NEW YORK: Former US president Donald Trump celebrated the election of fellow populist Nigel Farage to Britain’s parliament on Friday, neglecting to mention the new prime minister, Keir Starmer.
Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party won the third largest vote haul, but under Britain’s electoral system it took just four seats while Starmer’s Labour party swept into office with a landslide.
“Congratulations to Nigel Farage on his big WIN of a Parliament Seat Amid Reform UK Election Success. Nigel is a man who truly loves his Country!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Farage is a long-standing ally of Trump, who has dubbed the divorced father-of-four “Mr Brexit” and previously said the British populist would have done a “great job” as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.
Farage is a champion of Brexit who was elected to parliament on his eighth attempt and has made no secret of his desire to take over the now-main opposition Conservative party, which was trounced at the polls by Labour.
“There is a massive gap on the center-right of British politics and my job is to fill it,” he said after a comfortable win in Clacton, eastern England.
The result bucks a rightward trend among Britain’s closest allies, with the far-right National Rally in France eyeing power and Trump looking set for a return in the United States.
Farage’s win will likely embolden the attention-grabbing populist figurehead in his long-term aim of staging a “takeover” of the Conservatives.
Millions of their voters appeared to have already switched their support to Reform, handing the Tories one of their worst-ever results.
An initial exit poll had caused a stir Thursday night after predicting Reform would secure 13 seats — far exceeding forecasts in the latter stages of the campaign that it would win just a handful of seats.
Trump congratulates UK’s Farage, ignores PM Starmer
https://arab.news/ymrwp
Trump congratulates UK’s Farage, ignores PM Starmer
- Farage is a long-standing ally of Trump
- Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party won the third largest vote haul
Senegal’s president urges dialogue with Sahel military juntas
- The three countries’ decision to leave was fueled in part by their accusation that France was manipulating ECOWAS and not providing enough support for anti-terrorism efforts
DAKAR: Senegalese President and West Africa’s ECOWAS “facilitator” Bassirou Diomaye Faye called on Monday for dialogue and peaceful reconciliation with three countries that recently split from the bloc.
The military leaders of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso broke away from the Economic Community of West African States earlier this year. They formed a confederation of their own on Saturday.
ECOWAS heads of state met in Abuja on Sunday. They deplored the “lack of progress in interactions” with Burkinabe, Malian, and Nigerien authorities, who came to power in recent coups.
“We cannot stand idly by,” Senegal’s President Faye said in a Monday video.
“Our responsibility is to work on bringing everyone closer and reconciliation — to ensure there is room for dialogue,” he said, hoping the bloc will work toward peace.
The three countries’ decision to leave was fueled in part by their accusation that France was manipulating ECOWAS and not providing enough support for anti-terrorism efforts.
ECOWAS has warned the region faced “disintegration,” though its efforts to bring the seceding countries closer so far have failed.
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have called their withdrawals “irreversible.”
ECOWAS appointed Senegal’s president as a “facilitator” in negotiations with the three states, alongside Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe.
President Faye stressed that, on paper, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger remain members for another year, as per Article 91 of the organization’s founding treaty.
“I hope that by the end of the (one-year) notice period, we will have had enough conversations to reconcile views and strengthen the organization so that it can better tackle our shared challenges,” Faye said.
ECOWAS announced on Sunday that it would draft a “prospective emergency plan” to “address any contingency” in the tense relations with the breakaway countries.
As a peace envoy supported by Togolese President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, Faye is seen as possibly the best among heads of state for a mission to try to woo the three nations back to the fold of regional cooperation.
Beyond the appeal of security and economic collaboration, ECOWAS’s goodwill has waned in recent years, said Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, a research analyst with the West Africa-focused Center for Democracy and Development.
But the new role offers Faye an opportunity to seek reforms for “a more sustainable and self-reliant” ECOWAS, Adekaiyaoja said.
Faye also represents the opposite of what the three military leaders claim they are against.
