Labour Party wins a landslide victory in the UK general election, ending 14 years of Conservative rule
Keir Starmer is set to become the new Prime Minister, vowing to “rebuild Britain”
Rishi Sunak concedes defeat and will step down as Conservative Party leader
Gains for other parties, including the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK, and the Green Party
Challenges ahead for Starmer include addressing economic issues and balancing domestic and international priorities
The UK has a new leader. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won big in the recent general election. They earned a landslide victory.
The Conservative Party lost power after 14 years of governing. During that time, five different prime ministers led the country. Rishi Sunak was the most recent one.
Labour Party wins a landslide victory | Image source: NDTV
Sunak took responsibility for the result. He apologized to colleagues who lost seats. He spoke briefly outside 10 Downing Street on a rainy day. Sunak said he will resign as party leader in the coming weeks.
In his first speech as prime minister, Sir Keir greeted joyful Labour supporters on Downing Street. He vowed to start a “national renewal” period. He said he will put “country first, party second”.
“For too long, we ignored millions falling into worse situations,” he said. “I want to clearly tell those people: Not this time.”
“Changing a country is not as simple as flipping a switch. The world is more unpredictable now. This will take time, but change will start right away.”
This is a big shift from 2019. Back then, Labour suffered their worst defeat in almost 100 years under Jeremy Corbyn.
Former Conservative minister Robert Buckland lost his seat. He described it as “electoral Armageddon” for the Tories.
For the Conservatives, this is their worst result in nearly 200 years. An ideological battle over the party’s future direction is expected in the coming weeks.
The election night brought significant results. Here’s what they mean.
Labour experienced a massive victory
Britain’s House of Commons has 650 members of parliament (MPs). Each MP represents a specific area called a constituency.
So far, Labour has won 412 seats, while the Conservatives have only managed to secure 120 seats. The centrist Liberal Democrats have gained 71 seats. Reform UK, a successor to the Brexit Party, is set to win four seats, and the left-wing Green Party is also expected to secure four seats.
Labour’s surge was partly due to the decline of the Scottish National Party (SNP). The SNP has faced controversies related to its finances, leading to a significant drop in its seats, now holding only nine.
Labour’s expected 170-seat majority in the House of Commons is a substantial number, though still short of the majority of 179 seats the party won under Tony Blair in the 1997 election.
UK Elects New PM as Labour Wins Landslide | Image source: times of Israel
For comparison, the Conservatives’ win in the 2019 election under Boris Johnson, which was considered a strong performance, gave them a majority of 80 seats.
A reminder: If a party holds a majority, it means they don’t need support from other parties to pass laws. The larger the majority, the easier it is to govern.
However, Labour faced notable defeats in some areas with large Muslim populations, where independent candidates campaigning on pro-Gaza platforms won.
There has been growing pressure on Labour over its stance on the conflict. In February, the party called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, but critics argued that the party was slow to take this position.
Many centrist groups from different nations watched this vote closely. They worried that supporting Israel could turn away some of their own voters. People often feel strongly about world events and political matters. Simple language helps explain complex topics in a clear way for all readers to understand.
LONDON – Rishi Sunak’s campaign to remain Britain’s prime minister showed a lack of political touch.
The Conservative Party’s problems were grave before Friday’s resounding election defeat but missteps by Britain’s richest prime minister contributed to its defeat.
Predecessors such as Tony Blair and Boris Johnson were more politically astute and able to connect with voters. As for Sunak, he didn’t have to call the election until Jan. 2025. He defied political advice by doing so in May — with Conservative support dwindling steadily amid an economic slump, ethics scandals and a revolving door of leaders over the last two years — and announced the July 4 date in the pouring rain.
What’s more, the Conservative Party didn’t appear ready for the campaign compared with Labour, and voters haven’t really felt the improvement in Britain’s economy yet.
“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said in his final speech as prime minister outside the residence at 10 Downing Street.
Arguably, Sunak’s biggest blunder — one that prompted him to apologize and which many analysts think was the final death knell of the Conservative Party’s campaign — was his decision to leave early from the 80-year D-day commemorations in northern France on June 6.
Critics said the decision to skip the international event that closed the commemorations showed disrespect to the veterans and diminished the U.K.’s international standing. Other world leaders including President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy all were present. As was Keir Starmer, the U.K.’s new prime minister.
Born in 1980 in Southampton on England’s south coast to parents of Indian descent, Sunak became Britain’s first leader of color and the first Hindu to become prime minister. At 42, he was Britain’s youngest leader for more than 200 years.
A former hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs who married into a billionaire Indian family, Sunak rose rapidly within Conservative ranks. Now 44, he become Treasury chief on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic. Within weeks, he had to unveil the biggest economic support package of any Chancellor of the Exchequer outside wartime, a package that many saw as saving millions of jobs.
Long a low-tax, small-state politician despite the high-spending nature of that package, Sunak had a record of idolizing former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Smooth, confident and at ease with the march of modern technology, Sunak was dubbed “Dishy Rishi” and quickly became one of the most trusted and popular faces within Johnson’s administration during the rigors of the pandemic.
Johnson was forced to quit in the summer of 2022 after being adjudged to have lied to Parliament over breaches of coronavirus lockdowns at his offices in Downing Street. As if that wasn’t bad enough, trust in the Conservatives tanked further when his successor Liz Truss backed a package of unfunded tax cuts that roiled financial markets and sent borrowing costs surging, particularly for homeowners already struggling with the most acute of cost of living crisis in decades. Her premiership was the shortest in the history of the U.K.
When Sunak replaced Truss, he pitched himself as a stable pair of hands. He constantly reminded voters that he had warned Conservative Party members about the recklessness of Truss’s economic plan when he challenged her to succeed Johnson. The day he replaced Truss after her traumatic 49-day premiership in Oct. 2022, the Conservatives were trailing Labour by around 30 percentage points.
As Treasury chief, Sunak was lauded for rolling out his COVID-19 job retention package that arguably saved millions of jobs. But that came at a cost, bringing the country’s tax burden to its highest level since the 1940s.
In his 21 months as prime minister, Sunak struggled to keep a lid on bitter divisions within his Conservative Party. One side wanted him to be much tougher on immigration and bolder in cutting taxes, while another urged him to move more to the center of politics, the space where, historically, British elections are won.
In his concession speech, Sunak said he would serve a full term in parliament until 2029, and that he would stay on as leader until the Conservative Party has elected a successor.
“It is important that, after 14 years in government, the Conservative Party rebuilds, but also that it takes up its crucial role in opposition professionally and effectively,” he said,
Many think he may be tempted to return to the U.S. in the years to come, perhaps to pursue his interest in artificial technology.
After his school years at Winchester College, one of Britain’s most expensive boarding schools, Sunak went to Oxford University to study politics, philosophy and economics — the degree of choice for future prime ministers. He then got an MBA at Stanford University, which proved to be a launchpad for his subsequent career as a hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs in the U.S.
There, he met his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of the billionaire founder of Indian tech giant Infosys. They have two daughters. The couple are the wealthiest inhabitants yet of No. 10 Downing Street, according to the Sunday Times’ 2024 Rich List, with an estimated fortune of 651 million pounds ($815 million). They’re even richer than King Charles III, a level of wealth that many said left him out of touch with the daily problems of most people.
With his fortune secure, Sunak was elected to Parliament for the safe Tory seat of Richmond in Yorkshire in 2015. In Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, he supported leaving the European Union, a “leave” that came unexpectedly and that many Britons today regret.
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London — When Keir Starmer was elected to lead Britain’s Labour Party in 2020, right after the party suffered its worst general election defeat in 85 years, he made it his mission to make the party “electable.”
Four years later, after 14 years of governments led by the rival Conservative Party, Starmer is poised to take Britain’s top job.
With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in Parliament’s 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.
Outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”
The 61-year-old Starmer has faced years of criticism for a perceived lack of charisma, but his methodical mission to drag Labour back toward the center of British politics and broaden its appeal to voters worked. Starmer and Labour have also, indisputably, capitalized on years of economic pain and political chaos under the Conservative Party, whose parliamentary majority was eviscerated.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer delivers a speech and takes media questions on July 2, 2024 in Norton Canes, Staffordshire, United Kingdom.
Chris Furlong / Getty Images
Professor Sir John Curtice, a political analyst and elections expert who, through decades of TV commentary has become something of a British national institution himself, told the BBC just a couple days before the election that there was “more chance of lightning striking twice in the same place” than Sunak remaining in power.
