Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Did ‘millions’ attend Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally?

The Metropolitan Police were braced for one of the "busiest days for policing in London in recent years" on Saturday, with both a Unite the Kingdom rally organized by Tommy Robinson and a pro-Palestinian Nakba day rally taking place. Some 4,000 officers were deployed, along with helicopters, drones, Sandcat armored vehicles, dogs, horses and live facial recognition systems. The last Unite the Kingdom rally, in September, drew a crowd of 150,000 according to the police, three times what the Met expected – and organizers said this one would be "the biggest patriotic rally to grace this planet." Addressing the crowd at the event, Robinson said "we are here in our millions" and that attendees were at the "biggest event in British history.

Edward Howell

The Moscow-Beijing-Pyongyang axis is here to stay

On Donald Trump's sojourn to China – the first visit by a US President in almost a decade – North Korea was hardly at the top of the agenda. Trump and Xi Jinping had bigger fish to fry, be that China’s desire to secure rhetorical US concessions on Taiwan, Trump’s wishes for greater Chinese investment in US manufacturing or whether Beijing can compel Iran to ease the effects of the Iran War. But US-China relations are not just a two-player game. Only last weekend, history was made as North Korean soldiers participated in Moscow’s Victory Day parade for the first time. A day beforehand, Kim Jong-un had pledged to Vladimir Putin that North Korea would "give top priority" to its relations with Russia.

Ian Williams

America has a serious Chinese spying problem

President Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone during his trip to China. He returned from his Beijing summit with Xi Jinping yesterday full of praise for the “great leader,” who is, in Trump’s estimations, “an incredible guy.” The summit was “very successful, world-renowned, and unforgettable,” according to the President, who insisted that “a lot of different problems were settled.” But there’s one problem that hasn’t been addressed: the growing number of Chinese operations on US soil. China’s espionage and influence operations are extensive Last week Eileen Wang, the mayor of the southern Californian city of Arcadia agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent of China.

BEIJING, CHINA - MAY 13: Chinese youth hold American and Chinese flags as they join officials to welcome U.S. President Donald Trump at Beijing Capital International Airport on May 13, 2026 in Beijing, China. President Trump is meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing to address the Iran conflict, trade imbalances, and the Taiwan situation while establishing new bilateral boards for economic and AI oversight. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Drew Horn

No, I’m not a CIA spy in Greenland

The Danish media has accused me of being a US spy. They say I'm involved in a covert influence operation in Greenland to push the territory towards becoming part of the US. I want to be clear that I have never worked as a covert operative. Instead, my work involves getting investment for sectors like mining and infrastructure. I am very public about my travels in Greenland and business there. I routinely appear on daytime television and bring my family on these trips. That would be a strange thing for Jason Bourne or James Bond to do. I often go for dinner with Greenlandic officials at very public restaurants, with their respective wives and children too. Despite this, I’ve been told by numerous insiders that I’m being monitored.

Friday

May 15, 2026

Freddy Gray

Did the Trump/Xi summit achieve anything?

Air Force One is in the air as I write, whizzing from Beijing back to Washington – and Donald Trump leaves China with many questions unanswered. There were warm words on both sides and plenty of friendly symbolism in the President’s big summit with Xi Jinping. But the fundamental great power tensions remain – over trade, technology, and war and peace in the Middle East and Taiwan. Washington and Beijing agree that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon – though it remains unclear the extent to which China will help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Its closure hurts the Chinese economy, of course, but China has significant energy reserves and Xi knows that the pain spreads around the world to his advantage.

Jane Stannus

Will Canada kill its mentally ill?

Euthanasia for the mentally ill has been one of the most contentious aspects of the Trudeau government’s legacy. Though the entire assisted suicide program is frighteningly dystopian, the idea of euthanizing mentally vulnerable people is in a class of its own. Now, in a rare moment of lucidity, the Carney government may be preparing to halt the expansion – or so the Globe and Mail reported, citing unnamed sources within the government. A parliamentary committee has been tasked with evaluating Canada’s readiness for euthanizing the mentally ill. Originally announced for March 2023, the expansion has been delayed twice, and is currently scheduled for March 17, 2027. That is, unless the parliamentary committee recommends otherwise.

Canadian flag arranged on the side of a hill for Remembrance Day at a local Nova Scotia gravesite for a veteran who served in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Christopher Caldwell

Trump, Europe and the power of delusions

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggests to a classroom full of youngsters that Donald Trump has been “humiliated” by his war in Iran – and the President cancels deployment of the long-range missile systems around which Germany had planned its defense strategy for the coming decades. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez observes a strict neutrality on Iran, declaring his country’s bases out of bounds – and Trump urges Spain be kicked out of NATO. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hesitates to sacrifice his country’s navy in a war on which he wasn’t consulted – and Trump mocks him in public for a week.

Francis Pike

Trump needs a deal, but Xi needs it more

Although the substance of the Donald Trump-Xi Jinping talks are about tariffs, trade, supply issues (rare earth metals etc), fentanyl, Taiwan and most importantly Iran, the main purpose of the meeting for both leaders will be their future political survival. This is the essential subtext that you will probably not hear about from most legacy media. Xi needs a successful deal with Trump to show that he is still useful as Secretary General of the CCP Trump needs to bag wins soon to bring to prevent a Democratic sweep of Congress in November’s midterm elections. Lose both houses and the President can be sure that impeachment will follow.

