The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Starmer

  • Pope Francis’ burial: Trump, Prince Williams, Starmer other prominent leaders arrive Rome

    Pope Francis’ burial: Trump, Prince Williams, Starmer other prominent leaders arrive Rome

    Several world leaders have converged on St. Peter’s Square in Rome as the final funeral rites for Catholic pontiff Pope Francis commenced on Saturday morning.

    Among the prominent figures in attendance are Prince Williams, United States President Donald Trump; his wife Melania, former President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and French First Lady Brigitte Macron are also present at the solemn occasion.

    Other notable leaders and royals at the Vatican include

    Poland President Andrzej Duda

    Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, Pope Francis’s home country

    Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella

    Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader

    Belgium King Philippe and Queen Mathilde

    German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier

    Croatia President Zoran Milanovic

    Ecuador President Daniel Noboa

    Ireland Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin

    Moldova President Maia Sandu

    Latvia President Edgars Rinkevics

    New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon

    Sweden King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia

    Read Also: As Pope Francis goes home today

    UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres

    Queen Mary of Denmark

    China Vice President Chen Chin-Jen

    Jordan King Abdullah II and Queen Rania

    Monaco Prince Albert and Princess Charlene

    Hungary President Tamas Sulyok and

    Prime Minister Viktor Orban

    European Council President Antonio Costa

    President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola.

    Pope Francis, who passed away at the age of 88 on Easter Monday following complications from a stroke, coma, and heart failure, is being honored with a solemn requiem mass at St Peter’s Basilica.

    The mass is being presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals, ahead of the Pope’s internment later today.

  • Starmer to boost UK defense spending against Russian threat

    Starmer to boost UK defense spending against Russian threat

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said yesterday that the United Kingdom would increase its defence spending by 2027 to bolster its security against the threat of Russian aggression exhibited by Moscow’s three-year war against Ukraine.

    He told Parliament that defence spending would increase by $17 billion annually, boosting outlays from 2.3% of the United Kingdom’s economic production to 2.5%, with corresponding cuts in overseas development assistance.

    Starmer told lawmakers the increased spending was a “generational response” and the “biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War.”

    He said it was necessary because “tyrants like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin only respond to strength.”

    Read Also: N30trn Ways and Means: Senate panel accuses CBN of frustrating probe

    “We must stand by Ukraine, because if we do not achieve a lasting peace, then the economic instability and threats to our security, they will only grow,” said Starmer, who is set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday.

    “And so, as the nature of that conflict changes as it has in recent weeks, it brings our response into sharper focus, a new era that we must meet as we have so often in the past, together, and with strength,” Starmer told the House of Commons.

    Britain previously said it would increase its defence spending to 2.5% of its national economic production but did not pinpoint a date. It already is one of 23 of the 32 countries in NATO that meets the goal of the West’s main military alliance for each country to spend at least 2% of its gross domestic product on defence.

    Starmer’s push to increase defence spending comes as European countries have expressed new concerns about ongoing military support from the United States as Trump advances his “America First” foreign policy agenda and pushes to settle the Ukraine war in discussions with Putin.

  • Over 25,000 crossed UK Channel since Starmer became PM

    Over 25,000 crossed UK Channel since Starmer became PM

    A total of 240 people made the journey in four boats on Saturday, taking the provisional total for 2025 to date to 1,893, according to analysis of Home Office data.

    This brings the total provisional number of migrants to have crossed the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister to 25,135.

    Saturday’s provisional figure was the second-highest in 2025, with 260 migrants detected crossing the Channel on January 13.

    Tory MP Ben Obese-Jecty said: “240 migrants crossed the channel yesterday with one losing life in the process.

    Read Also: UK Prime Minister Starmer hits back at Elon Musk

    “When is the new Border Security Commander going to announce his strategic priorities?

    “What has he done since being appointed last September?”

    A total of 36,816 people crossed the English Channel in 2024.

    Last year’s arrivals jumped by 25% from the 29,437 who arrived in 2023, according to the Home Office, but dropped by 20% on the record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.

    A Home Office spokesman said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.

  • UK’s Starmer to meet Macron to discuss Ukraine support after Trump win

    UK’s Starmer to meet Macron to discuss Ukraine support after Trump win

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday to discuss ways to help Ukraine, after the election of Donald Trump has raised concerns of reduced U.S. support for the war against Russia.

