UK Politics

Georgian police on Friday detained a second opposition leader within days as protests continue in the South Caucasus country against the ruling Georgian Dream party.Lawyers for Nika Melia, one of the figureheads for Georgia’s pro-Western Coalition for Change, said his car was stopped by police on Thursday. Soon after, he was bundled away by a large group of people in civilian clothing. According to Georgia’s interior ministry, Melia has been detained on charges of verbally insulting a law enforcement officer.The arrest came a week after that of Zurab Japaridze, another leader of the pro-Western, liberal coalition of parties that support European Union integration and want a restoration of democratic standards. Japaridze, who heads the Girchi – More Freedom party, was detained on May 22 after refusing to appear before a parliamentary commission investigating alleged wrongdoings by the government of ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.Opposition politicians have declined to attend the commission hearings, saying they are politically motivated by Georgian Dream to damage the opposition, particularly Saakashvili’s United National Movement party.Melia, of the Ahali party and former chairman of Saakashvili’s United National Movement party, was detained on the eve of a scheduled court hearing for failing to testify. Japaridze and seven other opposition politicians, not including Melia, who did not attend the commission are expected to appear before a court in coming days. If found guilty of failing to comply with a parliamentary investigative commission, they face up to a year in prison.Meanwhile, demonstrators have continued to gather in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, demanding new elections and the release of dissidents. Nightly protests there began on Nov. 28, when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze halted the country’s EU integration process.Georgia has seen widespread political unrest since the country’s last parliamentary election on Oct. 26, which was won by Georgian Dream. Protestors and the country’s opposition declared the result as illegitimate amid allegations of vote-rigging helped by Russia, sparking weeks of protests across the country.At the time, opposition leaders vowed to boycott sessions of parliament until a new parliamentary election was held under international supervision and alleged ballot irregularities were investigated.Georgian Dream has seen widespread condemnation by European leaders and international rights groups over its rough handling of protestors and perceived democratic backsliding. More

The government has sold its remaining shares in NatWest, finalising the bank’s return to private ownership for the first time since it was bailed out during the 2008 financial crisis. The Treasury has been a stakeholder since NatWest, formerly known as RBS, received almost £46 billion of funding in 2008 and 2009.To date, £35 billion has been returned to the Exchequer through share sales, dividends and fees, meaning the sale has come at a £10.5 billion loss to taxpayers.The government and bosses at NatWest said it was a significant milestone since the bailout, which prevented the bank’s collapse.Chancellor Rachel Reeves said NatWest’s return to private ownership “turns the page on a significant chapter in this country’s history” More

Donald Trump’s administration has been accused of hypocrisy after claiming that the UK and Europe are “trampling democracy”. In a post on the Substack blogging platform, the US state department accused governments of “weaponising political institutions” to turn the continent into a “hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance”. The piece broadly criticises the so-called ‘global liberal project’ but highlights the UK and Germany in particular.The comments echo previous US claims that the greatest threat to European security was not Russia but the continent’s suppression of the right and anti-abortion activists. “Americans are familiar with these tactics,” the post says. “Indeed, a similar strategy of censorship, demonization, and bureaucratic weaponization was utilized against President Trump and his supporters. “What this reveals is that the global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy. Rather, it is trampling democracy, and Western heritage along with it, in the name of a decadent governing class afraid of its own people.”Calum Miller (L) said Donald Trump was the greatest threat to liberty in the US More

Nigel Farage could become the prime minister with an outright majority, the latest polling calculations show as Reform UK surges ahead of Labour and the Conservatives. After Sir Keir Starmer attacked the Reform UK leader directly in a bid to stem the party’s rise, parliament seat prediction site Electoral Calculus has calculated that Mr Farage would win 362 seats if a general election were held tomorrow. Labour would fall from winning 412 seats at the last general election to second place on 136, while the beleaguered Conservatives would be almost wiped out, winning just 22 seats. One pollster has suggested that the UK is on the verge of “a political earthquake”, but others have warned against reading too much into the current polls and questioned some of the assumptions behind the Electoral Calculus prediction.Nigel Farage is on course to become prime minister, according to the polls More

