involves the far-right, speculation is fine. But when it might involve the far-left, it’s strongly discouraged.

And nor does the blatant double standard end there.

Compare and contrast, too, the response to Ann Widdecombe’s murder with the remarkable speed at which the very same politicians — including Keir Starmer and Shabana Mahmood — reached conclusions regarding an alleged ‘far-right terror threat’ at a UK Ijtima ‘Islamic festival’ at Shrubland Hall, in Suffolk.

With the news of the far-right terror plot breaking in the aftermath of Ann Widdecombe’s murder, which some might say is rather fortunate timing, politicians were very quick to publicly praise the police for preventing what they said was a ‘far-right terror plot’. Politicians and commentators still won’t even publicly mention the political motives and links driving Ann Widdecombe’s killer, but the events in Suffolk? Clearly, without doubt, unquestionably, a ‘far right terror plot’.

But then, suddenly, the story disappeared before completely unravelling. Those who were arrested in Suffolk were released without charge, while police announced they could find ‘no evidence’ of any far-right terror plot at all. How strange. I suspect we will never really know what happened here but, once again, politicians were fine to speculate and debate but only when it involves certain types of extremism.

Or consider, too, the findings of a major new survey of the British people that was just released by reputable pollsters, More In Common. In sharp contrast to the claim that the main threat facing the West comes from the far-right — a claim that is repeatedly used to try and shut down wider debates about immigration, broken borders, two-tier justice, and the grooming gangs — the researchers found something else entirely.

Consistently, they found it’s not people on the right who are the most likely to say it’s acceptable to use physical violence or verbal harassment towards their opponents in politics — it’s people on the left.

Time and time again, it is ‘left-wing progressives’ — people who vote Labour, Green, or SNP, and who ironically claim to be the most liberal and enlightened of all — who are most likely to think violence and harassment can be acceptable.

Whereas only 29 per cent of British people think it’s acceptable to be physically violent against somebody who holds ‘racist views’, this rockets to nearly half of all Green voters.

And while only 41 per cent of people say it’s acceptable to verbally harass somebody who holds racist views, this climbs to 48 per cent among Labour voters, 60 per cent for Green voters, 62 per cent for SNP voters, and 84 per cent for Plaid voters in Wales.

Consistently, it’s people who lean to the political left — the supposedly nice, tolerant, empathetic, and kind brigade — who are the most likely of all to believe that violence and harassment are acceptable tools in politics.

This is not something we can just brush under the carpet. It is exactly what Marco Rubio warned about in his brilliant speech. It’s what lies directly upstream from the extreme violence that’s been directed towards Charlie Kirk, President Trump, Nigel Farage, Quentin Deranque, and countless other conservative activists.

There is what we might call a ‘circle of tacit support’ that surrounds the far-left — a circle of implicit sympathy and support in our schools, universities, media, charitable sector, politics, cultural institutions, and more. And we need to call it out.

We see it when mainstream commentators and university staff let the mask slip and celebrate, for example, the death of Ann Widdecombe. And we see it when credible opinion polls find that fully one-quarter of Democrats in America thought the murders of Charlie Kirk and healthcare CEO Brian Thompson were ‘justified’. Just think about that: fully one-quarter of Democrat voters think the murder of conservatives or private-sector company bosses is somehow justifiable.

This is what makes the far-left so terrifying and dangerous; its followers believe that assaulting, harassing, and even murdering conservatives is acceptable or justified so long as it’s done in the name protecting racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious minorities from harm. And they, in turn, are quietly egged on by a much wider circle of tacit support. But who defines ‘harm’? And who defines what is acceptable? They do.

Yet where is the outrage and debate about all this? If a similar survey found that close to half of all Conservative or Reform voters endorsed violence, or thought political murder was justified, you can guarantee it would be all over BBC Verify. Fiona Bruce would be quietly shaking her head on BBC Question Time, asking Tory and Reform politicians some very tough questions. But once again — silence.

Or what about the fact that, according to the same survey, one in four Labour voters and more than half of all Green party voters openly say they want a ‘communist revolution’ in Britain — of the sort that killed tens of millions of people around the world, from Cambodia to the Soviet Union? Why is communism constantly treated as a more socially acceptable ideology than fascism, when it is just as murderous?

And why, as Melanie Phillips asks in The Times this week, is it even acceptable for the BBC to use self-described ‘communist’ commentators who openly align themselves with the far-left, such as Ash Sarkar, while they would never dream of using somebody who aligned themselves with an extreme right-wing group?

I’m not asking this question because I want to see more right-wing extremists on the BBC; I’m asking it to point out the blatant double standard that runs through our taxpayer-funded institutions. Like our universities, too, which pour millions of pounds of the British people’s money into studying the far right while investing nowhere near the same amount into studying and stigmatising the far left.

For too long, as Marco Rubio pointed out in that speech, which I urge you all to watch, the very idea that the far left might pose a serious threat to the West was dismissed as “a right-wing fever dream or, worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy”.

But what’s become crystal clear is that this is no such conspiracy theory. The threat from the far-left is real. It is growing. It is supported by a wider circle of passive sympathisers and supporters in the institutions. And it is about time that we had leaders, institutions, and commentators who not only grasped this double standard but took action to call and root it out once and for all.

Paid subscribers can join Matt Live EVERY Monday evening at 7pm UK time on the Substack App to discuss the big issues of the day. Tonight we will be discussing the arrival of Andy Burnham, what it means, what to expect, and YOUR predictions!

The Labour government is going to court to block the release of migrant crime statistics. Yes, that’s right. The same politicians who constantly lecture the British people about ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ are going to court to try and block the release of information that threatens to blow apart their establishment narrative.

We can all see with our own eyes what is really going on in this country – how open borders and mass immigration are making Britain and the British people less safe.

The murders of Wayne Broadhurst, Rhiannon Whyte, and Thomas Roberts by illegal migrants who should never have been in the country begin with. The brutal attack on a man in Belfast by an illegal migrant from Sudan who, astonishingly, had been allowed to stay in Britain after entering the country illegally.

The woman on Brighton beach who was raped by three men — including two illegal migrants who had arrived on the small boats. The 12-year-old in Nuneaton who was raped by an Afghan asylum-seeker.

The fact that — as Baroness Casey has confirmed — asylum-seekers and foreign nationals are now involved in a “significant proportion” of ongoing investigations into grooming gangs. Or the fact that 40 per cent of people who have been charged with sex crimes in London are foreign nationals.

I could go on and on and on.

But just ask yourself: how many more of these hideous crimes, and how many more sexual assaults, do we not know about? How much more criminality, driven by open borders and mass migration, is simply going unreported?

Consistently, the political, media, and expert class in Britain refuse to accept there is any relationship between mass migration and crime -- much like they refused to accept for decades there was a link between Pakistani Muslim communities and the organised sexual grooming of white working-class children.

Time and time again, they said it is ‘racist’ to suggest there is such a link. It is ‘far-right’. It is ‘xenophobic’. It is ‘divisive’. It is … ‘misinformation’.

Such as the time an assortment of feminists, left-wing celebrities, and women’s rights campaigners, including Paloma Faith and Charlotte Church, published an open letter warning people not to allow violence against women and girls to be “weaponised” by “far-right groups and mainstream politicians”. To even discuss the link between mass immigration and crime, we were told, was furthering a “racist, anti-migrant agenda”.

Yet, astonishingly, many of these same voices had absolutely nothing to say about the endless sexual violence that’s been unleashed on hundreds of thousands of girls in this country for decades — and is still being unleashed today.

This is the inversion at the heart of modern Britain: speak about women’s rights while avoiding the most politically uncomfortable scandals and you are applauded as a compassionate, virtuous, progressive social warrior. But raise these scandals, ask difficult questions, and you risk being denounced as a “far-right racist”.

It really is outrageous — which is why this newsletter, with your support, consistently rails against all this by sharing the findings of Freedom of Information requests, which have to be submitted to the British state because the state refuses to tell the truth, and telling people what is really going on.

And even when these Freedom of Information requests do suggest that certain nationalities are massively overrepresented among specific crimes — especially sexual crimes — the establishment still does nothing about it at all.

No national debate. No visa penalties. No action. Just snide remarks about the people and campaigners who are doing this critical research because the state does not want to do it, cannot be bothered to do it, or simply considers it taboo.

