I have drafted a Preamble I believe our Founding Fathers should have adopted as the opening statement of the Australian Constitution in 1901. We should vote on it (or a better version) at a Referendum to be held on the same day as Federal Election 2028 so that future Parliaments are required to uphold the …
Montreal, Canada — The United States has loomed large over Canada’s upcoming election, with concerns over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats dominating much of the campaign.
But for many Canadians, another topic has also been front-of-mind in the lead-up to the vote on April 28: Israel’s war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“This is a priority issue for many Canadians,” said Dania Majid, a Palestinian community advocate and lawyer based in Toronto, in an interview with Truthout. “We are not detached from what is happening in Palestine.”
Last month, a survey commissioned by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) found that 55 percent of Canadian voters backed a ban on weapons exports to Israel as the war in Gaza dragged on.
The free voter ID scheme is a proven failure, campaigners from Unlock Democracy say, as new figures show a dire take-up on applications to the scheme just before the local elections.
Official figures show fewer than 3% of voters deterred from voting at the 2024 general election by voter ID laws have applied under the government scheme.
Voter ID applications: bottomed out for the local elections
Survey data from immediately after the 2024 general election found 4% of those who did not vote (approximately 777,000 potential voters) cited voter ID rules as the reason. But by the deadline on Wednesday 23 April, the number of applications for a Voter Authority Certificate (VAC) since the general election had barely surpassed 20,000.
Indeed, since the free ID scheme was launched in January 2023, only 234,000 applications have been made.
Compared with the local elections in 2023 and 2024, numbers for voter ID applications are also way down.
Since 1 March 2025, on average 170 VAC applications have been made each day, compared to almost 650 in the same period last year and over 1,100 in the run-up to the 2023 local elections, the first elections at which the scheme was in place.
Tom Brake, director of Unlock Democracy, commented:
The free voter ID scheme has utterly failed. More than two years after it was launched, most of the people who need ID still don’t have one.
What’s so frustrating is how unnecessary this all is. As Angela Rayner has acknowledged, cases of voter fraud – the problem which voter ID is supposed to address – are few and far between.
Out of 58 million votes cast across three elections in 2019, there were only 33 allegations of the type of voter fraud that the voter ID rules could have prevented, with just 1 resulting in a conviction
“The VAC is a failed solution to a problem of politicians’ own making” said Brake.
What a mess
Polling released this week showed 46% of people were unaware that they could apply for a free voter ID. This despite the Electoral Commission investing significant sums in awareness-raising activities in the run-up to elections.
For Brake, a government that has committed itself to “encouraging participation” in UK democracy can no longer afford to sit back and watch while thousands of eligible voters continue to be prevented from voting due to voter ID restrictions.
Brake added:
Even with some form of mandatory ID card, voter ID rules will always end up reducing the number of eligible voters able to cast their ballot. The question for politicians is, ‘are they comfortable with that?’
People talk about voting being a habit, but so is not voting. If the government is not careful, voter ID laws will entrench patterns of non-voting among those – disproportionately the more marginalised in our country – without an accepted form of ID. It’s time to pull the plug on this unnecessary and costly voter ID experiment.
It is estimated the policy will cost between £120m and £180m over a decade to implement. Yet all it is doing is disenfranchising people even more from democracy – which is maybe the point.
Despite calls from women’s groups urging the government to implement policies to address the underrepresentation of women in politics, the introduction of temporary special measures (TSM) to increase women’s political representation in Fiji remains a distant goal.
This week, leader of the Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa), Cabinet Minister Aseri Radrodro, and opposition MP Ketal Lal expressed their objection to reserving 30 percent of parliamentary seats for women.
Radrodro, who is also Education Minister, told The Fiji Times that Fijian women were “capable of holding their ground without needing a crutch like TSM to give them a leg up”.
Lal called the special allocation of seats for women in Parliament “tokenistic” and beneficial to “a few selected individuals”, as part of submissions to the Fiji Law Reform Commission and the Electoral Commission of Fiji, which are undertaking a comprehensive review and reform of the Fiji’s electoral framework.
Rabuka said it devalued “the dignity of women at the highest level of national governance.”
“This specific issue makes me wonder at times. As the percentage of women in population is approximately the same as for men, why are women not securing the votes of women? Or more precisely, why aren’t women voting for women?” he said.
Doubled down
The Prime Minister doubled down on his position on the issue when The Fiji Times asked him if it was the right time for Fiji to legislate mandatory seats for women in Parliament as the issue was gaining traction.
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . “Why aren’t women voting for women?” Image: Fiji Parliament
“There is no need to legislate it. We do not have a compulsory voting legislation, nor do we yet need a quota-based system.
However, Rabuka’s Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Speaker Lenora Qereqeretabua holds a different view.
Qereqeretabua, from the National Federation Party, said in January that Parliament needed to look like the people that it represented.
“Women make up half of the world’s population, and yet we are still fighting to ensure that their voices and experiences are not only heard but valued in the spaces where decisions are made,” she told participants at the Exploring Temporary Special Measures for Inclusive Governance in Fiji forum.
She said Fiji needed more women in positions of power.
“Not because women are empirically better leaders, because leadership is not determined by gender, but because it is essential for democracy that our representatives reflect the communities that they serve.”
Lenora Qereqeretabua on the floor of Parliament . . . “It is essential for democracy that our representatives reflect the communities that they serve.” Image: Fiji Parliament
‘Shameless’ lag
Another member of Rabuka’s coalition government, one of the deputy prime ministers in and a former Sodelpa leader, Viliame Gavoka said in March 2022 that Fiji had “continued to shamelessly lag behind in protecting and promoting women’s rights and their peacebuilding expertise”.
He pledged at the time that if Sodelpa was voted into government, it would “ensure to break barriers and accelerate progress, including setting specific targets and timelines to achieve gender balance in all branches of government and at all levels through temporary special measures such as quotas . . . ”
However, since coming into power in December 2022, Gavoka has not made any advance on his promise, and his party leader Radrodro has made his views known on the issue.
Fiji women’s rights groups say temporary special measures may need to be implemented in the short-term to advance women’s equality. Image: RNZ Pacific/Sally Round
Fijian women’s rights and advocacy groups say that introducing special measures for women is neither discriminatory nor a breach of the 2013 Constitution.