He had not been elected when ECOWAS, founded in 1975, imposed the severe sanctions on Niger following a coup last July. Niger cited the sanctions as one of the reasons for leaving the bloc.
Also, Faye’s victory in this year’s election, which was certified as credible, stood in contrast to rigged polls in the region.
At home, Faye is reviewing the old ties that the junta leaders claim have stifled West Africa’s development, though Senegal remains a key ally for the West.
Under Faye’s leadership, Senegalese officials are renegotiating contracts with foreign operators in the country and, according to Finance Minister Abdourahmane Sarr, are “aiming to free ourselves from the ties of dependency in our public policies.”
It is exactly what the junta wants to hear, analysts say.
Since ousting the democratic governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, the generals have severed military and economic ties with traditional Western partners such as the US and France, saying they had not benefited their countries.
The shift has opened the window for Russia to expand its regional footprint.
“Like the other heads of state, he (Faye) claims sovereignty and a break with the old order,” said Seidik Abba, a Sahel specialist and president of the International Center for Reflection for Studies.
Age is also not just a number in the case of Faye, a former tax inspector.
Even as the youngest president in Africa, he is still older than three of the four current military leaders in the region.
At Sunday’s ECOWAS meeting in Nigeria, Faye was still among the youngest.
Across him was Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo, who at 80, is just four years younger than Faye’s father.
When he visited Nigeria in May, the Senegalese leader touted his age as an “asset” that can help open a window for dialogue with the neighbors.
According to Abba, the Sahel specialist, Faye’s task to dialogue with the three countries would still not be easy. He said the three have wider concerns about the operations of ECOWAS, which they say faces interference from foreign countries like France, their former colonial ruler.
There is also a question of how much freedom Faye and the Togolese president would have as envoys under an ECOWAS that has just reelected Nigerian President Bola Tinubu as its chairman.
Their success would depend on “how best the different leaders can coordinate and agree” on the issues, said Adekaiyaoja from the Center for Democracy and Development.
Can Labour government usher in a new era of UK-Arab engagement?
- Some experts think policy focus will shift from migration, counterextremism to Palestine, closer Gulf ties
- Loud and clear election message is that support of Britain’s Muslim community cannot be taken for granted
LONDON: Before last Thursday, few British voters outside of the east London constituency of Ilford North had heard of Leanne Mohamad, the independent candidate running for election in the seat held by one of the Labour Party’s biggest names.
Mohamad’s name was no better known after the election, in which Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, held on to the seat he had captured from the Conservatives in 2015.
But the success of the 23-year-old British-Palestinian in coming within a whisker of defeating Streeting was one of several warning shots fired across the bows of a Labour Party which has now woken up to the fact that the UK’s Muslim community might have an equal or even greater say in its chances of remaining in power for more than one term as the UK Jewish lobby, which the party has spent the past five years courting assiduously.
Streeting, who is now Labour’s new health secretary, squeezed back in by just 528 votes — 15,647 to Mohamad’s 15,119 — an unprecedented collapse of support over a single issue of foreign policy.
He was not the only senior party member who felt the wrath of the Muslim community and its supporters over Labour’s half-hearted stance on Gaza.
In the constituency of Holborn & St. Pancras, even Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s 2019 majority of 36,641 was slashed in half.
His chief opponent was another independent, Andrew Feinstein, a former South African politician and the son of a Holocaust survivor who criticized Starmer’s pre-election position on Gaza, having previously argued that the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is “a peaceful mechanism to weaken and thus force concessions from” an “apartheid Israel.”
Over 120 miles north in Birmingham Ladywood, long-serving Labour MP Shabana Mahmood, who secured 79 percent of the constituency’s votes in 2019, saw her majority cut in half and almost equaled by Akhmed Yakoob, yet another pro-Palestinian independent candidate.
In the neighboring constituency of Birmingham Yardley, Labour’s Jess Phillips saw her 2019 majority of 10,659 slashed to fewer than 700 votes by newcomer Jody McIntyre, running for the Workers Party.
