Last night the Telegraph revealed that the Crypto billionaire Ben Delo has handed a further £36 million to Reform UK, on top of the £8 million he’s already given to the party.

Let’s just remind ourselves of who and what Delo is.

Four years ago Delo pled guilty to what was described as “willfully” breaching US anti-money laundering laws with his Bitmex firm, which was described as being “in effect a money laundering platform”.

Prosecutors accused Delo of being the “leader of a criminal enterprise” who knew that his platform had become a “magnet for money laundering and criminal activity”.

After pleading guilty, Delo received a 30 month probation and $10 million fine, before later being let off the hook by Donald Trump.

However, Delo isn’t the only figure associated with crypto money laundering to bankroll Farage’s party.

Here’s how the corrupt crypto industry bought up Reform UK.

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I returned from my holiday this week to find that my accreditation for Reform conference had been revoked and that I would be banned from attending.

It’s the second year in a row that I’ve been banned by the party, and follows the Conservatives also banning me from attending their annual conference last year.

Neither party gave any explanation for why they chose to ban me, nor would they respond to any further enquiries about it.

So what’s really going on here and why is my attendance at these events something they appear so determined to prevent?

Here’s what really lays behind it.

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Anyone reading a newspaper, or tuning into a news show this week will have been met with a wall of coverage about Prince Harry and Meghan moving back to the UK.

This coverage, which has spread right across the media, from the tabloids to ‘respectable’ outlets like BBC Newsnight, has continued despite there being little obvious public interest in the story.

And I use that term quite literally. The public simply aren’t interested.

Asked by pollsters YouGov this week how much they cared about the story, just three per cent of respondents said they cared a “great deal” about it, compared to 87% who said they either didn’t care at all, or not very much.

In other words it was a complete non-story, which next to nobody cared about, yet it absolutely dominated the news this week anyway.

The same could be said about the Jason Arday story.

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You could tell how bad the Clacton by-election result was for Nigel Farage by the fact that he immediately went into hiding after it.

Reform UK cancelled not just one, but two victory speeches by Farage - at the count itself and at a planned rally afterwards.

His non-appearance at the result itself was particularly startling.

After all, this was a by-election that Farage had staked his entire political career upon and yet he couldn’t even face turning up in person to hear the result.

Even his excuses for not appearing quickly fell apart.

After he initially claimed that the police had advised him of a “credible threat” against him, Essex Police immediately released a statement making it clear that this was a lie.

Yet it was his subsequent statement that he didn’t want to be “demeaned and humiliated” by standing alongside all the other candidates that was the most revealing.

So was this by-election really a stunning victory for Farage, as he claimed, or was it actually a demeaning “humiliation” for him, as he then admitted?

Here’s why the Clacton result and his extraordinary response to it has inadvertently shown exactly how Farage’s career is now going to end.

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The biggest failure of Keir Starmer’s premiership was his refusal to effectively take on the rise of the far right across the UK.

Andy Burnham now risks repeating that same failure.

In the past few days a large violent racist mob has taken to the streets of Thetford, Norfolk, where they have attempted to drag migrants and refugees from their homes, whilst calling for them to “have their f**king heads chopped off”.

At the same time, journalists attempting to report on the violence have been bombarded with rocks, whilst police seeking to stop them have been attacked and bitten.

Now you might expect that three nights of such unimaginable horror, taking place on mainland Britain in 2026 would have elicited a serious and punitive response from our Government and all of the main opposition parties.

If so, you will be disappointed.

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Last December I predicted that the wheels would soon fall off the Nigel Farage project and boy is that prediction now starting to pan out.

Last night Reform UK lost the Greater Manchester by-election by a landslide 30-point margin against Labour.

This is the fourth previously winnable by-election that Farage’s party has now lost in a row and it is by some margin the worst of the lot.

Their latest heavy defeat comes as polls this week also showed a collapse in both Reform and Farage’s ratings, amid multiple investigations into his personal finances.

So is the Reform leader now done and dusted as a political force, or could there still be a route back for Britain’s great political survivor?

