LONDON — Green Party leader Zack Polanski is open to forming a discrete non-aggression pact with Labour in order to stop right-winger Nigel Farage from ever entering Downing Street, according to two senior Green officials. Polanski, the leader of the “eco-populist” outfit that is helping squeeze the incumbent Labour government’s progressive vote, has been keen to make the case that his radical politics can halt Farage — whose insurgent Reform UK is riding high in the polls — in his tracks. But the recently elected party chief, who has overseen a big boost to Green polling with his punchy defenses of leftist causes on social media and television, has told allies he “couldn’t live with myself” if he contributed to Farage’s victory, according to a second senior Green official, granted anonymity like others in this piece to speak about internal thinking. Such a move would stop short of a formal Green-Labour deal, instead tapping into tactical voting. Green officials are discussing the prospect of informal, local prioritizations of resources so the best-placed progressive challenger can win, as seen in elections past with Labour and the centrist Liberal Democrats. At the same time, Green advisers are keen to lean into the deep divisions within Labour about whether Starmer should be replaced with another leader to prevent electoral oblivion. Starmer appears deeply unpopular with Green supporters. One YouGov study has him rated just as unfavorably as Conservative chief Badenoch with backers of Polanski’s party. The first Green official argued there is “no advantage in working electorally with Labour under Starmer.” Instead, they’re eyeing up — even expecting — a change in Labour leadership. Polanski has talked up Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Labour mayor who is seen as one potential challenger to Starmer.  LABOUR: WE ARE NOT EVEN THINKING ABOUT THAT As the party in power, Labour — which has ramped up its attacks on the Greens in recent weeks — is keen to tamp down talk of working together. Asked about the Greens, a senior U.K. government adviser said: “We are not even thinking about that. We need to focus on being a viable government.”  They expect Polanski’s polling to plummet once there’s more scrutiny of his politics, including his criticism of NATO, as well as his more colorful comments. Back in 2013, as a hypnotherapist, Polanski suggested to a reporter he could enlarge breasts with his mind. “The hypnotist thing goes down in focus groups like a bucket of cold sick,” the government adviser added. There’s skepticism that a non-aggression deal could work anyway, not least because the Greens will be vying for the kind of urban heartlands Labour can’t afford to back down from. Neither party “has an incentive to go soft on one another,” as a result, Luke Tryl, a director at the More in Common think tank, said. “I really doubt they’re going to forgo taking more seats off us in London or Bristol in the greater interest of the left,” said a Labour MP with a keen eye on the polling. “They’re trying to replace us — they’re not trying to be our little friends.” The Labour MP instead argued that voters typically make their minds up in the lead-up to elections as to how best to stop a certain outcome, whether that’s due to past polling or activities on the ground. Zack Polanski has been keen to make the case that his radical politics can halt Nigel Farage — whose insurgent Reform UK is riding high in the polls — in his tracks. | Lesley Martin/Getty Images That can well work against Labour, as seen in the Caerphilly by-election in October. The constituency of the devolved Welsh administration had been Labour since its inception in 1999 — but no more. Voters determined to stop Farage decided it was the center-left Welsh nationalists of Plaid Cymru that represented the best party to coalesce around. Reform’s success was thwarted — but Labour’s vote plummeted in what were once party heartlands.  “There’s no doubt the Greens risk doing to Labour what Farage did to the Conservatives,” said Tryl of More in Common, who pointed out that the Greens may not even win many seats as a result of the fracturing (party officials internally speak of winning only 50 MPs as being a huge ask).   “Labour’s hope instead will have to be that enough disgruntled progressives hold their nose and opt for PM Starmer over the threat of PM Farage.” Labour and the Greens are not the only parties dealing with talk of a pact, despite a likely four-year wait for Britain’s next general election. Ever since 1918, it’s been either the Conservatives or Labour who’ve formed the British government, with Westminster’s first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all system across 650 constituencies meaning new parties rarely get a look in. But the general election in July last year suggested this could be coming apart. Farage has already been forced to deny a report that he views an electoral deal with establishment Conservatives as the “inevitable” route to power. His stated aim is to replace the right-wing party entirely. Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch is publicly pretty firm that she won’t buddy up with Reform either. “I am the custodian of an institution that has existed for nigh on 200 years,” she said in February. “I can’t just treat it like it’s a toy and have pacts and mergers.” Robert Jenrick, the right-winger who’s widely tipped as her successor, has been more circumspect, however. That appears to be focusing minds on the left. Farage may be polling the highest — but there’s still a significant portion of the public horrified by the prospect of him entering No.10. A YouGov study on tactical voting suggested that Labour would be able to count on a boost in support from Liberal Democrat and Green voters to stave off the threat of Farage. Outwardly, Polanski is a vocal critic of Labour under Starmer and wants to usurp the party as the main vehicle for left-wing politics. The Green leader is aiming to win over not just progressives, but also disenchanted Reform-leaning voters, with his support for wider public ownership, higher taxes on the wealthy, and opposition to controversial measures like scaling back jury trials and introducing mandatory digital IDs. But privately, Polanski is more open to doing deals because in his mind, “at the general election, stopping Farage is the most important objective,” as the first senior Green adviser put it. “We expect to be the main challengers to Reform, but of course we are open to discussing what options exist to help in that central mission of stopping Farage,” they said.

