LONDON (AP) — British regulators on Wednesday cleared Microsoft’s hiring of key staff from startup Inflection AI, saying the deal wouldn’t stifle competition in the country’s artificial intelligence market.
The Competition and Markets Authority had opened a preliminary investigation in July into Microsoft’s recruitment of Inflection’s core team, including co-founder and CEO Mustafa Suleyman, chief scientist Karen Simonyan and several top engineers and researchers.
The watchdog said its investigation found that the hirings amounted to a “merger situation” but that the “transaction does not give rise to a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition.”
Big technology companies have been facing scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic lately for gobbling up talent and products at innovative AI startups without formally acquiring them.
Three U.S. Senators called for the practice to be investigated after Amazon pulled a similar maneuver this year in a deal with San Francisco-based Adept that sent its CEO and key employees to the e-commerce giant. Amazon also got a license to Adept’s AI systems and datasets.
The U.K. watchdog said Microsoft hired “almost all of Inflection’s team” and licensed its intellectual property, which gave it access to the startup’s AI model and chatbot development capabilities.
Inflection’s main product is a chatbot named Pi that specializes in “emotional intelligence” by being being “kind and supportive.”
However, the CMA said the deal won’t result in a big loss of competition because Inflection has a “very small” share of the U.K. consumer market for chatbots, and it lacks chatbot features that make it more attractive than rivals.
LONDON (AP) — The bosses of water companies that pollute waterways could go to prison under a new law the British government says will help clean up the country’s sewage-clogged rivers, lakes and beaches.
A bill introduced in Parliament on Thursday will give regulators the ability to ban bonuses for executives of polluting firms and bring criminal charges against lawbreakers, with the possibility of up to two years’ imprisonment for executives who obstruct investigations.
The state of Britain’s waterways made a stink during the campaign for a July 4 national election. For critics of the Conservative Party that had been in office since 2010, dirty water was a pungent symbol of Britain’s aging infrastructure and the effects of privatization of essential utilities.
The private companies that provide combined water and sewage services routinely discharge sewage into waterways when rain overwhelms sewer systems often dating from the Victorian era. Critics say the firms have failed to invest in upgrading infrastructure – but have continued to pay dividends to shareholders.
Water companies say they want to invest in upgrades but accuse the industry’s financial regulator, Ofwat, of not allowing them to raise customers’ bills enough to finance improvements.
The center-left Labour Party government elected in July has promised to clean up the “unacceptable” state of Britain’s waters.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed said that “water executives will no longer line their own pockets whilst pumping out this filth.”
The bill, which must be approved by lawmakers, also would strengthen powers of the regulators and force water companies to publish real-time data of all sewage spills.
Clean-water campaigner Feargal Sharkey said it was good news that “after years of denial at least there is a government prepared to accept and recognize the scale of the problem.”
But he said existing anti-pollution laws have rarely, if ever, been used.
“We don’t need new regulations, we don’t need new laws, we’ve got 35 years’ worth of laws that have never been applied,” Sharkey told Sky News. “You should force them to go out and apply the law as it stands today, that would have been a massive step forward.”
Throughout history, there have been several notable spills — oil in the ocean, molasses in Boston, and the New York Times reminds us Tuesday of the legacy of the Great Lego Spill of 1997.
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At least two people missing and dozens rescued after boat travelling from France to Britain capsizes.
At least 12 people have died and dozens have been rescued after the boat they were travelling in capsized during an attempted crossing of the English Channel, authorities say.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 12 people were dead and rescue operations were under way on Tuesday to find two people still missing.
He said he would travel to the site, near the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, later in the afternoon.
“Unfortunately, the bottom of the boat ripped open,” said Olivier Barbarin, mayor of Le Portel near Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Etienne Baggio, a spokesman for the French maritime prefecture that oversees that stretch of sea, said rescuers have pulled 65 people from the water.
Baggio described it as the deadliest migrant boat tragedy in the English Channel this year. Many of those on board didn’t have life vests, he said. It was not immediately clear how the boat ripped open or what kind of boat it was. Some attempt the crossing in rubber dinghies.
The maritime prefecture said the boat got into difficulty off Gris-Nez point between Boulogne-sur-Mer and the port of Calais farther north.
Sea temperatures off northern France were about 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit).
United Kingdom Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called the deaths “horrifying and deeply tragic”.
In a statement, Cooper criticised the “gangs behind this appalling and callous trade in human lives”, adding they “do not care about anything but the profits they make”.
At least 30 refugees and migrants have died or gone missing while trying to cross to the UK this year, according to the International Organization for Migration.
At least 2,109 people have tried to cross the English Channel on small boats in the past seven days, according to UK Home Office data updated on Tuesday.
The data includes people found in the channel or on arrival.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise will pursue a lawsuit against the estate of British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who died in August after his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.
