Free Republic

Britain’s tilt to the right is being felt on its streets and in its politics. From Reform UK’s surge in local elections to far-right rallies that draw tens of thousands of people, once fringe voices seem to be moving into the mainstream. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh reports.

U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey unexpectedly quit on Thursday, saying the government is unwilling to spend enough on the military at a time of “rising threats.” The resignation dealt another blow to embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is already facing demands from Labour colleagues to step down. Healey told Starmer in a letter that the government’s Defense Investment Plan falls “well short of what is required at this dangerous time.” Publication of the plan has been delayed amid reports of disagreement between the Defense Ministry and the Treasury. Starmer said in a letter to Healey that he was sorry...

After resisting the military invasions of the Caliphate for centuries, Europe, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, decided to open its borders wide to migrants with entrenched supremacist beliefs. On May 19, 2026, the European Parliament inducted Angela Merkel into the inaugural European Order of Merit as a “Distinguished Member.” In this capacity, she holds a status comparable to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and former Polish President Lech Wałęsa. The award purportedly recognizes contributions to European integration and the defense of shared values. In a ceremony marked by protests from the Patriots for Europe alliance, who decried the event as...

Alice Smith reposted Nina Wysocka @realninawysocka Elon Musk to Starmer: “Murderous migrants beheading innocent people in their hometown is what’s making people angry, not social media!”

European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked. The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said. It also showed that, while many Europeans felt relations with Washington would improve once Donald Trump leaves...

The alleged knifeman in an “attempted beheading” that triggered riots in Belfast overnight has appeared in court, charged with attempted murder, knife possession, and threatening to kill an NHS radiographer.A court has heard Steven Ogilvy, the victim of the “attempted beheading” in north Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the United Kingdom this week lost one eye and suffered serious damage to the other, as well as deep cuts to his neck. He remains in hospital in serious condition. (snip) The BBC also notes the judge took the opportunity of Alodid’s first hearing to address the public in Northern Ireland, warning them...

Given its oft-proclaimed calling as a peace project, the European Union can sound oddly bellicose when it sets about crafting policy. There are trade and fiscal “bazookas” to blast away crises, “silver bullet” solutions for every problem, and “nuclear options” to be used as a last resort. Yet in the absence of an EU army or even a police force, the pen-wielding Eurocracy rarely gets its hands on anything that looks like an actual weapon. The only exception—tellingly—is the club’s border-patrol agency. For over a decade after it was founded in 2005, Frontex agents wielded little more than whistles and...

The grieving mother of a hotel worker who was murdered by an illegal migrant is asking Donald Trump for help after being repeatedly ignored by Sir Keir Starmer. Siobhan Whyte's daughter Rhiannon was stabbed 23 times with a screwdriver by HIV-positive Sudanese "asylum seeker" Deng Chol Majek in 2024. Since then, she has issued multiple pleas to Labour to hear her case - though they have fallen on deaf ears. Now, after Henry Nowak's murderer was jailed and the Prime Minister met with the Nowak family, Ms Whyte has escalated her case - and is now appealing directly to the...

Europe’s EU project has reached its limits: a centralized bureaucracy replacing politics itself, draining legitimacy, and pointing back toward sovereign, competitive states. Europe has reached the end of an era. Not the end of its history, but the end of its false form. For decades, the European Union served as the great substitute project of a continent that no longer dared to think politically. It promised peace without power, order without a people, unity without roots, and prosperity without cost. That was its founding lie, and it was a lie from the very beginning. Political order does not grow out...

Vice President JD Vance has spoken out against “the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants” in the United Kingdom after the brutal death of student Henry Nowak, the second U.S. intervention on “civilisational decline” in Britain in 24 hours. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer attempted to kick back against the President Donald Trump Administration and American concern for the country’s descent into chaos on Friday night, characterising comments from Washington as political interference and even an attempt to “stir up division on our streets”. U.S. Vice President JD Vance made one of the present Trump Administration’s...

Once upon a time, inequality in Europe was largely horizontal. The rich western half drove BMWs and holidayed abroad, while the poorer east rewired its own appliances and queued for bread. But three decades of catch-up growth in erstwhile communist countries has put paid to jokes about Romanian cars whose top speed was “downhill”. These days inequality in Europe has a vertical dimension—one that goes up and down family trees. Youngsters unable to move out of their parents’ spare room due to sky-high house prices wonder if they will ever enjoy the lifestyle as adults which they knew as kids....