A serious nation does not behave like this. A political class that was serious about protecting its own people would not behave like this.

The truth is that the political class would rather keep us in the dark. They don’t want us to look too closely at what is going on in this country because if we did then it would threaten their entire political project.

Which is why, last month, it really mattered when the Information Commissioner ruled that Britain’s Ministry of Justice must publish a detailed breakdown of criminal convictions by nationality – showing convictions by nationality for crimes such as rape, murder, child sexual abuse, bodily harm, arson, drug crimes, and more.

They were ordered to release figures covering England and Wales, between the years 2018 and 2024. This would have allowed the people to see the truth, to see with their own eyes what is really happening around them.

And nor is this unusual. As I’ve pointed out before, many other countries around the world — Denmark, Germany, and Sweden, among them — publish these granular figures on crime and nationality (which reveal a consistent story).

What politicians in those countries have realised is if they are not open and honest with their own people about this issue then the result could be a complete collapse of public confidence in the state – something we are on the verge of here in Britain.

But in Britain it’s different.

When the Ministry of Justice was ordered to release the information and the Centre for Migration Control then used Freedom of Information laws to request it be shared with citizens, the Ministry said doing so would be “expensive” and might risk identifying individuals.

But these claims are ludicrous and were immediately rejected by the Information Commissioner, who ruled that not only had the Ministry failed to justify withholding the data but that the data must now be released to the British people.

The response of the Labour government? Go to court to try and block it from being released altogether.

This is where we now are in modern Britain — the establishment using lawfare and draconian measures to stop the people from getting the truth.

An establishment that is shutting down free speech, rushing to censor its own people, and constantly warning about ‘misinformation’ but which at the very same time is using taxpayers’ money to go to court so that it does not have to share inconvenient or challenging information with its own taxpaying citizens! It’s sickening, isn’t it?

What’s even more astonishing is that our own government is already collecting this data but is still deliberately choosing to hide it from us, the people.

Why? Because if they shared it they would have to tell us the truth.

Because they would have to accept their policies of open borders and mass migration are putting their own people at risk. Because their pro-immigration narrative would be blown apart.

Because the people would be calling even more loudly for deportations and visa penalties for nations that are sending us disproportionately large numbers of criminals. And because it would reveal the utter incompetence of the British state.

As Tory MP Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, asked this week: “Labour have consistently refused to publish sex crime data by nationality, even though we know migrants from some countries are much more likely to be convicted of rape and sexual assault. Why are they trying to appeal against releasing the data? Do Labour just want to cover up the truth about foreign national offenders?”

It’s a fair question.

What we are witnessing is a blatant attempt by the Labour government and parts of the state to hide how the policies of open borders and mass migration are fuelling criminality and carnage in this country.

It needs to end. And it needs to end now.

Which is why I urge you to do three things. First, support the work of the Centre for Migration Control which is tirelessly calling this out by submitting freedom of information requests to the state.

Second, write to your local Member of Parliament and demand the government release these figures.

And, third, if you can, consider upgrading and supporting us so that we can continue highlighting these issues and telling millions of people each month on social media and beyond what is really going on in their own country.

Because I don’t know about you but I think the British people, and all those victims of crimes the establishment want to throw under the carpet, deserve nothing less.

Paid subscribers can join Matt Live EVERY Monday evening at 7pm UK time on the Substack App to discuss the big issues of the day. Tonight we will be discussing the arrival of Andy Burnham, what it means, what to expect, and YOUR predictions!

Today, Andy Burnham officially replaces Keir Starmer to become the 59th prime minister of the United Kingdom and the seventh prime minister in only ten years.

Yet look closely and we can already see the contradiction that lies at the very heart of Andy Burnham’s premiership and could soon bring the whole thing tumbling down.

Burnham’s central promise — the pledge that guides his entire mission — is simple: he will return power to the British people. That’s the central message that he and his team have been reinforcing at every possible opportunity.

“The mission of my government”, Andy Burnham proclaimed, on becoming leader of the Labour Party last week, “will be to return power to the British people — to take it out of Westminster, out of Whitehall, and put it back into the hands of the communities who know their own future best”.

There’s no doubt it’s an attractive message. After years of growing public frustration with Westminster, collapsing trust in politics, and rising disillusionment with the entire system, the idea of handing power back to the people does sound appealing.

As a political message, it’s also in touch with today’s populist spirit across the West, where millions of people are demanding the return of powers from failing elites. Indeed, I’ve made a similar argument myself, calling for the restoration of popular sovereignty and the transfer of power back to the decent majority of Brits.

But when it comes to Andy Burnham and the Labour Party you need to look a little closer. Scratch beneath the surface and you’ll soon spot the fundamental contradiction that sits at the heart of his entire project, like a ticking bomb, just waiting to go off and derail his Labour government before it even gets started.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that you cannot promise to return power to the people while simultaneously refusing to take power back from an array of unelected, unaccountable, distant, and remote institutions that now wield enormous influence over our country. You cannot claim to give power back to citizens while pushing them further and further away from the crucial decisions that affect their daily lives. It’s this fundamental contradiction, I’m willing to bet, that will not only define Andy Burnham’s premiership but end up bringing it down, too.

Take immigration and border security, which most people say is the most important issue facing Britain today. Andy Burnham talks about ‘returning power to the people’ but unless Britain fully leaves the European Convention on Human Rights, rather than just tinkering around the edges, then the British people will never be able to regain power over their own borders, their own laws, and their own future.

So long as an army of unelected and unaccoutanble activist lawyers and judges are able to use Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to frustrate the deportation of illegal migrants and foreign criminals, then countless decisions the British people think should be made within their sovereign, national democracy will instead continue to be made beyond their reach, with next to no reference or accountability to the people who then have to live with the disastrous consequences.

Look, too, at the general direction of travel on this issue. Andy Burnham is talking boldly about giving power back to the people but behind the scenes he’s already paving the way for the very opposite of what the people want to see: an enormous new wave of immigration and refugees into Britain. How is imposing a policy that nobody ever voted for, and which only a radicalised minority want, giving power back to the people? It’s not. It’s once again treating the British people with utter contempt.

Or take Europe and democracy. Burnham waxes lyrical about returning power to the people while his Labour Party continues to ignore millions of voters by pushing ahead with much closer alignment with the European Union on vast swathes of policy. Labour is so respectful of ‘the people’ that it’s now openly turning its back on the more than 17 million of them who actually voted for more sovereignty, democracy, and independence by voting for Brexit.

Increasingly, Labour will now strip more and more power away from the people, further reducing Britain to a vassal state that’s forced to pay billions of pounds so that Brussels and Strasbourg can impose EU policies and rules from above, with basically no democratic accountability, influence, or mandate from the British people. Does this look like restoring people power to you? Forcing them to pay billions of pounds for rules and policies they never voted for and cannot influence?

Or look at the British state. Burnham talks about restoring people power but the Labour Party’s done nothing to reverse the relentless expansion of an increasingly undemocratic, remote, authoritarian, and out-of-touch state. Even worse: Labour’s put the state on steroids by consistently empowering unelected bureaucrats, regulators, statutory bodies, and remote institutions at the expense of the British people.

The civil service continues to grow at record speed, while last time I checked the Labour Party has created nearly thirty ‘quasi-non-governmental organisations’, or quangos, since coming to power only two years ago. If Labour really wants to empower the people then why, year after year, is it transferring more and more decisions away from the people to a sprawling array of unelected and remote bodies, quangos, regulators, statutory agencies, and international organisations that are fully insulated from democratic accountability?

Burnham talks, too, about returning power to the people through devolution. But after decades of devolution in Wales and Scotland, for instance, who really feels more powerful? Both continue to struggle with some of the worst outcomes in healthcare, education, and public services in modern times, if not among all advanced societies. Simply shifting power from Westminster to devolved and often highly centralised administrations might sound appealing but it’s clearly not empowered the people. On the contrary, it’s often further eroded their public services and quality of life.

The contradiction doesn’t end there. Returning power to the people, if done right, means actually encouraging, welcoming, celebrating, and incentivising those people among us who become wealth creators, job-creators, take risks as entrepreneurs, and who, ultimately, pay the lion’s share of tax. But Burnham’s Labour Party, which is shifting ever leftwards from one day to the next, appears utterly hostile to those people who drive prosperity in Britain. While Burnham is hinting at yet more tax rises for higher earners — despite the fact taxes are already at historic highs — his senior allies who have handed appointments in the early hours of his premiership have openly called for wealth taxes and clearly despise successful people.

