James Conaghan

Broad-brush condemnation of thousands of attendees at a Unite the Kingdom event is, inconvenently for you, inconsistent with core Christian teachings. If the event's sin is over-generalising about migrants and (for instance) Islamists, then tarring all attendees as haters commits the same error. Bonhoeffer's "cheap grace" critique cuts both ways if applied selectively to dismiss sincere cultural/faith appeals while ignoring costly realities on the ground. Immigration frequently tops national polls as one of the most important issues facing the country, driven by debates over both legal migration and small boat crossings. From a Christian perspective, the Bible recognises the existence of distinct nations, borders, and the rule of law. Christians may be called to show individual charity, but governments have a God-given responsibility to maintain orderly societies, enforce laws, and protect their citizens. Vague moralising from the clergy while Britain faces tangible strains, is ostensibly the "liberal snobbery" that @calvinrobinson called out.

@calvinrobinson @timothy_stanley Being against borders AND speaking hatefully about other human beings does mean just that. Yes, uptake of faith should be celebrated, but the performative claiming of a heritage as a means to an ungodly end and with no real content is what Bonhoeffer called cheap grace.

Appeals to *heritage* - but faith isn’t an heirloom. It’s an animating force, transformative and not in the least bit parochial. There’s no bloody point calling Britain Christian if we don’t love God & love each other, including refugees!

Seriously? Washed up writer? J K Rowling is actually in a remarkably productive phase of her career right now. She's got an active novel series, her 8th Cormoran Strike crime novel - The Hallmarked Man - was published in September 2025 (written under her pseudonym Robert Galbraith) and she has already confirmed she is working on the 9th instalment. Apart from that, this washed up writer has reportedly revealed she has started 3 different books she plans to write after Strike concludes. One of them is a futuristic novel. Further to that, the HBO Harry Potter series is set to debut at Christmas 2026, with the first eight-episode season titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Reportedly, JKR is serving as executive producer and has been heavily involved in the creative process, reviewing scripts to ensure the adaptation remains faithful to her original books. And there's more: this year also sees the continuation of the Pocket Potters companion book series published by Bloomsbury. Whatever one thinks of her publicly expressed views, as a working writer she's anything but washed up. #YoureWelcome

This washed up writer's entire life is spent preaching the shit her books were performatively against. She hates people, seemingly. Maybe not literally but every single political argument she carries holds true to the conservative/right wing argument. She's the perfect example of an insidious "liberal" hardly being liberal at all. If anything, she reminds me of the consultancy class in america, no real beliefs and integrity, simply established to destroy democratic values

JK Rowling has built a public identity around protecting women. She talks about women constantly. Women’s spaces. Women’s rights. Women’s safety. Women’s sport. Women’s everything. So where is she on Reform UK’s behind the scenes campaign against abortion rights? Silence. Where is she on Reform’s position on removing the United Kingdom from the European Convention on Human Rights, the legal framework that protects women from domestic violence, forced marriage, honour crimes and state discrimination? Silence. Where is she on the broader rollback of women’s rights being driven by the exact political forces she has chosen to align herself with? Complete silence. This is a woman with over thirteen million followers, a billion dollar franchise, a personal legal fund and the ear of Supreme Court justices. She is not short of a platform. She is not afraid of controversy. She has demonstrated repeatedly that she will say difficult things loudly when she wants to. She just does not want to say these things. The pattern is not subtle. Every campaign she has funded, every legal case she has backed, every public statement she has made has had one subject. Not women broadly. Specifically and only transgender people. When the conversation moves to abortion she is absent. When it moves to the ECHR she is absent. When it moves to Reform UK’s social conservatism, which would take the rights of women backwards by decades, she is absent. The European Convention on Human Rights is not an abstract legal document. It is the framework that has delivered concrete protections for women in this country. It underpins the right not to be subjected to domestic violence without state protection. It underpins reproductive rights cases. It underpins protections against forced marriage and trafficking. It underpins the right to private life, to bodily autonomy, to equal treatment under law. Reform UK wants to remove the United Kingdom from it. It also protects transgender people. That appears to be the problem. Because the only coherent explanation for Rowling’s silence on every other women’s rights issue while spending her fortune on this one is that her campaign was never really about women. It was always about transgender people. Women were the framing. Trans exclusion was the goal. A person who genuinely cared about women’s rights in 2025 would be screaming about Reform. They would be funding legal challenges to abortion restrictions. They would be speaking loudly about the ECHR. They would understand that you cannot claim to defend women’s rights while staying silent as the political movement you have empowered works to dismantle the legal architecture that protects women from the state and from violence. Unless the rights you actually care about are not women’s rights in general. Unless they are specifically the right to exclude transgender people from public life. In which case the silence makes perfect sense. Follow the silence. It tells you everything the statements do not.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ She wonders why she lost friends. I’ve spoken to 3 of her old friends in person. And they had the worst possible for us to say about her. So she may be your hero but it seems to me that she’s not a very nice person.

