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Zelenskyy says Russia ‘did not heed’ Trump’s call for energy ceasefire and gave ‘no early warning’ before strikes on Kyiv – Europe live

Oh, actually, one more bit of news from elsewhere: the Spanish royals are now visiting Ceuta. King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia are on a diplomatically sensitive visit to the North African enclave, their first trip there since 2007, just months after a migration border crisis there in late July. I will keep one eye on this, and you can watch the scenes live here:

‘Our future is being stolen’: Greta Thunberg joins students protesting in Paris

The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has joined demonstrating high school students in France as the country braced for another day of nationwide protests over chronic teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and crumbling buildings. “Young people are not being included in the conversation,” Thunberg, 23, who became famous as a teenager through school strikes demanding action on the climate crisis, told reporters outside the Lycée Paul Éluard in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. As lawyers in their robes formed a human chain to protect pupils after multiple accusations of police brutality, she added: “Our future is being stolen from us and, as we have seen here, schools are not getting the investment they need.” Now in their third week, the protests – backed by unionists, some teachers and radical leftwing opposition politicians – have shaken a government caught between calls for urgent public investment and pressure to reduce France’s ballooning deficit and debt. Marches around the country drew more than 260,000 protesters last Tuesday and a further 75,000 on Thursday, according to interior ministry figures, and are expected to be repeated on Tuesday in several major cities including the French capital. “They’re not listening to us, so we’re going to them,” the university students’ union UE – many of whose members are also demonstrating in solidarity, with an estimated 90% of France’s universities disrupted on Tuesday – posted on social media. High schools in Paris, Marseille and elsewhere were again blockaded. French authorities had been hoping that the protests, some of which have resulted in violent clashes with French riot police, would ease up and eventually fizzle out during the two-week half-term school holidays due to start this weekend. The education minister, Édouard Geffray, who has said 3,000 substitute teachers are being deployed in schools facing the most severe staff shortages, said on Tuesday he expected about 200 of the country’s 3,700 high schools to be completely closed. French media have reported, however, that at least some classes have been cancelled or disrupted in many more schools, and some lycées – for pupils mostly aged between 15 and 18 – have switched wholly or partly to online learning. President Emmanuel Macron on Monday called for restraint, saying the issues “deserve time, consultations, discussion and respect”, as government figures showed more than 6,800 people – mainly minors – had been detained during the protests. About 1,500 people are being prosecuted, the justice ministry has said, while 24 allegations of police brutality against demonstrators are under investigation. More than 200 teenagers, 100 school staff and 700 police officers have been injured. One young protester has lost a hand from a police stun grenade, prompting the government to ban their use during the protests, while another lost the use of an eye and a third many of his teeth from a teargas canister fired at close range. Rights groups and students have accused the police of a disproportionate use of force. Six months from a crucial presidential election to replace Macron, rival politicians are jockeying to exploit the protests. The far-right frontrunner, Marine Le Pen, has highlighted the damage to schools and called for parents ⁠to foot repair bills, while her radical-left opponent, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has praised the protesters as “incredible” and denounced police brutality.