In a joint statement in October last year, six non-government organisations called on the government to enforce provisions for temporary special measures for women in political party representation and ensure that reserved seats are secured for women in all town and city councils and its committees.
“Nationally, it is unacceptable that after three national elections under new electoral laws, there has been a drastic decline in women’s representation from contesting national elections to being elected to parliament,” they said.
“It is clear from our history that cultural, social, economic and political factors have often stood in the way of women’s political empowerment.”
Short-term need They said temporary special measures may need to be implemented in the short-term to advance women’s equality.
“The term ‘temporary special measures’ is used to describe affirmative action policies and strategies to promote equality and empower women.
“If we are to move towards a society where half the population is reflected in all leadership spaces and opportunities, we must be gender responsive in the approaches we take to achieve gender equality.”
The Fijian Parliament currently has only five (out of 55) women in the House — four in government and one in opposition. In the previous parliamentary term (2018-2022), there were 10 women directly elected to Parliament.
According to the Fiji Country Gender Assessment report, 81 percent of Fijians believe that women are underrepresented in the government, and 72 percent of Fijians believe greater representation of women would be beneficial for the country.
However, the report found that time and energy burden of familial, volunteer responsibilities, patriarchal norms, and power relations as key barriers to women’s participation in the workplace and public life.
Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) board member Akanisi Nabalarua believes that despite having strong laws and policies on paper, the implementation is lacking.
Lip service
Nabalarua said successive Fijian governments had often paid lip service to gender equality while failing to make intentional and meaningful progress in women’s representation in decision making spaces, reports fijivillage.com.
Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry said Rabuka’s dismissal of the women’s rights groups’ plea was premature.
Chaudhry, a former prime minister who was deposed in a coup in 2000, said Rabuka should have waited for the Law Reform Commission’s report “before deciding so conclusively on the matter”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Following the massive “Hands Off” demonstration on April 5, the Green Party asked its leaders to describe what the Green Party had its “Hands On.”
During the 2024 presidential election, I, like thousands of committed voters, decided to take a stand. When I was much younger, I believed that the American government was not for the people. I was confused by politics, but I knew what I saw in my community — poverty, police brutality, public schools with inadequate supplies, and markets offering unhealthy products that contributed to the chronic diseases plaguing neighborhood children and elders. I was convinced that the people in charge did not care about us, so I opted out of participating in the voting process.
Eventually, my associates convinced me that no politician would ever truly put our needs first, but that I was obligated to vote regardless. After all, many people had fought and died for the privilege so that I would have the opportunity to do what our ancestors had been denied. The trick, I was told, was to vote for the lesser evil and to then pray to God that the smaller demon would do something, even if just a little. Where I am from, the more trusted option was always a Democrat, so for twenty-five years I dutifully darkened the bubbles next to every Democrat running, without ever having heard of them or the principles upon which they were running. I wanted to know, but quite frankly, it all seemed too overwhelming to comprehend.
Then, on October 7, 2023, Palestinians decided to fight back. I watched in real time with millions of others worldwide as the impending slaughter fell upon them. Video after video forced us to witness infants with detached limbs, shell-shocked children surviving collapsed buildings, and parents on the brink of insanity carrying salvaged body parts of their children in bags. We also witnessed how our politicians — Democrats included — dug in their heels in support of the perpetrators.
I was appalled and distressed. There was absolutely no way that I was going to vote in an election where there was no “lesser evil.” As the campaigns surged on, I became more and more convinced that I needed to sit this one out. It did not matter whether a Republican or a Democrat won. As far as I could tell, both candidates were boastful, condescending, and committed to their billionaire base above all else.
I told my young daughters, who I noticed were becoming increasingly politically involved, what I was planning. They were supportive yet suggested, “You should check out third party candidates though. There are some who you may like.” It turned out that they both were leaning towards the Green Party.
I had heard of the Green Party in passing and even briefly considered voting Green during the 2016 presidential election, but it was too little, too late. This go-around, I had time and a little more confidence to learn so I could make a much more informed decision. I read the Jill Stein/Butch Ware Campaign platform and was immediately on board.
What hooked me were a few things: their stance on the genocide in Gaza and all proxy wars that America is involved in; cash reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans who were imprisoned here for centuries; and most of all, allyship with Indigenous people who continue to be regarded as subhuman by this government.
My family is Afro-Indigenous. My son, Muriyd “Two Clouds” Williams, was an extremely successful water protector and land defender, instrumental in halting a 150-plus-mile oil pipeline which threatened water sources and the environment, and in winning back dozens of acres of stolen land for his people through litigation. Due to his superb leadership, he was targeted, kidnapped, and murdered, and I immediately started two organizations to continue and expand his work.
The Green Party’s platform on honoring Native American lives, rights, and treaties pulled me in. Frankly, Jill and Butch had me at “sovereignty.” I was fighting tooth and nail to convince as many people as possible that this was the party to roll with, because they were promising to act for all citizens and immigrants, too.
Unfortunately, the 2024 election went to a usual suspect, and as we all know, it has all been downhill from there. One would hope that we would learn from this as a nation and finally try another route which would benefit all the people, not just some. Yet sadly we have not. It is politics as usual, with millionaire Democrats ramping up fear tactics through anti-Trump verbiage and a bogus “hands off” campaign.
In the interim, we all are suffering, and none as much as Indigenous people. Therefore, we proclaim: Hands ON regarding all Indigenous people and Nations as sovereign entities! Hands ON honoring all treaty rights and the return of stolen Indigenous lands! Hands ON establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the United States! Hands ON working toward an absolute end to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis! Hands ON expanding funding for health/mental health clinics and Tribal Compact Schools! Hands ON ensuring assistance, safety, and justice to all Indigenous people regardless of government recognition status!
If the United States has a chance of turning itself on its heels to become the “Great” society most of us claim we want it to be, it must fully honor First Nations people, from the inside out. I believe the Green Party is the only political party ready and willing to do so.
The Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA), is an independent political party which stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s Four Pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity.