When one subjectively looks at this issue, confirmation bias inevitably takes over from objective thought. But facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. The UK government's own terrorism watchdog found that police prioritised maintaining public order over applying the law, particularly when pro-Palestinian protests include chants of "death to the IDF", "Globalise the intifada", and "From the River to the Sea". The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, argued that failure to apply the law posed a national security risk, and that stirring up racial hatred is "a vital precursor offense to deal with some of the public hatred we've seen on our streets before it leads to violence or even terrorist violence." And for the avoidance of doubt, he was specifically referring to pro-Palestine marches, not Unite The Kingdom events. So this was not a vague or general statement, it was the UK government's most senior independent terrorism law expert making a direct, sustained, public case that police failure to enforce existing law at pro-Palestine marches represents an active national security threat with a trajectory toward terrorist violence. Those are objective facts though I doubt your rather obvious belief perseverance will allow you to consider them. policyexchange.org.uk/events/the-les…

If you actually cared even a smidge you would have by now arrested the organisers of the Hate march and proscribed Yaxley Lennon and his organisation ax terrorists. It’s not that you don’t know what is the right thing, you are just scared of the billionaires and Zionists who own the media and fund your campaigns.

Horrifying news from San Diego yesterday, where worshippers were attacked just days before Eid al-Adha. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the entire Muslim community in San Diego. I know British Muslims are feeling deep anxiety today, with this news coming just days after a march spread hatred on the streets of London. We have record levels of funding for protecting mosques in this country, but we must do more than build higher walls. It is incumbent on everyone, across society, to stand together in solidarity against hatred. I know the British people will do so today.

Sarcasm aside, Bishop Jwan Zhumbes is not seeking permanent residence in the UK nor does he intend to overstay his visa. He is a visiting Anglican bishop from Bukuru in Nigeria, who spoke about the persecution of Christians by the Islamist group Boko Haram. This was potentially a warning to the UK of what can happen if certain factions are allowed to grow without oversight. The 'warning' was probably futile. Whilst visiting Nigerian faith leaders and bishops frequently address UK lawmakers in Parliament to brief them on the scale of violence against their congregations, the UK government, like most Western governments, tend to use conflict-framing language when discussing violence in places like the Middle Belt of Nigeria, the Sahel, or parts of East Africa. This in turn tends to obscure the targeted religious persecution that is actually happening.

@judgementtim3 @EdwardJDavey That African is getting deported

Though smaller than last year, the Unite the Kingdom march over the weekend was still sickening. The resurgence of out-and-out racism in the UK, from demands for remigration of British Asians to Antisemitic slurs on placards at both demonstrations, demands we meet this moment.