Laura Thornton is the senior director for democracy programs at the McCain Institute. She spent more than two decades in Asia and the former Soviet Union with the National Democratic Institute. Earlier this month, I spoke at a conference in Bucharest for Eastern Europe’s democracy activists and leaders. I was discussing foreign malign influence operations, particularly around elections, highlighting Russia’s hybrid war in Moldova, when a Hungarian participant pointed out that U.S. President Donald Trump had offered Hungary’s illiberal strongman Viktor Orbán a one-year reprieve for complying with U.S. sanctions for using Russian oil and gas. With Hungarian elections around the corner and this respite being a direct relief to Orbán’s economy, “Is that not election interference?” she asked. The next day, while at the Moldova Security Forum in Chișinău, a Polish government official expressed his deep concern about sharing intelligence with the current U.S. administration. While he had great respect for the embassy in Warsaw, he noted a lack of trust in some leaders in Washington and his worry that intelligence would get leaked, in the worst case to Russia — as had happened during Trump’s first term. My week came to an end at a two-day workshop for democracy activists, all who described the catastrophic impact that the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) elimination had on their work, whether that be protecting free and fair elections, combating disinformation campaigns or supporting independent media. “It’s not just about the money. It’s the loss of the U.S. as a democratic partner,” said one Georgian participant. Others then described how this withdrawal had been an extraordinary gift to Russia, China and other autocratic regimes, becoming a main focus of their disinformation campaigns. According to one Moldovan participant, “The U.S. has abandoned Moldova” was now a common Russian narrative, while Chinese messaging in the global south was also capitalizing on the end of USAID to paint Washington as an unreliable ally. Having spent a good deal of my career tracking malign foreign actors who undermine democracy around the world and coming up with strategies to defend against them, this was a rude reality check. I had to ask myself: “Wait, are we the bad guys?” It would be naive to suggest that the U.S. has always been a good faith actor, defending global democracy throughout its history. After all, America has meddled in many countries’ internal struggles, supporting leaders who didn’t have their people’s well-being or freedom in mind. But while it has fallen short in the past, there was always broad bipartisan agreement over what the U.S. should be: a reliable ally; a country that supports those less fortunate, stands up against tyranny worldwide and is a beacon of freedom for human rights defenders. America’s values and interests were viewed as intertwined — particularly the belief that a world with more free and open democracies would benefit the U.S. As the late Senator John McCain famously said: “Our interests are our values, and our values are our interests.” At the Moldova Security Forum in Chișinău, a Polish government official expressed his deep concern about sharing intelligence with the current U.S. administration. | Artur Widak/Getty Images I have proudly seen this born out in my work. I’ve lived in several countries that have had little to offer the U.S. with regards to trade, extractive industries or influence, and yet we supported their health, education and agriculture programs. We also stood up for defenders of democracy and freedom fighters around the world, with little material benefit to ourselves. I’ve worked with hundreds of foreign aid and NGO workers in my life, and I can say not one of them was in it for a “good trade deal” or to colonize resources. But today’s U.S. foreign policy has broken from this approach. It has abandoned the post-World War II consensus on allies and the value of defending freedom, instead revolving around transactions and deal-making, wielding tariffs to punish or reward, and defining allies based on financial benefit rather than shared democratic values. There are new ideological connections taking place as well — they’re just not the democratic alliances of the past. At the Munich Security Forum earlier this year, U.S. Vice President JD Vance chose to meet with the far-right Alternative for Germany party rather than then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The Conservative Political Action Committee has also served as a transatlantic bridge to connect far-right movements in Europe to those in the U.S., providing a platform to strongmen like Orbán. The recently released U.S. National Security Strategy explicitly embraces this pivot away from values toward more transactional alliances, as well as a fondness for “patriotic European parties” and a call to “resist” the region’s “current trajectory” — a clear reference to the illiberal, far-right movements in Europe. Meanwhile, according to Harvard University’s school of public health, USAID’s closure has tragically caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, while simultaneously kneecapping the work of those fighting for freedom, human rights and democracy. And according to Moldovan organizations I’ve spoken with, while the EU and others continue to assist them in their fight against Russia’s hybrid attacks ahead of this year’s September elections, the American withdrawal is de facto helping the Kremlin’s efforts. It should have come as no surprise to me that our partners are worried and wondering whose side the U.S. is really on. But I also believe that while a country’s foreign policy often reflects the priorities and values of that nation as a whole, Americans can still find a way to shift this perception. Alliances aren’t only built nation-to-nation — they can take place at the subnational level, creating bonds between democratic cities or states in the U.S. with like-minded local governments elsewhere. Just like Budapest doesn’t reflect its anti-democratic national leadership, we can find connections and share lessons learned. Moreover, partnerships can be forged at the civil society level too. Many American democracy and civic organizations, journalists and foundations firmly believe in a pro-democracy U.S. foreign policy, and they want to build communities with democratic actors globally. At a meeting in Prague last month, a former German government official banged their hand on the table, emphatically stating: “The transatlantic relationship is dead!” And I get it. I understand that the democratic world may well be tempted to cut the U.S. off as an ally and partner. But to them I’d like to say that it’s not our democracy organizations, funding organizations and broader government that abandoned them when national leadership changed. Relationships can take on many shapes, layers and connections, and on both sides of the Atlantic, those in support of democracy must now find new creative avenues of cooperation and support. I hope our friends don’t give up on us so easily.

Mathias Döpfner is chair and CEO of Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company. America and Europe have been transmitting on different wavelengths for some time now. And that is dangerous — especially for Europe. The European reactions to the new U.S. National Security Strategy paper and to Donald Trump’s recent criticism of the Old Continent were, once again, reflexively offended and incapable of accepting criticism: How dare he, what an improper intrusion! But such reactions do not help; they do harm. Two points are lost in these sour responses. First: Most Americans criticize Europe because the continent matters to them. Many of those challenging Europe — even JD Vance or Trump, even Elon Musk or Sam Altman — emphasize this repeatedly. The new U.S. National Security Strategy, scandalized above all by those who have not read it, states explicitly: “Our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory. We will need a strong Europe to help us successfully compete, and to work in concert with us to prevent any adversary from dominating Europe.” And Trump says repeatedly, literally or in essence, in his interview with POLITICO: “I want to see a strong Europe.” The transatlantic drift is also a rupture of political language. Trump very often simply says what he thinks — sharply contrasting with many European politicians who are increasingly afraid to say what they believe is right. People sense the castration of thought through a language of evasions. And they turn away. Or toward the rabble-rousers. My impression is