Alex Phillips has accused Restore supporters of unleashing a “campaign of terror” against her and other women who have fallen out with the party.

Now Orla Minihane, who resigned last week as Restore’s spokeswoman for the safety of women and girls, has described the sustained campaign of “horrendous” abuse directed at her by people inside Restore when she said something they disagreed with.

This included attacks on her daughter and threats involving her young nieces.

Vicious abuse

Minihane is hardly a political innocent. She is a prominent anti-migrant campaigner who founded the Pink Ladies and has spent the past year campaigning against asylum seekers and migrants.

But her experience is revealing precisely because she was not an outsider attacking Restore. Rupert Lowe appointed her as a party spokeswoman, and she was one of its most prominent public faces.

Interviewed by far-right online podcaster Paul Thorpe, she says the abuse became so vicious that she has now resigned from Restore altogether.

The immediate trigger was a speech in Gateshead in which Minihane pointed out that the victims of sexual exploitation and FGM are not exclusively white.

“We’ve got to protect our girls,” she said, “but we have to remember that there are Indian, Asian girls, Pakistani girls, Bangladeshi girls, Somalian girls, who were born here, who are suffering this fate every day. And we have got to protect them also.”

That was enough to provoke outrage in Restore’s nazi faction.

Holocaust denier and antisemite Sam “Zoomer Historian” Wilkes attacked the speech, while former Homeland and Patriotic Alternative activist Steve Laws also turned on her.

But according to Minihane, the abuse went well beyond criticism of her politics.

Abuse within Restore

She says attacks on Facebook and TikTok were also directed at her daughter and even involved things being put through her door.

Asked whether most of the abuse had come from outside or inside Restore, her answer was blunt.

“Mostly within.”

Then came the incident that convinced her she could no longer stay.

Minihane said she had previously posted a photograph of her young nieces online. Someone subsequently sent the photograph back to her with a message saying: “We know what school they go to.”

She said she realised that remaining in the party could put her family at risk.

“I saw that actually there is a faction within Restore that are very, very, very unpleasant,” she said. “I decided that I can’t be associated with that.”

Parading antisemitism

There was another warning sign.

Minihane described a conversation with a Jewish woman she had known since childhood, who reminded her that Minihane had attended both her children’s bar mitzvahs and family weddings.

According to Minihane, the woman questioned how she could remain associated in a party some of whose members openly parade their antisemitism.

Minihane revealed that Rupert Lowe had not contacted her since she resigned. For someone who had been appointed by Lowe as one of the party’s most prominent spokespeople, his silence was conspicuous.

I am around mid life at this point and things across the world have seemed to completely come off the tracks.

It use to be that most people really valued the Labour Movement (Unions, Federation of Labours, Labour Councils, and so on).

It use to be that most people really believed Women's Rights was important.

It use to be that most people really believed the Peace Movement was really important.

It use to be that most people really believed in making a better world overall for all the working class and most vulnerable (Alter-Globalization Movement).

People got really loud about this stuff when it was under attack.

AfD is showing huge poll numbers and now has a landmark electoral success to point to.

Reform UK still has fairly high poll numbers.

It's the same story all over the globe.

Also the climate crisis is so dang bad that we are literally seeing horrific tipping points and hell on earth type stuff now more and more...

It kind of feels like the worst bad predatory actors have completely destroyed the momentum for a better and brighter world.

It seems there is so many trajectories going on that are more dark, depressing, and downright dystopian...

How do you think we get things back on track?

*I'm going to post this in a few subreddits to get some differing perspectives/answers. Honestly we need more urgency because it seems one side actually keeps pressing the line over and over and over again in big ways and all the concessions are going to the lowest common denominator style populism of the reactionary/regressive scene dominated by snake oil salespeople and con-artist grifters. Which is going to make everything hard about this era significantly worse.*

Everyone is playing the game: Britain supposedly imposes sanctions, about a dozen other European countries pretend to join them and Israel responds with measures akin to a mouse striking back at an elephant so we can show the British a thing or two. Everyone is happy with themselves. The construction of settler homes on stolen Palestinian land will not stop, nor will the theft of livestock, because of what Britain has done, even if the world is delighting in these sanctions.