I find it significant, for instance, that Andy Burnham enters power in the same week that we learn the top 10 per cent of British taxpayers now contribute close to 60 per cent of income tax receipts in this country — up from 50 per cent at the start of the century. If Burnham’s Labour continues to pummel people who invest, build businesses, create jobs, and pay the bulk of tax by handing them even higher taxes and even more regulation alongside a culture of resentment, deteriorating public services, broken borders, and a social contract that no longer makes any sense then many of these people will simply leave Britain for good — as many are already doing.

And if they do leave — taking all that potential tax revenue with them — then how powerful do you think the British people will feel, then? Driving away the hardworking, tax-paying, successful minority is not ‘empowering the people’ — it’s eroding the very foundations on which our entire economy and social contract depend.

And while Burnhamites are already talking in incredibly vague and vacuous terms about returning power to the people, look closely at the figures who Burnham is choosing to lead his premiership. To govern is to choose, it is often said. Well, just look who Burnham is choosing. Instead of promoting figures who recognise, respect, and represent the concerns of the silent majority on issues such as mass immigration, broken borders, and two-tier justice, Burnham has specifically chosen to begin his premiership by appointing radical left-wing figures who once worked for Hope Not Hate — an organisation that routinely portrays mainstream conservative views as extremist, as symbolised by the fact Hope Not Hate was just revealed to have quietly removed a hostile profile of Ann Widdecombe around the time of her murder.

Appointing the likes of Matthew McGregor to serve as Director of Political Strategy for the entire Burnham project is highly significant. Why? Because as Emma Schubart points out, McGregor ran Hope Not Hate’s campaigns for years, overseeing efforts to place mainstream conservative views in the same conceptual universe as violent extremism, put parties such as Reform UK alongside Nazism and Holocaust denial, and, as Emma Schubart continues, “blur the line between monitoring genuine extremists and pathologising millions of British voters”.

Personally, I think it speaks volumes that instead of surrounding himself with figures who understand that people’s concerns about mass immigration, broken borders, and two-tier justice are not just legitimate but need addressing, Burnham’s first instinct is to surround himself with people who worked for charities that campaigned for the return of ISIS brides to Britain, and to block the removal of British citizenship from extremists and members of the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs. A man is known by the company he keeps, so the saying goes. Well, so too are politicians.

And, lastly, look at free speech. If you genuinely wanted to give power back to the people you’d let them speak freely, debate, protest, and oppose policies they disagree with. But ever since it came to power, this Labour Party — the Labour Party Andy Burnham now leads — has been doing the very opposite.

Expanding restrictions on protest. Imposing more and more online censorship. Openly opposing new media that gives expression to alternative views, and strengthening regulators that oversee them. Pushing for more non-crime hate incidents. Fast-tracking a dogmatic new definition of anti-Muslim hostility that will restrict what the British people can say about Islam. And trying to rig digital platforms so they prioritise politically correct news and opinion.

Ask yourself this: would a political party that was genuinely interested in returning power to the people work this hard to restrict the people’s free speech, their ability to debate contentious topics, and organise legitimate dissent?

None of this is bringing politics and power closer to the people. If anything, it risks pushing power further away from them — towards unelected, unaccountable, and increasingly distant bureaucrats, censors, and extremist activists, many of whom, like Keir Starmer before them, clearly seem to hold the decent majority of hardworking, law-abiding, and patriotic British people in contempt.

The more you actually step back to examine the Burnham project, the clearer this fundamental contradiction at its heart becomes. Contrary to what our new prime minister claims, almost every major proposal involves transferring power away from the people and handing it instead to an assortment judges, bureaucracies, foreign courts, regulators, international conventions, quangos, and distant elites.

When I look at Andy Burnham, I don’t see a politician who is serious about returning power to citizens. Far from it. I see yet another Labour leader — shaped by the authoritarian progressivism of the New Labour era — who looks set to take even more power away from them. Somebody who will not restore popular sovereignty but continue to weaken it. And if Burnham continues down this path then the result out there in the country will be entirely predictable. More frustration. More disillusionment. And more anger — among a people who never even voted for Prime Minister Andy Burnham in the first place.

Power to the people? Or yet more power to a political regime in Westminster that is now rapidly falling apart? We’re about to find out.

Paid subscribers can join Matt Live EVERY Monday evening at 7pm UK time on the Substack App to discuss the big issues of the day. Tonight we will be discussing the arrival of Andy Burnham, what it means, what to expect, and YOUR predictions!

You all know that I’ll always speak up for the decent, silent majority of hardworking people who are sick and tired of watching Western nations be destroyed.

Which is why, yesterday, I gave a major keynote speech to the CPAC-GB conference in London — a big meeting for conservatives across America, Britain, and Europe.

There were people from President Trump’s administration, former prime ministers, current ambassadors, Members of Parliament, and more. Nigel Farage, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are giving their speeches today, so it’s a big stage.

I’ll be cascading some short clips from my speech around social media in a couple of weeks but first — exclusively — I wanted to make the full speech available right here for our paid subscribers — who make our work, influence, and reach possible.

It’s fair to say I don’t hold back. I outline the key trends, issues, and explain why, for those of us who want to change the direction of travel, time is rapidly running out.

I also outline two key principles that I think give serious shape and weight to the growing pushback against the establishment.

Our paid subscribers can access and watch the speech below, after the paywall.

And if you’re not yet with us as then now’s a really great time to join, which you can do right here with a 20% discount that will expire on Monday.

Get Everything Now - with 20% off

Because aside from being able to access every bit of exclusive content like this, you’ll also be able to join — every week — our live discussions and new group chat.

That’s right.

Our weekly live meeting with paid subscribers will now take place every Monday evening at 7pm UK time so that more of our subscribers who are not working during the day, or who live in North America, can join us, too.

The new Substack lives will start this Monday (there will be no live today).

PLUS I’m opening up a new group chat for our paid subscribers where you can join with me to share comments, ask questions ahead of our weekly lives, and join together in another format to make it a bit more interactive for our paid subscribers.

This will also help inform our writing and the direction of our work.

For instance, this morning I’ve just asked the group for their predictions about how Prime Minister Andy Burnham will do, once he officially begins the role on Monday.

So, in short, there’s a lot of stuff for our paid subscribers who hopefully not only feel a strong sense of community here with us but can see they’re supporting work that is getting the big, counter-cultural messages out there into the wider debate.

So do please consider joining and supporting us — it would really help.

Here’s the speech along with some private thoughts from me on about what I’m trying to get across and achieve:

Read more

The first time I met Ann Widdecombe was actually rather terrifying.

It was at one of my first ever speaking events for Reform UK, in Kent, where Ann was speaking ahead of me.

If you were ever fortunate enough to see Ann speak live, then you’ll know how the sheer force of her oratory vastly exceeded her small frame. She was a powerhouse.

She used no notes. She pulled no punches. She was totally authentic. She spoke from the heart. She knew exactly what she believed—and why. She proceeded to tear the house down. It was a masterclass in how to rally a crowd.

As I stood at the back of the room watching this little old lady have complete command of the room, I remember thinking to myself:

“Crikey. How on earth am I supposed to follow that?”

The truth is, I couldn’t.

I was merely a former academic who had only just entered politics. I didn’t really understand the importance of simplicity, emotion, and being in tune with the crowd.

Ann, in sharp contrast, was a genuine political heavyweight who had spent decades refining her craft through public life. She knew precisely what to say, when to say it, and how to connect with an audience. Her timing was impeccable.

While Ann and I exchanged emails from time to time — particularly when she was considering starting her own Substack — the next time I saw her in person was only a few weeks before she was murdered, at another Reform event in Torquay.

That evening we spent much of our time standing side by side, signing books and talking to people. Once again, when it came time to speak, Ann stole the show.

But what stayed with me wasn’t the speech. It was the way she treated people.

It didn’t matter whether somebody was a party activist, an MP, a branch organiser, a member of the hotel staff or simply somebody who had turned up out of curiosity.

If they wanted to speak with Ann, she gave them her full attention. She listened. She never appeared rushed. She always seemed interested. And she never made people feel they were an inconvenience.