that our difficult American friends genuinely want exactly what they say they want: a strong Europe, a reliable and effective partner. But we do not hear it — or refuse to hear it. We hear only the criticism and dismiss it. Criticism is almost always a sign of involvement, of passion. We should worry far more if no criticism arrived. That would signal indifference — and therefore irrelevance. (By the way: Whether we like the critics is of secondary importance.) Responding with hauteur is simply not in our interest. It would be wiser — as Kaja Kallas rightly emphasized — to conduct a dialogue that includes self-criticism, a conversation about strengths, weaknesses and shared interests, and to back words with action on both sides. Which brings us to the second point: Unfortunately, much of the criticism is accurate. Anyone who sees politics as more than a self-absorbed administration of the status quo must concede that for decades Europe has delivered far too little — or nothing at all. Not in terms of above-average growth and prosperity, nor in terms of affordable energy. Europe does not deliver on deregulation or debureaucratization; it does not deliver on digitalization or innovation driven by artificial intelligence. And above all: Europe does not deliver on a responsible and successful migration policy. The world that wishes Europe well looked to the new German government with great hope. Capital flows on the scale of trillions waited for the first positive signals to invest in Germany and Europe. For it seemed almost certain that the world’s third-largest economy would, under a sensible, business-minded and transatlantic chancellor, finally steer a faltering Europe back onto the right path. The disappointment was all the more painful. Aside from the interior minister, the digital minister and the economics minister, the new government delivers in most areas the opposite of what had been promised before the election. The chancellor likes to blame the vice chancellor. The vice chancellor blames his own party. And all together they prefer to blame the Americans and their president. Instead of a European fresh start, we see continued agony and decline. Germany still suffers from its National Socialist trauma and believes that if it remains pleasantly average and certainly not excellent, everyone will love it. France is now paying the price for its colonial legacy in Africa and finds itself — all the way up to a president driven by political opportunism — in the chokehold of Islamist and antisemitic networks. In Britain, the prime minister is pursuing a similar course of cultural and economic submission. And Spain is governed by socialist fantasists who seem to take real pleasure in self-enfeeblement and whose “genocide in Gaza” rhetoric mainly mobilizes bored, well-heeled daughters of the upper middle class. Hope comes from Finland and Denmark, from the Baltic states and Poland, and — surprisingly — from Italy. There, the anti-democratic threats from Russia, China and Iran are assessed more realistically. Above all, there is a healthy drive to be better and more successful than others. From a far weaker starting point, there is an ambition for excellence. What Europe needs is less wounded pride and more patriotism defined by achievement. Unity and decisive action in defending Ukraine would be an obvious example — not merely talking about European sovereignty but demonstrating it, even in friendly dissent with the Americans. (And who knows, that might ultimately prompt a surprising shift in Washington’s Russia policy.) That, coupled with economic growth through real and far-reaching reforms, would be a start. After which Europe must tackle the most important task: a fundamental reversal of a migration policy rooted in cultural self-hatred that tolerates far too many newcomers who want a different society, who hold different values, and who do not respect our legal order. If all of this fails, American criticism will be vindicated by history. The excuses for why a European renewal is supposedly impossible or unnecessary are merely signs of weak leadership. The converse is also true: where there is political will, there is a way. And this way begins in Europe — with the spirit of renewal of a well-understood “Europe First” (what else?) — and leads to America. Europe needs America. America needs Europe. And perhaps both needed the deep crisis in the transatlantic relationship to recognize this with full clarity. As surprising as it may sound, at this very moment there is a real opportunity for a renaissance of a transatlantic community of shared interests. Precisely because the situation is so deadlocked. And precisely because pressure is rising on both sides of the Atlantic to do things differently. A trade war between Europe and America strengthens our shared adversaries. The opposite would be sensible: a New Deal between the EU and the U.S. Tariff-free trade as a stimulus for growth in the world’s largest and third-largest economies — and as the foundation for a shared policy of interests and, inevitably, a joint security policy of the free world. This is the historic opportunity that Friedrich Merz could now negotiate with Donald Trump. As Churchill said: “Never waste a good crisis!”

EUROPE’S CENTER ISN’T HOLDING ANYMORE Despite recent election wins for moderates in the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K., the far right is stronger than ever. By TIM ROSS in Jaywick, England Illustration by Merijn Hos for POLITICO In recent elections, voters in Europe have given hope to embattled centrist politicians across the Western world.   Donald Trump may have romped back into the White House, but the international movement of MAGA-aligned populists has run into trouble across the Atlantic. At elections in the U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania — and in a sprawling vote across 27 EU countries for the European Parliament — mainstream candidates defeated populist hardliners and far-right nationalists.  “There remains a majority in the center for a strong Europe, and that is crucial for stability,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, after the EU Parliament elections last year. “In other words, the center is holding.”   Sixteen months later, that hold is looking anything but secure.    Hard-right and far-right politicians are now leading the polls in France, the U.K. and even Germany. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating is a dire 21 percent. His French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, is even lower, at 11 percent — and the mood is so grim that this fall’s spectacular theft at the Louvre is being treated by some as a giant metaphor for a country unable to manage its challenges.   Even von der Leyen’s own EU conservatives now rely on the votes of far right lawmakers to get her plans approved in Brussels. One outraged centrist likened the shift to those German politicians who enabled Adolf Hitler to take power. Populists at the extremes, meanwhile, cast themselves as the obvious alternative for populations that want change. And now they can expect Trump to help: In a brutal rupture of transatlantic norms, a new U.S. National Security Strategy aims to use American diplomacy to cultivate “resistance” to political correctness in Europe — especially on migration — and to support parties it describes as “patriotic.” Trump himself told POLITICO he would endorse candidates he believed would move Europe in the right direction. On that rightward trajectory, in the next four years the political map of the West faces its most dramatic upheaval since the Cold War. The implications for geopolitics, from trade to defense, could be profound.   “What [Europeans are] getting from Trump is the strategy of maximum polarization that hollows out the center,” said Will Marshall from the Progressive Policy Institute, the centrist American think tank that backed Bill Clinton in the 1990s. “The old established parties of left and right that dominated the post war era have gotten weaker,” he said. “The nationalist or populist right’s revolt is against them.”  Nowhere is this recent transformation more dramatic than in the U.K.   As the sun sinks toward the horizon over a calm sea one Thursday evening in November, half a dozen regulars huddle around the bar in the Never Say Die pub, a few yards from the beach at Jaywick Sands, on the east coast of England.   Built in the 1930s as a resort 70 miles from London, Jaywick is now the most deprived neighborhood in the country. The area had such a bad image that in 2018 a U.S. MAGA ad used a photograph of a dilapidated Jaywick street to warn of the apocalyptic future facing America if Trump’s candidates were not elected.   