Free Republic

Keir Starmer hit back at Putin's chilling warning NATO countries would be at war with Russia if they allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles. The Russian dictator said allowing Kyiv to use missiles that could strike targets within the Kremlin's territory would change the "nature of the conflict". "It would mean NATO countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia," Putin told a state TV reporter on Thursday. But as Mr Starmer jetted to Washington on Thursday night for meetings with President Joe Biden, he told reporters: "Russia started this conflict. Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. Russia could end...

Sir Keir Starmer is under major fire this afternoon after he refused to rule out clobbering pensioners even more in the forthcoming Budget. At Prime Minister’s Questions, Tory MP Louie French rose to demand answers around rumours the government may be planning to withdraw two further crucial support measures from older people. Mr French specified pensioners’ free bus passes, and the single person council tax discount. Sir Keir ducked the simple question, replying: “As he knows very well, I am not going to preempt the Budget. It will all be set out in due course.” With a casual wave of...

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has accused the Prime Minister of presiding over a two-tier policing and prisons system in a furious Commons clash. Around 1,750 people were expected to be let out on Tuesday in a bid to ease overcrowding. The Reform leader said at Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs): “Yesterday we witnessed some extraordinary celebratory scenes outside Britain’s prisons, where in some cases serious career criminals were released. This to make way for, yes, rioters, but equally those who have said unpleasant things on Facebook and elsewhere on social media. “Does the Prime Minister understand there is a growing...

Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is recruiting Deborah Mattinson, a former strategy director to Britain’s far-left prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer. Mattinson will head to Washington, D.C., to brief the Harris campaign on Starmer’s Labour Party’s victory in Britain’s July 4 snap election, which returned them to power after 14 years in opposition. Mattinson’s approach focused on persuading traditional Labour voters, who had abandoned the party over its embrace of mass migration and woke ideology, to return to the fold. Harris, who previously advocated far-left policies such as banning fracking, decriminalizing illegal border crossings, and defunding the police, likely hopes a...

Binyamin Netanyahu has said that Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel is “shameful” and will “only embolden Hamas”. The government has suspended 30 of Britain’s 350 arms export licences with Israel amid concerns that the weapons could be used against civilians in Gaza in breach of international law. The decision covers components for fighter aircraft, helicopters and drones, as well as equipment for hitting targets on the ground. “This shameful decision will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organisation that savagely murdered 1,200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens....

Sir Keir Starmer is facing mounting criticism from Labour MPs and party grandees over his plans to scrap £1.5bn in winter fuel payments for pensioners, ahead of a Commons vote on the issue next Tuesday. In a sign of the problem facing the prime minister, 10 Labour MPs have signed a non-binding early-day motion calling for the measure to be delayed, while peers have also criticised the policy that would end support for 10mn pensioners. “When we won the election, there was a lot of hope, and that sense of hope is being chipped away,” said Clive Lewis, MP for...

Millions of pensioners are set to lose winter fuel payments this year after an attempt to block the cuts failed in Parliament. The government won a vote on the plan to restrict the payments to all but the poorest pensioners by 348 votes to 228 - a majority of 120. Fifty-two Labour MPs did not take part in the vote, including seven ministers, but it is not yet known how many had deliberately abstained or were absent from Parliament for another reason. Only one Labour MP voted against the government. Dozens of Labour MPs were reported to have been planning...

There is a party atmosphere outside Britain's prisons this morning as criminals set free under Labour's controversial inmate release scheme praised Sir Keir Starmer for giving them their freedom. Those walking out from behind bars whooped and punched the air in delight before hugging loved ones, with some crowing they would be finally be spending time with their girlfriends - but not before going to McDonald's. Some were greeted by a cacophony on their release, with friends blasting out music and giving them new clothes, and some even spraying the former prisoners with sparkling wine to celebrate their newfound freedom.

Leaders of two of the biggest unions have added further pressure on the government over its plan to cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners in England and Wales. Unite and the Public and Commercial Services Union have criticised the plan, while the head of the Trades Union Congress which brings together the unions also expressed his concerns. It comes as the prime minister faces a potential rebellion at a vote in the Commons on Tuesday if Labour MPs refuse to support the policy. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the cut is necessary due to the state...

The prime minister has told the BBC his new government is "going to have to be unpopular" as he defended his "tough" decision to cut winter fuel payments. Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg in his first major interview in Downing Street, Sir Keir Starmer said he was determined to deliver change but this meant having to "do the difficult things now". Challenged on his plan to remove winter fuel payments from most pensioners while also awarding above inflation pay rises to some public sector workers, he said he was "fixing the foundations" and those in need would still get...