I remember noticing that because, if I’m honest, it’s something I’m not naturally very good at. I’m usually rushing around, juggling too many things at once, thinking about the next interview or speech.

Looking back now, I specifically remember thinking on the way home that night: I should be more like Ann. A little kinder. A little more patient. A little more generous. A little more courteous.

Which is one reason why news of Ann’s murder hit me — and so many others inside Reform and across Westminster — so hard.

At first, like millions of others, I felt confused. I knew from the outset that what we were being told about Ann’s horrific murder was not right.

Nobody travels 300 miles to murder a well-known right-wing politician such as Ann unless it is premeditated and motivated in some way by political beliefs.

That’s just common sense. That’s just obvious.

And yet here were the police, in the immediate aftermath, not only claiming there was “no evidence” it was related to terrorism or politics, but displaying a complete lack of self-awareness by publicly praising their own police work.

How could they possibly know so soon? Why are they not simply saying: “it’s too early to know?” None of it made any sense to me — or millions of others.

And then, as I watched the reaction to Ann’s murder unfold across social media and Westminster, my confusion made way for an intense, unyielding anger.

Anger because of how an assortment of left-wing activists — Peter Tatchell, commentators on the BBC, and university staff — have such little class they decided to use the murder to make utterly horrific remarks about Ann and her legacy.

What we’ve seen, yet again, is an especially nasty and repulsive intolerance on the left of politics that simply has no equivalent on the right — the very same intolerance and hatred that we saw after the repeated attempts to assassinate President Trump and then the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Why is this concentrated on the left? Because as American academic Thomas Sowell pointed out, people on the left and right have completely different ‘moral visions’.

Whereas people on the right think people on the left are misguided, people on the left view people on the right as down right evil and so they will often celebrate violence against them, and think this violence can be justified (as the evidence clearly shows).

But I feel angry, too, because of how the instinctive reaction of the political class to Ann’s murder was not to question why the initial police response was so visibly dismal but, instead, berate the British people for daring to “speculate” about what might have happened.

Here’s an idea: if you don’t want people to “speculate”, then don’t try to gaslight them into thinking that somebody driving for three hours in a straight line from Rotherham to Devon to murder Ann Widdecombe has nothing to do with politics.

Only now, as evidence that the suspected murderer held communist literature and may have been linked to left-wing extremism has come to light, have the police finally changed their ridiculous tune, acknowledging that not only was Ann deliberately targeted but that she might have been part of a wider plot against Reform politicians.

In which case, why not just say at the very outset of the investigation: “We don’t know what caused this - we do not know if this was connected to politics”?

Because what we see during awful moments like this one is a much deeper problem in British society, which is the steady collapse of public confidence and trust in the police and indeed the entire criminal justice system. And much of this decline of trust in the institutions, I think, is entirely justified.

If you don’t want people to openly question what they are being told by the police and the establishment then don’t continuously gaslight and mislead the country in the aftermath of major atrocities and murders like this one.

If you don’t want people speculating or questioning the official narrative, then stop treating the aftermath of every atrocity as some kind of PR-exercise, trying to make us believe, for instance, that somebody such as Axel Rudakubana was “a nice British choir boy from Cardiff”, endlessly delaying the details of crimes when they happen to involve illegal migrants or people from minority backgrounds, or telling us to hold hands and sing songs, praise diversity, and do anything except look at the actual cause of major atrocities and terrorist attacks.

If you don’t want people questioning the state then stop using shadowy government units to subject them to ‘psy-ops’, using mainstream media to deflect our attention from the real issue. Focusing on the families of victims that, strangely, always seem to make statements in support of immigration and diversity while selectively ignoring other families – such as Rhiannon Whyte’s family – who challenge the narrative by calling on government to stop the illegal migration that killed their daughter.

If you want us to trust the political class and the institutions then don’t tell us that it’s fine for left-wing politicians to attack and vilify ‘the right’ after the murder of Labour politicians like Jo Cox, but then accuse Nigel Farage, leader of Reform, who simply wants truth and justice for Ann, of trying to “politicise” the tragedy.

Don’t allow the death of somebody in America such as George Floyd to be exploited and used to justify a full-scale cultural revolution against the West, but then accuse Reform politicians who are merely asking questions about what happened to their friend and colleague of “exploiting” the situation.

And while we’re here, don’t corrupt our police organisations and criminal justice system with the extreme, divisive, and unBritish ideology of Critical Race Theory, which deliberately pits different racial and ethnic groups against one another, and then claim there is “no such thing” as politically-biased, two-tier policing.

If you don’t want the people to “speculate” and ask questions, in other words, then I would suggest that the state urgently finds new ways of restoring public confidence and trust in police and the criminal justice system before things really get out of hand.

Which means? Rooting out two-tier policing. Rooting out diversity, equality, and inclusion policies. Stopping the endless psy-ops and social engineering tactics that are deliberately designed to gaslight and mislead people in the name of promoting “social cohesion”, or “community relations”.

Telling people the truth about what is really going on, which means if you don’t know what is behind a crime then just say “we don’t know right now”. Just be real with us. Be honest. Be open. Be direct. Be transparent. Talk about the actual cause, what actually happened. Just stop the endless gaslighting and obfuscation.

And, most important of all, get back to what used to guide this country before it was hijacked by an utterly divisive identity politics — equality before the law. Treat people equally before the law — irrespective of their race, ethnicity, or religion.

Do some of that and you may well find that the next time a tragedy like this unfolds – which ended in the brutal murder of our friend Ann – the British people might be less willing to “speculate” about what happened, may be more trusting of the police, and feel a lot less suspicious of the official narratives than they currently do.

The Ann Widdecombe I knew would never have wanted people to have been frightened or lectured into silence, or told not to ask difficult questions.

She believed politics required courage, honesty, clarity, free speech, and good faith debate. Those qualities are also the only way our institutions will rebuild the public trust they have now spent many years losing.

Until that happens, people will continue to ask questions — not because they enjoy speculation, but because they no longer believe they are being told the whole truth.

And until people start to see changes they have every right to feel this way.

Read more

Read more

Tomorrow, I’m taking my first proper holiday in a very long time. I’m taking my family away for a week. There will be no posts.

It’s my first proper break since standing at the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election, releasing my book Suicide of a Nation, and completing a national tour that’s since taken me to more than fifty places across the country.

To be honest, I’m pretty exhausted.

Last night, after finishing the tour on Canvey Island, Essex, I was thinking about some of the highlights of the year so far.

Defeating the Labour Party at a national by-election in Greater Manchester. Helping set the stage for sweeping gains in northern England at the local elections in May.

Highlighting the real and growing threat from sectarianism in our politics. Watching an openly counter-cultural book that had zero support from a mainstream publisher and the establishment rocket to number one in the Sunday Times bestseller list.

Defeating the Tories at a big debate about the future of the British right. And taking on the broken establishment at the University of Oxford.

Not to mention constantly taking on the establishment narrative in this newsletter — giving people the truth, the evidence, the information, that is often hidden from them.

All this is really memorable and goes to show how this community of ours is now having real and serious influence. But to be honest — and I really do mean this — none of it was as special as something else.

Meeting, spending time with, and getting to know the countless number of people in this country who are using what little spare time they have away from work and their families to try and save this place we all call home.

The decent, silent majority of hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding, patriotic British people who are sick and tired of being treated like second-class citizens in their own country, who are utterly fed-up watching the ongoing destruction of their home, and who are willing to put their heads above the parapet to say: enough is enough.

I’m thinking of people like Sarah, in Beaconsfield — a busy professional mum who has children with health issues yet still, somehow, finds the time to build a local community group and help organise her fellow citizens.

People like Chris, in Bromsgrove, who kindly invited me to a summer reception in his own garden to help raise funds for his local community.

People like Michael, in Devon, who whizzed me around the country lanes before arriving at an amazing event at a beautiful hotel overlooking the sea.

And people like Tanya, in Hereford, who was understandably nervous about organising her first ever community meeting but brought together a few hundred people who are now connected and, hopefully, have a greater sense of belonging.

From one town to the next, from Redruth to Sunderland, from Halifax to Worcester, I just kept meeting the very best of our country.

Real, ordinary, down-to-earth, hard-working people who are taking time out of their busy and demanding lives to try and make a difference in their own way.

