Eliot Higgins

@eliothiggins.bsky.social

156813 Followers 4406 Following

Founder and creative director of Bellingcat and director of Bellingcat Productions BV. Author of We Are Bellingcat.

Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller made clear there must be no retreat: “One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pre-textual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence… When the leftist — who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordinary notion of justice — protests that we are violating his rights, understand the he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has perpetrated against him. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.”
Earlier today Ann Widdecombe's management announced her death aged 78 - they did not say where, when or how she died Devon and Cornwall Police this afternoon confirmed a murder investigation has been launched following "the suspicious death" of Widdecombe at her home in Dartmoor In a statement, police said officers were called to an address in Haytor, Dartmoor by the ambulance service at around 11:40 BST on 9 July Widdecombe was "located deceased" in her home and had "sustained serious injuries", police say Detective Chief Inspector Ilona Rosson said the are searching for the person responsible - they believe it "to be a white male"
Jenrick describes standards committee inquiry into Farage as 'kangaroo court' Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, has joined Nigel Farage, his party leader, in accusing the standards committee of being biased against him. (See 11.09am.) Jenrick described the committee as “a bit of a kangaroo court” – using a phrase that Reform UK has been using in private, and one that led to the privileges committee toughening the penalty it imposed on Boris Johnson after he accused it of being a kangaroo court. Speaking on his LBC phone-in this morning, Jenrick said: [Farage is] holding the byelection because it was inevitable there was going to be one. All the political party leaders have totally prejudged the situation. Kemi Badenoch put out a tweet saying that they wouldn’t field the candidate in this byelection, but they would in the next one. Well, how does she know there’s even going to be another one? She’s obviously hoping, planning for there to be one, and so Nigel, not unreasonably, concluded that it’s a bit of a kangaroo court. It’s a stitch up. They’re going to call a byelection at some point. So for his sake, but also for his constituents’ sake, let’s just get it done. Jenrick was referring to the possibility that the standards inquiry into Farage will lead to him being suspended from the Commons for at least 10 days, which would mean a recall byelection could take place. On LBC Jenrick also claimed it would be pointless to have a subsequent recall byelection in Clacton after the one in August. He said:
According to Christian Calgie, who interviewed Farage for the Mail, Reform UK sources are describing the committee as a “kangaroo court”.
In his Daily Mail interview, Nigel Farage also claimed that the Commons standards committee, which will impose a punishment if Farage is found to have broken Commons rules, was biased against him. He said: There are people on that standards committee who will judge me, who have reported me for Islamophobia. It is going to be a completely subjective judgment. There’s no objectivity in this. According to Christian Calgie, who interviewed Farage for the Mail, Reform UK sources are describing the committee as a “kangaroo court”. Allegations about MPs breaking parliamentary rules are investigated by Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. He has confirmed that he is investigating the £5m donation. On Tuesday Farage implied undeclared donations from George Cottrell were also being investigated, and Greenberg is also being urged to investigate claims Farage broke lobbying rules. In his speech on Tuesday Farage implied the standards inquiry was evidence of the establishment using “foul means” to defeat him. But this is his most explicit attack on the standards committee – and it implies that Farage now believes he will be found guilty of a serious breach of Commons rules. It is also a move that could see him facing a harsher penalty. The committee regularly imposes harsher punishments on MPs who have not cooperated with or respected the disciplinary process. In a case with some parallels, Boris Johnson condemned the privileges committee as a “kangaroo court” before it published its final report into him. The committee (comprised of MPs who also serve on the standards committee) said Johnson’s criticism amounted to “a further significant contempt” and this contributed to it proposing a 90-day suspension – which it was not able to enforce because Johnson resigned as an MP first.
Gabriel Pogrund, the Sunday Times Insight editor, has got a follow-up in today’s Times to his story yesterday about Nigel Farage not declaring gifts and benefits provided by George Cottrell, a crypto entrepreneur who has previously been convicted of fraud. In a story with George Greenwood, Pogrund says Cottrell “handed out a business card printed with the Reform UK logo and Nigel Farage’s official email address, despite having no formal role in the party.” A Reform UK spokesperson told the Times: George Cottrell is an unpaid volunteer with no formal role at Reform UK, like many thousands of party members. The business card was designed to help donors or other members of the public easily get in touch with Nigel Farage’s office. It was not intended to suggest any formal position or authority. Mr Cottrell has never held an official role within the party.