Here’s what I predict will happen next.

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I spent the past two days at the Womad Festival in Wiltshire where Byline Times were running the ‘World of Words’ tent.

One of our speakers was Green Party leader Zack Polanski.

For the past year Polanski and the Greens have been locked in what he described as a “toxic” fight with his Labour opponents, who he has insisted he will “replace” as the main party on the left of British politics.

Yet with Andy Burnham now in Number 10, Polanski appears to be subtly shifting his approach.

In an expansive and personal interview with our editor Hardeep Matharu, Polanski said he now has “hope” for a better and less “toxic” relationship with a more left wing Labour party under Burnham.

“I do think Andy Burnham is on the left of Keir Starmer, and I think it would be churlish to pretend any other way…” he said strikingly, adding that he now believed there could be a “reset” in relations between the two parties on issues like electoral reform and the cost of living.

So is Polanski right to sense a shift in our politics under Burnham, or are we all being set up again for another great disappointment?

Here’s why I believe there are now at least some good grounds for optimism.

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A new Survation poll out this week put Labour level with Reform for the first time in over 14 months.

It comes as a series of expanding scandals continue to engulf Nigel Farage and as a much more popular Labour Prime Minister prepares to enter Downing Street.

So is this the beginning of the end for the Farageists, or could a decision about to be taken by Andy Burnham mean that Labour somehow clinches defeat from the jaws of victory?

Here’s why the coming days are set to be the most consequential in British politics since the general election.

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Nigel Farage’s entire political career has been based on what is essentially a confidence trick.

This trick has involved convincing a certain section of the population that he alone has the interests of “the people” at heart.

In reality the complete opposite is the case.

Far from working on behalf of the common man, Farage has always put his own interests first.

Instead of representing his constituents in Parliament, where he has taken part in just a handful of votes this year, we now learn that Farage has instead been personally enriching himself, whilst seeking to hide the sources of that enrichment from the public eye.

So will Farage’s desperate by-election gambit work, or has the confidence trick he has long pulled over the people of Britain finally run its course?

Here’s what I now expect to happen.

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They say all political careers end in failure and after more than 30 years in politics, many in Westminster are starting to question whether Nigel Farage’s own career might soon meet a similar fate.

Questions about the Reform leader’s future are becoming common currency in SW1.

Whispers about his health, combined with fears about the ongoing parliamentary investigations into his finances have added to growing suspicions that he could soon be looking for a route out of politics altogether.

So is time really running out for the Reform leader? Here’s what I’m hearing.

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What kind of Prime Minister will Andy Burnham be? That’s the question being anxiously asked in Westminster right now by people who stand to either gain, or lose, a lot depending upon the answer.

At the heart of the question is the issue of who he will choose as his Chancellor.

For a long time it had been accepted wisdom that Burnham would appoint the former Labour leader, and current Energy Ed Miliband, to the job, should he ever become PM.

Miliband is a former Treasury staffer and a highly effective operator, who has pushed through controversial, but transformative plans, for a clean energy revolution in the UK.

His appointment as Chancellor would signal that Burnham is genuine about his pledge to transform how politics works in the UK.

Yet ever since Burnham won the Makerfield by-election there has been a concerted campaign to prevent Miliband’s appointment.

This week the Times - the Westminster establishment paper of choice - gave a full account of what they describe as the “battle” to block Miliband.

“It is an unholy alliance. Bankers, union leaders and some of Andy Burnham’s most senior allies have joined forces with a single objective: stopping Ed Miliband becoming chancellor” they reported.

So what’s really going on here and is Burnham really going to give into those forces now fighting to stop Miliband from entering Number 11?

Here’s what I now expect to happen.

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Peter was almost alone among election experts to predict a big Burnham win in this contest, suggesting that the pollsters and pundits could have been greatly underestimating the scale of his support in the constituency.

Unfortunately we suffered some technical problems meaning we lost our host Adrian Goldberg for most of the discussion, but Peter provided some fascinating insights into what is really happening with the big shifts we are now seeing in British electoral politics.