A grassroots campaign to put Palestine on the ballot has garnered support from 181 candidates running for a seat in the House of Commons. According to a post from the “Vote Palestine” campaign’s Instagram, 124 candidates from the NDP, 44 Green Party candidates and 13 Liberal Party candidates have provided full platform endorsement as of April 11.
The platform’s organizers say their calls are guided by Canada’s obligations under international law. The platform has five key demands, including a two-way arms embargo, the end of Canadian involvement in illegal Israeli settlements, a plan to address anti-Palestinian racism, the recognition of the state of Palestine and proper funding of relief efforts in Gaza.
Ecuador’s president and Trump ally Daniel Noboa has declared victory in the recent election, claiming 56% of the vote in Sunday’s presidential election, according to the country’s National Electoral Council. But analysts say Noboa’s campaign was riddled with illegalities, and that he waged a dirty fake news war against challenger Luisa González the likes of which the country has never seen—and González has challenged the legitimacy of the final vote tally. Reporting from the streets of Quito, journalist Michael Fox breaks down the political tumult in Ecuador and the implications of Noboa’s victory for Ecuadorians, for Latin America, and the new international right.
Videography / Production / Narration: Michael Fox
Transcript
Michael Fox, narrator: Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has been reelected. He’s 37 years old. The son of a banana tycoon. And a Trump ally. He was one of only three Latin American presidents to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, alongside Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele—all international figureheads of the “new right”.
Noboa’s campaign focused on one thing: Security. See, gangs and narco-groups have sent violence spiraling out of control in recent years.
Decio Machado, political analyst: If things continue this way this year, Ecuador won’t be the second most violent country in Latin America, it will be the first.
Michael Fox, narrator: Noboa has promised to take it to the gangs. He’s building high-security prisons, like El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and like Bukele has done to execute his war on the gangs and extrajudicial imprisonment of 2% of his country’s population, the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Daniel Noboa has also decreed states of emergency to claim exceptional powers, suspending constitutional rights in the name of the war on drugs.
He’s even invited the United States to help.
Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s President[speech]: We are going to end delinquency. We are going to end criminality. We are going to do away with these miserable politicians that have kept us behind.
Michael Fox, narrator: Iron fist. Tough on crime. This is Noboa’s bread and butter. And his people love it.
According to the National Electoral Council, Noboa won Sunday’s election with 56% of the vote. His supporters danced in the streets.
Noboasupporter: I’m so happy. We’ve won again.
Michael Fox, narrator: But analysts say Noboa’s campaign was riddled with illegalities, and that he waged a dirty fake news war against challenger Luisa González the likes of which the country has never seen.
And on election night… González refused to recognize the results.
Luisa González, presidential candidate[speech]: I denounce, before the people, before the media and the world that Ecuador is living under a dictatorship. This is the biggest fraud in the history of Ecuador!
Michael Fox, narrator: Luisa González is a former national assembly member, a lawyer, and the leader of the Citizen’s Revolution. That’s the leftist political party created by former president Rafael Correa in the mid 2000s. He oversaw a tremendous increase in spending for education, healthcare, and social programs. They helped to lift almost two million people out of poverty.
Luisa ran on this legacy, with a campaign focused on both battling crime, and also tackling unemployment and poverty. Almost 30 percent of Ecuadorians live under the poverty line. González called for unity and promised to reinvest in Ecuador. Social programs. Education.
Her supporters were excited for a return to the good days of the past.
Marlene Yacchirema, Luisa González supporter: There was a lot of security. We lived in peace for 10 years, which we had not experienced for many years. And today, it’s gotten so much worse.
Michael Fox, narrator: Polls showed her leading ahead of the vote. Even the exit polls showed a virtual tie. That is, in part why, when the results started to roll in showing a more than 10-point lead for Noboa, Luisa González’s team believed there must be something wrong.
In a historic agreement, González was endorsed by the country’s most powerful Indigenous political party. In the first round of voting in February, Pachakutik had come in third with 5% of the vote . Nevertheless, on Sunday night, González received roughly the same number of votes she had in the first round.
Luisa González is now calling for a recount. It is still unclear if the electoral council will permit it and how everything will unfold. But beyond the fraud allegations, this entire election was rife with abuse, violations, and a dirty campaign carried out by president Daniel Noboa.
Decio Machado, political analyst: We have witnessed the shadiest electoral campaign since the return of democracy in Ecuador, from the year 1979 onward. And I say shady because it’s been the campaign with the dirtiest war, with the worst fake news campaign, with the most lies, and violations of the constitution.
Lee Brown, political analyst & election observer: I came here about five days before the election, and even in those few days before the vote itself took place, it was very obvious that the election wasn’t taking place in what you and I would call free and fair conditions. So most extraordinarily, the day before the election, there was a state of emergency. And this was called in, in particular, in all the areas where Luisa’s vote was strongest in the first round, but also in the capital city. Obviously that creates a climate of fear. People couldn’t move freely. So this is the sort of context the election was taking place even before that. That was on the day before the election.
I saw in my own eyes and, you know, people were telling me clear, clear abuses of power that were taking place. One clear example is the failure for there to be a separation between the government itself and the election campaign. One of those examples is just the state spending literally hundreds of millions of pounds in grants other things in the run up to the election, effectively buying votes. So that’s caused a lot of concern for people.
Michael Fox, narrator: Above all else, this high-stakes election was defined by a rabid fake news campaign against candidate Luisa González, which clearly influenced voters.
Alejandra Costa, doctor & Noboa supporter: I don’t want socialism from other countries to be implemented here in Ecuador. I want to continue to live in freedom. And I want my nephews to have this future as well. We want a free country.
Decio Machado, political analyst: There’s been a huge fake news campaign. It’s targeted Luisa supporters and has tried to insinuate links of candidate Luisa González with drug gangs, with links to drug trafficking, with the Tren de Aragua, with Mexican cartels. There’s been a whole strategy of poisoning the Ecuadorian electorate with information through social media, WhatsApp groups, etc., and it’s been very powerful on the part of the ruling party’s candidacy and on the part of Daniel Noboa’s candidacy. It’s all clearly part of the dirtiest campaign we’ve ever seen in Ecuador.
