Ten years after the Brexit referendum, its long-term impact on British politics is evident. Not so evident is why this is the case. Every general election sees comparable debates. So too did the 1975 referendum on membership called by Harold Wilson. But none of these other elections has ever produced such an extreme and long-lasting reaction, or a concerted attempt to use both informal and formal methods – constitutional and legal – to block the result.
Trump’s Middle East tour in May last year felt like the end of an era. Here was the former al-Qaeda commander, Ahmed al-Sharaa, now leader of Syria, shaking hands with a vulgar American Commander-in-Chief, who resembles the caricature of a US president we might find in an al-Qaeda cartoon. Yet the War on Terror’s two leading men, the President and the Jihadi, having ended the last act at each other’s throats, have returned to the stage arm-in-arm to take a bow. Al-Sharaa has trimmed his beard, put on a suit, replaced Bashar al-Assad as president and begun welcoming western investors to help him rebuild his country after a decade and a half of civil war. Trump has dropped the showy religiosity and moral posturing of his predecessors.
Vice President J.D. Vance is returning from the Swiss Alps having concluded the opening phase of the Iran talks with a view to achieving a peace deal. Are critics right to claim that the whole war has been a humiliation for America? Freddy speaks to Stanford professor Victor Davis Hanson about MAGA foreign policy, the midterms, why oil is so important to the American voter and the right-wing realignment in Latin America. Learn how to earn yield on gold, paid in gold, at Monetary-Metals.
We were running late to check out of our hotel because my two young girls had demanded to use the pool one last time. I indulged them. The squeals of laughter were worth it. Afterward, we hustled to pack, race out the room and at 11:40 a.m. the elevator doors opened in the lobby of the Hilton in Côte-des-Neiges district of Montreal. Our path was blocked by staff. There was, one hotel worker informed us, a shooter. I sent my wife and children back up to our room and, with the dubious conviction of a professional journalist, went to investigate. My family and I had come to Montréal for a joyful Jewish wedding Through the glass of the hotel entrance, I saw a male officer lying in the street and female cop with her pistol drawn scanning the area.
Earlier this week, Ukraine was subjected to one of the largest aerial assaults by Russia since the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion over four years ago. Overnight from Monday into Tuesday, Russia sent 73 missiles and 656 drones into Ukraine, killing at least 21 and injuring dozens across the country. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, this strike was retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on a vocational school in the occupied region of Luhansk on May 22. But, as the Kremlin’s war grinds on well into its fifth year, it also appears to signal a step change in how the Russian armed forces are choosing to fight.
Prison guards led Vitalii Kryschenko to an inhospitable, cramped cell. Inside, the prisoners were curious. They watched with great interest as Kryuschenko found his allotted place. A small, gentle man with a nervous expression, he wasn’t a typical criminal but a Jehovah’s Witness. Kryschenko was jailed by Ukrainian authorities for refusing to go to war; taking up arms is forbidden by his religion. He was now going to share his days with the very worst of Ukrainian society. This would include thieves, those guilty of assault or worse. "I was living with murderers, people jailed for life," he said. "It was terrifying. On my first night, I asked myself how I would survive in these conditions. All the same, I continued my daily prayers and read the Bible.
As Vladimir Putin senses the momentum of the war shifting in Ukraine’s favor, he has redoubled his attempts to coerce Kyiv and its European partners. Russian troops are in retreat, losing territory overall for the first time since Ukraine launched its Kursk offensive in August 2024. Drone strikes have forced all of central Russia’s major oil refineries – accounting for a quarter of the country’s refining capacity – to halt or reduce output. Meanwhile, the cracks are beginning to show as Russians cease believing in their President, with some openly calling for an end to Putin’s so-called special military operation. His only available response, it seems, has been to resort to nuclear intimidation and threats of military confrontation with the Baltic states.
J.D. Vance didn't call Benjamin Netanyahu out by name, but in sternly reprimanding the "Cabinet of the Israeli government" from the White House podium on Thursday, he sent Israel and its Prime Minister a clear message. In demanding more respect, raising the threat of severe consequences and ordering the country to get in line, the Vice President echoed the public fight he picked with another world leader and US ally: Volodymyr Zelensky. It wasn't quite as spectacular as the now infamous Oval Office blow up in February last year between Trump, Vance and the Ukrainian president. But Vance went further in his criticism of Israel than any other US President or Vice President in recent memory.