Her setback came her November 2023 resignation from the shadow cabinet in protest over her party’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict, declaring she had to vote “with my constituents, my head, and my heart, which has felt as if it were breaking over the last four weeks with the horror of the situation in Israel and Palestine.”
And they were the lucky ones. In 21 seats in the UK where more than one-fifth of the population is Muslim, Labour saw its share of the vote fall by 25 percent, and four MPs lost their seats to independents on pro-Gaza tickets.
The message for Labour, which has been received loud and clear, is that Britain’s sizable Muslim community has found its voice and its political power, and its support can no longer be taken for granted.
As Shabana Mahmood said after holding on to her Birmingham Ladywood seat, “we have bridges to rebuild … we have trust that we must earn back from my own community.”
There are already signs that Britain’s new government, whose program of social and economic reform is dependent upon securing a second term in office five years from now, is taking steps to do just that.
Starmer, whose wife is Jewish, inherited the leadership of the Labour Party in April 2020 from Jeremy Corbyn, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause whose five years as leader were overshadowed by persistent accusations that the party he presided over was antisemitic — allegations that Corbyn and his supporters saw as an orchestrated campaign motivated by Labour’s support for Palestine.
A report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the UK’s human rights watchdog, published in October 2020, concluded there were “serious failings in the Labour Party leadership in addressing antisemitism and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints.”
The report had a Catch-22 air about it, concluding as it did that Labour’s protestations that the multiple accusations of antisemitism against it — from organizations including the Jewish Labour Movement, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and Jewish Voice for Labour — were manufactured smears, was, in itself, evidence of antisemitism.
Starmer set out to rebuild the trust of the Jewish community, declaring that he would “tear out this poison by its roots and judge success by the return of Jewish members.”
It seems to have worked. In the 2019 general election an estimated 11 percent of British Jews voted Labour; last Thursday it was closer to 50 percent.
But Labour’s new prime minister is on tricky ground over Gaza. As he told The Guardian in an interview last month, “half of the family are Jewish, they’re either here or in Israel.”
Now that the election is over, and his party has been badly bruised at the ballot box by the perception that it has turned its back on the plight of the Palestinians, a cause traditionally close to Labour’s heart, Starmer faces the puzzle of how to retain UK Jewish support while bringing Muslims back on board.
“Labour has been very vocal about the need to counter antisemitism, and this now puts it in a very awkward position,” Kelly Petillo, program manager for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Arab News.
“On the one hand, they have portrayed themselves as the people who are going to clean up the Labour Party, but on the other they have to grapple with the reality that many independent candidates won because Labour’s stance on the war in Gaza was unsatisfactory for many.”
It is possible, she believes, that Labour will tread water on the issue of Gaza and the broader question of Palestinian statehood until the outcome of November’s presidential election in the US is settled.
If, as seems increasingly likely, Donald Trump returns to the presidency, “there could well be alignment with the Trump administration, leading to a bias toward Israel, which is already evident in the nature of some of the candidates Labour selected to run in the election.”
For example, one of Labour’s new parliamentarians is Luke Akehurst, the MP for North Durham and former director of the pro-Israeli activist group We Believe in Israel, who has described Israel’s actions in Gaza as proportionate.
But for now, at least, the new UK government’s foreign policy is already showing signs of taking a turn for the pro-Palestinian.
Before the election, the then Conservative government had challenged the decision by the International Criminal Court to consider approving the chief prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants to be issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The UK questioned the ICC’s jurisdiction in the case, but the new Labour-led government has hinted it may withdraw the objection.
The news leaked after two early calls to leaders in the region by Starmer. In one, he spoke to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, expressing his concern about “the ongoing suffering and devastating loss of life” in Gaza, and restating the support for a Palestinian state that David Lammy, his foreign secretary, had already articulated.
