ELECTORAL POLITICS| GOVERNMENT POLICY
22 December: Belfast City Council passes a motion supporting the Palestine Action prison hunger strike in England, demanding that the hunger strikers be granted bail and calling for the organisation’s de-proscription. (Irish News, 22 December 2025)
29 December: Days after Keir Starmer welcomes British-Egyptian citizen Alaa Abd el-Fattah back to Britain after his release from an Egyptian gaol where he was imprisoned for posting about torture in Egypt, senior politicians call for him to be stripped of his citizenship for historic posts reportedly calling for the killing of Zionists and the bombing of Downing Street. The PM rejects the calls. (Times, 29 December 2025; Guardian, 29 December 2025)
29 December: After criticism from US vice president JD Vance, the Munich Security Conference invites Alternative for Germany (AfD) to join its annual gathering of top international defence officials in February. (Guardian, 29 December 2025)
31 December: After the ECtHR questions the government about the stripping of Shamima Begum’s citizenship (see below), the government says the decision would be ‘robustly defended’; shadow home secretary Chris Philp says the ECtHR’s move is ‘deeply concerning’ and the Reform deputy leader says it is ‘another reason why we must leave this foreign court’. (Guardian, 31 December 2025)
1 January: Sussex police and crime commissioner Katy Bourne calls for electronic tags for asylum seekers ‘for their safety and our peace of mind’, referring to people becoming ‘genuinely fearful of the strangers parachuted into their neighbourhoods’. Greens’ deputy leader Rachel Millward says asylum seekers are not criminals and should be allowed to work. (Brighton and Hove News, 1 January 2026)
3 January: Communities secretary Steve Reed warns that local authorities pursuing boycotts against companies linked to Israel could face legal action under the Procurement Act 2023. (Local Government, 7 January 2026)
3 January: Reform’s policy lead Zia Yusuf says that a Reform UK government, as part of its grooming gangs review, would introduce mandatory whole-life orders for offenders convicted of child rape, also building ‘Nightingale prisons’ and deporting foreign criminals to free up prison space. (Guardian, 3 January 2025)
4 January: Ireland’s immigration minister Colm Brophy outlines government plans to scale up mass deportations on chartered flights and give Ukrainian refugees a ‘package’ to leave the country, tough measures which he claims will ‘cut the legs from under the far right’. (Extra.ie, 4 January 2026)
ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT
22 December: A secondary school in Larnaca, Cyprus, reports students to authorities after investigators say they travelled twice to Greece for training with far-right groups and then recruiting hundreds to their own neo-Nazi group, ‘verginazi’. (In Cyprus, 22 December 2025)
27 December: The Center for Research on Extremism warns that far-right groups have seized on cultural production, from clothing brands to top 40 music and food deliveries. Their six-country study finds that social media and AI accelerate the spread, turning culture into a gateway to extremism across Europe. (Guardian, 27 December 2025)
29 December: Research by the IPPR finds increasing support for hard-right ideas of national identity, with 36 percent believing that people must be born in Britain to be British, nearly doubling from 19 percent two years ago. (Guardian, 29 December 2025)
3 January: Anti-fascist Gerry Gable, co-founder in 1975 of Searchlight, dies aged 88. (Searchlight, 4 January 2026)
Gerry Gable, architect of modern British anti-fascism.
The death of Searchlight’s founder Gerry Gable at the age of 88 marks the passing of a man without whom modern British anti-fascism would scarcely be recognisable.