Britain’s High Court in 2022 ruled mostly in favor of the U.S. technology company, which accused Lynch and his former finance director of fraud over its $11 billion takeover of his software company Autonomy. Hewlett Packard is seeking up to $4 billion in damages, and the judge is expected to issue a decision on the final sum soon.
Lynch died when his yacht, the Bayesian, sank in a storm off Sicily on Aug. 19. His widow, Angela Bacares, could now be liable for the damages. Months before the sinking, Lynch was acquitted in a separate U.S. criminal trial of fraud and conspiracy charges in the deal.
Hewlett Packard initially celebrated the costly acquisition of Lynch’s company in 2011 but quickly came to regret it. The company said in a statement Monday that it had “substantially succeeded” in its civil fraud claims against Lynch and Sushovan Hussain, the former finance director.
“It is HPE’s intention to follow the proceedings through to their conclusion.”
However, the judge in the U.K. civil case has already ruled that the amount payable in damages would be “substantially less” than the company is seeking.
A spokesperson for Lynch’s family declined to comment.
Mike Lynch, former CEO of Autonomy Corp., and five other passengers died when his luxury yacht sank during a storm off the coast of Sicily on Aug. 19, 2024.
Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among six passengers who died when his 184-foot luxury yacht sank quickly in a storm on Aug. 19. One crew member, the boat’s chef, also died, while 15 people survived the disaster. They had gathered on the yacht to celebrate Lynch’s acquittal.
The incident has raised questions, as another sailboat that had been anchored nearby off the coast of Palermo made it through the storm unscathed. Officials initially said the yacht was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout. Prosecutors in Italy are investigating the captain on possible charges including manslaughter.
The captain, engineer and a sailor aboard the yacht, called “Bayesian,” were placed investigation for possible manslaughter in connection with the shipwreck.
Federal authorities sought for years to extradite Lynch from the U.K. to face multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy in the U.S. related to HP’s acquisition of Autonomy.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels have agreed to allow tugboats and rescue ships to assist a Greek-flagged oil tanker that remains ablaze in the Red Sea “in consideration of humanitarian and environmental concerns,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations claimed late Wednesday. However, the Houthis did not offer specific details and are believed to have blocked an earlier attempt to salvage the vessel and continue to attack shipping across the Red Sea.
Last week’s attack on the Sounion marked the most serious assault in weeks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who continue to target shipping through the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The attacks have disrupted the $1 trillion in trade that typically passes through the region, as well as halted some aid shipments to conflict-ravaged Sudan and Yemen.
Iran’s U.N. mission said Wednesday that following the fire on the Sounion “and the subsequent environmental hazards,” several countries it didn’t identify reached out to the Houthis “requesting a temporary truce for the entry of tugboats and rescue ships into the incident area.”
“Ansar Allah has consented to this,” the Iranian mission said, using another name for the Houthis. It offered no further details, nor did the Houthis, who have repeatedly attacked ships in the Red Sea, detained aid workers, deployed child soldiers and cracked down on dissent since holding Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam, in comments carried by the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency, said late Wednesday that the attack showed how serious the rebels took their campaign against shipping.
“After several international parties contacted us, especially the European ones, they were allowed to tow the burning oil ship Sounion,” Abdul-Salam said, without giving further details.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that attempts by an unidentified “third party” to send two tugboats to the stricken Sounion were blocked by the Houthis. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters that the Houthis’ actions demonstrate “their blatant disregard for not only human life, but also for the potential environmental catastrophe that this presents.”
Ryder said the Sounion appears to be leaking oil into the Red Sea, home to coral reefs and other natural habitats and wildlife. However, the European Union’s Operation Aspides, whose mission is to protect shipping in the area, said as recently as Wednesday the ship was not leaking oil.
The Houthis in their campaign have seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets.
The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
In the case of the Sounion, the Houthis have claimed the Greek company operating the vessel had other ships serving Israel. The Joint Maritime Information Center, a multinational organization overseen by the U.S. Navy, assessed that the Sounion “has no direct association with Israel, U.S. or U.K. within the company business structure” though other ships had “visited Israel in the recent past.”
London — Britain’s King Charles III visited the English town of Southport on Tuesday to meet survivors and the families of victims of the knife attack that left three young girls dead and 10 others wounded at a Taylor Swift-themed children’s dance class last month. The monarch’s visit came just a day after the pop icon herself met two of the young survivors backstage at one of her concerts in London.
King Charles arrived in Southport and was greeted by hundreds of the seaside town’s residents as he visited a floral tribute to the victims of the attack.
“His Majesty The King will travel to Southport to express his continued support for those affected by the 29th July attack and the riot which followed in the town, and to thank frontline emergency staff for their ongoing work serving local people,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement earlier. “The meeting will include some of the surviving children who were present at the Hart Space Community Centre, and their families.”
Britain’s King Charles reacts as he views tributes outside Southport Town Hall, during his visit to meet with members of the local community, following the July 29 attack at a childrens’ dance party, in Southport, Britain, Aug. 20, 2024.
