The Trump administration moved Friday to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel as President Donald Trump said Moscow had agreed to release large quantities of the fuel and suggested the U.S. could be a buyer.

The surprise move comes as the Trump administration has struggled to bring the record diesel prices — caused by the ongoing war against Iran as well as Ukrainian attacks against Russian refineries — under control ahead of the midterm elections.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had just “concluded a highly successful discussion” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Putin agreed to supply hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel fuel “to the American and Global Marketplace.”

“Between our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The Treasury Department said in a post on X that it was “immediately issuing a temporary general license to allow the supply of Russian diesel to the global market.”

Moscow has restricted diesel exports in recent months as Ukraine has accelerated its attacks on Russian refineries, contributing to the global shortage of the fuel. It is unclear how Russia will supply the large quantities of the fuel promised by Trump with a large chunk of its refineries out of commission.

The European Union and China reached an agreement on Friday that will curb China’s booming hybrid car exports, delivering a breakthrough in negotiations aimed at rebalancing their trade relationship.

The announcement came as Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič wrapped up two days of talks in Beijing, the culmination of a push launched in June to narrow the bloc’s €1 billion-a-day trade deficit with China. 

The deal marks a win for the EU executive, which has been under pressure to secure concessions from Beijing. Going into the talks, France and Germany strengthened Šefčovič’s hand by calling for the EU to take tough action on trade if China failed to curb a growing export glut.

Speaking in Beijing, the commissioner said the two sides had reached an agreement that would help to shield European automakers from low-price Chinese competition. He declined to enter into specifics before EU leaders officially mandate the EU executive to move forward. 

“We have reached a shared understanding to moderate China’s export of hybrids and plug-in hybrids to the European Union. This opens the prospect of cutting China’s exports by more than a half,” Šefčovič told reporters. 

The estimate was based on projections of how Chinese exports would grow over the next four years without the agreement. In practical terms, it would mean that “several millions of car exports from China to the European Union” would be prevented, he explained.

China’s Commerce Ministry highlighted the understanding on hybrids in a parallel 16-point statement, but offered no details on how exports would be restrained. It said the two sides “will continue to strengthen communication and cooperation under the trade monitoring mechanism and further leverage dialogue mechanisms to enhance mutual understanding.” 

Šefčovič declined to elaborate when asked whether the deal would allow the EU to impose safeguards — a mixture of import quotas and tariffs — a step that Brussels has been considering. He said the arrangement would comply with the rules of the World Trade Organization.

First step

Šefčovič said that Beijing had also agreed to lower duties on European goods worth €4 billion, ranging from olive oil to footwear, a move that would save exporters €225 million. 

“It is a crucial first step,” he said. “But only a first step in the process of rebalancing.” 

The Slovak commissioner said he would report back to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, along with EU leaders, when they meet for a summit in Brussels next Thursday.

He had focused on cars as a key deliverable going into meetings in Beijing with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and Vice Prime Minister He Lifeng.

Chinese auto exports to Europe have been booming, accounting in August for one in eight cars sold in the bloc — mainly driven by sales of hybrids. Europe’s own automotive industry is feeling the pressure, with Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz recently announcing job cuts and plant closures.

Aside from the deal on hybrids, Beijing said in its statement that it was “willing to continue” fast-tracking licenses to export rare earth elements to the EU. Automakers had been forced to shut down assembly lines after China temporarily restricted exports in response to U.S. tariffs last year. China dominates the production and processing of rare earths.

“We have reached a shared understanding to further facilitate China’s export licensing for rare earths and permanent magnets,” Šefčovič said. 

Road ahead

Brussels sees the agreement on hybrid electric vehicles as a blueprint that could be replicated to shield further EU sectors currently under strain, such as chemicals or machinery. The two sides plan to meet again in March 2027, and will hold a video call in January. 

The agreement on one of the EU’s top negotiating targets significantly reduces the risk of an escalation in trade tensions that could have led to a tit-for-tat round of retaliation. It remains to be seen whether the EU will act swiftly on the Franco-German call to empower Brussels to shut out exports from countries that destabilize its single market.

“Public opinion and the leaders clearly expect very fast action from our side. I am glad to say that the Chinese partners appreciated this very strong political argument, and therefore, we can proceed through the negotiated solution,” said Šefčovič.

Other areas of agreement include exploring easier market access for European medical devices, as well as promises by Beijing to scale back sweeping disease-control measures that have restricted European meat and livestock exports. 

While the deal will cool the most immediate tensions, a wider resolution to the economic imbalances that fueled the conflict remains distant. The EU’s trade deficit with China totaled nearly €360 billion in 2025, and is already up 12 percent so far this year.  

China’s automotive exports to the EU, which totaled €15.1 billion last year, are only a fraction of that.

This article has been updated.

LONDON — British Prime Minister Andy Burnham confirmed Friday he will legislate to ease restrictive non-compete clause rules for workers — but stopped short of committing to a ban.

​Burnham said in a speech in Manchester that he wants to “make sure that non-compete clauses will no longer be a barrier to hiring for our most promising start-ups and scaling firms” — but did has yet to set out the extent of the crackdown.

​The scope of the new rules will come later, ahead of legislation. POLITICO first reported the planned crackdown Thursday.

​The government’s action would be the “Bosman ruling for the innovation sector,” Burnham said at a government-backed innovation summit in Manchester. That’s a reference to a 1995 European Court of Justice decision that changed how star players are transferred between football clubs.

​Potential changes to non-compete clauses in workers’ contracts began in 2025 under Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer. The proposals ranged from a total ban on non-compete clauses to a partial ban, such as allowing non-compete clauses only for workers earning more than a set salary threshold, or limiting their length.

​The vow from Burnham comes after intense lobbying lobbying for and against the restrictions in workers’ contracts. U.K. tech start-ups claim the curbs are undermining economic growth, while City firms and trade bodies, including TheCityUK and the Managed Funds Association, are against any changes.

BRUSSELS — It was meant to be Europe’s escape from the web of Chinese critical mineral supremacy.

But two years after it took effect, the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act is not on schedule. Just one in four critical mineral projects granted special status under the law is on track to be ready on time, according to new analysis shared with POLITICO.

On Friday, EU industry chief Stéphane Séjourné will unveil a new list of critical mineral projects that will receive privileged access to funding, accelerated permitting and help from Brussels to find buyers.

The idea is to make Europe a major producer of materials essential to clean energy, tech, and defense manufacturing. It’s currently a heavy importer.

But progress on the first round of 47 projects, announced early last year, offers little hope for the bloc’s ambitions.

“At least one in three mining and processing strategic projects is either late, stalled, at risk, or no longer exists, and only about a quarter are clearly on track,” said Diego Marin, policy officer for raw materials at the European Environmental Bureau, citing publicly available sources. The findings will be published in a report later this month.

Financial, regulatory, and political hurdles are blocking European mining projects, the industry says, despite the Critical Raw Materials Act’s aim to speed up the time it takes to get the shovels in the ground.

The EEB’s findings were echoed in an industry call in August, where 23 projects named in the first round claimed some were facing “immediate jeopardy,” in a letter sent to the Commission and obtained by POLITICO.

Those same companies also believe that announcing more strategic projects will create more problems. However, a Commission official dismissed that claim, saying that some of those projects had received direct funding from the Commission, and claiming the companies believe new projects would “dilute their status.”

The EU unveiled 47 projects in March 2025, covering 14 of the bloc’s 17 designated strategic raw materials—from lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite for electric vehicle batteries and rare earths for magnets used in wind turbines, to tungsten for military equipment and gallium for semiconductors. It also includes 13 projects from outside the bloc.

These were designed to deliver the EU’s raw materials targets: by 2030, the bloc aims to mine at least 10 percent, process 40 percent and recycle 25 percent of its own needs, while sourcing no more than 65 percent of any one material at any processing stage from a single non-EU country.

Breaking Europe’s dependence on China for key metals is at the heart of the policy, a goal European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted in her State of the Union speech last month. “We are more than 80% dependent on China for many critical raw materials [and] 90% for some rare earths,” she lamented. 

A Commission official said that if all goes to plan, the EU will meet its 2030 goals for lithium, cobalt and rare earths, but results for other materials are mixed, with shortfalls in nickel processing and recycling and across the manganese supply chain. They did not give hard figures, though.

Industry skeptical

“Unless something happens that is absolutely not foreseen today, we will be far, far away from reaching the targets, even if they are quite low,” said Jan Moström, former CEO of Swedish mining giant LKAB and outgoing president of Euromines. He said better access to financing and faster permitting was key.

The EU is under additional time pressure as a pause on China’s export controls on rare earth minerals is due to expire in January.

Global think tank ODI found in June that “out of 60 projects, 14 are unlikely to contribute by 2030 because their estimated start of production falls between 2029 and 2031,” and that “three out of four are either behind their expected schedule or impossible to verify using up-to-date public evidence” — backing up the EEB’s numbers. 

A European Court of Auditors report this year also revealed that “many projects will struggle to secure supply for the EU by 2030” and that there was “no proper tracking of results.” 

The European Commission questioned the current validity of the ECA’s findings, saying it “audited a period of policy that does not cover everything we’ve done since this mandate. So the Court of Auditors had very relevant points that we took into account in our policy, but should absolutely not be seen as a fair assessment of the work we’ve done with the von der Leyen Commission number two,” said a Commission official. 

Desperate times

Since adopting the Critical Raw Materials Act in 2024, Brussels has rolled out a flurry of initiatives to get projects moving. They include a proposed critical raw materials center, for which Parliament is seeking €2 billion; the “RESourceEU” plan that’s mobilized more than €2 billion; a mechanism to identify suppliers; and plans to revise water rules and speed up environmental impact assessments. 

But industry leaders say the EU is moving too slowly. 

“I’m still to be convinced that it makes any difference,” Michael Staffas, CEO of Swedish miner Boliden, told POLITICO when asked about the benefits of being designated as a strategic project. Boliden’s subsidiary Somincor was granted strategic status for a copper and zinc mine in Portugal. 

The “strategic project” label promised faster permitting and help securing public and private finance, with permitting deadlines of 27 months for mines and 15 months for processing and recycling projects.

“In Sweden you have different authorities that can basically object to a permit process and that in itself creates way longer time than 27 months, just the legislation,” said LKAB CEO Johan Menckel, whose company currently has three strategic projects.

One is the Per Geijer deposit, home to Europe’s largest rare-earth deposits, which the local indigenous Sámi community opposes, arguing it would harm their reindeer-herding tradition. 

