This is a clown-car government elected on a seriousness ticket iandunt.substack.com/p/a-clown-go...

The tragedy? Labour still won’t admit it. So instead of rebuilding the relationship, they’re doubling down on border theatre, hostile-environment politics and a pretend reset that’s already falling apart. Brexit was Project Folly. And unless Labour changes course, Project Folly becomes permanent.

This from @stephenkb.bsky.social cuts to the heart of the matter. Does the government not understand how toxic this argument is? Do they think they can somehow weaponise it? The last governments at least had the merit not of making this kind of foul claim.

During a decade of Brexit debates, BBC Question Time invited 50 British MEPs from the EU Parliament onto its show. Every single one of them was pro-Brexit. 45 were UKIP, 3 were Tories, 2 were Reform. Farage alone appeared as an MEP 23 times! Not one pro-EU MEP was invited onto the show. Not one!

Everything about the current 'debate' around this is dismal, not just morally but because it is so stupid. For example: It conflates asylum-seeking and illegal immigration (and sometimes with migration generally) It shows no understanding of why there is AS www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... 1/3

A week of chaos, cowardice and negligence: Labour has managed to pack so many failures into a single five day period that it's becoming difficult to remember all the details iandunt.substack.com/p/a-week-of-...

What is truly pathetic about Labour is that this is all they have got. They have failed so spectacularly already, despite a whacking great majority, to even attempt to govern positively that all they have is punching down on marginalised groups and saying "oh but Reform will be worse".

This is as bad as anything proposed by Reform. Leaving refugees in permanent limbo and unable to build a new life in the UK would be a complete abdication of our humanitarian responsibilities www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Well, this is quite a serious allegation. I do hope the BBC shows true impartiality and investigate whether or not some of its Board members are systemically biased. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...

🚨🚨Things are just getting worse. 🧵 www.politico.eu/article/us-a...

European negotiators were personally targeted by their American counterparts during a brutal negotiation over green shipping rules, European Commission officials told POLITICO.  This highly unusual gambit left diplomats shaken after the meeting. 

My column in the @ftweekend.com: Keir Starmer is in trouble because he has not been serious about governing, and the best way for him to turn things around is for him to become serious:

one of the most quietly damning things I've read in ages, this

Labour is trapping itself in a new lie. Saying that the costs of Brexit are the fault of how it was implemented implies that you can implement it in a way that undoes them. Labour's red lines on the Customs Union and Single Market mean we have to live with almost all of those costs.

President Macron: “We were very naive to leave our public space to social media networks controlled by US or Chinese companies that don’t share our interests and not interested in survival of our democracies.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=MggN...

"You should never overestimate the extent to which the BBC changed this country by giving endless airtime to Nigel Farage, other far right extremists and the Tufton Street junktanks, while shutting out progressive voices." – George Monbiot

People recognised as refugees fleeing persecution & granted the right to live in the UK to be denied the right to be joined safely by their spouse & children. This Labour govt is a moral void, a stinking darkness, an empty hollow of cowardice & contempt. #r4today www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

"In Europe, the technocrats who govern [...] share the same incomprehension at the offensive they are facing. They [fail to] acknowledge that Trump and the tech bros’ goal is to impose regime change on this side of the Atlantic as well."

The big tech companies are reversing the intellectual and political gains of the Enlightenment and returning us to a New Dark Ages of ignorance, rage and superstition - it's the most important story of our time jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-o...

It helps to understand modern politics if you understand that parts of the new right are as dedicated to overthrowing modern democratic societies as much as the communist left of old. They believe society has become corrupted. What is different is their media and business support.

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

STOP APPEASING FASCISTS. Just sums up everything wrong with this government's approach at the moment, encouraging division rather than finding ways to bring the vast majority together.

Another problem is that UK politics has a serious "pipeline problem". If Starmer keeled over tomorrow, I've no idea who would replace him. I don't even know who the frontrunners would be. There are no experienced, tested candidates in either main party, because UK politics no longer develops that

Astonishingly, I've discovered, the Tufton Street junktanks that shaped Liz Truss's agenda are still operating at the heart of government. Remind me what we voted for again ... This week's column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Lucy Connolly was convicted of inciting racial hatred, and her tweet was part of the tinder that lit violence, intimidation, looting, and thuggery across England last year. The fact Reform conference gave her a standing ovation says everything about that movement. bylinetimes.com/2025/08/27/l...