Cutting US military aid to Israel was once an impossible dream of the most extreme fringe of the Democratic party. Today axing the $3.8 billion annual package is a bipartisan issue being spearheaded by the GOP. The number of free US tax dollars that Israel would receive to spend on its military under a GOP plan being discussed by both governments would be reduced to zero. The brainchild of Marlin Stutzman, a staunch Israel ally and Republican congressman from Indiana, the proposed memorandum of understanding, which would come into effect when the current deal ends in 2028, now forms the basis of the negotiations and was endorsed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
On Sunday night, Israelis went to bed expecting to be woken by sirens. The Israeli Air Force had bombed a Hezbollah base in Beirut, and Iranian leaders lined up to promise immediate, dramatic, punishing revenge before dawn. Instead of a barrage of Iranian missiles, the country woke up to what may be worse news: the Trump administration and the Iranian regime had agreed on a deal. Yesterday morning, the Iranian news channel Mehr shared what it claimed was in the “Memorandum of Understanding” and it seemed to be more or less correct: the US agrees that Iran gets control of the Strait of Hormuz, in return for Iran agreeing to let ships pass.
The next chapter in American politics has begun, but is it going to be any less crazy? The Spectator’s Americano podcast delivers in-depth discussions with the best American pundits to keep you in the loop. Presented by Freddy Gray.
It was when Keir Starmer claimed never to have had a dream that I knew we were dealing with potentially one of the funniest prime ministers Britain had ever seen. Sure, some people would have been amused by the magnetism for calamity exhibited by Theresa May, the almost comedically unbelievable mendacity of Boris Johnson or the downright absurdism of Liz Truss, but a really funny prime minister is the one who demands to be taken seriously, and particularly one who is convinced that he has forced the British people to do so.
A political crisis is unfolding in the small Dutch town of Maassluis, a former fishing village which sits between Rotterdam’s vast port and industrial complex, the glasshouses of the agribusiness powerhouse known as the Westland, and the historic fishing town of Vlaardingen. Despite what some may claim, it is not a far-right insurgency, just a group of local politicians responding to concerns widely shared by their electorate The natives of Maassluis were once nicknamed "snails." They acquired the name in the 1770s, when the parliament of the Dutch Republic decreed that Psalms should be sung at a faster tempo in church.
There was a moment backstage, before I interviewed Kemi Badenoch for a Spectator event, when I felt like John Sergeant with Margaret Thatcher bearing down on him as he pronounced her leadership in difficulty. I suggested to Badenoch that she was a rare example of a politician I had changed my mind about. “You mean you were very negative before?” she said, fixing me with the full alpha female glare. I muttered something placatory, but the truth is that a year ago I thought she was rubbish – and that was the mainstream view in her own party. She was arrogant, flat-footed, absenting herself from a stage that was being dominated by Nigel Farage, resistant to advice, convinced she was great at PMQs when even Keir Starmer was wiping the floor with her.
One of the joys of living in Japan is the lack of wokeness. It is not that it doesn’t exist – there is a Tokyo Pride, the odd Gaza protest, and gender equality is increasingly discussed – it’s simply that the concept doesn’t quite translate. Like the strikes that only take place at the weekend so as not to inconvenience customers, woke protesters here are tiny in number, generally polite and devoid of the threatening aggressiveness of the West. And diversity isn’t really a thing. Maybe that’s another reason tourist numbers have exploded. You can get away from all that here… The young in particular seem charmingly oblivious to the culture wars, and universities are generally safe spaces for the woke-phobic.
There has long been a worry that Russian escalation or miscalculation might see the Ukraine war widen into a broader European one. But what if it’s Kyiv, not Moscow, that starts this process? The flashpoint is Belarus. Minsk’s dictatorial leader, Alexander Lukashenko, is beholden to Vladimir Putin, but not a helpless vassal. On the one hand, he has refused to join Putin’s war directly, saying that he won’t allow Belarusians to become "mincemeat." On the other, he has been willing to let Russian troops use facilities in his country, and fly drones and missiles through his airspace.
Abelardo de la Espriella was never going to be a typical Colombian presidential candidate. Nicknamed "The Tiger," the defense lawyer who has represented a string of controversial clients is also a businessman and owns a number of clothing and alcohol brands, a Miami restaurant and even music albums. De la Espriella campaigned on a radical and robust security agenda, vowing to rid Colombia of its violent and criminal woes. “I will wipe out narco-terrorism..I will unleash the wrath of God upon them as never seen before,” de la Espriella said “I will wipe out narco-terrorism, those I have sentenced and declared military targets, like cockroaches, like rats. I will unleash the wrath of God upon them as never seen before,” de la Espriella said during his campaign.