I despair of you every time I see you post this kind of misinformed propaganda. I'm also pretty sure you have someone else posting on your behalf so you are probably kept cocooned in your misinformed self-righteous bubble. That be as it may, I place my comments here for those who actually believe in facts not fiction. The fact is, the vast majority of people in the Unite The Kingdom event were not racist or anti-semitic, they are feeling ignored by the government and alarmed by the direction of our country. Based on the available evidence, that was the overwhelming profile of most attendees. It is absurd to tar tens of thousands of people with the behaviour of a handful. That's exactly the kind of unfair generalisation you and Starmer are now infamous for, and if you stopped riding silly hobby horses (idiom intentional) you would know better. Regarding your comment on Islamophobia: criticising Islam as a political or religious system, particularly its more supremacist strands, is not the same as hating Muslims as individuals as your words infer. That distinction matters enormously and is routinely distorted or erased by people like yourself. The RAF veteran's story, is a powerful one and should be told. She, and tens of thousands of British people, deserve better than being constantly dismissed by you Mr Davey. It is inconceivable that tens of thousands of ordinary British citizens, worried for the future of what was once our green and pleasant land, are all racist. You have a mindset that would make an onion cry. I'd suggest you should be ashamed of yourself but I doubt your narcissism would know how.

Which "march"? A simple fact check tells me this is on the South Bank, near Stamford Street / Waterloo area, SOUTH of the Thames. The cleaner is apparently working under an underpass or covered section along Stamford Street on the South Bank (Lambeth side). The Unite the Kingdom rally on May 16, 2026, stayed NORTH of the Thames along a permitted route: Kingsway → Aldwych → Strand → Trafalgar Square → Whitehall → Parliament Square. It didn't cross bridges like Westminster Bridge.

An immigrant is cleaning their mess after the march yesterday And all they can say is "he's getting paid to" Pick up your own mess ya daft ungrateful sods!

There's no evidence that they were paid performers or actors or agitators for that matter. Multiple reports describe them as activists from Collectif Némésis who specifically travelled to London for the rally to stage this action. It was framed as a political statement on women's rights and freedom, not a paid entertainment gig. The OP frames it as "racism against Muslim women". As various responses have correctly point out, Islam is a religion and ideology with adherents from every ethnic group (Arabs, South Asians, Africans, White converts, etc.). Criticising its doctrines, practices or cultural impacts is not racial. Nor, by comparison, is criticising Christianity, or The Bruderhof. One can convert in or out of a religion, with race you can't. Regardless of your view on the tactic, it is activism by committed participants, not a paid skit.

@DrNeenaJha @onemoreday1966 Why give them any credit they deserve none These people were nothing but paid agitators there to create division & hate but they underestimated how far we have come as a tolerant country and we all need to nurture and safeguard that through education & tolerance all of us 🤝💪

Blatant open racism against Muslim women at the Far Right rally. Any words of condemnation from our PM or leaders?! No, not a peep There is a clear hierarchy of racism in this country that is shocking & undeniable.

In the UK this kind of stunt is recognised as satire/protest performance, not racism. In any case, you are misusing the term "racism". Their clear purpose with this stunt is to contrast full Islamic covering with 'Western freedom of dress and expression'. We have that in the UK, I'm surprised you haven't noticed. That aside, they are using irony and exaggeration to criticise veiling practices, especially the niqab, which a not insignificant number of peoples throughout the world view as a symbol of gender segregation, control, or incompatibility with open societies. Similar acts have been performed by activists in Europe to highlight women's rights issues under strict Islamist norms.

You need to rethink your prejudice. There are some who think that King Charles shows favouritism to Islam. There are some who think that Keir Starmer does the same. The fact is they both demonstrably do not favour whatever Zionist Master of the day you have conjured up in your mind. For instance... instagram.com/reels/DV8tarjD…

@DrNeenaJha Had it been orthodox jews women, then the whole Starmer government will be skinned alive by the Zionist Master, maybe including King Charles himself.

Disagreement is healthy though I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with in what I wrote. If you read my 2nd paragraph again, it's not far removed from what you just wrote. Here it is again for you convenience: "The real problem is the minority who deliberately farm this stuff combined with weak verification habits. If more people did their own fact checking, they'd soon discover that a lot of what is pushed on social media is at best misleading and at worst, disinformation. It doesn't make 90% of them liars or idiots."

