Dear readers — two stories broken by The Mill during the by-election campaign have had a big impact this week.
On Wednesday, a three-hour hearing will decide whether Reform UK will face sanction for their law-breaking letter, from a “concerned pensioner” who was binning off the Labour party in favour of Matt Goodwin, which bore none of the legally-required information showing what party sent it (you might recall our reporting here).
And Reform’s former campaign manager in Tameside, Adam Mitula, is reclining on a poolside sun-lounger as we speak, perhaps enjoying a daiquiri, after the party quietly suspended him following our reporting on his history of anti-semitic and racist tweets, in a piece which used research by Hope Not Hate.
We'll also be bringing you our final profile of the campaign, after Jack and Ophira’s encounters with Angeliki Stogia and Hannah Spencer respectively last week. And yes, sadly, Matt Goodwin still appears to be having issues with his email server.
While we're making all of our by-election coverage free, that doesn't mean it's free to produce. Our journalists have been out with the candidates, speaking to voters, critics, supporters, gossipers and everybody in between to try and give you the best sense of the people standing to represent Gorton and Denton.
It's a theme we plan on carrying into May's local elections, as part of our campaign pledge to fund a dedicated reporter to get beyond the headlines and make sure voters across Greater Manchester are as well informed as possible. To do that, we will rely on the support of our paying members. If you'd like to support us to provide the best local democracy coverage in town, take out a paid subscription below. It's just £8.95 a month of £89 annually.
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11 arrests as far-right descend on Manchester
It was a busy weekend in Manchester. Violent fights broke out in the city centre on Saturday, with what felt like a game of cat and mouse at play as protest groups and counter protest groups tried to thwart police interception. The Mill saw bloodied noses and skirmishes, seas of Union Jacks, and someone dressed in a giant inflatable green frog costume, dancing through the crowds.
Paul Golding, the leader of the far-right party Britain First, led hundreds through the streets to march for ‘remigration and mass deportations’. Multiple counter demos took place, including one organised by Stand Up to Racism (SUTR), where Jeremy Corbyn spoke (also using the event to throw his support behind the Green Party in the by-election), and another by Resist Britain First. A dispersal order was in effect, with GMP confirming that 11 arrests were made: two of which were for assaulting emergency workers.
Corbyn’s Your Party and the Greens came together against what he described as the “threat” of the far-right. One counter protestor, Leanne, 29, told The Mill she didn’t feel like she could “stand by” while “fascists were in [her] city”. Toby, 33, said the march was “disgusting” and that those taking part “will never represent what Manchester is about”. Over on the Britain First side, many people were at pains to tell The Mill that they’re “not racists”, but insisted that the UK is facing an “Islamic invasion”. Mark, in his 50s, said he wants to revert to feeling like he lives in a “Christian country.” Hugo, 37, feels similarly, though he thinks both left and right-leaning groups largely “want the same thing.” He told The Mill he’s only against illegal immigration, and knows that crime is committed by people across racial and cultural lines. Not everyone was quite so nuanced though. Other scenes included a group of breakaway Britain First protestors shouting at a white British woman to “go back to where [she] came from” as she tried to defend an Asian man from verbal abuse.
Britain First’s march ended in Castlefield Bowl at around 3pm, where a screen was set up and a series of speeches took place. By this point, rain was falling heavily and numbers had dwindled, with a few Union Jacks flying sparsely in the downpour. Several counter protestors described the turnout as “pathetic”, as they chanted from vantage points just off Liverpool Road. In August last year, we reported on the 1,500-strong crowd that descended on Manchester, again led by Golding of Britain First.
Searching for Matt
Matt Goodwin has been a hard man to track down, but we can have a guess where he’ll be on Wednesday: in court, where a three-hour hearing into Reform UK’s election leaflets will take place. This comes after we reported on the letters, allegedly sent by Patricia Clegg, a pensioner in Denton who was commissioned by Reform UK to urge her few thousand closest neighbours to vote for Goodwin. The letters lacked the necessary legal imprint, which should make clear that they were promoted by Reform, on behalf of Goodwin. Adam Richardson, who will be representing Goodwin, has reiterated that the lack of imprint was the fault of the printers – Hardings Print Solutions — and “did not arise from any want of good faith”. Richardson added that the act stipulates that in such a case no action should be taken. “Without relief, they face the risk of criminal prosecution, a fine, a three-year disqualification from elective office, and, if Mr Goodwin were elected, potential invalidation of the result,” he said.
Bouncing Back
Last week, friend of The Mill Sacha Lord was in the London Evening Standard, writing about Baroness Hodge’s review into the Arts Council. Hodge recommended that the council’s funding application process be made simpler, and Lord supported this. After all, he has prior experience. “In 2023,” he wrote, “I was caught in a dispute with the Arts Council following inaccuracies in a pandemic-era grant application.” We think Lord should give himself more credit. In 2024 we reported how an application filed by Primary Event Solutions, a company Lord part-owned, made spurious claims about what the company actually did so it could get £401,928 out of a fund designed to support struggling arts organisations during the pandemic.
