Free Republic

Four years ago, Nigel Farage decided he had achieved all he could in British politics. The gregarious English populist had campaigned for decades for Britain to leave the European Union, arguing the U.K. needed to make its own regulations and stop European migrants flowing in freely from the Continent to live and work. By 2021, Brexit was finally done. And so was Farage. “This has taken away the better part of my adult life,” he said as he announced he was quitting as leader of his anti-immigration party Reform UK. “I’m done.” Now Farage is back—and Reform UK is currently...

The King of Canada wants President Trump to back off. Just don’t expect him to actually say that publicly. Britain’s King Charles III, who is also Canada’s head of state, is wrestling with an unprecedented diplomatic headache. The monarch wants to stand up for the largest country in his realm as Trump talks about turning it into the 51st U.S. state. At the same time he has to honor the British government’s desire that he keep Trump, who deeply admires the royal family, sweet. The result has been a master class in passive-aggressive pageantry from Buckingham Palace. Earlier this month,...

The British military—the leading U.S. military ally and Europe’s biggest defense spender—has only around 150 deployable tanks and perhaps a dozen serviceable long-range artillery pieces. So bare was the cupboard that last year the British military considered sourcing multiple rocket launchers from museums to upgrade and donate to Ukraine, an idea that was dropped. France, the next biggest spender, has fewer than 90 heavy artillery pieces, equivalent to what Russia loses roughly every month on the Ukraine battlefield. Denmark has no heavy artillery, submarines or air-defense systems. Germany’s army has enough ammunition for two days of battle.