Michael Fox, narrator: Noboa’s fake news campaign wasn’t just negative against Luisa González, it was also positive in favor of himself.
Lee Brown, political analyst & election observer: The most incredible fake news that I’ve seen is that the government is resolving the question of security, because with your own eyes you can see that with all the data points, you cannot see them.
Michael Fox, narrator: This is an interesting reality. Despite Noboa’s discourse, his state of exceptions, and his increasing the military and police on the streets… the violence, homicides, and theft in the country have actually gotten worse.
Decio Machado, political analyst: Between January, February, and March, according to the official figures, the levels of violence have risen 70% compared with the numbers from the same period last year.
Lee Brown, political analyst & election observer: The propaganda campaign means people are really, really getting this unified message that only they can resolve this issue of security, and, on the flip side, that if you bring back the progressive movement Luisa González and representatives of the citizens Revolution, that if you were to do that then the drug the narco traffickers would take over the country.
Michael Fox, narrator: These types of lies and fake news campaigns we have seen before. From Donald Trump. From Bolsonaro, in Brazil. From Bukele, in El Salvador. They are a dirty, but highly effective tactic of the far right across the region. Their push to spread false narratives and weaponize misinformation across media platforms has been key to securing sufficient popular support and consolidating power.
Analysts expect Daniel Noboa to double down in his new term. A willing ally of Donald Trump and the United States, Noboa even traveled to the US two weeks before the election for a photo-op at Mar-A-Lago with the US president. Noboa has invited the United States to help fight his war on drugs.
Francesca Emanuele, Center for Economic and Policy Research: He is trying to get to that position of being part of the Latin American far right. And actually his policies are from the far right. He has militarized the whole country in the name of fighting crime. He is committing human rights abuses, forced disappearances with impunity, and he’s offering the US to have military bases.
So he’s definitely working to be the far right of the Americas and the far right of the world. And that’s really scary. That’s really scary for the population here in Ecuador. And I think that in the next four years, the situation is going to be worse.
Michael Fox, narrator: But there will be resistance. Social explosions are common in Ecuador when people’s rights are being trampled, or their communities disrespected, or their native lands threatened.
Nation-wide protests shut down the country in 2019 and again in 2022 against neoliberal government reforms and the rising cost of gas and basic products.
If Luisa González and the Indigenous movement continue united, it is only a matter of time, before a new wave of protests ignites. As we have seen time and time again, in Ecuador, if rights are not respected and won at the ballot box, they will be fought for and reclaimed on the streets.
The National Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral) declared Daniel Noboa the winner of the second round of elections on the evening of April 13th. It should be noted that Noboa’s main challenger, Luisa Gonzalez, has contested the election results and is demanding an immediate recount. Many are surprised by the election outcomes given the fact that Ms. Gonzalez lost by less than 20,000 votes in the first round of voting and she was able to secure the support of Leonidas Iza, an influential Indigenous leader who secured roughly 500,000 votes during the first round.
That said, with this apparent victory, it is certain that Noboa’s declared “internal armed struggle” will continue to negatively and disproportionately impact Ecuador’s poor and AfroEcuadorian communities.
Amidst the irregularities that characterized the second round of general elections in Ecuador, held last Sunday, April 13, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced that he “cannot recognize the [results of the] elections in Ecuador,” regarding the irregularities that have characterized the second round of general elections in Ecuador, held last Sunday, April 13, and the count tallied by the National Electoral Council (CNE).
Petro justified his stance by citing irregularities highlighted by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the state of emergency decreed by the then-president and reelection-aspiring candidate, Daniel Noboa, in seven provinces of the country—where more than half of the electoral roll is concentrated, with leftist orientation—hours before the vote.
The Black Alliance for Peace and Movimiento Afrodescendiente Nacional Ecuatoriano (MANE) reported back on the Ecuadorian presidential elections held on Sunday, April 13, 2025. Despite the fact the current president, Daniel Noboa, issued a last-minute decree (Decree 597) that sealed the northern and southern borders, intending to deny entry to international observers, the election team for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) was able to enter and observe the elections on the ground.
The National Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral) has declared Daniel Noboa the winner of the second round of elections, with over an 11-point lead. With this win, it is certain that Noboa’s declared “internal armed struggle” will continue to negatively and disproportionately impact Ecuador’s poor and AfroEcuadorian communities.
Dozens of Labour MPs, including cabinet ministers with flimsy majorities, risk losing their seats over the government’s incoming Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cuts to disabled people’ssupport. Data shared between MPs shows there are over 80 seats where majorities are slimmer than the number of people who may lose their Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
There will be a possible June vote on the £5 billion cut, which to many is simply austerity 2.0 and another instance of Labour acting potentially worse than the Tories.
One issue is that, ahead of the 2024 election, Keir Starmer purged as many left-wing MPs as possible, while filling the Commons with ‘yes men’ who do whatever he says. This placed Starmer’s government on an authoritarian footing, after he already attempted to suppress the democracy of the Labour membership through nullifying their power and lying to them. It has resulted in many Labour MPs merely writing strongly worded letters about the cuts to disabled people’s support, rather than actually voting against them.
Just one term for Starmer thanks to DWP cuts?
But the lack of a robust approach to government may have electoral consequences. Health secretary Wes Streeting risks losing his seat to independent Leanne Mohamad. In the 2024 election, she was only around 500 votes away from unseating him. And indeed, polling from April has Mohamad on 41% and Streeting trailing on just 19%. Even the Tory candidate is ahead of him.
Then there’s Jess Phillips, safeguarding minister. In the last election, disabled activist and candidate for the Workers Party of Britain Jody McIntyre came within around 700 votes of unseating her.
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood may also lose her seat because of the number of disabled people losing DWP support in her constituency. Independent candidate Akhmed Yakoob came within around 3,400 votes of thwarting her in the 2024 election.
Although, there are many at risk seats that have Nigel Farage’s party in second place. Labour’s Nia Griffith is only around 1,500 votes away from losing her seat to the Reform candidate in Llanelli.
A number of Westminster voting intention polls since the October budget have had Labour either behind or neck and neck with Reform. One Survation poll from April showed Starmer’s party bleeding huge numbers of votes to Reform in the North.
