LONDON — Green Party Leader Zack Polanski said Tuesday he will support a motion titled “Zionism is racism” if it is linked to the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. His comments come days before a crucial by-election in the Greater Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton, where the Greens have presented themselves as the main left-wing challengers to the incumbent Labour Party. The motion, which will be put forward at the party’s spring conference next month, is titled “Zionism is Racism,” and also backs the “right of the Palestinian people to resistance and liberation from Israeli occupation, domination and subjugation.” Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel on Sunday condemned the motion as “one of the most hateful and racist documents I’ve ever read.” Polanski, the Jewish leader of the eco-populist force, said his support for the motion would depend on the definition of Zionism. “I can give you some different definitions of Zionism and we can talk about whether they’re racist or not,” he told Times Radio. “If we’re talking about the definition that this Israeli government are clearly perpetrating through a genocide in Gaza, then yes, absolutely. That’s racist.” He stressed that any of the party’s more than 195,000 members could put forward a motion, and he will be “listening carefully to the debate,” adding that it isn’t “particularly helpful to have an argument or a debate about labels.” Pushed on whether he would vote for the motion, he said: “I’ll wait to hear the debate, but absolutely, if the definition of Zionism is what is happening right now by the Israeli government, then yes, absolutely, that’s racist and I’ll vote for it.” The by-election in Greater Manchester comes after a terrorist attack on Jews in northern Manchester last October at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue, where two people were killed. The attack took place during the Jewish Holiday of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights activist known for his rousing oratory who became the first African American candidate to have a plausible path to winning the presidency, has died. He was 84. Because of declining health, Jackson stepped down as the leader of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in July 2023. In the summer of 2024, as Democrats gathered to back Kamala Harris’ candidacy, Jackson received a standing ovation when he was wheeled on stage at the party’s convention in Chicago. The Baptist minister pulled in 3.3 million votes in the 1984 Democratic primaries and 6.9 million in the 1988 contests, drawing far more votes than any Black candidate had at that point in U.S. history and making his Rainbow Coalition a legitimate force in the Democratic Party. He also carved a transformative grassroots path through the primaries that would be emulated in various forms by other candidates in Democratic primaries over the years, including Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama, who would go on to realize Jackson’s ambition of becoming the first Black president. “People forget about this,” Sanders, the Vermont senator, said in 2015 before the Iowa caucuses, “but Barack Obama would not be president today if Jesse Jackson didn’t come to Iowa. That was a guerrilla-type campaign that clearly didn’t have resources but had incredible energy.” Jackson particularly appealed to minority voters who had long been underrepresented or totally ignored. “When I look out at this convention,” he told the 1988 Democratic National Convention, “I see the face of America, red, yellow, brown, black and white. We are all precious in God’s sight — the real rainbow coalition.” Jackson’s positions occasionally put him at odds with longtime Democratic voters, but his campaigns galvanized some people who detested mainstream politics. “Even though he did not win the Democratic Party presidential nomination,” Marxist activist Angela Davis wrote in an introduction to her autobiography, “Jesse Jackson conducted a truly triumphant campaign, one that confirmed and further nurtured progressive thought patterns among the people of our country.” Before his presidential bids, Jackson was a civil rights activist and organizer who worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and founded Operation PUSH, an organization designed to improve economic opportunities for Black people and other minorities. In later years, Jackson was an all-purpose activist, jumping from crisis to crisis with seemingly boundless energy. He‘d be enthusiastically welcomed in impoverished neighborhoods that terrified others, in difficult situations that no other politician wanted any part of. His impact was also felt internationally, particularly as a supporter of Nelson Mandela and those who worked to topple apartheid in South Africa. “Jackson had come to see himself as America’s racial traffic cop and ambassador. All racial cases seemed to flow eventually to Jesse Jackson — as he preferred. If they didn’t, he often flowed to them,” wrote Mike Kelly in “Color Lines: The Troubled Dreams of Racial Harmony in an American Town,” his 1995 book. Activism was his life’s blood. “Gandhi had to act. Mandela had to act. Dr. King had to march,” Jackson said in a Chicago speech in 2002. “Dr. King suffered and sacrificed. We must honor that tradition. We must use the pitter-patter of our marching feet and go forward.” Aiming to inspire, Jackson frequently recited variations of a poem called “I am — Somebody!” written in the 1950s by the Rev. William Holmes Borders Sr. On “Sesame Street“ in 1972, Jackson began: “I am. Somebody! I am. Somebody! I may be poor. But I am. Somebody. I may be young, But I am. Somebody.“ The children on the PBS show shouted the words back at him. They were neither the first nor the last to do so. Jackson was born Jesse Louis Burns on Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, to Helen Burns, a high school student. “Born in a three-room house, bathroom in the backyard, slop jar by the bed, no hot and cold running water,” he told the 1988 Democratic National Convention. “Jesse Jackson is my third name. I’m adopted,” he said in that speech. “When I had no name, my grandmother gave me her name. My name was Jesse Burns until I was 12. So I wouldn’t have a blank space, she gave me a name to hold me over. I understand when nobody knows your name. I understand when you have no name.“ At Greenville’s segregated Sterling High School, he was the class president; in 1960, he took part in a sit-in at the public library. Jackson went to the University of Illinois to play football but transferred to North Carolina A&T, a historically Black college where he played quarterback and was elected class president. After graduating with a degree in sociology, he became an organizer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and attended the Chicago Theological Seminary. He was ordained as a minister in 1968. Deeply segregated Chicago was a tough nut to crack, as it was in the grip of an entrenched Democratic Party machine led by Mayor Richard J. Daley. When Jackson arrived, he showed up at the mayor‘s office with a letter of introduction but left empty-handed. According to “Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago” by Chicago journalist Mike Royko: “Daley told him to see his ward committeeman, and if he did some precinct work, rang doorbells, hustled up some votes, there might be a government job for him. Maybe something like taking coins at a tollway booth.” That was clearly not what Jackson had in mind. Instead, Jackson became the leader of SCLC’s newly created Operation Breadbasket, which pushed businesses located in Black communities to employ Black people and invest in the community. He was also a highly visible presence in King’s Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966. SCLC veteran Andrew Young later wrote in his autobiography “An Easy Burden“: “Jesse’s model for leadership was the traditional Baptist preacher. He was eager for the leadership mantle. We didn’t know exactly what was driving Jesse, but Martin appreciated Jesse’s desire to lead and encouraged it.