Politics

Former Vote Leave chairman Nigel Lawson is applying for an official French residency card, it has been revealed. Lawson, formally Baron Lawson of Blaby, has told Connexion he’s applying for his carte de sejour, a document that secures his rights to remain in Gascony post-Brexit. The move is on the recommendation of the French government who say Britons living in France should seek to get official residency cards. As of last month fewer than 15,000 ex-oats had them, which is roughly a tenth...

Activate, the Conservative's imitation of Momentum, has folded after just eight months. The political movement was set up to engage young people in centre-right politics but has struggled to make any headway since it was launched in August last year. High membership fees, homophobic WhatsApp conversations and lavish meetings are highlight's of the organisation's short-lived existence. Many have argued that the group was doomed from the start having been set the impossible mission of becoming the vehicle for a conservative mass movement...

Donations to the Conservative party were three times the size of any other party at the start of 2018, new figures have revealed. The Tories received £4.7 million in the first three months of the year, compared with £1.4 million of donations to Labour and £564,000 to the Liberal Democrats. Leading Tory donors include Ehud Sheleg, an Israeli-born businessman who recent media reports have suggested could become the party's treasurer. The party also received a £582,358 bequest. Outside of the main...

GMB is urging Theresa May to implement at the earliest opportunity important changes to a European Union directive that will make it harder for unscrupulous employers to exploit workers. Following the landmark vote in the European Parliament today to strengthen protections on posted workers, the union is calling on the government not to drag its feet in implementing the change to the rights of posted workers. The changes are intended to prevent undercutting employers paying EU workers posted in the...

ITV's Richard Madley terminated an interview with Gavin Williamson this morning because the defence secretary refused to give straight answers to his questions. The broadcaster was clearly infuriated with Williamson for dodging questions after he challenged him over the Salisbury poisoning case. After asking him three times whether he regretted having told Russia to “shut up and go away” in the aftermath of the attack, the Good Morning Britain presenter suddenly announced “interview terminated”, adding it would be “helpful if you answered...

A viral tweet is doing the rounds on social media after highlighting the compelling body of evidence that suggests Brexit will make us all poorer. The government's leaked impact report that came to light in March of this year confirmed most of our fears that every region in Britain will be left economically worse off by Brexit. And with negotiations still to be completed, it found the more divergence from European regulations and trade the UK goes for, the worse...

Senior Tory Jacob Ress-Mogg told LBC radio that he was saddened by The Republic of Ireland’s decision to repeal its 8th amendment and allow abortions to take place in the country. The vote was a historic victory for Irish people who had been campaigning for the amendment’s repeal ever since it was passed in 1983. However, the result was welcomed by the PM, Mrs May who tweeted : ‘The Irish Referendum yesterday was an impressive show of democracy which delivered...

Brexit has allowed concrete issues to be "swept under the carpet" while we deal with abstract notions of sovereignty, The New European editor Matt Kelly has said. Speaking on Media Masters podcast Kelly said we are facing many real problems in society that are being ignored because of the ongoing debate on the EU. The Conservatives have been allowed to skirt "real" issues such as the NHS, the North/South divide, the size of classrooms and waiting times at A&E because the...

Boris Johnson has suggested that the biggest roadblock to Anglo-Argentina relations is the EU during his recent visit to South America. The prominent Brexiteer claimed he was the first Foreign Secretary in 50 years to visit Peru and the first in 25 years to go to Chile and Argentina, suggesting this was because being a member of the EU had made the UK "more Eurocentric and less instinctively global than we had been". His comments overlook the fact that the EU already...