You can listen to our full discussion by clicking the video above, or read my full take on the result here.

Regular readers of this newsletter will know that I have been predicting for some time now that the wheels would soon fall off the Nigel Farage project.

Reform’s heavy defeat last night in the Makerfield by-election, which follows similarly heavy defeats in Gorton and Denton and Caerphilly, shows that when offered a choice between the politics of rage and riots, and the politics of hope and unity, voters are increasingly tending to pick the latter over the former.

Of course the fact that more than 40% of the electorate in Makerfield still backed parties of the far-right should alarm us.

That so many British people are prepared to back a party which just encouraged and defended racist pogroms on our streets, shows the danger that Farage and his fellow travellers still pose.

But after a long period in which the consensus in Westminster has been that Britain is inevitably heading towards a Reform Government, today’s result is another reminder that an alternative future is still there for the taking.

Here’s what I think the result tells us about what now awaits.

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This week hundreds of masked men took to the streets of Belfast to burn down houses and terrorise the families of ethnic minorities and migrants.

The attacks were highly organised, with prominent public figures, including the richest man in the world, openly promoting and glorying in the violence online.

Yet despite all this widespread criminality and terror, just 19 individuals have so far been arrested, with multiple politicians and commentators openly defending those who took to the streets.

By contrast a largely peaceful demonstration outside Woolwich Crown court on Friday, against the conviction of four Palestine Action protesters, led to a total of 107 arrests.

In all cases those arrested had merely held up a placard, worn a t-shirt, or delivered a chant in support of the group.

They did not burn down a building, they did not throw a brick, they did not terrorise a family from their home.

Yet all of these people have been arrested and branded as terrorists, with barely a whisper uttered in their defence.

The contrast between how these two groups are now being treated is stark.

Here’s what it tells us about where the real “two tiers” in British justice, politics and journalism now really lie.

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Since Nigel Farage called for “pure cold rage” in response to Henry Nowak’s murder, we have seen Nazis riot in Southampton and an actual racist pogrom on the streets of Belfast.

As I wrote for Byline Times today, none of this should surprise us.

The global far-right have spent the past two years desperately trying to incite violence on the streets of Britain.

Now they’re finally getting what they’ve fought for.

Yet while both the Government and opposition today condemned the violence, and insisted that it will “not be tolerated”, neither of them appear to be doing anything to actually stop it from spreading further.

Asked by this newsletter whether the Prime Minister plans to take any action against Elon Musk or his X platform, for helping to incite the violence, his spokesman was unable to point to any plans to do so.

Asked again whether the PM even plans to stop posting on X himself, his spokesman told me that there were “no changes” to the Government’s existing social media policy.

So what’s really going on here and why does the Government appear so unwilling to actually act against those seeking to literally set our communities on fire?

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Last year I revealed the BBC’s plans to alter its “story selection” in order to win over the “trust” of Reform voters.

All the evidence from this week suggests that this plan has now been fully implemented.

As Nigel Farage called for “pure cold rage” on the streets of Britain, and far-right thugs responded by lighting fires and assaulting police officers in Southampton, our national broadcaster has also stepped into line.

Across a series of on-air discussions and articles, the BBC sought to examine and “debate” Farage’s claims of institutionalised anti-white “two tier policing” in the UK.

To be clear these claims are completely without evidence.

As official figures and external inquiries have repeatedly shown, if there is “two tier policing” in the UK then it is non-white people who are firmly in the second tier.

Three years ago the Baroness Casey inquiry found overwhelming evidence of institutional racism towards non-white people in the Metropolitan police, whilst in Hampshire, where Henry Nowak was murdered, official statistics show that the police are over five times more likely to stop and search black people than white people.

On every measure it is overwhelmingly clear that non-whites are much more likely to be stopped, detained, disbelieved and mistreated by British police officers than white people.

Yet out national broadcaster has spent the entire week giving oxygen to the far-right fantasy that the complete opposite is the case.

So what is really going on here, and why is the BBC playing right into Nigel Farage’s hands?

Here’s what I think is going on.