Jaywick was named England’s most deprived neighbourhood in October — for the fourth time since 2010. | Tolga Akmen/EPA It is here among the pebbledashed bungalows and England flags hanging limp from lampposts that a new political force — Nigel Farage’s rightwing Reform UK — has built its heartland.   At the bar, Dave Laurence, 82, says he doesn’t vote, as a rule, but made an exception for Farage, who was elected to represent the area last year. “I quite like him. He’s doing the best he can,” Laurence says as he sips his pint of lager, with ’80s pop hits playing in the background. “I’ll vote for him again.”  Laurence freely describes himself as “racist” and says he would never vote for a Black person, such as the center-right Conservative Party’s leader Kemi Badenoch. What troubles him most, he says, is the number of immigrants who have arrived in the U.K. during his lifetime, especially those crossing the Channel in small boats. Soon, Laurence fears, the country will be “full of Muslims and they’ll fucking rebel against us.”  With its anti-establishment, immigration-fighting agenda, Farage’s Reform UK offers voters a program tightly in tune with far-right parties that have gained ground across the West. According to opinion polls, Farage now has a real chance of becoming the U.K.’s next prime minister if the vote were held today. (A general election is not due until 2029).   It’s startling to note that as recently as July 2024, Starmer’s Labour Party won a historic landslide and some of his triumphant election aides traveled to the U.S. to advise Democrats on strategy. Today, Starmer is derided as “First Gear Keir” as he fights off leadership rivals rumored to be trying to oust him. And Reform isn’t the only force remaking British party politics. To the left of Labour, the Greens have also made recent gains in the polls under a new leader calling himself an “eco-populist.”   Farage’s stunning rise from the sidelines to the front of a political revolution carries lessons well beyond Britain’s borders. Europeans raised in the old school of mainstream politics fear that the traditional centerground — their home turf — will not hold.   ‘DURABLY UNSTABLE’   Macron, for his part, tried to counter the rise of the hard right by calling a snap election for the French National Assembly last year. The gamble backfired, delivering a hung parliament that has been unable to agree on key economic policies ever since. Macron is now historically unpopular.   French lawmakers’ clashes over the budget have toppled three of Macron’s picks as prime minister since the summer of 2024. A backlash against his plan to raise the pension age has forced ratings agencies to mull a damaging downgrade. Macron, who himself became president by launching a new centrist movement to rival the political establishment, now has no traditional party machinery to help bolster his position. “He’ll leave a political landscape that is perhaps durably unstable. It’s unforgivable,” said Alain Minc, an influential adviser and former mentor to the French president.  The chaos gives populists their chance. The main politicians making any running in conversations about the next presidential election belong to the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen and its youthful party president Jordan Bardella, who are riding high in the polls at 34 percent.   In Germany, too, the center ground is steadily eroding.   Though Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives won a snap election in February, his ideologically uneasy coalition, which consists of his own conservative bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), holds one of the slimmest parliamentary majorities for a government since 1945, with just 52 percent of seats. That leaves the Merz coalition vulnerable to small defections within the ranks and makes it hard for him to achieve anything ambitious in government. The far-left Die Linke party and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) both surged at the last election, too, with AfD winning the best result in a national election for any far-right party since World War II.  Merz’s attempt to defang the AfD by moving his conservatives sharply to the right on the issue of migration seems to have backfired. The AfD has only continued its rise, surpassing Merz’s conservatives in many polls.   The rise of the far-right is a cultural shock to many centrist Germans, given the country’s deeply entrenched desire to avoid repeating its past. “For a long time in Germany we thought with our history, and the way we teach in our schools, we would be a bit more immune to that,” one concerned German official said. “It turned out we are not.”   Even in the Netherlands, where centrist Rob Jetten won a famous but narrow victory over the far-right firebrand Geert Wilders in October, there are reasons for mainstream politicians to worry. Wilders’ Freedom Party is still one of the biggest forces in the land, winning the same number of seats as Jetten’s D66. He could well return next time, just as Trump did in the U.S.   WHERE DID ALL THE VOTERS GO?   According to polling firm Ipsos, a large proportion of voters in many Western democracies now have little faith in the political process. While they still believe in democratic values, they are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working for them.   A large survey questioning around 10,000 voters across nine countries found 45 percent were dissatisfied, fueling support for the extremes. Among voters on the far left (57 percent) and the far right (54 percent), levels of dissatisfaction were highest of all.   The countries with the highest rates of dissatisfaction in the Ipsos study were France and the Netherlands, where political upheaval has taken its toll on faith in the system.   Anti-riot police officers stand next to a demonstration called by far-right activist Els Rechts against the Netherlands’ current asylum policy, in September in The Hague. | Josh Walet/ANP via Getty Images Alongside the coronavirus pandemic and the aftermath of lockdowns, the biggest drivers of dissatisfaction were the cost of living, immigration and crime, according to Gideon Skinner from Ipsos. Trust in politics fell in the 90s and took another hit in the late 2000s at the time of the financial crash, he said.   “There may be specific things that have made it worse over the last couple of years but it’s also a long-term condition,” Skinner told POLITICO. “It’s something we do need to worry about and there is not a silver bullet that can fix it all.”  Perhaps the greatest problem for incumbent centrists is that in most cases their economies are so moribund that they lack the fiscal firepower to spend money addressing the issues disillusioned voters care about most — like high living costs, ailing public services and migration.  THE INEQUALITY EMERGENCY   The financial crisis of 2008 and the coronavirus lockdowns of 2020-21 left many governments strapped for cash. In the U.K., for example, the economy was 16 percent smaller than it should have been a decade after the 2008 crash if prior growth trends had continued, according to Anand Menon, professor of European politics at King’s College London.   “Crucially, the impact of the financial crisis, like the impact of so much else in our politics, was massively unequal,” Menon said. “Prosperous places with high productivity, with well-educated workforces suffered far, far less than poorer parts of the country.”   Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz submitted a study to the G20 in November warning that the world was facing an “inequality emergency.” Fueled by war, pandemic and trade disruptions, the crisis risks preparing the ground for more authoritarian leaders, his report said.   In many Western countries, the centerground is more than just a metaphor. It is in capital cities like London, Paris and Washington that power and money accumulate and the economic and political elites seek to maintain their grip on the status quo.   The further you travel from these centers out to areas in decline, the more likely you are to find support for radical politics.   As Menon notes, Britain’s 2016 revolution — the referendum vote to leave the European Union after almost half a century of membership — can be mapped onto the culinary geography of the country.   “Pret a Manger” is a smart national chain of sandwich and coffee shops, catering for hungry commuters and office workers in wealthy, successful British cities. “Places that had a Pret voted Remain,” Menon said. Parts of the U.K. where median wages were lower were disproportionately likely to vote to leave the EU.   