How a scandal engulfing Brazil’s top court could return the Bolsonaros to power

Thundering to a crowd of thousands of far-right supporters in São Paulo on 7 September, Brazil’s Independence Day, the senator Flávio Bolsonaro focused less on his opponent in the presidential election, the leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, than on someone who is not running at all. “Whoever votes for Lula is voting for Alexandre de Moraes,” Bolsonaro shouted, referring to the shaven-headed supreme court justice once described as “Voldemort” by Elon Musk. Although Lula did not appoint Moraes to the court, Bolsonaro’s supporters have linked the two men ever since the judge oversaw the case in which the senator’s father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup. Now, just days before the election runoff on 25 October, Moraes is once again at the centre of a presidential scandal – one that Lula believes may have helped Flávio Bolsonaro overtake him to emerge as the frontrunner. The justice once hailed as democracy’s “saviour” for containing Jair Bolsonaro may now have helped pave the way for the family’s return to power. The scandal began with a police investigation, which found that Moraes’s wife’s law firm had a contract worth about £20m with Daniel Vorcaro, the banker accused of orchestrating Brazil’s largest banking fraud. Text messages also emerged suggesting a close relationship between Moraes and Vorcaro, though the judge denies the messages are authentic. Investigations subsequently revealed that at least four other justices had links to the disgraced banker, meaning half of the court’s 10 current justices have been drawn into the scandal. The crisis peaked last month with a ferocious exchange of insults between Moraes and another justice during a televised court session. A series of rulings followed in which the pair – as well as other judges aligned with each side – overruled one another, dominating public debate for weeks. Lula, the day after losing the first round, blamed his poor result in part on having to “carry on his back … the promiscuity” of the supreme court, in what many political observers saw as an attempt by the president to distance himself from the crisis. His campaign coordinator, Edinho Silva, said that, “in the eyes of society … [Lula] paid the price for that institutional damage”. Although analysts point to a range of reasons for the far right’s lead, from household debt to a simple preference for Flávio Bolsonaro, many agree that the supreme court crisis played a decisive role, particularly among indecisive voters who, with the electorate generally divided between two similarly sized left and right blocs, are the ones who ultimately decide the election. “These are people who thought that, just as they see congress, the country’s highest court had become corrupt, too. That deepened apathy among some who might otherwise have voted for Lula and fuelled the anti-system sentiment that feeds the far right,” said Camila Rocha, a political scientist who studies Brazil’s new right and has spent recent months interviewing undecided voters. “We asked people about the court crisis, and they would say: ‘Everything is very confusing, but one thing we do know is that the big villain is Alexandre de Moraes,’” she said. “Precisely the judge who jailed Jair Bolsonaro now emerges, for these people, as the big corrupt figure and the main villain.” Conrado Hübner Mendes, a professor of constitutional law at the University of São Paulo and a leading scholar of the supreme court, said Moraes put himself in that position by “embracing the role of heroic protagonist”. The judge blocked some of Jair Bolsonaro’s moves during his government and drew the ire of far-right figures such as Musk and Donald Trump. The US went as far as to impose sanctions on him, in a move widely seen as an attempt to interfere in Jair’s trial. On Monday, Moraes authorised Flávio Bolsonaro to resume visiting his father after a 90-day ban imposed in July, when the senator read out a letter from his father about the elections that Moraes considered a breach of Jair Bolsonaro’s ban on using social media. Beyond the anger of Bolsonaro’s supporters, legal scholars and some on the Brazilian left, while acknowledging Moraes’s decisive role in the coup trial, also criticised several of his other rulings as authoritarian. “He took on a huge responsibility, and now he has thrown that away in the most mediocre way possible, with this alleged corruption case,” said Mendes. While acknowledging the contract between the law firm run by his wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes, and the disgraced banker – who is worth an extraordinarily large sum by Brazilian law firm standards – Moraes denied any wrongdoing. He said he had never ruled on any case involving Vorcaro and that there was therefore no conflict of interest. Vorcaro has been behind bars since he was arrested in November as he prepared to board a private jet from São Paulo to Malta. He is accused of leading a scheme through his Banco Master involving aggressive fundraising, unrealistic returns and falsified balance sheets that left an estimated £9bn hole, much of it involving public money and pensioners’ savings. Text messages extracted from Vorcaro’s phone show that, two days before his arrest, the banker asked someone whom police later identified as Moraes: “Do you think … I need to get out [of the country]?” Moraes denies being the recipient and accuses a fellow justice, André Mendonça, appointed by Jair Bolsonaro, of using the police against him for electoral reasons, allegedly to benefit Flávio’s campaign. Mendonça is one of the four other justices suspected of having links to Vorcaro. An institute he created is said to have taken out an £800,000 loan from one of the banker’s associates, though he says it has already been repaid. In the other justices’ cases, investigators uncovered links ranging from a £64m contract to an alleged stake in a fund that received £5.2m from Vorcaro. All deny wrongdoing. No reports had linked Lula to the scandal until Friday, when Veja magazine reported that Vorcaro allegedly said he had paid £4.5m to finance a 2024 Oliver Stone documentary about the president. The federal police and the public prosecutor’s office, however, said the banker had neither made the allegation nor provided evidence to support it in his testimony. Lula denied receiving money from the banker. Flávio Bolsonaro is being investigated over what happened to the £20m he was caught on tape asking Vorcaro to provide for a biopic about his father. One suspicion is that the money helped cover living and travel expenses for his brother, the former congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, during his self-imposed exile in the US, where he lobbied the Trump administration against Lula. The senator said all the money went towards sponsoring the film, which still has no release date. Besides Flávio Bolsonaro’s lead, the far right’s sweeping victory ensured an even more conservative congress in 2027, including the senate majority needed to impeach supreme court justices – a demand among his father’s supporters since the former president was convicted. “With the scandal, the justices handed Bolsonarismo something it still didn’t have: an impeachable offence that could justify their removal,” said Mendes. “A court that ignores conflicts of interest and immerses itself in relationships with political and economic power is a court that has already become corrupted.” Even if no justice is impeached, should Bolsonaro win, he could be entitled to fill four seats as justices retire during his term, leaving the court with at least six of its 11 members appointed by either him or his father. “We can expect a court completely servile to the government,” Mendes said, adding that the separation of powers would be at risk and that the justices themselves bear part of the responsibility. “The court ended up doing to itself the work an autocratic project needs – and brought itself down”.

Tuesday briefing: Could Burnham take Britain back towards the EU?