Thursday

May 14, 2026

James Heale

Starmer rival Wes Streeting finally resigns from cabinet

After days of deliberation, Wes Streeting has finally quit Keir Starmer’s government. At the stroke of 1 p.m. GMT, the Ilford MP resigned as Health Secretary in a two-page letter that laid out his differences with the UK Prime Minister. He details, at length, the results the pair have achieved in government and says they offer "good reasons for me to remain in post." But: As you know from our conversation earlier this week, having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded that it would be dishonorable and unprincipled to do so. It is the opening salvo of a merciless script that goes for Starmer’s jugular. Streeting pins blame for the "unprecedented" results of last week, which pose "an existential threat to the future integrity" of the UK on Starmer himself.

Cockburn

Is Sebastian Gorka brave enough to face Tucker Carlson?

Strange things are happening with Dr. Sebastian Gorka. In a clip that circulated widely yesterday, the deputy assistant to the President was asked by Breitbart's Alex Marlow whether he thought right-wing terror is currently a threat in the US. Gorka brought up Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes – unprompted – claiming they had lauded Sharia law and said Muslim states were better than America. “I’m not sure that Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are conservatives... If you remove those individuals and you understand that they're not conservatives, what's left?” Judging by those comments, it seems that Gorka, as Trump’s senior director of counterterrorism, regards the two podcasters as domestic security threats.

Douglas Murray

Things can always get worse

I have spent the past week marveling at the behavior of our commentating class. They seem to have whipped themselves back into that familiar frenzy which must lead, inexorably, to the Prime Minister stepping down. “He has to go”; “The most incompetent prime minister of my lifetime”; “Things can’t go on like this” – these were the general sentiments revolving around Keir Starmer even before his party’s thumping in the May 7 local elections. The problem is that some of us have a longish memory. So when people say the Starmer government is uniquely incompetent or ineffectual, a tiny flare goes off in my mind. Have these people forgotten Theresa May?

James Heale

Nigel Farage’s plan to win over the left

The loudest man in politics knows when to keep his silence. Nigel Farage held his tongue as Keir Starmer’s premiership floundered. Aside from a few PFLs – proper f***ing lunches – to celebrate the local election results, the Reform UK leader was already looking to the next challenge. Like a shark, Farage keeps moving forward, into new waters, hungry for more. One ally sums up his approach to politics in a single word: “Momentum.” For the past few months, Farage has had one goal: destroying the Tories. The figure “1,453” was the total of gains proudly pumped out on Reform’s Instagram. For Farage, May 7 was the political equivalent of the fall of Constantinople – the point when the Conservatives ceased to be a national party.

Paul Wood

The incredible case of Dr. Gorka

One of P.G. Wodehouse’s best-known characters, after Jeeves and Wooster, is Roderick Spode: fascist leader and secret purveyor of fine ladies’ undergarments. Spode is the head of the “Black Shorts” – all the black shirts having been taken – a bombastic, merciless bully and quivering tower of self-regard, magnificent in his absurdity. Spode was introduced to us in 1938, yet he lives still. Today, he is none other than President Trump’s Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council, Dr. Sebastian Gorka. The British accent, the booming voice…Spode/Gorka was speaking to journalists the other day when he called critics of the Iran war “testicularly challenged.

Tim Shipman and Noa Hoffman

Inside the farcical coup against Keir Starmer

It is an old adage of leadership contests that “if you shoot for the King, you’d better not miss” – but no one expected the starting gun to be fired at Charles III. At the exact time when the monarch was reading the King’s Speech to Parliament on May 13, allies of Wes Streeting, the health secretary, put a bomb under proceedings by making it clear that he is set to challenge Keir Starmer. “Yes, it’s inevitable,” one says. Streeting resigned the following day. The timing horrified MPs even on Streeting’s wing of the party. A cabinet minister declared: “Having failed with his kamikaze coup, Wes has now undermined every single one of his colleagues and disrespected the King.

Simon Heffer

It’s time to uncancel Enoch Powell

Despite a career of nearly half a century in public life, Enoch Powell is generally remembered for one utterance only: the so-called "Rivers of Blood" speech he made in Birmingham on April 20, 1968, in which he voiced his opposition to the race relations legislation being taken through parliament by the then Labour government. Powell was the Conservative opposition’s defense spokesman. His speech threw the leader of his party, Edward Heath, into a profound panic, and he sacked Powell immediately, initiating decades of assertions that Powell was racially prejudiced. Powell always said – entirely honestly – that he never made a speech about race: just speeches about immigration policy and his profound disagreement with how it was usually managed.

Ian Williams

Why Xi thinks he has the upper hand

Taiwan is “the most important issue,” Xi Jinping warned Donald Trump. “If mishandled, the two nations could collide or even come into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into a highly perilous situation,” according to Chinese state media. The contrast with Trump’s comments was striking. Trump had earlier named trade as the most important issue. In opening remarks, the American President stuck to bland flattery, saying he and Xi had a “fantastic relationship,” that Xi was a “great leader” and that “it is an honor to be your friend.” “The relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before,” he insisted.

