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Theresa May has signalled a tougher line on Scottish demands for greater devolution after Brexit, laying down a clear challenge to Nicola Sturgeon to call another independence referendum. The prime minister told the Scottish Conservative party she would fight against any further decentralisation of power which meant the UK became “a looser and weaker union”. “We cannot allow our United Kingdom to drift apart,” she said.

Sen. Rand Paul harshly criticized sen. John McCain during a Monday morning interview on “The Mike Gallagher Show.” “There’s been a long standing tradition that when you go over sees you don’t toady up to the sort of socialists in Europe and you say, ‘oh they look down their nose at us and they think they’re better than us,'” the Kentucky Republican stated. “He goes over there and criticizes the president.” “Look I will have disagreements with the president, but I will support him when he’s conservative,” he told Gallagher. “I think most of the policies that have come out...

The United States' new hostility to free trade deals under President Donald Trump is benefiting the European Union, the bloc's top trade official said Tuesday. After Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in late January, "many countries are now turning to us, because they believe protectionism is not the right answer," Swedish European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström told German business newspaper Handelsblatt. "We are already negotiating with almost all of them, or preparing conversations" with the countries around the Pacific Rim that had signed up to the US-led treaty, she went on. Since Trump's election, the Commission has sped...

This is a story which would never take place in the United States, at least not yet and not with the official permission of the government. The European Union has obviously become increasingly alarmed over trends in popular sentiment rippling through their member countries. This started with Brexit, but has more recently cropped up with the candidacies of Marie Le Pen and Geert Wilders. Clearly such rabble rousing is not to be tolerated in the largely socialist paradise so something had to be done. The solution? The EU has passed new rules which will allow them to cut the broadcast...

Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner in the first round of France’s upcoming presidential elections, has declared it is “time do away” with the European Union (EU), which has become a “bureaucratic monster”. According to EU Observer, the Front National leader told journalists it is time to “build another Europe, whether madame Merkel, monsieur Schulz or the other Commissioners want it or not”. The 48-year-old said “It is time to do away with an EU that is tempted by a fusion that destroys the Europe of nations”, echoing the sentiments of France’s late post-war leader, General Charles De Gaulle. The De...

Rising fuel and food prices are eating into household budgets as the impact of the Brexit vote on the value of the pound pushes up inflation, according to a Guardian analysis that casts doubt over how much longer consumers can continue to shore up the UK economy. Cracks are starting to show in the picture of economic resilience seen since last summer’s vote to leave the EU. Wage growth is slowing just as people’s living costs start taking off. Businesses are also feeling the pressures of the weak pound more intensely as it ramps up the cost of imported raw...

A controversial move by a Rome hospital to hire two specialist abortion doctors — because the majority of Italian doctors refuse to carry out the procedure — has caused an outcry. On Thursday, the president of Rome’s order of physicians, Giuseppe Lavra, asked Lazio’s regional governor to repeal the "unjust and discriminatory" call for two pro-abortion gynecologists. The governor, Nicola Zingaretti, had planned for the two doctors to be hired at Rome’s San Camillo hospital — one of the largest in the capital — where they would be tasked specifically with carrying out abortions. Zingaretti wrote in his blog that...

Extortion, loan-sharking and protection rackets are all part of the Mafia’s “Business Model”, it seems that the European Union has adopted this model in its Brexit negotiations with the U.K. After Jean Claude Juncker’s (President) announcement that Britain should pay 50 Billion Pounds to leave the EU club (family), is it any wonder that the Brits are starting to see the EU federalists as a “Godfatheresque” criminal organization.

The future of NATO and trans-Atlantic relations will be at the top of the agenda at the Munich Security Conference, which begins on Friday. British political scientist Anthony Glees says that Germany must become a “muscular democracy” and take the lead in Europe. […] “The largest weight is now on Germany’s shoulders. Chancellor Merkel must continue to convince people of the EU’s importance; she must spearhead the effort to redefine the EU. In order to do this, Germany must become a muscular democracy. It needs to shoulder far more responsibility for the physical security of Europe, especially Eastern Europe and...

After meeting with US Vice-President Mike Pence on Sunday (19 February), the Belgian prime minister said in a veiled criticism of President Donald Trump’s comments that Belgium, like other countries, would not allow the fragmentation of the European Union. US Vice-President Mike Pence arrived in Brussels on Sunday evening, the second stop of his European tour to reassure worried European leaders. Pence will meet European Council President Donald Tusk on Monday morning. The VP flew from Munich, Germany, where he attended the Munich Security Conference. […] “There is no question of allowing the fragmentation of the European Union. This message...

