Free Republic

In Britain’s general election late last week, four “pro-Palestinian” independent candidates got elected for the first time to the British parliament. They had been prominently backed by a network of Islamic political activists, but their celebrations soon turned sour. Anti-Israel candidates in two further constituencies with sizable Muslim populations, Birmingham Yardley and Ilford North, missed out on victory by just a few hundred votes. The story behind these two electoral defeats may well be that of the most spectacular own goal in the history of Islamist political activism in Britain. Some hardcore Islamist fundamentalists believe that voting in western democracies...

Higher Taxes: Labour plans to raise taxes on North Sea oil and gas producers. Specifically, they intend to increase the existing windfall taxes from the current 75% to 78%. This move aims to fund their ‘green prosperity plan’, which includes investments in renewables through a state-owned vehicle called Great British Energy. Ban on New Licenses: Labour has pledged not to award any new North Sea oil and gas licenses if they come into power. This policy directly impacts potential developments like the Buchan oilfield, which contains approximately 100 million barrels of oil and was scheduled to produce its first oil...

The U.K. Blowout: Mark Steyn’s View [Updated]Mark Steyn comments on yesterday’s U.K. election. His thoughts are consistent with Scott’s, but expressed in Mark’s unique voice:Across the United Kingdom almost every constituency voted for lefties of various stripes – not just victorious Labour lefties, but also Scots nationalist lefties, Irish republican lefties, eco-lefties, Islamo-lefties and, of course, duplicitous pseudo-conservative lefties: you can get it in any colour as long as it’s red. So, if you’re one of those Britons concerned about, say, transformative mass migration or the right to freedom of speech, things are going to spend the next few years...

It's not like they really had a choice the way their system is set up and the almost total lack of appreciable differences between the two main parties. The 'conservative' Tories had held the reins of power for 14 increasingly shaky years, the last two under the inept and effete Rishi Sunak.The final nail in Sunak's projectile-studded political coffin was his tone-deaf early scuttle back to England from the 80th anniversary Normandy ceremonies. Sunak did so as not to miss a friendly - although God knows he needed one - prearranged television interview. It was inconvenient for his flailing camping...

LONDON — Populist lawmaker Nigel Farage on Friday won his first-ever seat in the U.K.'s parliament as he looks to shake up the country's politics with his right-wing Reform UK party. The win by the Brexit proponent follows seven failed attempts to become a member of the British parliament, although he has served as a (pro-Brexit) member of the European Parliament. "My plan is to build a mass national movement over the course of the next few years and hopefully be big enough to challenge the general election properly in 2029," Farage said after the result was announced. The result...

Keir Starmer became prime minister of Britain on Friday after his Labour Party delivered a decisive win in the general election. “Across our country, people will be waking up to the news that a weight has been lifted, a burden finally removed from the shoulders of this nation,” a jubilant Mr. Starmer told supporters in central London in the early hours of Friday morning. Using the analogy of a rising “sunlight of hope,” pale at first and getting stronger, he said the country had “an opportunity after 14 years to get its future back.”

What is 'first past the post' and why does it lead to results like this? The reason for the apparent disparity if the UK's first past the post (FPTP) voting system - in which the candidate with the largest number of votes in their constituency is elected. It’s a simple premise, but one that benefits Labour and the Conservatives. According to the Electoral Reform Society, which is against FPTP, this system leads to a situation where “even if millions of voters support the same party, if they are thinly spread out across the UK they may only get the largest...

Britain's Labour Party swept to power Friday after more than a decade in opposition, as a jaded electorate handed the party a landslide victory — but also a mammoth task of reinvigorating a stagnant economy and dispirited nation. Labour leader Keir Starmer will officially become prime minister later Friday, leading his party back to government less than five years after it suffered its worst defeat in almost a century. In the merciless choreography of British politics, he will take charge in 10 Downing Street hours after Thursday's votes are counted — as Conservative leader Rishi Sunak is hustled out. "First...

Labour Leader Keir Starmer poised to become Britain's next prime minister. British voters frustrated by a sluggish economy voted to oust their conservative party from power after 14 years of rule, and turn to liberal Labour Leader Keir Starmer to be their next prime minister. Exit polls showed the Labour Party was poised for a landslide victory, ending Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's turbulent tenure. "To everyone who has campaigned for Labour in this election, to everyone who voted for us and put their trust in our changed Labour Party - thank you," Starmer wrote on the X social platform after...