...Referring to one of ABF’s constituent brands, Primark, Mr Weston said the retailer annually lost more to shoplifting than it paid in business rates... Shortly before Mr Weston’s despairing announcement, Paul Gerrard, who runs public affairs at the Co-op...spoke of “people coming into our stores with wheelie bins, people coming into our store with builder’s bags to steal the whole confectionery section, the entire sprit section, the entire meat section”... The lawlessness that gives Britain such a dystopian feel – the marauding shoplifters, the Rolex rippers, the smartphone thieves, the lethal parade of teenagers with knives whose conception of the...

The NHS in England has been "broken" by successive Conservative-led governments - and the state it is now in is "unforgiveable", Sir Keir Starmer has told the BBC. In his first major interview in Downing Street, the prime minister said a review of the health service to be published on Thursday finds changes to the NHS were "hopelessly misconceived". He said austerity in the coalition years, and then the Conservative government's handling of the pandemic, left the NHS in an "awful position". Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir added that the review by an eminent surgeon, Lord Darzi,...

Eight arrests have been made as pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through central London in protest at the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Thousands of campaigners set off from Piccadilly Circus shortly after 1.30pm on Saturday, with the march passing alongside Hyde Park before ending on Kensington Road. The Metropolitan Police said in a post on X that the arrests were for a range of offences, including those under the Public Order Act. Protesters held signs at the demonstration that read 'Starmer has blood on his hands' and 'Stop the war coalition'. The march was briefly halted when at least two...

Fresh off the crackdown on so-called “keyboard warriors” over social media posts connected to the recent anti-mass migration riots, leading leftist politicians in Britain are beginning to demand for new speech restrictions on the internet. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose neo-liberal Labour Party government enacted some of the strictest speech laws in modern British history, has joined the chorus of commentators demanding a new crackdown on social media.

Sir Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, will meet US President Joe Biden in the White House next week, against the backdrop of a recent divergence between the two allies on their approach to the Israel-Hamas war. The Gaza conflict will be on the agenda for the meeting, announced by the White House on Friday, which will see Starmer hold his second meeting with Biden since becoming prime minister on July 5. Starmer this week announced Britain was suspending some arms export licences to Israel after a British government review found possible breaches of international humanitarian law by Israel. He has...

The left-wing Labour Party government in Britain announced Monday that it will be suspending dozens of arms export licences to Israel over concerns of UK weaponry being used to violate human rights in Gaza. Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the House of Commons that the British government will be suspending 30 of its 350 arms export licences to Israel, including UK-made components used in military drones, helicopters, and aircraft, including fighter jets used by the Israelis. The move comes after months of protests by left-wing activists and a two-month review conducted by the Foreign Office, The Guardian reports. While the...

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has removed a portrait of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from No. 10 Downing Street. This decision was first revealed by Starmer’s biographer, Tom Baldwin, during an event at Glasgow’s Aye Write book festival. The portrait, which had been prominently displayed in Thatcher’s former office – informally known as the Thatcher Room – was commissioned by Gordon Brown in 2009. Painted by Richard Stone, the artwork was unique as it was the first portrait of a former prime minister to be specifically commissioned for No. 10. It was financed by an anonymous donor and reportedly...

Two men have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a man in a wheelchair was stabbed to death with a machete Wednesday in east London. The BBC reports the Metropolitan Police confirm officers were called to reports of an altercation in Clapton at 15:38 and found a man with a stab injury. Jade Anthony Barnett, 38, was treated by paramedics but later died at the scene, police say. Air ambulance resources were also called in. His sister Simone Barnett described the deceased to the outlet as a “cheerful and caring” man, explaining her brother had lived in Clapton with...

Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed pensioners’ worst fears. There will be no U-turn on his decision to remove the winter fuel payment. He has said it is a choice he “has to make”, a decision he “didn’t want” to make. But this cannot be true. Be under no illusions, this is a cold, hard political calculation. Sir Keir is trying to dress up his political choices as “difficult decisions”, sheepishly blaming everyone but himself. He is trying to take the 10 million pensioners who will lose their annual payment for fools. Removing the winter fuel payment is something he cannot...

21 minutes. They want to arrest him for a documentary he made. He's out of the country. Unrests are blamed on him. Link to transcript below the video.