After rightwing attacks on rescues, UK lifeboat charity has record fundraising year

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has had ‘significant’ increase in annual donations after it went to the aid of asylum seekers

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is on course for the highest annual fundraising total in its near 200-year history. Donations swelled after the charity attracted huge public support following rightwing attacks for helping save the lives of asylum seekers at risk of drowning in the Channel.

The RNLI said it has received a significant increase in support, with online donations rising by 50% this year.

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Trump voices old grievances in freewheeling interview with Farage

Conversation broke little new ground as ex-president hinted that he might run for president again

Donald Trump attacked Boris Johnson’s plans for clean power, slammed the Duchess of Sussex as “disrespectful”, and voiced a litany of old grievances during a freewheeling interview with UK politician-turned-broadcaster Nigel Farage aired on British TV on Wednesday night.

The conversation, billed as a “world exclusive” from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, south Florida, and broadcast on GB News, broke little new ground, beginning with the twice-impeached, one-term Republican president repeating the lie that the 2020 presidential election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, was stolen from him.

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Donald Trump accuses Meghan of disrespect towards royal family

Former president says Prince Harry ‘has been used horribly’ in interview with Nigel Farage

The former US president Donald Trump has accused the Duchess of Sussex of being “disrespectful” to the Queen and the royal family.

In a wide-ranging interview with the politician turned broadcaster Nigel Farage, Trump said he thought the Duke of Sussex had been “used horribly”.

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Nigel Farage’s Brexit party saved Labour seats in 2019 election, analysis finds

Experts say while party failed to win a seat they may have denied Boris Johnson a landslide by splitting vote

Nigel Farage’s Brexit party may have saved up to 25 Labour seats in the Midlands and the north at the 2019 general election, denying Boris Johnson a landslide majority of 130, according to new analysis.

Farage’s party failed to win a single seat in December 2019 as Boris Johnson sought to hammer home the message that the Conservatives would “get Brexit done”.

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The Guardian view on Fortress Europe: a continent losing its moral compass

The increasingly draconian approach to irregular migration betrays the spirit of the 1951 refugee convention

Seventy years ago, the 1951 UN refugee convention established the rights of refugees to seek sanctuary, and the obligations of states to protect them. Increasingly, it seems that much of Europe is choosing to commemorate the anniversary by ripping up some of the convention’s core principles.

So far this year, close to 1,000 migrants have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean, more than four times the death toll for the same period in 2020. Many will have been economic migrants. Others will have been fleeing persecution. Increasingly, Europe does not care. All were “irregular”. And all must be discouraged and deterred through a strategy of cruelty.

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GB News turns to Nigel Farage as its saviour after ratings freefall

TV station also hit by internal dispute over its direction after Guto Harri dropped for ‘taking the knee’

Nigel Farage is to take centre stage at GB News in a victory for the rightwing faction at the beleaguered television channel. The former leader of Ukip is to host a nightly primetime show from Monday as part of a reboot of programming designed to attract more viewers.

The new channel is facing plummeting viewing figures and a split in management between those angling to keep broader-based regional news coverage and those planning to boost coverage of the “culture wars”.

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Nigel Farage appointed to advisory board of green finance firm

Dutch Green Business, which plants trees for carbon capture, says ex-Ukip leader will ‘facilitate introductions’

He has criticised Greta Thunberg for “alarmism” and wind power as “economic insanity” – but Nigel Farage appears to have made a U-turn on climate change, after signing up as a lobbyist for a Dutch green finance firm, in his first commercial role outside frontline politics.

Dutch Green Business Group, which is listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange, said it had appointed Farage to its new advisory board. The eurosceptic and former Ukip leader will “facilitate introductions to politicians and business leaders in the UK and around the world” while also acting as a spokesman for the company, it said in a press release.

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Come clean on logjams at British borders as new Brexit rules kick in, ministers told

Amid confusion for lorry drivers in Kent, logistics firms call for greater transparency to help lessen disruption

Ministers are facing demands for more honesty and transparency over any logjams at the UK border in the wake of Britain’s exit from the EU, amid concerns that waves of disruption will last for six months.

Several lorry drivers are understood to have been turned away at Dover for not having the right paperwork following the end of the Brexit transition period last week. It has caused concern among logistics and manufacturing companies that more severe problems could occur as trade flows increase later this month.

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The lockdown rebels preparing to defy No 10 on Covid restrictions

From former Tory ministers to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the key figures standing against a second lockdown

As England braces for a second national lockdown, Downing Street once more faces a rebellion over tougher restrictions. Ahead of a Commons vote on Wednesday, several Conservative MPs are weighing up their options. Here are some key figures who may line up against the government and the broad camps they sit in, alongside Nigel Farage and his plan for a new anti-lockdown party.

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Port of Dover is brought to a standstill by far-right groups

Flag-waving extremists and white nationalists block roads in protest over migrant Channel crossings

Just after 1pm, below the white cliffs of Dover, Nigel Marcham offered his take on one of the summer’s most potent symbols. “Take a knee for the brethren of this fucking country,” Marcham screamed into his megaphone.

Around him a ragtag collection of far-right supporters, white nationalists and neo-nazis knelt on the A20 outside Dover’s Eastern Docks. “Thanks for taking a fucking knee in the proper way,” he said, clearly delighted with his perversion of the global peaceful protest symbol adopted by millions following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

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Steve Bannon hails Dominic Cummings and predicts lurch to right for No 10

Architect of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reveals admiration for Boris Johnson’s aide in interview on dark politics

Steve Bannon, who has previously backed a range of notorious far-right political figures, has publicly endorsed Dominic Cummings for the first time, calling him a “brilliant guy”.