Starmer’s other call was to Netanyahu. According to a Labour transcript, the new prime minister spoke of the “clear and urgent” need for a ceasefire in Gaza, adding that it was “also important to ensure the long-term conditions for a two-state solution were in place, including ensuring the Palestinian Authority had the financial means to operate effectively.”
Starmer also urged the Israeli leader to act with caution in his dealings with Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border.
Meanwhile, Lammy has said that the Labour administration will reexamine legal advice given to the Conservative government that UK arms being sold to Israel were not being used in breach of international humanitarian law.
Lammy has also suggested the UK might reverse its decision to stop funding UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian relief agency. In January, major donors to the agency, including the US, the EU, the UK and Germany, withdrew funding when it emerged that a dozen of UNRWA’s 30,000 Palestinian employees were suspected of having been involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
By April, most of this international funding had been restored and “the UK is now in the weird position where it is one of the few countries that has not restored UNRWA funding,” said Petillo.
Despite Lammy’s pronouncements, “I think Starmer is being advised internally to delay this as much as possible, keeping the UK in line with the US, which has blocked it until March 2025. This type of deflection is probably a tactic they will use to address some of the domestic tensions they are under.”
Because of this and other issues, UK policy in the Middle East “will continue to be dictated to a certain extent by US politics and the US line; you could argue that we won’t see a huge change from foreign policy in this area under the Conservatives.
“On the other hand, one can anticipate change just because the bar set by the Conservative government was so low, partly because of all the distractions they have faced, but also because of the narrow lens through which they have looked at Middle East policy, focused mostly on migration and countering extremism and, of course, through a reduction in aid budgets, which has affected countries like Yemen and Syria massively.”
Lammy has already made plain that Labour intends to reengage with the Middle East through a new policy of what he called “progressive realism,” and has also spoken of the need for the UK to mend relations with the Arab Gulf states.
This would be timely and highly welcome in the region, said Petillo.
“The UK has definitely shifted its attention a bit away from the region,” she said. “It was a big part of the international support for Ukraine and lately has been looking at the Gulf states solely through the narrow lens of energy.
“This has really frustrated the Gulf countries, but Lammy has been traveling to the region, even before the war in Gaza, to address this grievance, and since then has been using the war as an opportunity to widen the conversation.
“There is a conversation right now among the Gulf states about building a regional security architecture, into which the process of Arab-Israeli normalization fits, and the new UK government is very keen to enter this conversation in a way that the Conservatives were not.”
The new UK government, Lina Khatib, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute and associate Fellow of the Chatham House Middle East and North Africa Program, told Arab News, “has the mandate to implement the needed foreign policy resets that the Labour party had prioritized ahead of the general election. Repairing relations with Arab countries in the Gulf and taking action toward a ceasefire in Gaza and resurrecting the Israel-Palestine peace process are two such priorities.”
According to Khatib, Labour has “rightly framed the Gulf as an important partner for security and economic growth.
“However, the UK government must pursue a more comprehensive strategy toward the Gulf which also takes into consideration the region’s geopolitical interests,” she said.
“This includes adopting a bold approach in addressing the destabilizing role of Iran and its proxies in the Middle East, which the previous UK government had merely skirted around.”
The UK “must also strengthen its diplomatic, cultural, and business engagement with the Middle East and North Africa. This will help nurture areas of growth across those sectors in the region and bolster the UK’s own standing.”The Labour Middle East Council, established in January this year by British politicians and former ambassadors to the region, with “the fundamental goal of cultivating understanding and fostering enduring relationships between UK parliamentarians and the Middle East & North Africa,” was “one avenue for facilitating such engagement.”
Two perspectives on a historic relationship
MIRAN HASSAN, Founder and director, Labour Middle East Council
It’s about treating the UK-Gulf relationship with more respect and giving it the attention that it deserves. For example, if you look at the GCC-UK Free Trade Agreement, those negotiations have been going on for years with no meaningful progress. That’s a very good example of where the relationship needs to be enhanced and given the attention that it deserves, considering the bloc is one of our largest trading partners.