PAUL ELLIS/Pool via REUTERS
Three young girls Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, were killed in the attack. The stabbing rocked the country and sparked riots led by far-right groups across England. The unrest was fueled by widespread disinformation spread on social media about the attacker’s identity in the wake of the attack.
A 17-year-old male was arrested and faces charges of both attempted murder and murder. CBS News partner network BBC News reported that the suspect was born in Cardiff, Wales, and moved to the Southport area in 2013.
On Monday, Swift met two girls who were wounded in the attack backstage at her concert in London’s Wembley Stadium. A TikTok montage posted by the girls’ mother, Sami Foster, of photos showing her daughters meeting the popstar, along with Swift’s own mother Andrea, quickly went viral.
Swift met the family wearing the one-piece costume that has become synonymous with her record-breaking “Eras” concert tour. In one of the photos, one of the young girls appears to have a bandage on her forearm as she poses with the singer.
The post showing Foster’s daughters Hope and Autumn with Swift was captioned: “You drew stars around my scars,” a reference to lyrics in Swift’s song “Cardigan.”
Swift had expressed shock at the attack last month. In a statement posted on her Instagram account in July, she expressed “horror” at “the loss of life and innocence and the horrendous trauma inflicted on everyone who was there, the families, and first responders.”
“These were just little kids at a dance class,” the post said. “I am at a complete loss for how to ever convey my sympathies to these families.”
The Perseid meteor shower, one of the most highly anticipated celestial events every year, just took place — and at Stonehenge, one photographer managed to capture it in an image that he calls a “window to the universe.” The image, a composite of dozens taken over three hours the night of Aug. 9, shows the meteor shower and the Milky Way glowing over the U.K. historic site.
“I always like to remember them as ancient fireworks because they are,” astrophotographer Josh Dury, who captured the image, told CBS News. “The Perseus meteor shower is created by one of the oldest objects of our solar system, comets … I thought, ‘this is such a pertinent narrative through that sense of mystery and time.’”
Astrophotographer Josh Dury captured a photo of the Perseids meteor shower’s “ancient fireworks” falling over Stonehenge on Aug. 9.
Josh Dury
The image, a composition of 40 images taken over a three-hour period, was so dazzling that even NASA featured it as the Astronomy Picture of the Day on Aug. 12, an honor that Dury said “words can’t explain.”
“It’s insane,” he said. “… In a career as a landscape astrophotographer, it can’t get any bigger than that.”
Dury has been photographing the night sky since he was 7 years old after he watched the animated series “Biker Mice from Mars.”
“That just encapsulated my curiosity from such a young age for life on other worlds. And if you imagine that we’re lucky enough to have this composition for life here on Earth, as astronomers, when we’re observing galaxies, nebulas or star clusters, you can’t help but imagine thinking that there must be life somewhere out there in the universe,” he said. “And I do believe that’s what drives people forward, is that curiosity [of] what’s out there amongst the veil of darkness?”
Dury hopes his viral photograph will help today’s children feel as inspired as he was, and that it can help bring awareness to the importance of dark sky preserves and environmental conservation.
Artificial light is a major problem for catching these glimpses into space, he said. But it goes beyond disrupting what could be a mystical experience with the cosmos. Light pollution can also disrupt nocturnal wildlife, he said, and even people.
“Our bodies produce melatonin at night for our sleep patterns. And so if we don’t protect the night, we’re almost creating a ticking time bomb by not having the right condition,” he said. “…When we see dark sky places under threat more than ever before … the view of the night sky, it could well change within the period of our lifetime.”
Dark sky preserves, protected areas with minimal light pollution, are also under threat. Canada’s Jasper National Park, the second-largest dark sky preserve in the world, just suffered its worst wildfire in a century.
“It’s so important to protect our environment, culture and heritage,” he said, adding that it’s his mission to capture images such as this to provide inspiring “windows to the universe.” “… That’s another reason why I take photographs, is to inspire that next generation of 7-year-old youngsters like I was to look up at the night sky.”
Li Cohen is a senior social media producer at CBS News. She previously wrote for amNewYork and The Seminole Tribune. She mainly covers climate, environmental and weather news.
The acclaimed Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has just unveiled a monumental sculpture, Infinite Accumulation, at the entrance of Liverpool Street Station in London. The work is the artist’s first permanent public sculpture in the U.K. and—quelle bonne surprise—it’s not one of Kusama’s famous dotted pumpkins.
The public sculpture now installed at the busy railway station was inspired by her main artistic obsession (and a signature element of her work), the polka dot. In the ten-meter-high and twelve-meter-wide site-specific sculpture, Kusama’s dots are gleaming silver spheres, linked together into an enveloping constellation gravitating in space. Their polished surfaces enhance the mesmerizing effect of the work, reflecting the surroundings, allowing the viewers to become part of the art installation while also being an extremely Instagram-friendly attraction.
