Free Republic

There is a tendency these days to conflate successful diplomacy with garnering favourable headlines. Negotiating powder is rarely kept dry. Keeping an opponent guessing about one’s intentions and capabilities is secondary to issuing punchy soundbites that play well with the media. Politicians, feeling the hand of history on their shoulder, fall victim to grandiosity — until grim reality taps them on the other one. This is now happening to Sir Keir Starmer as he watches his vaunted “coalition of the willing” for a muscular European peacekeeping force in Ukraine evaporate. As reported in this newspaper, appeals from Britain and France...

Nigel Farage angrily tore into Sir Keir Starmer’s record on small boat crossings days after it emerged 10,000 migrants had already arrived on Britain’s shores this year. In a furious Prime Minister's Questions row, the Reform UK leader demanded that Sir Keir finally admit his “smash the gangs” rhetoric was merely an election slogan and not successful in ending the UK’s migration madness. Mr Farage told the House of Commons: “This year, 10,000 young, undocumented males have illegally crossed the English Channel into our country – a 40% increase on this time last year, many coming from cultures that are...

Downing Street has said that British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer no longer believes that so-called “transgender women” are actually women in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling confirming the nature of biological reality. Last week, Britain’s top court found that “the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man,” meaning that supposedly transgender individuals will be prohibited from using single-sex spaces like female-only changing rooms or bathrooms. The ruling will also likely bar biological males from competing in women’s sports. While Prime Minister Starmer has previously struggled with the concept of binary...

Sir Keir Starmer was last night accused of being in thrall to 'the wokerati' after the full list of the paintings removed from No10 since he moved in was revealed. Portraits of historic figures such as Elizabeth 1, Mary, Queen of Scots, Sir Walter Raleigh and William Shakespeare were among the 69 works of art 'deinstalled' from the Government Art Collection since the election. The revelation comes after a long Freedom of Information battle with the Tories. Among their replacements are Altar, a scene from the 2023 Falmouth Reggae Festival in Cornwall by Denzil Forrester. Other paintings include All Things...

London -- Keir Starmer hailed the contributions of British Sikhs across all walks of life in the UK in his Baisakhi greetings from 10 Downing Street on Sunday. Having hosted a special reception earlier this week to mark the festival symbolising the birth of the Khalsa, Starmer posted a video on social media showcasing the festivities along with his Baisakhi message. “It’s really fantastic to be able to come together and to celebrate the contribution of British Sikhs to our nation, and what a contribution that is and has been and will be into the future,” said Starmer. “From across...

Parliament has been recalled for a rare Saturday sitting to pass an emergency law aimed at saving British Steel's Scunthorpe plant from imminent closure. Sir Keir Starmer said the legislation would allow ministers to "take control" of the Lincolnshire site and stop its Chinese owner from closing its blast furnaces. The move opens the door to a full nationalisation of the company at a later stage, with the prime minister saying "all options" remained on the table. Talks have been taking place this week to keep production going at the firm, after owners Jingye said its blast furnaces were "no...

PM Keir Starmer will aim to pass an emergency law on Saturday to "take control" of British Steel's plant in Scunthorpe, which is running out of raw materials to make steel The potential closure of Scunthorpe's British Steel plant would be devastating for workers and their families, the GMB union says If passed, the new law will give power to Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds to direct and control British Steel - and could allow nationalisation later down the line The PM and Reynolds expressed disappointment in British Steel's Chinese owner Jingye, which says it has been losing around £700,000 a...

Police officers on foot will patrol every busy neighbourhood at peak times as part of a set of community-focused measures to be unveiled by Keir Starmer. In an announcement billed as a return to an era of “bobbies on the beat”, the prime minister will also confirm that every neighbourhood in England and Wales will be given a named and contactable police officer. The plans are expected to be in place by July, and follow the government’s promises to restore confidence in community policing. Labour’s leadership is under pressure to offer new policies for party councillors in England to sell...

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are actively considering nationalising British Steel in an escalation of plans first revealed in the Guardian last year. The prime minister said all options were on the table to secure the future of the Scunthorpe plant, which is owned by the Chinese firm Jingye and employs about 3,500 people. The possibility of nationalisation was first revealed in December but discussions have taken on fresh urgency with US tariffs and talks about a financial support package to move to less polluting technology having faltered. The government has now been forced to consider more drastic options, ranging...

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will announce Sunday that he understands the rationale behind President Donald Trump’s tariffs and that the West is entering a new economic era. “The world has changed, globalization is over and we are now in a new era,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement to the Sunday Times. “We’ve got to demonstrate that our approach, a more active Labour government, a more reformist government, can provide the answers for people in every part of this country.” The statement comes after Trump announced new tariffs on dozens of countries around the world on Wednesday,...

