Free Republic

Wes Streeting has called for a “proper contest” to replace Sir Keir Starmer and confirmed he would stand if the race is triggered, as he and other senior Labour figures make their pitch to replace the Prime Minister. In his first public appearance since resigning as health secretary, Mr Streeting set out a fledgling policy platform for a run at the Labour leadership. He said Britain must pursue a “new special relationship” with the European Union and signalled he wanted to see the country rejoin the trade bloc in the future. Mr Streeting is among the senior Labour figures to...

The European Union is moving to tighten migration controls after years of struggling to deport most migrants ordered to leave, with a top official saying the bloc is now working to "get control back" ahead of sweeping new asylum rules set to take effect in June. European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said deportations have increased and new border screening systems are identifying potential security threats, part of a broader effort to address gaps in enforcement that have drawn criticism from the United States and fueled political pressure across Europe. "Ten years ago, we didn't have a...

As we mark the 81st anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe this Friday, 8 May, it’s clear that Germany will again be the leading European military power. Already next year its defense spending will be as much as that of France and Britain combined — and it is projected to be significantly larger by 2030. The German government’s declared goal is to have the strongest conventional army in Europe. True, France and Britain have nuclear weapons, but that means less money to spend on the rest of defense. So, the question is not “will this...

Europe will not submit to a more “brutal world”, and can instead be the base from which a new international order can be rebuilt, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, has said. Carney was speaking as the first non-European leader to attend a meeting of the European Political Community, which opened on Monday amid high tensions in the strait of Hormuz and renewed doubts about the US commitment to Nato. “We don’t think that we’re destined to submit to a more transactional, insular and brutal world, and gatherings such as these point to a better way forward,” he said. In...

Britain ​is set to enter talks to join the European Union's 78 billion ‌pound loan ($106 billion) to Ukraine, the government said on Sunday, in a further sign of deepening European defence ties under rising U.S. pressure. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected on Monday to tell ​a summit in Armenia's capital Yerevan of the European Political Community - a discussion ​forum set up after Russia's invasion in 2022 - that Britain wants ⁠to work with the EU to support Ukraine in getting vital military equipment, his ​office said.

Nato is “disintegrating”, Poland’s prime minister has said after the United States announced it was withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany. Donald Tusk made the dire assessment of the Western alliance on Saturday amid an escalating war of words between Donald Trump and Germany over Berlin’s criticism of the war on Iran. In a post on X on Saturday, Mr Tusk wrote: “The greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance. We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend.” On Friday evening, the US department of defence...

The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Service committees on Saturday expressed they are “very concerned” about the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany amid President Trump’s feud with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump on Wednesday had announced that he was reviewing a possible reduction of U.S. troops in Germany. “We are very concerned by the decision to withdraw a U.S. brigade from Germany,” the chairs, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), said in a joint statement. “Germany has stepped up in response to President Trump’s call for greater burden sharing, significantly increasing defense spending...

Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh 🚨 HOLY SMOKES. DOJ report just dropped a bombshell: The Biden DOJ aggressively targeted and harassed Christians, privately called them "CULTISTS" and sought out HARSH prison sentences for peaceful protests Even worse: They used the SPLC to do it! This is outright Christian persecution, right on American soil! LOCK UP everyone who carried this out. "That went beyond disagreement and moved to punishing Christians who held conservative religious beliefs in conflict with the administration's pro-choice gender ideology agenda." "The report found the Biden DOJ brought multiple cases against pro-life activists, many of them Christians, under the FACE...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested on Monday that Ukraine may have to accept that parts of its territory could remain outside Kyiv's control in ​a future peace deal with Russia, linking such concessions to ‌the country's prospects for joining the European Union. "At some point, Ukraine will sign a ceasefire agreement; at some point, hopefully, a peace treaty with Russia. Then it may ​be that part of Ukraine's territory is no longer Ukrainian," Merz ​told students at the Carolus-Magnus-Gymnasium in Marsberg, a town in ⁠North Rhine-Westphalia, on Monday. "If President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy wants to communicate this to his ​own population...

What started out as a plan for a common market evolved has matured into a central planner’s paradise with all the associated problems that once gripped the Soviet Union. The European Union is essentially the project of a bureaucratic elite, and is undemocratic at its core. It was designed, from its inception, to wrest power from the democratic institutions of individual European members and vest it within the EU bureaucracy. In recent decades, it has taken on a hideous form with the embrace of climate eschatology and destruction of industry in the name of net-zero. Even worse, it has promoted...

