🟥 Brexit promised rule-making. Delivered rule-taking. If we’re going to follow EU rules anyway, why aren’t we helping write them? Time to Rejoin

I wrote about this last month. Overshooting on reducing migration is going to be very costly. samf.substack.com/p/the-oversh...

Never more important than it is again today! www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...

The most generous explanation for this is that he's an idiot who just hasn't even bothered to look at how vaccines work. The worst is that he's deliberately spreading misinformation that will put actual lives at risk, in order to please his conspiracy-theory loving base

Saw this on X. Merlin Strategy, run by Scarlet Maguire (formerly of JL Partners) is Farage's favoured polling company. Until very recently, registered at the same address as the Brexit Party's old one. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Let’s start with the facts. The European Union is the world’s largest trading bloc. Membership means access to a single market of hundreds of millions of people, shared standards, and collective negotiating power. That matters for jobs, investment, and growth.

🗳️ "In 2026, the fight to ensure every vote counts will be more urgent and more winnable than at any point in a generation." 2026 is shaping up to be a significant year for our democracy. Our CEO Emma Harrison reflects on the opportunities and challenges ahead 👇

British woman left stranded in Hungary after the Home Office refuse to let her bring 13-year-old niece to the UK. The girl, who was abandoned by her parents, could now end up in state care, following the Home Office's decision bylinetimes.com/2026/01/08/b...

Nigel Farage confirms that Reform UK will vote *against* the bill to lift the two child cap, keeping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty.

Farage is suddenly a fan of the two-child benefit cap, just after Labour came out against it

Under FPTP, elections feel like playing 5D chess. If I vote for this candidate, will I keep that one out? Or will voting for this party let that party in? It's exhausting. Under PR, you can vote for the party you support, knowing that your vote will count. Simple - and fair.

Calling NATO a one-way subsidy ignores how much Europe provides. This letter to the editor analyses all the ways the US benefits from European infrastructure, tax breaks, logistics, long-term host nation support and assistance with US missions ⤵️ @eastangliabylines.co.uk

Trump’s America: - ICE agents murder US citizen driving away from them - kidnaps foreign head of state - threatens to invade allies - soft on Russian invasion of Ukraine - unilaterally tears up trade agreements - backs far-right parties in Europe - sabotages climate treaties - leaves WHO

I don’t know if Brexit was designed to divide European society — but I do know division has been its most consistent outcome. And division rarely happens by accident, or without winners.

Farmers storm Paris with tractors to oppose EU-Mercosur free trade deal

UK and EU: Single Market or Customs Union? Analysis by Peter Morris northeastbylines.co.uk/news/opinion...

Jeremy Bowen really is an outstanding broadcaster. He's a reminder that public service broadcasting can be objective and impartial without needing to be balanced - indeed that balance makes objectivity impossible. I imagine they'll get rid of him soon.

Written in 2015 - just as true today ... Trumptown www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6iC... #Trump #Fascism #US

January 7, 2026 open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

US polling shows no rally ‘round the flag bylines.scot/news/world/u...

🚨 "The truth is that the UK and EU share economic, security and geopolitical interests. Closer cooperation is not just possible, it’s an urgent necessity," writes @pimlicat.bsky.social, CEO of Best for Britain. https://bit.ly/49p7khf

Northumberland Wildlife Trust raising money for major nature recovery project Northumberland could see the biggest land sale in England in a generation as Northumberland Wildlife Trust wants to buy the land to undertake a huge land recovery project northeastbylines.co.uk/news/environ...

My thoughts today are with the security people and police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6 and have been treated with such distain since by the GOP. For them and the Democratic leadership who lived through such chaos and no doubt continue to carry the scars within. We will not forget.

Compliance without influence = Brexit Ten years on from the 2016 Ref, UK is still forced to comply with more rules, more red tape, and no say-so much for taking back control! Post-#Brexit trade barriers are emerging faster than British negotiators can remove them www.politico.eu/article/brit...

Please bring on the betrayal then.

Greenland is happening. Not a joke, not trolling, not a distraction. He has already made up his mind and nobody who matters in the inner circle will try to talk him out of it. Some of them want it precisely because it will destroy NATO. There are no adults in the room. They really mean to do it.

Most Scots believe Nigel Farage is a racist, poll shows www.thenational.scot/news/2572065...

🔥🇪🇺 “Europeans enjoy more free time than Americans, a higher life expectancy and lower levels of inequality – all with roughly comparable productivity. Whichever way you look at it, this is a significantly superior economic performance.”

Italy is expected to reverse course, paving way for the EU to sign a treaty with the Mercosur countries, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The EU-Mercosur trade pact would create an integrated market of 780 million consumers. archive.ph/2026.01.05-1...

And listen to 95% of the public that want their Freedom of Movement back

All good, but point 2 requires the U.K. to embrace Freedom of Movement once more. That will be the battleground, and today's poll showing immigration the second biggest concern for voters MUST be tackled. Winning hearts and minds back in favour of FoM is the crucial first step on the journey to SM.

yorkshirebylines.co.uk/news/brexit/... Freedom of Movement is the block that politicians need to get themselves over. The public is way ahead as per usual.

Keir Starmer is talking about closer alignment with Europe, so here are three simple resolutions for 2026, keep the promises on EU relations, take real steps towards the Single Market and Customs Union, and listen to the public that wants closer ties.

Trump’s attack on #Venezuela is a violation of international law in order to seize resources to enrich his big oil donors. Starmer and his Govt’s failure to condemn this attack only emboldens Trump as he threatens #Mexico, #Colombia, #Cuba and seeks to annex #Greenland. On Sky News today:

All Americans, and the entire world, must remember. Robert Reich: The most shameful day in American history open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

Another one for the "Reform voters are really unlike everyone else" file.

Exc - Keir Starmer is preparing an EU reset bill with sweeping powers to align the UK with EU regulation which could go beyond what was agreed in May. Details of the deal are not finished but the bill will go through parliament in parallel with EU negotiations www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

'Starmer’s allies admit that persuading Brussels to give the UK preferential access to the single market will be difficult. 'In Brussels there was a sense of déjà vu amid warnings that — as with... Boris Johnson’s failed attempts to “cherry pick” access to... www.ft.com/content/0808...

Hesitations about Britain fully participating in Europe’s single market appear to be because of fears about freedom of movement causing a surge in immigration. But, as I wrote years ago, that fear is unfounded: labourlist.org/2018/06/rich...

"Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place." I published this piece on January 9th, 2021. It remains all too relevant. www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/m...

Let me tell you something. People don’t talk about this enough. They really don’t. The European Union? It’s big. It’s strong. Tremendously strong. Twenty-seven countries — working together. That’s power. That’s leverage. That’s winning.

Nearly six in 10 (58%) people who would vote in a second referendum said they would cast their ballot to return to the EU. The finding in a Deltapoll survey for The Mirror comes ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 2016 Brexit vote this year www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

The Daily Mail: a daily drag on the nation’s sanity, dignity and prosperity. Rocking back and forward in the corner shouting that Brexit was a win and improving on our relationship with the EU is a BeTRaYaL of all the special things it cannot name. Subverting failure. How very dare we.

The 90-in-180-day problem isn’t about holidays. It’s about care, work, homes, and binning a normal cross-border life people lawfully had for decades. Mocking that loss doesn’t make you right. It makes you small. #MobilityMatters

Wales Online: Reform councillor removed from council over poor attendance www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-n...

Foreign affairs select committee Chair Emily Thornberry says UK and allies should "call out" US for breaking international law. "It is not for the country that is breaking the law to say whether or not it has broken the law. It is for the West surely to stand up and call it as it is" 👏