Not enough attention was paid by the Conservatives to the GCC as a priority trading partner, and I’m hopeful and quite confident that’s going to change under this government.
This is no longer a world where the UK and the US are the only partners available. Now you can just go over to China, Russia is making strategic alliances, and so on. It’s now a world where the UK needs to actually fight to be a partner and for opportunities. It isn’t that the region wants to turn its back on the UK, but one that commands respect. And if they don't have the right level of engagement, then naturally they will look elsewhere.
What’s important for us at Labour Middle East Council is to have the region viewed through the lens of how interconnected our foreign policy is. So, when we look at the issue with the Houthis and their attacks, for example, how has that impacted global trade as a whole and our interests in other parts of the world?
Domestically, migration is a huge priority for the UK government, and we need to be engaged with the region that is the source of a lot of that migration, especially as climate change plays a bigger role and has a huge impact on many countries, such as Syria, Iraq and Libya.
BURCU OZCELIK, Senior Research Fellow (Middle East Security), RUSI
The Labour government has inherited status quo-altering challenges on multiple fronts in the Middle East. With the epicenter in Gaza, conflict vectors reach across Yemen and the Red Sea, Iraq, Syria, and notably with Lebanon-based Hezbollah, where the threat of an escalated war looms large.
While voting results show that Labour gained the trust of a sizeable portion of the British Jewish electorate, largely thanks to rejecting the Corbyn era’s polarizing policies to a more centrist approach, how Labour behaves both in its domestic response to voter expectations, and in its foreign-policy posture in the Middle East, will be scrutinized closely by Jewish and Muslim voters alike, who look to the new government to reduce the devastating human cost of the conflict.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy is set to emphasize the pledge enshrined in the Labour manifesto to recognize a Palestinian state as part of a peace process toward a two-state solution “with a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.” The issue is the extent to which Britain will play a proactive role in being pro-peace above all.
With the electoral campaign now behind us, voters will look to see tangible evidence that policies will match promises. This requires foregrounding a human-rights based approach equally all those civilians impacted, continuing to call for the immediate release of Israeli hostages held since Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas, alongside pressure for a ceasefire, and urgent humanitarian aid to Palestinians. Unresolved issues will demand urgent attention, such as reviewing future means of funding that will permit the Palestinian Authority to govern effectively, legal concerns around UK arms sales, and the ICC’s ruling on Israel.
The Gulf states are poised — with the appropriate diplomatic assurances — to contribute to a necessary regional effort to support the rehabilitation, reconstruction and rebuilding of Gaza. Despite lulls and lags in the relationship, Labour now has an opportunity to engage with Gulf states (and societies) to facilitate a regional and sustained response to support Gaza, reassure Israel, and work toward the objective of Palestinian statehood.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies will seek to buy more time. Britain can apply pressure to bring an end to the humanitarian crisis and support mechanisms — with strong buy-in from the Arab states — to begin planning for the day after.
Thousands march to mark Srebrenica genocide anniversary
- Annual march covers a 100-kilometer (62-mile) route to Srebrenica from the village of Nezuk, where the first survivors arrived
- Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica — a UN protected enclave at the time — on July 11, 1995, and killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys
NEZUK, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Thousands of people began marching on Monday toward Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia to mark the anniversary of the 1995 genocide, the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
The annual march covers a 100-kilometer (62-mile) route to Srebrenica from the village of Nezuk, where the first survivors arrived.
Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica — a UN protected enclave at the time — on July 11, 1995, and killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
The atrocity was deemed genocide by two international courts.
Fatima Ibrahimbegovic Alic told AFP her father, Ramiz, was killed trying to escape.
“I go for him, for all of them, to walk this path where they suffered,” she said.
“We need to keep doing this so we never forget.”
Carrying Bosnian, Palestinian and Turkish flags, the marchers will stop at the sites of dozens of mass graves where the remains of victims were found.