    Days after Trump was elected to begin a second term as U.S.president in January, Starmer will travel to France, where he will talk with Macron and also become the first British leader to attend French Armistice Day services since World War Two.

    Starmer and Macron will discuss “Russia’s ongoing barbaric invasion of Ukraine and the appalling humanitarian situation in Gaza,” Downing Street said.

    Trump has criticised the level of U.S. support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia since the 2022 full-scale invasion and has promised to end the conflict without explaining how.

    Britain and France have said it is essential to keep supporting Ukraine against Russia to protect the European continent as a whole.

    Europe has been the biggest provider of aid to Ukraine, allocating 118 billion euros ($126 billion) since the start of the conflict, while the United States has provided 85 billion euros in total, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

    Britain and the European Union are expected to begin talks next year on a post-Brexit security pact, covering areas such as defence and energy cooperation, as they look to take more responsibility for their own security.

    Read Also: UK PM Starmer congratulates Trump on “historic” US election victory

    Some European politicians have said Europe cannot replace the financial and military aid from the United States, including military resources such as F-16 fighter jets and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS).

    On his visit to France, Starmer is scheduled to meet the new French Prime Minister Michel Barnier. The meeting will be their first since Barnier became prime minister in September.

    The last British leader to attend the French Armistice Day commemorations was Winston Churchill, who was hosted by Charles de Gaulle in 1944, Starmer’s office said.

    (Reuters)

  • France’s Macron hosts Starmer as UK aims to rebuild European relations

    France’s Macron hosts Starmer as UK aims to rebuild European relations

    UK premier Keir Starmer was welcomed warmly Thursday in Paris by French leader Emmanuel Macron, as the new centre-left British government seeks to relaunch post-Brexit ties with Europe.

    Paris is the second leg of Starmer’s trip to key EU capitals, after the prime minister visited Berlin and announced treaty talks alongside Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

    Macron strode out to meet Starmer for a demonstrative hug, slapping the recently-elected leader’s back and shaking his hand.

    French presidents usually wait beside uniformed Republican Guards standing rigidly to attention at the top of the steps in the presidential palace’s courtyard when welcoming visitors.

    The pair have plenty to discuss.

    Like Germany, France is a key security partner for Britain — Paris and London hold permanent seats on the UN Security Council and are Western Europe’s only nuclear-armed powers.

    The two countries share strong support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian invasion since 2022.

    More fraught is the issue of migrants crossing the Channel to the UK on boats, which the two countries’ security forces have cooperated for years to try to contain.

    Read Also: UK PM Starmer clashes with Elon Musk over UK riot remarks

    The issue was the first aim singled out by Starmer in a statement released ahead of the France visit, alongside stoking economic growth.

    Migrant arrivals in Britain reached a record high in the first six months of the year, according to London, adding 18 percent year-on-year to reach 13,500 people.

    Since the beginning of the year, 25 people have died in often dangerously-overcrowded craft, twice as many as in the whole of 2023.

    Reaching a new level of cooperation with the EU as a whole may be more elusive than the treaty Starmer hopes to strike with Germany by year’s end.

    He has made a classic choice of interlocutors in Scholz and Macron as the heads of the EU’s traditional Franco-German power couple.

    But both are in a weakened state that may limit their influence on cross-Channel dealmaking.

    Scholz heads a shaky three-party coalition set for a drubbing in three regional elections next month and unlikely to survive next year’s national ballot.

    Macron is struggling to come up with a candidate for prime minister after a July snap election produced a hopelessly hung parliament — a stark contrast to Starmer’s unassailable majority.

  • UK PM Starmer clashes with Elon Musk over UK riot remarks

    UK PM Starmer clashes with Elon Musk over UK riot remarks

    Elon Musk and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer have clashed after the tech boss claimed Britain was heading for civil war.

    The billionaire owner of the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, provoked a row with Downing Street over the riots that have engulfed UK cities amid accusations that social media is fuelling the unrest.

    Read Also: UK PM Starmer to hold emergency meeting as riots intensify

    In a comment on his social media site about the violence, Musk said “civil war is inevitable” – a remark that was explicitly rejected by Starmer’s official spokesman, who said there was “no justification” for it.

    Musk then replied to a post on X by Starmer, questioning the prime minister’s decision to provide extra protection for mosques.