Donald Trump’s former chief strategist also said that Boris Johnson will become an increasingly populist prime minister after jettisoning his political positioning as a “globalist” to “opportunistically jump on Brexit”.

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The high-profile figures who got into hot water over lockdown rules

Ministers, scientific advisers and footballers have all been criticised for their behaviour

Neil Ferguson is not the first high-profile figure to apparently fall foul of lockdown rules.

Related: UK coronavirus adviser Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules

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General election live: Corbyn should not resign immediately if Labour loses election, says McCluskey – live news

All the day’s developments on the campaign trail before Johnson and Corbyn’s first TV debate

Boris Johnson has gone for some Rocky Balboa-type posturing ahead of tonight’s ITV debate. (See 2.33pm and 4.50pm.) As you would expect, Jeremy Corbyn’s warm-up routine is rather different.

Labour leader @jeremycorbyn has arrived for the #ITVdebate, saying he hopes for a respectful debate and prepared by eating a Caesar salad#GE2019 #Leadersdebatehttps://t.co/itw9efaa2W pic.twitter.com/Z2PVqCmgEd

And here is another useful Twitter thread on the likely impact of the debate tonight, from the academic Prof Tim Bale. It starts here.

THREAD: Did a @SkyNews bit today on debates. Here's (some of) what we think we know from research in the UK and elsewhere. 1/8

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Brexit party will not contest 317 Tory-won seats, Farage says

Party leader announces election climbdown in effort to avoid splitting leave vote

Nigel Farage has said the Brexit party will not field any candidates against the Conservatives in the 317 seats they won at the last general election, after Boris Johnson committed to leaving the EU by 2020 and pursuing a Canada-style trade deal.

Farage said his party’s climbdown came after months of trying to create a leave alliance with the Tories, but he felt it was time to put the country before his party and make a “unilateral” move.

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Donald Trump urges Farage and Johnson to form Brexit pact – video

Donald Trump says he would like to see his 'friends' Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage form a pact to secure a pro-Brexit parliamentary majority in the general election. Farage announced on Sunday he would not stand in next month's election, choosing instead to campaign nationally against Johnson's Brexit deal. His Brexit party will stand in every seat on 12 December, which has been seen as a potential setback to Johnson.

The president said Johnson was 'the right man for the time ... He's tough, he's smart and I think he's going to do something.'

'What I'd like to see is for Nigel and Boris to come together,' he added. 'I think that's a possibility.'

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Boris Johnson faces threat of Brexit party battle in every seat

PM rejects Nigel Farage’s offer of electoral pact, saying it could allow Jeremy Corbyn into No 10

Boris Johnson faces the threat of battling against the Brexit party for leave votes in every seat across Britain, after Nigel Farage gave the prime minister a two-week deadline to drop his Brexit deal.

After a rocky 48 hours, which saw Johnson booed during a hospital visit and urged by Donald Trump to join forces with Farage, the Brexit party leader urged him to strike a “leave alliance”.

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‘Corbyn would be so bad for your country,’ Trump tells Farage – video

The US president has taken the unusual step of using an interview with Nigel Farage on LBC radio to intervene in the UK general election. Trump said Jeremy Corbyn would be ‘so bad’ for the UK and that Farage and Boris Johnson would be an ‘unstoppable force’ if they were to work together

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Trump says Johnson and Farage could form ‘unstoppable force’

US president claims on LBC Radio that Jeremy Corbyn would take UK to ‘such bad places’

Donald Trump has intervened in the UK’s nascent election campaign, calling on Boris Johnson to team up with Nigel Farage to form an “unstoppable force” and claiming Jeremy Corbyn would be “so bad for your country”.

Speaking to Farage on LBC Radio, the US president also said Johnson’s Brexit deal could prevent the UK from agreeing a trade deal with the US.

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Brexit party MEPs are EU’s biggest earners in second jobs, study finds

Five of party’s members make top 10, as researchers raise conflict of interest concerns

Brexit party members earn more from second jobs than any other group in the European parliament, according to transparency campaigners who are warning about potential conflicts of interest.

An annual study by Transparency International showed that Nigel Farage is no longer the best-paid British MEP by second job. Now in seventh place among the 227 MEPs with outside earnings, Farage earns about €360,000 (£319,000) a year from his media company, Thorn in the Side.

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Brexit: Jess Phillips accuses Boris Johnson of using language ‘designed to inflate hatred’ – live news

Prime minister chooses not to attend Commons to answer urgent question on language he used last night

Here is more from what Boris Johnson told Conservative backbenchers at his private meeting with the 1922 Committee.

From my colleague Rowena Mason

Boris Johnson told MPs at 1922 that he would carry on using the phrase surrender bill but did say MPs must all be careful about using language of violence

Boris Johnson left the 1922 to shouts of “Will you apologise?” from journalists - he scuttled off with no comment

In 1922 meeting there was a sombre moment when @PennyMordaunt told MPs she was with @BorisJohnson in 2016 when news came through that Jo Cox had died. She said 'Boris's reaction was so human'.
"It was a moving moment in there," one Tory MP says.

Striking how few Tory MPs leaving 22 Committee with Boris after around 30 mins stopped to chat to reporters compared with the dying days of Theresa May’s premiership. Not many smiling faces either tbh.

Boris Johnson was described as ‘ebullient’ and ‘full of bonhomie’ by two walking out, others looked pretty sullen.

Jeremy Corbyn is speaking on this topic for Labour.

He says it is “extremely disappointing” that Boris Johnson is not here himself to answer the UQ.

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