For more than sixty years, he stood at the centre of the…
— @Searchlightmagazine (@Searchlight_mag) January 6, 2026
4 January: It emerges that Mark Collett, head of Patriotic Alliance, spoke at a summit of Europe’s extreme nationalist groups, organised by a Russian oligarch linked to Putin, at St Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly in September. (Guardian, 4 January 2026)
5 January: Investigators say the neo-Nazi network ‘Vanguard Britannica’ is preparing for ‘race war’ through secret combat training, with recruitment videos showing members doing martial arts and physical conditioning across regions. The group targets Jewish and ethnic minority communities with racist sticker campaigns. (Express, 5 January 2026)
6 January: Residents of a Dundee street say they fear leaving their homes because of noisy and intimidating protests since November outside nearby asylum accommodation, by a group calling themselves ‘Dundee Patriots’, whose members abuse residents objecting to their chants . (Daily Record, 6 January 2026)
POLICING| PRISONS| CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
22 December: 600 educationalists sign an open letter calling for the immediate release of prisoners jailed for more than a year without trial over alleged direct action linked to Palestine solidarity. (Morning Star, 22 December 2025)
23 December: Two men, described as ‘Islamist extremists’, are found guilty at Preston crown court of a plot to ‘kill as many Jewish people as they could’, which involved the preparation of acts of terrorism and the attempted purchase of weapons from an ‘undercover operative’. (Guardian, 23 December 2025)
23 December: Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is arrested at a London demonstration in support of the Palestine Action hunger strikers, along with two other protesters. (Morning Star, 23 December 2025)
24 December: Amu Gib becomes the fourth of the Palestine Action remand prisoners to ‘pause’ their hunger strike, while four others continue in some form, according to Prisoners for Palestine. (Sky News, 24 December 2025)
26 December: A statement by UN experts expresses ‘grave concern’ for the wellbeing of Palestine Action affiliated hunger strikers, stressing that ‘preventable deaths in custody are never acceptable. The state bears full responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of those detained’. (Guardian, 26 December 2025)
27 December: Italian police arrest nine people in Genoa for alleged support for terrorism and seize assets worth an estimated €8 million, claiming that the money, collected for humanitarian support for Palestinians, was instead supporting Hamas fighters and their families. Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the EU, the UK and the US. (Times, 28 December 2025)
29 December: The English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and the Republic of Ireland bar associations issue a joint statement expressing deep concern over the UK government’s proposal to restrict the right to jury trial. (Law Society Gazette, 29 December 2025)
30 December: Prisoners for Palestine say that the health of four Palestine Action detainees is on the point of collapse. Those attempting to visit Heba Muraisi at HMP New Hall have reportedly been strip-searched and forced to remove Islamic headscarves. Relatives attempting to visit Teuta Hoxha at HMP Peterborough say they were turned away for wearing ‘banned colours’ and later followed home by drones. (New Arab, 30 December 2025)
31 December: A Police Federation survey finds widespread fear among officers at speaking out against colleagues in a ‘culture of silence’ which enables misconduct, with ethnic minority and female officers the least satisfied about the handling of complaints. (Guardian, 31 December 2025)
5 January: West Yorkshire police use pepper spray during a protest at HMP New Hall, near Wakefield, where protesters had gathered to support Palestine Action prisoner Heba Muraisi. (Mint News, 5 January 2025)
6 January: A man appears at Dundee Sheriff Court charged in connection with a disturbance outside asylum accommodation in Reid Square, Dundee, on Sunday 4 January, and with ‘communication offences’ the next day. (Dundee Courier, 6 January 2026)
ASYLUM | MIGRATION| BORDERS| CITIZENSHIP
Borders and internal controls
29 December: Figures produced by migrant support group Caminando Fronteras show that 3,090 people died trying to reach Spain by sea from North Africa in 2025. (Euronews, 29 December 2025)
29 December: Malta Migration Archive reveals that of 242 distress calls made to the Maltese coastguard in the first six months of 2025, involving 10,000 people, only two were responded to, while the Libyan coastguard were allowed into the Maltese search and rescue zone on 16 occasions to carry out ‘pullbacks’ of 800 people to systematic violence in Libya. (Malta Today, 29 December 2025)
2 January: French authorities say they may arrest British vigilantes who try to stop migrants embarking on small boats bound for the UK. (Telegraph, 2 January 2026)
5 January: Officials are authorised to search the outer clothes and mouths of new small-boat arrivals at Manston, apparently including children, to seize mobile phones and sim cards for information about smugglers, as NGOs condemn use of the new powers on traumatised people and lawyers question their legality. (Guardian, 4 January 2026)
Reception and detention
23 December: The former manager of the Via Corelli pre-removal centre in Milan, Italy, notorious for its ‘inhumane and hellish’ conditions, is given a 27-month sentence and €2,000 fine for fraud, and his company is fined €30,000 and banned from public contracts for 20 months, in a plea-bargain deal with prosecutors. (InfoMigrants, 30 December 2025)
24 December: The government’s plan to buy flats for asylum accommodation in Epping has been withdrawn, according to Epping District Council. (BBC News, 24 December 2025)
30 December: Local authorities including Thanet (Kent), Powys, Brighton & Hove, Hackney and Peterborough are being assessed for a government pilot allowing them to buy properties and renovate derelict ones for asylum housing to replace hotels. (The I paper, 30 December 2025)
5 January: Eighty asylum seekers from Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran and other conflict zones, detained in Harmondsworth IRC for removal to France under the UK’s ‘one in, one out’ scheme, call on UN bodies to investigate their ‘degrading’ treatment, saying the Home Office has subjected them to arbitrary detention, denial of legal representation, inadequate medical care and severe psychological harm since their arrival in small boats. (Guardian, 5 January 2026)