IMMIGRATION, IMMIGRATION, IMMIGRATION   After the Brexit vote in 2016, immigration slid from the top of the priority list for British voters and Farage himself took a step back. Both have now returned, as Farage rides a wave of headlines about irregular migrants landing in small boats from France.   From January to May this year, there were a record 14,800 small boat crossings, 42 percent more than in the same period in the previous year, according to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory.   For Laurence, in the Never Say Die pub, the small boats represent the biggest issue of all. “What’s going to happen in 10 years’ time? What’s going to happen in 20 years’ time when the boat people are still coming over?” he asked.   A decade ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the doors to hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving into Europe from Syria, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq. The AfD surged in the months that followed, permanently changing German politics. At February’s election, the AfD won a record 21 percent of the vote, finishing in second place behind Merz’s conservative bloc.  “The fundamental failure that is common to the whole [centrist] transatlantic community is on immigration,” said Marshall from the Progressive Policy Institute. “All of the far-right movements have made it their top issue.”   It is the perceived threat that waves of migration pose to traditional national cultures which drives much of the support for the far right. Trump’s White House is now primed to join the European nationalists’ fight. According to a new U.S. National Security Strategy document released in December, Europe is facing “civilisational erasure” from unrestricted immigration, as well as falling birthrates. The analysis draws on the so-called great replacement theory, a racist conspiracy theory. Free speech — in the MAGA definition, at least — is another casualty of conventional centrist rule in Europe, as political correctness veers into “censorship,” the U.S. document said. Protesters demostrate under the motto “Loud against Nazis” in early February in Berlin. After years of decline, The Left party  pulled off a stunning revival in the general election later that month. | John MacDougall via AFP/Getty Images In his interview with POLITICO earlier this week, Trump aligned himself fully with the strategy paper. European nations are “decaying” and their “weak” leaders can expect to be challenged by rivals with American support, he said. “I’d endorse,” he added. In Brussels, the double-punch of the president’s interview and the strategy document left diplomats and officials feeling bruised and alarmed all over again, after a period in which they allowed themselves to hope that the transatlantic alliance wasn’t dying. One EU diplomat was blunt in assessing Trump’s new method: “It’s autocracy.” THE STOLEN JEWELS  Sometimes, it takes a random news event — ostensibly unconnected to politics — to crystalize the national mood. In Paris, the theft of France’s priceless crown jewels from the Louvre provided just such an opportunity, morphing into an indictment of an establishment that can’t get the job done, even when the job simply involves thoroughly locking the windows at the world’s most famous museum. National Rally leader Jordan Bardella called the incident a “humiliation” before asking: “How far will the breakdown of the state go?”   In Britain, just a month after Starmer’s victory last year, riots broke out across the country, fueled by far-right extremists. The catalyst was the murder of three young girls aged 6, 7 and 9, in Southport, northwest England, by a Black teenager wrongly identified at the time on social media — in posts amplified by the far-right — as a Muslim.   At the time, Farage suggested the police were withholding the truth about the suspect, earning him the fury of mainstream politicians. While stressing he did not support violence, Farage railed against what he called “two-tier policing,” a phrase popular among far-right commentators who claim police treat right-wing protesters more harshly than those on the left.  It’s an opinion that resonates in Jaywick. Chennelle Rutland, 56, is walking her two dogs along the beachfront, admiring the view as the sun sets, flaring the sky orange, then purple. The colors catch the surface of the flat sea. “It’s one rule for one and one rule for the other,” she says. “The whites have got to shut up because if you do say anything, you’re ‘racist’ and ‘far right.’”   Far-right activist Tommy Robinson invited his supporters to attend the “Unite The Kingdom” rally in September. | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images It would be wrong to characterise residents of Jaywick as simply ignorant or full of rage. Many who spoke to POLITICO there were cheerful, happy with their community and up to speed with the news. But, just as they’d soured on their country’s centrist establishment, they were also tuning out its favored news sources.   In Jaywick, some of Farage’s voters prefer GB News, Britain’s answer to Fox News, which launched in 2021, or learn about current affairs from YouTube and other social media. The BBC — for decades the mainstay of the British media landscape — has lost a portion of its audience here. Right-wing commentators and politicians attack it as biased. Trump has lately joined in, threatening to sue over a BBC edit that he said deceptively made it look as if he was explicitly inciting violence. The BBC’s director general and head of news both resigned. In the process, another piece of Britain’s onetime centerground was giving way.   WHAT NEXT?   There are reasons for centrists to hope. In Rome, Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right Brothers of Italy party has become less extreme in power, and the worst fears of moderates about a group with its historic roots in neo-fascism have not come to pass. She remains popular, and while pushing a culture war at home, she has avoided the wrath of the EU leadership and kept Trump onside.   Populists and nationalists don’t always win. Trump lost in 2020. In the Netherlands, Wilders lost in October this year, though only by a whisker. Romania’s Nicușor Dan won the presidency as a centrist in May, but again only narrowly defeating his far-right opponent.   Structural obstacles may also slow the radicals’ progress. The U.K.’s first-past-the-post voting system makes it hard for new parties to do well. The two-round French system has so far stopped Le Pen’s National Rally from gaining power as centrists combine to back moderates. In Germany, a similar “firewall” exists under which center parties keep the far-right out.   After the Brexit vote in 2016, immigration slid from the top of the priority list for British voters and Farage himself took a step back. Both have now returned. | Tolga Akmen/EPA Even as he enjoys a sustained lead in the polls and wins local elections in the U.K., Farage has not convinced voters that Reform would do a good job. Even some of his supporters worry he will be out of his depth in government.   The problem, for the centrists who are in power, is that a lot of voters seem to think they, too, are out of their depth. And, whether that involves dealing with migration, combatting inequality, or just boosting the security around the Mona Lisa, it’s a reputation they’ll need to fix in order to survive — no easy task given the intractability of the challenges facing the rich world.  The next year will see more elections at which the centrists — and their populists rivals — will be tested. In Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, long seen as the far-right bad boy of EU politics, is fighting to keep power at an election expected in April. There are regional votes in Germany where the AfD is on track to prosper. France may require yet another snap election to end its political paralysis. Trump’s diplomats and officials will be ready to intervene. Farage’s party, too, will be on the ballot in 2026: It is expected to make gains in Wales, Scotland and local votes elsewhere next spring. After that, his sights will be on the U.K. general election expected in 2029, by which time European politics may look very different.   “Of course I know Mr. Orban and of course I know Giorgia Meloni, of course I know these people,” Farage told POLITICO at a recent Reform rally. “I suspect that after the next election cycle in Europe there will be even more that I know.” Natalie Fertig in Washington, Clea Caulcutt in Paris and James Angelos in Berlin contributed to this report.  