“London is a massive metropolis with people of all cultures moving constantly,” the artists said in a press release. “The spheres symbolize unique personalities, while the supporting curvilinear lines allow us to imagine an underpinning social structure.”
Reportedly, Kusama conceived the sculpture intuitively, hand-twisting the wires on the original model to design the movement of the dynamic serpentine arches. Notably, the sculpture also establishes an exciting conversation with the railway’s existing architecture.
“Commuters and visitors are in for a real treat when they arrive at Liverpool Street and are welcomed by Kusama’s Infinite Accumulation,” Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said in a statement. “Kusama is one of the world’s leading artists and so it is fitting that this is the final work in a brilliant series of contemporary art commissions for the Elizabeth line. The arts are a vital part of London’s success, helping transform our spaces and connect our communities as we build a better London for all.”
The sculpture was commissioned by The Crossrail Art Foundation’s public art program for the Elizabeth line, with the support of Victoria Miro, and made possible through funding from both the British Land and the City of London Corporation.
This work by Kusama adds to the already remarkable list of contemporary public artworks located in or over several London stations, including Douglas Gordon’s undergroundoverheard at Tottenham Court Road station, Chantal Joffe’s A Sunday Afternoon in Whitechapel at Whitechapel Station and Conrad Shawcross’s Manifold (Major Third) 5:4, which was unveiled at the western entrance of Moorgate station in 2023. An additional six new artworks are set to be installed in the London Tube network this year as part of the Art On the Underground program.
This latest installation by Kusama is not the only work by the artist now on view in London; a second public installation is in Kensington Gardens throughout the summer. Presented by Serpentine Galleries and the Royal Parks in Kensington Gardens, Kusama’s Pumpkin (2024) is the artist’s tallest bronze pumpkin sculpture to date at six meters tall and five-and-a-half meters wide. Installed prominently by the Round Pond, the bronze sculpture creates a captivating conversation with the nature surrounding it as people can engage with it from a variety of viewpoints.
Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin (2024) is on view by the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens through November 3. Courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner. Photo: George Darrell
Yayoi Kusama’s signature pumpkins can be found around the world. One of her monumental pumpkins, also yellow with black spots, is permanently installed on the art island of Naoshima, Japan, Another of her large-scale pumpkins, this one red with black dots, is permanently displayed in Matsumoto, her hometown. Other permanent outdoor installations by the artist include the mirrored balls of Kusama’s Narcissus Garden at The Glass House in Connecticut and her oversized, colorful flower sculptures, Flowers That Bloom at Midnight, which remained at the New York Botanical Garden after her memorable show in 2021. She became one of the top-selling artists in 2023, generating a total of $80.9 million at auction that year.
Both the men’s and women’s Olympic triathlon events proceeded with swimming in the Seine River on Wednesday after the water’s pollution levels caused a delay. CBS Saturday Morning co-host and CBS News and sports correspondent Dana Jacobson has more from Paris.
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A Stonehenge conservation group is furious over a UNESCO decision that would keep the UN organization from listing the site as endangered, ostensibly allowing a planned highway expansion.
British planners say the roadwork, which includes not just expanded highway lanes but a tunnel that would run under a portion of the Stonehenge site, would improve traffic flow and also eliminate the sight and sound of traffic from the ruins. Critics allege the plan was concocted with improper public consultation and poses a threat to the site’s geology, which could in turn damage the remains. There’s also undiscovered archaeology to consider.
On Wednesday, a UNESCO committee voted against adding Stonehenge to the organization’s List of World Heritage in Danger. If the effort to add Stonehenge to the list had succeeded, it could have forced the British government to revamp or abandon the highway plans.
The List of World Heritage in Danger is meant to raise international awareness of threats to some of the planet’s oldest and most cultural, historical, or scientifically significant sites. UNESCO also allocates financial assistance to preserve locations on the list.
“This is a dark day for Stonehenge and a hollow victory for the UK government as this decision won’t stop the harm to the World Heritage Site,” said Stonehenge Alliance chair Johns Adam in a press release. “We should not forget that this scheme failed the planning test. It was recommended for refusal because of the ‘permanent and irreversible’ harm it would do.”
The plan had been approved by the country’s Conservative Party, which was ousted in an election on July 4. Adams said it’s his hope that the new Labor government will abandon the highway plan.
“This is a travesty of justice,” said Stonehenge Alliance president Tom Holland. “The weakness of the Government’s case can be measured by the grotesque lengths they have gone to in their attempts to cover it up. If Labour ministers are complicit in this, then it disgraces them.”
UK ambassador to UNESCO Anna Nsubuga praised the committee’s vote, saying the planned tunnel does not justify adding Stonehenge, which was made a World Heritage site in 1986, to the danger list.