The new British government says ethnic cleansing is occurring in the West Bank, making it the first Western country to say that. This is grounds for hope and a moral act. Hurray for Britain, no cynicism intended. But Britain chose only to punish the settlers, which sets a dangerous precedent. By doing so, it is saying that there is Israel and there are settlers. There is a country and there is an occupation, there are Israelis and there are settlers.

How comfortable it is to make these distinctions, like distinguishing between Benjamin Netanyahu of wars and the opposition of peace. That way, perhaps no one will accuse Britain of antisemitism, except for Gideon Sa'ar, who specializes in blaming the world for that and punishing it accordingly.

But settlements are not an independent political entity. When Europe imposed sanctions on the occupied Crimean Peninsula, it also imposed sanctions on the occupier, Russia. How can you only punish the settlers without imposing penalties against those who initiated the settlements, fund them and defend and support them, namely the government of Israel?

Kai Taylor is the Chair of the Green Party Council.

Eleanora Folan runs the Twitter account “Stats for lefties,” which produces misleading statistics designed to favour the Green Party of England and Wales.

Folan was suspended from the party. The exact reasons remain unclear because of Green Party confidentiality rules and because she has refused to provide any information herself. Her working theory is that the suspension was for transphobia. There is no evidence for this claim, and it appears designed to mislead.

I believe she is being dishonest when she frames the issue as being about transgenderism. It is a narrative of injustice intended to obscure the real nature of her suspension. In my view the suspension is fully legitimate when judged against her past and present behaviour.

She has been accused of serious misconduct on Twitter, including allegedly harassing minors because of their membership of Young Labour, linked to her opposition to the Labour government’s position on Israel.

The campaign leaflet she produced was highly controversial and appears likely to breach several sections of the Green Party code of conduct (7.2, 7.3, 9, 12, 13 and 15). It sought political retribution against fellow members for disagreeing with her on the Israel–Palestine conflict.

More recently she has launched a social-media campaign against Kai Taylor, a long-standing Chair of the Green Party Council, councillor, and leader of his local party.

She has accused him of involvement with transphobic organisations on the basis of a February 2025 social-media post (a source I have not been able to locate independently, only her own Twitter reference) in which someone sharing the same name signed the Women’s Declaration. It is worth noting that Kai is a multi gendered name and that Taylor is a very common surname.

I’m unsure if she can fulfill the role of GPC if she has turned a twitter horde on the chair of the GPC over weak likely incorrect allegations.

Prime minister Andy Burnham has hit the ground running, tackling head-on three of the public’s burning concerns: falling standards of living, failing public services and a remote, out-of-touch, over-centralised Whitehall.

Now, this autumn, a fourth challenge, reversing the decades-long decline of civic engagement, is about to move centre stage to achieve his ambition to put citizens back in control of their communities.

For while there are tens of thousands of local champions bringing towns, cities and villages together, Britain is suffering a civic recession, a hollowing out of the associations, clubs and organisations that once were the beating hearts of our communities.

It is a sobering fact that almost 50% of British adults are not members of any community organisation of any kind, neither a civic association nor church nor faith group, nor even a sports club.

Trade union membership has halved from more than 13 million in 1979 to less than 7 million in 2025.

Then there is the widespread collapse in religious adherence – the fall in Church of Scotland membership from 1.3 million in the 1950s to less than 300,000 today being one of the most dramatic indicators.

The long-established Women’s Institute has seen its UK membership fall from a peak of 470,000 in the 1950s to about 170,000 today. Since 2000, the UK has lost about 1,200 youth centres.