Good morning. After a holiday spent contracting nursery bugs from an 11-month-old, it’s good to return. Yesterday, Andy Burnham marked his first day back after party conference by calling for a closer relationship with the EU and drawing a line under a decade of “drift and division”. On Sunday, he said it was “clear” the Kremlin had been involved with the 2016 Brexit referendum vote. Both statements mark a break, rhetorically at least, from his predecessors. Conservative governments long insisted there was no evidence of Russian interference in the Brexit vote. Keir Starmer attempted to put the entire issue of Brexit behind him, treating it as a historic event rather than a cause of economic pain. But for all his words about a closer relationship with the EU, Burnham has kept the details pretty vague. Today’s newsletter, with the help of the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent Jennifer Rankin and our senior political correspondent Peter Walker, asks what his stance might actually amount to. That’s after the headlines. Five big stories UK | Andy Burnham said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were “almost certainly” behind threats to RAF Fairford, the firmest attribution of responsibility made so far by the UK after an incident late last month. UK politics | A close adviser to Nigel Farage had an influential role at a national polling company despite not being publicly associated with the firm, the Guardian revealed. Ukraine | Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed to respond to Russia’s continuing attacks on the Ukrainian power grid as European leaders rally around Kyiv amid a feud with Donald Trump over Ukraine’s strikes on oil refineries. Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the country’s attorney general and the head of the Shin Bet security service to reveal the identities of soldiers and officers interviewed in the documentary NAZA and prosecute them for causing “harm to Israel’s diplomatic and security interests”. US news | RJ Mitte, the young actor best known for playing Walter White Jr in the award-winning TV series Breaking Bad, died on Monday. He was 34. In depth: What does Burnham want from Europe? In the years after it voted to leave the European Union, Britain became something of a laughing stock among EU member states. “It was like a box set TV drama. People in Brussels would be staying up to watch votes in the House of Commons,” Jennifer Rankin, who moved to Brussels to cover the EU for the Guardian in January 2016, tells me. Civil servants in Brussels grew to regard the UK as one might regard a belligerent and ungrateful elderly relative, an impression that reached its apotheosis when the former Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis admitted that the UK’s Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland would break international law (albeit in a “very specific and limited way”.) “From 2016 to 2020, the UK was seen as a model of how not to run your country,” Jennifer says. This impression softened after the passing of the Withdrawal Agreement Act in early 2020, and the Windsor framework deal, which amended the arrangements under the Northern Ireland protocol in 2023. “That was a turning point in drawing a line under the bad blood of the Brexit years,” Jennifer says. Keir Starmer’s government then sought to cooperate with the EU on various issues such as security, food and fishing, but the “reset” he pledged to deliver was tightly circumscribed by his red lines: no rejoining the single market, no customs union, no freedom of movement. After his conference speech, Burnham suggested he might be open to reconsidering this when he suggested, somewhat cryptically, that the UK could go “all the way” (presumably towards full EU membership), and yesterday he called for a “longer-term discussion” about Britain’s relationship with the EU. But what might that actually mean? *** Could the UK rejoin the EU? Burnham has been “showing a lot of ankle” to remainers over the last few weeks, Peter Walker tells me. During his Labour conference speech, he promised to lay out “different options” for Britain’s long-term relationship with Europe, and acknowledged that Brexit had caused “more harm than good”. “It’s pretty clear that a decent majority of people would like to push a switch that meant Brexit had never happened,” Peter says. Indeed, a YouGov poll in January 2025 found that just 11% of people thought Brexit had been more of a success than a failure. And as recently as last week, the Messina Group, a polling company, reported that half of voters say they would like to rejoin the EU. The economic consequences of Brexit are now well known, and research has estimated that, a decade after the referendum, UK GDP per head is between 6% and 8% lower than it would have been without Brexit. Yet reversing this decision would require another referendum, which would be politically fraught, reigniting a debate that splintered the country a decade ago, and reducing a highly complex and technical issue to a binary decision. It’s hard to imagine Burnham – or any politician, for that matter – wanting to fight the next election while pledging something so divisive. Notably, even the Liberal Democrats, the most pro-EU of the major parties, favour rejoining the single market and customs union but describe UK membership of the EU as a “long-term goal” rather than an immediate priority. *** What other options are on the table? If a second referendum seems like a vanishingly distant prospect, other changes could take place without one. In the combustive years after Brexit, there was a short-lived hope that the UK might pursue its own version of the Norway model, allowing it to become a member of the European Economic Area. “It was the Conservatives who decided to pursue the hardest Brexit possible,” Peter reminds me. In theory, a softer deal could mean rejoining the single market and customs union. But this would mean breaking Labour’s red lines, which