“The UK looks forward to continuing our work on the proposed Scheme, which would reconnect the Site, restore peace and tranquility, and give the stones and landscape the respect and setting they deserve,” she wrote on X.
Stonehenge (a magic place, where the moon doth rise with a dragon’s face) has undergone several restorations and repairs. Most recently, in 2021, the rocks resting atop the support stones were coated with anti-weathering cement mortar, which also helps to secure them in place.
The original purpose of Stonehenge, which dates back to 3700 BC, is still not entirely settled, though one theory that’s gained traction in recent years posits that it served as a memorial site. Others have wondered whether it was a religious temple or a timekeeping device.
London — On a dead-end road in London’s Islington district, CBS News found Tim Bushe trimming his hedge. It was an ordinary scene in the neighborhood of row houses until you stepped back to take in the full scale of the neatly pruned topiary — in the form of a giant locomotive.
“Philippa, my wife, used to sit in the living room and look out through the window here and demanded that I cut a cat,” Bushe told CBS News, briefly laying his trimmer aside. For him, it’s as much an artist’s brush as it is a gardener’s tool.
Philippa Bushe got the train instead. That was more than 15 years ago. Soon after, Bushe decided to help his neighbor, who struggled to trim his own hedge across the road. It was Philippa’s idea, he said.
“Then I gave her the cat that she had asked for the first time,” he said.
A hedge trimmed into the form of a resting cat by architect and topiary artist Tim Bushe is seen in Islington, London, July 11, 2024.
CBS News/Cameron Stewart
The couple met as teenagers at art school. They were together for 47 years before Philippa died of breast cancer about seven years ago. Bushe, who works as an architect when he’s not busy with a hedge, has carried on with his topiary art in honor of his wife, who gave him the idea.
“It is her legacy,” he said.
The father of three has transformed hedges all around his home, into elephants, fish, a hippo, a squirrel — there’s even a recreation of the late British sculptor Henry Moore’s “Reclining Nude.” That one sits boldly in front of Polly Barker’s house. She’s in the choir with Bushe.
“I was slightly worried whether the neighbors might be offended, because she’s quite, you know, full-on, but they haven’t complained,” said Barker, adding: “We’re a tourist attraction on Google Maps now. We’ve got a little stamp.”
The hedges aren’t just tourist attractions, however. With each commission, Bushe raises money for various charities, many of them environmental. His first mission was to raise money for an organization that cares for his sister.
A fish hedge, cut by architect and topiary artist Tim Bushe, is seen in his Islington, London neighborhood.
Handout/Tim Bushe
“My young sister has got Down syndrome, and the people looking after her down in Kent, I decided to raise money for them,” he said. “I raised about 10,000 (pounds, or about $13,000) for her.”
Bushe says when he picks up his garden tools to do an artist’s work, he lets his medium guide his hand: “I find the shape within the hedge.”
His wife Philippa was also an artist and his muse.
“If she was alive now, she would be fascinated, I think, by the way it’s taken off,” he told CBS News, adding that he intends to keep going, “until I fall off my ladder.”
London architect and artist Tim Bushe manicures the locomotive hedge sculpture in his front yard, in Islington, London, July 11, 2024.
CBS News/Cameron Stewart
Bushe said he enjoys seeing the results of his hobby making people smile, and he acknowledged the coincidence of his name so accurately referencing his passion — but he said to him, it feels less like a coincidence and more like destiny.
Ripple was named one of the top 250 fintech companies for 2024 in the “digital assets” category by CNBC and Statista.
The company has received multiple awards, including the PAY360 Award and recognition as a top workplace by Fortune Magazine.
Ripple’s Latest Recognition
The American business news channel – CNBC – and the global industry statistics database – Statista – conducted a mutual study to find out the top 250 fintech companies for 2024. One of the awarded firms in the “digital assets” section is Ripple.It is one of the three entities placed on that list last year, with Coinbase and OpenSea being the others.
CNBC and Statista explained that the “digital assets” category comprises firms that make it “easier to access and use” cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based applications. They also noted the industry’s success in 2024, reminding that Bitcoin (BTC) hit an all-time high price of over $70,000 in March.
The entities revealed that 116 of the top 250 fintech companies are located in the United States (including Ripple, which is headquartered in San Francisco). The United Kingdom follows next with 30 firms, while India is home to 11 entities on the list.
The Previous Awards
This is not the first time Ripple has found a place in such a category. In October last year, it won the payment prize in the UK – the PAY360 Awards. The company topped the ranking for being the leader in digital currencies/assets in financial services.
One of the people acknowledging the achievement was Sendi Young – Managing Director of Ripple’s European operations. “Such an honour to win in this UK’s most prestigious payments awards,” she said at the time.
Prior to that, Fortune Magazine placed Ripple in the 13th position (out of 50) as “the best workplace in technology” for 2023. According to the business magazine, 94% of the firm’s employees consider it “a great place to work.” 98% of the staff said they were warmly welcomed upon starting their journey at the company, while 96% were supportive of the management team.