@JamesConaghan8 I’d disagree. If you’re sharing and reposting something highly inflammatory without checking on its veracity you’re either doing it because you’re malicious or stupid.

I was almost persuading myself to start using Twitter again, and even concede it’s called X now, but so many people think that huge crowd photo of nowhere-near-London was actually from the march yesterday I can only conclude 90% of users here are either liars or thick as mince.

TBF, not everyone on X (or anywhere) blindly accepts what they see, plenty of people do cross-check, zoom in on details like architecture, flags, weather, or timestamps or reverse-image search before sharing. Either which way, I think it's a little harsh to tar everyone with the same brush, which was my point.

@JamesConaghan8 @davidmbarnett No the problem is people willingly accept what they see on X without questioning if it looks or sounds plausible.

Thank you for clarifying your OP. Would you agree with the following synopsis? Previously, Prevent received around 3,500 Islamist referrals a year, making up about 45% of all referrals. The number of Islamist referrals collapsed to around 1,500 once dozens of local authorities and other bodies adopted the looser definition of Islamophobia, with some arguing that cases which would previously have been categorised as Islamist referrals were instead being recorded under "no ideology." The Prevent figures show far-right extremism as a more prominent concern by referrals, yet reportedly, this is contradicted by prison statistics: of the 254 people in prison for terrorism and terrorism-connected offences, around 60% were convicted as Islamist terrorists. Again reportedly, this mismatch, where the programme's referral profile diverges so sharply from actual conviction and caseload data, is a genuine and legitimate policy concern, and has been raised by critics across the political spectrum who worry that Prevent's resources and attention may not be proportionate to the actual threat landscape.

I didn’t predict that people would misunderstand this post. My point is that we’re disproportionately focussing on the far-right when instead we should be focussing more on Islamists.

I work in counter-extremism and deliver prevent training. There are more referrals for far-right extremism than there are for Islamist extremism, despite Islamist terrorism being the larger threat both by number of terrors attacks and by MI5 caseload.

Grok just told me that the image in that post is a well-known aerial shot from Shakira's free concert on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. The event took place on Saturday night, May 2, 2026, as part of the "Todo Mundo no Rio" series, drawing an estimated 2 million people according to city officials. PS: Grok is not infallible - see the 20,000 estimate Grok gave earlier. Pure image-based counting is notoriously hard for AI in packed, aerial shots due to occlusion (people blocking each other), scale and perspective.

Hey @grok, since you’re the smartest AI, count the people in this picture and tell me how many there are.

@ejgallagherx x.com/London_W4/stat…

So you want to protect our women and children but you think it’s acceptable to take photos of random women on public transport? You’re a creep mate, an absolute creep.

Do you lot read from the same misinformed script or are you just deliberately duplicitous? The case against Farage rests mainly on older statements like the "NATO provoked Russia" argument. What those using this criticism forget, is that a parade of diplomats, military officials, and NATO leaders warned over the decades, that the alliance's eastward expansion was a fundamental source of Russian unhappiness and that it would provoke Russian hostility, or even spark a war. Even Joe Biden voiced such concerns at various points. Every one of them, including Farage, acknowledged that Russia's invasion is illegal and morally indefensible. The argument is about causation and strategic miscalculation by the West, not moral justification for Putin.

Is it still your view @Nigel_Farage - expressed more than once previously - that NATO provoked the invasion of Ukraine?

Nigel Farage, and therefore Reform UK, already stand against the dictator Putin. It is the constant harping back to older statements that his critics use to manipulate the truth of the matter and slur him. For instance, Nigel Farage said he disliked Putin as a person but admired him as a political operator because he's managed to take control of running Russia. The only bit that gets selectively edited by his critics is that he admires Putin. That is not the context of what he actually said. Point in question: when asked what he'd do if Russian aircraft entered allied airspace, without hesitation, he replied: "Gotta shoot them down". Also, his deputy Richard Tice described Putin as "the monstrous tyranny of that most evil villain". The case against Farage rests, as I said above, mainly on older statements like the "NATO provoked Russia" argument. What those using this criticism ignore, is the fact that a parade of diplomats, military officials and NATO leaders warned over the decades, that the alliance's eastward expansion was a fundamental source of Russian unhappiness and that it would provoke Russian hostility, or even spark a war. Even Joe Biden voiced such concerns at various points. Every one of them, including Farage, acknowledges that Russia's invasion is illegal and morally indefensible. The argument is about causation and strategic miscalculation by the West, not moral justification for Putin.