The local administration recently recommended that the State Mining Authority grant the concession on the condition that the Swedish company “minimize the impact on the reindeer industry,” but that will be subject to appeal from the Sámi.

Karin K Niia, a Sámi reindeer herder, said in comments that the EU will be complicit in cultural genocide if the project goes ahead. 

Europe’s lithium hope

Europe’s biggest bet to escape China’s foothold in battery metal supply chains is the Barroso lithium mine in Portugal, run by UK-based mining company Savannah Resources. The company says the mine could supply enough lithium for around half a million electric-vehicle batteries a year.

“I don’t think the strategic project stamp and the [Critical Raw Materials Act] have been absolutely essential, but it wasn’t also supposed to be. It was supposed to, in my understanding, be important to set a framework under which Europe can do the right thing faster, better, and for the better benefit of the next generation of Europe,” Savannah’s CEO Emanuel Proença said, calling it just another piece of a very big puzzle. 

Europe’s lithium-refining ambitions are also faltering: France’s Viridian Lithium went bankrupt after failing to secure funding, while Portugal’s José de Mello Group was unable to finance its planned €492 million refinery — despite both projects winning strategic status in the EU’s first round.

Viridian Lithium spokesperson Luc Pez said the strategic project label was a ‘curse.’ 

Rio Tinto’s Jadar project in Serbia, one of the non-EU projects to gain strategic-project status, was meant to provide double Barroso’s lithium capacity and cater to up to 25 percent of Europe’s demand. That, however, was suspended because of permitting issues and became a widely protested project amid allegations of corruption and environmental concerns. 

That reflected the simple fact that people don’t like mines in their backyard — an obstacle for mining projects worldwide, but especially in Europe, which is densely populated and has strong civil society.

“These projects had strategic status, EU money and fast-track permits, and it still wasn’t enough,” said EEB’s Marin. “If the supply push can’t deliver even under those conditions, the EU has to take demand reduction and sufficiency seriously. We can’t permit our way out of a market problem.”

Frida Preuß contributed to this report.

LONDON — The U.K. government is planning to commit to a full or partial ban on non-compete clauses in workers’ employment contracts, six people with knowledge of the discussions told POLITICO.

All six of the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss government policy, said they believed an announcement is due imminently and could be made as soon as Friday. Three of those people said they believed the announcement was likely to be fronted personally by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who is expected to give a speech Friday.

The government of Burnham’s predecessor, Keir Starmer, set out options in November 2025 to limit the use of non-compete clauses, which aim to restrict a person’s ability to work for or set up a competing business after they leave their job.

The founders of more than 20 U.K. tech start-ups wrote to the government last month saying the restrictions, along with long notice periods and enforced gardening leave, were and “undermin[ing] the innovation that drives economic growth”.

The options set out 11 months ago ranged from a total ban on non-compete clauses to a partial ban, such as allowing non-compete clauses only for workers earning more than a set salary threshold, or limiting their length.

However, two of the six people quoted above said that the government would stop short of backing a specific option at this stage.

Ministers are expected to set out a broad intention of ensuring that non-compete clauses are no longer a hiring problem for start-ups and innovative firms, but finer details will be worked out further down the line in consultation with industry.

No. 10 declined to comment.

The announcement comes after Chancellor John Healey said he wanted to tackle the costs for businesses in his budget on Oct. 28. One of the six people quoted above said: “They want to sell it as pro growth and freeing up the labour market.”

AI Minister Kanishka Narayan said last week that the government was “working extremely rapidly” on potential changes to the system.

Non-compete clauses are common in the financial services industry. The lobby group TheCityUK opposed a ban earlier this year, arguing that non-compete clauses “promote competition and innovation in high-value industries” as they are often the “only way to pre-emptively protect confidential information and intellectual property.”

The government argued last year that even though non-compete clauses are “unenforceable” as a starting point under current law, ministers were “concerned about the behavioural effect of including a non-compete clause in an employment contract. Even if broadly drafted and unlikely to be enforceable, workers may perceive the clause as binding and comply with it for fear of legal repercussions.”

Britain is open to Germany joining the sixth-generation jet fighter Global Combat Air Programme led by the U.K., Italy and Japan, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Thursday.

“I’ve indicated to the chancellor in our discussion… our openness to Germany joining GCAP,” Burnham said in Berlin during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“That is something we seek to progress in the coming period working with our other partners Italy and Japan in relation to that as well,” he added.

POLITICO reported last month that Berlin has held exploratory talks about participating in GCAP after Germany’s combat aircraft plans with France collapsed earlier this year.

“This is neither a decision nor a preliminary decision. It is a first, small step in Germany’s efforts to seek—and possibly find—partnerships in this area,” said a senior German official, who spoke on condition of being granted anonymity.

“We are at a very early stage in reassessing our options. Germany has not made a decision yet. It is exploring all possible avenues,” they said. “However, you are aware of the chancellor’s position that he favors a European solution rather than Germany acting alone.”

Earlier this year, Canada became the first observer nation in GCAP, which could be a pathway to full future membership. Other possible members include Saudi Arabia.

However, the three GCAP members have been wary of opening the club, worrying about less work for each partner nation or delays to the program.

The CEO of Italian defense firm Leonardo, which is part of the GCAP industrial coalition within the program, said in July that if another country wants to join the program, it needs to happen within the next 12 months.

The British leader also outlined a new partnership with Germany to counter hybrid threats from countries such as Russia.

“The defense ministries have been tasked with exploring ways to expand this partnership,” said the German official.

LONDON — Germany wants the U.K. to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for protection from Made in Europe rules, according to a person familiar with Berlin’s position.

Friedrich Merz’s government believes the move would show reciprocity on trade and counter accusations from other EU member states that Britain is trying to “cherry pick” the benefits of EU membership, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss closed-door talks.

It comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham met with the German chancellor on his first official visit to the country this week.

Burnham and Merz were due to talk about possibilities for Britain’s future relationship with the EU — after the British prime minister put rejoining the bloc back on the table of U.K. politics for the first time in a decade.

Berlin’s position on EV tariffs is significant as Germany has broadly backed a tolerant policy towards the U.K. on trade matters since Brexit — in contrast to more hard-line positions taken by countries like France.

The EU is in the process of drawing up new Made in Europe rules that would favor European producers over those outside the bloc — in response to trade practices by competitors like China and the United States.

The U.K. is worried that the measures will hit British business — especially automakers — and wants assurances from Brussels that it will get an opt out. If Berlin gets its way, those assurances could be dependent on emulating EU trade policy with regard to Chinese EVs.

Predatory strategy

Germany’s vaunted car industry, arguably the jewel in the country’s economic crown, has faced stiff competition from Chinese imports in recent years.

EU countries have accused China of dumping low-cost, state-subsidized electric vehicles into the European market and in December 2024 imposed countervailing duties as high as 35.3. percent on some manufacturers.

Industry Commissioner Stephane Séjourné accused China of pursuing a deliberate “predatory strategy” with state subsidies to the tune of €10,000 per vehicle.

The U.K.’s Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told POLITICO last month that the government was keeping tariffs “under review, to be frank, more closely than lots of other issues” and that “different parts of our own sector want different things from” the government’s policy.

Hamish Falconer, the U.K.’s minister for European relations, told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook Podcast this week that he was “surprised” at reports tariffs might be a condition of Made in Europe opt-outs, adding: “That’s not the kind of conversation that I’m having with my European counterparts.”

Going ahead with higher tariffs risks alienating Beijing, which has expressed serious concerns about the policy. It would also raise the price of electric vehicles on the market, potentially making it harder for the government to meet its decarbonization targets.

LONDON — Zack Polanski promised to smash Britain’s two-party political system — but his campaign for a U.K. parliamentary seat has leaned heavily on the idea that he can keep the existing prime minister honest.

POLITICO analysis of the online battleground in the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election – which takes place Thursday — shows the Green leader has been pitching himself as a protest vote for Labour-backing constituents in the London seat, which has been held by Labour since its creation in 1983.

The party has spent nearly £5,000 pushing ads on Meta’s platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram, promising that a Green win would help “keep the government in check.”

In one campaign video, Polanski takes credit for a series of Labour U-turns on their “most unpopular policies” over the last 12 months. A victory in the seat, he claims, would add further pressure on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to listen to the Greens, rather than “Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, or their corporate donors.”

An additional £7,000 has been spent by the party promoting graphics of recent newspaper headlines it thinks demonstrate the influence it holds over Burnham’s Labour government — including a Guardian story flagging a possible delay on North Sea gas field decisions until after the by-election.

“When Zack Polanski speaks, Labour listens. That is the power of the leader of the Green Party,” the accompanying ad copy states.

Building Brand Zack

The by-election marks Polanski’s first attempt to win a seat in the House of Commons.

The left-wing leader oversaw a rapid polling increase for the Greens after taking charge in September 2025, snatching a Labour safe seat in Gorton and Denton under former Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer the following February.

But its polling momentum appears to have stalled since Labour switched to Burnham, and the party has also faced internal rows over anti-semitism.

The party has spent around £8,000 on targeted ads highlighting endorsements for Polanski from local residents, including former independent candidates and NHS workers.

And at least £500 of that has been spent promoting effusive praise of the Green leader from his own local hairdresser.

Alongside a picture of the pair hugging, barber Rami is quoted saying: “I’ve been cutting Zack’s hair for years. When you chat to him you can tell how much he really cares.”

A significant number of the showcased endorsements come from former Labour backers and members as Polanski seeks to convince voters that Burnham’s majority — and the mid-term timing of the contest — means they can register a protest vote in the symbolic seat previously held by Starmer.

One standalone advert features former Labour member Gopa, who says: “We all know there will still be a Labour government whoever wins, so I’m excited for a Green candidate who will listen to us and help push Labour to do better.”

Other endorsements include a Labour member of three decades who says she is now backing Polanski after her former party “lost its way and let me down.” Ex-Labour councillor Naser says he’s switched his allegiance to “keep the pressure on, and keep Labour in check.”

The Labour pitch

By contrast, Labour candidate Sagal Abdi-Wali has kept her campaign local.

She has spent more than £21,000 with Meta promoting dozens of slick cinematic clips and polished graphics pitching herself as a “local champion.”

Supported by Labour’s well-oiled digital team, Abdi-Wali’s online campaign focuses heavily on her experience of arriving in the area as a child refugee, and her subsequent career as a local councillor.