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Has anyone seen Nigel Farage? I only ask because the normally omnipresent politician appears to have gone to ground.

The Reform UK leader claims to be campaigning for the party in the Makerfield by-election yet the last promoted campaign activity by him there was now ten days ago.

During that time he has taken part in no major media interviews, or public appearances, other than a series of self-filmed interactions with his by-election candidate Robert Kenyon.

Meanwhile his last appearance in Parliament was 17 days ago, for the King’s Speech, yet it appears to have only been a fleeting visit.

A quick look at parliamentary records reveals that it has now been almost 11 weeks since he last voted in the House of Commons, with Farage reportedly still yet to hold a single in-person surgery for his constituents, some two years after being elected.

The man who said that you could “bet your life” that he would take his job as MP for Clacton seriously, appears to have gone completely absent without leave.

So what’s really going on here and what is the Reform UK leader hiding from?

Here’s what I think has happened.

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“British politics is tired,” Andy Burnham told his supporters on Friday, as he launched his campaign to become MP for Makerfield.

“It needs a new script.”

It’s hard to disagree with this assessment. Unfortunately it’s becoming just as hard to work out exactly what he wants to change about it.

Because, despite repeatedly promising major “change” from the agenda of the current Government, Burnham has so far:

• Backed Keir Starmer’s red lines on Brexit

• Backed Shabana Mahmood’s hostile immigration policies

• Backed Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules

• Backed the Government’s illiberal trans policies

Now it is perfectly possible to argue for, or against, each of these positions.

But what you can’t argue is that they in any way resembles a new “script” for British politics.

So does Andy Burnham actually plan to meaningfully change how our national politics is done, or is he just planning to be Keir Starmer, but with a Northern accent?

Here’s where I think we are.

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“I cannot be bought,” Nigel Farage told The Sun this week.

As political lies go, this has to be right up there as the biggest.

In recent years Nigel Farage has received more funding from big corporate interests than any politician in our history.

Just last week it was revealed that he had secretly trousered £5 million from the crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne, on top of the more than £9 million he had already handed Reform UK.

Harborne is not the only one filling Farage’s coffers.

Earlier this year the Reform leader was reprimanded by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner for failing to declare more than £300,000 of payments from GB News, Google, X and the Cameo app.

This was on top of the more than £2 million he had previously banked for corporate speeches, hospitality and his work promoting gold bars.

Because the truth is that, despite his many denials, Farage is by some distance the most bought and paid for politician in the UK.

And as he crawls ever closer towards power, his funders are starting to get more than their money’s worth in return.

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Last month I sat down inside City Hall to interview London’s mayor Sadiq Khan.

Our interview, which we publish in full today at Byline Times took place almost ten years to the day since the last time I had sat down with Khan during his first campaign to become mayor.

Back then Khan was facing what he described as a “dog whistle” campaign from the Conservative party, which sought to play on racist fears about electing a Muslim man as the mayor of London.

Ten years and three elections later and in some ways little has changed. The Conservative party is still trying to profit from anti-Muslim sentiment about Khan, recently launching an attack on his hosting of Iftar celebrations in Trafalgar Square, whilst at the same time gradually losing public support in the overwhelmingly liberal city that London remains.

During our conversation Khan spoke about the racist attacks he has received from among others the US President, and how Big Tech algorithms are transforming our politics for the worst.

We also talk about his record as mayor and whether he’s actually succeeded in governing as quite the bold city-defining mayor that he claims.

As I’ve written on these pages before, I believe Khan has been underestimated by his political opponents. There are good reasons why he has won three terms as mayor and it is not because, as the Conservative party appears to suggest, that the capital city has become lost to ‘dominating’ Islamist forces.

As I wrote shortly before Keir Starmer became Prime Minister, there is much the Labour leader could and should have learnt from his London counterpart.

Perhaps if he had followed that advice, rather than that pushed by his former chief adviser Morgan McSweeney, the party would not have just suffered one of its worst ever results in the capital and the country at large.

You can read my full interview with Sadiq Khan here.

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