Sir Keir Starmer — the former lawyer was knighted for services to criminal justice — has, through years of chaos (you may remember Partygate, or perhaps even Prime Minister Liz Truss’ 50 days in power) projected an almost dull managerialism that appears to have become a beacon for a welcome return to political normalcy.
Starmer grew up in a small town in Surrey, just outside London. His mother worked for the National Health Service, Britain’s free public health care system, and his father was a toolmaker — a fact that Starmer repeated so often during the election campaign that it became a meme.
His mother suffered for all her life from Still’s disease, a type of inflammatory arthritis, and died only a few weeks after he was first elected to the British Parliament in 2015. His father died three years later. Starmer has said his relationship with his father was strained, and that never telling him, “I love you and I respect you” is “the one thing I do regret.”
Starmer was the first member of his family to go to university, after which he helped run a left-wing magazine called Socialist Alternatives. He then became a lawyer, rising up the ranks to become the head of public prosecutions in 2008, running the British government’s Crown Prosecution Service. He received his knighthood in 2014, the year before he turned to politics.
Despite his legitimate background in tackling serious crime, Starmer has never managed to shake the image of a relatively boring politician. He’s even leaned into it on occasion.
“If, in the end, that is the only bit of mud left to sling, then I’m pretty comfortable,” he told Britain’s ITV in January. “If they are calling you boring, you’re winning.”
What are Keir Starmer’s policies?
Throughout his tenure as Labour leader, Starmer has tried to make his party more electable by forcing out individuals seen as entrenched in its socialist left wing — the faction that ran the party under its previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn (whose cabinet Starmer served in, incidentally).
After Corbyn called the findings of an inquiry into antisemitism in the party “dramatically overstated,” Starmer suspended him.
“Sometimes you have to be ruthless to be a good leader,” Starmer told Esquire about the episode.
Starmer’s move toward centrism has been criticized by left-leaning members of his own party and others. He irked many by backtracking on several key pledges, including that Labour would increase income tax, scrap university tuition fees and nationalize the majority of Britain’s public services.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks to media on the final day of campaigning before Britain’s national general election, July 3, 2024, in Whitland, Wales.
In a recent speech, Starmer said he had a long-term “big, bold plan” for Britain. But he cautioned that “we need first steps.”
Those, according to the BBC, include clamping down on tax avoidance, shortening NHS patient waiting lists and recruiting more teachers and neighborhood police officers. He also wants to negotiate a better deal with the European Union, given the catastrophic economic consequences of the U.K.’s “Brexit.”
He said his unflashy election pledges were a “down payment” on what the Labour Party can offer Britain if it is given enough time.
“I’m not going to make a promise before the election that I’m not comfortable we can actually deliver,” he’s stressed.
“A lot of people on the left will accuse him of letting them down, betraying socialist principles. And a lot of people on the right accuse him of flip-flopping,” Tim Bale, a political scientist at Queen Mary University of London, told The Associated Press. “But, hey, if that’s what it takes to win, then I think that tells you something about Starmer’s character. He will do whatever it takes — and has done whatever it takes — to get into government.”
How might Starmer influence U.S.-U.K. relations?
With British and American election cycles coinciding for the first time since 1992, there’s a lot of uncertainty about how U.S.-U.K. relations could look by the end of the year.
Starmer has spoken admiringly of President Biden, particularly his focus on job creation and investment in domestic industry. The Economist even described him as “infatuated” with the American president.
Senior Labour figures have reportedly met secretly with Democratic counterparts already.
If former President Donald Trump were to win in November, U.S.-U.K. relations would likely be less chummy.
Despite her being a Conservative and thus ostensibly on the same side of the political aisle, Trump had a difficult relationship with former Prime Minister Theresa May during his first term in office. He got on better with the more populist — and many say, more Trumpian — Boris Johnson.
“A Biden White House would find Starmer a well-wisher and useful spear-carrier,” Eliot Wilson, a former senior official in the U.K. House of Commons wrote in The Hill. “For Trump, he would prove a vague annoyance, and could not be counted on to echo the wilder MAGA phrasebook.”
The reality for U.K. leaders, from any party, almost a decade after Britain’s exit from the EU, is that the long-touted “special relationship” with Washington has never been more vital.
“We will work with whoever is elected,” Starmer has said. “We have a special relationship with the U.S. that transcends whoever the president is.”
What comes next?
Final results from Thursday’s voting will be published Friday morning, and Sir Keir will be the next British Prime Minister.
Sunak will resign and King Charles III will quickly take the necessary but largely ceremonial step of inviting Starmer to form a new government.
Starmer will then appear to make his first speech outside 10 Downing Street, the official residence of Britain’s top elected official.
Once the formalities are completed, Starmer will receive briefings from key members of the civil service and the intelligence community, select the members of his new cabinet and start taking phone calls from world leaders.
And then? Well, then there’s the often unglamorous business of running the country.
It’s official. Rishi Sunak is no longer the U.K. Prime Minister. His long and winding road to the Number 10 exit door has felt inevitable since he took over from the economically disastrous, short-lived Liz Truss government in the autumn of 2022.
But 44-year-old Sunak—reportedly found riding off into the Californian sunset on his Peloton before results landed—is more likely to be licking his lips at the future that awaits him than stewing over what could have been with another five years in office.
That’s because Sunak, a man who is technically richer than the King of England and has a past as a high-flying London banker, can prepare for a few more lucrative perks as he steps away from a life of service.
Sunak’s millions
As prime minister, Sunak was entitled to a salary of £80,000, in addition to his £91,346 salary as a member of parliament for his Richmond and Northallerton constituency. Tax records show that last year, he took home £139,000 ($177,000) from those roles.
His pay packet for leading the U.K. is a meager sum compared to what he got used to before entering politics and even his other forms of income while he held the job. Sunak made nearly £1.8 million in capital gains last year and paid a total of £500,000 in tax.
Sunak worked as a successful banker for years, starting at Goldman Sachs before achieving an MBA and returning to the lucrative hedge fund space.
According to an analysis by efinancialcareers, Sunak probably only earned less than £100,000 in his first three years out of university.
While working at the hedge fund TCI between 2006 and 2009 in his mid-20s, Sunak became a multimillionaire after he and his colleagues shared a £100 million pot after a lucrative bet in the buildup to the global financial crisis.
The hedge fund took an activist position in the Dutch bank ABN Amro in 2007, forcing its sale to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which resulted in a £555.9 million profit. However, that acquisition saddled the Scottish bank with debt, leading to a £45.5 billion government bailout.
While Sunak’s biggest riches will probably come after he eventually resigns as an MP, there are several new income avenues he can eventually look forward to.
Evidence suggests that if Sunak returns to the finance world after he leaves politics, he will be in high demand.
Sunak’s fellow former chancellor George Osbourne has minted fresh millions through city advisory roles with groups including Blackrock and Robey Warshaw, in addition to his time editing London’s Evening Standard newspaper.
Or, he could take a cautious lesson from David Cameron. The man who served as PM between 2010 and 2016 landed himself in hot water over his role in the collapsed finance group Greensill Capital.
Cameron reportedly got $10 million from Greensill to lobby the government on behalf of the company, but his spokesperson disputed that figure.
Speaking engagements
The easiest mileage for Sunak’s bank account after leaving office will likely see him harness his years of training as a public speaker.
Tony Blair, the ninth-longest running PM of all time, set a marker after he retired, reportedly commanding £1 million in 2012 from his engagements. His Tory successors have been keen to follow that trend.
In the year between stepping down as prime minister and resigning as an MP, the mercurial Boris Johnson bagged millions of dollars from extracurricular activities as he settled into post-leadership life.
Documents from May 2023 show Johnson was paid around £3.5 million for speaking engagements after stepping down as PM. He also received a £510,000 advance on a book deal. Theresa May, Johnson’s predecessor, has also enjoyed the speaking circuit since quitting as PM in 2019.
Family wealth
What is unique for Sunak among his contemporaries, however, is that the PM never needs to work again.
Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, are worth a combined £651 million ($830 million), according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List, making him richer than King Charles.
The vast majority of that wealth comes from Murty’s holdings in the Indian IT company Infosys, which her billionaire father co-founded.
Murty’s wealth was a hot point of contention during Sunak’s premiership owing to her “non-dom” status, which meant she didn’t pay tax on income from shares in the foreign-owned Infosys. Murty vowed to pay U.K. tax on this after a media storm.