Labour has also pumped more than £20,000 into Google’s ad program. The majority of that sum was spent on bitesize YouTube ads, with the remainder spent on buying up sponsored Google search results in an attempt to grab the attention of voters hunting for information about the contest.

Also running

Britain’s hard-right Restore Britain has also been making a pitch to voters in Holborn and St Pancras — while openly admitting it has no chance of winning in “one of the most left-wing seats in Britain.”

Rupert Lowe’s party has spent around £30,000 on Meta ads positioning itself as a “genuine patriotic alternative” to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK — which has not spent significant cash in the contest.

Restore’s spending included £1,500 promoting a “quiz” comparing comments from Reform politicians with Restore’s more hard-line agenda. A further £2,000 went on promoting a graphic of the “ten reasons” why voters should support it.

That list includes removing “millions of foreign nationals who hate who we are,” a promise to “reverse the Islamification” of London, deport “foreign tramps who ruin our city” and force “healthy” benefit claimants to clean graffiti and pick litter.

In a further attempt to present his insurgent party as a credible alternative to Reform or the Conservatives, Lowe’s paid online content repeatedly describes the by-election as a “free hit” for right-wing voters to “vote with your heart.”

“They don’t want the capital reformed, or conserved,” one paid ad states. “They want London restored.”

The Trump administration pressured diplomatic officials from the EU, Canada and Lithuania to pull out of an international conference on disinformation after organizers announced panels warning of the threat posed by American government officials and the country’s influence broadly, according to excerpts of a State Department cable seen by POLITICO.

The conference, titled #Disinfo2026, included sessions that described the U.S. as a “foreign information manipulation and interference” actor, or “FIMI,” which bothered the Trump administration, according to the cable. The conference is being held Wednesday and Thursday in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.

The State Department asked American embassies in several European countries and the EU to express Washington’s concerns and “assess” whether the governments involved in the conference agree with the U.S. being characterized as a FIMI actor, according to the cable.

FIMI is an EU term used to describe activities that try to distort public information, such as spreading disinformation online, usually by foreign actors such as Russia. The conference conflates the U.S. with “foreign adversaries like Russia and China,” which is a “false equivalence” that “obscures the scale and nature of Russian and Chinese interference in our democracies,” the cable states.

The demarche request appears to be an unusual administration effort to use allied government pressure to silence criticism from European citizens and Americans abroad (three U.S. citizens appeared on one of the panels that prompted the cable). It also marks an acceleration of the Trump administration’s years-long pressure campaign on the continent, which includes U.S. criticism of perceived EU censorship.

The recipients of the cable included U.S. embassies in France, Norway, Romania and Poland. The embassies each were told to tell their hosts — verbally, not in writing — that the U.S. was unhappy with the panels on American disinformation, according to the cable and a U.S. official, who, like others, was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation.

One of those panels, titled “USA as a FIMI threat: acknowledge, adapt, push back” featured two American researchers and a former CIA official and looked at how the U.S. had become a disinformation threat to Europe. Another, titled “Under attack: How the counter-disinformation community is dealing with US government pressure,” asked legal experts to weigh in on the threat of U.S. government travel bans against European figures.

The State Department asked some of those countries — but not all — to reconsider participating in the event, said the U.S. official familiar with the cable, which came from the secretary of State’s office.

Officials from Norway, Romania and Poland still appear on the conference agenda. Spokespeople for the ministries of foreign affairs in Norway, Romania and Poland did not respond to a request for comment.

U.S. officials also contacted France’s Foreign Ministry, but it did not withdraw from the conference.

The Trump administration and its allies have repeatedly tried to pressure EU allies to align with Washington’s standards of free speech, which some in Europe consider to be too broadly defined. These efforts have included public criticism, closed-door lobbying against EU laws and visa restrictions for Europeans.

Domestically, the administration has dismantled U.S. government organizations that fight disinformation, including at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans have also taken issue with some European laws that force social media platforms to be more active in combating false information online, such as laws requiring age verification for potentially harmful content, which some have said amount to censorship.

As of Monday, Canada and Lithuania asked organizers to remove their ministry logos from conference materials, according to a conference participant, and the European External Action Service followed on Tuesday. European news site Rapporteur first reported on the removal of the foreign ministry logos.

“To me, I see a very strange reaction from the State Department to a conference of researchers using our First Amendment free speech rights to talk about how to stop lying and manipulation that undermines democracy and hurts our families and hurts our children,” said Adam Fivenson, who works for the Center for Security, Innovation and New Technology at American University and was on one of the panels the Trump administration took issue with. This panel still proceeded as scheduled.

The cable also notes that top officials in the State Department’s global public diplomacy section reached out directly to Canadian officials to express frustrations with Ottawa’s participation in the conference. This part of the State Department, led by Sarah Rogers, handles the public-facing aspects of diplomacy that are aimed at building support for U.S. goals among foreign populations.

Asked for comment, the State Department said in a statement: “While we are unable to comment on the details of diplomatic conversations, it should not be a surprise that countries would disaffiliate from this conference upon learning that it labeled the U.S. a ‘FIMI threat.’ Labeling the United States a ‘FIMI threat’ — a term normally reserved for describing influence operations of adversaries — undermines shared goals and should alarm those involved.”

After speaking with U.S. officials, Canada and Lithuania pulled their support from the conference, meaning they don’t appear on panels or in conference materials. The EU’s External Action Service, its diplomatic arm, was also removed from official programming.

Images reviewed by POLITICO show conference banners with the logos of all Canadian, Lithuanian, and EU diplomatic services covered. France remains the sole “main supporter.”

Spokespeople for the EEAS and Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry both said they withdrew because some of the conference programming didn’t align with their official positions, though they did not specify what those positions are.

The cable draws a clearer line between U.S. engagement with Lithuania and Canada and their decision to pull public support for the conference. After speaking to the local U.S. embassy, “Lithuania’s Foreign Minister [Kęstutis] Budrys stated the U.S.-focused sessions did not represent the views of the Lithuanian government and committed that no one from Lithuania MFA would participate,” the cable reads.

BRUSSELS — The EU will only conduct further releases of oil and diesel reserves after the International Energy Agency has made it clear such a move would not be damaging to the bloc’s energy security, three diplomats familiar with the matter told POLITICO.

The Group of Seven — which includes Italy, Japan, Germany the U.K., France and the U.S. — agreed on Friday to release 100 million barrels of oil and diesel after U.S. officials threatened to ban diesel exports if they didn’t tap stockpiles.

However, the IEA appeared to confirm Wednesday that that release would draw from stocks pledged under an agreement in March and not include additional supplies. In other words, it would not amount to a new release at all, but would simply fulfil prior promises.

In a meeting Wednesday afternoon, EU officials endorsed the position, pledging to defer any future drawdowns “pending a clearer IEA assessment of market conditions and security-of-supply risks,” said one of the diplomats. Countries need to know “how low we can go,” said another.

While diesel prices are high as a result of airstrikes on energy infrastructure in Russia and the Middle East, some EU countries warned that releasing stocks now could leave them vulnerable in the event of a supply crisis.

There remain enough untapped stocks among IEA members to satisfy the pledge to release 100 million barrels.

Of the 400 million barrels pledged in March, 325 million have been released, with some countries releasing “greater volumes than they initially pledged,” the IEA said in a statement following an emergency ministerial meeting. That leaves around 100 million left that countries can still release under that agreement, it added.

It said the fresh commitment would represent a “completion” of that March agreement. The IEA’s 32 members include wealthy European, North American and East Asian countries.

POLITICO reported earlier Wednesday that France and Germany — which hold some of Europe’s most significant stockpiles — had signalled they would release no or minimal supplies on top of those already pledged.

It remains unclear what share of the releases non-EU members of the IEA will accept, after Japan, another member, ruled out any further releases.

Further details on the breakdown of the G7 release will be discussed at a meeting of the IEA’s governing board next week, the second diplomat said.

BRUSSELS — Britain is hopeful of doing a deal with the European Union to avoid British businesses being hit by new Made in Europe trade rules, the minister in charge of talks has said.

European Relations Minister Hamish Falconer told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook Podcast it was “overwhelmingly in both sides’ interests” to strike an agreement on the proposed controls.

“For Europe to be more competitive and able to weather some of the shocks that we’re all talking about, we need to do it together,” he said. “I think that’s such an overwhelmingly powerful case that I am sure we will come to a sensible position on all this.”

Brussels is in the process of updating its trade rules to favor EU producers over those outside the bloc — and London fears some of its businesses will be locked out.

The U.K. has urged the EU to guarantee that British producers won’t be affected. Brussels says it can’t give those guarantees now as the rules are still working their way through the bloc’s cumbersome legislative process.

Yet in the event a deal isn’t reached, London believes its Brexit trade deal, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), could force Brussels to think again.

“Our arrangements in terms of how we trade are underpinned by the TCA. That’s a strong arrangement between us which is independently overseen,” Falconer said.

“It provides lots of protections to both sides. Our basic position to our friends is, look, I don’t think European competitiveness is enhanced by putting further impediments in the way of our industrial base.”

There are those in Brussels who agree. In-house lawyers at the EU Council have advised member countries that the bloc’s plans for the Industrial Accelerator Act could violate the union’s international trade deals, according to documents seen by POLITICO.

Falconer suggested the U.K. wanted a “straightforward” and “unfussy” arrangement where U.K. goods were simply counted as being of Union origin under the IAA.

But the minister wouldn’t be drawn on whether success at the upcoming U.K.-EU summit demanded an agreement on Made in Europe — as London had previously briefed.

That meeting is meant to sign off talks on agri-foods, youth visas, and emissions trading — as well as act as a launchpad for further negotiations.

“I don’t wanna get ahead of the discussions. I used to be a diplomat; there’s no discussion or negotiation that is made easier by publicly broadcasting it,” Falconer said.

The bigger reset

The minister rejected suggestions the EU was demanding the U.K. raise tariffs on Chinese cars in exchange for guarantees on the IAA. He stated that he was “surprised” at reports to that effect, adding: “That’s not the kind of conversation that I’m having with my European counterparts.”

Yet a landing zone may be emerging. EU officials and diplomats have previously indicated that reference could still be made to the subject at the meeting — perhaps in the form of a political declaration.

Falconer, who was in Strasbourg on Wednesday for his first European Parliament plenary, confirmed that he would be discussing “future options with European partners” — following Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s suggestion the U.K. could rejoin the EU, or at least its customs union or single market.

He is using the visit to meet with Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, as well as European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. Of the EU institutions debating the industry act, Parliament is pushing for the strictest line on the Made in Europe rules.