This report by Chris Mason is the most shockingly biased piece I’ve ever seen the BBC produce and that is saying something. Reform lauded a woman jailed for racial incitement and a dangerous anti vaxxer as it was revealed Farage dodged £44k in tax, FYI. No mention. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I cannot for the life of me understand why Labour didn’t make it its first priority to clear out the entire top management of the BBC the minute it came into office.

It isn't mostly about the boats, it isn't mostly about the growth, it is rather a generalised feeling that the system is working against ordinary people. Populists find it easy to turn this into an exercise in scapegoating someone or something.

When centrists adopt far-right rhetoric, they don’t make themselves stronger. They make themselves look inauthentic, legitimise the far right, and shift the political debate onto terrain defined by their opponents. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

‘The legal position is therefore clear: yes there is provision for a state to leave the ECHR and the Refugee Convention. But doing so comes with both legal and political consequences.’ H/T @cbarnard.bsky.social ukandeu.ac.uk/leaving-the-...

I’ve signed this petition to ensure plurality of political coverage across UK broadcast media at all times petition.parliament.uk/petitions/71...

Watching folk get radicalised over the other place is quite the depressing sight. But then again, if government isn't prepared to tell a story of complexity, not surprising if many people think there really is a simple solution like leave the ECHR.

Labour's cowardice in the face of extremism iandunt.substack.com/p/labours-co...

What has happened in American politics could easily happen in the UK too, writes @davidallengreen.bsky.social.

A while ago I would have agreed that the most logical choice medium term is for Britain to find stability outside the SM. But we are now talking about a world in which the USA are a fascist regime and the EU is the only remaining fully democratic world power. That changes everything.

Realism is not doomerism. Doomerism is: “We’re all gonna die, Earth will die, nothing matters” etc. Realism is: “Even given maximum mitigation measures, we’re in for very rapid social, political, and ecological change, and we need to mentally prepare for it.” They are not the same.

A day of shame for the UK. A political party proposes mass deportations and the response from other political parties is not to condemn this as going further than even Mosley or the National Front.

Nigel Farage tells his press conference that his deportations will save the UK "hundreds of billions" of pounds. He knows he can make literally anything up at this point and not be called out for it

There have always been Trumps, as there have always been Johnsons and Farages. None are particularly complex or interesting characters. What needs understanding is how the barriers that shut them out have collapsed, and why - in the case of the first two - established parties have knelt before them.

US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is blocking America's closest intelligence allies from receiving updates on Russia-Ukraine peace talks in a shock move that upends decades of tight cooperation.

Good piece, including this observation: "it is simply not the done thing to ask whether the rage is justified. Anger, being authentic, never has to explain itself."

🔴 The Media Distortion Warping Britain’s Views on Immigration Unbalanced coverage of migration is twisting the public’s perspective, argues @chrchristensen.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2025/08/12/t...

Arresting 400+ people for the "terrorist" offence of protesting against mass murder while large segments of the right are openly encouraging riots against immigrants is a tale of a very unhappy country and government.

Buried in The Observer yesterday was this: UK police knocking on doors demanding details of social media accounts of people, to pass to a foreign government, simply because they happen to live near where a US politician wanted to have a holiday observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

What’s harder to stomach is the xenophobic slur of “island of strangers,” the anti-EU bluster, the disregard for the public’s will, and the choice to leave the most vulnerable exposed — all while cosying up to Trump and Vance in a way that should make any decent person feel physically sick. .2/2

If you're still a Labour supporter and of a sensitive disposition, you may wish to look away now. This is what Starmer was happily tweeting earlier today... x.com/keir_starmer...

New YouGov polling. A monumental failure of our political class to educate, a monumental failure of our media to report fairly, for a generation

🚨🚨 Great piece by Minna and I think the core of the argument in this piece still holds true, despite the EU arguably 'caving' in to Trump on the recent trade EU-US deal.

1/ The 🇺🇸 appear to be trying to use the 🇬🇧 to attempt to undermine 🇪🇺 food standards. The 🇬🇧 is lowing food standards in secret by Statutory Instruments. You can check what has been used here: statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk?page=19