“ While critical of Jackson’s ambition and ego, Young wrote that Operation Breadbasket “achieved excellent results by bringing economic strength to the black ghetto over a period of several years.” As a Christian activist in the civil rights movement, Jackson said of King: “He was the pilot of the plane, but we were the ground crew.” On April 4, 1968, Jackson witnessed King’s assassination in Memphis. King was shot to death as he stood on the balcony of Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel. At that moment, King was talking to Jackson and Memphis musician Ben Branch, who were waiting in the parking lot to join King and others for dinner at the home of the Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles. Jackson claimed to have cradled King in his arms before he died, an assertion at odds with eyewitness accounts. (It was Marrell McCollough who grabbed a towel off a cleaning cart to try to stanch King’s bleeding; the Rev. Ralph Abernathy then took over at King’s side.) Five days later, Jackson walked with other movement leaders next to the mule-drawn farm wagon that carried King’s casket through the streets of Atlanta to Morehouse College. Abernathy succeeded King atop the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 2018, Jackson said King’s assassination still haunted him whenever he returned to Memphis. “Every time I go back, it pulls a scab off and the wound is still raw,” Jackson told CNN. “Every time, the trauma of the incident. His lying there. Blood everywhere. It hurts all the time.” Along with Abernathy and the widow Coretta Scott King, Jackson carried on with King’s planned Poor People’s Campaign for economic justice in Washington in the spring of 1968. But the movement became increasingly fragmented. At odds with Abernathy, Jackson left the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1971. “Without King’s powers of mediation and persuasion, rifts had deepened between the two men who inherited the largest pieces of King’s mantle,” Time magazine wrote of them in January 1972. Jackson then launched a variation of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago called Operation PUSH, which stood for People United to Save (later Serve) Humanity. “Despite precarious finances,“ James Ralph wrote in “The Encyclopedia of Chicago,” “Operation PUSH was active.” Ralph added: “It held rousing weekly meetings at its Hyde Park headquarters to energize its supporters, which included both black and white Chicagoans. It pressured major companies to hire more African Americans and to extend business ties with the black community. And in 1976, it launched PUSH-Excel, a program designed to inspire inner-city teenagers across the country to work hard and to stay out of trouble.” Operation PUSH utilized strategic boycotts, including one of Anheuser-Busch in 1983, designed to increase minority hiring. These boycotts elevated Jackson’s national profile. Jackson’s organization also spotlighted high-achieving African Americans as role models. In 1973, for instance, Operation PUSH hosted Hank Aaron as a speaker as the baseball superstar chased the sport’s all-time record for home runs set by Babe Ruth. Aaron biographer Howard Bryant described the scene in “The Last Hero.” “When we look at Hank,” Jackson said, “there’s something on the outside in his presence that tells us that we can achieve, and because he’s just like us, there’s something on the inside that tells us we deserve to achieve, and if he can, any man can.” In November 1983, Jackson declared his candidacy for president, becoming the second African American after New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm in 1972 to mount a potentially viable major-party bid. It was only months after Chicago had unexpectedly elected Harold Washington to be the city’s first Black mayor. That election was as mean and ugly as elections get, but Washington’s supporters mounted a vigorous grassroots campaign that overcame systemic racism to win with 51.7 percent of the vote. It became a template for Jackson’s efforts. Almost immediately, though, Jackson ignited a firestorm when he referred to Jewish people as “Hymie” and New York City as “Hymietown“ in an interview with a Washington Post reporter. Jackson already had critics within the Jewish community, having embraced Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1979 and called Zionism “a poisonous weed,“ but his “Hymietown” remarks threatened to derail his fledgling candidacy. “He was no longer an indication of Black-Jewish problems; he was the problem,” wrote J.J. Goldberg in “Jewish Power.” In February, Jackson apologized at a New Hampshire synagogue, saying: “However innocent and unintended, it was wrong.“ The 1984 Democratic presidential race seemed like it might end quickly, but frontrunner Walter Mondale stumbled in New Hampshire, losing to Colorado Sen. Gary Hart. As the race heated up, Jackson became a factor. “It means a victory for the boats stuck at the bottom,” he said in May after winning Louisiana. Jackson ended up with more than 3 million votes and 465 delegates, both well short of Hart and eventual nominee Mondale, but enough to make him a force to be reckoned with. In July, Mondale ruled out picking Jackson as his running mate, citing deep philosophical differences on some issues. (Mondale picked New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro instead.) The National Rainbow Coalition grew out of the 1984 campaign. Jackson had used the phrase “Rainbow Coalition” for years — Black Panther leader Fred Hampton had launched a group by that name in 1969, months before he was shot to death by Chicago police. Jackson adopted the phrase as part of an effort to broaden his appeal for his next presidential bid. The group would later morph into the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. It soon became clear Jackson would be a much more formidable candidate in 1988. “Jesse Jackson is a serious candidate for the presidency,” The Nation wrote in April 1988. “He was always serious; it was just the political scientists and the other politicians who belittled his campaign, trivialized his efforts, and disdained his prospects. Despite the contempt and condescension of the media — or perhaps because of it — Jackson went to the most remote and isolated grass roots in the American social landscape to find the strength for a campaign that has already begun to transform politics.