Burnham has said he will stick to. And if the UK was to rejoin the single market but remain outside the EU, it would be forced to accept rules that it had no power to shape. “As soon as you look at the democratic deficit that comes with single market membership, the case for rejoining the EU becomes stronger,” Jennifer tells me. The debate over rejoining the EU is often conducted in relatively parochial terms, as if it only concerns Britain. But the UK’s future relationship with the EU will be largely shaped by the member states of a union that has changed significantly since the referendum. Far-right parties are gaining power in France and Germany, while the mercantilist politics of China and the US have inspired the EU’s Made in Europe agenda, a series of protectionist laws designed to bolster European industry and reduce reliance on Chinese imports. In this context, Burnham may decide it’s better to be inside the tent than outside it. The Made in Europe agenda is particularly concerning for the government, since UK industry could suffer if exports were legally classified as “non-European” goods under these new laws. But as Mujtaba Rahman wrote in an interesting opinion piece for the Guardian in July, “any serious rejoin debate must start from an honest assessment of what the EU has become”. *** What happens next? Right now, the longer term outcome is anyone’s guess. In his statement to the Commons, Burnham confirmed that the planned UK-EU summit will go ahead in November. Negotiators are expected to discuss a trade deal on food and drink, a deal on emissions trading, a plan to link the energy systems of the EU and UK and the new youth mobility scheme. These areas were all discussed at last years’ UK-EU talks, so Burnham wasn’t announcing anything we didn’t already know. “There’s a lot of frustration in Brussels that the UK has been talking a big game on a reset with the EU, without actually changing very much,” Jennifer says. “The theme over the last ten years is that the EU has always been waiting for the UK to define what it wants. The rhetoric may be warmer, but the substance has stayed the same.” What else we’ve been enjoying I have always found that TV – with its twisting plotlines, and lack of demands – is a good cure for grief. Today’s one change that worked, by writer Georgina Elliott, on how the cinema gave her some focus after the death of her brother, poignantly depicted what it’s like to muddle through such times. Poppy Noor, newsletters team Chloe Kerleroux’s photo essay about Atlanta’s Bill Pickett rodeo is a beautiful window into a competition which encompasses athleticism, hip-hop, fashion and the celebration of contemporary Black cowboy and cowgirl culture. Lucinda Everett, newsletters team Here’s a line I didn’t expect to read today: professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, is worried about the pneumonic plague (although it might not be for the reasons you suspect). Poppy Kiran Sidhu was touching, on considering who to pass her most prized possessions down to in her will since she doesn’t have children. Poppy I, too, have been had by the myth that my (small amount of) muscle will turn into fat if I don’t force myself into a few push-ups every week. Not so, according to this week’s Is it true that … column – although what does happen when you stop exercising isn’t that much more reassuring. Poppy Sport Cycling | Matt Richardson has been withdrawn from the Great Britain team for next week’s World Cycling Championships in Shanghai amid allegations of misconduct. Football | Almost half of female footballers are considering leaving the sport because of financial concerns or psychological stress, and 57% have struggled with their mental health, according to a report highlighting the working conditions for players worldwide. Sport | Manchester United have endured their worst league start in 40 years but coach Michael Carrick insists he does not feel under pressure and has said his captain, Bruno Fernandes, will rediscover his form. The front pages The Guardian leads with “PM: Britain’s relationship with EU ‘not good enough’”. The i has “Burnham ready to sign new EU deal next month – as he attacks Brexit ‘damage’”. The Mail says “Burnham in retreat over Russia Brexit ‘lies’”. The Times splashes on “Cut screen time in class ‘for sake of pupil health’”. The Financial Times has “Putin breaking ‘ceasefire’ on energy targets, says Zelenskyy”. The Mirror reports on comments from Reform’s Robert Jenrick on migrants, under the headline “Horrifying”. Today in Focus: The Latest Trump rewards Putin and betrays Ukraine with Russia diesel deal Donald Trump’s deal to buy Russian diesel has been met with fury from Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said it was ‘a weak decision’ and would generate ‘billions’ in extra revenue for Putin’s war effort. The Ukrainian president has also rejected US calls for an ‘energy ceasefire’, which would require Kyiv to stop striking oil refineries, saying Moscow must first end its attacks on energy infrastructure. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Luke Harding. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad The Naffah family has been making church bells in the Lebanese town of Beit Chabab for three centuries. Led by master bell-maker Naffah Naffah and his two sons, their workshop is the last remaining production centre for church bells in Lebanon and the only source of church bells for much of the Middle East. Crafted using a mix of modern and ancient tools, each bell takes about two months to make and bears the names of those who worked on it. Naffah and his sons Charbel and Youssef are determined to preserve the tradition. Charbel will succeed his father as master of the workshop and Youssef helps alongside studying medicine, but says he would take Charbel’s place if needed. “Traditions are important to us,” he says. “We are living and breathing tradition here in this workshop.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