As he sat in his restaurant in the Lithuanian capital, Liutauras Ceprackas, a chef, said he was one of the many Lithuanians who worry about a Russian invasion. He is not sure, he said, that his country’s 15,000-soldier army is big enough to stop one. Increasingly, he is not certain an American-led NATO would, either. That is why, three generations after Nazi Germany brutally occupied his country in World War II, Mr. Ceprackas, 51, is glad that Berlin has permanently stationed thousands of German soldiers in Lithuania. “This brigade is so strong and so well equipped that it’s like we...

The European Union (EU) may be gearing up to hit Google with a massive multimillion-euro fine for antitrust violations. The tech giant could be facing a penalty in the high hundreds of millions of euros, according to sources speaking to the German newspaper Handelsblatt. The final decision will reportedly rest with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and is expected to be announced before the European Commission's summer recess. The Commission typically goes on break in late July through to August, operating with a skeleton staff during this period. Google's parent company, Alphabet, is accused of violating the Digital...

Since the end of World War II, the United States has spent trillions of dollars defending Europe. After defeating the Nazis, America rebuilt the European continent with the Marshall Plan and shielded it from Soviet aggression while propping up European economies through subsidies and investments. We bailed out failing governments. We airlifted food into Berlin when it was being choked off by the Soviet Union. We sent military aid. We ultimately saved Europe from communism. And instead of gratitude, we receive lectures, censorship of American speech on European platforms, punitive fines against our tech companies, and open disdain for our...

The UK government today branded a far-right Israeli minister a 'disgrace' as it added its voice to international condemnation of a video he shared showing him taunting Gaza flotilla activists. Hamish Falconer criticised Tel Aviv's national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over an 'inflammatory' post on social media last week. The video showed masked officers aggressively subduing activists by pushing them down, forcing them onto all fours, and dragging them across the floor. The video posted to Ben-Gvir's X account on Wednesday also showed him goading them, waving an Israeli flag and saying 'That's how we welcome the terror supporters. Welcome...

President Trump on Thursday said the U.S. will send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland, stirring confusion following weeks of changing statements from Trump and his administration about reducing the American military footprint in Europe.

VIENNA—On May 9, the day before the Eurovision Song Contest held its opening ceremony, protesters were already in the streets. Israel’s participation, a fact of Eurovision since the country joined in 1973, had become a flash point after the war in Gaza began in 2023. Ahead of this year’s contest, the 70th edition of Eurovision, the controversy reached a fever pitch. What began as calls from artists and activists for Israel’s exclusion transformed in the months leading up to the contest into an open revolt. Five countries—Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain—announced they would not attend. Numerous former contestants...

Two senior Polish defense ministry officials are on their way to Washington to get more information on why the U.S. suddenly canceled the deployment of 4,000 soldiers on a planned rotation to the country. Paweł Zalewski and Cezary Tomczyk — both deputy defense ministers — will try to get details on what Zalewski called "the incident." "No one in Poland knew that the rotation of the American brigade would be suspended," Zalewski told TOK FM radio on Monday morning. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth blindsided Warsaw by halting the long-planned deployment of soldiers with the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st...

The European Commission found the treatment of the Gaza flotilla activists shown in a video released by Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is "completely unacceptable", a spokesperson said on Wednesday. "Every detained person must be treated with safety, dignity and according to international law," spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said in a post on X. "We call on the Israeli government to ensure the protection and dignified treatment of these activists, including several EU citizens," he added. Israeli police forced activists who were aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla to kneel on the ground in rows with their hands tied behind...

The Trump administration is planning to tell NATO allies this week that it will shrink the pool of military capabilities that the US would have available to assist the alliance’s European nations in a major crisis, three sources familiar with the matter said. Under a framework known as the NATO Force Model, the alliance’s member countries identify a pool of available forces that could be activated during a conflict or any other major crisis, such as a military attack on a NATO member. While the precise composition of those wartime forces is a closely guarded secret, the Pentagon has decided...