“ Among those endorsing him was Sanders, then the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, who helped Jackson win the state’s caucuses. After early front-runner Hart quickly fell by the wayside because of scandal, five Democrats won primaries in 1988, including Jackson and Tennessee Sen. Al Gore, who took five Southern states each on Super Tuesday in March. But both took a back seat to Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who dominated in other regions of the country. Jackson accumulated 1,219 delegates, second only to Dukakis. He angled unsuccessfully for the vice-presidential slot, but Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen got the nod instead. “Never surrender, move forward,” Jackson told the Democratic National Convention in support of Dukakis that July in Atlanta. Jackson finished his speech with a repeated exhortation: “Keep hope alive!” He did not run again in 1992, but ended up playing an important role in the race inadvertently and perhaps unhappily. At a Rainbow Coalition gathering, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton criticized racial remarks made by hip-hop artist Sister Souljah, another featured speaker. “This planned political stunt,” argued Ibram X. Kendi in his book “Stamped From The Beginning,” showed Clinton was not captive to Jackson’s wing of the party, something that Kendi said “thrilled racist voters.” Unlike Mondale in 1984 and Dukakis in 1988, Clinton won the general election. Jackson’s electoral success gave him a platform from which to launch reform efforts around the country and jump into crisis situations wherever and whenever he saw fit. One such case came in Teaneck, New Jersey, in April 1990, when Phillip Pannell, a Black teenager, was shot to death by a white police officer under questionable circumstances. Protests and unrest followed. Arriving on the scene soon thereafter, Jackson pushed for justice but also tried to dial down tensions. “When the lights go out, don’t turn on each other,” Jackson urged students at Teaneck High School, according to Kelly’s “Color Lines” book. “In the dark, turn to each other and not on each other, and then wait until morning comes.“ He added: “What is the challenge of your age? Learning to live together.” Children in need remained a focus of his. “We must invest in the formative years of these children,” Jackson said in 2013. “So we need more than a conversation. We need transportation and education and trade skill training. And that will cost. It will cost more to not do it.” He did not limit his activism to the United States, at times venturing into hostile lands, meeting with dictators such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Nigeria’s Ibrahim Babangida and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to seek the release of prisoners. Perhaps no other American secured the release of so many people trapped in places they didn’t wish to be. Jackson vigorously opposed apartheid in South Africa, noting the parallels between the American civil rights movement and the efforts to upend the existing order in South Africa. ”Whatever you do to protest this evil system does not go without notice to those it is being done to,” South African Bishop Desmond Tutu told Jackson about his activism in December 1984. Jackson, in his own community, remained a symbol of what was possible. In Derrick Bell’s 1992 book “Faces at the Bottom of the Well,” one of the characters likened the inspirational impact of Jackson in the African American community to that of a Chicago basketball superstar. “With Jackson still active,” Bell’s character says, “we can expect some more Michael Jordan-type moves, political slam dunks in which he does the impossible and looks good while doing it.” In December 1995, his son Jesse Jr. was elected to fill a vacancy in Congress from Chicago’s South Side; he resigned in 2012, but sibling Jonathan was elected to a Chicago seat in 2022. For his part, Jesse Jackson never held a government post more significant than his stint as the District of Columbia’s “shadow senator” from 1991 to 1997. During the 2008 campaign, Jesse Jackson said some unflattering things about Obama, a fellow Chicagoan whom he accused of “talking down to black people.” But on election night, Jackson was seen crying with joy in Chicago’s Grant Park after Obama was elected. He saw progress but, as always, pushed for more. “Africans are free but not equal, Americans are free but not equal,” Jackson wrote in 2013 at the time of Mandela’s death. “Ending apartheid and ending slavery was a big deal, Mandela becoming president of South Africa, [Barack] Obama becoming the first African American president was a big deal, but we have to go deeper. We were enslaved longer than we have been free and we have a long way to go.” Jackson in 2017 announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, though his son, Yusef Jackson, later said it was actually a related condition called progressive supranuclear palsy. Seven years later, the ailing Jackson was clearly moved by the response when he was wheeled on stage at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago by Yusef and Jonathan Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton. “The thunderous applause went on for several minutes,” wrote David Maraniss in the Washington Post. “Cameras panned to members of the audience in tears. Jackson’s face lit up, his eyes sparkling, his puffed cheeks rising from a broad smile. He lifted his hands and gave a thumbs-up sign.” Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

LONDON — They’re young, full of ideas — and about to be given the vote. Britain’s government has committed to lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 years — a major extension of the electorate that could have big implications for the outcome of the next race, expected by 2029. It means Brits who are just 12 today are in line to vote in the next general election, which is expected to be a fierce battle between incumbent Keir Starmer and his right-wing challenger Nigel Farage. But what do these young people actually think? In a bid to start pinning down the views of this cohort, POLITICO commissioned pollster More in Common to hold an in-depth focus group, grilling eight youngsters from across the country on everything from social media disinformation to what they would do inside No. 10 Downing Street. To protect those taking part in the study, all names used below are pseudonymous. The group all showed an interest in politics, and had strong views on major topics such as immigration and climate change — but the majority were unaware they would get the chance to vote in 2029.  In a bid to prepare the country for the change, the Electoral Commission has recommended that the school curriculum be reformed to ensure compulsory teaching on democracy and government from an early age. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER There are few better introductions to the weird world of British politics than prime minister’s questions, the weekly House of Commons clash between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Conservative opponent Kemi Badenoch. Our group of 12-13-year-olds was shown a clip of the clash and asked to rate what they saw. They came away distinctly unimpressed. Hanh, 13, from Surrey, said the pair seemed like children winding each other up. “It seems really disrespectful in how they’re talking to each other,” she commented. “It sounds like they’re actually kids bickering … They were just going at each other, which didn’t seem very professional in my opinion.” Sarah, 13, from Trowbridge in the west of England, said the leading politicians were “acting like a pack of wild animals.” | Clive Brunskill/Getty Images Sarah, 13, from Trowbridge in the west of England, said the leading politicians were “acting like a pack of wild animals.” In the clip, the Commons backbenches roar as Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch quips about Starmer’s MPs wanting a new leader for Christmas. In turn, the PM dismisses the Conservative chief’s performance as a “Muppet’s Christmas Carol.” Twelve-year-old Holly, from Lincolnshire, said the pair were being “really aggressive and really harsh on each other, which was definitely rude.” And she said of the PM: “It weren’t really working out for Keir Starmer.” None of the children knew who Badenoch was, but all knew Starmer — even if they didn’t have particularly high opinions of the prime minister, who is tanking in the polls and struggling to get his administration off the ground. Twelve-year-old Alex said the “promises” Starmer had made were just “lies” to get him into No. 10. Sophie, a 12-year-old from Worcester in the West Midlands, was equally withering, saying she thought the PM is doing a “bad job.” “He keeps making all these promises, but he’s probably not even doing any of them,” she added. “He just wants to show off and try to be cool, but he’s not being cool because he’s breaking all the promises. He just wants all the money and the job to make him look really good.” Sarah said: “I think that it’s quite hard to keep all of those promises, and he’s definitely bitten off more than he can chew with the fact that he’s only made those statements because he wants to be voted for and he wants to be in charge.”  While some of the young people referenced broken promises by Starmer, none offered specifics. THE FARAGE FACTOR Although they didn’t know Badenoch as leader of the opposition, the whole room nodded when asked if they knew who Nigel Farage was. Although they didn’t know Badenoch as leader of the opposition, the whole room nodded when asked if they knew who Nigel Farage was. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images “He’s the leader of the Reform party,” said Alex, whose favorite subject is computing. “He promises lots of things and the opposite of what Starmer wants. Instead of helping immigrants, he wants to kick them out. He wants to lower taxes, wants to stop benefits.” Alex added: “I like him.” Sarah was much less taken. “I’ve heard that he’s the leader of the far right, or he’s part of the far right. I think he’s quite a racist man.” Farage has faced accusations in recent weeks of making racist remarks in his school days. The Reform UK leader replied that he had “never directly racially abused anybody.” Other participants said they’d only heard Farage’s name before. When asked who they would back if they were voting tomorrow, most children shrugged and looked bewildered. Only two of the group could name who they wanted to vote for — both Alex and Sam backed Farage. POLICY WORRIES Politicians have long tried to reach Britain’s youngsters through questionable TikTok videos and cringe memes — but there was much more going on in the minds of this group than simply staring at phones. Climate change, mental health and homelessness were dominant themes of the conversation. Climate change is “dangerous because the polar bears will die,” warned Chris, 13, from Manchester. Sophie, who enjoys horse riding, is worried about habitats being destroyed and animals having to find new homes as a result of climate change, while Sarah is concerned about rising sea levels. Thirteen-year-old Ravi from Liverpool said his main focus was homelessness. “I know [the government is] building houses, but maybe speed the process up and get homeless people off the streets as quick as they can because it’s not nice seeing them on the streets begging,” he said. Sam agreed, saying if he personally made it into No.10, he would make sure “everyone has food, water, all basic survival stuff.” Sarah’s main ask was for better mental health care amid a strained National Health Service. “The NHS is quite busy dealing with mental health, anxiety and things like that,” she said. “Maybe we should try and make an improvement with that so everyone gets a voice and everyone’s heard.” IMMIGRATION DIVISIONS When the conversation moved to the hot-button topic of immigration, views were more sharply divided. Imagining what he’d do in government, Alex said he’d focus on “lowering taxes and stopping illegal immigrants from coming over.” “Because we’re paying France billions just to stop them, but they’re not doing anything,” he said. “And also it’s spending all the tax money on them to give them home meals, stuff like that.” In July, Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron unveiled a “one in, one out” pilot program to tackle illegal migration, although it’s enjoyed limited success so far and has generated some embarrassing headlines for the British government. Hanh said she’d been taught at school that it’s important to show empathy, but noted some people are angry about taxes going to support asylum seekers. Chris and Sarah both said asylum seekers are fleeing war, and seemed uneasy at the thought of drawing a hard line. Holly said she wants “racism” — which she believes is tied to conversations about immigration — to end. “I often hear a lot of racism [at school] and prejudice-type stuff … I often hear the N word. People don’t understand how bad that word is and how it can affect people,” she said. “They [migrants] have moved away from something to get safer, and then they get more hate.” Hanh said she is seeing more anti-immigration messages on social media, such as “why are you in my country, get out,” she said. “Then that’s being dragged into school by students who are seeing this … it’s coming into school environment, which is not good for learning.” NEWS SNOOZE Look away now, journalists: The group largely agreed that the news is boring. Some listen in when their parents have the television or radio on, but all said they get most of their news from social media or the odd push alert. Asked why they think the news is so dull, Hanh — who plays field hockey and enjoys art at school — said: “It just looks really boring to look at, there are no cool pictures or any funny things or fun colors. It just doesn’t look like something I’d be interested in.” She said she prefers social media: “With TikTok, you can interact with stuff and look at comments and see other people’s views, [but with the news] you just see evidence and you see all these facts. Sometimes it can be about really disturbing stuff like murder and stuff like that. If it’s going to pop up with that, I don’t really want to watch that.” These children aren’t alone in pointing to social media as their preferred source of news. A 2025 report by communications watchdog Ofcom found that 57 percent of 12-15-year-olds consume news on social media, with TikTok being the most commonly used platform, followed by YouTube and then Instagram. Sophie isn’t convinced that the news is for her. “Sometimes if my parents put it on the TV and it’s about something that’s really bad that’s happened, then I’ll definitely look at it,” she said. “But otherwise, I think it would probably be more for older people because they would like to watch basically whatever’s on the TV because they can’t really be bothered to change the channel.”

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.  