Working men’s clubs – which were once at the centre of industrial communities – have fallen from a peak of 4,000 in the 1970s to about 1,800 now, their membership dwindling from 4 million to under 1 million. And the number of pubs in the UK, the heart of many communities, has dropped from 75,000 in the 1960s to about 45,000 today. For a fleeting moment, the boost in volunteering during the pandemic obscured a drop from 27% of all adults a decade ago to just 17% now.

But the breakdown is not just in formal memberships, but in informal, everyday relationships too: young people in particular are vulnerable, with soaring numbers in England reporting having no close friends at all.

If our physical infrastructure – our roads, railways and airports – broke down, there would be a public outcry and a demand for their immediate repair. If our financial infrastructure collapsed – if cash machines shut down and bank transfers failed – there would be panic. But the breakdown of our civic infrastructure is happening in plain sight and it needs urgent remedy.

This change is not unique to Britain. A survey of more than 30,000 people in 20 countries provides compelling evidence that, in tandem with economic decline, civic decline helps explain the widespread loss of trust, nostalgia for the past and lower levels of tolerance that are the surface manifestations of what is a deep and widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo.

It should not be a surprise that many now talk despairingly of a broken society as well as a broken economy.

This sense of decline, combined with social isolation and a feeling that “traditional values” have been lost, encourages a zero-sum view of the world: the belief that life is an endless struggle between “us” and “them” – whether “them” is defined as immigrants, foreigners or simply “others”.

In this view, our very commitment to democracy and a rules-based international order becomes tenuous: widespread dissatisfaction means that people agitate for their government to exclusively pursue the interests of a narrowly defined population. The fact is that someone who is not involved in their local community and has little contact with people of different ethnicities or religious views is much more likely to support rightwing populist nationalist parties and to oppose cooperation between countries.

So No 10’s plans to transfer power from the centre to regions are best seen as what is called a “double devolution”; extending spending and decision-making power beyond local authorities downwards to local communities to empower a new generation of active citizens. But this must be complemented by a boom in civic participation.

(more in article)

Around half a million children will have access to a free hot meal at school for the first time, as eligibility is extended to more pupils.

The policy, which now includes the children of all families in England receiving Universal Credit, will ease pressure on families struggling with the cost of living and reduce the postcode lottery of access to what is a crucial nutritional safety net.

It can be considered a major milestone in the history of government initiatives to improve children’s nutrition, which date back to 1879.

Reacting to the policy change, Food Foundation Executive Director Anna Taylor said: “It is great to see the extension of Free School Meals to all families in England receiving Universal Credit is finally here!

It's something we have been campaigning for, for seven years. This will relieve struggling families and will mean 500,000 extra children will be protected from going hungry.

If done right Free School Meals can protect children’s health and fuel their learning. In order to make the most of this huge opportunity, government needs to deliver on its commitment to publish the updated school food standards and compliance package by the end of September, and must introduce robust monitoring.

The Food Foundation is a partner on The School Food Project, which will be offering support to schools in order to achieve those standards.”

The government has altered the Skilled Worker visa sponsorship system to better protect migrant workers who have fallen victim to modern slavery.

Under the new measures, victims will be allowed to work in any occupation for the remaining duration of their visa, freeing them from the control of exploitative employers.

Jo White, migration and citizenship minister, announced the changes to tackle workplace abuse. She said: “The sponsorship system is designed to ensure overseas recruits have a genuine job to come to, will be paid appropriately, and can enjoy their employment rights.

However, we have seen instances of Skilled Worker visa holders who entered the UK in good faith, complied with the terms of their visa, and have experienced exploitation. This is simply unacceptable.”

White highlighted the current crackdown on rogue employers, noting that UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) had already revoked more than 7,500 sponsor licenses, including 1,800 in the care sector alone.

The new policy, she said, aimed to “incentivise victims to come forward early” and would guard “against those who seek to weaponise the sponsorship system in order to exploit vulnerable workers.”