Ukraine’s latest peace plan proposes a demilitarized “free economic zone” in the Donbas region where American business interests could operate — an attempt to bring President Donald Trump on board, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump, who sounded skeptical about the prospects for a breakthrough in Oval Office comments on Wednesday, “is aware of” the latest 20-point plan Ukraine sent to the White House Wednesday, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also spoke to reporters about the proposal Thursday, suggesting that control of the buffer zone in eastern Ukraine still needs to be worked out but that, under the new proposal, troops from both Russia and Ukraine would be barred. That, Zelenskyy said, marked “a compromise” from the original 28-point peace plan authored by the U.S. with Russian input, under which Russian troops would control the region. But, he noted that Ukraine would only withdraw its forces after receiving meaningful security guarantees from allies against future aggression from Moscow. The two people familiar with the proposal, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press, both expressed skepticism that Russia would back the plan, crafted this week with input from European leaders. Trump, they suggested, still views Ukraine as the weaker, more malleable party in the conflict, especially in the wake of a corruption scandal that forced Zelenskyy’s longtime chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, to step down. “The White House is using this latest corruption scandal to pressure Zelenskyy,” one of the people said. While European leaders have asked Trump to go to Berlin next week to continue talks, the person added that was highly unlikely unless there are substantial changes in the joint Ukrainian-European plan. Leavitt did not elaborate on what Trump thinks about the revised proposal, or if he would send aides to take part in additional conversations with European and Ukrainian officials scheduled for this weekend in Paris. “If there is a real chance of signing a peace agreement, if we feel like those meetings are worthy of someone on the United States’ time this weekend, then we will send a representative,” she said. “It’s still up in the air if we believe real peace can be accomplished … [but] he’s sick of meetings for the sake of meetings.” According to officials from two of the countries involved, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff intends to take part in talks with national security officials this weekend. Trump has suggested that the security guarantees Ukraine is seeking, aimed at deterring Russia from attacking Ukraine again, would have to come primarily from Europe. Zelenskyy said Thursday that he and his team had “a constructive and in-depth conversation” about security guarantees with U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, along with military officials and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. One European defense official, granted anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said that allies on the continent have been planning to move troops and surveillance equipment to Ukraine. Coalition troops would fly drones inside Ukraine to monitor whatever peace plan is agreed to, and while there will be boots on the ground they “will not serve on the front line.” The official said that the Europeans are stressing to the Americans that they need deeper political coordination with Washington on the talks, reflecting frustration about not having a seat at the table up to this point. During a visit to Washington this week, U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey told reporters that the so-called Coalition of the Willing is “ready to do the heavy lifting in Europe, alongside the contribution to security guarantees that President Trump has talked about from the U.S. But we’re ready to step in, and we will help secure that peace long-term and protect the deal that President Trump is looking to negotiate.” He sketched an outline of some of the work being done, including some 200 military planners from more than 30 nations who have already participated in “reconnaissance visits to Ukraine, and we have the troops ready. “ Over the last several months, Trump has repeatedly ruled out Ukraine’s future membership in NATO, the longstanding transatlantic security alliance that deems an attack on any member nation an attack on all. The revised Ukraine peace plan, however, removed language from an initial version barring Ukraine from ever joining the alliance, according to the two people familiar with the proposal. It also calls for elections in Ukraine, something Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been pushing for, the two people said. But Zelenskyy’s new commitment to hold elections shortly after a peace is secured may not be enough to satisfy Moscow, which has demanded that Russia control all of the contested Donbas region and guarantees that Ukraine will be denied future accession to NATO.

LONDON — When a job for life beckons, principles have a way of disappearing. Keir Starmer has given 25 close allies an early Christmas present, appointing them to Britain’s unelected House of Lords. They’ll don some ermine, bag a grand title, claim £371 a day just for showing up and swan around the Palace of Westminster for the rest of their lives — or at least until their 80th birthday. The PM’s former Director of Communications Matthew Doyle, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ ex-Chief of Staff Katie Martin and Iceland Foods Founder Richard Walker are among the lucky Labour-supporting individuals given a spot in Britain’s unelected legislating chamber — all without having to make their case to British voters. The opposition Tories and Lib Dems (no strangers to filling the upper chamber when they were in power) got a paltry three and five spots respectively, while the insurgent Reform UK and Greens missed out completely. Pushing back at the criticism, which comes as Labour vows a host of changes to the upper chamber, a party official said: “⁠The Tories stuffed the House of Lords, creating a serious imbalance that has allowed them to frustrate our plans to make working families better off. “This needs to be corrected to deliver on our mandate from the British people. We will continue to progress our program of reform, which includes removing the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords.” POLITICO runs through five times the party laid into the red benches. 2020: BRING THE HOUSE DOWN Starmer was unapologetically radical during the Labour leadership contest to replace Jeremy Corbyn. He made 10 striking pledges as he courted the party’s left-wing membership. One included a promise to “devolve power, wealth and opportunity” by introducing a federal system which would “abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber.” 2022: KEIR THE FIXER The Labour leader still backed Lords abolition for a chunk of his time in opposition — though he knew existing Labour peers might have a view or two about that. Starmer charmed his unelected legislators in November 2022 by praising the “vital role” they played, but insisted he was focused on “restoring trust in politics” after ex-PM Boris Johnson rewarded “lackeys and donors” with peerages. Sound familiar?  “We need to show how we will do things differently. Reforming our second chamber has to be a part of that,” the Labour leader said. 2022: STRONG CONSTITUTION The following month, Labour’s plans got a hard launch. In a dazzling (well, for Starmer) press conference, he promised the “biggest ever transfer of power from Westminster to the British people.” Strong stuff. Starmer got party bigwig and ex-PM Gordon Brown to pen a report backing constitutional change — including the abolition of the House of Lords. Starmer said an unelected chamber was “indefensible” and an elected house would be created “with a strong mission.” A timeframe was not forthcoming. 2023: SLOW AND STEADY Angela Smith has led Labour in the Lords since 2015, but still recognizes reform is needed. The shadow Lords leader insisted Labour wouldn’t flood the chamber with its own people if in power. Angela Smith has led Labour in the Lords since 2015, but still recognizes reform is needed. | Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images  “No. Ain’t gonna happen,” she told the House magazine just months before the general election. “The idea that Keir Starmer is on day one going to have a list of 100 people to put here is cloud cuckoo.”  She said it wasn’t all about winning votes: “I don’t want this to be a numbers game, like ‘yah boo, we’ve got more than you, we’re gonna win, we’re gonna smash this through’. That’s not what the House of Lords does.” She may feel differently now the government suffers defeats on its legislation under her watch. 2024: WRITTEN IN SAND Labour’s election-winning manifesto retreated from the halcyon rebel days of opposition, but it was still punchy. “Reform is long overdue and essential,” it argued, claiming “too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy.” The manifesto also promised a minimum participation requirement, mandatory retirement age and strengthened processes for removing disgraced members. “We will reform the appointments process to ensure the quality of new appointments and will seek to improve the national and regional balance of the second chamber,” it said. No. 10 insisted Thursday it will progress with House of Lords reform — though … declined to give a timeline.