Lobbying, lawyers and a media blitz: the fight to kill the Church of England’s £100m slavery compensation fund

“This is virtue signalling,” said Nigel Biggar. “These are elites who are trying to demonstrate that they are being progressive.” The target of his scorn was one that has obsessed him for years: the movement to pay reparations for the slave trade, and specifically the Church of England’s plan to spend £100m atoning for its involvement. “I’ve got north of 100 parish churches in my constituency, many of them crumbling,” added Katie Lam, an up-and-coming Conservative MP and immigration hardliner. Lord Biggar, a retired professor, Conservative peer and Anglican priest, was speaking alongside Lam last September on a Spectator podcast named after his latest book, Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt. Since the church’s commissioners – who manage the church’s endowment – announced in 2023 that they would set up the Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice to make amends for the church’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, Biggar has led the backlash. In doing so he has gone from fringe voice to one of the most widely published proponents of revisionist theories about colonialism and the British empire. Dozens of articles have been published against Project Spire, as the fund is known in the church, many by Biggar and people who share similar views, in publications including the Spectator, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Times. Lam has led opposition in the House of Commons, asking questions of ministers and in December coordinating a letter from 27 MPs and peers to the incoming archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, accusing the church of “legally dubious vanity projects”. The media blitz has paid off so far, paralysing the church and stalling the fund well beyond its planned launch date of 2024. The church admitted in July it also faces a legal challenge – which could add years more delay. Yet little attention has been paid to the lobbying campaign against Project Spire – and how it has become a cause célèbre within the broader rightwing ecosystem. The Guardian can reveal how some of Britain’s wealthiest financiers, including Sir Paul Marshall, are linked to the man at the heart of the campaign to kill the church’s fund. The multimillionaire co-founder of the hedge fund Marshall Wace has given Biggar and his movement a powerful platform via his stable of media outlets, which spans the Spectator magazine, the broadcaster GB News and the comment website UnHerd. A devout Christian, Marshall also funded several rightwing lobbying groups and organisations linked to Biggar to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. It all appears part of the libertarian financier’s significant efforts to reshape the Church of England – and wider society – in line with his own worldview. * * * A moral reckoning In 2007 Dr Rowan Williams, the then archbishop of Canterbury, set in train a reckoning for one of Britain’s most venerable and staid institutions when he said the church should consider slavery reparations for its historical role in the slave trade. It signalled Lambeth Palace’s determination to atone for those failings – from its distant past to the present day. His successor, Justin Welby, reaffirmed that commitment. “I’m ashamed of our history and I’m ashamed of our failure,” said Welby, a former oil executive turned priest, in 2020. “There is no doubt when we look at our own church that we are still deeply institutionally racist.” In 2019, the church commissioners ordered research into the endowment fund’s origins and links to the slave trade. Its initial findings, published in 2022, revealed the funds partly originated in Queen Anne’s Bounty. Queen Anne’s Bounty, which was founded in 1704, invested significant sums in the South Sea Company, which traded in enslaved people – trafficking about 34,000 enslaved Africans. The South Sea Company also received numerous benefactions from individuals such as the slave trader Edward Colston, who were linked to, or who profited from, transatlantic chattel slavery and the plantation economy. Subsequent work by historians on the newly digitised Register of British Slave Traders has revealed how C of E clergymen financed the Royal African Company (RAC), which trafficked more African men, women and children than any other single organisation in the history of the slave trade. In January 2023 the commissioners published a 25-page report on the endowment fund’s links to the slave trade, employing forensic accountants at Grant Thornton. It declared its intent to set up a £100m fund to invest and generate returns to support communities most affected by African chattel enslavement. Money would come from the church’s endowment, now valued at £11.6bn. An independent oversight group was formed to steer the Fund for Healing, Repair and Justice, which the commissioners hoped would attract external investment to grow to a £1bn pot. “It is now time to take action to address our shameful past,” said Welby. Bishop Rosemarie Mallett, the chair of the oversight group, said: “We believe that, like the mustard seed of the parable, the fund will grow from small beginnings towards an expansive future, inspiring imitation and constructive atonement for enduring evils.” It was part of a wider examination into Britain’s links to slavery: the statue of Colston had been toppled into Bristol harbour in 2020, and institutions from the Bank of England and insurance market Lloyd’s of London to the royal family were delving into their past. But the church was not ready for the backlash that the fund would provoke. “The church commissioners always anticipated pushback,” said a source connected to Project Spire. “But it was unprepared for the intensity and persistence of the campaign waged by critics and media associated with wealthy City hedge fund executives.” * * * ‘Wokery is a Christian heresy’ Among the first opponents was a Church of England vicar who appeared on GB News days after the fund was announced in January 2023, to say it would put parishioners off donating to the church. “We keep hearing that there is no money left,” he said. “And now suddenly, they’ve found £100m down the back of the sofa, to pay for this. You can imagine how I felt.” A torrent of similar views has followed, with significant coverage in media organisations that are owned or backed by Marshall. The Spectator, which Marshall bought in 2024 for £100m, has hosted repeated criticism, including one piece by Biggar entitled “Wokery is a Christian heresy”, and another by its assistant editor Madeleine Grant, which described the fund as “deeply unpopular, based on questionable history and law”. GB News, the TV channel that Marshall co-owns with the Dubai-based fund Legatum, hosted Biggar for an interview in which he labelled the C of E’s plan “completely irrational and wilful self-flagellation”. Biggar, the former regius professor of moral theology at the University of Oxford, has been at pains to state that “racial prejudice is wrong”, and slavery is “abhorrent”. But his criticism of Project Spire has been unrelenting. UnHerd, the commentary website Marshall co-founded in 2017 with former Times journalist Tim Montgomerie, has run pieces with headlines such as “The Church of England’s reparations plan is unchristian”. Marshall’s son, Winston Marshall, has hosted Biggar twice on his YouTube show, with episodes such as “The Inconvenient Truth About Reparations and the Slave Trade”. Other rightwing publications and organisations have also weighed in. The Critic, a magazine founded by the hedge fund tycoon and Brexit backer Jeremy Hosking, has run seven articles critical of Project Spire, including by Biggar and Lam. None have been supportive. In 2025 Policy Exchange, the right-of-centre thinktank, published a 58-page paper titled The Case Against Reparations: Why the Church Commissioners for England Must Think Again. Again, Biggar was one of the authors. Critics claim parishioners are similarly opposed to Project Spire, citing a poll of 500 churchgoers by Merlin Strategy that received widespread coverage in January. An initial story in the Sunday Telegraph reported