This is what matters. This is what is truly inspiring. And this is what is the most motivating thing in the world — when you see just how hard others are working and campaigning to try and stop the endless nonsense coming out of Westminster.

And that includes you — the people who support and share this newsletter.

We have built something truly incredible here. One of the largest counter-cultural newsletters in not just Britain but Europe.

You never really know what exact impact you are having on culture and politics but I think it’s fair to say given our numbers and reach on social media that we are helping, inch by inch, to push the culture and politics back towards common sense.

So, I would like to thank everybody who helped me during the first half of 2026 by organising these events, picking me up from train stations, dropping me off, bringing local people together, and supporting and sharing this newsletter.

Of course, I would also like to give special thanks to our small number of paid subscribers who make all this work — the travel, the social media, the hotels, the team members — possible. Because without them none of it would be possible at all.

See you in a week when I will have some exciting news about the rumours of a podcast some of you have been asking me about … Best wishes all, Matt

As always, I welcome your comments. I’m looking forward to joining our Inner Circle and Paid subscribers for our weekly Live discussion on the Substack App at 2pm today. Upgrade now to join us.

Read more

If there’s one thing the liberal class love more than debating ideas, it’s inventing arguments their opponents never made.

Such as the argument that I want to live in a world where women who have no children pay much higher rates of tax.

That was the charge levelled against me during the Gorton and Denton by-election, when left-wing media including The Guardian and The Canary made this false claim to try and derail our campaign among women voters.

And now it’s reappeared thanks to somebody called the Guilty Feminist (real name Deborah Frances-White) who you might know from her disastrous debate with Konstantin Kisin on the popular YouTube show Triggernometry.

That debate has been watched some two million times and led The Times newspaper to describe the Guilty Feminist as “a cartoon of progressive intolerance: patronising, hectoring and censorious”.

Anyway, last month Deborah Frances-White shared a post titled ‘Why women should never vote for Reform UK’, which included the false claim that somebody called ‘Robert Goodwin’, alongside a picture of me, had ‘said he wanted a negative child benefit tax for those who don’t have offspring’.

It subsequently went viral.

When I messaged Deborah to point out this was inaccurate she promptly released my direct message as some kind of ‘gotcha’ moment for her supporters and appeared to revel in all the likes she was receiving from other progressive ‘feminists’, including Green MP Hannah Spencer, Carol Vorderman, and countless others.

When Deborah is not pulling stunts like this she also appears to spend a great deal of time online, campaigning against ‘the far right’, Nigel Farage and Reform UK, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and calling on people to support Palestine and vote Green.

You get the picture.

So, I thought I’d take the time to respond to the charge while also explaining where, I think, liberal feminists are going wrong today. I think it’s important that you, my readers, know what I genuinely think about this issue because it is important.

Let me start by being as clear as I can be:

As the son of a single mother, and father of a daughter, I will always be among the first to advocate for women’s rights and choice. Women must always be able to choose what they do with their own bodies. End of story.

I am also intimately aware that some women who desperately want to have children struggle with infertility. I want to be clear how much I empathise with those women.

Because I really do.

But what is also true is that rather than engage with what I actually said, my liberal feminist and left-wing critics prefer to attack a caricature because they appear to find that easier than confronting the more nuanced argument I am making.

I never called for women without children to pay higher rates of tax.

What I did call for — in this post — is for Western nations to debate a whole array of policies and measures that have been put forward by leading demographers around the world to try and solve our rapidly worsening demographic crisis.

Why did I do this?

Because Western nations like Britain are in the midst of a severe demographic crisis.

Fertility rates have plummeted to record lows – 1.39 in England, 1.25 in Scotland – and are forecast to keep falling unless we take urgent, radical action.

Rates are already well below the so-called ‘replacement level’ of 2.1, which means that unless we find a way of encouraging families to have more children then Western nations like Britain will simply not survive.

This, of course, might be what some people on the left want.

But I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of people – including most women – do want Western nations to endure, not least because they are the only nations that have actually developed and protected broad-based rights for women.

There are also many reasons why liberal feminists and my friends on the left should take this demographic crisis far more seriously than they are currently doing.

Denigrating those who talk about it, and who dare to suggest ways of fixing it, as ‘far right’, ‘reactionary’, or ‘anti-women’, is curious given two points.

The first is that many of the things liberal feminists want will not be possible unless we all find a way of solving this demographic crisis and having more children.

If you are a liberal feminist who wants a functioning National Health Service then somebody has to staff it.

If you are a liberal feminist who wants a well-funded welfare state that supports the most vulnerable in society then somebody has to work and pay for it.

And if you are a liberal feminist who wants to live in a society with well-functioning public services then somebody will have to produce all the teachers, the civil servants, the nurses, the scientists, the workers, and the taxpayers to make it all possible.

You cannot simultaneously demand all these things while treating the only thing that makes all this possible – having children – as somebody else’s problem.

And you cannot demand all these things while attacking people who want to support and strengthen the very families that will make them possible.

This is not a serious response.

Nor is calling for mass immigration as a replacement for the failure of successive governments, both Labour and Tory, to support British families.

Mass immigration is not a serious answer to ageing societies; it is a Ponzi scheme.

Why? Because immigrants get old, too, so by importing masses of migrant labour you end up needing more and more people to service more and more pensioners.

That just pushes nations into a ‘population trap’ - which is what happens when the state can no longer provide public services for an ever-expanding population.

This is what we are now starting to witness in Britain with the glaring lack of available housing, quality healthcare, strong borders, and so on.

By ignoring this demographic crisis and calling instead for more immigration and porous borders, liberals are only undermining their project over the longer-term.

They are pushing us into a society in which the state will no longer be able to provide decent public services, while disillusioned British citizens will no longer be willing to pay tax and fund things like welfare because they will no longer feel any sense of solidarity with who is in the country.

The more diverse societies become, the less trusting they become; the less trusting they become, the less willing people become to fund welfare.

The fact that a quarter-of-a-million Brits left Britain last year suggests this weakening of the social contract is already underway and yet liberals appear blind to it.

Furthermore, I would say there is nothing particularly ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’, or ‘fair’ about what the likes of Labour, the Greens, and liberal feminists are doing.

They are asset-stripping the best and brightest from low-income nations and putting them to work in the National Health Service while refusing to invest in young British people who want to become doctors and nurses and then forcing the British people to send the same nations that just got exploited billions of pounds in foreign aid.

And there is nothing particularly ‘feminist’ about refusing to address the demographic crisis while importing millions of people who are — as the evidence makes clear — far more likely to hold misogynistic, patriarchal, outdated, and grotesque views towards women, and also far more likely to rape and sexually assault them, too.

Green politicians such as Hannah Spencer say they are ‘feminist’ while importing nationalities that are far more likely to commit sexual violence against women, and while turning a blind-eye to the fact that her party’s Muslim voters have consistently been shown to be far more likely to think women should stay at home, obey their husbands, be kept separate from men, and assume traditional roles.

How is this ‘feminist’, exactly? And how is this ‘liberal’?

Attacking people like me who want to defend women’s sex-based rights while directly undermining the rights of women through these extreme policies appears rather odd.

It’s also not a serious response to a specific and growing problem that liberal women face, too. Those who are trying to shut down debate about how to boost birth-rates in the West are precisely the group that should be taking this crisis most seriously.

Consistently, across the West, liberal women on the left are having much fewer children than their Brexit-voting, Trump-supporting counterparts on the right.

We are rapidly entering a world, in other words, where there will be far fewer Hannah Spencers and Guilty Feminists and far more Suella Bravermans and Sarah Pochins; far fewer AOCs and far more Sarah Palins.

Liberal progressives like to think they represent the future and they are on the ‘right side of history’ but if current trends continue they will soon represent the past while history will be written by the people who are actually having children.

Ideas do not reproduce themselves – people do.

By constantly promoting the very bad ideas that all men are toxic, children are unnecessary, and Western nations do not deserve to survive, liberal feminists and the ideologies they encourage are only setting the stage for their own demise.

More fundamentally, while liberal feminists are fond of lecturing the rest of us about ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’, I would also ask them this: on what planet is it ‘fair’ or ‘equal’ to demand that the women who bear the enormous costs and burden of having children are treated the same as women who do not bear these costs at all?

It’s not fair.

It’s not fair at all.

Women who have children face much higher physical, financial, and mental health costs than women who do not — and we should live in societies that not only acknowledge this fact but respond to it.