BRUSSELS — Britain’s top Europe minister defended a decision to keep the U.K. out of the EU’s customs union — despite sounding bullish on a speedy reset of ties with the bloc in the first half of 2026. Speaking to POLITICO in Brussels where he was attending talks with Maroš Šefčovič, the EU trade commissioner, Nick Thomas-Symonds said a non-binding British parliamentary vote on Tuesday on rejoining the tariff-free union — pushed by the Liberal Democrats, but supported by more than a dozen Labour MPs — risked reviving bitter arguments about Brexit. Thomas-Symonds described the gambit by the Lib Dems — which had the backing of one of Labour’s most senior backbenchers, Meg Hillier — as “Brexit Redux.” And he accused Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, of wanting “to go back to the arguments of the past.” The Lib Dems have drawn support from disillusioned Labour voters, partly inspired by the party’s more forthright position on moving closer to the EU. But Thomas-Symonds defended Labour’s manifesto commitment to remain outside the single market and the customs union. “The strategy that I and the government have been pursuing is based on our mandate from the general election of 2024, that we would not go back to freedom of movement, we would not go back to the customs union or the single market,” the British minister for European Union relations said. Thomas-Symonds said this remained a “forward-looking, ruthlessly pragmatic approach” that is “rooted in the challenges that Britain has in the mid 2020s.” He pointed out that post-Brexit Britain outside of the customs union has signed trade deals with India and the United States, demonstrating the “advantages of the negotiating freedoms Britain has outside the EU.” ‘GET ON WITH IT’ Speaking to POLITICO’s Anne McElvoy for the “Politics at Sam and Anne’s” podcast, out on Thursday, Thomas-Symonds was optimistic that a grand “reset” of U.K.-EU relations would progress more quickly in the new year. The two sides are trying to make headway on a host of areas including a youth mobility scheme and easing post-Brexit restrictions on food and drink exports. “I think if you look at the balance of the package and what I’m talking about in terms of the objective on the food and drink agreement, I think you can see a general timetable across this whole package,” he said. Pressed on whether this could happen in the first half of 2026,  the U.K. minister sounded upbeat: “I think the message from both of us to our teams will be to get on with it.”  The Brussels visit comes after talks over Britain’s potential entry into a major EU defense program known as SAFE broke down amid disagreement over how much money the U.K. would pay for access to the loans-for-arms scheme. The program is aimed at re-arming Europe more speedily to face the threat from Russia. Asked if the collapse of those talks showed the U.K. had miscalculated its ability to gain support in a crucial area of re-connection, Thomas-Symonds replied: “We do always impose a very strict value for money. What we would not do is contribute at a level that isn’t in our national interest.” The issued had “not affected the forward momentum in terms of the rest of the negotiation,” he stressed. YOUTH MOBILITY STANDOFF Thomas-Symonds is a close ally of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and has emboldened the under-fire British leader to foreground his pro-Europe credentials. The minister for European relations suggested his own elevation in the British government — he will now attend Cabinet on a permanent basis — was a sign of Starmer’s intent to focus on closer relations with Europe and tap into regret over a post-Brexit loss of business opportunities to the U.K. Fleshing out the details of a “youth mobility” scheme — which would allow young people from the EU and the U.K. to spend time studying, traveling, or working in each other’s countries — has been an insistent demand of EU countries, notably Germany and the Netherlands. Yet progress has foundered over how to prevent the scheme being regarded  as a back-door for immigration to the U.K. — and how exactly any restrictions on numbers might be set and implemented. Speaking to POLITICO, Thomas-Symonds hinted at British impatience to proceed with the program, while stressing: “It has to be capped, time-limited, and  it’ll be a visa-operated scheme. “Those are really important features, but I sometimes think on this you can end up having very dry discussion about the design when actually this is a real opportunity for young Brits and for young Europeans to live, work, study, enjoy other cultures.” The British government is sensitive to the charge that the main beneficiaries of the scheme will be students or better-off youngsters. “I’m actually really excited about this,” Thomas-Symonds said, citing his own working-class background and adding that he would have benefited from a chance to spend time abroad as a young man “And the thing that strikes me as well is making sure this is accessible to people from all different backgrounds,” he said. Details however still appear contentious: The EU’s position remains that the scheme should not be capped but should have a break clause in the event of a surge in numbers. Berlin in particular has been reluctant to accept the Starmer government’s worries that the arrangement might be seen as adding to U.K. immigration figures, arguing that British students who are outside many previous exchange programs would also be net beneficiaries.  Thomas-Symonds did not deny a stand-off, saying: “When there are ongoing talks about particular issues, I very much respect the confidentiality and trust on the ongoing talks.”  Britain’s most senior foreign minister, Yvette Cooper, on Wednesday backed a hard cap on the number of people coming in under a youth mobility scheme. She told POLITICO in a separate interview that such a scheme needs to be “balanced.” “The UK-EU relationship is really important and is being reset, and we’re seeing cooperation around a whole series of different things,” she said. We also, at the same time, need to make sure that issues around migration are always properly managed and controlled.” A U.K. official later clarified that Cooper is keen to see an overall cap on numbers. BOOZY GIFT As negotiations move from the technical to the political level this week, Thomas-Symonds sketched out plans for a fresh Britain-EU summit in Brussels when the time is right. “In terms of the date, I just want to make sure that we have made sufficient progress, to demonstrate that progress in a summit,” Nick Thomas-Symonds said. “I think that the original [post-Brexit] Trade and Cooperation Agreement did not cover services in the way that it should have done,” he added. “We want to move forward on things like mutual recognition of professional qualifications.” Thomas-Symonds, one of the government’s most ardent pro-Europeans, meanwhile told POLITICO he had forged a good relationship with “Maroš” (Šefčovič) – and had even brought him a Christmas present of a bottle of House of Commons whisky. “So there’s no doubt that there is that trajectory of closer U.K.-EU cooperation,” he quipped. Dan Bloom and Esther Webber contributed reporting.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ready to change the Ukrainian law that bans elections during wartime to demonstrate that antidemocratic accusations against him are baseless and to win clear security guarantees for Kyiv. Pressure is building on Zelenskyy from multiple sides. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin said he will not sign any peace agreement with Zelenskyy, who he derides as an “illegitimate” president. U.S. President Donald Trump wants a swift end to Russia’s war on Ukraine, and is urging Kyiv to cede territory to Moscow to get a deal done — while criticizing Zelenskyy’s commitment to democracy.  “They’re using war not to hold an election, but, uh, I would think the Ukrainian people would … should have that choice. And maybe Zelenskyy would win. I don’t know who would win. But they haven’t had an election in a long time,” Trump said in an interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for a special episode of The Conversation. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.” Ukraine was scheduled to hold a presidential vote in 2024. But elections are banned during martial law and active warfare because Kyiv cannot guarantee a free, fair and safe electoral process while Russian missiles rain down, TV channels are censored by the state and more than 20 percent of the country’s territory is occupied. “The issue of elections in Ukraine is a matter for the people of Ukraine, not the people of other states, with all due respect to our partners. I am ready for the elections. I’ve heard that I’m personally holding on to the president’s seat, that I’m clinging to it, and that this is supposedly why the war is not ending — this, frankly, is a completely absurd story,” Zelenskyy told several journalists via a WhatsApp audio message late Tuesday. The powers of the Ukrainian president and parliament, as well as other state bodies, continue until 30 days after the termination of martial law — which was installed on Feb. 24, 2022, as Russian forces poured over the border — according to Ukrainian legislation. Kyiv has already studied different EU models to conduct elections after the war. Zelenskyy said he is ready to amend Ukrainian law and hold elections during wartime — in the next 60-90 days — but he wants the U.S. and Europe to guarantee the election’s security. “I am asking our parliamentarians to prepare legislative proposals enabling changes to the legal framework and to the election law during martial law, and to prepare them for me. I will be back in Ukraine tomorrow; I expect proposals from our partners; I expect proposals from our MPs — and I am ready to go to elections,” Zelenskyy said. To override the legislative block and constitutional limitations, Zelenskyy would need a ceasefire to ensure the security of voters. Putin, for his part, has repeatedly refused to agree to a ceasefire, demanding a peace agreement and territory to stop the war. “If necessary, these articles banning elections are removed by a vote in parliament, a simple majority and two readings,” said Igor Popov, senior expert at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future. Ukrainian parliamentarians would then have to organize refugee voting in Europe and at home, and decide on whether to introduce online voting given the related risk of Russian meddling. An electoral campaign also needs to last at least 90 days. One Ukrainian election expert fears that Trump’s renewed push for Zelenskyy to hold elections is an attempt to remove the legitimate leader — who won a landslide presidential victory in 2019 — who does not want to sign a deal for his country that gives away swathes of territory to Russia. “We see a certain correlation between Donald Trump and the Kremlin’s position that Ukraine needs a new leader,” Olga Ajvazovska, head of the board at the Ukrainian election watchdog OPORA, told POLITICO.   “In the opinion of these two players [U.S. and Russia], it seems that they believe that there should be a new elected president who will sign certain peace documents, and will be ready to accept demands that are unacceptable from the point of view of the constitutional framework of Ukraine, from the point of view of the principles of protecting territorial integrity, sovereignty,” Ajvazovska added. The U.S. president appears focused solely on Ukraine’s presidential election, ignoring that Kyiv also postponed parliamentary elections in 2023 and local elections in 2025. A recent 28-point peace plan, circulated by Trump’s team, demanded that Ukraine hold elections within 100 days of signing a deal — a direct intrusion into its sovereignty. “So, the emphasis is on changing Ukrainian leadership, personified in Zelenskyy. But here you have to read Ukrainian society better. While Trump is quite distant from Ukrainian realities,” Ajvazovska said. Were an election held, those who want Zelenskyy out might be disappointed. While his favorability rating dropped sharply after last month’s blockbuster energy corruption scandal, Zelenskyy is still the most popular politician in Ukraine, with around 20 percent of Ukrainians ready to vote for him again during hypothetical presidential elections, according to the latest poll published by the Info Sapiens social research agency on Tuesday. Zelenskyy’s closest competitor is former Ukrainian army commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who currently serves as Kyiv’s ambassador to the U.K. By intervening in domestic politics, Trump risks consolidating Ukrainians around Zelenskyy — despite the issues that voters may have with his leadership. “So, these statements, when they are made in an aggressive form, rather adjust public opinion to a position of not supporting the transfer of power in the interests or at the request of Russia through Washington,” Ajvazovska said.

National Rally leader Jordan Bardella is insisting he doesn’t need help from U.S. President Donald Trump to shape France’s political future as his far-right party guns for the presidency in 2027. “I’m French, so I’m not happy with vassalage, and I don’t need a big brother like Trump to consider the fate of my country,” he said in an interview with The Telegraph published late Tuesday. Concern over potential U.S. involvement in European far-right politics has spiked since last week’s publication of America’s National Security Strategy, in which Washington advocates “cultivating resistance” to boost the nationalist surge in Europe. That puts Bardella in a tricky spot. Broadly he agrees with Trump’s anti-migrant vision, as mapped out in the strategy, but is wary of direct U.S. involvement in a country where polling suggests Trump is very unpopular. The National Rally is not directly embracing U.S. Republicans, as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is doing. Bardella said he “shared [Trump’s] assessment for the most part” in an interview with the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast. “It is true that mass immigration and the laxity of our leaders … are today disrupting the power balance of European societies,” Bardella said. Bardella’s interview came during a trip to London in which he met Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who once tied Bardella’s party to “prejudice and anti-Semitism.” “I think that Farage will be the next prime minister,” Bardella told the Telegraph, praising “a great patriot who has always defended the interests of Britain and the British people.”

LONDON — The British government hit back Wednesday after Donald Trump launched his latest broadside at London Mayor Sadiq Khan. The U.S. president told POLITICO in an interview Monday that Khan was “a horrible mayor” who had made the British capital city a  “different place” to what it once was. Trump added of Khan: “He’s an incompetent mayor, but he’s a horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor. I think he’s done a terrible job. London’s a different place. I love London. I love London. And I hate to see it happen.” Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, a member of the U.K. cabinet, pushed backed at those remarks Wednesday, and heaped praise on her fellow Labour politician. “I strongly disagree with those comments,” she told Sky News. “I think Sadiq is doing a really good job and has been at the forefront of providing affordable housing [and] improvements to transport.” Nandy said Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, had offered a model for the U.K. government to follow nationally. “He’s been one of the people who has set up multi-agency approaches to help young people with knife crime, gang violence that we’re learning from in government,” she said. “So I strongly disagree.” Asked explicitly if Trump’s comments were wrong, Nandy replied: “Yes he is.” In his wide-ranging interview with POLITICO, the U.S. president also claimed Khan — who has won three consecutive terms as mayor of London and has no power to determine national migration policy — had been elected “because so many people have come in. They vote for him now.” Pushed on why Prime Minister Keir Starmer hadn’t explicitly defended Khan from Trump’s attack, Nandy said she knows “the prime minister would disagree with those comments.” She added: “I’m sure that if you asked the prime minister if he was sitting in this studio today, he would say what I’ve said, which is that Sadiq is doing an incredibly good job for London. We’re proud of our mayors.” Khan told POLITICO Tuesday the U.S. president was “obsessed” with him and claimed Americans were “flocking” to live in London, because its liberal values are the “antithesis” of Trump’s. It’s not the first beef between the two politicians.  Trump once called Khan a “stone cold loser” and “very dumb” — after Khan compared Trump to “the fascists of the 20th century.” In 2018, Khan allowed anti-Trump activists to fly a blimp over parliament showing Trump as a crying baby in a diaper during his first state visit.