Hans-Georg Maassen is an unlikely dissident. In his trademark three-piece suits and small glasses, he looks more like a law professor. Indeed, that is what he studied, earning a doctorate on the legal status of asylum seekers in international law. This bourgeois exterior is the perfect cover for a man who was Germany’s top spy, charged with protecting the country from the far-right and Islamists. But now he is no longer under the quiet protection of the German state; he is its victim. He is under investigation from the agency he once led, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). Like George Smiley, Maassen is a remnant of an older and more powerful country, soldiering on in spite of the decline, trying to preserve what he can.
After a week of international agonizing, it looks as if the first round of the latest peace talks between America and Iran will not begin today – at least, not formally. The Memorandum of Understanding has been signed – electronically by Iran and by Donald Trump’s hand in Versailles on Wednesday. But J.D. Vance’s big Switzerland trip, originally planned to kick off the talks, has been put on hold as the Lebanon issue reared its troublesome head overnight. Late yesterday afternoon, Hezbollah fired several salvoes of rockets at IDF targets, killing four soldiers. Israel responded with a wave of airstrikes in Southern Lebanon, killing 18 and wounding 33, according to the Lebanese ministry of health.
After years of negotiations, two wars, a succession of ruthlessly quashed uprisings in Iran and countless billions of dollars’ worth of ordnance smashing into rubble across the region, we have the bones of an agreement. Not a deal, it should be said. Instead an understanding that manages to speak volumes and yet say very little in the way of concrete details. Vice President JD Vance's trip to Switzerland may have been postponed -- after Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire over Lebanon last night -- but the Memorandum of Understanding between America and Israel has been signed, and both sides seem confident that the peace process has not yet been derailed. Who won, you might ask? Surely, Iran.
President Trump might have thought that negotiating an interim diplomatic understanding with Iran was going to be the hard part. But selling the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding to the public is proving to be just as laborious. Trump deserves blame not because he negotiated a poor peace deal but rather because he decided to go to war in the first place Less than 24 hours after the document was released, virtually nobody is particularly satisfied with it. Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, normally deferential or wholly supportive of Trump’s agenda across-the-board, are already expressing nervousness at the terms and demanding a full briefing from the administration about how the White House plans on executing them.
Keir Starmer has entered what might be described as the peak delusion period of what remains of his time in Downing Street. There was fresh evidence of the Prime Minister’s all-consuming divorce from political reality in his latest comments about his fellow Labour politician and political rival Andy Burnham, who is widely predicted to win the Makerfield by-election today, and then go on to launch a leadership challenge to turf the PM out of office. The British PM just doesn’t get it Anyone and everyone knows all this and more, except Starmer apparently, who called Burnham “a great asset” and said he deserved “a big role in government.” What is Starmer smoking? The only big role in government that Burnham wants is Starmer’s job in Number 10.
When it comes to foreign policy, Donald Trump is neither hawk nor dove. He’s a dealmaker who plays differing sides off each other. In so doing, he ends up disappointing warmongers and peaceniks in equal measure. Rather than blaming Trump for a bad deal, his pro-Israel supporters will tie its shortcomings to Vance On 28 February, when he launched Operation Epic Fury, Trump’s more dovish supporters felt betrayed. The president who had campaigned against regime-change wars began a new conflict by channeling George W. Bush. "To the great, proud people of Iran I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand," he said.
Donald Trump is engaged in one of the biggest battles of his career. After spending millions to turn the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool “flag day blue,” Trump is combatting a tenacious opponent that threatens to mar his upcoming July 4 celebrations. US National Park Service Workers spent much of yesterday on a desperate mission – dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the pool to eliminate the ghastly green clumps of algae that have colonized it. Trump is awash in a sea of troubles. His name has been removed by court order from the Kennedy Center. His White House ballroom is facing cost overruns amounting to several hundred million dollars.
For months, South African social media has been awash with videos of men marching through the country’s streets carrying sticks, clubs and whips. Some of the clips are theatrical, others are more menacing. Running through them are repeated references to a date: June 30, the deadline set by anti-immigration groups for illegal migrants from neighboring African countries to leave the country... or else. South Africa might be the biggest mass migration story you have never heard of South Africa has seen this before. A protest movement appears, gathers momentum online, threatens to spiral, and then usually dissipates. Yet this country is far too combustible for anyone to assume that this movement will simply pass. For the ordinary person in South Africa, things are not going well.
Australians are known for world-class performances in many fields. Mostly, our achievements are a source of national pride, but one field of achievement causes us only horror and shame. Our serial killers are some of the most prolific and brutal anywhere. And none are more brutal or prolific than the late, unlamented, Ivan Robert Marko Milat. Milat took his victims into the forest bound, terrified and subjected them to unspeakably sadistic torture The facts of Milat’s known killing spree are gruesome and horrific. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Milat turned the Belanglo State Forest, a bushland reserve off the main highway to Melbourne, and 80 miles from Sydney, into his personal killing field.