Sunak will remain an MP until he decides otherwise, like Boris Johnson or David Cameron before him.
But when he does go, the man who led the Tories to their worst defeat in nearly two centuries will quickly be absorbed into a multimillion-dollar corporate cushion shared by most of his former allies.
The results are in, and Keir Starmer is on track to be Britain’s next Prime Minister.
The nationwide exit poll, which is not 100% accurate but rarely far off, has forecast an enormous majority for the Labour Party over the Conservatives of 279 seats, a majority that has been predicted by virtually every poll for months.
According to the exit poll, Labour will win 410 seats, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak‘s Conservatives will take 131 and the Liberal Democrats are in third on 61. There are 650 up for grabs. If the exit poll comes true, the win for Labour will be almost as large as Tony Blair’s momentous 1997 victory. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is predicted to gain 13 seats, far exceeding expectations, making it the country’s fourth biggest party.
Starmer, Sunak and hundreds of candidates across the UK will now spend the next few hours anxiously observing just how accurate the exit poll turns out to be. Unlike pre-election day polls that track voter intention, this huge countrywide poll directly asks voters at polling stations who they have just voted for, and is therefore far more accurate.
The first constituencies are expected to announce winners in an hour or so and the final overall result will likely be unveiled in the early hours of the morning.
Starmer’s landslide victory, which, if realized, will bring an end to 14 years of Conservative rule, comes as little surprise, although Labour has spent the past six weeks warning voters that the polls are not a foregone conclusion. Starmer has led the Labour Party since the disastrous previous election defeat in 2019. He lacks charisma, and has angered those on the left of the party due to a wealth of U-turns on radical policies, but he is broadly viewed as a safe pair of hands who has turned the party from oblivion to today’s electoral force.
An exit poll predicting that the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer will win 410 seats in Britain’s general election is projected onto BBC Broadcasting House in London. Image: OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images.
Following the disastrous reigns of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, Sunak’s 18-month stint in office has seen a steadying of the ship while rarely moving the dial. He ran a feisty campaign but it was littered with gaffes, including the rain-soaked election announcement and decision to leave the commemorative D-Day celebrations early, while has has had to face the re-emergence of Donald Trump’s pal Nigel Farage in the political sphere with his Reform UK party.
Reporting restrictions that have been in place for the past 15 hours while Brits have voted have now been lifted and audiences can tune in to the likes of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky News or even GB News to see how things unfold through the night. Our primer on those preparations can be found here and we will keep things ticking on deadline.com.
Unless the exit poll has had a rare off day, it looks like the UK will have a new Prime Minister by the morning.
London — British voters will head to the polls Thursday to vote in the country’s first general election since 2019. Here’s what to know.
Who is up for election in the U.K.?
British voters will not be directly electing a new leader on Thursday. Under the United Kingdom’s parliamentary system, voters choose their local representatives for the lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons.
On Thursday, there are 650 parliamentary seats up for grabs, each of which will be occupied by one Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons. For any single party to win an outright majority in the Commons, it would need to win at least 326 seats — over half of those available. Any party that does that gets to form the next government, with its leader becoming the prime minister. [Yes, King Charles III is Britain’s formal head of state. You can read here about what limited power that actually conveys.]
Parliament was formally dissolved on May 30 when current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the election, as is procedure, but prior to that, Sunak’s long-ruling Conservative Party held an outright majority of 345 seats, giving it significant power to set the policy agenda.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaks during a live TV debate with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, seen in the background, in Nottingham, England, on June 26, 2024, in the build-up to the U.K. general election.
PHIL NOBLE / POOL / AFP / Getty
The U.K. has what is called a first-past-the-post system, which means voters receive a ballot paper with a list of candidates from different parties and select only one of their choice. The candidate from each constituency with the most votes wins the seat — with no specific threshold required. So if, for instance, there are six candidates in a particular race, they will all be from different parties, and even if the candidate with the most votes only wins 25% of the total, they still win the seat.
If a voter believes their favorite candidate has a low chance of winning, they can chose to vote tactically and put their X next to another candidate’s name — effectively a second choice — if they feel that candidate has a better chance of winning. This tactic is generally seen as a way for a voter to help block a candidate deemed highly unfavorable, but who stands a reasonable chance of winning, from gaining the seat in a race.
In practice, this system means that a political party could win a healthy share of votes on a national level but not win a proportional share of the seats. Smaller political parties in the U.K. have long argued that the first-past-the-post electoral system has thus helped to cement the power of Britain’s two biggest parties — the incumbent right-leaning Conservative Party, often called the Tories, and their main rivals, the more left-leaning Labour Party.
What is the U.K. election timeline?
Voting begins in the U.K. general election on Thursday morning, and most constituency results are expected by early Friday morning, although this may take longer in some more rural parts of the country — particularly if the vote tally is close or subject to a recount.
There is usually an early indicator of the overall results of a U.K. general election as a joint exit poll is released by British broadcasters Sky News, ITV and CBS News’ partner network BBC News immediately after the polls close.
The exit poll generally provides an accurate representation of the final results and can be expected by about 10 p.m. on Thursday local time (5 p.m. Eastern).
U.K. election predictions and polling data
Polls and political analysts have predicted for many weeks that Labour will sweep to a landslide majority in Parliament. If the latest polling data proves accurate, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s 18-month tenure will end and Britons will wake up Friday morning to a new party in charge of the country for the first time in 14 years.
Those 14 years of Conservative rule have been marked by political and economic turmoil, with a rotating cast of five Conservative prime ministers occupying 10 Downing Street in the last eight years alone.
The latest polling by the major independent data analysis group YouGov shows Labour in the lead by a 17-point margin, with 37% of those polled saying they intend to vote for Labour versus 20% of the public who say they will cast their votes for the Conservatives.
Labour candidates are projected to win as many as 425 seats in the House of Commons, which would be a massive 223 seat gain for the party. The Conservatives are projected to hold onto just 108 seats, which would be a seismic loss of 257 seats.
Who is Keir Starmer, the likely next prime minister?
Keir Starmer was elected by party members to lead Labour in 2020, right after the party suffered its worst general election defeat in 85 years. He immediately declared it his mission to make the party “electable” again.
Four years later Starmer, 61, is poised to take Britain’s top job.
Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks to media on the final day of campaigning before Britain’s national general election, July 3, 2024, in Whitland, Wales.
Matthew Horwood/Getty
He’s faced frequent criticism for a perceived lack of charisma, but his efforts to drag Labour back toward the center of British politics to give it broader voter appeal seems to have paid off.
Throughout his leadership of the party, Starmer has methodically frozen out elements of Labour’s far-left, socialist-leaning wing, which ran the party under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Starmer’s deliberate shift from socialism to centrism has been criticized by pundits and voters who hew to the left, and Labour may lose some votes to smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party but, given the polling, it seems to have been a winning strategy overall.
Is Britain bucking the trend of Europe’s shift to the right?
A shift to a center-left Labour government in Britain would buck the trend in Europe, as far-right parties have been on the rise across the continent in recent years.
In the first round of voting in France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration National Rally Party moved within reach of becoming the largest political party in France. The party took a third of the votes in a first round that drew a historically high turnout.
Last month’s European parliamentary elections also saw a record number of far-right legislators win seats, with right wing candidates across Europe’s three main economies — Italy, France and Germany — making gains by campaigning on opposition to issues including immigration, support for Ukraine and green environmental policies.
While a Labour victory would be a move against those political winds on the continent, Britain has also seen a surge in support for far-right candidates in this election cycle.
After decades languishing on the far-right fringe of British politics, unable to win a seat in Parliament despite eight previous attempts, Farage looks set this year to finally claim the seat for his local constituency of Clacton, in southeast England.
A photo posted by British politician Nigel Farage on Nov. 12, 2016 shows him standing with Donald Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan after a private meeting with the then-U.S. president-elect.
Nigel Farage/Twitter
Farage’s far-right Reform Party is only projected to pick up a total of about five seats in Parliament, including Farage’s own, but YouGov projects overall support for Reform nationally at about 15% of the electorate, and from its current position with zero seats in the House of Commons, it seems the party is heading for a significant increase in popularity.
Political analysts say Reform’s anti-immigrant messaging is largely eating into the Conservative Party’s vote share.
So while Farage won’t be taking power anytime soon, it looks like he is about to step back into the limelight of British politics and, with a sizable share of public support, he may find himself wielding an outsized influence on the politics of Britain’s Conservative Party as it tries to rebuild itself in the wake of what could be a devastating election.