a key finding: that 61% might withhold donations if the fund went ahead and money was “unavailable for the support of parishes”. The story was widely followed up, including by the Daily Mail and BBC. But the coverage failed to mention the results of another similar question in the poll: “If the national church decided to commit £100m of its endowment to slavery-related ‘reparative justice’, would this increase or decrease the amount you would normally con[tribute?]” This time 61% said they would either maintain or increase their contributions, compared with 34% who said they would reduce their contributions. Nor did the stories mention who paid for and commissioned the poll: Biggar. Merlin said it sent the results of the poll to Biggar but had no further involvement in its dissemination. Biggar declined to answer questions about the poll. The Guardian understands the Telegraph story was based on a press release sent by Lam that omitted details including Biggar’s involvement and the finding that 61% would maintain or increase their donations. Lam did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The church has said money for Project Spire will not be diverted from parishes, and that funding for churches and clergy has risen by 36% to £1.6bn for its current three-year period, versus the prior period. * * * Financial links Marshall, who was a substantial donor to the Brexit campaign, has become one of Britain’s most prolific philanthropists. Armed with almost £490m in assets, the Sequoia Trust, a charitable trust he supports and chairs, backs a range of causes close to his heart, including in the Church of England. The Guardian recently revealed how he has given at least £13m to Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB), an evangelical church in Knightsbridge in central London that seeded the popular Alpha course, and the Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT), via Sequoia, between 2018 and 2025. He also provides significant support to organisations where Biggar is heavily involved, many of which are on the frontline of the culture wars. In May last year the hedge fund tycoon delivered a 48-minute lecture at the University of Oxford on his reflections as an “accidental media owner”. The event was organised by a little-known charity, the Pharos Foundation, which Biggar co-founded in 2023 and of which he is a trustee. It funds the work of young academics “pursuing civilisational or heterodox research in a climate of free inquiry”. Biggar founded Pharos with another academic, Prof David Abulafia, and the fund manager and Conservative party donor Neil Record. Record has described Pharos as part of a “resistance movement” in academia, fighting back against the “cancellation” of debate around subjects such as “DEI/EDI; climate change; the genetic role in intelligence; trans rights; and colonial history”. Pharos are “innovators and disruptors, and you fight the fight for freedom”, Marshall told the Oxford audience. “Therefore you do everything I like and want to support”. Accounts for Pharos show that Sequoia gave it £700,000 in 2024 and 2025. At least 10 Marshall Fellows appear on Pharos’s website, studying subjects including the British empire and ancient Greece. Biggar, who is a paid “fundraising ambassador” for Pharos, declined to say how much he receives for the role. Another prominent City figure, George Robinson, the co-founder of the hedge fund Sloane Robinson and a Conservative party donor, is also a trustee of Pharos, and charitable trusts linked to him have given it at least £500,000. Robinson said he was “not aware” of the campaign against Project Spire and is not involved. He said that Biggar’s opposition to the church’s fund was done in a personal capacity and “has nothing to do with Pharos, which is an educational charity”. Biggar was also a speaker at the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) conference in London, which brought together rightwing voices from across the globe. Marshall funded the launch of Arc in 2023 with a £1m donation, followed by £2m last year, and he co-owns it with Legatum. Biggar is a director of a subsidiary, Arc Research, for which he said he receives no payment. Sequoia also gave £890,000 to Policy Exchange between 2020 and 2023. * * * Culture warriors Biggar was involved in a similar storm that engulfed another British institution several years ago. In 2020 the National Trust published a 115-page report that unravelled its properties’ links to slavery and colonialism. Biggar was reportedly the inspiration for a lobbying group called Restore Trust which was set up to oppose the charity’s so-called “wokeness”. Pharos backer Record was also linked to Restore Trust, appearing on its “meet the team” page until his resignation in 2024. Record, a veteran City currency trader, is also a prominent backer of anti-net zero organisations, chairing Net Zero Watch. Biggar mentored James Orr, the influential Christian academic and former adviser to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who was recently caught in a funding scandal. Orr told a Jordan Peterson podcast in 2021 that they spent a “few happy years” together at the University of Oxford’s McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life, which Biggar founded and Orr joined in 2014. Biggar also has links to the hard-right party Restore Britain. It cited Biggar’s writing on rights and the legal system in a 2025 paper justifying its flagship policy of mass deportations. He was among the people thanked in the acknowledgments “for trusty friendship or helpful conversations”. Biggar said that he has “no formal relationship” with Restore and is a member of the Conservative party. Biggar has written repeatedly for the website History Reclaimed. It was founded by academics including Robert Tombs in 2021. Tombs said that it “exists to correct historical errors and falsehoods, and that is why we criticise Project Spire”. History Reclaimed says none of its authors are paid and it receives “no financial support from any political party or organisation”. * * * Legal quagmire Uncertainty now shrouds the fund. Mullally has reaffirmed the church’s commitment to it, including on a trip to Ghana in July when she expressed “lament” for the Church of England’s involvement in transatlantic chattel slavery. Members of the church’s General Synod, who gathered in York in July, heard that commissioners had faced “some of the most vile abuse and correspondence” over Project Spire. The threat of a judicial review has further delayed an application to the Charity Commission to establish the fund in a new arm’s-length body. No further details were given on the legal threat, but the Guardian understands it is being led by Bijan Omrani, a Daily Telegraph columnist and barrister, who has repeatedly criticised Project Spire. It is understood to centre on the church commissioners’ authority to disburse the money and whether it corresponds with its duty to support the Church of England and its parishes, and whether it allows the commissioners to spend its funds abroad. Biggar said he is not involved in the legal challenge. Biggar said: “Given the universality of slave-trade and slavery – especially among Africans – up until the 19th century some Anglican and British involvement is unremarkable. What is remarkable was the unprecedented campaign to abolish both, led by evangelical Anglicans from the 1780s. Project Spire tears the Church of England’s role out of its historical context, exaggerates its guilt, and ignores its abolitionist leadership.” Paul Marshall said: “I am not funding the anti-Spire campaign but I would be happy to do so. I believe the reparations project is naive and ill-judged and that the money would be better spent looking after the needs of the global Anglican Communion, including the many parishes in the UK struggling to make ends meet. And I think the majority of churchgoers would agree with that.” Winston Marshall, Record, Hosking, Orr, Omrani, Policy Exchange and the Pharos Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. A C of E spokesperson said: “Addressing our historic links to African chattel enslavement is an act of Christian repentance, responsible investment and credible witness.”