BERLIN — U.S. President Donald Trump’s overtures to the European far right have never been more overt, but the EU’s biggest far-right parties are split over whether that is a blessing or a curse.  While Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has welcomed Trump’s moral support, viewing it as a way to win domestic legitimacy and end its political ostracization, France’s National Rally has kept its distance — viewing American backing as a potential liability. The differing reactions from the two parties, which lead the polls in the EU’s biggest economies, stem less from varying ideologies than from distinct domestic political calculations. AfD leaders in Germany celebrated the Trump administration’s recent attacks on Europe’s mainstream political leaders and approval of “patriotic European parties” that seek to fight Europe’s so-called “civilizational erasure.” “This is direct recognition of our work,” AfD MEP Petr Bystron said in a statement after the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy — which, in parts, sounds like it could have been a manifesto of a far-right European party — warning that Europe may be “unrecognizable” in two decades due to migration and a loss of national identities. “The AfD has always fought for sovereignty, remigration, and peace — precisely the priorities that Trump is now implementing,” added Bystron, who will be among a group of politicians in his party traveling to Washington this week to meet with MAGA Republicans. One of the AfD’s national leaders, Alice Weidel, also celebrated Trump’s security strategy. “That’s why we need the AfD!” Weidel said in a post after the document was released. By contrast, National Rally leaders in France were generally silent. Thierry Mariani, a member of the party’s national board, explained Trump hardly seemed like an ideal ally. “Trump treats us like a colony — with his rhetoric, which isn’t a big deal, but especially economically and politically,” he told POLITICO. The party’s national leaders, Mariani added, see “the risk of this attitude from someone who now has nothing to fear, since he cannot be re-elected, and who is always excessive and at times ridiculous.”  AFD’S AMERICAN DREAM It’s no coincidence that Bystron is part of a delegation of AfD politicians set to meet members of Trump’s MAGA camp in Washington this week. Bystron has been among the AfD politicians increasingly looking to build ties to the Trump administration to win support for what they frame as a struggle against political persecution and censorship at home. This is an argument members of the Trump administration clearly sympathize with. When Germany’s domestic intelligence agency declared the AfD to be extremist earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the move “tyranny in disguise.” During the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance urged mainstream politicians in Europe to knock down the “firewalls” that shut out far-right parties from government. “This is direct recognition of our work,” AfD MEP Petr Bystron said in a statement after the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy. | Britta Pedersen/Picture Alliance via Getty Images AfD leaders have therefore made a simple calculation: Trump’s support may lend the party a sheen of acceptability that will help it appeal to more voters while, at the same time, making it politically harder for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives to refuse to govern in coalition with their party. This explains why AfD polticians will be in the U.S. this week seeking political legitimacy. On Friday evening, Markus Frohnmaier, deputy leader of the AfD parlimentary group, will be an “honored guest” at a New York Young Republican Club gala, which has called for a “new civic order” in Germany. NATIONAL RALLY SEES ‘NOTHING TO GAIN’ In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally has distanced itself from the AfD and Trump as part of a wider effort to present itself as more palatable to mainstream voters ahead of a presidential election in 2027 the party believes it has a good chance of winning. As part of the effort to clean up its image, Le Pen pushed for the AfD to be ejected from the Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament last year following a series of scandals that made it something of a pariah. At the same time, National Rally leaders have calculated that Trump can’t help them at home because he is deeply unpopular nationally. Even the party’s supporters view the American president negatively. An Odoxa poll released after the 2024 American presidential election found that 56 percent of National Rally voters held a negative view of Trump. In the same survey, 85 percent of voters from all parties described Trump as “aggressive,” and 78 percent as “racist.”  Jean-Yves Camus, a political scientist and leading expert on French and international far-right movements, highlighted the ideological gaps separating Le Pen from Trump — notably her support for a welfare state and social safety nets, as well as her limited interest in social conservatism and religion.  “Trumpism is a distinctly American phenomenon that cannot be transplanted to France,” Camus said. “Marine Le Pen, who is working on normalization, has no interest in being linked with Trump. And since she is often accused of serving foreign powers — mostly Russia — she has nothing to gain from being branded ‘Trump’s agent in France.’” 

LONDON — It’s a decade since Britain’s Labour Party caused uproar simply by printing “controls on immigration” on a mug. Ten years, it turns out, are a long time in politics. Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s new interior minister, unveiled hardline plans Monday to shake up Britain’s immigration system that make the 2015 mantra look positively tame. Under her proposed reforms, refugees in Britain who arrived on small boats will have to wait up to 20 years for permanent settlement and could be deported if the situation in their home country improves. Those with valuables will be forced to fund the cost of their own accommodation. The tribunal appeals system, which features judges prominently, will be replaced with a streamlined system staffed by “professionally trained adjudicators.” And ministers are promising to ramp up the forcible removal of entire families to their countries of origin, if they do not accept “financial support” to go voluntarily. The home secretary is “beginning to sound as though” she is applying to join Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK, his gleeful deputy Richard Tice told a Westminster press conference Monday. With Mahmood clearly spoiling for a fight with her own ranks, some colleagues to her left flank are making the same comparison. Yet despite the backlash, many other Labour MPs now believe measures like this necessary to confront a rising public backlash over immigration in many European nations. Mahmood, said one official, is concerned that public anger is turning into hate. Labour aides also argue they could be running out of time, as opinion polls project a victory in 2029 for Reform — whose immigration plans would go far further. One government frontbencher (granted anonymity, like others in this piece, to speak frankly) argued the change had been driven by the “the visibility and tangibility of policy failures” on small boats, and the growing use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers. They added: “We may be in a world where we have to deliver a system we’re not quite comfortable with — or surrender the right to deliver a system to people who don’t think the system should exist. That’s a really uncomfortable place to be.” ‘LIKE A DROWNING MAN’ None of this eliminates the very real anger from Labour’s left-wing MPs — who were already concerned about votes bleeding away to the Green Party — and the likely uproar from its left-leaning grassroots. “The Starmer administration is like a drowning man,” a discontented Labour MP said Monday. “It just doesn’t have the ability to be able to make the argument that it is doing this from a progressive perspective. Where they’ve landed themselves politically, it’s not a place where you can bring people with you.” “The party won’t wear this — not just MPs, the wider party,” a second MP on the party’s soft left said. “The rhetoric around these reforms encourages the same culture of divisiveness that sees racism and abuse growing in our communities,” backbench Labour MP Tony Vaughan, who was only elected in 2024, argued on X. On one highly emotive point, officials were forced to clarify Monday that the Home Office would not seize migrants’ sentimental jewelery. That came overnight news stories suggested such items could be taken to contribute to migrant accommodation costs. The clarification did not come before MPs took to social media to speak out. “Taking jewellery from refugees” is “akin to painting over murals for refugee children,” another backbench MP, Sarah Owen, said, referencing a controversial order under the Conservatives to cover up cartoons at an accommodation centre for unaccompanied child migrants. The first Labour MP quoted above said that while many of his colleagues were seeing voters switch to Reform UK, a “hell of a lot of people” are going to the center-left Liberal Democrats and the Greens. “The tone that we’ve taken on immigration and asylum will hurt us as well,” the MP added.  ‘MORAL DUTY’ Government figures strongly disagree with the criticism — and think they have the public in their corner on this one. They sought to highlight More in Common polling that suggested even Green voters would support some individual measures that are used in Denmark — such as only granting asylum seekers temporary residence (50 percent support, 25 percent oppose.) A third, supportive MP on the right of the party pointed out there were “no surprise names” among those who had broken ranks to criticize the government’s plans. Mahmood insisted Monday the government has a “moral duty” to fix Britain’s “broken” asylum system. “Unless we can persuade people we can control our borders, we’re not going to get a hearing on anything else,” former Minister Justin Madders told Times Radio. It is an “existential test of whether we deserve to govern this country,” a serving minister said. They warned that if Starmer fails, the outcome in policy terms could be “a whole lot more drastic.” Noah Keate contributed reporting

Yulia Navalnaya is an economist and a Russian opposition leader, and the widow of Alexei Navalny. If I had to describe the movement that my husband Alexei Navalny created in just a few words, I’d say this: We are a pro-European movement. We believe Russia is an inseparable part of European civilization, and that the European model of development is the one best suited for our country. From this comes our conviction that the dark years of Putinism are not an historical inevitability but an aberration. And that when the regime of Vladimir Putin ends, Russia will have the chance to return to the European path. But what does this “European path” actually mean? From Hungary to Portugal, Sweden to Greece, Europe is vast and diverse. Its nations differ in both governance and their political evolution. Moreover, 2025 has been a year of hard tests for the continent’s countries, even by recent standards. Putin’s war against Ukraine continues, and the EU faces intense political pressure both from without and within. Economically, the situation is also far from ideal, as EU countries are forced to sharply increase their spending on defense and security, giving new ammunition to populists of every stripe. Things that seemed self-evident until recently, now appear more uncertain. Marginal views on fundamental issues — from humanist values to migration, environmental policies, minority rights and relations with dictatorships — are suddenly being expressed from the highest platforms. Not long ago, this would have been unthinkable. When Alexei Navalny spoke of the “Beautiful Russia of the Future,” he envisioned a peaceful, democratic, prosperous European country. But what does it mean to be a European country today? Despite all its internal challenges, contradictions and disagreements, Europe has always been — for me and for many Russians — a symbol of well-being. After World War II, Europe became a remarkable example of a progressive society built on mutual respect. Racism, colonialism, militarism, imperialism and, above all, the rejection of democracy and human rights became unacceptable. And the values enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights served as a guiding light for movements fighting dictatorships around the world — including in Russia, inspiring Soviet dissidents in their unequal and heroic struggle against Communist tyranny. These same values have always been the essence of our own program, forming a consistent, rather than situational, opposition to Putin. It is crucial to understand that our main disagreement with Putin is not tactical but value-based. I, my husband — who was murdered by Putin — and many of our allies opposed him long before he invaded Ukraine, at a time when he was welcomed in European capitals. And we will continue to oppose him if he remains in power in Russia when this terrible war ends. It is crucial to understand that our main disagreement with Putin is not tactical but value-based. | Contributor/Getty Images We do not ask for anything extravagant or extraordinary. We simply want Russia to be a country that cares, first and foremost, about the dignity, rights and future of its people — just as European countries do. We want the same basic rights and freedoms that Europeans see as part and parcel to everyday life. We fight for the primacy of human rights over the interests of the state. We demand genuine freedom of speech and assembly, so that anyone who disagrees with the government can openly campaign and criticize without fear prison, exile or assassination — as happened to my husband. We strive for democracy. For the right of any citizen to compete and win the trust of voters in free and fair elections. We support federalism and local self-government, so that people can choose their representatives not only at the national level but also in their regions, cities and towns. In a multiethnic country like Russia, this is essential. Only through functioning self-governance can its peoples preserve their culture, language and identity. We also fight for independent and fair courts. We strive for democracy. For the right of any citizen to compete and win the trust of voters in free and fair elections. | Marek Antoni Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images We defend the right to private property. At the same time, we believe that a country as rich as Russia must be generous to its citizens, and that revenue from its natural resources must not be stolen by the ruling elite or spent on wars. And, of course, we seek peace — because the very idea of waging war seems as absurd to us as it does to any normal European. We want Russia to be a good neighbor and a reliable partner to all countries around it, both East and West. These are the European values that unite hundreds of millions of people, from Tallinn to Lisbon, despite all their visible differences and the polarization inherent in daily politics today. Rule of law, not arbitrariness. Respect for institutions, not personal whim. A state that serves people, not people who serve the state. As you can see, we aren’t radicals. We are all very different people in terms of our views, but we are united by one thing above all else: We are enemies of Putin’s regime, which has brought war, dictatorship, corruption and terror to our country. We oppose not just Putin personally but his entire authoritarian, anti-democratic, anti-parliamentarian, militarist, xenophobic and chauvinistic worldview. Putinism has no ideology — it is simply the denial of modern European civilization’s values. We are normal Europeans who share fundamental European values. When I speak with European politicians, they often ask what they can do to help our movement, our struggle against Putin and his war. My answer is simple: Be strong, principled and consistent. It is in our shared interest that Europe remains united and successful — only then can it stand up to the challenges of our time, including helping those still fighting for freedom. Europe is more than capable of resisting hypocrisy and double standards. It is more than capable of extending a hand to tens of millions of pro-European Russians — and helping that number grow. This will ensure that the beautiful Russia of the future, for which Alexei Navalny gave his life, will be peaceful, democratic and prosperous — in other words, a normal European country.