CBS News’ Frank Andrews contributed to this report.
PRESIDENT Joe Biden has been caught bizarrely freezing again after awkwardly shuffling away from world leaders at a G7 meeting.
The global powerhouses, including the UK’s Rishi Sunak, were set to get a photo before a wayward Biden tried to escape the shoot before being shepherded back by Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.
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The moment Joe Biden, 81, turns his back on his fellow leaders at the recent meeting of G7 leadersCredit: X
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The president is then left looking in the completely wrong direction frozenCredit: X
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He is only shepherded back towards the group when Italian PM Giorgia Meloni ushers him backCredit: X
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Biden returns for a group picture before slowly putting on his sunglassesCredit: X
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The bizarre video came from a meeting with G7 leaders this weekCredit: AP
Awkward footage shows the president and other world leaders watching on as parachute jumpers descend from the sky with the flags of allied nations.
But, the show of unity and military prowess is quickly overshadowed when Biden decides to turn his back on the group as they clap for the latest jumper.
The 81-year-old stands still with a huge grin on his face for a few seconds before deciding to shuffle away from the pack.
After taking several small, limbering steps he begins to talk to someone and offers them a thumbs up.
The remaining heads of state all stand watching Biden with a puzzled look on their faces as Emmanuel Macron, Rishi Sunak and Giorgia Meloni stare in his direction before all looking at each other.
Meloni then makes a dart towards the president as she speaks to Macron before tugging on Biden’s arm.
By this point the commander-in-chief is looking completely in the opposite direction with his back to everyone else.
Quick-thinking Meloni manages to shepherd Biden back towards the photographers as the G7 members all make a move left so they are surrounding the US leader.
As all the leaders smile and look towards the camera, Biden decides to slowly put on his aviator sunglasses before posing for the picture.
White House press secretary Andrew Bates claimed Biden was simply congratulating a diver on the floor who was collecting his things.
Bates went on to blame the “desperate” media for using “an artificially narrow frame” to make Biden look bad.
US President Joe Biden sparks concerns as he appears to FREEZE during Juneteenth celebration concert at the White House
He looked statuesque at the event – sparking further concern just months before the presidential election.
The Democrat’s term has been plagued with gaffes and blunders.
He has fallen up the stairs of Air Force One and has stumbled on countless occasions.
Last year, Biden took a tumble at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony.
In February, Biden confused the leaders of Mexico and Egypt while delivering a rambling address to the nation after it emerged he wouldn’t face criminal charges over storing secret docs.
Last week, Biden seemed to fumble for his seat while on stage with the Macrons and his wife, Jill, at the D-Day event.
But, there was no chair behind Biden.
Biden looked like he was crouching down before Jill then put her hand over her mouth.
It looked like she was going to tell him something.
It’s not known if she uttered anything to the president.
Questions continue to swirl over Biden’s health and competency for office – just months before Americans go to the polls.
And polling suggests Biden’s re-election bid could be tricky.
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Biden with Giorgia Meloni when they arrived at the G7 eventCredit: Getty
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Biden starts to slowly shuffle away from the pack as the other leaders look on puzzledCredit: X
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The Democrat looked confused when he was turned back aroundCredit: X
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The White House says Biden was just congratulating a diver in the viral clipCredit: Rex
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Biden has been accused of freezing up before during eventsCredit: Rex
LONDON – Britain’s lawmakers will leave Parliament on Friday for the last time before an election is held in six weeks. Some will never return — members of Parliament who are retiring or who lose their seats on July 4 face an abrupt readjustment to life outside politics.
After a flurry of last-minute legislation, Parliament was set to be prorogued, or formally suspended, in a ceremony featuring hat-doffing, lords in ermine-trimmed robes and commands in Norman French.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s surprise decision to call a summer election means that some key pieces of legislation will have to be abandoned -– including his flagship plan to ban tobacco sales to future generations.
WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL?
On the second full day of campaigning, Sunak and his main opponent, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, have already covered hundreds of miles (kilometers) crisscrossing the U.K. on carefully stage-managed visits to businesses and communities. Sunak is visiting Northern Ireland and central England on Friday, while Starmer is in Scotland and northwest England.
Labour is the strong favorite to win the election after moving from the left toward the political center under Starmer, its leader since 2020.
The party got a reminder of its recent past on Friday, when Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, said he would run for Parliament as an independent against Labour’s candidate. Starmer suspended Corbyn and barred him from running again for Labour after the former leader accused opponents of exaggerating the problem of antisemitism in the party.
Starmer apologized for antisemitism, a move welcomed by many Jewish Labour members and others. But supporters of Corbyn said he was being smeared because of his longtime support for the Palestinian cause.
Labour has not yet chosen its candidate to run in the inner-London seat of Islington North, which Corbyn has represented since 1983.
“I am here to represent the people of Islington North on exactly the same principles that I’ve stood by my whole life: social justice, human rights and peace,” Corbyn said.
HOW IS PARLIAMENT PROROGUED?
Parliament is set to break up for the election with a tradition-steeped ceremony in which lawmakers from the House of Commons are summoned to the House of Lords in the name of King Charles III by an official known as Black Rod. That’s followed by a round of bowing and cap-doffing, before the title of each bill being passed is read out by an official with a cry of “le roy le veult” — “the king wills it” in Norman French.
Parliament will be officially dissolved next week, 25 working days before election day. It will not sit again until after the election, when new members will be sworn in.
The new government, whether Labour or Conservative, is due to announce its legislative program at another occasion of pomp and ceremony, the State Opening of Parliament, on July 17.
WHAT LEGISLATION WILL BE PASSED FIRST?
There was a last-day-of-school feeling in Parliament on Friday. Lawmakers hugged one another goodbye, and a few brought young children for a tour of Parliament’s grand but crumbling buildings.
Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords scurried to pass final pieces of legislation before the shut-down — a process known as “washing up.”
One of the most significant laws to is a law that will quash the convictions of hundreds of Post Office branch managers who were prosecuted for theft or fraud because a faulty computer system known as Horizon showed money was missing. The prosecutions and yearslong cover-up by Post Office bosses has been called one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in U.K. history.
The Post Office (Horizon System) Offenses Bill was approved by Parliament late Thursday and is due to become law after receiving the formality of royal assent from King Charles III on Friday.
Victims of a tainted blood scandal in which thousands of people were infected with HIV and hepatitis by contaminated blood products in the 1970s and ’80s will get compensation after the Victims and Prisoners Bill is passed by Parliament.
Also expected to make the statute book is a bill overhauling property law in England and Wales, giving more rights to people who own leasehold properties — where the building’s freehold is owned by someone else.
WHAT BILLS WILL FAIL?
One of Sunak’s flagship policies — a plan to create a “smoke-free generation” by banning the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after 2008 — is among the bills that has run out of time.
The prime minister said he was “disappointed not to be able to get that through at the end of the session,” but nonetheless said the policy was “evidence of the bold action that I’m prepared to take.”
The smoking ban could be reintroduced by the new government if the Conservatives win the election. Labour supports the idea in principle and could also introduce a similar bill if it wins power.
A law that would ban landlords from evicting tenants without giving a reason is also falling by the wayside.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party’s mayor of London, romped to victory Saturday, securing a record third straight term at City Hall, on another hugely disappointing day for the U.K.’s governing Conservatives ahead of a looming general election.
Khan won a little over a million votes, or nearly 44% of the vote, more than 11 percentage points ahead of his main challenger, the Conservative Party’s Susan Hall. He did particularly well in inner London but struggled in several outer boroughs.
There had been frenzied speculation on Friday that the result would be closer than previously thought, but Khan’s lead showed a swing from Conservative to Labour when compared with the previous mayoral election in 2021.
Khan, who replaced Boris Johnson as London mayor in 2016, has been an increasingly divisive figure in the past few years.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan speaks at a policy launch about homelessness and housing during his campaign to re-elected as Mayor of London in London, Monday, April 15, 2024.
Alastair Grant / AP
While his supporters say he has multiple achievements to his name, such as expanding housebuilding, free school meals for young children, keeping transport costs in check and generally backing London’s minority groups, his critics say he has overseen a crime surge, been anti-car and has unnecessarily allowed pro-Palestinian marches to become a regular feature at weekends.
“Sadiq Khan was absolutely the right candidate,” said Labour leader Keir Starmer. “He has got two terms of delivery behind him and I am confident that he has got another term of delivery in front of him.”