The application said Primary — up until then a security company — was actually “the backbone of the national creative events sector”. It claimed it hired a huge variety of staff, from dog handlers to lighting engineers to bar staff. Those who actually worked for the company remembered none of this: “It was solely security, there was no mention of cleaners or coordinators or anything like that. It was just security.” It fabricated figures on how much the company contributed to the local economy (£41,000,000) and then attributed the figure to GMCA data. When we asked the GMCA, it didn’t recognise it. We even got hold of the original application Primary filed, and found it requested £10,500 of emergency funding to redesign its website.
In the Standard, Lord, somehow without irony, writes: “the way we distribute public funding for our cultural sector is no longer fit for purpose,” and talks about heart-breaking stories of small businesses not getting funding because of small errors in their applications. But what about the big companies getting hundreds of thousands of pounds despite misleading the funding body? He said he had to spend “months of time, energy and significant personal resources,” to explain Primary’s actions, blaming “unclear and unsatisfactory guidance from the Arts Council in the first place.” He also says that unnamed independent advisors found a “lack of evidence of wrongdoing” in Primary’s case. But when the Arts Council investigated it found Primary did indeed, deliberately or involuntarily, mislead it, and reiterated such to The Mill and other publications after Lord’s piece was published in the Standard.
Last year, the Arts Council ruled that Primary Event Solutions had to pay back the £401,928 it misleadingly obtained. The company has been in the process of liquidation since 2023, which was completed on 11 February this year. When we asked the Arts Council if it had got the money back, it said no: “no funds remain with which to repay the debt. As the company no longer exists as a trading entity, we are determining our next steps.”
Before publishing his story the Standard, The Mill understands Lord shopped a piece about this dispute to at least one other publication, who rejected it. It would appear to be the beginning of a comeback bid by Lord, but so far it doesn’t appear to be landing with much of a bang. Though he clearly does have grander plans. Recently, Lord had a to and fro with our editor Joshi on X and told him to prepare to be “called out” in his upcoming book. Little does Lord know we already have an advanced copy…
Happy holidays!
Reform UK’s Tameside campaign manager Adam Mitula will be spending the crucial final leg of the by-election by the poolside in Tunisia, of all strange places. A Facebook post by Mitula a few days ago showed him working on his tan under the hot North African sun, a far cry from grey-and-windy Denton, where he had been stationed until The Mill revealed his history of tweeting brazenly antisemitic comments (such as: “I would never touch a Jewish woman”). Jewish News reported last week that Reform had suspended Mitula, and that the Board of Deputies was among a number of organisations to file a complaint about his remarks. This all came as Reform UK launched its Reform Jewish Alliance at the Central Synagogue in London (an event where Nigel Farage was heckled). The Jewish Chronicle has also reported that Reform UK has now begun a disciplinary process against Mitula, although they never answered any of our questions on the matter. A spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “These are the sorts of putrid comments one might expect to see in the dark corners of the internet. Instead, they are reportedly attributed to Adam Mitula, Reform UK’s interim campaign manager in Tameside.”
Open Newsroom
Fly-tipping is the topic on our radar this week, especially in the Trafford area. We’ve heard stories of fly-tipped sofas, old fridges and even, and this is really strange, a fly-tipped boat. If you live in Trafford or thereabouts, do reach out and let us know what’s going on.
This week’s weather
Tuesday 🌥️ Dry, breezy & mild with occasional periods of sunshine. Max 14°c.
Wednesday 🌦️Mild & mostly cloudy with a few showers later in the afternoon. Breezy. Max 15°c.
Thursday 🌦️ Breezy with showery spells of rain & mostly cloudy skies. Less mild. Max 13°c.
Friday 🌦️Blustery with sunny spells & scattered showers. Feeling noticeably fresher. Max 10°c.
Weekend 🌦️Mixed weather consisting of sunshine & showers with temperatures close to the seasonal average.
Home of the week
Have your say in Gorton and Denton in the general election, if not the by-election, by snapping up this 2-bed in Levenshulme. £280,000.
What our writers are up to this week
🎂 It’s Ophira’s birthday! The whole Mill team will be enjoying a celebratory lunch at Hawksmoor (who have a new £19 lunch menu) and this evening she’ll be heading to Gary Neville’s Hotel Football to watch her new hero, Mattheus Cunha, in her new top, a Mattheus Cunha top.
🎨 Lucy is heading to The Taphouse in town tomorrow for a ‘Paint & Chat’ evening. If artistic talent has never been in your repertoire, fear not, because it isn’t in Lucy’s either, but tickets are only £4.50 and you can get them here.
🎭 And the BRIT Awards are coming to Manchester on Saturday, meaning Jack One (Dulhanty) and Jack Two (Walton) will have the chance to meet Jack Three (Whitehall) as they eye up the Soho House afterparty. Jack One (Dulhanty) knows a good comedian when he sees one, and describes Jack Three (Whitehall) as a “talented funnyman”.
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