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John Edwards, Uncovered reader

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This week we published a story that’ll send shivers down your spine. It’s about a far right party, a secretive AI group, and the entirely fake rapper they created to target migrants and Muslims in viral songs and videos.

Advance UK, a political party founded by the former Reform deputy leader Ben Habib, were the ones putting up the money. The Node Project created the AI content. And Danny Bones is the “working class” AI rapper fronting their videos.

Bones – who, again, isn’t a real person – raps about national identity, immigration and a broken Britain. One lyric accuses opponents of trying to “rid you of your heritage”. The video to his most popular song, This Is England, shows him leading a crowd of men carrying St George’s crosses with their fists in the air.

Another shows him in black military gear with the words MASS DEPORTATION UNIT on the back. A third shows an Asian man within a crowd saying to the camera “We are here” before Danny Bones, in a Union flag mask, replies “Not for long”. It cuts to a clip of him throwing a man to the ground and deporting him.

The Node Project also produced Advance UK’s campaign video for the Gorton and Denton by-election, repurposing some of its previous AI-generated content.

Experts and campaigners believe this is the first time that a UK political party has paid for AI slop as part of a campaign. It marks a shift in how our politics is done and raises big questions about how this tactic could be rolled out across the country for May’s local elections.

When we reported the videos to TikTok and Instagram, they immediately removed the group’s Islamophobic content. We also contacted the Electoral Commission, which told us it is “considering the information in line with its remit”.

The Green Party won the Gorton and Denton by-election, so we asked their deputy leader Rachel Millward for her thoughts. “The rise of far-right AI-generated content is corrosive to democracy and puts politicians’ safety at risk,” she told us.

I’m so proud of Effie Webb, the reporter who exposed this. These threats to our society and our democracy have to be forced into the light of day. The entire newsroom is now part of our effort to understand the hate economy – the grifters and bad actors making money from driving division and racism.

AI content keeps spreading, but this is the first time we’ve seen it bought and paid for by a political party. It’s never been more important to support this reporting. So, why not sign up as a Bureau Insider today?

All of the Bureau’s journalism is free, because we believe that everyone should have access to it. But it’s a lot of work, and it takes time and money. Our Insiders keep us doing this essential work, and your help will make our next investigation even better.

Later this month, we’ll be hosting the latest edition of TBIJ Live, this time to break down our blockbuster investigation into illegal children’s homes.

An increasing number of vulnerable young people across the country are being placed in children’s homes that are not registered with Ofsted. It means they are not subject to routine inspections, so there are no guarantees of quality or safety. Unsurprisingly, it’s also against the law. And yet in 2024 alone, nearly 800 children were placed in this type of illegal accommodation. They stayed there for an average of six months each.

Councils say unregistered homes are only ever used as a last resort, when no lawful accommodation is available. But evidence from the children’s commissioner for England shows that these placements are not always a stopgap.

Join us on Wednesday 25 March on Zoom to hear from Bureau Local editor Gareth Davies and reporter Tom Wall and find out more about how we unearthed this story. Tickets are free, so don’t miss out:

Each week we reveal a fascinating fact from our reporting…

A Sri Lankan influencer who funds his lavish lifestyle through AI-generated anti-migrant posts online recommended his students to target a UK audience, for whom he said immigration is a strong trigger for engagement.

In a video reviewed by TBIJ, Geeth Sooriyapura says “the UK is an important audience. They don’t really like people from our countries living there – not just Sri Lankans, but even more so Indians.”

He claims to have made his money – $300,000 of it – by running Facebook pages, including some which push racist, Islamophobic and anti-migrant posts aimed at British audiences.

Read more here. 

The UK is one of the worst places in the world to be sued for libel. Trust me, I’ve been through it (and come out smiling, I should add). Defending a claim can easily cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. Our laws favour the people bringing the lawsuits. And they are so complex that even generalist lawyers – let alone ordinary people – can barely follow them.

But this week, a landmark court judgment offered a rare moment of hope for anyone who cares about freedom of speech.

In the first test case of the UK’s new laws to protect against SLAPPs – abusive lawsuits that set out to silence criticism – a London high court struck out an “oppressive” and “spectacularly inflated” £8m libel lawsuit.

The claim was brought by Setu Kamal, a tax barrister, against Dan Neidle (above), a journalist who’d criticised a tax avoidance scheme linked to Kamal. Kamal was named last year by HMRC as a promoter of tax avoidance.

This is major news. But the problem isn’t quite solved. Neidle told us: “I’m thrilled to win but depressed that a hopeless libel claim, badly litigated, still costs £146,000 to defeat. For most individuals and many media organisations, that’s impossible.”

And there’s more. Helen Taylor, deputy director of Spotlight on Corruption, told us: “It would be a big mistake to assume other SLAPPs will be tossed out so easily.”

This is the problem: an amendment to legislation in 2023 allowed some SLAPPs to be chucked out of court at an early stage if they relate to uncovering economic crime. It came after a stream of high-profile cases against journalists, including one over a story I co-wrote about a suspicious Kazakh fund holding billions in London. But it’s a narrow protection – and there are plenty of stories that deserve to be in the public eye but aren’t about economic crime.

So what’s to be done about it? The government needs to commit to anti-SLAPP provisions that will end legal bullying. The protections need to be much broader. And costs need to come down. As Neidle’s case shows, even a best-case scenario costs a small fortune.

We’ve been investigating SLAPPs for years now. Our work led to one senior lawyer being charged in connection with an alleged SLAPP. Unfortunately, judges threw that case out, saying the regulator had made a real hash of it. Still, we’re going to keep shouting about SLAPPs and stay on this story, because we can’t root out corruption without fundamental press freedoms being protected.

MPs have taken notice of our investigation into the bosses dodging employment tribunal payouts by any means necessary. An early day motion has been put forward to debate our findings – from the fact that a scheme to help wronged employees claim their awards has failed three quarters of those who use it, to the way some company directors use “phoenixing” to dissolve and reform their businesses and avoid paying workers what they’re owed. 

Last year we revealed that tens of millions of pounds hadn’t been paid out to workers who’d suffered discrimination, wage theft and other injustices. Without serious changes, many more people will be left out of pocket, even after “winning” their case.

Two dozen MPs have signed on to the early day motion. That doesn’t mean it’ll get debated in Parliament any time soon – the UK parliamentary system is nowhere near that straightforward – but MPs are the ones who can solve this problem with stronger legislation and better oversight and enforcement. It’s great to see so many getting on board.