Starmer had won back their support through committing to Brexit. That’s after he shamelessly championed a second referendum to sabotage Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership while he was shadow Brexit secretary.
Labour failures – a brighter or darker future?
It’s not just the proposed DWP cuts to disabled people’s support. YouGov polling from March found that 81% of people believe Labour is handling the cost of living crisis ‘badly’, while only 12% think they are doing well on this key issue. Further, 70% of Britons (including almost half of Labour voters) say the government isn’t managing the economy well. And just one in seven believe chancellor Rachel Reeves has done a good job.
The issue is, at present, Labour’s failures especially around DWP cuts appear to be paving the way for Reform rather than a left alternative. The Green party made historic gains in 2024. But they still do not seem to be making the most of Labour’s move to the right.
People may well mistake them for a single issue party – more of a pressure point than a governing force. And the concern that the electoral system favours the two main parties is another factor. 50% of people considering voting Green view them as a potentially wasted vote.
Perhaps a left electoral coalition could prove successful, like what we saw in France.
As Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa claims victory in a contested election, Noboa’s leftist rival Luisa González is challenging the results, calling Noboa a “dictator” who committed election fraud to be reelected. The widow of former candidate Fernando Villavicencio also released a new video seemingly confirming allegations that Noboa had been involved in an attempt to frame a third candidate for…
The Black Alliance for Peace and Movimiento Afrodescendiente Nacional Ecuatoriano (MANE) reported back on the Ecuadorian presidential elections held on Sunday, April 13, 2025. Despite the fact the current president, Daniel Noboa, issued a last-minute decree (Decree 597) that sealed the northern and southern borders, intending to deny entry to international observers, the election team for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) was able to enter and observe the elections on the ground.
The National Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral) has declared Daniel Noboa the winner of the second round of elections, with over an 11-point lead. With this win, it is certain that Noboa’s declared “internal armed struggle” will continue to negatively and disproportionately impact Ecuador’s poor and AfroEcuadorian communities. While the election process ostensibly adhered to international standards, BAP observed several troubling elements, including an excessive military presence, particularly at polling stations located in predominantly AfroEcuadorian precincts. This is precisely why MANE invited an election observation delegation from the BAPs North South Project for People(s)- Centered Human Rights to monitor the situation in those majority African precincts in Guayaquil. It is also reflective of the ongoing human rights issues AfroEcuadorians continue to face since the illegal kidnapping and vicious murder of four AfroEcuadorian youth by Ecuadorian military officials nearly one month ago. These murders are indicative of the human rights crisis Ecuadorians, but particularly AfroEcuadorians, are facing due to the current government’s heavy-handed approach to the phony “War on Drugs.”
BAP’s delegation met with the families of the latest egregious violations to, and systemic dehumanizing of AfroEcuadorians who police snipers shot during an apparent raid on a Black community in a Guayaquil barrio. One died from the attack, and another is now permanently disabled, while a third teenager remains hospitalized and permanently paralyzed. All of these victims’ main crimes are that they are Black and poor.
These conditions directly connect to the situation in the region of Esmeraldas, which is more than 70% AfroEcuadorians, that was recently devastated by an oil spill after a pipeline operated by the state-owned petroleum company PetroEcuador ruptured and released approximately 25,000 barrels of oil. Roughly 300,000 of the region’s 500,000 people and the livelihoods of fishermen, farmers, and others are facing dire conditions. The inadequate response to the devastation by the Ecuadorian government, as well as the global environmental community, showcases the environmental racism experienced by AfroEcuadorians in Esmeralda, which is endemic of environmental injustice shouldered by all oppressed Africans from Cancer Alley in the U.S. to Port Au Prince in the Revolutionary Republic of Haiti. BAP affirms the axiomatic nexus between increasing militarism and an increasing climate crisis that disproportionately impacts Africans and Indigenous peoples the world over.
With Noboa’s win, these conditions will certainly deteriorate further. BAP’s concerns are highlighted by the very real danger of the fulfillment of ongoing efforts to expand the U.S. military’s presence in Ecuador as part of a larger conquest of South America’s Pacific coast. This, in turn, will exacerbate the existing militarized presence in Ecuador under the guise of security, already subjecting Afro, Indigenous, and poor Ecuadorians to daily human rights violations. The development of an independent, national AfroEcuadorian politics is even more urgent than before to not only counter U.S. and Ecuadorian reactionary right-wing forces but to ensure the human rights of AfroEcuadorians through the power of the people and popular mass movements.
To this end, BAP will continue to support MANE in developing an independent national AfroEcuadorian formation that will be able to identify and defend the fundamental human rights of the AfroEcuadorian people. The last nine months of collaboration between BAP and MANE exemplify this development and commitment to a popular process.
Today Ecuadorians were called to the polls for the runoff elections, which pitted leftist candidate Luisa Gonzalez against incumbent President and Trump-supported Daniel Noboa. The election day was marked by a series of setbacks, including complaints of irregularities, violations of democracy and the activation of a new state of emergency which allowed the most extreme militarization the country has ever experienced. In addition, the arrival of international observers was prohibited, which generated even more doubts about the transparency of the process.
Despite this complicated context, at the end of the day, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced the victory of right-wing billionaire Daniel Noboa, which has raised questions about the veracity of the results.
Applications to register to vote by young people are at less than half their level twelve months ago. Analysis from pressure group Unlock Democracy shows that for 2024 local elections nearly 160,000 applications were made by people under the age of 25. However, in 2025 that figure is only just above 50,000.
That means applications by young people have halved compared to 12 months ago.
However, researchers also found that whilst under 25s had the most marked drop in registering to vote in elections, all age groups also dropped in number.
Total daily applications have practically halved compared to in the regulated period last year (53%), with overall numbers for 2025 also down on each of the last two years.
This news comes on the last day on which people can register to vote. Some of the drop-off in registrations can be explained by elections being held in fewer areas this year. But, campaigners are concerned that the huge number of unregistered voters combined with widespread dissatisfaction at the state of politics, may see turnout levels fall even lower.
It should be uncontroversial that in a democracy, we want as many people as possible to vote – and to be able to vote.