Hurricane Simon and Tropical Storm Rachel kill five people on Mexico’s Pacific coast

At least five people have died after Hurricane Simon and Tropical Storm Rachel pummelled Mexico’s Pacific coast, causing flooding that downed trees and electricity poles, blocked roads and inundated homes. Simon claimed the life of a 71-year-old man who died when a wall collapsed in Chilpancingo in the southern state of Guerrero, governor Evelyn Salgado said at a press conference. The storm also damaged infrastructure and homes in the state’s coastal towns, including the major seaport of Acapulco, she said. Tropical Storm Rachel is blamed for the deaths of four members of one family, including two children, whose bodies were found on the outskirts of the city of Ensenada in Baja California, the state’s prosecutor’s office reported. Five more people remained missing, while security forces used helicopters to rescue 32 people, prosecutors said. Baja governor Marina del Pilar said officials were helping more than 50 people in temporary shelters. Simon did not make landfall and, after weakening to category two on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, was moving away from the coast, authorities said. A rain alert remained in place. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said heavy rainfall associated with Simon in west-central Mexico over the next few days might still produce life-threatening flooding and mudslides. Officials warned waves of up to five metres high were still expected in some coastal areas. Flooding and landslides had already hit communities close to rivers and streams in the states of Michoacan and Colima. The El Niño phenomenon, characterised by rising water temperatures in the Pacific, is fuelling a more intense hurricanes this season in the region. Meteorologists say the 2026-27 El Niño, which causes global changes in winds and rainfall as well as erratic weather conditions, is certain to be the biggest ever recorded. Scientists now also think human-caused global heating is making El Niños more intense. With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

Argentina temporarily closes Iguazu Falls after El Niño-fuelled surge in water levels

