MBDA’s Alabama factory makes components for Boeing’s GBU-39 bombs used to kill civilians in Gaza. Its profits flow through Stevenage to Paris — and it is one of the British government’s favourite firms, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

THERE is a measure of uncertainty about Rishi Sunak’s tenure at Downing Street. He is supposed to be the guarantor of fiscal responsibility and stable government. But he cannot be that sure of his footing in the parliamentary party if he has to maintain Suella Braverman in office as a sop to those he recently deposed.
There is of course, much-exaggerated liberal outrage at Braverman’s posturing, but the fact is that she is merely putting into words what are the essential features of Britain’s racist and discriminatory immigration policy, which itself is simply a different rendering of the principles which underpin the EU’s approach to the huge population shifts which are an unavoidable feature of 21st-century capitalism.
The notion of Europe as the embodiment of liberal values underpins much middle-class thinking about present-day politics. It is a famously flexible feature of the 18th and 19th-century notion of Europe a beacon of civilisation. This comes into violent conflict with reality every time a migrant child dies entering the watery frontiers of the EU in the Mediterranean.

Starmer sabotaged Labour with his second referendum campaign, mobilising a liberal backlash that sincerely felt progressive ideals were at stake — but the EU was then and is now an entity Britain should have nothing to do with, explains NICK WRIGHT

Deep disillusionment with the Westminster cross-party consensus means rupture with the status quo is on the cards – bringing not only opportunities but also dangers, says NICK WRIGHT

Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT

From Gaza complicity to welfare cuts chaos, Starmer’s baggage accumulates, and voters will indeed find ‘somewhere else’ to go — to the Greens, nationalists, Lib Dems, Reform UK or a new, working-class left party, writes NICK WRIGHT