Brake expressed concern that under 25s are a crucial voting bloc in elections:
Young people, many of them students and/or dealing with insecure housing, are likely to make up a disproportionate share of unregistered voters. So it’s concerning to see such a sharp decline in applications among young people.
In 2023, the Canaryreported that everyone the Electoral Commission lists as being at risk of not having photo ID are all the more likely to be poor people. It’s not an accident that young people, queer people, disabled people, and people of colour are the ones at risk of voter suppression.
Brake also cited voter ID as an unnecessary barrier:
At a time when turnout is already worryingly low, and trending down, we should be making it easier for people to vote. Voter ID is one unnecessary barrier; the dysfunctional registration system is another.
Unlock Democracy says the government should introduce a system of automatic voter registration (AVR) that would allow electoral authorities to use existing data to verify and register voters automatically, saving both time and money, and ensuring the maximum number of eligible voters are able to cast their ballot.
Ecuadorians will return to the polls this Sunday for a decisive presidential runoff between the right-wing incumbent Daniel Noboa and leftist challenger Luisa González.
The closely contested race follows a first-round election in February where neither candidate secured the required majority, with Noboa receiving 44.17% of the vote and González 44%.
The election unfolds against a backdrop of escalating violence, including by state security forces, rising poverty, power outages and widespread public discontent.
Noboa, son of the richest man in the country, was elected 18 months ago in a special election to serve out what remained of the term of Guillermo Lasso, who called a snap election to avoid a likely impeachment trial on corruption charges.
Alfred Deakin was Prime Minister of Australia three times. He was also a powerful founding father of our nation, having a huge influence in drafting our Constitution. It is important to note that he made a significant effort to include a Preamble to the Constitution that would set out what it means to be an …
In one of his many bold, sweeping and likely unconstitutional gestures, President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that purports to “protect election integrity.” Many experts have already charged that it constitutes a clear abuse of power that flagrantly exceeds the president’s allotted authority. Far from protecting electoral integrity, the order attempts to subvert it…
Of the many things said — insightful things, wise things, some foolish things — as the results of Germany’s national elections arrived on Sunday evening, Feb. 23, the most remarkable to me was the exclamation of the Federal Republic’s new chancellor-to-be: “We have won it,” Friedrich Merz declared before his supporters in Berlin as the exit polls, which proved accurate, gave the conservative Christian Democratic Union the largest share of the vote.
Merz is one of those political figures given to speaking before he thinks, and nobody seems to have taken this outburst as anything more than the election-night utterance of an exuberant victor.
As Ecuador heads into a very important run-off election on April 13, the issues of security, state violence and the economy remain at the forefront for many Ecuadorians. Dollarization, submission to U.S. dictates, the proliferation of arms shipments through privately owned ports, and the expansion of international drug cartels to justify military presence have all combined to make the living conditions of the poorest unbearable, especially for African and indigenous communities with a constant war directed at them from the militarized structures of the state, like the case of the Guayaquil Four .
Independent politician Theo Dennison beat the Labour Party in a local council election earlier this month. And he said one of the reasons he was able to beat his former party was that it seriously harmed its reputation by being so “obnoxious”.
Speaking to the Canary, he said Labour had essentially made the election a choice between them and him, which he called “an absolute gift”. This was partly the case because Labour was “so obnoxious to the local press and to local residents”. And campaigners “badmouthing” him on the doorstep did “irreparable harm” to their reputation.
Dennison’s team also tried to get “as many doors knocked as we could”. In fact, he stressed:
You cannot do enough knocking on doors.
While he noted the importance of getting out and speaking to voters, however, he highlighted Labour’s aversion to that.
Labour arrogance and rule breaking
In 2006, he said, Labour lost power locally:
because they just stopped listening to people, started thinking they were so big and so strong they didn’t really need to do that. They got quite arrogant and out of touch.
And this didn’t change much when they actually got back into power. As he explained:
increasingly, between 2010 and 22, I think it became apparent that if they could get away without listening to vote they would.
The party, he asserted, “started breaking the rules because they could rather because of an accident”. And in 2022, the candidate selection process “was riven with rule breaking, which was well supported by the regional office and by the party nationally”. In Hounslow, he stressed, “it was an absolute disaster”. And he explained that:
while it might have been intended at one time as to have been a purge of Momentum and the like, there were no Momentum councillors to purge, so people purged everybody they didn’t like or everybody who was a threat to them in the selection battle
He added:
There was no attempt to keep the selection process fair.
That’s when he left Labour and stood as an independent. And while he didn’t manage to defeat Labour in 2022 and 2024, the situation changed in 2025 as voters experienced how awful Keir Starmer’s Labour was in government.
Labour keeps hurting ordinary people
Dennison was highly critical of his former party, saying councillors in 2022 had been “committed to putting up the council tax, whether they needed to or not”, with a “£700m budget decided in seven minutes”. He added that there was:
no oversight of what the office is doing, no attempt to actually set priorities for the council. It was an absolute mess.
And at the same time, they were putting back on the council tax deduction scheme, which is the scheme that supports local households who are unable to pay their council tax. They took £7m out of the support for those poorer families in 2022, and they’ve done it again this year, taking another £4m out of their pockets.
And then, thirdly, on the same day they were raising their own councillors’ allowances, which was, I think, not just symbolic, but entirely the priority, as far as they were concerned. And they’re going to do exactly the same thing this year. So the same problems I had in 22 are still alive in 2025, and for as long as they’re on that direction, that lack of moral compass, that lack of political direction – that will define them
Labour has “lost track of all sense of value both nationally and locally”
Dennison criticised the “partial interpretation of the rule book” in Labour, where the party has increasingly allowed right-wingers to get away with things it would turf left-wingers out for. This takeover, he said:
helped, essentially, bury them as a progressive force.
And he stressed that:
to be successful in a democracy, a party also needs to be democratic and trust its members rather than treat them as simply fodder… They’ve lost track of all sense of value, both nationally and locally, and are seeking either a range of policy solutions which are generally untested or already failed Conservative ‘solutions’ or just stuff they’re making up as they’re going along. So I think it’s a bloody mess. And actually, I don’t really see a very positive future for the Labour Party.