And what about living in a society that actually helps women get what they want?

The vast majority of women — 92 per cent in Britain, according to one recent survey — hope to become mothers one day.

Liberals should not be making it harder for women to have children by shutting down debate and framing policies that are designed to help women achieve this as ‘reactionary’; they should be working to help women get what they want: children.

Personally, I would not go as far as suggesting that we should have a higher tax for women who do not have children. This was merely one of several ideas that were put forward by a leading demographer and which I merely said we should debate.

But what I do think we should introduce is sweeping tax allowances and other benefits for women who do choose to have children – especially British women and families who choose to have more than two children.

While liberal feminists like to portray all this as being something akin to the The Handmaids Tale, they are clearly not aware of the fact that we already do this.

It’s called child benefit. It’s called free childcare, tax-free childcare, maternity and paternity provision. All of which mean the principle that women who have children are treated differently is already established and should not be controversial.

The debate we should be having is whether this goes far enough. Clearly, given our rapidly declining birth-rate, I do not think it does. It needs to go much, much further.

I’d like to see the return of far more ambitious tax allowances for women and families that have children and which Britain used to have.

I’d like to see us replicate the pro-family tax policies in countries like Luxembourg, France, Germany, Canada, Hungary, Poland, and Cuba (presumably Hannah Spencer and liberal feminists are fans of Cuba?)

But I’d like to go even further.

Why not prioritise British families that have more than two children when it comes to housing and giving them far more favourable mortgage rates, for example?

Instead of giving scarce housing to the First Lady of Sierra Leone, we should give what housing we have to British women who have more than two children.

We should also teach children far more about the biological reality of having children, including the very real risks that come with having children later in life.

We either believe in science and biological reality or we don’t. We either want to protect women, or we are happy putting them at risk in the name of ideology.

Personally, I stand with science. I’m not sure when so-called ‘feminists’ decided it was ok to put women at risk by ignoring science but it’s happened. And it’s wrong.

And we should also find ways of cultivating a far more pro-family culture. We’ve already dramatically changed our culture when it comes to everything from driving with seatbelts to reducing smoking, protecting the environment, and more.

There’s absolutely no reason why we cannot also change our culture so that it is more supportive of mothers, puts families at the centre of our national life, and makes it clear that those who have more children will receive extensive benefits.

This is not inflammatory; this is how a nation and a people endure.

Lastly, let me say something about Reform UK — the party for whom I stood as a candidate and which is often accused of being ‘anti-women’.

Reform UK has certainly not helped itself by standing a candidate in Makerfield who, in my view, should have publicly apologised to women for his awful comments.

I did campaign in Makerfield but only briefly, on two occasions, because I wanted to thank the many activists who helped my own by-election campaign in Gorton and Denton. This is how political parties work. But I did think that allowing our candidate to stand without that apology was the wrong thing to do.

But while we’re here, have Hannah Spencer, the pro-Green Guilty Feminist, and countless other ‘feminists’ apologised for campaigning alongside dozens of anti-Semites, Islamist extremists who want to treat women like sex slaves and second-class citizens, Hamas sympathisers, and rape apologists?

I’ll leave that one here.

At the same time, the wider accusation that Reform UK is ‘anti-women’ is wrong. It is actually the only party that is standing up unequivocally for women’s sex-based rights – rights which Labour and Tory governments have undermined in recent years.

A Reform government would bring forward the Women’s and Motherhood Protection Act that will give women stronger protections, clearer rights, and greater certainty – extended time limits for pregnancy and maternity claims, stronger protections against dismissal during pregnancy, enhanced redundancy protections for new mothers, protection for women undergoing fertility treatment, alongside explicit breastfeeding rights, and additional rights for women who tragically experience miscarriage and stillbirth.

All this is ignored in the wider public debate about Reform UK.

Not to mention full justice for the countless women and girls who were systemically abused by the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs and who liberal feminists, strangely, never seem to talk about.

Reform UK will also fix Britain’s borders so that more young mums like Rhiannon Whyte do not lose their lives at the hands of illegal migrants, and more children are not abused by people who should never have been in this country to begin with.

If liberal feminists want to pretend none of this is happening while attacking all those who want to protect women as ‘far-right’ then that’s their choice.

But I would suggest this is another reason why Reform UK is topping the national polls — with more support among women than the Greens and Labour.

What I would like to see — put simply — is a country that recognises the very serious demographic crisis we are facing by providing much greater support for women with children, making family life much easier and more affordable, helping women get what they want, and feel more culturally valued when they do become mothers.

This is not reactionary, extremist, or far-right. It is how a healthy, forward-looking, and prosperous society should act.

We can either continue pretending this demographic crisis does not exist and attacking all those who talk about it; or we can have a serious, honest conversation about how to tackle it while also doing something that as a father and son I care very deeply about: protecting women.

As always, I welcome your comments. I’m looking forward to joining our Inner Circle and Paid subscribers for our weekly Live discussion on the Substack App at 2pm today. Upgrade now to join us.

Read more

Here are three seemingly separate stories you might have missed in the last week that, taken together, reveal something far more profound.

First, it has emerged that pro-immigration campaigners helped place and prepare illegal migrants in the audience on the BBC flagship debate programme, Question Time, to “test” pro-migration messages in front of the British people.

Second, at the same time, it’s been revealed that a writer who helped craft storylines on the popular BBC primetime soap Eastenders is a “migration and racial justice” activist who works on “changing people’s views” through popular culture.

And third, it’s quietly been revealed that the family of Rhiannon Whyte — a young mother who was stabbed to death by an illegal migrant from Sudan — was guided by state officials to “tone down” their statement after Rhiannon’s murder, because of fears it might cause unrest among the wider population.

Three seemingly different stories that involve three different institutions – the BBC, the creative industry, and the British state. What do they all have in common?

All three, I would suggest, reflect the rise of what I call the ‘Narrative State’ – a state that along with its ruling class and institutions no longer sees its main role as being to describe reality but rather to present a socially-engineered, alternate vision of reality that both reflects and reinforces its dominant ideology.

In the Narrative State, bureaucrats, politicians, and institutions appear much less concerned with governing society itself than with governing how society is perceived by its citizens. The aim is not to present a realistic portrayal of what is happening around us but, instead, to present society as the ruling class believe it ought to be.

On one level, we saw this reflected in how the creative class and the British state united around the Netflix drama Adolescence, aggressively pushing a deeply warped vision of reality in which we were invited to believe that the main threat to British society is posed by white boys from stable homes.

We also saw it reflected in the findings of a recent study which found that while black people represent only 4 per cent of the population in England and Wales they appear in close to 50 per cent of all advertisements on television — a deliberate distortion of reality so that it better reflects what the ruling class would like to see.

But on a deeper level it is also clear that something far more insidious is at work. Increasingly, the Narrative State is now using an assortment of legacy media, universities, charities, the creative industries, state broadcasters, and shadowy government communications units to try and influence public perceptions through “framing”, “nudges”, “narrative control”, aggressive censorship, and speech codes.

Constantly fearing a loss of control, constantly trying to retain its power, the Narrative State is continuously trying to influence which facts are emphasised, which voices or ‘experts’ are amplified or discredited, which arguments are considered legitimate, and which conclusions citizens are allowed and encouraged to draw.

Compare and contrast, for example, the British state’s response to the Henry Nowak and Rhiannon Whyte murders. Henry Nowak’s father, who called for greater action on knife crime, was amplified by the state and legacy media. Rhiannon Whyte’s mother, who called on the state to fix its broken borders and stop illegal migration — goals that were not consistent with the dominant ideology of the state — was ignored.

For years, the ruling class denied this was happening at all. The mere suggestion that we might be living in some kind of socially constructed reality was dismissed as the stuff of ‘conspiracy theory’, ‘paranoia’, or ‘extremism’. But as the gap between people’s lived reality and what they are being told by the state has morphed into an enormous gulf — especially when it comes to mass immigration, demographic change, Islamism, and crime — this denial has become impossible to sustain.

Put simply, millions of people now sense they are not being told the full story. Worse: they now sense they are being subjected to social engineering and manipulated by the very politicians and bureaucrats who are supposed to tell them the truth.

And they’re not wrong to think this way.

In recent weeks, even major newspapers in Britain, such as the Daily Mail, reported on the shadowy government units whose sole job is to manage public perceptions in the shadow of Islamist attacks and atrocities that often involve immigrants and minorities.