Because it shows we stand against the dictator Putin. We are not neutral in this fight, which is why we have sanctioned Russia. Why take it down if you think taking it down says nothing? If it was just ‘a flag’ and didnt symbolise out wider support then it would be nonsense. But it isn’t because we’re doing a lot more.

So, yesterday, there was a: 🇬🇧 Union Flag flying outside Essex County Council, an Essex County Flag, and 🇺🇦 the Ukrainian Flag - in a show of support for our friends in Ukraine who were illegally invaded by Putin’s🇷🇺 As one of their first acts, Reform Essex County Councillors have decided to remove the Ukraine flag Why do that? Whose side are they on? I’m not at all sure this ‘signal’ is what people thought they were voting for when they voted in the local elections

I do. Firstly, Britain's security is directly tied to European stability. If Russia succeeds in conquering Ukraine, it emboldens further aggression toward NATO's eastern flank, countries the UK is treaty-bound to defend. Stopping Russian expansionism now, at lower cost, is preferable to confronting it later at far greater cost: think lives lost. Secondly, the UK was one of the signatories of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees. Abandoning Ukraine would signal that such agreements are worthless and would undermine the global norms that protect Britain's own security and interests.

@RicHolden Most British people don't give a toss about Ukraine, Richard.

Another disingenuous and downright duplicitous post about Reform. Firstly, Reform UK does not promote Putin. That is a slur that is demonstrably false. Secondly, the Ukrainian flag is to be given a new home after discussions with the local Ukrainian community. Councillor Peter Harris, leader of the Council, stated that replacing the Ukrainian flag "does not diminish the support and generosity that Essex residents have shown the people of Ukraine since 2022" and "that support will continue". Read that again, it might sink in: "that support will continue". Here it is for those who don't know. Reform's national policy on flags states: Only the Union Flag, national flags (e.g., St George's Cross for England), county flags (e.g., Essex) or armed forces flags, are allowed on buildings under their control. Foreign flags, are not permitted. There is nothing personal about it, and certainly no hostility towards Ukraine and most certainly no support for Putin. It's a matter of a national policy. You need to get a life, or at the very least, learn to fact check before posting potentially libelous misinformation.

I’m proud of UK leadership on Ukraine - under the last Government, and stepped up with this Labour Government. But there is nothing to be proud of by removing Ukrainian flags and promoting Putin as a leader - like Reform does. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

You are totally wrong. Reform is not openly hostile to Ukraine. Firstly, the Ukrainian flag is to be given a new home after discussions with the local Ukrainian community. So much for your "openly hostile" characterisation. Further to that, Councillor Peter Harris, leader of the Council, emphasised that replacing the Ukrainian flag "does not diminish the support and generosity that Essex residents have shown the people of Ukraine since 2022" and "that support will continue". Read that again, it might sink in: "that support will continue". Secondly: here it is for those who don't know. Reform's national policy on flags states: Only the Union Flag, national flags (e.g., St George's Cross for England), county flags (e.g., Essex) or armed forces flags, are allowed on buildings under their control. Foreign flags, are not permitted. There is nothing personal or hostile towards Ukraine. That's just the usual hyperbole from click baiters like yourself. SMH.

Reform being so openly hostile to Britain’s support for Ukraine is one of the most off-putting things about them. Flying the flag of a free and sovereign Ukraine is a mark of our upholding their right to exist as a nation in the face of the murder, rape and pillage of Putin’s unprovoked invasion. Doing so does not detract from or diminish Britain’s national interest. It enhances it. We have a clear national interest in the defence of Europe, and not emboldening further Russian aggression.