Asked what options he was personally pushing for when it came to the future U.K.-EU relationship, Falconer wouldn’t be drawn, revealing only that Burnham would “say more” in a speech scheduled for around “the time of the summit.”

The meeting still has no officially announced date, though Nov. 20 is the latest in a string of days widely rumored to have been penciled in by diary officials in Brussels and London.

“I have a date in mind, but I don’t want to say it just yet,” Falconer told the podcast. “We will agree that with our friends, and you’ll be the first to know.”

BRUSSELS — France and Germany said Wednesday that they will release diesel stocks that were already committed in March as part of the G7 pledge to tap stockpiles of oil products, leaving it uncertain as to whether any new barrels will be released in addition, two diplomats familiar with the matter told POLITICO. 

The comments suggest Europe’s promise to U.S. President Donald Trump last week to release millions of barrels of the transport fuel was less generous than it sounded.

The G7 club of rich countries committed Friday to release a “substantial” amount of diesel in the next 20 days to bring down global prices after senior Trump administration officials threatened to impose an export ban on the fuel if European countries didn’t unlock their reserves.

But in a closed-door meeting of EU energy officials Wednesday, the countries acknowledged that the release wouldn’t include new barrels of diesel but rather barrels already pledged under a wider European commitment to release 100 million barrels, two-thirds of which were refined products, the diplomats said. That deal was brokered by the International Energy Agency in March weeks after the outbreak of the war in Iran. 

The exact quantities Germany and France will release remains unclear, but they will represent a portion of the remainder of the stocks committed in March, the diplomats and a German government spokesperson said.

Of the 2.65 million tons of oil, diesel and jet fuel promised, Germany has so far released only 600,000 tons onto the market. It remains unclear how much France has contributed of its own commitment to release 14.6 million barrels of oil products. However, Paris has indicated privately that it still has 8 million barrels left under the March commitment, which it will contribute under the latest push, two other diplomats told POLITICO.

The countries, which boast some of the largest reserves of refined oil products in Europe, have been criticized by the Trump administration for not contributing the full share committed in March. Germany attributes that to weak demand for the barrels, according to a document seen by POLITICO.

It’s not clear whether countries will ultimately decide to commit additional barrels, with one European official telling POLITICO Monday that the fresh commitment “necessarily implied” a fresh release. France on Wednesday signaled it could release 2 million barrels of diesel on top of the quantities agreed in March — as part of the G7 vow to prioritize releases of the motor fuel over the next 20 days — but stopped short of offering a clear commitment, two diplomats said. An extraordinary meeting of the IEA will take place today, two other people familiar with the matter said.

The move came amid confusion from other member countries over who was committing how much and when, with some Eastern European countries like Bulgaria also expressing concern that blowing through reserves to combat prices would leave them exposed in the event of a supply crisis, the people said.

A spokeswoman for Germany’s economy and energy ministry confirmed on Tuesday that Berlin would be releasing no new barrels.

“The G7 has asked the IEA to monitor a swift and complete implementation of the commitments made for March 2026,” the spokeswoman told POLITICO. “Against this background, and taking into account commitments already fulfilled, the obligations are to be implemented through a coordinated release of 100 million barrels via the IEA.”

She added “as of now, no additional quantities” would be released.

Aude le Gentil contributed to this report.

This article has been updated.

The Trump administration has given its newly created “Super Intelligence Force” broad authority to determine how the tech industry and the federal government should address threats to national security and civil liberties posed by fast-evolving artificial intelligence technology, according to a charter obtained by POLITICO.

Three people familiar with discussions about the task force confirmed the document’s authenticity. The people were granted anonymity to share details that are not yet public.

The task force will identify “measures to improve the preparedness and response capability of both the government and the private sector to threats to the homeland and the American people,” the charter states. It will also produce a report on the risks of AI, focusing on “potential threats to civil liberties,” cybersecurity, standards for advanced models, and the impacts of possible overregulation.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the details of the charter.

Both Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill were caught off guard by President Donald Trump’s announcement of the task force’s creation, with four tech-sector representatives telling POLITICO the industry was not widely informed beforeTrump’s social media post. Super intelligence is Trump’s preferred term for artificial intelligence.

The task force’s creation comes as major AI labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI have disclosed a spate of cybersecurity incidents related to new models with advanced hacking capabilities, sparking both industry leaders and lawmakers to call for a potential slowdown in AI development.

Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton will lead the task force in his newly minted role as the administration’s AI czar, with Under Secretary of Defense Emil Michael, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson serving as vice chairs.

Its members include administration officials across the federal government, including at the National Security Agency and the Health and Human Services Department. Senior White House officials, including Vice President JD Vance and chief of staff Susie Wiles, will also be closely involved. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and venture capitalist David Sacks, who served as the administration’s AI czar until March, will also provide “advice” to the group on national security and technology, respectively.

The task force will stand for 120 days, but its work can be extended – or functions transferred to another government agency – at Wiles’ direction, per the charter.

The task force will undertake work spanning financial services, energy infrastructure, transportation, agriculture and emergency services, per the charter, and will work with the Pentagon, the Justice Department, the Homeland Security Department and the Federal Trade Commission to outline its recommendations.

The document also calls out two risk areas that have come under increased scrutiny in recent months: biosecurity and threats to the water supply. OpenAI recently threw its weight behind a slate of bills aimed at preventing AI models from exacerbating the threat of biological weapons, and rival lab Anthropic disclosed several incidents in which scientists in foreign countries used their models to research dangerous pathogens.

The Trump administration also rolled out a program in August to protect vulnerable U.S. water facilities from cybersecurity threats, following a series of cyberattacks on local water systems across the country.

The task force will also be responsible for reviewing “the current protocols and mechanisms in place” for AI labs to notify the government of breaches, hacks and jailbreaks, in addition to developing recommendations for improvements to the government’s response to such incidents.

The document refers to the technology “as both an amplifier and accelerant of both risks and opportunities” but ultimately places responsibility for any risks associated with AI on the labs developing advanced models.

“Though the labs are ultimately responsible for the risks and opportunities that their models amplify and accelerate, it is the role of the federal government to recognize and understand this era of change and to enforce our nation’s laws so that the fundamental principles of our Republic are safeguarded and advanced,” the document reads.

BIRMINGHAM, England — “Vile,” “horrible,” “betrayal,” “bastards.” For Conservative aides and politicians gathering at their annual conference this week, the hatred of Nigel Farage’s rival right-wing party Reform UK is real.

Since the opposition party’s last gathering, an already icy relationship with Reform’s national leadership has entered deep freeze. The defections of high-profile Tory politicians, including Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman in January this year, added a personal animus to the battle for votes on the British right. 

And yet, Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch has not categorically ruled out some kind of tie-up with Reform after a general election. Politically, she cannot afford to take it off the table.

Senior Conservatives at lunches and receptions this week were quick to aim invective and mockery at Reform — privately and sometimes in public, fueled by a row that Braverman triggered last week when she said that, as a British-born woman of British-Asian origin, she was “not an English person.” 

“They’re just not our kind of people,” Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch, the first black leader of a major political party, told the BBC about Reform on Tuesday.

Badenoch’s most senior aides put it even more bluntly. “They’re just nasty people,” said one top Conservative official, granted anonymity to speak frankly. “These people [Reform] have spent two years viciously attacking the exact people they would have to meet about any deal,” said another. “If Kemi and Rob go into a room, what are they going to fucking talk about?” 

Badenoch told broadcasters Tuesday that she would rather force a second general election than strike a deal with Reform. That may be the only practical option left to her.

POLITICO spoke to more than a dozen senior Conservative politicians and aides at the party conference. Almost all indicated that a deal with Reform is not only undesirable, but the hostility is now so bad that it would fail if Badenoch ever tried to enact it. 

A senior Reform official responded to this story by saying: “Two years of being hammered at the local elections has finally made the Tories crack. Quite clearly they’re obsessed with us whilst their own party crumbles around them. We look forward to consigning them to the dustbin of history.”

‘Cold day in hell’

If the U.K. held a general election now, almost all polling suggests Britain’s right-leaning vote would be deeply split between these two parties and further undercut by a third — the hard-right Restore Britain. That could allow Labour to squeeze through and win the most seats under the first-past-the-post electoral system, like it did in 2024.

If there was a real deadlock, even after a second election, Badenoch would be left with an unenviable choice: team up with Farage, or let Labour — perhaps with a rainbow coalition of Liberal Democrats, nationalists and Greens — run the show?

The relationship between the Conservatives and Farage, who left the party in 1992, has long been fractious and worsened after the 2019 election — when Farage stepped aside to aid a pro-Brexit majority for Boris Johnson, but received no thanks.

Since last year the defections (and the fighting talk they attracted) have sent the relationship nosediving further. Most of the opprobrium is saved for Jenrick. A year ago he was the guest speaker at a lunch with Tory donors and mayors, holding forth in private about the changes his party needed to make. Three months later he was gone. The defection of Danny Kruger, who was more respected by many on the Tory right, added hurt to insult.

The Conservatives produced an AI-assisted “tapestry” at this year’s conference that contained several mocking references to a crying Jenrick. Tory politicians repeatedly bring up the questions surrounding Reform’s finances.

Badenoch told broadcasters Tuesday that “the people in Reform are neck deep in scandal” and any tie-up “would just be one problem after another.” Her aides believe the public are no longer viewing Reform as a blank slate.

 “I can’t imagine it being a nice coalition,” said a shadow cabinet minister. They added: “I think that Reform in power would go to pieces very quickly, they’re a very brittle top team. I wouldn’t want to be tied to that. I wouldn’t want to become responsible in any way for their mistakes or all the crazy ass money they’ve taken.”

Many of those most opposed to a Reform tie-up have been attending Tory conferences for decades. One center-right veteran of past Cabinets said: “It’ll be a cold day in hell when we get into bed with those bastards … The only way we could [enter government] is with a governing partner. If that’s the choice, I’d rather that we were a strong opposition.”

A second Conservative former Cabinet minister predicted: “There’s no way [Badenoch] will do a coalition. She just can’t trust them.” But they suggested Badenoch has other, less formal options that would still see a tie-up with Reform. “It depends how big the margin is,” they said. “If it’s anything, I think it would be a confidence and supply [agreement].”

‘Ethnicity is different’

Political tactics are one thing. Tory officials believe someone linked to Reform UK leaked a meeting 11 months ago between Katie Lam — a Conservative frontbencher — and Reform donor Nick Candy, to damage the Tories just as their conference was getting under way. (The meeting happened at a time of intense defection chatter.) A person with knowledge of the meeting insisted Lam had ignored a series of messages from Candy afterward.