The incumbent Labour mayors in Liverpool, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire were also reelected Saturday, while the party looks to have ousted the Conservative mayor in West Midlands. A recount is underway there.
The latest successes come a day after Labour seized control of councils across England that it hasn’t held for decades. The party was also successful in a special election for a seat in Parliament, that if translated to a general election would lead to one of the Conservatives’ biggest-ever defeats.
Though the Conservatives suffered a drubbing in the local elections, it looks as though Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will not face a further rebellion among his ranks.
Sunak was able to breathe a sigh of relief when the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley in the northeast of England was reelected, albeit with a depressed share of the vote. Sunak had hoped that Andy Street would hold on in the West Midlands but it appears he may have lost.
One negative for Labour was that its vote in strongly Muslim areas in England was depressed by opposition to the party leadership’s strongly pro-Israel stance over the war in Gaza.
Starmer conceded that the party has had issues with Muslim voters, but the results in general were positive for the man who is favorite to become prime minister at the next general election.
Sunak has the power to decide on the date of the next election, and has indicated that it will be in the second half of 2024. Starmer urged him not to wait.
“We’re fed up with your division, with your chaos, with your failure,” he said Saturday. “If you leave your country in a worse state than when you found it, 14 years later, you do not deserve to be in government a moment longer.”
Thursday’s elections in large parts of England were important in themselves, with voters deciding on who runs many aspects of their daily lives, such as garbage collection, road maintenance and local crime prevention. But with a national election looming, they are being viewed through a national prism.
John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said the results show that Sunak has not helped the Conservative brand following the damage accrued by the actions of his predecessors, Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss.
“That in a sense is the big takeaway,” he told BBC radio.
Sunak became prime minister in October 2022, after Truss’s short-lived tenure. She left office after 49 days following a budget of unfunded tax cuts that roiled financial markets and sent borrowing costs for homeowners surging.
Her chaotic — and traumatic — leadership compounded the Conservatives’ difficulties following the circus surrounding her predecessor Johnson, who was forced to quit after being adjudged to have lied to Parliament over coronavirus lockdown breaches at his offices in Downing Street.
By late afternoon Saturday, with most of the 2,661 seats up for grabs in the local elections counted, the Conservatives had lost around a half of the 1,000 seats they were defending, while Labour had picked up about 200 despite some seemingly Gaza-related losses.
Other parties, such as the centrist Liberal Democrats and the Greens, also made gains. Reform U.K., which is trying to usurp the Conservatives from the right, also had some successes, notably in the special parliamentary election in Blackpool South, where it was less than 200 votes from grabbing second place.
London — The British parliament passed a law late Monday that will mean asylum seekers arriving on British shores without prior permission can be sent to Rwanda and forbidden from ever returning to the U.K. The British government says the law will act as deterrent to anyone trying to enter the U.K. “illegally.”
The contentious program was voted through after the U.K.’s Supreme Court ruled it to be unlawful, and it has been condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations refugee agency.
King Charles III, who now must give the Rwanda bill his royal ascent to make it an official law, reportedly criticized the plan as “appalling” almost two years ago as it took shape.
Hours after the law was passed, French officials said at least five people drowned, including a child, in the English Channel during an attempt to make it to the U.K. on an overcrowded small boat.
Why would the U.K. send asylum seekers to Rwanda?
The Rwanda plan was put together by Britain’s Conservative government in response to a number of migrant and asylum seeker arrivals on British shores in small boats from France.
With local asylum programs underfunded and overwhelmed, the government has been housing asylum seekers in hotels, where they are effectively trapped and unable to work until their claims are processed, which can take years. These hotels cost the government around 8 million pounds — almost $10 million in taxpayer money — every day to rent, according to CBS News partner BBC News.
A protester holds a placard mocking the government’s Rwanda plan for asylum seekers during a demonstration in Parliament Square, London, March 13, 2024.
Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government says the Rwanda policy will act as a deterrent to prevent migrants and asylum seekers from trying to reach the U.K. in the first place.
What is the U.K.’s Rwanda law?
The new policy will give Britain’s immigration authorities power to send any asylum seeker entering the U.K. “illegally” after January 2022 to Rwanda. Those individuals can also be forbidden from ever applying for asylum in the U.K.
It will apply to anyone who arrives in the U.K. without prior permission — anyone who travels on a small boat or truck — even if their aim is to claim asylum and they have legitimate grounds to do so.
These people can, under the new law, be immediately sent to Rwanda, 4,000 miles away in East Africa, to have their asylum claim processed there. Under the law they could be granted refugee status in Rwanda and allowed to stay.
What are the issues with the Rwanda law?
The law has been the subject of intense controversy and political wrangling.
In November 2023, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled the program was unlawful and violated the European Convention on Human Rights, because it said genuine refugees would be at risk of being deported back to their home countries, where they could face harm. The judgment also cited concerns with Rwanda’s human rights record.
The final legislation passed late Monday orders the court to ignore parts of the Human Rights Act and other U.K. and international rules, such as the Refugee Convention, that would also block the deportations to Rwanda, the BBC reported.
Rights groups have said they will launch legal challenges against deporting people to Rwanda as quickly as possible. This could delay any removal flights.
LONDON – Support poured in from around the world Saturday for Kate, the Princess of Wales, after she revealed in a candid video message that she is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer following major abdominal surgery.
The princess’s poignant video, in which she spoke about the “huge shock” and “incredibly tough couple of months” for her family after her diagnosis, came after weeks of frenzied speculation on social media about her health and well-being.
“This of course came as a huge shock, and William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family,” Kate said in the video, which was recorded Wednesday in Windsor.
“It has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them, and to reassure them that I am going to be OK,” she added, referring to her three young children.
Kate, 42, did not say what type of cancer was discovered after she underwent what she described as “major” abdominal surgery. She said she is now in the early stages of preventative chemotherapy, and is “getting stronger every day.”
The royal said it had been thought that her condition was non-cancerous, until post-surgery tests revealed the diagnosis.
The announcement will at least partly tamp down the intense and sometimes fantastical speculation and conspiracy theories about her condition that have multiplied on social media since Kensington Palace announced in mid-January that she had been hospitalized for unspecified abdominal surgery.
Hashtags including “WeLoveYouCatherine” and “GetWellSoonCatherine” were trending Friday on X, formerly Twitter, while political leaders, celebrities and cancer survivors sent messages of support.
“She has been subjected to intense scrutiny and has been unfairly treated by certain sections of the media around the world and on social media,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said. “She has shown tremendous bravery with her statement.”
U.S. President Joe Biden posted on social media, saying he and first lady Jill Biden “join millions around the world in praying for your full recovery, Princess Kate.”
King Charles III, who is also undergoing treatment for an unspecified type of cancer, said in a statement that he was “so proud of Catherine for her courage in speaking as she did.” Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, who have been estranged from the royal family since their move to California in 2020, said they wished “health and healing for Kate and the family.”
Until Friday there had been little information about Kate’s condition, and her months-long disappearance from public view fueled a flurry of rumor-mongering about the “missing” future queen.
Officials had only said that Kate’s surgery in January was successful and recuperation would keep the princess away from public duties until April.
Feelings of distrust about the royals gained ground earlier this month after Kate acknowledged that she had edited an official photo released to mark Mother’s Day in the U.K.
The photo, which was meant to calm and reassure the public, triggered a backlash after The Associated Press and other news agencies retracted the image over concerns it was manipulated.
Even a video published last week by The Sun and TMZ that appeared to show Kate and William shopping near their home did not dispel the negative coverage, with some armchair detectives refusing to believe the video showed Kate at all.
In contrast, many of Saturday’s newspaper frontpages featured sympathetic headlines, with The Sun proclaiming: “Kate, you are not alone.” The Daily Telegraph featured an opinion piece that read: “Sickening online trolls revelling in Princess’s misery ought to be ashamed.”
Well-wishers and fans visiting Windsor and Kensington Palace expressed their support for Kate.
“I hope that they can find hope and some togetherness in their family,” said Andrea Stunz, who was visiting London from Texas when she heard the news about Kate. “We’ll be praying for them. We will be praying for the family.”
It’s not immediately clear when Kate will be able to return to public life.
Kate and William are not expected to join other royals for the traditional Easter Sunday service in Windsor.
“The Princess will return to official duties when she is cleared to do so by her medical team,” a Kensington Palace spokesperson said. “She is in good spirits and is focused on making a full recovery.”