Heavy rainfall fuelled by a supersized El Niño weather pattern briefly forced Argentinian authorities to close tourist access to the famed Iguazu Falls, amid fears that rapidly rising water levels would cause the river to burst its banks. National park officials took the precautionary measure on Monday when the Iguazu River’s flow exceeded 12,000 cubic metres per second – more than six times its average rate. It later said the area would reopen to tourists on Tuesday, citing a “gradual decline” in the river’s flow. José María Hervás, the director of the Iguazu national park, said access was closed because “it just keeps raining” and the volume of water being released from dams upstream on the Iguazu River was not falling, reported the Buenos Aires Times. The Iguazu Falls, recognised by Unesco as one of the world’s largest and most impressive waterfalls, sits on the border of Argenina and Brazil and spans approximately 2,700 metres. In 2023 and 2024, Argentinian officials closed the park on its side of the border over flooding caused by a previous El Niño cycle. Meteorologists say the 2026-2027 El Niño, which causes global changes in winds and rainfall as well as erratic weather conditions, is certain to be the biggest ever recorded. Scientists now also think human-caused global heating is making El Niño’s more intense. El Niño begins in the equatorial Pacific where changes in winds allow huge amounts of heat to escape the oceans and heat the atmosphere. It grows in the northern hemisphere autumn and peaks in December but has impacts well into the following year. Last month, Argentina’s coastal region experienced above-average rainfall “similar to that seen during strong El Niño events,” the national meteorological service said.

Ukraine war briefing: Russian diesel exports could return to past levels after Trump deal, Moscow claims

Russia will be able to return its diesel exports to levels not seen since Ukraine started to target the country’s oil refineries, deputy prime minister Alexander Novak has claimed, after the Trump administration temporarily lifted US sanctions on Russian ⁠fuel. Russia has seen diesel exports collapse ⁠due to Ukraine’s attacks on oil refineries and it self-imposed overseas sales restrictions. Trump announced on Friday that Russia had agreed to supply diesel to global markets in order to ease supply concerns, in a deal that has drawn condemnation from Ukraine and other US allies. Novak said on the Rossiya-24 state TV channel on Monday: “We will see how ‌the situation develops further, ‌but Russia has the capacity to increase diesel fuel exports. By the end of the year, exports could reach 3-3.5m metric tons per month, returning to the levels seen before the crisis.” The diesel deal, under which Russia will supply more than 2.25m barrels of diesel to US and global markets, has triggered a bipartisan backlash from some US lawmakers, who say it will give Moscow cash to pursue its war without forcing Putin to make concessions to end the conflict. A group ‌of Republican and Democratic US senators called on Trump to “reverse course” on the deal, saying it might violate a 2022 law designed to support Ukraine in its bid to repel Russian invaders. “We should be tightening sanctions further, not undercutting them…,” Republican senator Jerry Moran said on social media. But Trump defended the deal on Monday, calling it “the right choice for the American people”. Trump’s envoys have told Ukrainian officials that the deal to allow Russian diesel exports is part of a bid to draw Moscow back to negotiations, Reuters has quoted three people familiar with the meeting as saying. Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner told ⁠the Ukrainians in a meeting in Miami on Friday that Russian president Vladimir Putin was not prepared to negotiate an end to his war in Ukraine and that the diesel deal announced last week could help restart trilateral talks, said two of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The third person said the US relayed to the Ukrainians that the deal could help “soften” Moscow’s position ⁠in part because it “sends a signal that Trump is open to do things” with Russia. The report has not been officially confirmed. Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to respond to Russia’s continuing attacks on the Ukrainian power grid as European leaders rallied around Kyiv amid a feud with Trump over Ukraine’s strikes on oil refineries. The Ukrainian president told a gathering of European security officials in Warsaw on Monday that Kyiv would retaliate if strikes on its power grid continued. “If Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire this winter, we will respond.” Zelenskyy later told Fox News his government had refrained from striking Russian energy sites since Trump’s truce announcement on Sunday, and was ready to honour an energy ceasefire as “a good first step” toward closing the war. ⁠A Russian strike on a high-rise residential building in a suburb of Kyiv killed two people ⁠and injured at least nine, while attacks in other Ukrainian regions killed at least six people, officials said ⁠on Monday. Two people died in the evening strike on the 25-storey ⁠residence in the Ukrainian capital’s Darnitskyi district, Zelenskyy said on Telegram. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, mayor Ihor Terekhov reported serious shelling of city districts, with five people injured in the collapse of an entrance to an apartment building. Residents ‌of the north-eastern city could still be trapped beneath rubble, he said. The EU will on Tuesday open new negotiations with Ukraine, an essential step in Kyiv’s long path to join the bloc. Ukrainian legislators on Monday passed legislation protecting the rights of national minorities, which removes a major hurdle in Kyiv’s bid for membership. European Council president António Costa said he welcomed “today’s decision by EU member states to open two further negotiation clusters with Ukraine and Moldova”. “Your future lies in the EU,” he said. “Let’s keep up the momentum!”