But things have gone further in recent weeks. Braverman’s comments about Englishness, on an episode of the BBC’s Question Time debate program, struck a nerve for Badenoch personally while also providing her with a chance to differentiate herself from Reform.

Badenoch, who has campaigned for gender-specific toilets, told ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Tuesday: “Men and men and women are women, I’m very strict on that. But ethnicity is different. My children are half white and half black. We are a multiracial country. I think we should be proud of that.”

Hostility from Tory aides extends to Reform’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf and his pronouncements on social media. Yusuf said last month that Labour’s candidate in a special election was “born in Somalia. Do you understand what’s happening?” (The candidate, Sagal Abdi-Wali, moved to London as a child refugee in the 1990s.) Raheem Kassam, an ally of Farage in the U.S., posted on X last month calling Badenoch a “Nigerian scammer” (she was born in the U.K., moved to Nigeria and returned aged 16.)

A second shadow cabinet minister said: “We can’t allow the right to turn into this horrible, ugly thing. Let’s talk about the ideas.” James Cleverly, one of the Conservatives bidding to run for mayor of London in 2028, accused Braverman, Yusuf and other unnamed figures around Reform of amplifying “really quite vile positions” on race, ethnicity and nationality.

‘How it plays out … I don’t know’

The opprobrium is real — but so too is the Tories’ electoral plight.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has insisted he won’t call an early election, with the next not due until mid-2029. But it remains in his power to pull the plug when an opportunity arises. 

All evidence points towards the Conservatives doing dismally if that happens any time soon. Kevin Hollinrake, the party chairman, admitted on Monday that it “doesn’t look winnable outright by anybody.”

A third shadow cabinet minister sounded softer in their opposition to a deal with Reform. They argued that while the Tories would not want to be shackled to Farage’s party, they did not want to see a “monster” coalition either between Labour and the Greens, Liberal Democrats and nationalist parties.

“How the world plays out when you actually live it, I don’t know,” they added. “We’ll just have to make whatever decision we think is in the best interests of the country at the time.”

Tiny changes to vote share would mean big changes to seat numbers in the multi-party world: “1% is the new 5%,” as a fourth shadow cabinet minister put it. A poll of 15,765 people by the firm More in Common suggests the balance of seats will be highly volatile depending on how badly the vote splits between parties of the right.

The self-funded survey, dated Aug. 21 to Sept. 21, projected Labour would be the largest party by far on 250 seats — ahead of Reform UK on 147 and the Tories on 125. A mere three- to four-point swing from the Conservatives to Reform or vice versa, however, would put either of those parties ahead of Labour.

The Conservatives and Reform attract different demographics of voter, though; a More in Common poll of 2,041 people on Sept. 25-29 found that those on the lowest incomes were more likely to back Reform than the Tories (23% to 20%), and for those on the highest incomes it was the other way round (23% to 13%).

This suggests there will be many seats where Labour comes through the middle and wins on a low vote share, like it did in 2024, said More in Common Executive Director Luke Tryl. Tryl added: “We’ll especially see this if Burnham manages to recreate Jeremy Corbyn’s 2017 coalition of Labour and Green supporters, tapping into that 40% of voters. It wasn’t enough for Corbyn to win a majority, but with a split right, it’d definitely be enough for Burnham.”

Hence both the Tories and Reform — wary of a tactical voting stampede — are arguing they are the best choice to win outright. Yusuf told GB News Tuesday: “It is clear the only party of the right that has a serious chance of a majority in parliament is Reform.”

But most of all, the Conservatives just don’t want to talk about it. A fifth shadow cabinet minister said “voters on the right really hate blue-on-blue” and want the Tories to focus on attacking the Labour government.

Here come the think tanks

This dilemma means some outriders are now caught in the middle, unable to choose firmly between the Tories and Reform.

Hosting its reception across the canal from the conference center on Monday night was the Centre for Government Reform think tank, run by former civil servant Ameer Kotecha. The group was at Reform’s conference too; it appears to have the blessing of senior figures in both parties.

Kotecha took a deliberate decision to have politicians from both parties on its board — the right-wing Tory peers Theodore Agnew and John Nash alongside Reform UK’s Scottish Leader Malcolm Offord. It is working on cuts to civil service headcount and getting more private sector expertise into government, which Kotecha calls the “plumbing” of the state.

“It’s important that we speak to both sides,” he told POLITICO. “We need to keep the hopper wide; if you’re talking about the really elite business talent for example, they’re quite often not yet willing to pin their colors to any one party mast.”

Others would prefer to see any sense of a deal closed off. Also hosting events on the conference fringe was Prosper UK, a center-right group led by figures including the former Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson. It will push for the party to win back liberal-minded voters who once backed the party and now support the Liberal Democrats in the south of England. It is a tricky electoral coalition.

‘We honestly believe now’

The mood at this week’s Birmingham jamboree can only be understood by looking to the political horizon. 

The Conservatives are still trailing Reform in national polls, but unlike last year, members and aides have some confidence that — even if they cannot win an election now — the polls may be reaching an inflection point that would restore their status as the main challengers to the Labour Party.

The Tories hope to paint themselves as the voices of economic competence; a party that sees itself as having become more united as their rivals march further to the right, while facing pressure from the hard-right Restore.

“It’s not just bad blood, is it? I think we honestly believe now,” said a sixth shadow cabinet minister. “We do get a lot of support back from people who went to Lib Dems and if we did a deal with Reform, all that goes out the window.”

The first shadow cabinet minister quoted in this story said that local Conservative associations, which they visit regularly, used to ask constantly about a coalition. “And now nobody does,” they argued. “There are a lot of people who, having seen another year of Reform, don’t like what they see.”

The realities are still there, and grim for the Conservatives. But they are simply less stark than they were a year ago.

As the fifth shadow cabinet minister quoted in this story put it: “I’m not worried that we’re going to get wiped off the face of the map any more.”

DUBLIN — Ireland will create a new national savings system to spur tax-free investments in stocks and bonds, the government announced Tuesday as the centerpiece of its next tax-cutting budget.

The measure is designed to woo at least some of the more than €170 billion currently resting in Irish savers’ bank accounts, most of which is earning paltry rates of interest, into riskier investments with much higher potential returns.

The move represents Ireland’s national riposte to pressure from several other European Union countries to boost consumer investment in stocks and bonds on a union-wide basis. Ireland is among the EU members resistant to creating a proposed “Savings and Investments Union” regulated from Brussels, not Dublin.

Presenting his 2027 budget, Finance Minister Simon Harris told lawmakers that residents would be able to open Irish Investment Accounts starting in July. He said individuals could use those accounts to invest in stocks, bonds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), many of which are listed on the Dublin stock exchange, via a list of state-approved banks and brokers.

The first €50,000 in each account would not be taxed, while any balances above that would be charged 1% on the excess amount, he said. This means a fund valued at €100,000, for example, would face an annual tax liability of €500.

Under the plan, most investors would take a few years to grow their accounts to the €50,000 threshold. Annual contributions to each account would be capped at €12,000, Harris said, underscoring the center-right government’s aim to spur investment by middle-class savers, not the wealthy.

This approach, he said, “strikes a balance between encouraging small-scale investment, while ensuring that those with greater means continue to make a fair contribution.”

Investment firms offered a muted welcome, noting that Harris’ regime retained significant disincentives.

“Today was the government’s chance to get Ireland investing, and it has missed it,” said Michael Healy, chief executive of online trading and investment platform IG Consumer.

Healy dismissed Ireland’s plans as “fundamentally flawed,” as they will tax all balances above €50,000, regardless of whether they have recorded any gains that year. “Someone could face a tax bill even when their investments have fallen in value — effectively paying tax on losses,” he said.

LONDON — The Green Party is reviewing a complaint against its deputy leader following an alleged altercation at a local meeting, two people with knowledge of the procedure have told POLITICO.

The probe into Mothin Ali’s conduct follows a report by Leeds outlet the Exchange of a public dispute between the deputy leader and a member of his local party at a meeting last month.

According to minutes of the Leeds Green Party group meeting, reviewed by POLITICO, Ali “snatched” a phone from an attendee and “threw the phone onto the floor” after the person “attempted to take an image with Mothin in the background.” 

Both were then asked to leave, the Sept. 15 minutes state. The Green Party told the Exchange at the time that it disputed “this incomplete account” of the alleged altercation.

A complaint about Ali was lodged with the Green Party a week later, according to a party official, who was granted anonymity like others in this article to discuss a sensitive matter. 

The deputy leader has not been suspended by the party while the allegations are under review. A Green Party spokesperson said: “We do not comment on internal matters.” Ali declined to comment, instead directing POLITICO to the party press office.

The first party official referenced above told POLITICO any decision on whether or not to suspend Ali is expected to take about five weeks, in part due to the Greens’ Brighton conference — which Ali attended — slowing what is normally a shorter process.

The second person familiar with the process, an ally of Ali, said the deputy leader had been “under a lot of pressure” and that the party had failed to support him in the face of attacks.

Ali — one of two Green Party deputy leaders — said in a statement on X last month that he had “been subjected to a sustained series of allegations, complaints, leaks and personal attacks” since standing to become deputy leader, and argued that some of these had been “explicitly racist and Islamophobic.”

He told the party’s Brighton conference in a speech Saturday that internal disagreement “must never mean tolerating racism, misogyny, homophobia or intimidation inside our own movement.”

The row comes at a sensitive moment for the Green Party, which has been posing a left-wing challenge to Britain’s Labour government under Leader Zack Polanski, but seen some support drift away amid the rise of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. 

Ali has spent the weekend in Brighton rebutting rumors that he could pose a leadership challenge to Polanski at the party’s next election — not due to take place for another year. 

Speaking to the BBC over the weekend, Ali said that Polanski — who is trying to win a seat in Parliament at the Holborn and St Pancras by-election this week — had his “full support.”

BIRMINGHAM, England — Andy Burnham has laid a social care trap for Britain’s next general election. The Conservatives think they can waltz right past it.

Three members of Kemi Badenoch’s shadow Cabinet said the party could opt not to unveil a major care offer of its own by the time the next election rolls around — in the hope the Labour prime minister’s proposals fall apart.

“I remind you that in 2017, Labour had nothing on social care, and they were the beneficiaries of our disaster,” said one opposition frontbencher, in reference to reform plans then-Prime Minister Theresa May ended up ditching mid-election campaign after a public backlash. The person was granted anonymity, like others in this article, to discuss internal policy development.