He also saw the effects of Labour’s heartlessness on voters locally. As he described:
I didn’t have any great expectation that Keir Starmer’s leadership was going to be transformative or that progressive. And so… I don’t think I was as disappointed as many other people who had actually just believed that things could not get worse, and their experience over the first 6 to 9 months is that, oddly enough, the Labour Party seemed determined to make them worse than they had been, and the distress that actually you met on doors – people who just could not believe that that hope had been entirely false. It’s very, very palpable. And I’m not in the least bit surprised that people were just too desperate, too cheesed off, too bothered by other personal concerns to turn out and vote now.
“Representation for local residents rather than for parties”
The key argument of his campaign was that:
what we really needed was representation for local residents rather than for parties. So rather than being a plain party candidate who would represent all that was good about the council and all that was good about the Labour Party to the electorate, we were very much focused on trying to express the views and frustrations of residents back to the council, which is the way it’s meant to be.
And because the cost of living crisis was such a major issue in the ward and Hounslow in general, he said:
We had to focus on the fact that people couldn’t afford to have another Labour councillor who would simply nod through increases in [councillors’] allowances and increases in local taxation.
Giving tips on campaigning for others, meanwhile, he said his election agent suggested “don’t waste your time with keyboard worries”. And Dennison emphasised:
The virtual campaign is very, very different from the real door-to-door campaign. And actually, that would be a definite you must do – you cannot do enough knocking on doors.
The mission now? ‘To try and stop the misuse of taxpayers’ money to fund councillors’ self-serving machine’
In his role as a councillor, Dennison insisted that he will:
try and clean up the local Labour Party and the way the council is run, to try and stop the misuse of taxpayers’ money to fund this rather self-serving machine, to try and get a grip on the priorities of the council so that local services in Brentford and Isleworth are not just protected but also improved – at the moment, there’s quite a number of significant services under threat, try and do something about the attitude on dealing with people who frankly don’t have the household budget to actually manage at this particular time, and to stop them putting up the council tax again, or at least make it so bloody hard that they regret every single second.
And he asserted:
At every single meeting, I will be raising these concerns. And they can shout me down, hound me down, try and stop me speaking as much as they like, but that voice will be heard.
Independent politician Theo Dennison beat the Labour Party in a local council election earlier this month. And he said one of the reasons he was able to beat his former party was that it seriously harmed its reputation by being so “obnoxious”.
Speaking to the Canary, he said Labour had essentially made the election a choice between them and him, which he called “an absolute gift”. This was partly the case because Labour was “so obnoxious to the local press and to local residents”. And campaigners “badmouthing” him on the doorstep did “irreparable harm” to their reputation.
Dennison’s team also tried to get “as many doors knocked as we could”. In fact, he stressed:
You cannot do enough knocking on doors.
While he noted the importance of getting out and speaking to voters, however, he highlighted Labour’s aversion to that.
Labour arrogance and rule breaking
In 2006, he said, Labour lost power locally:
because they just stopped listening to people, started thinking they were so big and so strong they didn’t really need to do that. They got quite arrogant and out of touch.
And this didn’t change much when they actually got back into power. As he explained:
increasingly, between 2010 and 22, I think it became apparent that if they could get away without listening to vote they would.
The party, he asserted, “started breaking the rules because they could rather because of an accident”. And in 2022, the candidate selection process “was riven with rule breaking, which was well supported by the regional office and by the party nationally”. In Hounslow, he stressed, “it was an absolute disaster”. And he explained that:
while it might have been intended at one time as to have been a purge of Momentum and the like, there were no Momentum councillors to purge, so people purged everybody they didn’t like or everybody who was a threat to them in the selection battle
He added:
There was no attempt to keep the selection process fair.
That’s when he left Labour and stood as an independent. And while he didn’t manage to defeat Labour in 2022 and 2024, the situation changed in 2025 as voters experienced how awful Keir Starmer’s Labour was in government.
Labour keeps hurting ordinary people
Dennison was highly critical of his former party, saying councillors in 2022 had been “committed to putting up the council tax, whether they needed to or not”, with a “£700m budget decided in seven minutes”. He added that there was:
no oversight of what the office is doing, no attempt to actually set priorities for the council. It was an absolute mess.
And at the same time, they were putting back on the council tax deduction scheme, which is the scheme that supports local households who are unable to pay their council tax. They took £7m out of the support for those poorer families in 2022, and they’ve done it again this year, taking another £4m out of their pockets.
And then, thirdly, on the same day they were raising their own councillors’ allowances, which was, I think, not just symbolic, but entirely the priority, as far as they were concerned. And they’re going to do exactly the same thing this year. So the same problems I had in 22 are still alive in 2025, and for as long as they’re on that direction, that lack of moral compass, that lack of political direction – that will define them
Labour has “lost track of all sense of value both nationally and locally”
Dennison criticised the “partial interpretation of the rule book” in Labour, where the party has increasingly allowed right-wingers to get away with things it would turf left-wingers out for. This takeover, he said:
helped, essentially, bury them as a progressive force.
And he stressed that:
to be successful in a democracy, a party also needs to be democratic and trust its members rather than treat them as simply fodder… They’ve lost track of all sense of value, both nationally and locally, and are seeking either a range of policy solutions which are generally untested or already failed Conservative ‘solutions’ or just stuff they’re making up as they’re going along. So I think it’s a bloody mess. And actually, I don’t really see a very positive future for the Labour Party.
He also saw the effects of Labour’s heartlessness on voters locally. As he described:
I didn’t have any great expectation that Keir Starmer’s leadership was going to be transformative or that progressive. And so… I don’t think I was as disappointed as many other people who had actually just believed that things could not get worse, and their experience over the first 6 to 9 months is that, oddly enough, the Labour Party seemed determined to make them worse than they had been, and the distress that actually you met on doors – people who just could not believe that that hope had been entirely false. It’s very, very palpable. And I’m not in the least bit surprised that people were just too desperate, too cheesed off, too bothered by other personal concerns to turn out and vote now.