Last but not least, People Magazine included Ripple in its list of “top 100 companies who care for employees and society.” Other well-known corporations that were part of that club were American Express, NVIDIA, Deloitte, MasterCard, and more.
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LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that he is scrapping his predecessor’s controversial policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda as he vowed to deliver on voters’ mandate for change, though he warned it will not happen quickly.
“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Starmer said in his first news conference since the Labour Party swept Conservatives from power after 14 years. “It’s never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite.”
Starmer told reporters in a wood-paneled room at 10 Downing St. that he was “restless for change,” but would not commit to how soon Britons would feel improvements in their standards of living or public services.
The 30-minute question-and-answer session followed his first Cabinet meeting as his new government takes on the massive challenge of fixing a heap of domestic woes and winning over a public weary from years of austerity, political chaos and a battered economy.
“We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work,” Starmer told them.
Starmer’s Cabinet features a record number of women — 11 of 25 ministers. Nearly all members went to public schools, another record that is a sharp break from Conservative ministers who have historically come with private school pedigrees.
“I’m proud of the fact that we have people around the Cabinet table who didn’t have the easiest of starts in life,” Starmer said.
Among a raft of problems they must tackle are boosting a sluggish economy, fixing an ailing health care system, and restoring trust in government.
“Just because Labour won a big landslide doesn’t mean all the problems that the Conservative government has faced has gone away,” said Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.
Starmer in his first remarks as prime minister Friday singled out several of the big items, such as fixing the revered but hobbled National Health Service and securing the U.K.’s borders, a reference to a larger global problem of absorbing an influx of migrants fleeing war, poverty as well as drought, heat waves and floods attributed to climate change.
Conservatives struggled to stem the flow of migrants arriving across the English Channel, failing to live up to ex-Prime Minister’s Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats.”
The controversial Rwanda plan was billed as a solution that would deter migrants from risking their lives on a journey that could end up with them being deported to East Africa. So far, it has cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars and never taken flight.
Starmer denounced it as a “gimmick,” though it’s unclear what he will do differently as a record number of people have come ashore in the first six months of the year.
“Labour is going to need to find a solution to the small boats coming across the channel,” Bale said. “It’s going to ditch the Rwanda scheme, but it’s going to have to come up with other solutions to deal with that particular problem.”
Suella Braverman, a Conservative hard liner on immigration who is a possible contender to replace Sunak as party leader, criticized Starmer’s plan to end the Rwanda pact.
“Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” she said Saturday. “There are big problems on the horizon which will be, I’m afraid, caused by Keir Starmer.”
Starmer will have a busy schedule following the six-week campaign. He heads out Sunday to visit each of the four nations of the U.K. — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. He plans to meet with metropolitan mayors, regardless of party, saying he’s not a “tribal politician.”
He will then travel to Washington for a NATO meeting Tuesday and will host the European Political Community summit July 18, the day after the state opening of Parliament and the King’s Speech, which sets out the new government’s agenda.
Starmer has had phone calls with several world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, European Union leader Ursula von der Leyen and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
He sent Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Saturday to Germany, Poland and Sweden.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he would open new negotiations next week with NHS doctors at the start of their career who have staged a series of multi-day strikes. The pay dispute has exacerbated the long wait for appointments that have become a hallmark of the NHS’s problems.
In starker language than he’s used before, Starmer echoed Streeting’s description of the NHS as “broken.”
“Everybody who uses it and works in it knows that it is broken,” he said. “We’re not going to operate under the pretense or language that doesn’t express the problem as it is because otherwise we won’t be able to fix the problem as quickly as we need to.”
LONDON — Labour leader Keir Starmer officially became British prime minister on Friday hours after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition.
Starmer was elevated to the nation’s leader after a private ceremony with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace.
In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer is taking charge in 10 Downing St. shortly after Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the official residence and King Charles III accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace.
“This is a difficult day, but I leave this job honored to have been prime minister of the best country in the world,” Sunak said in his farewell address.
Sunak had conceded defeat earlier in the morning, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”
In a reflective farewell speech in the same place where he had called for the snap election six weeks earlier, Sunak wished Starmer all the best but also acknowledged his missteps.
“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said. “To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I’m sorry that we could not deliver what your efforts deserved.”
Labour’s triumph and challenges
With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.
“A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility,” Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying the fight to regain people’s trust after years of disillusionment “is the battle that defines our age.”
Speaking as dawn broke in London, he said Labour would offer “the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day.”
For Starmer, it’s a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
“Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”
And that’s what Starmer promised, saying “change begins now.”
Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous “politics as pantomime” of the last few years.
“I think we’re going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives,” he said.
Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years – some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not – that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K. divorce from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.
Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.”
Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss, who lost her seat to Labour, was one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.
While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.
Conservative vote collapses as smaller parties surge
The result is a catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and internecine conflict.