Nigel Farage’s claim that Reform UK is the “party of workers” has been called into question as figures show his plans to slash taxes would benefit the richest most. The Reform leader on Tuesday outlined up to £80bn of welfare and tax handouts – without saying how he would fund them – in a bid to entice Labour voters, declaring that “Reform really are now the party of working people”. But economists have warned that the billions of pounds’ worth of unfunded pledges would cause economic chaos, and say Mr Farage’s plans would benefit top earners far more than those on the lowest incomes. Nigel Farage has declared Reform the party of working people More

Reform UK has pledged to cut taxes on cryptocurrencies and set up a “Bitcoin reserve” if elected.Party chairman Zia Yusuf told reporters on Friday that a Reform government would reduce capital gains tax on assets such as Bitcoin to 10% as part of a raft of reforms to how cryptocurrencies are governed.Mr Yusuf, who does not own cryptocurrency, suggested the cut could generate up to £1 billion for the Treasury over a decade, saying it would encourage more use of such currency and encourage people to move their assets to the UK.Cryptocurrencies currently incur capital gains tax of either 18% or 24%, depending on the rate of income tax paid by the person selling the assets.Mr Yusuf also announced that Reform would allow people to pay tax in Bitcoin and establish a “Bitcoin reserve fund” to “diversify” the UK’s reserve holdings.He said the UK was “losing ground” to other countries, and added that Reform’s proposals would help the financial services sector “catapult itself back into being a leader”.The announcement came as party leader Nigel Farage said Reform would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency.Speaking at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Mr Farage said: “My message to the British public, my message particularly to young people, is help us to help you bring our country properly into the 21st century.“Let’s recognise that crypto, Bitcoin, digital assets, are here to stay.”Mr Farage pledged that his party would “launch in Britain a crypto revolution” and make London “one of the major trading centres of the world”.On Friday, Mr Yusuf told reporters Reform had already received its first cryptocurrency donations, adding they were all compliant with Electoral Commission rules.Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have increased in popularity in recent years, with research suggesting around 12% of adults in the UK own or have owned cryptoassets, up from 4% in 2021.Last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced plans to regulate cryptoassets in a bid to make the UK a “world leader”.She told a conference that she would “back the builders” as she announced plans to make crypto firms subject to regulation in the same way as traditional finance companies. More

Labour is set to plough tens of billions of pounds into red wall seats leaning towards Reform UK as the party ramps up its efforts to halt the rise of Nigel Farage. After months of haemorrhaging voters to Mr Farage’s populist outfit, Rachel Reeves will unveil spending for a slew of road, rail and green energy projects in the north and Midlands, according to reports. The chancellor will use next month’s spending review to reprioritise spending from the southeast to the red wall seats that Labour won at the last election, but are now under threat from Reform, it is claimed.It could free up tens of billions of pounds to invest in the projects in areas where Labour fears Mr Farage’s appeal as part of an overall £100 billion pot Ms Reeves can use to invest in infrastructure after tweaking her fiscal rules in last year’s Budget. Touting the fiscal rule change in January in a speech promising to kickstart growth, Ms Reeves said: “We have changed course on public investment, too.Rachel Reeves is set to prioritise investment in red wall areas More

The Attorney General has drawn comparisons between calls for the UK to disregard international court rulings and the actions of Nazi Germany.Speaking in London on Thursday, Lord Richard Hermer KC criticised the notion that the UK could breach international obligations, branding it a “radical departure from the UK’s constitutional tradition”.In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) thinktank, Lord Hermer highlighted the historical context of dismissing international law, noting that similar arguments were made in Germany during the early 1930s. He said that the claims that international law can be “put aside” were made in the early 1930s in Germany.Lord Hermer voiced concerns over what he sees as a growing sentiment within the UK, including within the Palace of Westminster, to abandon international legal constraints in favour of “raw power”. He cautioned against this approach, stating: “This is not a new song.””The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law.” Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer said the idea that the UK can breach international obligations is a “radical departure from the UK’s constitutional tradition” More