“Representation for local residents rather than for parties”
The key argument of his campaign was that:
what we really needed was representation for local residents rather than for parties. So rather than being a plain party candidate who would represent all that was good about the council and all that was good about the Labour Party to the electorate, we were very much focused on trying to express the views and frustrations of residents back to the council, which is the way it’s meant to be.
And because the cost of living crisis was such a major issue in the ward and Hounslow in general, he said:
We had to focus on the fact that people couldn’t afford to have another Labour councillor who would simply nod through increases in [councillors’] allowances and increases in local taxation.
Giving tips on campaigning for others, meanwhile, he said his election agent suggested “don’t waste your time with keyboard worries”. And Dennison emphasised:
The virtual campaign is very, very different from the real door-to-door campaign. And actually, that would be a definite you must do – you cannot do enough knocking on doors.
The mission now? ‘To try and stop the misuse of taxpayers’ money to fund councillors’ self-serving machine’
In his role as a councillor, Dennison insisted that he will:
try and clean up the local Labour Party and the way the council is run, to try and stop the misuse of taxpayers’ money to fund this rather self-serving machine, to try and get a grip on the priorities of the council so that local services in Brentford and Isleworth are not just protected but also improved – at the moment, there’s quite a number of significant services under threat, try and do something about the attitude on dealing with people who frankly don’t have the household budget to actually manage at this particular time, and to stop them putting up the council tax again, or at least make it so bloody hard that they regret every single second.
And he asserted:
At every single meeting, I will be raising these concerns. And they can shout me down, hound me down, try and stop me speaking as much as they like, but that voice will be heard.
Wisconsin’s state supreme court election on April 1 is officially the most expensive in U.S. history, with spending that has reached $76 million — with some predictions that the ultimate tally will top $100 million, almost twice the record spending in the state’s 2023 race. The biggest right-wing groups running an attack ad blitz against liberal candidate Susan Crawford are funded by a few very…
As Ecuador heads into a very important run-off election on April 13, the issues of security, state violence and the economy remain at the forefront for many Ecuadorians. Dollarization, submission to U.S. dictates, the proliferation of arms shipments through privately owned ports, and the expansion of international drug cartels to justify military presence have all combined to make the living conditions of the poorest unbearable, especially for African and indigenous communities with a constant war directed at them from the militarized structures of the state, like the case of the Guayaquil Four.
Disability benefit cuts will push over 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into poverty. Does the Chancellor – who earns over £150,000, accepted £7,500 in free clothes and took freebie tickets to see Sabrina Carpenter – believe Austerity 2.0 is the ‘change’ people voted for?
Truly, Labour isn’t Labour anymore. We need to use the opportunity of the May local elections to challenge Austerity 2.0.
The local election: time to send a message to Labour
Over one hundred candidates have been accepted by the TUSC steering committee to use one of the registered descriptions on their ballot paper in May’s council elections after the latest meeting of the committee on Monday – and, while the official nomination deadline is coming up fast, there’s still time for more.
This year, there are only elections in 23 councils after the government, in a completely undemocratic move, cancelled polls in nine councils pending re-organisation plans. Millions have been denied the chance to vote, on who should run their local services and on how their local councils should be organised – and what they think of the government’s new austerity agenda!
But that still leaves 1,600 seats or so being contested in the scheduled elections on 1 May, and in some council by-elections elsewhere, and in 101 of them there will be a clear socialist and trade union alternative to the establishment parties – plus a TUSC candidate in the contest for the Mayor of Doncaster.
The last time these particular seats were up for election, in 2021, there were 60 candidates who used a TUSC description on the ballot paper (and just 31 in the election cycle before that, in 2017). The greater interest in standing this time is another sign of the growing conviction that a new, mass, working class alternative must be built – and that you have to start somewhere.
And there’s still time for more trade unionists, anti-cuts community campaigners, protesters at the latest vicious attacks on disabled people – and socialists from different parties or none – to join what will be the biggest working class left-of-Labour challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘Continuity Tories’ New Labour Party in May.
Final Deadline to be a TUSC candidate
The final deadline for the steering committee to consider candidate applications has been extended to Sunday 30 March, with the TUSC National Election Agent – Clive Heemskerk, at cliveheemskerk@socialistparty.org.uk – needing to receive completed applications by then. But that will be really cutting it fine so applications should be sent in as early as possible.
The form to use a TUSC description can be downloaded here.
The current list of candidates planning to stand in May’s elections using one of the TUSC descriptions is now available here. Most candidates will appear on the ballot paper with the description Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition next to their name but a number are using the new Independent Trade Union and Socialist Candidate descriptor, including two former Labour councillors in Doncaster.
TUSC has no rich backers. Some supporters generously make standing orders of a few pounds a month to help our campaigns. If you haven’t done so, particularly if you are in an area that doesn’t have elections this May, please consider, if you are able, sending a ‘Tenner4TUSC’ via our donations page at https://www.tusc.org.uk/donate/
After spending over a quarter of a billion dollars on Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign, Elon Musk is pouring money into a Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. Musk has spent more than $18 million to support Trump-backed candidate Brad Schimel over liberal Susan Crawford and has been paying Wisconsin voters $100 to help flip the state’s top court. This election could impact abortion…
Voting rights groups and pro-democracy advocates responded with uproar after President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening issued what they warn amounts to a far-reaching “authoritarian power grab” in the form of an “unlawful” executive order that would restrict voter access nationwide and punish states that make it easier for citizens to have their political preferences registered at the ballot box.
After bringing in $8 million from donors across New York City at a pace never before seen in the city’s elections, mayoral candidate and state Rep. Zohran Kwame Mamdani called on his supporters to shift their focus away from donating money and toward creating “the single largest volunteer operation in New York City history.” “I’m about to say something to you you’ve never heard a politician…
As Ecuador heads into a very important run-off election on April 13, the issue of security and state violence, as well as the economy, remains at the forefront for many Ecuadorians. In January 2025 alone, over 750 homicides were registered in Ecuador. Economic dollarization and submission to U.S. dictates the proliferation of arms shipments through privately owned ports, and the expansion of international drug cartels to enforce an atmosphere of violence and a military presence to combat them have all combined to make the living conditions of the poorest and vulnerable unbearable, especially for African and Indigenous communities with a constant war directed at them from the militarized structures of the state.