Keir Starmer’s Groundbreaking Speech: A New Era Beyond Globalization In a pivotal moment for British politics and global discourse, Labour Leader Keir Starmer is set to deliver a significant speech on Monday. His declaration that “globalization is over” signals a transformative shift in the political landscape, suggesting that we have entered a new era, marked by changing dynamics and ideologies. This statement has generated considerable interest and speculation about its implications for the United Kingdom and beyond. Understanding Starmer’s Position on Globalization Starmer’s upcoming address comes at a time when the world is grappling with the consequences of globalization. Over...

The vast majority of British Muslims identify with their religion over their nationality, a report has found. A study conducted by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL), based on survey data and interviews with 815 British Muslims, has found that over seven in ten (71 percent) identify as Muslims first. In contrast, just 27 percent of British Muslims said they primarily identified as British, English, or Scottish. The report found that younger people were far more likely to identify as Muslims first at 85 percent, compared to older Muslims, a majority of whom (57 percent) identified...

Sir Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump have agreed on the need to “keep up the collective pressure on Putin” during a phone call, Downing Street said. The Sunday night call came after Mr Trump said he was “angry, pissed off” with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for questioning the credibility of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. -snip- The US president openly aired grievances toward Russian President Vladimir Putin in the interview. "I was very angry – pissed off – when Putin started getting into Zelenskyy's credibility, because that's not going in the right location, you understand?" Trump told Welker,...

Keir Starmer should fight back strongly against Donald Trump if he imposes punitive tariffs on British exports, senior UK and EU diplomats said on Saturday night, amid heightened fears that the US president could trigger a global trade war with devastating effects on the UK economy. British government officials in London and Washington are working frantically this weekend to try to persuade Trump not to slap duties on more key UK industries on what he is calling “liberation day” on Wednesday. The US president has already announced plans for 25% levies on imports of cars, steel and aluminium to the...

As the peace negotiations face the inevitable hurdles from both the Russian and the Ukrainian sides, it’s now the Europeans that are doing their level best to derail the process. And it’s UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France’s President Emmanuel Macron who are the self-appointed ‘saboteurs-in-chief’ tasked with posturing and lecturing to the all-too-friendly MSM. Now, Starmer and Macron started to patronize US President Donald J. Trump and his team, ‘warning’ them against ‘trusting Vladimir Putin’. Besides that, they both made it clear they will not relax any sanctions on Russia as part of a ceasefire deal – effectively...

With a staccato burst, a horn sounded in the control room of the H.M.S. Vanguard, sending the crew of the nuclear-armed Royal Navy submarine to battle stations. The voice of the commanding officer crackled over the intercom. “Set condition 1SQ,” he said, ordering its battery of ballistic missiles to be readied for launch. It was just a drill, conducted last Monday for a visiting V.I.P., Prime Minister Keir Starmer... Back on a tugboat, taking us to shore in the Firth of Clyde, Mr. Starmer sat alone, staring out a window at the gathering clouds. It has been a defining, if...

Keir Starmer’s approval ratings have shot up since Donald Trump returned to the White House and shocked Europe by withdrawing political and military support for Ukraine, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. Starmer’s Labour government as a whole has also gained public support for its response to the global turbulence caused by Trump’s return – on security and economic issues. His personal ratings have risen by 10% – albeit from an alarmingly low point – compared with a month ago. Strikingly, Labour, rather than the Conservatives who are traditionally seen as stronger on defence, are now seen...

Before Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky met with President Trump last week he met with a bipartisan group of senators that included: Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), Roger Wicker (R-Miss), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) Chris Murphy (D-Conn) Peter Welch (D-Ver) Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) Chris Van Hollen (D-Md). As Sen. Murphy described the meeting, "President Zelensky left here persuaded that he should not accept a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants without any security arrangements for Ukraine." Less than an hour later Zelensky was thrown out of his meeting with Trump empty-handed. He...

Less than three years ago Liz Truss, not yet British prime minister, could not decide whether Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, was a “friend or foe”. Her predecessor, Boris Johnson, mocked French diplomatic protest at AUKUS, a submarine deal that cut out France, with a flippant “Donnez-moi un break!” Today Britain and France have put such theatrical rivalry behind them. As Sir Keir Starmer, the current prime minister, and Mr Macron jointly take the lead on Europe’s effort to salvage support for Ukraine, the Anglo-French tie seems more solid than it has for many years.

Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are considering accompanying Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington to salvage his relationship with Donald Trump. The visit would be part of a three-pronged plan being worked out by Kyiv’s European allies after a dramatic spat in the Oval Office between the US and Ukrainian presidents led to Washington suspending military support for the war-torn nation.