  • UK PM Starmer to hold emergency meeting as riots intensify

    UK PM Starmer to hold emergency meeting as riots intensify

    British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will hold an emergency meeting with police chiefs today after days of violent anti-immigration protests intensified, with buildings and vehicles torched and hotels holding asylum seekers targeted.

    Riots have erupted across towns and cities in the last week after three girls were killed in a knife attack in Southport in northwest England, with 420 people arrested so far.

    The murders were seized on by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups as misinformation spread online that the suspected attacker was a radical Islamist who had just arrived in Britain. Police have said the suspect was born in Britain and are not treating it as a terrorist incident.

    Interior minister Yvette Cooper said rioters had felt “emboldened by this moment to stir up racial hatred”, with bricks thrown at police officers, shops looted and mosques and Asian-owned businesses attacked.

    Over the weekend riots broke out in Liverpool, Bristol, Tamworth, Middlesbrough and Belfast, in Northern Ireland, with largely young men wearing balaclavas and draped in the British flags hurling rocks and shouting “Stop the Boats”, a reference to migrants arriving on the south coast in recent years.

    In Rotherham, northern England, protesters sought to break into a hotel that housed asylum seekers.

    Read Also: Starmer issues warning to UK far-right thugs over mob violence against asylum seekers

    Police have blamed online disinformation, amplified by high-profile figures for driving the violence. One of the most prominent of these, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon who led the anti-Islam English Defence League group, has been blamed by media for spreading misinformation to his 875,000 followers on X.

    “They are lying to you all,” Yaxley-Lennon, who is known by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, wrote. “Attempting to turn the nation against me. I need you, you are my voice.”

    Elon Musk, the owner of X, also weighed in on the violence. Responding to a post on X that blamed mass migration and open borders for the disorder in Britain, he wrote: “Civil war is inevitable.”

    Interior minister Yvette Cooper told broadcasters that tensions had been amplified and inflamed online, and the government would be pursuing the issue with social media companies.

    “I think what you’ve seen is that networks of different individuals and groups that have been trying to fan the flames,” she told Sky News, swerving questions on whether foreign states had been involved.

    While she said people had views and concerns about issues such as immigration, she blamed extremist, racist, violent groups for the violence.

    “Reasonable people who have all those sorts of views and concerns do not pick up bricks and throw them at the police,” she said.

    Newsnow

  • Starmer issues warning to UK far-right thugs over mob violence against asylum seekers

    Starmer issues warning to UK far-right thugs over mob violence against asylum seekers

    United Kingdom (UK) Prime Minister Keir Starmer has issued a stark warning to racist far-right thugs rioting in British towns and cities with a “guarantee” they will face swift justice and “the full force of the law”.

    In an uncompromising statement to the nation, the prime minister told those behind the appalling scenes in Hull, Halifax, Liverpool, London, Southport and Rotherham: “I guarantee, you will regret it”. More than 100 people have been arrested following the violent disturbances on Saturday.

    The prime minister’s powerful statement came as a mob stormed a hotel full of asylum seekers waiting for their applications to be heard in Rotherham and set fire to it knowing people were inside.

    Violent thugs in balaclavas draped in St George’s flags hurled chairs and set off fire extinguishers at police outside of the Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, a suburb in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, yesterday afternoon as the thugs chanted “get them out”, “you’re not welcome anymore” and “Yorkshire” as they encouraged each other to attack the hotel.

    Another young group of men held a banner saying: “Stopping the boats means stopping the stabbings” and other offensive chants could be heard targeting Muslims and immigrants. The group smashed windows to get inside the hotel at one point, before setting fire to bins and furniture.

    Read Also: Tinubu: Govt won’t allow those with clear political agenda tear nation apart

    Just after Sir Keir made his statement, the Home Office revealed that extra support is being offered to protect mosques and other potential hot spots around the country as the crisis engulfing the nation appeared to grow.

    As police kettled the mob in a stand-off outside the hotel, the prime minister said that they “are not protesters” and made it clear that their racist behaviour “will not be tolerated”.

    “Be in no doubt, those that have participated in this violence will face the full force of the law,” he continued. “The police will be making arrests. Individuals will be held on remand, charges will follow and convictions will follow.

    “I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder, whether directly or those whipping up this action online and then running away themselves.”