Well, I hope the French election on Sunday offers a faint glimmer of hope. Across the United Kingdom almost every constituency voted for lefties of various stripes - not just victorious Labour lefties, but also Scots nationalist lefties, Irish republican lefties, eco-lefties, Islamo-lefties and, of course, duplicitous pseudo-conservative lefties: you can get it in any colour as long as it's red. So, if you're one of those Britons concerned about, say, transformative mass migration or the right to freedom of speech, things are going to spend the next few years getting worse before there is any prospect of course correction....

@RaheemKassam EXCLUSIVE: Nigel Farage's first interview – with @RealAmVoice and @TheNatPulse – following his historic parliamentary victory in Clacton-on-Sea and the insurgency of his @reformparty_uk.

LONDON (Reuters) - Reform UK, the right-wing populist party led by Nigel Farage, looks set to emerge as a new force in British politics, winning its first seat in an election and squeezing the Conservative vote in the early results declared. Farage, a driving force behind Britain's decision to leave the European Union, only entered the election race last month, a move that caused shockwaves in a Conservative Party that was already far adrift of centre-left Labour.

Video game prop weapons are commonly seen in collections or at conventions. But it's a bad idea to carry around a replica video game weapon that has an actual blade attached to it. Anthony Bray, a resident of Nuneaton in Warwickshire, England discovered this the hard way when police arrested him last month for carrying a replica of Link's Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda. Via the Warwickshire police, Bray has been sentenced to four months in prison for carrying a bladed article in public. According to the report, Bray was spotted by officers on June 8 with the...

Rule, Britannia!A little over 14 years ago, I was in school, revising for upcoming exams and only faintly aware of an impending UK election because my school made us run a "mock election".The exercise revealed that kids voted in 1 of 3 ways: for the party that their parents liked, the party that had the most popular kid representing it as its fake leader, or the party that their parents specifically did not like, in a boring bit of teenage rebellion.The Conservatives won that mock election. They also won the most seats in the actual 2010 election, the 2015 election,...

President Trump should let the odious reptiles ruling the U.K. Know exactly where he stands by nominating dissident and ofttimes political prisoner Tommy Robinson as his ambassador to the U.K. This action woukd show respect and recognition to the citizens of the U.K. who are being colonized and impoverished by the communist government in London and let the politicians and establishment of the U.K. that the fundamental relationship needs repairing. Furthermore, Trump should grant Tommy Robinson citizenship.

The British Conservative Party, and I use the term “conservative” very, very loosely and solely because that is the actual name of the allegedly right-wing British party, is about to get destroyed in an election. And it should. It’s terrible. It’s conservative the way Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin are, which is not conservative at all, and its target voters are tired of it. The Tories had a huge victory just a few years ago, a shattering triumph that turned previously Labour seats into Conservative ones. And, of course, the wets – that’s Brit for “RINO” - squandered the chance...

@Nigel_Farage 🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨 Big Tech giant @Google has BLOCKED our Ad Accounts. They are trying to stop the Reform message. I hope @MattBrittin can look into this issue as a matter of urgency. We want action.

The Euro 2024 soccer tournament is under way in Dusseldorf, and in the U.K. there has been less attention to the games than hand-wringing over the likelihood of English fans singing “Ten German Bombers.” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has denounced the song as “offensive” and urged Brits not to sing it, as has England’s team manager. A German police chief has warned British fans, “Don’t be dicks.” Only a few voices have been raised in defense of English fans and their chant. So, seeing such consternation, I wanted to hear the song. As you no doubt assumed, it counts down,...

United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said on Tuesday that the Greek-owned coal carrier MV Tutor, struck by Houthi missiles and an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) on July 12, has sunk in the Red Sea. The Tutor became the second ship sunk by the Iran-backed Yemeni terrorists since they began their campaign of wanton attacks on commercial shipping in November. It also appears to have been the first ship to be severely damaged by a Houthi USV attack. The weapon was evidently a remote-controlled small boat packed with explosives.

~As I first wrote over two decades ago, Islamic supremacism attaches great importance to the annexation of the public space. To mark the Canadian centennial of 1967, half of Dominion Square in Montreal was renamed Place du Canada. Half-a-century later, during a Defund-the-Police protest, the magnificent statue of Sir John A Macdonald was toppled and decapitated, and the craven city council decided he would not be returned to his pride of place. But these are mere poseur flourishes. (Pierre) Trudeaupian nationalism is dead, and the "anti-colonialist" nihilism that supplanted it is a mere death-spasm of demographically irrelevant western youth. Like...