“We are here so that Srebrenica never happens again, anywhere ... that everyone knows” about the crime, said Azra Barakovac, a woman who arrived from Sarajevo to march for the first time.
Marcher Resid Dervisevic is one of the rare massacre survivors. In July 1995, he and his eight male relatives fled Srebrenica, running through the woods. His brother, an uncle and six nephews were killed during the escape.
Returning to the scene “brings back emotions, even in the days before this march,” the 64-year-old said holding back tears.
But it is easier to do it now than in 1995 “under a rain of bullets and shells — hungry, barefoot, without sleep for days,” he added.
“I walked for seven days through the forest. I survived on 250 grams of sugar.
“And when we arrived here, on this territory, people welcomed us by giving us everything they had to eat and drink.”
In late May, the United Nations General Assembly established an annual day of remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.
The move drew fierce opposition from the Serbian government and Bosnian Serb leaders, who play down the atrocity and refuse to accept it as a genocide.
“We want to dedicate this march to all the people who did not manage to save themselves and who were killed in the Srebrenica genocide,” Ela Rehic, 14, who joined the march with her mother, said.
“It will certainly be difficult to march for three days, but I want to see and experience a bit of what I learned about their flight from Srebrenica.”
Tofik Sejdic, like Rehic, was born after 1995 and said he felt very emotional.
“It’s important not to forget what happened in those years in our country, especially in Srebrenica.
“For our people, for me, Srebrenica is sacred,” the 24-year-old man said.
In late May, the United Nations General Assembly established an annual day of remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.
The move drew fierce opposition from the Serbian government and Bosnian Serb leaders, who play down the atrocity and refuse to call it a genocide.
The marchers will reach the memorial center in Potocari, where nearly 7,000 massacre victims were buried, on Wednesday.
They will attend a ceremony to mark the atrocity’s 29th anniversary the next day.
Bosnia’s war 1992-1995 between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed approximately 100,000 lives.
Nearly three decades since the war ended, the Balkan nation remains deeply divided along ethnic lines.
France’s allies relieved by Le Pen loss but wonder what’s next
- Instability may follow with a new cohabitation government in France and Europe
LONDON/BRUSSELS: Many of France’s allies breathed a sigh of relief on Monday after Marine Le Pen’s far-right party failed to win a snap election, but they noted that a messy coalition from a hung parliament could also pose headaches for Europe.
Le Pen’s National Rally had been favorite to top the polls, raising the risk of France’s first far-right government since World War Two and threatening to upend economic and foreign policy in the euro zone’s second-largest economy.
In particular, Ukraine’s allies feared a Le Pen-led government could be soft on Moscow and pare back military aid that Kyiv has relied on since the Russian invasion in 2022, though her party has latterly said Russia was a threat.
The National Rally’s defeat signals at least a temporary pushback against a far-right surge in Europe, but could herald a period of instability with a new government in an uneasy “cohabitation” with President Emmanuel Macron.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his government was “relieved” that Macron did not have to accommodate Le Pen.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck also lauded efforts to prevent a “drifting toward nationalism and thereby moving Europe into even more difficult waters.”
“But nevertheless the election result will now represent an enormous challenge, especially for France itself, but of course also for Europe, which is currently in the phase of reorganization after the European elections, and also for the German-French relationship,” Habeck added.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk struck a positive tone.
“In Paris enthusiasm, in Moscow disappointment, in Kyiv relief. Enough to be happy in Warsaw,” Tusk said on X.
Le Pen’s party meanwhile was set to join a newly minted alliance in the European Parliament led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with the stated aims of fighting illegal immigration and taking powers back from Brussels.
MACRON’S GAMBLE
Macron had called the snap poll in an attempt to wrest the initiative back from Le Pen but his own party was left trailing behind an alliance of leftist parties that performed far better than expected to take first place.
A fragmented parliament is set to weaken France’s role in the European Union and further afield, and make it hard for anyone to push through a domestic agenda.