There’s a wide political consensus that England’s status quo on adult social care is awful. Care, which includes support for people in the final years of their lives, can be inadequate and costly, and family homes are sold off to fund essential help.

But political controversy has long greeted attempts at reform — leaving the issue unresolved.

Burnham used his first conference speech as Labour leader in Liverpool last week to touch three live wires in British politics: EU membership, electoral reform and changing state pensions protections to help fund a social care overhaul.

A second member of the shadow Cabinet admitted the country is “completely f–ked” unless the cost of dying is rectified — but downplayed the likelihood of the Tories offering real reform.

“We will have things to say about all these things,” they added. “I don’t think they will be the centerpiece of our offer at the election.”

Even trying to play it safe would open up a major ideological divide in British politics, teeing up a battle over how far the state should intervene to tackle an issue Burnham has vowed to stake his premiership on. 

And Burnham’s gambit — which involves a change to the previously sacred “triple lock” on state pensions — has already opened up rifts in the Conservative Party over whether it should back change.

“No policy is still a policy”

For the prime minister, establishing a “national care service” is a long-running moral crusade — one he’s driving forward with raw emotion after he lost his father to Alzheimer’s last month.

But the politics of his move cannot be ignored either.

The “triple lock” on pensions is sacrosanct to many Conservatives, who introduced it back in 2011. Increasing state pensions by the highest of the rate of inflation, 2.5% or average earnings was designed to make retirees — a Tory-leaning segment of society — better off.

But others in the party believe the ballooning cost of the U.K. welfare bill — more than half of which goes on pensions — is utterly unsustainable.

Burnham proposed weakening the third prong of the triple lock — after the next general election, due by 2029 — to save an estimated £15 billion a year by 2040. The savings would be funneled into a pending plan to reform social care.

That opens a dividing line among senior figures in the Conservatives.

Former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and serving Shadow Foreign Secretary Tom Tugendhat have both publicly suggested maintaining the lock is unsustainable.

Even though the changes won’t be enacted until 2030, Labour will seek to pass legislation on them before the next election. Tory party enforcers recognize the risk of a Commons vote even as they seek to play it down.

“I’m sure there will be lots of conversations had with Jeremy [Hunt], and Jeremy is ultimately a loyal Conservative,” said a third shadow Cabinet member, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss policy planning. “I think he’ll swing in behind it.”

Tugendhat is expected to swallow his opposition now he’s joined Badenoch’s top team and Hunt said he would vote with the Tories because he’s against the triple lock on the grounds he wants to reduce borrowing — but doesn’t see Labour’s “more expensive” proposal as a remedy.

But even if the Tories get through such a vote unscathed, a financial row is coming down the tracks.

Badenoch, the party leader, has described maintaining the triple lock as “current” Conservative policy and in the “draft manifesto.” If it stays there, the party will have to set out where they will find billions of pounds to foot the bill of reversing the Labour policy.

The Conservative strategy right now is to downplay the purported savings Burnham reckons can be found by the triple lock tinkering — and instead insist they can find many more billions by reducing the working age welfare bill.

Marginal gains

As the second shadow Cabinet minister put it, “fiddling in the margins” won’t find the money to fulfill a proper overhaul to social care. They believe Burnham’s “bulls–t” will be exposed as having many more holes over time.

Either way, the heat of an election campaign may force the Conservatives to detail what they will — or won’t — do in response to the government’s gambit.

“No policy is still a policy,” said the third shadow Cabinet minister, arguing they could duck going into the election with their own distinct plan to change the status quo.

“We’d need to explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” they added. “But ultimately personal care is something we’ve all got responsibility for through our lives.”

Not all Conservatives are on board with this approach. A fourth shadow Cabinet member acknowledged social care is “a delicate subject” for the party but added: “When we go into an election we need to be giving people something about all the big things in their lives.”

That would open up a sharp dividing line between the parties of the left and the right — on just how far the state should go in aiding or interfering in people’s lives.

And that is a battle that both Labour under Burnham, who is promising greater public control for key utilities, and the Tories under Badenoch, a self-declared “classic old-school Conservative” who wants a smaller state, are spoiling to have.

“Burnham has almost expressly set it up as a battle between the politics of the 1970s against the politics and economics and the philosophy of the 1980s,” said a fifth Cabinet minister.

“We’ve tried both, and we know which works economically and we know which works politically — and it’s not the 1970s. So that’s a battle we will relish.”

Today's links

• Dealing with dickovers: The web is an open platform, and that matters.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Broadcast's bad week; Congress v wifi; EFF v DRM law; Snowden and bunnie's smartphone smartcase.
• Upcoming appearances: Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Dealing with dickovers (permalink)

One of 2026's better tech-related coinages is "dickover," John Gruber's term for

a modal panel, popover, or curtain presented by a website or app, deliberately obscuring its own content to frustrate the user with an unwanted, unnecessary, mandatory interaction; e.g. asking the user to accept “cookies”, subscribe to a newsletter, install the website’s mobile app, agree to terms of service, or anything else that the user couldn’t give two shits about.

https://daringfireball.net/2026/05/what_is_a_dickover

These are bad everywhere, but they are especially terrible in the UK and EU, where websites practice a form of malicious compliance to the GDPR, Europe's landmark privacy law. Under the GDPR, websites are required to secure your affirmative consent to process your data. The obvious way that websites should respond to this is by not collecting your data unless there's a damned good reason for it, but the actual response is to repeatedly shove cookie-consent dialogs in your face before letting you use the site.

These are absolutely unnecessary. Your browser can be configured to transmit a "global privacy control signal" by default that tells websites you don't consent to be spied on while you look at their pages:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/global-privacy-control

But many websites punish you by throwing up a "Global Privacy Control detected" dickover that forces you to click through to affirm their confirmation of your confirmation that you don't want to be spied on.

If you don't have the GPC set, websites will demand that you tell them whether you want to be spied on – and they'll do it again, every time you visit them. The website operators falsely claim that they have to do this under the terms of the GDPR (or other laws, like California's CCPA). This is a lie. Every privacy law contains an exception that allows websites to store data about you for a "legitimate interest," and that obviously includes setting a cookie that says, "don't ever spy on this user."

What's a legit interest? Well, I can tell you what it isn't. Facebook claimed that they had to spy on you, even if you opted out by laboriously clicking through one of their dickovers or by transmitting a GPC signal to their servers, because you had also clicked through their terms of service, which say, "Facebook is going to spy on you with every hour that god sends, from asshole to appetite, abandon hope all ye who enter here" (a direct quote). Facebook claims that this is a contract with you, whereby the company has promised to spy on you, and if they stop, they would be violating the contract, which might make you mad, so they are legally required to eavesdrop on every conversation you have and follow you everywhere you go:

https://www.cliffordchance.com/content/dam/cliffordchance/briefings/2023/07/european-court-of-justice-in-facebook-ruling-clarifies-interplay-between-eu-competition-law-and-data-protections-enforcement.pdf

This is bullshit, and the European Court of Justice affirmed it. But despite the fact that surveillance advertising companies are happy to stretch the definition of "legitimate interest" to cover "spying on you because our ToS say we will," these same companies insist that "legitimate purpose" can't possibly include "remembering the fact that you told us not to spy on you the last time you were here," and so every time you click through to one of many popular websites, you get a dickover, and the only way to make it stop is to "consent" to being spied upon.

But it doesn't have to be this way. While the right answer to this kind of rampant lawlessness is stonking fines and even the corporate death penalty for repeat offenders, internet users have a myriad of options available to them for banishing dickovers to the scrapheap of history. These measures aren't difficult to avail yourself of, and using them will make your life infinitely better, so I'm going to tell you about some of them.

Before I start, one note: these measures only work on browsers, not apps. An app is a webpage wrapped in the right kind of IP law to make it a felony to change how it works, which is why companies are infinitely horny to get you to use their apps, not their websites:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

What's more, these measures really only work on desktop browsers, because mobile browsers are apps, and are severely limited by law and mobile operating systems, making it hard-to-impossible to customize them so that they'll respect your rights. This is true of all mobile browsers, but it goes triple for iOS (iPhones and iPads):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

Finally, this mostly only works on Firefox, and it works worst on Chrome, Google's monopolistic browser. When it comes to customizing your browsing experience to get rid of annoyances like dickovers and ads, Chrome is hands-down the worst choice, and Google is about to make it much, much worse, forcing a change that will kill the most popular blockers. Stop using Chrome, switch to Firefox:

https://protonprivacy.substack.com/p/google-is-finally-killing-ublock

So, once you're on your actual computer, using Firefox, how can you disenshittify your internet experience? The first thing to familiarize yourself with is Reader Mode, a built-in Firefox feature that switches any webpage to a black type/white background column of text. Just click the little "page view" icon next to the Firefox location bar or use the key combo "ctrl-alt-r."

Some power tips for Reader Mode: Firefox tries to guess whether a given page should have a Reader Mode option based on its layout. This sometimes blocks Reader Mode on pages that badly need it. You can force Firefox to always allow you to try Reader Mode by going to "about:config" in your location bar, then searching for "reader.parse-on-load.force-enabled" and toggling it to "true". If you switch to Reader Mode and the page breaks, you can switch back by hitting ctrl-alt-r again.

Many websites' "soft paywalls" (which allow you to read an article or two before getting a demand to register and/or pay) can be defeated with Reader Mode. Just hit ctrl-alt-r and see if the whole article appears. If it doesn't, try one or both of: a) reloading the page while still in Reader Mode, and/or; b) Clearing cookies for the page (click the shield next to the site's URL in Firefox's location bar, then click "Clear cookies and site data"), and then reload.

That's Reader Mode, and it comes built into Firefox, and can be installed via various extensions on other browsers. Now let's move on to more advanced techniques, starting with "Kill Sticky," a bookmarklet that deletes any "static" elements in a web-page you've loaded (broadly, this is anything that won't change position when you scroll your browser).

Just click the "Kill Sticky" bookmarklet and all the static elements in the current tab go away. This includes things like navigation bars, which are often (but not always) useless annoyances. The original Kill Sticky, created by Alisdair McDiarmid, is 13 years old, and it still works great, but eight years ago, gala8y created a new version that caught some outliers that the original Kill Sticky missed. I've been running gala8y's version for a year now with no problems, and I recommend it as your second line of dickover defense (after Reader Mode):

https://github.com/gala8y/kill-sticky–forked

Kill Sticky is great for getting rid of the dickovers on a website you're not planning to visit more than once. But if you visit a dickover website regularly, you can permanently block its dickovers by using the Adblock Plus (ABP) browser extension:

https://adblockplus.org/

Once you have Adblock Plus installed, you can instruct your browser never to render a given website's dickover. Just load the website, hover your pointer over the dickover, and click your right mouse-button (Mac users need to ctrl-click). This will pop up a Firefox context menu, and at the bottom of that menu is "Block Element…".