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The Foreign Office said the sanctioned Iranian officials are members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a branch of the Iranian military which broadcaster ITV linked to a plot to kill two journalists on British soil in a recent investigation.
But the sanctions fall short of a full proscription of the IRGC, a step called for by some British lawmakers who want it designated as a terrorist group.
“The Iranian regime and the criminal gangs who operate on its behalf pose an unacceptable threat to the U.K.’s security,” Foreign Secretary David Cameron said in a statement.
He added: “The U.K. and U.S. have sent a clear message – we will not tolerate this threat.”
The curbs come amid heightened tensions between U.S. allies and Iran, although are not being directly linked by the U.K. government to the latest flare-up.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday urged Iran to “de-escalate” after three U.S. troops were killed in a drone strike on an American base in Jordan. The U.S. and U.K. have blamed Iran-backed militants for the attack, although Tehran has denied playing a role.
The leaders put out the statement after it was revealed elite US commandos were lost at sea on January 11 as they stormed a vessel packed with missile parts from Iran.
ABC News reported White House officials said it had staged multiple air strikes, before the Ministry of Defence confirmed the UK-led blitz.
It said the four RAF Typhoon jets were accompanied by two Voyager tankers and US forces, striking eight Houthi targets at two military sites.
These were reportedly Houthi missile storage sites and launchers both crucial for the group’s attack and surveillance capabilities.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps tonight said: “Dangerous Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have continued to threaten the lives of sailors and disrupt shipping at an intolerable cost to the global economy.
“Along with our US partners, we have conducted a further round of strikes in self-defence.
“Aimed at degrading Houthi capabilities, this action will deal another blow to their limited stockpiles and ability to threaten global trade.
“Alongside our ongoing diplomatic efforts, we will continue to support regional stability across the Middle East, working hand in hand with our like-minded partners.”
The strikes were another dramatic escalation in the crisis that for weeks has been threatening to ignite an all-out war across the Middle East over Israel’s ongoing battle with Hamas.
At the time aircraft made their way from Cyprus to Yemen and back in hours, refuelling mid-air after they destroyed the targets.
But in the days that followed it was revealed about 30% of Houthis’ drone and missile stashes survived the attack.
Earlier this evening the PM and President warned further “targeted military action to degrade Houthi capabilities” was on the table.
During a call with the White House, No10 said the pair “paid tribute to the British and American personnel who are currently working closely together to uphold freedom of navigation and protect lives in the Red Sea”.
The Prime Minister passed on his condolences on the death of two US Navy Seals confirmed today.
Mr Sukak said: “The leaders condemned the surge in violent Houthi attacks on commercial ships transiting the area and undertook to continue efforts alongside international partners to deter and disrupt those attacks.
“This includes work through the multinational Operation Prosperity Guardian, putting diplomatic pressure on Iran to cease their support of Houthi activity and, as needed, targeted military action to degrade Houthi capabilities.”
It was yesterday claimed Houthi militants were trying to get more weapons to ramp up Red Sea missile strikes.
US Intelligences said the rebel group were thought to be preparing for a strike on Western forces now.
Who are the Houthis?
THE Houthi rebels are terrorising vessels in the Red Sea and now their bases were blitzed in US and UK strikes – but who are they?
The Shia militant group, which now controls most of Yemen, spent over a decade being largely ignored by the world.
The rebel group has been launching relentless drone and missile attacks on any ships they deem to be connected with Israel in solidarity with their ally Hamas.
The sea assaults have threatened to ignite a full-blown war in the Middle East as ripples from Israel’s war in Gaza are felt across the region – with Iran suspected of stoking the chaos.
However, there have been frequent attacks on commercial vessels with little or no link to Israel – forcing global sea traffic to halt operations in the region and sending shipping prices soaring.
Houthi attacks in the Red Sea increased 50 per cent between November and December.
Their slogan is “Death to America, Death to Israel, curse the Jews and victory to Islam”.
And the rebel group’s leaders have previously pledged the attacks will continue until Israel stops its devastating offensive inside Gaza.
On Thursday night, explosions rang out in Yemen and President Biden and PM Rishi Sunak struck over 60 Houthi targets.
The intel revealed the rebels have been carefully curating their plan of attack – pinpointing when the strikes would be ramped up and how they would gather the necessary weapons.
There are concerns the militants will receive even more lethal weapons from Tehran in the weeks to come.
More than 60 targets across 16 sites in Yemen were struck 11 days ago in a joint US and UK operation.
Jets, warships and submarines were used in attacks on Yemen’s capital Sanaa, as well as four other regions, Sadah, Hodeidah, Taiz, and Dhamar.
Command and control centres, munition stores, launching bases, production facilities and air defence radar systems were wiped out in the attacks, the US said.
In the Janurary 11 strikes western forces led by the UK and US obliterated 60 military targets in total under the cover of darkness, weakening the Iran-backed terror proxy in Yemen.
Laser-guided Tomahawk missiles and Paveway bombs, 1,200mph fighter jets, Reaper drones and destroyers were used alongside the RAF planes.
It was the first time strikes had been launched against the Houthis following months of brutal Red Sea attacks.
UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps yesterday warned that Iran is “playing a dangerous game” in aiding the Houthi rebel attacks.
He told GB News: “If you look at the situation throughout the region, throughout the Middle East, you’ve got the Iranian-backed Houthis, you’ve got Lebanese Hezbollah, you’ve got Hamas themselves trained by Iran.”
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday he plans to sign a bilateral security agreement with Kyiv during a visit to Ukraine next month.
Macron said France would “continue to help Ukraine to hold the front line and protect its skies,” and that the two countries “were finalizing a deal.” Speaking at a Paris press conference, Macron also announced the delivery of 40 Scalp long-range missiles and “several hundred” bombs to Ukraine in the coming weeks.
France has been working on a deal for several months, aiming to shore up Ukraine’s defenses and finances in the long term. Macron’s statement comes in the wake of last week’s visit to Kyiv by British PM Rishi Sunak, during which he signed a bilateral security deal and pledged €3 billion in military aid to Ukraine over the next two years.
European partners are under pressure to up their military support for Ukraine as Russia continues its relentless air strikes and U.S. aid seems stalled in Congress.
Earlier this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz issued an unusually stark call to other EU countries to deliver more weapons to Ukraine. The arms deliveries planned so far are “too small,” he said, despite Berlin’s pledge to double its military aid to Kyiv to €8 billion this year.
According to the Kiel Institute, which tallied military aid to Ukraine in the public domain, Germany was the second-highest donor last year after the U.S., with €17.1 billion, followed by the U.K. with €6.6 billion, and then Nordic and Eastern European countries. France, in comparison, has only contributed €0.54 billion, Italy €0.69 billion and Spain €0.34 billion.
Macron also said France and Europe would have to take “new decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” likely a reference to talks in Brussels to resolve a dispute over a €50 billion aid package to Ukraine.
DAVOS, Switzerland — It feels like the 1930s all over again but with Russian leader Vladimir Putin playing the role of Hitler, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron told POLITICO.
The war in Ukraine remains Cameron’s “absolute number one priority,” he told POLITICO’s Power Play podcast during an interview on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“This is the challenge for our generation,” Cameron said. “This is like being a foreign minister or a leader in Europe in the 1930s, we have got to not appease Putin. We have got to stand up to the evil that his invasion represents.”
The former U.K. prime minister’s remarks come as the West scrambles to keep Ukraine topped up with high-tech weaponry to fend off Russia’s full-scale invasion, while bracing for the potential return of NATO-skeptic Donald Trump to the White House.
“One thing we can do is demonstrate during the course of this year that Putin isn’t winning,” Cameron said.
Israel’s war on Hamas
Turning to Israel’s war on Hamas in the Middle East, Cameron defended Britain’s refusal to call for an immediate cease-fire, as the Israel Defense Forces bombard Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“I think that just wouldn’t have worked because if you want a two-state solution, if you want a sustainable cease-fire, you can’t ask the Israelis to have a two-state solution with the people who perpetrated 7th October in command in Gaza, still able to launch rockets into their country,” he said.
Cameron said he felt “deeply moved” by the suffering on both sides of the conflict. “I have been to a kibbutz in the south of Israel and seen the results of what happened on 7th October and the true horror of it,” he said.
