Now Hiring: Reform Party PR Team
Plus: Knit for Privacy
Our loves!
Happy Holiday season, to those boycotting, celebrating or both. We’re back with another edition of Citizens Re/United, as the sun sets on 2025. Will this be the year of the broligarchs? Or the year citizens clapped back? We’ve got another month to decide.
Here’s what to read, watch and know this week.
🏆 ONE WIN: Pod Save the Spy Ring 🏆
Before we get to the chaos of the week… a tiny piece of good news: we won an APA Award last night. Yes, us. Our podcast Sergei and the Westminster Spy Ring took home the News, Politics & Current Affairs prize — despite being up against shows with budgets the size of small nations.
It stars our very own
Carole Cadwalladr and the brilliant Peter Jukes from Byline Times, who - with Conservative whistleblower Sergei Cristo - unravel the most audacious Russian influence operation in modern British history. Honey traps. Covert agents. Information warfare. And all of it happening in the heart of British politics while everyone else looked away.
The judges said:
“Against an incredibly high standard of entries… this stood out for its sophistication and breadth of tone, combining rigorous investigation with gravity, precision, warmth and wit. Ambitious, absorbing, beautifully executed - serious and entertaining, all without big-budget backing.”
Without big-budget backing is the polite industry way of saying:
this podcast was entirely funded by you lot.
Every mic check, every late-night edit, every legal read - all powered by public donations from this community. If you’re reading this, you made it happen. Thank you.
And here’s the kicker: we made Sergei and the Westminster Spy Ring for one reason - to force the UK government to finally investigate Russian interference in our elections. We’ve been fighting this legal case for five years.
Now, with the award landing just as calls for a Public Inquiry reach boiling point… the timing could not be better.
So keep reading - because the window is open, momentum is real, and we need your help to push this over the line.
💃 ONE READ: What to Wear If You Don’t Want to be Seen 💃
Kari Paul, formerly of The Guardian and now freelancing, has a fascinating piece in Mozilla Foundation’s new magazine, Nothing Personal, on The Rise of Anti-Surveillance Fashion. The what?! She writes:
Late one evening in November, I set up a surveillance camera in my studio and log onto the accompanying app. I wander in front of it; a ding comes from my phone. Alert: human detected. I walk off camera, pull a colorful t-shirt over my head and wander the same path, my body floating into the frame again. This time, no noise. I look at my phone: nothing. I have become invisible to the algorithm.
Kari goes on to look at a rapidly emerging industry: studios and brands that produce clothing engineered to thwart surveillance technology.
💬ONE WATCH: AOC Says Its 2008 All Over Again 💬
Are we in a 2008-style AI bubble? In a hearing in the U.S. last week, AOC lays out a pretty frightening argument that we are. It’s a short watch that (in classic AOC fashion) explains the current moment and sounds the alarm:
🇷🇺 ONE ACTION: Russian Roulette 🇷🇺
If you’re not following the twists and turns of the Russia investigation, Nathan Gill’s sentencing and the Citizen’s work exposing Russian influence … what on Earth are you doing!? we’ve got you covered. The TL/DR? The wheels are coming off the UK Reform party’s press machine, with new demands streaming out for a full and real investigation into Russian influence in the UK, EU and beyond.
What can you do? Besides following us on X and Bsky and reading this great thread, you can sign this petition calling for a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics & democracy, if you’re in the UK.
Or you can email your MP and demand an inquiry – we’ve made it simple.
Copy the message below, paste it into an email to your MP, and hit send.
(Find your MP here: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP)
📧 Template email to your MP
Dear [MP Name],
I’m writing as your constituent to urge you to support a full public inquiry into Russian interference in UK democratic processes.
The Russia Report (2020) identified “credible evidence” of Kremlin attempts to influence UK politics. The recent conviction and sentencing of former MEP Nathan Gill for taking pro-Russia bribes shows this threat is real, organised and ongoing.
Despite this, the government still refuses to investigate - leaving the UK vulnerable ahead of the next election.
I’m asking you to:
• raise this issue in Parliament
• support any call for a full public inquiry
• press the government to investigate and safeguard our democracy
The public deserves transparency and protection from foreign interference. I hope you will act.
Sincerely,
[Name]
[Postcode]
We’ve got the influence peddlers and secret sellers on the ropes.
💬ONE BONUS WATCH: Ed Davey puts the ball in Keir Starmer’s court 💬
Here Ed Davey Leader of the Liberal Democrats puts it straight to Keir Starmer on why we need him to call an investigation into Russian influence in UK politics… and Keir Starmer batting it right away - gah!
Don’t worry - none of us guys are backing away from this fight!
That’s it for this week.
Team Citizens
