Holly Evans
Holly Evans is a senior reporter at The Independent covering domestic and foreign news with a consistent focus on how politics intersects with security, crime and public safety. Her work follows power as it moves through far-right parties, campaign money, policing and the courts, and into the lives of politicians, public figures and local communities. She brings that frame to UK politics, international disputes and economic pressures, combining daily news pieces, bulletin updates and longer explanatory stories on the people and systems at the centre of the news.
Far-right politics, Reform UK and political security
Evans devotes significant attention to Reform UK and the broader far-right landscape, treating the party’s polling performance, financing and security risks as part of a single story about power and accountability. She tracks Reform’s movement in opinion polls, reporting on the party’s fall into third place, the failure of Nigel Farage’s by-election win to lift morale and the internal rows around his finances and leadership. She then follows the money behind the party, profiling cryptocurrency billionaires whose successive multimillion-pound donations have built an eye‑catching war chest while setting out their long record of bankrolling right‑wing parties and prominent politicians.
Her coverage extends to threats around Reform figures, documenting how a firebomb attack on Farage’s home prompted a reopened investigation and criticism of police for failing to spot a suspect on CCTV over an extended period. She writes in detail about the murder of Reform spokesperson Ann Widdecombe, the charging of a suspect and the calls for greater security for politicians that followed.
Across these stories she treats far-right parties, wealthy backers and law‑enforcement failures as connected strands in the same political security environment.
Security, policing and the impact of protest
Security and policing run through Evans’s coverage of mainstream politics, royal affairs and local protests. She reports on public attitudes to the security of Prince Harry and Meghan, using polling data to show strong opposition to government‑funded protection and detailed splits over whether private funds or the monarch should bear the cost.
She returns to questions of privacy and safety when covering reports of paparazzi activity outside Archie and Lilibet’s school, charting the couple’s response and situating the incident within a pattern of intense scrutiny of the family.
Her reporting also follows how border and asylum policies play out on the ground, from anti‑migrant activism in the English Channel - where she describes far‑right figure Danny Tommo slashing a dinghy with a knife while a rescue worker was still onboard and the resulting police inquiries and human‑rights condemnation - to a village in Oxfordshire organising a symbolic independence referendum in protest at a nearby military site being considered to house asylum seekers. In security stories tied to the defence estate, she covers the investigation into a suspected bomb plot near RAF Fairford, reporting on arrests under explosives and terrorism offences and the counter‑terror police inquiry into potential links to Iran. These pieces show a reporter who treats policing decisions, public opinion and protest tactics as closely tied to political authority and the safety of both high‑profile figures and small communities.
International disputes, media power and information threats
Evans’s international work often centres on legal, media and information battles involving powerful institutions and contested narratives. She covers the BBC’s multibillion‑pound defamation lawsuit seeking Donald Trump’s personal text messages, explaining how the broadcaster aims to show he incited the January 6 riots and detailing the Panorama documentary footage at the heart of the case. In another strand, she reports on Volodymyr Zelensky’s denial of rumours that he took cocaine with Emmanuel Macron, tracing how a far‑right American influencer, Tucker Carlson and Russian president Vladimir Putin helped amplify and recycle the claim. Her reporting on artificial intelligence brings the same concern with information integrity to technology and economics, highlighting warnings from the Bank of England governor that AI could become a “very powerful weapon” in the wrong hands and linking that to recent deepfake images depicting him and Nigel Farage in a fabricated fist fight.
Across these stories she treats lawsuits, conspiracy narratives and AI‑driven manipulation as different fronts in a struggle over who controls information in high‑stakes political and economic settings.
Domestic politics, cost of living and constitutional questions
Within domestic politics, Evans focuses on how economic and constitutional debates are experienced by voters and framed by policymakers.
Her coverage of UK economic policy includes reporting on warnings that AI could reshape the economy as well as interviews and briefings around the Bank of England’s response to technological change. She writes on political responses to the cost‑of‑living crisis, including Rachel Reeves’s package aimed at cutting food costs and providing free bus travel for children, and treats those proposals as part of a broader effort to ease everyday pressures on households. Her constitutional reporting examines Plaid Cymru’s electoral performance and asks what a win means for the prospect of Welsh independence, grounding the analysis in polling that shows limited support for an independence referendum and clear majority opposition.
By linking economic measures, constitutional ambitions and polling data, she shows how abstract policy debates translate into concrete choices for voters and the institutions that govern them.
Role, background and formats
Evans holds a senior reporting role at The Independent and joined the masthead in June 2023 from a previous position at MyLondon. Her stated interests are crime, security and health, and this focus is visible in her mix of politics, policing, extremism and public‑safety coverage. She works across formats, from straight news articles to bulletin‑style briefings and joint investigations with colleagues, especially on complex stories that cross politics, crime and community impact.
The consistency of her beat, the range of subjects and the attention to security and far‑right activism give her work a distinctive profile within the wider politics coverage at the masthead.
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