The historic defeat – the smallest number of seats in the party’s two-century history – leaves it depleted and in disarray and will spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak, who said he would step down as leader.
In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, the incoming Parliament will be more fractured and ideologically diverse than any for years. Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.
The Liberal Democrats won about 70 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain’s first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.
The Green Party won four seats, up from just one before the election.
One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland’s 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but handful, mostly to Labour.
Labour was cautious but reliable
Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”
But the party’s cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics.”
Conservative missteps
The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which has long voted Conservative, flipped to the Liberal Democrats this time.
“The younger generation are far more interested in change,” Mulcahy said ahead of the results. “But whoever gets in, they’ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It’s not going to be easy.”
LONDON — Labour leader Keir Starmer officially became British prime minister on Friday hours after his Labour Party swept to power in a landslide victory after more than a decade in opposition.
Starmer was elevated to the nation’s leader after a private ceremony with King Charles III in Buckingham Palace.
In the merciless choreography of British politics, Starmer is taking charge in 10 Downing St. shortly after Conservative leader Rishi Sunak and his family left the official residence and King Charles III accepted his resignation at Buckingham Palace.
“This is a difficult day, but I leave this job honored to have been prime minister of the best country in the world,” Sunak said in his farewell address.
Sunak had conceded defeat earlier in the morning, saying the voters had delivered a “sobering verdict.”
In a reflective farewell speech in the same place where he had called for the snap election six weeks earlier, Sunak wished Starmer all the best but also acknowledged his missteps.
“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss,” Sunak said. “To all the Conservative candidates and campaigners who worked tirelessly but without success, I’m sorry that we could not deliver what your efforts deserved.”
Labour’s triumph and challenges
With almost all the results in, Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.
“A mandate like this comes with a great responsibility,” Starmer acknowledged in a speech to supporters, saying the fight to regain people’s trust after years of disillusionment “is the battle that defines our age.”
Speaking as dawn broke in London, he said Labour would offer “the sunlight of hope, pale at first but getting stronger through the day.”
For Starmer, it’s a massive triumph that will bring huge challenges, as he faces a weary electorate impatient for change against a gloomy backdrop of economic malaise, mounting distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
“Nothing has gone well in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic for change in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”
And that’s what Starmer promised, saying “change begins now.”
Anand Menon, professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London, said British voters were about to see a marked change in political atmosphere from the tumultuous “politics as pantomime” of the last few years.
“I think we’re going to have to get used again to relatively stable government, with ministers staying in power for quite a long time, and with government being able to think beyond the very short term to medium-term objectives,” he said.
Britain has experienced a run of turbulent years – some of it of the Conservatives’ own making and some of it not – that has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. The U.K. divorce from the European Union followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine battered the economy, while lockdown-breaching parties held by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff caused widespread anger.
Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure and overstretched National Health Service have led to gripes about “Broken Britain.”
Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, rocked the economy further with a package of drastic tax cuts and lasted just 49 days in office. Truss, who lost her seat to Labour, was one of a slew of senior Tories kicked out in a stark electoral reckoning.
While the result appears to buck recent rightward electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of those same populist undercurrents flow in Britain. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage roiled the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment and undercut support for the Conservatives and even grabbed some voters from Labour.
Conservative vote collapses as smaller parties surge
The result is a catastrophe for the Conservatives as voters punished them for 14 years of presiding over austerity, Brexit, a pandemic, political scandals and internecine conflict.
The historic defeat – the smallest number of seats in the party’s two-century history – leaves it depleted and in disarray and will spark an immediate contest to replace Sunak, who said he would step down as leader.
In a sign of the volatile public mood and anger at the system, the incoming Parliament will be more fractured and ideologically diverse than any for years. Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK. It won four seats, including one for Farage in the seaside town of Clacton-on-Sea, securing a place in Parliament on his eighth attempt.
The Liberal Democrats won about 70 seats, on a slightly lower share of the vote than Reform because its votes were more efficiently distributed. In Britain’s first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins.
The Green Party won four seats, up from just one before the election.
One of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland’s 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but handful, mostly to Labour.
Labour was cautious but reliable
Labour did not set pulses racing with its pledges to get the sluggish economy growing, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a “clean energy superpower.”
But the party’s cautious, safety-first campaign delivered the desired result. The party won the support of large chunks of the business community and endorsements from traditionally conservative newspapers, including the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the center ground of British politics.”
Conservative missteps
The Conservative campaign, meanwhile, was plagued by gaffes. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when rain drenched Sunak as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Then, Sunak went home early from commemorations in France marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are being investigated over suspicions they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of London, voters like Patricia Mulcahy, who is retired, sensed the nation was looking for something different. The community, which has long voted Conservative, flipped to the Liberal Democrats this time.