Only a few weeks ago, that newspaper drew attention to the ‘Research, Information, and Communications Unit’, or RICU, which it notes uses an assortment of methods to manage the ‘challenges’ that arise from mass immigration and broken borders:

“Its techniques”, wrote the investigators, “range from planting stories in the media, using undercover operatives to lay flowers at the scene of terrorist attacks and even, in one case, sending a pop group to sing anti-extremist songs in Muslim schools … They are working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland's C3 intelligence unit to identify those posting the online 'calls to protest' in Belfast [after the latest hideous attack] and other areas, as well as giving strategic messages to the police to ensure that the protesters were portrayed as unsympathetic thugs, rather than activists, and effecting behavioural change”.

In the immediate aftermath of horrifying Islamist attacks in London, in 2017, the same state unit reportedly drove around the area plastering walls with hashtags that read #TurnToLove, #ForLondon and #LoveWillWin.

And after the grotesque beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, in 2014, by Islamic State, the same unit reportedly used a ‘front operation’ to plant an image of a woman in a Union Jack hijab in legacy media.

What all this reflects is how the goal of the Narrative State is not only to ‘win’ national debates or ‘control the narrative’ but, at a deeper level, shape and influence the wider environment in which these debates take place to begin with.

When public concern over, say, immigration increases, the Narrative State no longer replies by asking whether that concern is justified, or responding to it. Instead, it works overtime to ‘manage’ or ‘reframe’ that concern, while trying to ‘nudge’ citizens to a different conclusion — one that does not threaten the regime and its ideology.

Time and time again — the murder of Sir David Amess, the Manchester Arena bombing, the Westminster Islamist attacks, the Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs, and the pro-migration statement that was issued by family members after the recent attempted beheading of their relative in Belfast — the goal of the Narrative State is not to address the grievance but try and police the reaction to it.

Do not challenge Islamism. Talk about unity. Do not criticise open borders. Celebrate diversity. Do not demand an end to mass immigration. Praise openness. All of it is designed to ensure the deeper project is never seriously challenged or overturned.

In this sense, the Narrative State helps us further understand another concept I have written about recently — anarcho-tyranny — which is what happens when the state is unwilling or unable to perform its most basic functions such as securing borders, enforcing laws, protecting citizens, and maintaining order, while at the same time clamping down on citizens by regulating their speech, behaviour, and opinions.

The Narrative State can be understood as the cultural and communications arm of anarcho-tyranny. Where anarcho-tyranny fails to prevent the problem, the Narrative State moves in to manage the public reaction to the problem. Where anarcho-tyranny struggles to maintain order, the Narrative State seeks to maintain legitimacy. They are not identical, but increasingly they operate side by side.

None of this is new. More than a century ago, Walter Lippmann famously warned that people “pick out what our culture has already defined for us”. Later, from the left, Noam Chomsky, among others, built on Lippmann’s work to warn that elites “manufacture consent” to protect their own elite interests.

Around the same time, writing in the 1980s, Daniel Hallin pointed to how journalists were no longer reporting the truth but shaping the ‘sphere of legitimate consensus’, deciding which debates and voices were legitimate and which were not.

And more recently, scholars such as Jonathan Rauch have warned that ‘experts’ are now more interested in shutting down views they do not support while trying to influence the ‘parameters’ of knowledge and truth, rather than pursuing truth itself.

What is striking today, though, is just how openly and brazenly the Narrative State is trying to socially engineer and influence its own citizens. The huge investment in ‘strategic communications’ or ‘strategic narratives’, which are used by the state and its institutions to justify certain policies and interpret political issues.

The rise of ‘nudge units’ and behavioural science, which the state now openly uses to try and change how we think and behave. The investment in countering so-called ‘disinformation', such as the British state’s RESIST toolkit. The European Union’s Digital Services Act, which creates an activist class of ‘trusted flaggers’ — approved bodies that now report and control what people say online. The Online Safety Act in the UK. And the introduction of ‘digital identification’.

What we are witnessing is the rise of a large, expansive, and powerful ecosystem of state agencies and institutions that are working continuously to ‘manage’, ‘frame’, and ‘readjust’ what is considered truth, legitimacy, and the boundaries of ‘acceptable’ knowledge within our national debates — largely because the state itself can sense that it is now starting to lose control of its own populations.

This, I think, is why so many people feel they are living in two countries at the same time. One that is interested in reality; another that is interested in warping the representation of that reality.

One that is anchored in fact; another that is cultivating narratives to try and distort those facts. One that people experience on a daily basis, as they go about their lives; and another, completely different country that is presented to them by state broadcasters, television advertisers, charities, universities, the creative industries, public bodies, Netflix dramas, popular television soaps, and activist networks.

This is not only why public trust in legacy institutions is collapsing but why populist revolts are only getting stronger and stronger. Because citizens are not only rebelling against liberal immigration policies, open borders, and the ‘suicidal empathy’ that unites the ruling class; they are also rebelling against this concerted attempt to deceive, mislead, and gaslight them on some of the most important issues of our time.

What many people have realised, in other words, is that the very leaders who lecture them about the dangers of ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’, or ‘post-truth’, are the very people who are now invested in spreading these things or who, worse, have simply abandoned truth altogether.

What this leaves us in is a highly volatile situation where one of the key dividing lines that is emerging in politics today is not just between Left and Right; it is between those who believe that the state and our public institutions should stay rooted in reality, versus those who believe they should construct and impose something on the rest of us that is not reality at all.

And the more ordinary people suspect that they are being managed rather than informed, the more they will continue turning against the very state and the very institutions that once claimed to speak in their name.

As always, I welcome your comments. I’m looking forward to joining our Inner Circle and Paid subscribers for our weekly Live discussion on the Substack App.

Read more

This morning we held a special Live discussion with our paid subscribers about the Makerfield by-election result.

You can watch it here.

We hold live discussions each week, so do upgrade if you want to join our community and support our work, thanks.

Matt

Read more

And as always I will tell you what I REALLY think.

You will be notified when I am live on the Substack App so make sure you have that downloaded.

And if you’re not already with us as a paid subscriber then now is the time to join so you can access our calls and all content.

Please also drop any questions in advance in the comments below and I will answer as many as I can, thanks.

Speak tomorrow for what looks set to be another historic day in British politics.

Upgrade to join 10am call

Here’s an astonishing story you might have missed. The First Lady of Sierra Leone has finally lost her council flat in London.

Yes, you read that right.

When Fatima Jabbe-Bio is not living in a presidential mansion in Freetown — complete with tennis courts, a swimming pool, and helipad — the wife of Sierra Leone’s president was until recently renting out a council flat in Southwark.

Only now — after myself and others drew attention to the case — is Southwark Council finally repossessing the taxpayer-subsidised property.

Hopefully, the flat will now be handed to some of the British people who are among 1.3 million people waiting on the social housing waiting list, or one of the thousands of British military veterans who are currently homeless.

Either way, the story remains remarkable, not least because I think it symbolises a much bigger problem that is now rapidly undermining British society, and indeed Western nations, from within.

How on earth did we get to a point where large amounts of scarce social housing — which was built and paid for by earlier generations of British taxpayers for local British families — is no longer even going to British people at all?

Furthermore, how and why is this scarce social housing also going to those who clearly hold our own people in contempt?

The First Lady of Sierra Leone, who clearly saw no problem profiting at the British people’s expense, is by no means the only example.

In recent years, there have been a string of social housing scandals that were hushed up by the British state.

The alleged Hamas chief living in a council house in Barnet.

The terrorist preacher Abu Hamza who lived in a council house in Shepherd’s Bush.

The family of an ISIS leader living in a council flat in Slough.

The al-Qaeda preacher — who probably radicalised ‘Jihadi John’ — living in a large, taxpayer-funded house in London, while also claiming many other welfare benefits.

And the estimated 15,000 council homes that have been given to refugees in Britain since 2020 alone — many of whom no doubt entered the country illegally.

Clearly, not everybody who lives in social housing is actively trying to harm the British people, or take them for a ride.

But if you ever wanted a textbook example of ‘suicidal empathy’ — of what happens when politicians become so obsessed with showing empathy to outsiders that they end up destroying their own nations from within — then the British state’s approach to distributing taxpayer-funded social housing would be high up on the list.

