Turning Point Implicated in UK Street Violence – The Thursday AM Quickie 10/22/26
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10/22: Emma will be hosting solo. Her guests will be Isabella Weber, associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of Anti-Fascist Economics: In Defense of Affordability, Dignity, and Democracy; and Dr. Tarek Loubani, ER physician in Ontario, Canada and founder of the Glia Project, discussing his most recent trip volunteering in Gaza.
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Today you’ll read about Brad Lander's detention in Israel, Ilhan Omar's account of the fed raid on her home, and the student protests spreading across Europe.
THE BIG NEWS
Undercover Exposé Links Turning Point UK to Murder-for-Hire Plots
Al Jazeera's investigative unit dropped a blockbuster documentary yesterday, five years in the making, which implicates Turning Point UK, the British franchise partner of Turning Point USA, the Republican Party's youth turnout operation, in anti-immigrant street violence and murder-for-hire schemes. TPUK "has close ties to several senior British Conservative Party members, as well as to leaders of Reform UK," Nigel Farage's neo-fascist party.
TPUK's CEO Jack Ross ran as a Conservative three years ago. As Al Jazeera reports, Ross introduced their undercover reporter to Allan Nesbitt, a convicted criminal from Glasgow, Scotland, and member of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, a Protestant loyalist group that killed over 500 people during The Troubles in Northern Islands. Al Jazeera reports:
"Ross made clear that he and Nesbitt had a long history together. Ross was filmed by our undercover reporter agreeing to pay Nesbitt thousands of pounds to stage a fake political rally designed to show support for the lifting of UK sanctions against Zimbabwe.
"Ross also told Al Jazeera’s undercover operative that for 'a certain amount' Nesbitt and his contacts could arrange physical attacks, saying they could 'kick the f— out of someone. They can start cutting people’s faces up. That's another amount. They can stab someone,' Ross said. 'They can shoot someone. They could kill someone.'"
Al Jazeera's reporter attempted to hire Nesbitt to "deal with" for a fictional business rival. Nesbitt agreed to "finish" the person with a "bad accident" "for a price," boasting that his UVF contacts "are terrorists" and "f—ing trained killers." He also admitted to having killed people himself in the past. And, to show he was serious, he showed off guns and ammunition in a subsequent video call.
"Besides links to the UVF, Al Jazeera's investigation also shows links between Turning Point UK and other far-right agitators in the UK. These include groups that have been at the forefront of protests against migrants and LGBTQ+ rights."
Jack Ross denies Al Jazeera's findings and claims he was joking in secret films implicating his group in violence. Nevertheless, the Conservative Party suspended his membership yesterday "pending an investigation."
Ross claimed last year to have met the late TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk "probably about a dozen times," and said Kirk overruled his board members to launch the UK franchise. "We actually have everything to do with Turning Point," Ross told the Daily Express. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a US civil rights group, linked TPUSA to white nationalist hate groups, prompting pushback from Congressional Republicans and Donald Trump's FBI.
"Turning Point UK has serious questions to answer," says Hope not hate, a British group that investigates the far right.