“I’ve also listened to [accounts from British Embassy staff in Cairo] coming out of Gaza and what they’ve seen, what they’ve experienced, and the loved ones they’ve lost, and the family members they’ve seen killed,” Cameron added. “You know, a life is a life. I feel deeply about this, but I’m a very practical person and I want to know how do we bring this to an end?”
Cameron also kept open the door for future airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have been attacking commercial and Western naval vessels in the Red Sea, resulting in a major bombing retaliation from an allied coalition last week.
“I think it is important ultimately to show you are prepared to follow up words with actions,” Cameron warned the Houthis, adding, “bear in mind when you make warnings, you have to be prepared to take action.”
Rwanda policy strife
On the domestic front, Cameron said he is “absolutely” behind Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s attempts to tackle undocumented migration by sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Cameron defended the policy despite describing it as “unorthodox” and “out-of-box thinking.” Asked whether he would have devised the policy when he was prime minister, Cameron said: “Yes, my heart is absolutely in it.”
After passing a crucial stage in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the legislation is expected to go on to meet stiff resistance in Britain’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, where Cameron now sits as a peer.
Reflecting on his return to front-line politics compared to his time as prime minister, Cameron said “it certainly makes you think a lot about how about making decisions, about trying to find the time to think through decisions. It’s still very, very difficult.”
Cameron said: “You can’t determine how people see you,” in response to a question on whether he was sensitive to personal criticism.
“I remember once bumping into Steve Bell, the Guardian cartoonist, and saying, ‘why do you always portray me with this sort of condom over my head? What is it I’ve done to deserve this?’ And he roared with laughter and said, ‘oh, you’re just too smooth.’ And that’s the only way I could put it. Strange way of putting it, but there we are. You have to take the rough of with the smooth in this job,” Cameron said.
LIGHTS flashing and horns blaring, 3,000 tractors trundled through Hanover in Germany bringing its streets to a gridlocked standstill.
Stepping down from his cab, arable farmer Axel Friehe told me his beleaguered nation’s economy is “breaking down”.
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Tractors of protesting farmers line the streets in front of the Brandenburg Gate in BerlinCredit: Getty
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Major German cities have been paralysed by demonstrating agricultural workers, truckers and small business peopleCredit: EPA
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Turnip farmer Christoph Berndt said ‘The AfD use the demonstrations to draw attention to themselves’Credit: Louis Wood
“We hope our protests are the start of something big,” he said of the tractor cavalcade being cheered by locals.
Farmer Friehe, 51, may soon have his wish.
Troubled Germany’s major cities have been paralysed by demonstrating agricultural workers, truckers and small business people.
Some 500 tractors gathered at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate and 5,000 paraded through Munich’s streets.
While French farmers have made protesting something of a national pastime — infamously torching a lorry full of British sheep in 1990 — their German counterparts are traditionally less militant.
Yet a heavy-handed bid by its government to slash a tax break on diesel used in agricultural machinery — worth around £2,500 a year to each farmer — has made zealots of German country folk.
I watched on Wednesday as locals in Hanover gave farmers hearty cheers and the thumbs up despite the traffic tailbacks in the north German city of 536,000 citizens.
For the tractor strike is a symptom of a wider malaise gripping Germany.
The country’s once booming export market made it the industrial powerhouse at the heart of Europe.
Yet since the pandemic its sluggish economy has grown by just 0.3 per cent — compared to 1.4 per cent in the UK — making it by far the worst performer in the G7 group of nations.
Stringent green initiatives, including the rolling out of heat pumps, have been unpopular with many.
‘Hungry, naked and sober’
And mass migration — last year Germany had more than 350,000 asylum applications — has become a major political flashpoint.
Its ruling coalition of the left-of- centre Social Democratic Party, the Greens and liberal Free Democrats have been trying to plug a near £15billion budget black hole.
Into this economic and social maelstrom has stepped the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, who critics say are “infiltrating” the farmers’ demonstrations.
Last week it was reported that high-ranking AfD officials were caught at a secret conference where a “masterplan” for the forced deportation of millions of migrants to Africa was discussed.
The meeting, at a luxury hotel last November, featured a talk by far-right Identitarian Movement activist Martin Sellner, who is permanently banned from the UK for extremism.
It was claimed that the “remigration” proposals discussed at the event, infiltrated by news network Collectiv, included deporting immigrants with German passports.
Those in attendance — reportedly alongside neo-Nazis — included Roland Hartwig, a personal aide to AfD leader Alice Weidel, and AfD MP Gerrit Huy.
The AfD denied it had a “secret plan” but added: “We need passport withdrawal for criminals and remigration!”
At last week’s Hanover protest, turnip farmer Christoph Berndt, 31, insisted: “The AfD use the demonstrations to draw attention to themselves.
“They say the farmers are on their side, which isn’t true.”
Driving nearly 40 miles on his green John Deere tractor to be at the good-natured demonstration, he added: “The politicians in Berlin make it more difficult for us to work and make money.
“So we go on to the street and try to animate people to understand us and what we do in the fields.”
German flags fluttered from tractor cabs with signs on their front loaders reading: “No food without us.”
Another read: “Without agriculture you’d be hungry, naked and sober.”
Air horns sounded in the sub-zero chill as farmers gathered outside Lower Saxony’s regional parliament building in Hanover.
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Locals cheered the tractor cavalcadeCredit: @UNCOFILM
Expressing the fury felt by many, Volker Hahn, who helped to organise the demo, said: “The Government needs money and they will take it from the farmers. It’s a horrible situation.”
Volker, 55, who tends pigs, chickens and potatoes at his 600-acre farm, added: “We don’t welcome the support of AfD.
“They’re extreme.”
To add to the air of despondency felt by many, Hanover and other German cities have also been crippled by train driver strikes this week.
At the parliament building I met Sonja Markgraf, from the Rural People of Lower Saxony group, which also helped to organise the tractor protest.
She said: “The French people were always on the barricades but in Germany everyone felt comfortable.”
Now, she says, times have changed, with farmers seething at being asked to help plug the Government’s budget gap.
She added: “We are very happy that the protests are peaceful — but loud. The population stands behind us.”
Sonja, 53, says people from all backgrounds are facing unrealistic demands on environmental issues.
She added: “Heat pumps are a good example. It’s not wrong to do it, it’s the way they do it.
“It was too quick, wasn’t well explained and people are worried about the price.
“Reforms are necessary but you have to take the people with you.
“This feeling is in every part of the population, whether you’re poor, rich or middle-class. It’s not great for the general mood.”
She blames people’s fears over illegal immigration for AfD’s rise, saying: “Even three or four years ago it wasn’t an issue.
“Now the municipalities say they have no rooms, no flats or apartments so it’s more visible now.
“So the AfD tries to profit from it.”
Germany has long been renowned in British minds as a land of efficiency, where everything works.
It was praised for how it faced up to its Nazi past and built a vibrant, liberal democracy with a turbo-charged economy.
That booming post-war Germany was summed up in Audi’s 1980s advertising slogan “vorsprung durch technik”, meaning “progress through technology”.
Now its famed export trade of cars and machinery is in deep trouble.
German car makers produced almost 40 per cent fewer vehicles in 2022 than they did a decade previously.
And politicians have failed to tackle creaking infrastructure, a housing shortage and high-speed internet rollout.
Labelled the Sick Man of Europe — an historic term that was used to describe Britain in the 1970s — its economy is predicted to perform worse than Britain’s in the next decade.
Though expected to return to growth this year, Germany — the world’s third biggest economy — is forecast to be overtaken by Japan in 2026 and India in 2027.
At Hanover’s regional parliament building I met the AfD’s Frank Rinck, who denies his far-right party has “infiltrated” the farmers’ demos.
The MP and chairman of the Lower Saxony AfD said the group were “simply engaging with these demonstrations like any other political party”.
Frank, an agricultural contractor, says the Government’s subsidy cut will lead to a “further death” of the farming sector.
He added: “At some point our domestic agricultural sector will not be able to feed indigenous people.”
He said it was news to him that AfD politicians had attended a “remigration” conference, describing reports as “a storm in a teacup”.
He added: “In Germany things like this tend to come up when problems arise and people demonstrate.”
Watching the AfD’s rise warily are the centre-right Christian Democratic Union party, currently Germany’s leading party in opinion polls.
Its agriculture spokesman in Lower Saxony’s parliament, Dr Marco Mohrmann, ruled out working with the AfD in a coalition.
The dad of three told me: “A big part of the AfD is extreme right — and that’s not our way.”
