Free Republic

Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party has faced a raw deal as Tory voters leave the party, while a poll has revealed they may be headed elsewhere. A YouGov poll on voting intention showed a spike in Reform UK’s support now at nine points - up by four. This follows the Tories dropping three points to 22 per cent and Labour dropping one point to 47 per cent, a change apparently in favour of Reform UK. The Liberal Democrats have seen no change, with nine per cent of the vote. The poll, from November 29 to 30, also saw Keir Starmer’s lead...

Traitor!.. A video clip shows BBC political editor Nicholas Watt being chased down and confronted by anti-lockdown protesters outside Downing Street. Protests are once again growing after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced yet another delay to the lifting of the UK’s lockdown restrictions. As we highlighted yesterday, the public was already being prepared for an extension to the extension before the first extension was even announced. Demonstrators are once again gathering around Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament in London to express their fury. BBC Newsnight editor Nicholas Watt was caught in the crossfire of their ire as he...

The Met said demonstrators hurled missiles, including bottles, during the protest in Hyde Park, which were attended by an estimated 10,000 people. Two officers were taken to hospital, although their injuries were not believed to be serious, the Met said. Photographs posted on social media showed a female police officer bleeding from a cut to her head, while another suffered a similar wound on his forehead. Some shoppers in Oxford Street were heckled by the crowd and told to “take your masks off”, according to eyewitnesses. London mayoral candidates Piers Corbyn and Laurence Fox – two of the four anti-lockdown...

A dispute that has roiled Borough Park, an Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn, took a dark new turn Sunday night after Heshy Tischler, the man who led protests against COVID-19 restrictions there last week was arrested and charged with inciting a riot. The New York Police Department announced Sunday night that it had taken Tischler into custody and that he had been charged with “inciting to riot and unlawful imprisonment in connection with an assault of a journalist.” That journalist was Jacob Kornbluh, a reporter for Jewish Insider whom Tischler, with a crowd at his back, cornered during a protest Wednesday...

Amid increasing frustration over lockdown measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic, multiple protests took place across Europe on Saturday to demand businesses reopen. In Warsaw, Poland, law enforcement used tear gas on protesters, while police made arrests at a demonstration in London's Hyde Park. Police in several German cities enforced distancing rules as thousands of people gathered to vent anger over economies in freefall and perceived losses of freedom. Police in Stuttgart said that the number of demonstrators exceeded the permitted threshold of 5,000; they directed other protesters to another open space. Police said they were enforcing a mask requirement...

Demonstrations took place on Saturday in several European cities against restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of the coronavirus, with tear gas used on protesters in Poland and arrests made at a gathering in London’s Hyde Park. Police in several German cities enforced distancing rules as thousands of people gathered to express a mix of frustrations — at restrictions battering the economy and a perceived loss of civic freedom. In some places, people also voiced conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine views. Angered by a slew of lockdown measures, purported vaccine plans or alleged state surveillance, thousands took to the streets on...