New PM, Old Lobbyist

In this week’s issue

Revealed: Lobby firm run by Burnham’s top aide had extensive access to government – but who did it work for?
New law aims to protect Indigenous women and girls in Argentina from centuries-old sexual abuse
‘I was kidnapped by the Israeli navy en route to Gaza’
As Iran-US talks advance, old certainties about Israel and the region's security are beginning to fracture
They survived war, torture and persecution. What happened when they arrived in the UK is troubling
In case you missed it: How Palantir exploited lucrative corporate loophole to slash its UK tax bill
Remembering the tech pioneer who changed modern computing – and quietly helped protect independent journalism

Is it too early to be critical of Andy Burnham’s tenure as PM? At least let the man become prime minister, I argued with openDemocracy reporter Ethan Shone this week. Shone’s defence is our lead story this week: Meet Flint Global, the lobbying firm with a secret client list, whose former CEO is now Burnham’s chief of staff.

Elsewhere, as Israel continues to deny the media access to Gaza and international coalitions seek new ways to reach the besieged and traumatised Palestinians, we bring you a first-hand account of a Sumud flotilla activist who was kidnapped and tortured by Israeli forces in international waters. Paul Rogers takes an 80-year overview of Israel’s security doctrine to warn that many in the international community now see the country as a rogue actor in the region.

Also in this issue, Florencia Galarza reports on how an Indigenous women’s movement in Argentina won a major legislative victory, and Vicky Taylor reveals the latest cruelty visited upon asylum seekers in the UK by home secretary Shabana Mahmood.

We’re also re-upping openDemocracy’s investigation into Palantir’s tax affairs. The company has refused to answer any of our questions despite repeated requests for comment, but Palantir UK’s CEO, Louis Mosley, took time out from his busy schedule to describe our investigation as “politically motivated” in a post on X.

Finally, do read openDemocracy founder Anthony Barnett’s moving tribute to David Potter. Potter, an industrial, physicist and philanthropist, created the world’s first successful digital personal assistant in the 1980s and was a longtime supporter of oD.

A massive thank you to the hundreds of readers who donated to our tech accounting campaign. If you value independent investigative journalism, sign up to support us!

Aman Sethi, Editor-in-Chief

"Politically motivated?" No. Just independent.

When a tech giant's CEO attacks our reporting instead of answering our questions, we know we’ve hit a nerve. Exposing corporate tax loopholes and the secret client lists of lobbyists requires fearless journalism. We don't have dark-money backers or corporate clients to please, we answer only to you. If you want us to keep standing up to the spin, please help fund our work.

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Weekly Poll

Will Burnham's No. 10 North succeed in devolving power from Westminster?

Reader Comments

I have rarely been so alarmed and troubled as I have been over recent developments centring upon and using/abusing the evidence and the trial judge’s rulings in the Elbit Supplies case. And that is after forty seven years as a solicitor advocate and later as a higher court advocate.

I may be no longer practising but I support the legal challenges to this and I shall continue to work on Parliamentarians and other influencers in an effort to persuade them of the essential wrongness of all this.

Back in 1994 Peter (now Lord) Hain would have been convicted and almost certainly sent to prison and been branded a terrorist for having engineered and participated in direct action over apartheid. I defy anyone to argue that in some way those actions would have avoided censure and condign punishment. How can that be right?
–MalcomFowler

President Lyndon B Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act in a ceremony at the White House, Washington DC, July 2, 1964. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

This week in history

The US Civil Rights Act • 2 July 1964

President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on 2 July 1964, outlawing discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin. It was the product of a decade of mass civil disobedience - the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56), the Greensboro sit-ins (1960), the Freedom Rides (1961), the Birmingham campaign (1963) and the March on Washington. The Act did not end racism, but it did begin to dismantle its legal architecture.

From the archive this week we have a piece revealing the hidden history of Black and Asian civil rights campaigners in Britain, whose own civil rights movement was largely written out of official history.

What we're reading

Hinterlands, Hannah Lucinda Smith

From Syria’s brutal civil war to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s “hinterlands” give us clues on the forces that are shaping the region, according to this fascinating read by journalist Hannah Lucinda Smith. She takes the reader to places that may not be officially recognised or which have contested borders, including Transnistria, Northern Cyprus, the Republic of Srpska, even to occupied Crimea (which she visited in 2019). These are places where powers such as Russia and Turkey like to flex their muscles and influence – where oligarchs launder their money, where new technologies such as crypto are changing the economic and political landscapes, and where long-simmering tensions erupt having been stoked by powerful interference. But they are also places where people live, negotiating complex identities forged from war and displacement.

Sian Norris, senior investigations reporter