Select "Block Element," then move your mouse around the screen. Different regions of the screen will glow pink, showing you which element (part of the page) ABP can access there. Once you've highlighted the dickover, click the "Preview" button on the ABP dialog in the bottom right corner. This will show you how the page looks after you've banished that element.

If it's an element you want to delete forever, click "Create" and ABP will create a new rule for that page that blocks that element. Note that many dickovers consist of several elements, each atop the other, and after you block one element, you might have to repeat the process to delete the element "behind" it, digging your way down to the actual webpage. Each element you block is listed in the top pane of the ABP dialog box. For example, here's Wired.com's UK dickover:

||media.wired.com/photos/6a565246c8e0799a2981818e/1:1/w_*c_limit/WEB_2026-06-21_EA-WIRED-NBNO-FullQual_0011.jpg

If you block an element by accident and want to restore it, just delete its corresponding line in the Block Element dialog. When websites change their layouts and their dickovers come back, just add the new one to the Block Element for that page. No need to delete the old entries.

Finally, if all else fails, there's Remove Paywall, a website that tries several different ways to load a page without its interrupters, nag screens, regwalls and paywalls:

https://www.removepaywall.com/

It's also available as a browser plugin, so you can just right-click on any page and select "Remove Paywall" from the pop-up menu. Remove Paywall often loads a page with all of its dickovers, and you can use all the techniques enumerated above – Reader Mode, Kill Sticky and Block Element – with Remove Paywall versions of pages.

Back in 2024, Ed Zitron tried an experiment: he bought Amazon's bestselling laptop and tried to use it, discovering it to be a horror-show of shovelware, including processor-devouring preinstalled spyware that rendered it all but unusable:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/

Zitron's (excellent) point is that technically proficient people have better computers than most users, and these computers are configured in better ways, and as a result, we participate in a fundamentally different internet to the one that normies are forced to use.

It's an excellent observation, and Zitron's point – that these laptops were actively enshittified by hardware makers and OS vendors – is an important one (the essay is called "Never Forgive Them").

But to this point, I would like to add another: we have a duty and obligation to the people we love to show them how to seize the means of computation. The normies in your life need the tips and tricks I lay out in this article more than anyone. Sure, it takes some doing to install Firefox, Kill Sticky, Adblock Plus and Bypass Paywalls; it takes a minute to figure out Reader Mode.

But if you install these tools for the people you love and show them how to use them (or just reconfigure the sites they visit most frequently to block dickovers and other annoyances), you will permanently improve their internet experience, clawing back hours of annoyances every week, while also protecting their privacy.

Anyone who is confused by switching to Firefox is also going to be confused by the deceptive language and practices that go along with dickovers. By leaving your unsophisticated loved ones exposed to dickovers, you're not decreasing the amount of technological confusion they're likely to experience in a day – you're vastly increasing the amount of danger they face as a result of that confusion.

There's never been a better time to disenshittify your cherished normies' computers. The AI companies' illegal monopolization of the memory market has sent the price of new computers, RAM and storage skyrocketing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BORRBce5TGw

All of us – but especially normies – are having to do more with less. The best way to squeeze extra performance out of any computer (but especially an aged and underpowered computer) is by switching to a free/open operating system like GNU/Linux and replacing your proprietary, resource-gobbling apps with free/open alternatives:

https://www.fosslinux.com/158206/linux-on-older-hardware-revival-guide.htm

Seizing the means of computation isn't theft, it's bargaining. Commercial surveillance companies will tell you that by spying on you, they are simply engaged in a marketplace exchange in which you swap your privacy for access to online services. But they are running a very curious sort of market: it's a "market" where as soon as you stop to browse someone's wares, the stallholder gets to reach into your pocket and clean out your wallet. In "markets," prices are announced and bargained over, not set unilaterally and extracted from anyone unwise enough to cross the threshold.

Adblocking, dickover blocking and other customizations are a way for you to bargain back, to answer the opening bid of "How about you give me all of your data forever and let me do anything I want with it?" with "How about 'nah?'"

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Dickovers are companies' illegal response to privacy laws. Privacy laws are the public response to companies' out-of-control data theft and weaponization. They call us thieves, but they're the ones who embarked upon a generation-long campaign of unrestricted data plunder. What they call "theft" is just self-defense.

A generation ago, publishers and advertisers fell in love with pop-up ads. Early pop-ups were virulent in ways that are hardly imaginable today: visiting a website summoned dozens of pop-ups, some of them employing dirty tricks like spawning as an invisible 1×1 pixel, or running away from your cursor when you tried to close them. They auto-played sound and music. They were Satanic.

We got rid of pop-ups by installing pop-up blockers. Browser vendors (starting with Opera, then Mozilla) blocked pop-ups by default. Soon, pop-ups simply ceased to exist for the majority of internet users, and at that point, the same companies who'd insisted that they would go out of business unless they could fill your screen with pop-ups quietly gave up on them and found another way to advertise.

No one should ever have to look at another dickover. If dickovers become invisible for everyone on the web, there won't be any dickovers. Companies claim they need dickovers to survive. It's bullshit. They want dickovers, but if dickovers cease to be rendered on their target audience's screens, they'll switch to less invasive tactics, just like they've always done.

(Image: Kanerva T, CC BY 4.0, modified)

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA, WEST, INC., and WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA EAST, INC., Plaintiffs, vs. PARAMOUNT SKYDANCE CORPORATION, and WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY, INC https://www.wga.org/uploadedfiles/news_and_events/public_policy/wga-v-paramount-warner-bros-complaint.pdf

• Deliria 2, Cyberpunks Mutants & Mondoids https://grayarea.org/event/deliria-2-cyberpunks-mutants-mondoids/

• Can machines replace human workers? Notes on agency, automation, and AI https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC147594

• Scorpions bite again https://jasminatesanovic.wordpress.com/2026/07/14/scorpions-bite-again/

• Mandatory Update: A Short Story https://micahflee.com/mandatory-update-a-short-story/

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Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Worst week in the history of broadcast TV https://web.archive.org/web/20060717100605/http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060711/ap/d8iq1l8g0.html

#20yrsago Pen with built-in WiFinder https://web.archive.org/web/20060808191736/https://informatica.shopwprintit.com/index.cfm?action=ViewDetails&ItemID=135&Category=95

#15yrsago Russian Pirate Party must change name, contemplates “Pira7e Party” https://torrentfreak.com/judge-pirate-party-name-ban-decision-stands-110722/

#15yrsago Public special ed employee has $0 paycheck after health insurance deductions https://web.archive.org/web/20110726080414/http://www.educationvotes.nea.org/2011/07/20/a-special-education-worker-talks-candidly-about-empty-paychecks-organizing/

#15yrsago Act now! Congress wants to kill WiFi-like spectrum, sell it off to highest bidder instead https://web.archive.org/web/20110722113231/https://publicknowledge.org/dont-let-cos-buy-way-out-regulation

#15yrsago New Yorkers freestyle rap in Union Square https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3fd9mzfRoQ

#10yrsago Advances in transparent, brain-revealing skull-windows https://web.archive.org/web/20160722140424/https://www.medgadget.com/2016/07/transparent-skull-implant-repeat-brain-laser-therapy.html

#10yrsago EFF is suing the US government to invalidate the DMCA’s DRM provisions https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/digital-millennium-copyright-act-eff-supreme-court

#10yrsago Ed Snowden and Andrew “bunnie” Huang announce a malware-detecting smartphone case https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

• Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
  https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/

• Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
  https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
  https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/

• London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
  https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• Talk Tech Bock (Vera Linß)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PFjGvQoBgc

• How To Think About AI Before It’s Too Late (This Is Hell)
  https://thisishell.com/episodes/1919

• AI Won't Replace You… But This Might (Deep Focus)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oorWq_m48AQ

• Who Owns Your Tractor? (Growing the Future)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU9eBPUZBI4

• You Bought it, They Break It (What Now? with Trevor Noah)
  https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-ir36t-2f4a1ac6

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Latest books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

Today's links

• Good politics: Just make people's lives better.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: WWII online; Xbox security blunders; Homeless bloggers; Thermal printer racing game; Robbing a bank to get healthcare in jail; Crumb v Trump; "The Blues Brothers"; Bagelheads; Pickpocket training mannequin; Windmill joke; Singularity skepticism; GPU Dieselgate; Peleton bricks treadmills; Juul's junk science.
• Upcoming appearances: Toronto, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, London, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne, Brighton, London, South Bend.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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Good politics (permalink)

Some people love to admire a beautiful football play; me, I can't get enough of politicians doing good politics – and like those World Cup fans, I am doubly pleased when it's my team making the play.

I definitely have a team in Brazilian politics: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Workers' Party. Lula's done so many amazing things in his career, and these often intersect with my own special interests. Like, he made Gilberto Gil his minister of culture, and his people built the telecentros, free software-based internet dojos for the poorest kids in the country, living in favelas:

https://www.informationweek.com/software-services/brazil-turns-away-from-microsoft

Lula was royally ratfucked – framed by a corrupt justice minister who secretly conspired with the country's oligarchs – and imprisoned, and the conspirators installed Jair Bolsonaro, a fascist war criminal whose covid bungling led to mass death:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash

When Bolsonaro lost his next election – to a triumphant Lula – he attempted a coup, for which he was arrested and handed a long prison sentence, despite Trump and Microsoft trying to intimidate the Brazilian judge into letting him walk:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/22/bolsonaro-prosecution-us-sanctions-00575122

Now, Lula is fighting to keep Bolsonaro's nepobaby failson, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, from wrestling back control over the country for his fascist party; and that's where the good politics come in.

Lula's party has just scored a massive, national political victory by tabling legislation to establish a five-day workweek. While Brazil's professional/managerial class enjoy a two-day weekend, the working poor of the nation are prisoners of the escala 6×1 system, which sees them working six days per week. It's a hangover from the era of Brazil's fascist dictatorship, which (nominally) ended in 1988, but whose legacy still haunts the Brazilian people.