I’m just going to say it. Not all immigrants are the same. I know that reading that might make you feel uncomfortable, particularly if you’re white and American and therefore more vulnerable to cancel culture and snowflakery. But it’s true. Some immigrants are simply better than others. And by better, I mean that immigrants from certain nations and cultures are more likely than others to integrate and make a positive contribution to their new country. Sweden is a useful terrarium of immigration; the good, the bad and the ugly Sweden is a useful terrarium of immigration; the good, the bad and the ugly. I was born in Sweden to Iranian parents in the early 1990s.
President Trump is giving peace a chance in the Persian Gulf, and for Iran’s leadership this is literally a matter of life or death. If Iran had continued to fight, one of two things would have happened. Either the war would have resumed its original tempo, leading to the extinction of another generation of Iranian leaders and the loss of yet more of the nation’s military capabilities, only for Tehran to strike a deal much like this one after realizing the futility of its efforts; or the war would have escalated, as the US employed greater force, potentially including ground troops, to force open the Strait of Hormuz. The latter scenario would have been costly to America, and the world, but it would have been fatal to Tehran.
The UFC event today at the White House has been widely dismissed as an absurdity. Inevitably, the administration’s critics have portrayed the event – officially part of America’s 250th celebrations but curiously taking place on Donald Trump’s 80th birthday – as an odious example of Trumpian excess. Supporters, meanwhile, celebrate it as evidence that Trump is uniquely in touch with ordinary Americans. Politicians are increasingly asked to function as cultural icons But what media commentators think of the UFC event is beside the point. The significance of this event lies not in the UFC itself, but in what it shows us about the changing nature of political authority. Beneath the headlines and Reddit threads, American politics is undergoing a profound change.
In January 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt held a toga-themed birthday party at the White House to mock the accusation that he was an incipient dictator. Donald Trump is doing him one better. The President celebrates his 80th birthday today. As such, his plans for Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts today in an octagon on the South Lawn of the White House are reminiscent of the extravaganzas of the Emperor Commodus, whose rule prompted Gibbon to warn: Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. For America’s semiquincentennial, Trump gave UFC head Dana White permission to construct an arena on the South Lawn of the White House that is known as "The Claw.
Nigel Farage has always prided himself on being able to see off any threat from his right flank. But now a new force has emerged in the form of his ex-colleague Rupert Lowe. When the two Reform MPs fell out 15 months ago, friends shared memes of Farage’s past fallen rivals ascending to heaven. “Come and join us, Rupert!” they exhorted. Instead, Lowe fought back, setting up his own party, Restore Britain. In the Makerfield by-election on June 18, one poll puts Restore on 7 percent – enough to stop Reform and hand the seat to Labour’s Andy Burnham. Restore’s strategy is simple: use Farage’s playbook against him. Like Farage, Lowe has put his faith in social media, building up a noisy following that can then be turned into a campaigning force.
Donald Trump’s 80th birthday is this weekend, and what better present for a struggling octogenarian Commander-in-Chief than a peace deal with Iran, signed if not quite yet sealed and delivered. There is, I’m told, some late scrambling over "semantics" in the so-called "memorandum of understanding" between America and Iran, and lingering issues over the language concerning the "nuclear dust" – i.e., Iran’s enriched uranium. But the rest is all but agreed. J.D. Vance could fly to Europe to sign a deal tomorrow – or if not it will be Trump as he attends the G7 in Evian near the Swiss Alps on Monday. Trump really wanted to stage a peace photo-op with Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei but had to be told that would not be possible.
Everyone who is everyone – within a certain political and social fragment – has been in Russia this past week. Conservative American conspiracy theorist Candace Owens; Errol Musk, father of Elon; toxic “manosphere” influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate; and Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist. Robinson told the Guardian that he had traveled to Moscow “to see how this country got itself so well on to the straight and narrow and see the beauty of a civilized society here.” In the process, he was walking a well-trodden path of westerners heading to Russia to see exactly what they want to see. Once it was socialists like Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who found Stalin’s regime “the very opposite of a dictatorship.
These are good times to be a scholar of the classical world. Last summer, Donald Trump issued an order that all federal architecture needed to be “beautiful,” noting that the Founding Fathers “wanted America’s public buildings to inspire the American people and encourage civic virtue.” George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had therefore “consciously modeled the most important buildings in Washington, DC, on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome.” It was time to go back to these principles, said Trump. From now on “classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings” in the District of Columbia.