LONDON — Nigel Farage is on the march. And every lever Britain’s prime minister pulls seems broken. More than a year after his center-left Labour Party stormed to victory on a promise of change, Keir Starmer is yet to show voters he is truly in command. With Reform UK’s Farage eclipsing him in the polls, Starmer’s government has now been hit by a series of unforced errors on the issue on which he’s acutely vulnerable on the right: migration. Small boats carrying asylum-seekers continue to cross the English Channel, with numbers for this year already surpassing the 2024 total. In a farcical twist, one migrant, removed to France with much fanfare under the government’s flagship “one in, one out” deterrent scheme, arrived back on U.K. shores by small boat less than a month after being deported.  More damaging still, on Friday an asylum-seeker jailed for sexually assaulting a teenager — and whose crimes sparked a wave of protests in the U.K. over the summer — was mistakenly released from prison, prompting a weekend manhunt. He was eventually re-arrested on Sunday morning — but not before torrid headlines and a declaration from Farage that Britain is “broken.” It’s been “deeply damaging,” a Labour MP in a marginal seat, who had been door-knocking over the weekend, said of the latest events. It is “playing into the hands of Reform that Britain is ungovernable by traditional parties,” the MP, granted anonymity to speak candidly, added.   Unlike some of his centrist contemporaries in Europe battling populist insurgents, Starmer should be ascendant. He has a commanding House of Commons majority, and isn’t due to face an election until 2029. But events last week are “grist to the mill” to Reform’s argument that the British state is “totally dysfunctional,” Reform MP Danny Kruger, who defected to Farage’s outfit from the Tories and its leading its preparations for the prisons system, said. Kruger will make a speech Tuesday and told POLITICO he is calling for “serious surgery on the system.” IN AGREEMENT   The frustration in Starmer’s top ranks is evident. “There is a deep disillusionment in this country at the moment and I would say a growing sense of despair about whether anyone is capable of turning this country around,” Wes Streeting, the health secretary and a close ally of Starmer acknowledged in a broadcast interview on Sunday.  Starmer — who has hit out at the legacy handed to him by the Conservatives from their 14 years in power — has hardly been shy about criticizing the state either.   Keir Starmer — who has hit out at the legacy handed to him by the Conservatives from their 14 years in power — has hardly been shy about criticizing the state either. | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images His claim last December that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline” even prompted accusations from civil service unions that he was using “Trumpian language.”   MPs are not so squeamish. A parliamentary committee on Monday launched a blistering attack on the Home Office — Britain’s interior ministry — which it said had squandered billions of pound on the U.K.’s “failed, chaotic and expensive” asylum accommodation system.  Reform — which, apart from recently gained footholds in local government, currently has the luxury of observing rather than running things — insists it would take a different tack. Kruger said Tuesday’s speech would be “high level.”    He argues the country is facing a “multifactor crisis,” which makes an argument for “wholesale reform” of the machinery of state more “politically compelling and acceptable.”   “Being radical is becoming something that respectable mainstream parties need to do. We’re not diluting our radicalism, it’s that our radicalism is becoming more acceptable,” he said.   While Reform wants to make “quite serious surgery on the system,” the party is not going to come in with a “chainsaw or wrecking ball,” he insisted. Kruger will on Tuesday pledge to reduce the civil service headcount (though he will not specify by how much), make officials directly answerable to ministers, and close some government buildings. When asked on Monday about his own plans for government after the prison release debacle, Farage pointed only to his party’s existing plan to recruit experienced people to develop policy, who could then become ministers in a Reform government. Labour MPs hope a simultaneous racism row in Reform will halt its momentum. Farage on Monday admonished one of his own MPs for saying she was driven “mad” by advertisements featuring black and Asian people. The comments were “ugly” and “wrong,” the Reform UK leader told a press conference.   The Labour MP quoted above said that row had “stemmed the bleeding” for Starmer’s party over the weekend. Labour MPs repeatedly bring up infighting at Reform-run Kent County Council, too, hoping it will demonstrate the challenges the party would face if it’s actually given power. But pollsters aren’t so sure. YouGov’s Patrick English said “any stories which relate to issues surrounding or adjacent to immigration and small boat crossings will move conversations onto grounds upon which Farage and Reform are more comfortable.”   Reform currently leads the pollster’s “best party to handle immigration” tracker by some distance, with 36 percent of the public picking them compared with just 10 percent picking Labour, and 6 percent picking the Conservatives, English points out. Starmer’s predecessor as prime minister, Rishi Sunak, discovered the cost of failing to get a grip on the Home Office and to stop the flow of small boats across the English Channel when he led his party to a historic defeat last year. His former Deputy Chief of Staff Rupert Yorke said the recent debacles were “yet more evidence for the public that the British state is completely broken.”   “Worrying about a lack of vision — which MPs understandably demand —  is missing the point,” Yorke warned. “The government has to instead focus on solving these knotty problems which are so ingrained in the public psyche.   “Otherwise they are in deep trouble, and support for Reform will continue to grow.” Martin Alfonsin Larsen contributed reporting.

The EU should swiftly pull funding from organizations that fail to uphold its values, and do more to tackle hate speech, France, Austria and the Netherlands urged in an informal document seen by POLITICO. Citing a surge in antisemitic and racist incidents following the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and the war in Gaza, the three countries call on Brussels and national capitals to “redouble their efforts to combat racism, antisemitism, xenophobia and anti-Muslim hatred” and ensure that “no support is given to entities hostile to European values, in particular through funding.” The document lays out proposals to tighten financial oversight and expand the EU’s criminal and operational response to hate crimes. It calls on the European Commission to fully apply existing budget rules allowing for the exclusion of entities inciting hatred, and to make beneficiaries of programs such as Erasmus+ and CERV (Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values) sign pledges that they will respect and promote EU rights and values. The document comes just one day before a European Council meeting in Brussels at which EU leaders are expected to discuss support to Ukraine, defense, and also housing, competitiveness, migration, and the green and digital transitions. According to a draft of the Council conclusions obtained by POLITICO, national leaders are expected to stress that EU values apply equally in the digital sphere, with the protection of minors singled out as a key priority. Beyond funding, the document demands tougher measures against online and offline hate speech. It also urges Europol to launch a project looking at hate crimes and calls for education and awareness programs on tolerance and Holocaust remembrance through Erasmus+ and CERV.

