EU TO BAN MEATY CRISPS In the latest ridiculousness of EU bureaucracy, crisp manufacturers expect to be caught up in the literal war of words that is the EUs ban on meaty words for non-meaty things. Is this the end for bacon or beef crisps in the EU? politico.eu/article/eu-veggi…

Burnham says UK's Brexit deal isn't 'good enough' but won't push to rejoin EU itv.com/news/2026-10-26/burn…

The Prime Minister speaks of an honest conversation, and yet the arguments to reverse brexit all sound like we'd be returning to the Europe of 2016. That just isn't true. The Europe we'd rejoin today wouldn't be one where centrists like Angela Merkel were in positions of leadership. Today, the AfD is surging and could take control in Germany, Marine Le Pen in France, Italy is governed by the populist right, hard-right parties are in power or gaining ground across much of Europe. This is a profoundly different political landscape to the one we left, and it is the heights of dishonesty not to hold this fact at the forefront of any conversation we have now. We're seeing this conversation presented around returning to our young people all that brexit robbed them of. Again, we're having this conversation as though we're still looking upon the Europe of 2016. The Europe of 2026 is aflame, the young people are revolting against perceived economic injustices. An honest conversation would acknowledge this fact. At a time when British politics is the most fractured it's ever been, reopening this debate, especially in the selective, rose-tinted manner in which it is being discussed, risks driving even deeper divisions through our society. Is this really the government's priority? Our young people need growth, opportunity, and a future they can believe in. They need a government focused on delivering these things, not one hellbent on reigniting one of the most divisive debates in modern British politics. I am by no means opposed to closer ties with Europe, nor the economic benefits they might bring. But an honest conversation about Europe must begin with the Europe that exists today, the Europe we see on our screens, being set ablaze by its youth, not the one we remember from 2016.

It would be hilarious if he called a general election and lost his seat because the deceived Makerfield voters took their revenge!

Andy Burnham will require loyalty from ministers if he pushes ahead with plans for a return to free movement and rejoining EU amid cabinet splits The prime minister is expected to include his Brexit plan in Labour's manifesto, meaning ministers will have to back the plans even if they have concerns One senior government source said the issue was likely to be the subject of a motion at the next Labour conference, which meant the party was more likely to support rejoining the EU Ministers will also be bound by collective responsibility once the options for closer alignment with the EU have been announced on November 20, meaning that they cannot publicly express a view thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…

From tomorrow Oxford Street is going to be car-free, bus free and it is set to be pedestrianisation only. The stretch between Orchard Street, near Selfridges, and Great Portland Street, just east of Oxford Circus, will be closed to vehicles. Buses, taxis, private hire vehicles, bicycles, scooters and pedicabs will all be diverted.

… The reality is UK total (goods & services) exports to EU in 2025 were: · ⬆️ 18.9% on 2015 (pre-referendum) · ⬆️ 3.8% on 2019 (before leaving EU) · ⬆️3.2% on last year. All in real terms (source: ONS trade statistics) …

Yes, the monarchy was deeply implicated in the slave trade. But not the British monarchy. The biggest African slavers were not pirates or bandits. They were kings. In the 1750s, King Tegbesu of Dahomey, in present-day Benin, was reported to be making £250,000 a year from selling slaves. That astronomical sum, equivalent to perhaps £45 million today, was vastly more than any British aristocrat While Tegbesu was trafficking human beings, the future George III, who had recently become Prince of Wales, was becoming a convinced abolitionist. He wrote a monograph arguing that “slavery is equaly [sic] repugnant to the Civil Law as to the Law of Nature”. He went on, as King, to sign the abolition of the slave trade into law in 1807. That act prompted incredulous rage among West African chiefs. In the 1840s, King Ghezo of Dahomey, played by John Boyega in the 2022 film, The Woman King, fiercely resisted such pressure. “The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth,” he complained. Contrast his attitude with that of his British fellow-monarchs. Although Victoria, as Queen, was expected to refrain from expressing political opinions, her husband was under less constraint. Albert made his very first speech as Prince Consort to the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and for the Civilization of Africa. His words are a reminder of how determined Britain was to ensure that ending the Atlantic slave trade did not simply push the commerce eastwards. “I deeply regret that the benevolent and persevering exertions of England to abolish that atrocious traffic in human beings (at once the desolation of Africa and the blackest stain upon civilized Europe) have not as yet led to any satisfactory conclusion. But I sincerely trust that this great country will not relax in its efforts until it has finally, and for ever, put an end to a state of things so repugnant.” The difference between the British Crown and contemporary African monarchies can be glimpsed in the story of Aina, a young Yoruba girl owned by King Ghezo of Dahomey. In 1850, a naval captain called Frederick Forbes came to Dahomey to try to convince Ghezo to stop selling slaves. He was unsuccessful but, during his visit, he was offered Aina as a gift. Forbes knew that such slaves were generally destined for human sacrifice, so he accepted the child, naming her Sara Forbes Bonetta. When Sara arrived in Britain, Queen Victoria became her godmother, paid for her education and arranged for her to marry a wealthy Yoruba businessman. Are the British really the baddies here? Critics talk of telling our nation’s story “warts and all”; but they rarely get around to the “and all”. The “and all” surely includes the vast sums devoted to stamping out slavery, calculated by Chaim Kaufmann and Robert Pape as 1.8 per cent annually of GDP between 1808 and 1867, the most expensive moral foreign policy in human history. Even if there were a case for reparations in principle (which there is not) that sum alone – not counting the billions given in aid – would surely have covered any debt. What we are seeing is not a debate about history, but an argument about contemporary politics. Critics want to convince us that Britain became rich through exploitation rather than, as was actually the case, through private property, free contracts and independent courts. The easiest way to demonstrate the negative correlation between capitalism and slavery is to look at the places where human bondage is most prevalent today – in order, North Korea, Eritrea, Burundi, the Central African Republic and Mauritania. If William III owning shares in the Royal African Company bothers you more than the continuing abomination of slavery in those places, you need to ask yourself some hard questions about your motives.

🚨 IN FULL - HMRC letter to wealthy Britons : "I hope we can build an open and productive working relationship" 🤡