Lula's 40-hour workweek is incredibly popular. So popular that Bolsonaro's party whipped its members to vote for it, because they fear that to do otherwise would hand an even bigger majority to Lula, who might go on to give workers a four-day work-week:

https://prospect.org/2026/06/22/lula-sees-boosts-as-he-pushes-to-reduce-brazilian-workweek/

It turns out that weekends are popular and promising the electorate access to a weekend is good politics. What's more, denying weekends to the electorate is shitty, awful politics, which is why Bolsonaro's fascists were forced to vote in favor of a policy they hate, even though all credit for that policy will still go to Lula and the Worker' Party. The bill passed 461-19.

Contrast Lula's muscular, deliverism-based politics that seeks to improve the lives of working people in tangible, immediate ways with the catastrophic series of blunders that Keir Starmer's Labour has delivered. Despite having won a majority so large it would have made Saddam Hussein blush (not because Labour was popular, but because the outgoing Conservatives were universally loathed), Starmer has refused to lift a finger to improve Britons' lives. Instead, he's abetted genocide, criminalized protest, proposed ending jury trials, imposed austerity, handed the NHS over to Palantir and all the remaining potable water and electrical capacity in the country over to America's most unprofitable AI giants.

Starmer's insistence that we can't have nice things is bad politics, because (and it's weird that this has to be said) a government that makes people's lives worse is less popular than a government that makes people's lives better:

https://www.whatwelo.st/p/everyone-hates-tech-but-nobody-knows

Now, the right is incapable of making working people's lives better, because broad improvements to the vast majority necessarily come at the expense of the tiny minority of morbidly wealthy hoarders whom the right serves. In order to get millions of turkeys to vote for Christmas, the right substitutes spectacular acts of cruelty against disfavored minorities to distract their voters from the quiet acts of everyday cruelty they subject those voters to:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/12/always-great/#our-nhs

This isn't good politics. The sadistic torture of your base's enemies will never please them so well nor so durably as making immediate, significant improvements in their lives will.

That's why the corporate Dems who say that the party should campaign against renewables and in favor of fossil fuel companies aren't merely climate criminals, they're also bad at politics:

https://prospect.org/2026/06/22/affordability-climate-envioronment-policy-gas-oil-prices-iran-war-trump/

Cleantech is fucking great. Since I put in solar, a heat pump and an induction top, my energy bills have fallen to less than $80 per month, even in Los Angeles, even at the height of summer. My EV – a 7-year old Kia Niro – costs pennies to run, because I charge it off my roof. Not only that, it's fast, maneuverable, silent, and incredibly reliable. It handles like that Mustang a rental agency once upgraded me to. I mean, I'd rather have a subway, but if I have to drive, this is so much better than any ICE car I've ever owned.

Sure, our solar was a giant pain in the ass to get installed and working, but that's because the same corporate Dems who say climate is a political loser also said the best way to roll out solar nationwide was to set up an elaborate system of financialized tax-credits. That meant that every solar installer I talked to was more interested in swindling me by putting solar on my roof that they would own than they were in selling me a system I owned outright. Financializing America's rooftop solar conjured up a vast army of scammers and hustlers who screwed the majority of people they sold solar to, and my installers, Solaredge, were no exception:

https://www.propublica.org/article/missouri-pace-loans

Everything about living in the cleantech future is better. I can boil a gallon of water in under a minute on my stovetop! And it's only gonna get better: not only is cleantech improving every year, but fossil fuel is getting shittier every year, thanks to Trump's lunatic war of choice in Iran, the cost of using fossil fuels will only go up from here:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/20/praxis/#acceleration

Look, as a workaholic whose unhealthy anxiety coping mechanism is to work even harder, I might not make the best use of an extra day off:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/14/compartment/#flow

But as Pete Seeger sang in 1941, your time is all you have, and every hour you give to your boss is an hour you can never get back:

You'll get shorter hours
Better working conditions
Vacations with pay
Take your kids to the seashore

https://genius.com/Pete-seeger-talking-union-lyrics

It's something Lula understands, which is why he's winning. Good politics are a delight to watch, especially when it's your team doing them. But man, it can be pretty demoralizing to watch your team fumble play after play after play.

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• Arindrajit Dube on Wages https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/arindrajit-dube-on-wages

• WE WON OUR UNION! https://unitedfaculty-uaw.org/

• Understanding the Luddites in the age of AI https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/understanding-the-luddites-in-the

• Promises Made, Promises Kept: The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Absolutely Looks Like Shit Now https://defector.com/promises-made-promises-kept-the-lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool-absolutely-looks-like-shit-now

• Why Is It So Bad to Let A.I. Do My Thinking for Me? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/books/review/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rlA.BN8p.23Ho_LuzI-Tr

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Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago WWII Online https://web.archive.org/web/20010625120559/https://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/reviews/0,10867,2778704,00.html

#20yrsago Microsoft’s myriad Xbox security mistakes https://web.archive.org/web/20060703000421/http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/17_Mistakes_Microsoft_Made_in_the_Xbox_Security_System

#20yrsago Kentucky government censors political watchdog site https://web.archive.org/web/20060628055926/http://www.bluegrassreport.org/bluegrass_politics/2006/06/bluegrassreport.html

#20yrsago Life among the homeless bloggers https://web.archive.org/web/20060702205047/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,71153-0.html

#20yrsago Disney, 1939: No woman animators allowed https://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/disney-1939-girls-are-not-considered.html

#15yrsago Sick man robs bank for $1, demands jail and healthcare https://web.archive.org/web/20110628144748/https://www.gastongazette.com/news/bank-58397-richard-hailed.html/

#15yrsago Car-racing game on a thermal printer https://www.undef.ch/project/receipt-racer

#15yrsago Toronto police swear off kettling https://web.archive.org/web/20110625131204/http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1012959–exclusive-toronto-police-swear-off-g20-kettling-tactic?bn=1

#15yrsago LEAKED: UK copyright lobby holds closed-door meetings with gov’t to discuss national Web-censorship regime https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/rights-holders-propose-voluntary-website-blocking-scheme/

#15yrsago Georgia’s anti-immigrant law leaves millions in crops rotting in the fields https://web.archive.org/web/20110620213900/https://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2011/06/17/gas-farm-labor-crisis-playing-out-as-planned/

#15yrsago Bagelheads: toroidal saline forehead injections https://web.archive.org/web/20110619033443/https://vicestyle.com/en/news/today/post/japanese-bagelheads

#15yrsago Spitalfields Nippers: East London street-urchins of 1912 https://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/04/02/spitalfields-nippers/

#15yrsago Danish police proposal: Ban anonymous Internet use https://www-computerworld-dk.translate.goog/art/117279/forslag-du-maa-ikke-laengere-gaa-anonymt-paa-nettet?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US

#15yrsago Bell-mannequin for training pickpockets https://web.archive.org/web/20110626045035/http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2011/06/23/amateur-pick-pockets-study-in-crime-college/

#15yrsago Skeptical take on Singularity http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html

#15yrsago Windmill joke https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/4p8qkb/two_windmills_are_standing_in_a_field_and_one/

#10yrsago Electronics repair shops overbill for labor when the customer has insurance https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/computer-repair-shops-screw-over-customers-if-theyve-got-insurance/

#10yrsago Being a Craigslist scammer is hard work https://web.archive.org/web/20160622140008/https://www.infoworld.com/article/3086304/cyber-crime/interview-with-a-craigslist-scammer.html

#10yrsago Dieselgate for GPUs: review-units ship at higher clockspeeds than retail ones https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/6/21/11986836/msi-asus-overclocked-graphics-cards-review

#10yrsago Phones without headphone jacks are phones with DRM for audio https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/6/21/11991302/iphone-no-headphone-jack-user-hostile-stupid

#10yrsago Donald Trump sources $6M worth of campaign expenditures from companies he and his family own https://web.archive.org/web/20160621142100/https://bigstory.ap.org/article/9f7412236962464f9f2c0a8d2696ba25/trumps-campaign-cycles-6-million-trump-companies

#10yrsago Samantha Bee puts the NRA before a firing squad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M4qHzd3xfM

#10yrsago Improv Everywhere: asking random New Yorkers to give a commencement speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drvcLC3DuHo

#10yrsago R. Crumb v. D. Trump, 1989 https://dangerousminds.net/comments/robert_crumb_and_friends_flush_donald_trump_down_the_toilet_1989/

#10yrsago Cleveland: “First Amendment zones” will fence protesters far away from RNC https://www.wired.com/2016/06/cleveland-will-create-city-within-city-keep-rnc-civil/

#10yrsago Space botanists are beneficiaries of Canada’s legal weed boom https://web.archive.org/web/20160624043929/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-space-technology-will-produce-the-best-weed-marijuana-cannabis-pot

#10yrsago Debullshitifying the EU referendum (radio comedy edition) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03yylpn

#10yrsago Judenstaat: an alternate history in which a Jewish state is created in east Germany in 1948 https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/21/judenstaat-an-alternate-history-in-which-a-jewish-state-is-created-in-east-germany-in-1948/

#10yrsago Gun control is a great idea, terrorist watchlists are bullshit https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/2016_06_20_aclu_vote_recommendation_on_feinstein_and_cornyn_amendments_to_h.r._2578.pdf

#5yrsago New Yorkers just missing the subway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWh385F5lms#5yrsago
#5yrsago Peloton bricks its treadmills https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#jane-get-me-off-this-crazy-thing

#5yrsago Juul's junk science https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#smokescreen

#5yrsago Improving the ACCESS Act https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/22/vapescreen/#improve-access

#1yrago Daniel de Visé's 'The Blues Brothers' https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/21/1060-west-addison/#the-new-oldsmobiles-are-in-early-this-year

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Toronto: The Sovereignty Debate (IAB Canada's State of the Nation), Jun 23
  https://iabcanada.com/state-of-the-nation-2026

• Toronto: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Osler Records/Type Books), Jun 23
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998

• NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
  https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html

• Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559

• Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
  https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628

• London: Idler Festival, Jul 11
  https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/

• Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales

• Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
  https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/

• Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
  https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification

• Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
  https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/

• London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
  https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn

• South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
  https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• How to Think About AI Before It’s Too Late (Galaxy Brain)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPQNPJ0CEPo

• The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order)
  https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY

• How to Think About Artificial Intelligence (KUER)
  https://radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2026-06-16/cory-doctorow-on-how-to-think-about-artificial-intelligence

• The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, & Everything (Luke Savage)
  https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the

• Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus)
  https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035

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Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/04/illustrious/#chairman-bruce

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/)

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

• "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

---

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