Free Republic

The rise of Nigel Farage has prompted political leaders across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to game the unthinkable: the breakup of the United Kingdom. Unionists who wish to save the union and nationalists who wish to end it are bracing for constitutional turmoil if Reform UK emerges triumphant – with Farage as prime minister or official leader of the opposition – after the next election. Representatives from each side believe a Farage-led government could trigger a hasty referendum on Irish unification and usher in Trump-style anti-immigration crackdowns that alienate the Celtic nations. The possibility of a strong Reform...

On Wednesday, Pierre Masselot received a text from his daughter’s nursery – less than 50 miles from the weather station that was the first this week to break the UK June temperature record – asking parents to collect children early because the school buildings were about to get worryingly hot. Similar scenes were repeated across Europe this week as the continent swelters through its most severe and widespread heatwave on record – an oppressive force made hotter by carbon pollution and less bearable by repeated failures to prepare for it. France experienced its hottest day and night on record, while...

A nightmare scenario has been playing on eastern European minds with increasing intensity since Donald Trump returned to the White House: what if Russia attacks and the US does not join the fight? On the rare occasions the question is posed out loud, nobody much likes the answer. In mid-May, at a gathering in Tallinn, the US undersecretary of state Thomas DiNanno was asked directly whether American troops would fight if Russia invaded the Baltic states. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then gave a meandering answer. It did not include the word “yes”. Politicians from the region usually try...