While accepting Germany should take in asylum seekers and skilled migrants, he admitted Britain’s stuttering Rwanda policy may also be a way forward for his country.
Conservative-leaning Marco, 59, said: “I think the model the UK is doing with Rwanda is interesting.
“It’s a third-country solution where you can look at someone and decide if they can get asylum or not.
“A year ago we couldn’t discuss something like this but now we can, and we have to.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tried to contain farmers’ rage by phasing out the diesel tax break over time and scrapping plans to abolish tax exemption on agricultural vehicles.
Yet the scale of the protests — and their support across German society — suggests he has not done enough.
Yesterday 5,000 tractors and 10,000 protesters blockaded Berlin in a climax to a week of protest. Fresh talks with Government representatives are set.
Rural People of Lower Saxony’s Sonja Markgraf insisted: “If it’s not good for the farmers then we say, ‘We go on’.”
Germany’s Great Tractor Revolution may still only be in first gear.
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Volker Hahn helped to organise the demonstration in HanoverCredit: Louis Wood
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has tried to contain farmers’ rage by phasing out the diesel tax break over time and scrapping plans to abolish tax exemption on agricultural vehiclesCredit: Getty
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Sonja Markgraf, from the Rural People of Lower Saxony group, also helped to organise the tractor protestCredit: Louis Wood
Europe’s leaders and top officials are descending on Kyiv with pledges of fresh support as Russia continues its relentless air attacks against Ukraine.
Newly appointed French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said on Saturday in Kyiv that Ukraine will remain “France’s priority” despite “the multiplying crises” during his first foreign trip after his appointment last week. Séjourné hailed a “new phase” in joint weapons production with Ukraine during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.
Séjourné’s trip came on the heels of a visit Friday by U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during which he announced a multi-year security pact with Ukraine. The British leader committed £2.5 billion (€2.9 billion) in military aid to Ukraine for 2024/2025, as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
France’s Séjourné pledged to boost joint cooperation with Ukraine and “reinforce Ukraine’s capacity to produce on its territory” with France’s top firms. France has also been negotiating a security pact with Ukraine but the details have yet to be announced.
Poland’s Donald Tusk is expected to visit Kyiv this week, possibly on Monday.
The visits by European leaders come in the wake of weeks of renewed Russian air strikes against Ukraine and amid fears that U.S. help has stalled due to a blocked Congress and this year’s American presidential election. On Saturday, Ukrainian air defenses recorded a total of 40 attacks.
Earlier this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz issued an unusually stark call to other EU countries to deliver more weapons to Ukraine. The arms deliveries planned so far were “too small,” he said, despite Berlin’s pledge to double its military aid to Kyiv to €8 billion this year.
According to the Kiel Institute, which tallied up military aid to Ukraine in the public domain, Germany was the second-highest donor last year after the U.S., with €17.1 billion; it was followed by the U.K. with €6.6 billion and by Nordic and eastern EU countries. France, in comparison, has only contributed €0.54 billion, Italy €0.69 billion and Spain €0.34 billion.
AT least 61 people, including children, have been killed in a “tragic shipwreck” after a boat carrying 86 migrants left Libya.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Libya made the announcement on social media on Saturday.
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At least 61 people are thought to have died in the tragedy. Image shows an overcrowded wooden boat off the coast of Libya in November 2021 (file photo)Credit: AP
The organisation quoted survivors as saying the boat, carrying around 86 people, departed the Libyan city of Zwara.
The tragedy comes after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned that illegal migration to Europe could “overwhelm” the continent.
He suggested a change was needed in international law to tackle the issue.
At a meeting with Italian conservatives in Rome, Mr Sunak said “enemies” could use immigration as a “weapon” by “deliberately driving people to our shores to try to destabilise our society”.
During the day-long trip to Rome, Mr Sunak met Italian Prime Minster Giorgia Meloni, with whom he has developed a strong partnership.
They also held talks with Albania‘s prime minister Edi Rama, another ally in their efforts to crack down on illegal migration.
Number 10 said that after the talks Mr Sunak and Ms Meloni had agreed to co-fund a project that would see the two countries “promote and assist the voluntary return” of migrants currently stuck in Tunisia.
Mr Sunak said: “If we do not tackle this problem, the numbers will only grow. It will overwhelm our countries and our capacity to help those who actually need our help the most.
“If that requires us to update our laws and lead an international conversation to amend the post-war frameworks around asylum, then we must do that.
“Because if we don’t fix this problem now, the boats will keep coming and more lives will be lost at sea.”
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk was among those at the Atreju event, which has been attended by former Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban in the past.
A migrant died in the Channel yesterday, with Downing Street calling it a “stark reminder” of just how dangerous the crossings are.
A second migrant was left in a critical condition when a boat sank in the English Channel just after midnight yesterday with 66 rescued and taken to safety.
The Home Secretary James Cleverly said the incident which took place five miles off the northern coast “horrific reminder of the people smugglers’ brutality”.
More than 29,000 migrants have arrived in the UK this year after crossing the Channel.
Rome — Elon Musk will attend a conservative political festival in Rome on Saturday organized by Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her far right-wing party, the Brothers of Italy, the party says. In addition to the tech billionaire, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Spanish far-right Vox party leader Santiago Abascal and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama were set to join the Atreju festival in the Italian capital.
Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX who bought Twitter last year, travelled to Rome in June to meet Meloni and the two discussed the dangers of artificial intelligence, as well as how to shore up Italy’s declining population. Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the world.
Elon Musk is seen at the AI Safety Summit 2023 at Bletchley Park in Bletchley, U.K., Nov. 1, 2023.
Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty
Sunak and Meloni are political allies who have put immigration at the center of their political agendas. The two jointly penned an editorial calling for tougher action against illegal immigration, and Sunak’s government has been trying to get a contentious plan past the U.K. courts that would see it fly migrants and asylum seekers who arrive on Britain’s shores without permission to Rwanda for processing.
At a London meeting in April, Sunak told Meloni their two countries were “very aligned” in their values. Meloni, who was elected last year to head her country’s most right-wing government since World War II, has proposed sending some migrants who arrive in Italy to Albania for processing.
The Atreju festival, which takes its name from the central character in the fantasy book and movie “The NeverEnding Story,” was started by Meloni in 1998 to gather and celebrate Italy’s conservative youth. At the time she was the head of the Rome branch of a right-wing youth movement.
In addition to political speeches, the festival will entertain approximately 10,000 attendees with a Christmas village, ice rink and concerts.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Sunday called for a “sustainable cease-fire” in the Middle East, lamenting that “too many civilians have been killed” in the Israel-Hamas war.
In a joint article in the Sunday Times, Baerbock and Cameron made clear that: “We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate cease-fire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward.”
“We must do all we can to pave the way to a sustainable cease-fire, leading to a sustainable peace,” they said.
The article represents an apparent shift in the stances of both countries on the conflict in Gaza. The British government has called for a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting, but has stopped short of urging a cease-fire. Germany has staunchly defended Israel’s right to defend itself since the attacks by Hamas on October 7.
“Our goal cannot simply be an end to fighting today. It must be peace lasting for days, years, generations,” the two ministers said in their article, stressing that they support “a cease-fire, but only if it is sustainable.”
The international calls for an immediate cease-fire are “an understandable reaction to such intense suffering, and we share the view that this conflict cannot drag on and on,” Baerbock and Cameron wrote. That is why the two governments “supported the recent humanitarian pauses” and are “pushing the diplomatic effort to agree further pauses to get more aid in and more hostages out,” they said.
“Only extremists like Hamas want us stuck in an endless cycle of violence, sacrificing more innocent lives for their fanatical ideology,” the two ministers wrote.
However, “the Israeli government should do more to discriminate sufficiently between terrorists and civilians, ensuring its campaign targets Hamas leaders and operatives,” Cameron and Baerbock said.
“We do not believe that calling right now for a general and immediate cease-fire, hoping it somehow becomes permanent, is the way forward” because “it ignores why Israel is forced to defend itself: Hamas barbarically attacked Israel and still fires rockets to kill Israeli citizens every day,” they said. Baerbock and Cameron prefer “a sustainable cease-fire, leading to a sustainable peace. The sooner it comes, the better — the need is urgent,” they said.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, meanwhile, on Sunday urged an “immediate and durable” truce in the Gaza Strip. Speaking in Tel Aviv during a meeting with her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, Colonna said that “the truce should lead to a lasting cease-fire with the aim of releasing all hostages and delivering aid to Gaza.”