LONDON — Nigel Farage is gambling that a hardline stance on migration is a surefire vote-winner. But it’s a risky bet. Amid a spate of protests outside hotels housing some of Britain’s asylum seekers, Farage’s insurgent Reform UK party faces a dilemma. Should it condemn the demos and disappoint voters on the right? Or lean in — and risk alienating the more moderate voters who are now powering its rise? Reform UK’s base is increasingly mirroring the average Briton, according to fresh polling from the think tank More in Common. Just 40 percent of its current supporters backed the party in 2024, and just 16 percent of its current backers once voted for Farage’s old outfit, UKIP. Its gender gap has narrowed, its age profile has evened out, and many of its newest recruits are less glued to online culture wars. That makes Reform’s growth, in the pollsters’ words, both “a blessing and a curse.” The broader the party gets, the greater the risk of being defined by its more radical supporters — and losing the very voters Farage has worked to bring in. Members of the far-right have egged on protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping. What began as a local protest quickly drew in the Homeland party — a breakaway from Britain’s biggest far-right group, Patriotic Alternative — alongside Britain First, and hard-right agitator Tommy Robinson. So far, Reform has backed the right to protest — Farage described people protesting as “genuinely concerned families,” and insisted that violence was caused by “some bad eggs.” “We don’t pick and choose the protest,” his Deputy Leader Richard Tice told POLITICO in an interview. “We don’t choose to support some and not others. We just say lawful, peaceful protest is an important part of a functioning democracy.”  DISTANCE But it’s a careful line for a party that has spent the past year trying to sharpen its operation — tightening vetting rules for candidates and putting distance between itself and overt racism. “They’ve drawn a clear line when it comes to distancing themselves from Tommy Robinson,” said Marley Morris, associate director for migration, trade and communities at the Institute for Public Policy Research. So far, Reform has backed the right to protest — Nigel Farage described people protesting as “genuinely concerned families,” and insisted that violence was caused by “some bad eggs.” | Neil Hall/EPA “That’s actually come at quite significant costs for Nigel Farage, because of its consequences for his relationship with Elon Musk.” The Tesla owner has been a staunch online backer of Robinson, who was jailed in the UK for contempt of court after he repeated false claims about a Syrian schoolboy. Farage — whose party descends on Birmingham for its annual conference this weekend in a jubilant mood — is riding high in the polls, and will be buoyed by polling that consistently puts migration at or near the top of Brits’ list of concerns. But the summer of tense protests risks complicating matters, according to some British commentators. Farage “feels under pressure from the online right,” argued Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank. Over the past month, Reform has doubled down on its anti-immigration pitch — in language critics say edges closer to the far-right. In August, Tice told Times Radio that there should be more groups of men on a “neighborhood watch-style basis within the bounds of the law” to protect women from the “sneering, jeering, and sexual assaults and rapes that are taking place, coincidentally, near a number of these asylum-seeker hotels.”  Pressed by POLITICO, Tice doubled down on this position. “There is already vigilantism going on. No one wants to report it, but that’s the reality of life … It is much better to shine the spotlight on an issue, talk about it … and then government can make better policy.”  Tice likens asylum arrivals in the UK to “an invasion double the size of the British Army.” But the summer of tense protests risks complicating matters, according to some British commentators. | Tolga Aken/EPA “That’s how people talk about it in the pubs and clubs and bus stops and sports fields up and down the country. I know that makes people in Westminster uncomfortable — tough,” Tice told POLITICO. THE CONNOLLY FACTOR The party has also wrapped its arms around Lucy Connolly, a 42-year-old woman who was jailed after pleading guilty to stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers with a post calling for migrant hotels to be set on fire. Reform has painted Connolly as a political prisoner of Keir Starmer’s government, with Farage even flying to Washington this week to slam Britain’s online safety rules and likening the UK to North Korea on free speech.  Cabinet ministers blasted Farage’s U.S. trip as a “Talk Britain Down” tour. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds called it “as anti-British as you can get. More in Common polling shows that while voters are split on whether Connolly’s sentence was too harsh or too lenient, 51 percent want politicians to distance themselves from her, including more than a quarter of Reform voters. “The transnational neoconservative right is a massive danger to the British right, not an opportunity,” argued IPPR’s Morris. More in Common polling shows that many of Reform’s newer supporters view U.S.-style populist figures, such as Donald Trump, negatively. Social attitudes are also shifting, with six in ten voters supporting same-sex marriages, and 46 percent thinking the legal abortion limit should stay at 24 weeks. POLICY PITFALLS While Reform is confidently ahead in national voting intention polls, there is evidence of some unease about its specific policy pledges. A proposal to work with the Taliban to return Afghan asylum seekers got a mixed reception. Some 45 percent of Britons said that giving money to the regime to take returns would be “completely unacceptable,” according to a YouGov poll. The party has also struggled to clarify its stance on deporting children. Chairman Zia Yusuf suggested unaccompanied minors could eventually be removed under the party’s mass deportation plans — only for Farage to row back, insisting it wouldn’t happen in Reform’s first term. “When it came to deporting children, they realized that what they proposed isn’t really sustainable — it seems, frankly, inhumane,” said Morris. “If [Reform] wants to appeal to the wider public, and not just to its base, it can’t just appeal to this kind of narrow group of people.” Tice has since sought to narrow the focus. “We’ve said that we will start focusing on detaining and deporting males first,” he said. “If a husband is detained and deported, if he’s got a wife and children, they’ve got a choice to make. “The children of parents who are here illegally, those children are not British citizens by law,” he continued. “There are bound to be specific cases and things, but as a principle, we’re not going to go through a whole long list of exemptions. If you do that, you actually create a criminal gang focus on the exemptions, and then people try to game that system. So we’re not playing that game.”