84-year old retired priest Sue Parfitt has been repeatedly arrested for breaking counter-terror law by holding signs to protest the proscription of Palestine Action. Today, she went further than ever before, vocally expressing support for the group, and encouraging the police arresting her to join her in that support. She was arrested under section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000, a criminal offence that carries a sentence of up to 14-years. She told Novara Media why she’ll continue to break the law.
Palantir, the US spytech firm accused of abetting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, enjoys lavish tax breaks on UK profits that are already derived from taxpayers’ money, an analysis by openDemocracy has found.
The company has been awarded at least £670m in UK public contracts in recent years. That includes a £330m deal to manage sensitive NHS data, signed despite the fact Palantir's co-founder Peter Thiel has expressed disdain for publicly funded healthcare.
Those contracts have helped make the UK Palantir’s second-largest market by revenue, with 2024 pre-tax profits of £25.3m.
But its effective UK tax rate that year was only £2m, or 8%, far lower than the norm of 25% paid by firms with profits above £250,000. In 2023 it was even less, at 4.7%, and in 2022 it was 4.2%.
For 2025, Companies House filings suggest Palantir paid less than £820,000 in cash tax in the UK, less than it paid in Korea, Japan, France and Germany.
The low rate was due a structured arrangement that limits the amount of profits recognised in the UK, as well as a rule that awards large tax breaks to firms that compensate their employees with stock instead of cash, openDemocracy reported.
The report said the nature of filings made it difficult to assess the total amount of tax breaks Palantir has received, but by 2022 alone it had accumulated £230m in tax relief from what it called “employee share acquisition relief”.
“When profitable companies are paying very little tax, especially when much of their revenues derive from taxpayers' money itself, then it's important to ask why,” Mike Lewis, director of TaxWatch, told openDemocracy.
“Is it because tax incentives and tax breaks are poorly targeted? Or is it because companies are shifting profits in ways that our tax system is supposed to counteract?”
Zohran Mamdani has taken on establishment Democrats across New York primaries – and won with candidates that are anti-ICE and critical of Israel.
On Novara Live, @MaloneBarry says it’s “huge” that candidates to the left of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could win places in congress.
Andy Burnham, Britain's next prime minister, voted in favour of home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s authoritarian immigration bill last night.
He did so even after more than 80 Labour backbenchers wrote to warn him that the party is “losing progressive voters” due to Mahmood’s authoritarian stance.
The bill means successful asylum seekers, once they start earning, will be charged up to £10k for any accommodation and financial support they received while waiting for their claims to be processed. People awaiting a decision on their asylum claim in the UK are generally not allowed to work, meaning they have little choice but to accept state help.
Rights groups have condemned the policy as an “extra tax on refugees” fleeing war, torture and persecution. Child asylum seekers whose claims aren’t resolved until after they turn 18 will also be liable.
The immigration and asylum bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons with 264 votes to 90 on Monday evening, with 14 Labour MPs rebelling.
The new legislation will make it easier for the government to deport people seeking asylum in the UK by tightening the application of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – which protects the right to private and family life – in order to make it more difficult to appeal asylum decisions.
It will replace immigration judges with a new system of independent adjudicators in an attempt to speed up decision-making and cut backlog. However, Amnesty International criticised the move as “the first time the system has been made less independent and less professional”.
Apsana Begum, MP for Poplar and Limehouse, posted on X that she had voted against the bill because its provisions are “performative and cruel”.
Mahmood announced further amendments to the bill on Monday that included plans to allow the deportation of long-term Commonwealth citizens convicted of serious crimes – like the leader of the Rochdale grooming gang.
Burnham officially secured the Labour leadership on Monday after receiving an extra 27 nominations from MPs. His total is now 349, meaning no other candidate can reach the 81 needed to enter a leadership contest.