Poland’s Foreign Ministry said Monday it has written to the European Union in response to the bloc’s recommendations on rule of law in the country, the latest step in a standoff between Warsaw’s populist government and EU officials concerned about weakening democratic standards. Most of the EU’s concerns center on steps by the ruling Law and Justice party that have weakened the Constitutional Tribunal’s ability to act as a check on executive power. EU Vice-President Frans Timmermans said last year that he worried about a “systemic risk” to the rule of law in Poland. In December he sent non-binding recommendations...

The Star-Spangled Banner looked more starry than usual during one of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s appearances in Brussels. A background picture of the American flag that went up alongside the European Union flag as Pence and EU leader Donald Tusk spoke on Monday had 51 stars instead of the usual 50, one for each state.

A French court has ruled that extra-marital affairs dating website has the right to advertise its services and ruled that couples are not bound by the country’s civil code to be faithful to each other. The row began back in the winter of 2015 when French Catholics association sued Black Devine, the publisher's for extra-marital affairs dating site Gleeden, over some provocative adverts that promoted its services to those willing to cheat on their partners. "Contrary to anti-depressants a lover costs the Social security system nothing," read one of the bus stop adverts for Gleeden.  "Being faithful to two men...

A leading contender to be U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the European Union says the bloc is anti-American and the U.S. will try to build bilateral relationships with European countries instead. Ted Malloch tells the AP the U.S. is “critical and suspicious” of the EU project. […] EU parliamentarians have taken the unusual step of writing a letter, calling his views “outrageously malevolent.” …

Ted Malloch, President Donald Trump’s proposed ambassador to the European Union, made it clear on Sunday that the administration’s goal is to destroy the European Union. During an interview on BBC on Sunday, Malloch warned that the EU is in for a rude awakening: Whether the EU powers-that-be like it or not, Trump will only deal with countries on a nation-by-nation basis. That would effectively end the supposed underlying reason for the EU.Malloch said, “Trump won’t cow down to the powers that be. He’ll speak his mind even if it gets him in trouble or held in disregard for others....

Ted Malloch, President Donald Trump’s reported choice of US ambassador to the EU, predicts “seismic shifts” in transatlantic ties and the bloc’s disintegration, in comments to a German news weekly published Friday. After last year’s Brexit vote for Britain to leave the EU, he told Der Spiegel that “you can almost put any two letters in front of the word exit”, suggesting any of the other 27 member states could be next. […] He said Trump preferred to deal bilaterally with European countries rather than the bloc as whole, adding that “frankly, this also gives us the upper hand”. He...

Strict new European gun-control regulations will take another step on Thursday when a committee of the European Parliament votes on a set of measures. The Parliament and the European Commission already have agreed to the proposal in principle. Prompted by terrorist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen, these regulations would prohibit the civilian use of most semiautomatic firearms. As is typical of such laws, however, they will do nothing to prevent the kind of attacks being used to justify them. The proposed Firearms Directive would, among other things, ban various semiautomatic guns and magazines greater than 10 or 20 rounds, depending...

There you have it, it's official: the European Union has truly gone insane. EU President Donald Tusk ("president" is a misnomer; Tusk wasn't elected by European voters, of course, because that's how Europe rolls) wrote a letter to 27 EU heads of state listing Donald Trump as a threat along with communist China, dictatorial Russia, and murderous radical Islam: "An increasingly, let us call it, assertive China, especially on the seas, Russia's aggressive policy towards Ukraine and its neighbours, wars, terror and anarchy in the Middle East and in Africa, with radical Islam playing a major role, as well as...

Minister of State for Training and Skills John Halligan has called on the Taoiseach to withdraw from his scheduled St Patrick’s Day meeting with President Donald Trump in the White House. Mr Halligan, a member of the Independent Alliance, told The Irish Times it was his personal view Enda Kenny should not travel to Washington for the traditional ceremony where a bowl of shamrock is presented to the president. “Unless he changes his views on issues like immigration, and his attitude to women, we should have as little as possible to do with the president,’’ he added. Mr Halligan said...

The more I see of the Donald Trump administration, the more I like its style. Here’s a perfect example – in which Trump’s prospective new Ambassador to the European Union, Ted Malloch, tells it like it is in an interview with Andrew Neil on the BBC’s Daily Politics show. Neil asked Malloch why on earth he’d want to be Ambassador to the EU. AN: I mean you’re clearly not a great fan of Brussels or these bureaucrats like Juncker. TM: Well, I had in a previous year a diplomatic post where I helped to bring down the Soviet Union, so...