In line with that, a recent BBC “Panorama” investigation traced a network of “patriotic” British anti-immigration accounts—pages with names like “Great British People”—that claim to be based in Yorkshire but actually operate from south Asia and the Gulf. Many of these had posted on entirely different subjects before pivoting to anti-immigration content because it drew more engagement and so more advertising revenue. People with no stake in our common life are profiting from deepening its fractures. Such content can give people a sense of common cause, but it is an ersatz belonging, one that depends entirely on the construction of a shared enemy.
Trust, though, has not disappeared; it has migrated, to online influencers, with whom people form parasocial relationships, and to new in-groups built on shared identity, often mobilised against a particular other. That is where foreign interference and disinformation thrive, because online we make ourselves far more open to manipulation by distant actors. As Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, put it, anger and hatred are the easiest way to grow the online platform.
The best way of fighting back is not just for users to be educated in how to treat disinformation critically but to explain how the disinformation is generated. It is important not only that the BBC and other trusted news sources correct stories which are misinformation but that they show users how to spot this misinformation. For instance, the Southport riots last year were instigated in large part by a huge uptick in social media falsely claiming that the attacker was an asylum seeker. As part of the BBC’s Bitesize series, “Other Side of the Story” explained where the false posts had come from and how they had been amplified by the manosphere’s Andrew Tate. By linking in search the keywords “Southport”, “Muslim” and “asylum”, these posts were given emotional charge and a much higher online engagement.
I turn first to disinformation, which I agree is a real problem. Foreign state actors clearly engage in it; social media and AI make the spread of disinformation easier and cheaper than ever before. The Government must reflect this threat in their defence and the security of the United Kingdom. As real and problematic as disinformation is, and indeed is other foreign state activity described by noble Lords today, it is not why we are experiencing such low levels of public trust in Parliament, politicians, traditional media and many of our other institutions. Disinformation is not pulling people away, as I think we might sometimes find easier to believe. If we are to earn people’s trust again, we must understand that what we are doing is pushing Toggle showing location of them away from us to look for something new, whether that is different sources of information, political parties or places of solace.
The Alan Turing Institute’s Centre for Emerging Technology and Security has monitored AI disinformation across more than 100 national elections. Domestic political actors created significant portions of misleading AI content. Threat actors embedded features of verified news sources to make fabrication harder to debunk. The tools get cheaper and faster with every cycle. Full Fact Report 2026 identifies the most insidious development: confusion has become the strategy—not one false claim, but sufficient uncertainty that trust in all information breaks down and citizens disengage from the ballot box entirely.
Donald Trump Truth Social post "Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it? Ask yourself this simple question, “DO YOU THINK THAT OBUMA OR SLEEPY JOE BIDEN COULD HAVE DONE IT?” THE ANSWER IS NO!"
Two versions of The Jewish Chronicle front page, one marked Real and one marked Fake, demonstrating how a Russian disinformation op has altered the page.
Eliot Higgins Bellingcat founder and investigative journalist 878 strength · Top 2% Qwen3 8B says Investigative journalist and founder of the YouTube channel 'Bellingcat', known for exposing global events through digital forensics.
Last night, our long-range sanctions once again reached the Moscow region – for the second time this week, the Moscow oil refinery was hit. Targets were also struck in the Rostov region and in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. This is a fully justified response to Russian attacks on our cities and communities, and another important result of our warriors’ work against facilities that sustain Russia’s war machine. I thank our Defense and Security Forces of Ukraine for their coordinated efforts – the Security Service of Ukraine, the Unmanned Systems Forces, the Special Operations Forces, Defense Intelligence, and our missile brigade for their precision. In recent days, all of our partners have noted the precision and effectiveness of our mid-range strikes and long-range sanctions. It is time the war ended, and Russia must take the necessary steps in diplomacy.
1 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles. 2 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs. 3 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent. 4 — Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.