Crimes of solidarity
5 January: The trial of six employees of humanitarian group France Terre d’Asile, charged with facilitating illegal entry and stay, takes place in Tunisia. The Tunisian branch’s former director Sherifa Riahi, is among those given suspended sentences and released after 20 months’ detention. (RFI, 6 January 2026)
Citizenship
30 December: The Home Office says it will not strip Alaa Abd el-Fattah of his British citizenship over historic tweets pre-dating the grant which do not meet the ‘high bar’ for deprivation. (Guardian, 30 December 2025; Telegraph, 5 January 2026)
31 December: The Home Office says the deprivation of Shamima Begum’s citizenship will be ‘robustly defended’, responding to questions from the European Court of Human Rights about the steps it took to investigate whether she was trafficked to Syria before revoking her citizenship in 2019, because of international human rights obligations owed to victims of trafficking. (Guardian, 31 December 2025)
EMPLOYMENT| EXPLOITATION| INDUSTRIAL ACTION
26 December: The chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, representing UK and Ireland’s doctors, warns that the health service is being put at risk by anti-migrant rhetoric and rising racism, which is deterring doctors, nurses and midwives, and causing record numbers in the NHS to quit. (Guardian, 26 December 2025)
30 December: The Irish Society of International Doctors warns migrant doctors are living in an atmosphere of fear and have formed private WhatsApp groups to help ensure their own safety. The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation also expresses concern. (Irish Times, 30 December 2025)
CULTURE| MEDIA| SPORT
23 December: Avon and Somerset police say Bob Vylan will not be prosecuted for leading a Glastonbury crowd in chants of ‘death, death to the IDF’ in June, as there is ‘insufficient evidence for … a realistic prospect of conviction’. (Times, 23 December 2025)
23 December: A judge who quashed a court summons issued against US comedian Reginald D Hunter criticises the Campaign Against Antisemitism. The group’s motive in bringing a private prosecution was to have Hunger ‘cancelled’, he says, describing the prosecution as ‘abusive’. (Guardian, 23 December 2025)
25 December: The Virgin Money bank account of Greater Manchester Friends of Palestine is frozen without explanation, with the organisation, which has no affiliation with Palestine Action, later learning from the deputy mayor of Greater Manchester, that it was frozen due to ‘Palestine Action investigation’. A joint personal Yorkshire Building Society account of its treasurer is also closed. (Guardian, 25 December 2025)
25 December: British anti-disinformation campaigner Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, who lives in Washington with his American wife, launches a legal challenge over attempts to deport him, along with four other Europeans including a former EU commissioner, for ‘leading organised efforts to coerce Americans to censor, demonetise and suppress American viewpoints they oppose’. (Guardian, 25 December 2025)
28 December: German authorities have placed Red Media and its founder Huseyin Dogru, who reports regularly on repression against pro-Palestinian activists, on the EU sanctions list, it is revealed, meaning Dogru cannot work or receive benefits or support from anyone including his wife. (Morning Star, 28 December 2025)
30 December: The Community Security Trust says that Facebook posts celebrate the Bondi beach massacre, accusing the platform of acting too slowly to remove terrorist content. CST says some Britain-based accounts shared videos and images glorifying the attack that killed 15 people. Meta says it removed content violating its policies, while Ofcom and the Home Office stress platforms must act swiftly to take down illegal terrorist material. (Guardian, 30 December 2025)
2 January: A disciplinary panel strips a Birmingham nurse of her licence, a decision related to posts she shared during the summer 2024 riots criticising foreigners, migrants, Muslims and the state for protecting mosques. (Daily Express, 2 January 2026)
3 January: Although charges are dropped against two Roma boys whose arrests for rape sparked the violent Ballymena riots six months ago forcing three-quarters of the Roma population to leave, a Facebook group with 10,000 followers dedicated to action against ‘Roma gang masters’ warns that if the boys’ families return, ‘we will find out’. (Guardian, 4 January 2026)
RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT
For details of court judgements on racially motivated and other hate crimes, see also POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
22 December: A police investigation into racially and religiously aggravated harassment is launched after a man dumps raw meat outside the Guru Narak Gurdwara in West Bromwich. (Birmingham Mail, 27 December 2025)
27 December: A house in north Belfast is vandalised and daubed with Islamophobic slogans such as ‘No Muslims wanted’ printed on a Union Jack, ‘Local housing for local people only’ and ‘No smackheads here’. (MSN, 27 December 2025)
1 January: Antisemitic graffiti, subsequently published online, including the words Jew and Rat alongside a Star of David and a swastika, are found on roads in the Ardee area of Co Louth, Ireland. (RTE, 1 January 2026)
2 January: New data reveals that racist and Islamophobic hate crimes have increased in the past year, particularly on public transport, with ‘visible Muslims’ vulnerable to verbal and physical attack on the top deck of a bus or in a half-empty train carriage. (Guardian, 2 January 2026)
4 January: Six months after riots forced three quarters of the Roma population to temporarily flee their homes, residents say Roma should ‘stay away’, and small groups of Loyalists patrol the area to make sure they do not return. (Guardian, 4 January 2026)
This calendar is researched by IRR staff and compiled by Sophie Chauhan, with the assistance of Graeme Atkinson, Sam Berkson, Margaret McAdam and Louis Ordish. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association and Stopwatch, whose regular updates on asylum, migration, far Right, racial violence, employment and policing issues are an invaluable source of information. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.