I asked my friend in Ireland what was going on as the media is downplaying stuff as usual. Here's her response: People are raging and worse it is getting. It’s been a slowly building … Our cost of living has gone unbearable for many. Gas is around 13 or 14 dollars a gallon if you were to put it in dollars 65 % of that is government tax then there is home heating oil - that has doubled. Then there is a housing crisis for Irish but immigrants get immediately given government housing while our homeless and violent crime skyrocket...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Sunday urged the EU to end its association agreement with Israel. In an escalation of his criticism against Israel, he said during a rally in Andalusia that “a government that violates international law or the principles of the EU cannot be its partner.” Spain will formally propose the termination of the agreement at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Tuesday in Luxembourg. Sánchez has emerged as one of Israel’s most vocal critics in the EU. He accused Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of committing genocide in Gaza and denounced the joint U.S.-Israel strikes...

A decade ago, Peter Hitchens warned that the atheist campaign to expel Christianity from Western public life would not produce a neutral, secular vacuum—but would instead open the door to something else entirely. In an interview on Conversations, he observed: “When they drive Christianity out of Europe, as they’re rapidly succeeding in doing, they will not create an atheist paradise. They will leave a space for Islam.” His point was not that Islam advances by force of argument alone, but that civilisations cannot remain religiously empty. The attempt to force Christianity from public life—education, law, and government—does not produce neutrality....

Poll in Spain: Trump and Netanyahu are seen as two of the three most dangerous leaders in the world. Trump was ranked as the biggest threat to world peace, followed by Russian President Putin. Spaniards perceive Netanyahu as more dangerous to peace than Iran's new leader. 81% of survey respondents said Trump is endangering global peace - more than any other leader. The Spanish government is considered the most hawkish in Europe against Israel and President Trump's policies. Why it matters: The survey reflects the worsening criticism in Spain towards Israel and the US, also among citizens and not just...

SNIP Just as globalists in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and across Old (and increasingly Islamic) Europe turned the “Reign of COVID Terror” into an opportunity to bilk taxpayers, enrich elites, and grow the totalitarian national security State, the same globalist scum quickly turned the Ukraine conflict into another “emergency” requiring more taxes, censorship, and public sacrifice. All of a sudden, anything criticizing the official public policies of Western governments was labeled “Russian disinformation.” If you disagreed with whatever the West’s vaunted “experts” said, you were dismissed as “Putin’s puppet.” Pro tip for information warfare enthusiasts: When...

The French president said that the objective is not to be the vassals of two hegemonic powersPARIS, April 3. /TASS/. During his visit to South Korea, French President Emmanuel Macron called for the formation of a "coalition of independence" to counter the unpredictability of the US and the alleged hegemony of China. "I think our objective is not to be the vassals of two hegemonic powers. None of these hegemonic powers, I would say. And we don’t want to depend on the dominance of, let’s say, China, nor do we want to be too much exposed to the unpredictability of...

Every civilization has had its oracles. In ancient Greece, kings traveled to Delphi to consult the Oracle of Apollo. In Babylon, rulers relied on astrologers and diviners to interpret signs in the heavens. Pharaoh's court included magicians and wise men who claimed insight into mysteries beyond human understanding. Humanity has always longed for a voice that could answer life's most difficult questions: What should we do? Where is the world headed? Who can guide us through uncertainty? Today, that voice may be emerging from an unexpected place--not from temples or altars, but from servers, algorithms, and neural networks. Artificial intelligence....

There are moments in a nation's history when a law reveals far more than legal intent. It exposes the moral direction of a country. This week may prove to be one of those moments for Canada. The passage of Bill C-9 through the House of Commons is not just another legislative development buried in the churn of parliamentary procedure. It is a flashing warning sign. For many Christians across Canada, it feels like something deeper is being put on trial -- not merely "hate," as the bill is framed, but biblical conviction itself. Canadian MPs passed Bill C-9, the so-called...

FRANCE COMPLETES REPATRIATION OF 129 METRIC TONS OF GOLD RESERVES BY SELLING GOLD HELD AT THE NY FED, BUYING NEW BARS IN PARIS⚠️ France just “repatriated” their gold reserves held at the NY Fed by selling them & using the proceeds to buy new “modern” gold bars in Paris according to an article from Reuters: “A 2024 internal audit recommended completing the ​process for the small share of French gold still held ⁠in New York. The residual stock of 129 metric tons, or about ​5% of France’s total gold reserves, was upgraded by selling the gold ​and buying compliant bars...

How Central Banks Plan to Control You | Catherine Fitts Interesting talk about money and power. Would like freeper input. What is to stop people from banding together and forming private bank entities like the Chinese do on chinatowns?