Which is perhaps why, this week, Nigel Farage and Reform UK stepped directly into this intensifying debate by announcing that, under a Reform government, foreign nationals would no longer be entitled to social housing.

Those who are currently in social housing would have three months to find alternative private rented accommodation, while British citizens who have deep local roots, British military veterans, and victims of domestic abuse would be prioritised.

Predictably, the Left has erupted.

All the usual words — “racist”, “xenophobic”, “reactionary” — have been thrown at Reform’s policy this week.

But what many of these people have not bothered to dwell on is the reality of what is now actually unfolding in this country.

A reality that’s reflected in four maps I want to show you, and which I suspect the politicians in Westminster would rather you not see at all.

Because whatever your personal view of the policy, Reform UK, or even Nigel Farage, what I’m about to show you does reveal something extraordinary.

First, consider just a few of the headline figures in Britain today.

In major cities such as Birmingham, according to official data, at least one-third of all taxpayer-subsidised social housing tenants were born outside of Britain, of which less than half are currently working.

In London, it’s 48 per cent. In Slough, it’s 41 per cent. In Leicester, it’s nearly 40 per cent. In Luton, it’s 38 per cent. In Manchester, it’s 32 per cent. In Coventry, it’s 31 per cent. I could go on. And on.

Across a large swathe of the country, in many of our major cities and towns, it’s now entirely commonplace for at least one-third of all social housing tenants to have been born somewhere else in the world.

Now look closer.

In some areas within these major urban areas the figures absolutely skyrocket, revealing a British state that now appears to be working overtime to prioritise people who only arrived relatively recently and at the expense of the hardworking, British majority whose families have been on these islands, contributing, for generations.

Look, for example, at our capital city.

As Nigel Farage points out in his recent essay, in London close to 50 per cent of people who head families that are residing in social housing were born overseas, benefiting from more than £3.5 billion in rent discounts each year.

In Northwick Park, close to Wembley, it’s 76 per cent. In parts of Southall, it’s over 75 per cent. In Knightsbridge and Belgravia, it’s more than two-thirds. In Victoria, it’s close to 60 per cent. In Westminster, it’s more than half.

Many young British people, many British professionals, many British workers, all of whom are contributing to the economy, and whose ancestors also paid in to the collective pot, would no doubt love to live in these kinds of areas in central London.

But they will simply never be offered the chance to do so. They will simply never be prioritised by our current political class.

Or look at Southwark, the area of London that handed Fatima Jabbe-Bio a council flat.

In that part of London, like countless other areas in the capital city, between 47 and 55 per cent of all tenants who have been given discounted social housing in prime real estate areas were not born in Britain.

And we can see this, too, across a growing number of towns that are scattered across the Midlands and northern England, where it’s likewise not uncommon to find the vast majority of people in taxpayer-funded social housing were born abroad.

Such as Alexandra Park in Oldham (68 per cent), parts of Bradford (58 per cent), parts of Leeds (62 per cent), Blackburn (48 per cent), and many, many others.

On one level, what all this reveals is the sheer scale of demographic change that has swept through Britain’s towns and cities over the last generation, with not just our major cities but medium and small towns now also witnessing these seismic shifts.

In these areas and others, when it comes to the allocation of scarce social housing native Brits are very clearly and very publicly being displaced and looked past.

But what it also raises is another fundamental question that, so far, pretty much everybody in Westminster has spent the last few decades refusing to answer.

Who is social housing for?

Keir Starmer, Members of Parliament, woke celebrities, academics, and unelected bureaucrats all talk endlessly about “fairness” and “avoiding division”.

Yet there is nothing more unfair and divisive than forcing your own people, including British families and veterans, to wait years for a home while their elected representatives prioritise people who were born somewhere else in the world, who often only arrived very recently, and even when given a home are often still not contributing to the economy at all.

There is nothing more unfair and divisive than forcing those same British taxpayers — amidst the most severe cost-of-living and housing crises in peacetime — to also spend billions of pounds subsidising that scarce social housing for others while also continuing to preside over record levels of immigration and claim with a straight face that there is no relationship between a rapidly expanding population and the glaring lack of available, affordable housing.

And there is also nothing more unfair and divisive than treating the suggestion that the British state should prioritise its own people as somehow tantamount to ‘racism’, ‘xenophobia’, or the ‘far right’.

On the contrary, this is how successful, durable nation-states work. Citizens contribute to a shared moral and political community by working, paying taxes, respecting the rule of law, and contributing to the collective pot.

They have obligations to their fellow citizens and a responsibility to support the collective good — such as by voting at elections, working, contributing, looking after one another, and serving the nation.

This reciprocal relationship is not only why citizens become willing to support things like the welfare state — because it is underpinned by a deep sense of national solidarity and an awareness that those who have contributed will be prioritised — but is also why governments owe a special duty to their own people.

Because a nation is not just a hotel or set of legal documents. A nation is home — an ethical community of people who have an obligation to look after their own, and whose contribution and loyalty ensures that the nation-state can survive.

Once you lose sight of these obligations and loyalties, once you relegate your own people behind others, once you no longer distinguish between those who contribute and those who do not, then you are essentially tearing up the social contract that underpins the nation-state.

And when this happens, your own people will, inevitably, start to withdraw their support for welfare, stop contributing, and even leave the community altogether, having concluded that the social contract no longer makes any sense (as many Brits are now doing).

This precisely what many people in Britain will see when they look at these maps — a state that is simply no longer interested in upholding the social contract.

A nation that refuses to prioritise its own people when distributing scarce public goods is a nation that has forgotten what citizenship means. And a nation that forgets that will almost certainly, at some point, cease to be a stable nation altogether.

As always, I welcome your comments. I’m looking forward to joining our Inner Circle and Paid subscribers for our weekly Live discussion on the Substack App.

Just a brief note to say that I’ll be speaking at the CPAC-GB conference next month, July 16-18th, in London, alongside Nigel Farage, Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, among countless others.

There will be great speeches, much debate, partying, and lots more. Paid subscribers can join me with an exclusive discount that you’ll find below the paywall.

As always, whenever I’m given discounts to things I pass them straight along to our paid subscribers who make our work, influence, and reach possible.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, now would be a good time to become one with our spring discount, not least because we’ll be joining together, live on the Substack App, later this week to discuss the Makerfield by-election, its aftermath, and implications.

I hope to see you at CPAC-GB — it’s going to be eventful!! Best wishes, Matt

Read more

One reason why this newsletter continues to grow is because we try to give our readers something that is rare: evidence-based analysis of issues the establishment would rather we ignore.

Each week, we introduce you to new studies or evidence you might have missed, and which often runs against the lazy Groupthink among the ruling class.

Such as a very important new study of why millions of people are joining Reform UK’s growing revolt against the establishment.

According to the latest polls, Reform is now on 30 per cent of the national vote, is some 10-points clear of Labour and the Tories, and is on its way into government.

Later this week, Reform could yet win a parliamentary by-election in the northern, Labour-held seat of Makerfield.

Even if it falls short, it will not be due to a lack of support. Constituency polls from Makerfield consistently put Reform in second place, on roughly 40 per cent of the vote, only a few points behind Labour.

It is Rupert Lowe’s rival Restore party, not a lack of public support for Reform, that is threatening Reform’s chances in the seat.

With Restore taking between 5 and 8 per cent in polls from Makerfield, the renegade party cannot win the seat but it can ensure that Labour does and Reform loses.

Either way, irrespective of what happens in Makerfield it is crystal clear that Reform is not going anywhere. Which brings me back to that important new study.

Because despite Reform’s rise, Westminster continues to comfort itself with the belief that this revolt is little more than a protest against the system — an irrational outburst of anger among an underclass of voters who have no coherent worldview.

Routinely, Reform voters are dismissed as “angry”, “frustrated”, “disillusioned with politics”, and “struggling” with the cost-of-living crisis.

The only problem with this narrative, as a brand new report by Sir John Curtice and the National Centre for Social Research makes clear, is that it’s simply not true. In fact, the evidence points in a completely different direction.

Today, I explain why this is one of the most important studies yet on Reform, how it builds on our previous surveys of Reform voters (see here and here), and what it tells us about the next general election.

This is one of our regular exclusive posts for paid subscribers. Upgrade with the Spring discount and support a platform that’s telling people the truth.

Read more

Read more