“The younger generation are far more interested in change,” Mulcahy said ahead of the results. “But whoever gets in, they’ve got a heck of a job ahead of them. It’s not going to be easy.”
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.
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.
A woman accused of traveling across the U.S. claiming to be an Irish heiress and scamming several victims out of tens of thousands of dollars has been extradited to the United Kingdom, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
Marianne Smyth, 54, faces charges of theft and fraud by abuse of position for allegedly stealing more than $170,000 from victims she met through her work as an independent mortgage adviser in Northern Ireland from 2008 to 2010.
A U.S. magistrate judge in Maine ruled in May that there was sufficient evidence for extradition of Smyth, who accusers say has also fashioned herself as a witch, a psychic and a friend to Hollywood stars.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the extradition, and referred questions to law enforcement officials in Northern Ireland. An attorney for Smyth did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Marianne Smyth is seen in this photo taken in 2013 in Los Angeles.
Johnaathan Walton / AP
Authorities overseas have said Smyth stole money that she had promised to invest and also arranged to sell a victim a home but instead took the money. The Maine judge’s ruling on extradition detailed several instances in which prosecutors allege Smyth pocketed checks of £20,000 (about $25,370) or more. One couple accused her of making off with £72,570 (over $92,000).
Smyth’s victims in the U.S. included Johnathan Walton, who worked as a reality television producer for “American Ninja Warrior” and “Shark Tank.” Walton also started a podcast titled “Queen of the Con” in an attempt to document his personal travails with Smyth and expose her misdeeds.
A court in Northern Ireland issued arrest warrants for her earlier this decade. She was arrested in Bingham, Maine, in February.
Smyth was slated to appear at the Newtownards Magistrates Court on Tuesday, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which obtained statements from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
It was not my plan to publish two media articles on the same day, and certainly not on a day when there are also major Supreme Court decisions. But today, the Spectator, a British publication, posted my new article on why opening doors to immigration is not merely charity for immigrants, but also benefits receiving-country natives. I did not intend for this piece to come out on the same day as my Dispatch article on the somewhat related issue of wokeness and nationalism. But that’s how the two publications’ timing worked out. Conspiracy-mongers (and not justVolokh Conspiracy-mongers) will, of course, suspect collusion!
Unfortunately, the Spectator does not generally include hyperlinks, which is why there are none in this article. However, the article is based in large part on a longer paper that is scheduled to be published by Institute of Economic Affairs. The IEA paper builds on material from my 2023 Public Affairs Quarterly article, “Immigration and the Economic Freedom of Natives.” I will post a link to the IEA paper when it’s up. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from the Spectator piece:
The 2024 general election ‘should be the immigration election’, Nigel Farage has said. The Reform leader’s wish has been granted: the topic of immigration is a major focus of debate. It’s also a big issue in the United States’ presidential election. Much of the debate in both countries depicts immigrants as a burden that receiving countries should accept (if at all) only out of altruism or a sense of obligation. But this is misleading, and ignores the many benefits of migration to Britain and other receiving countries.
Accepting migrants is the right thing to do, in part because it saves many thousands of people from what would otherwise likely be a lifetime of poverty and oppression…. But opening doors to such people also benefits Britain. Immigrants work, start businesses, and contribute to scientific innovation, often at higher rates than native-born citizens. That greatly benefits current UK citizens, as well as migrants themselves….
The United States is often considered the ‘nation of immigrants’. But Britain also has a long history of welcoming immigrants and benefiting from their contributions. Huguenot Protestant refugees fleeing repression in 17th and 18th century France played an important role in the early development of Britain’s economy, and the beginnings of the industrial revolution. More recently, Jewish and other refugees fleeing Nazi Germany contributed to scientific development, including weapons systems crucial to winning World War II. In the post-war era, British economic growth and scientific research was significantly bolstered by migrants from South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere….
Today, in Britain, as in the US, immigrants play a disproportionate role starting new businesses. A 2023 study found that 39 per cent of the 100 fastest-growing UK companies have an immigrant founder or co-founder, even though immigrants are only 14.5 per cent of the UK population. UK immigrants are also substantially more likely to start businesses than natives, and engage in other types of entrepreneurship. Such businesses contribute to growth and innovation, and provide valuable job opportunities for both immigrants and natives….
The benefits of immigration can be literally life-saving. The first two successful Covid-19 vaccines were developed in large part thanks to immigrants or the children thereof. Some fear that immigration will overburden the government budget. But most immigrants actually contribute more to the public purse than they take out. The economist Jonathan Portes finds that government data showed that recent increases in migration (which allowed in about 350,000 more migrants than previously expected) could, on net, increase government revenue by about £5 billion per year. The long-term fiscal benefits of higher immigration are likely to be much greater….
Other parts of the article address the issue of illegal migration, and the argument (increasingly prominent in the UK) that migration causes housing shortages.
I am about to depart for a trip to the UK, where I will be giving several lectures and talks, including on migration-related topics.