Several early reactions from overseas rejoiced that the immediate threat of a far-right government had been averted.
Nikos Androulakis, the head of Greece’s Socialist PASOK party, said the French people had “raised a wall against the far right, racism and intolerance and guarded the timeless principles of the French Republic: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”
An EU official called it a “huge relief,” but added: “what it means for Europe on a day to day basis remains to be seen though.” A senior EU diplomat also expressed relief that a lurch toward what they called the extreme right was not seen everywhere.
Le Pen has in the past expressed her admiration for President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was watching the formation of a new French government with great interest, but added:
“The victory of political forces that would be supporters of efforts to restore our bilateral relations is definitely better for Russia, but so far we do not see such bright political will in anyone, so we do not harbor any special hopes or illusions in this regard.”
A spokesperson for Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer called France one of the UK’s closest partners but added that he would work with any government.
DEEP DIVISIONS
The election left the French parliament split between three large groups — the left, the centrists, and the far right — with different platforms and no tradition of working together.
The left wants to cap prices of essential goods like fuel and food, as well as raise the minimum wage and the salaries of public sector workers, at a time when France’s budget deficit is already at 5.5 percent of output, higher than EU rules permit.
“Bye-bye European deficit limits! (The government) will crash in no time. Poor France. It can console itself with (Kylian) Mbappé,” said Claudio Borghi, a senator from Italy’s right-wing League party, referring to the French soccer star.
Other far-right politicians expressed frustration. Andre Ventura, leader of Portugal’s Chega party, called the result a “disaster for the economy, tragedy for immigration and bad for the fight against corruption.”
A note by Capital Economics said France may have avoided the “worst possible outcomes” for investors of an outright majority for either Le Pen or the leftists.
A fractious parliament means, however, it will be difficult for any government to pass the budget cuts that are necessary for France to comply with the EU’s budget rules, it said.
“Meanwhile, the chance of France’s government (and the governments of other countries) clashing with the EU over fiscal policy has increased now that the bloc’s budget rules have been re-introduced,” it said.
Human rights groups urge new UK PM to overhaul ‘broken’ asylum system
- Among the key demands include by repealing the Illegal Migration Act and the Nationality and Borders Act
LONDON: Hundreds of refugee and human rights organizations have written to Keir Starmer, the newly elected UK prime minister, presenting a comprehensive blueprint for asylum policy reform, The Guardian reported.
The letter, endorsed by 300 civil society organizations and 534 people working with migrants, describes existing policy as “fundamentally broken.”
The document outlined nine key demands, which, if implemented by Labour, would mark a significant shift in one of the most contentious policy areas of the previous government.
Among the key demands include restoring the right to seek asylum in the UK in line with international law, by repealing the Illegal Migration Act and the Nationality and Borders Act.
The letter also calls for the creation of safe routes for asylum seekers to reach the UK, including visa provisions, family reunification measures and the rebuilding of refugee resettlement programs.
Additionally, it advocates for housing asylum seekers within communities rather than in institutional accommodations such as barracks, barges, hotels and hostels, which “causes unnecessary and lasting harm at significant taxpayer expense.”
The letter, seen by The Guardian, reads: “We are proud to welcome people seeking safety. For years, we have stepped in to support people who have been targeted and brutalized by hostile policies.
“We are now calling on your government to take a new approach: Protecting people seeking safety, rather than punishing them for political gain.
“Successive pieces of unworkable, cruel legislation have effectively extinguished the right to seek asylum in the UK, creating an ever-growing ‘perma-backlog’ of tens of thousands of people. Some are being retraumatized in open-prison camps on barracks or barges.
“Others are left in overcrowded hostels with their mental health deteriorating whilst they are banned from finding employment. And Channel fatalities are at unthinkable levels, with a 450 percent increase in deaths at our border in the past 12 months.”
A Home Office spokesperson told The Guardian: “The government is determined to restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly, and ensures that the rules are properly enforced.”