Wednesday

May 13, 2026

Jacob Heilbrunn

The battle for the neoconservative soul

Robert Kagan has long had a knack for capturing public attention with bold pronouncements about American foreign policy. In 1996, together with William Kristol, he published an essay in Foreign Affairs called “Toward A Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy” that chided the Clinton administration for insufficient martial vigor and argued that the Pentagon budget should be doubled. As a charter member of the Project for the New American Century and a regular contributor to the Weekly Standard, Kagan became an eloquent champion of the George W. Bush administration’s Iraq war.

Geoffrey Cain

Will Trump and Xi get what they want?

Donald Trump flew to Beijing this week and wants three things when he sits down with China’s President Xi Jinping: a tariff truce that survives his own courts, Chinese pressure on Iran to end the war that never seems to end and a photograph that makes him look victorious. Xi has problems of his own. But he has watched four American presidencies from Zhongnanhai, the walled compound beside the Forbidden City where the Communist party leadership rules, and he knows the value of silence when his counterpart is talking himself into trouble. Trump’s approval rating is the lowest of his second term. What Xi wants from this meeting with Trump is recognition: two great powers, two systems, meeting as equals Trump has obliged Xi noisily.

Lawrence Newport

Britain is sick of the Westminster psychodrama

The British Army has long lived by a simple maxim: “Prior preparation and planning prevents piss poor performance.” It remains as true today as ever. Disasters are rarely unavoidable or destined to occur. Usually, they are the consequence of decisions – or the refusal to make them – over several weeks, months, and even years. Any government would be wise to follow this advice before entering office. Yet Keir Starmer's Government, much like many of those that came before it, will fail because it lacked the prior preparation and planning to prevent the poor performance it subsequently delivered. Each time Westminster convinces itself that the problem was just personnel Living standards in decline. Industries leaving. Jobs going elsewhere. Wages stagnant. Communities fractured.

Tuesday

May 12, 2026

Noa Hoffman

Keir Starmer has one card left to play

As calls for Sir Keir Starmer’s head grow ever louder among Labour MPs, the British Prime Minister is digging his heels in. He has one more card left to play: divide and conquer. While scores of backbenchers are desperate for change at the top, they are completely split on the question of who should take over. Those on the Labour right who have deserted Sir Keir are rallying behind Wes Streeting. The soft left are desperate for the return of Andy Burnham but, short of that, could support bids from Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband. This lack of any consensus works to Starmer’s advantage.

Jacob Heilbrunn

Trump is in the mood to do a deal with China

As President Trump travels to China today, his original plans for the visit have been upended. He wanted to arrive as a triumphant conqueror but increasingly resembles a supplicant. Will he strike a "Two T’s" deal – a grand bargain that trades Taipei for Tehran? Trump has periodically voiced his irritation with China, but at bottom he respects – and even admires – President Xi Jinping as the kind of tough guy that he can do business with on a variety of fronts. The most important one has become Iran, which is threatening to increase its nuclear enrichment program and successfully defying Trump’s threats to blow it into oblivion. China is Iran’s biggest backer. It previously pushed Tehran into ceasefire talks with Washington.

Michael Sobolik

America’s Trump card in China

The Trump administration has released a list of CEOs who will be accompanying the president to his meeting in China with Xi Jinping. Foremost among the delegation is Elon Musk, traveling in his capacity as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Another notable inclusion is Tim Cook, in what may be his swan song international trip as Apple CEO. All told, 17 executives will accompany President Trump to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Their companies represent sectors ranging from banking and investment to automobiles and AI. Their asks of Xi will likely range from market access (Coherent) and advertising (Meta) to component orders (Boeing) and soybean purchases (Cargill). On paper, President Trump should take business leaders with him to China.

James Heale

Keir Starmer is done

This morning’s cabinet meeting was one for the ages. At 9.30 a.m., British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was greeted by his senior ministers, almost all of whom think the game is up. Ahead of entering Downing Street today, they will have seen the list of 80 Labour MPs – the magic number needed for a ballot – calling for him to go. Last night, we had junior aides jumping ship; this morning we have the first minister, Miatta Fahnbulleh. She has quit the government and called on Starmer to "do the right thing." When you have David Lammy, Yvette Cooper, John Healey and Shabana Mahmood all telling Downing Street that it is over, you know that the Prime Minister has lost the dressing room.

Alexander Larman

Joe Biden’s memoir will humiliate him

Just before writing this piece, I saw Gary Oldman in a London production of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. For those unfamiliar, the play revolves around an old man listening to a series of tapes recorded by himself when he was younger, musing pompously on his hopes and dreams for the future. In his present, desiccated state, he can only scoff at his middle-aged self, before being overcome by the pathetic realization that it is all up for him and that he is doomed to a miserable, unhappy future. It is hard to think of ten people who will want to read the book, let alone ten million I suspect that much the same has been going on in Joe Biden’s household of late. If, of course he still knows what day of the week it is, or what his name is.