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<p>Reform UK leader Nigel Farage now presides over the largest party membership in Britain (Jane Barlow/PA)</p>
John Rentoul

If anyone fails to take Nigel Farage seriously, they must think again

Reform has overtaken Labour to have the biggest party membership in Britain, a key marker in its progress, writes John Rentoul

<p>The jailhouse conversion of Robinson was witnessed by another man of God, pastor Rikki Doolan. This is a good place to remind ourselves that anyone can call themselves a ‘pastor’, just as anyone these days can describe themselves as a ‘journalist’ or ‘therapist’</p>
David Aaronovitch

Why are so many Tommy Robinson supporters turning to Christianity?

<p>‘So few of us outside the high-risk categories bothered to take the necessary precautions that schools are closing, workplaces are thinning out, and family Christmases are being cancelled’</p>
Sean O'Grady

A flunami has divided the UK into ‘have-shots’ and ‘have-nots’

<p>Tom Dolphin, chair of the Council of the British Medical Association, is refusing to reconsider the timing of the strike</p>
The Independent View

Dr Dolphin, call off these strikes

<p>‘Kalu’s win is a triumph for her, as well as for the art world and the neurodivergent community’</p>
Annie Ridout

Nnena Kalu’s Turner Prize is also a win for our neurodivergent kids

<p>The adult content creator’s Spectator piece has all the hallmarks of one of Private Eye’s ‘Me and My Spoon’</p>
Kat Brown

Bonnie Blue and Nigel Farage truly deserve each other

<p>‘The same right-wing Americans griping that the UK is arresting people for “just tweets”, the same Trump who called these kinds of arrests “sad…it’s not a good thing”. <em>These</em> people want to ban visitors who’ve had a spicy take or two?’</p>
Sophie Wilkinson

With tweets like mine, I fear I’m going to be banned from America

<p>‘It's easy to take a pop at forecasters. However, they’re a sideshow when set against Reeves’ delivery or the lack of it’</p>
James Moore

Why should we listen to growth forecasters when none get it right?

<p>Is Keir Starmer like Stanley Baldwin or Neville Chamberlain? I don’t think he is like either of them</p>
John Rentoul

A strong economy is Starmer’s best defence against Putin

<p>‘The US attacks on Venezuela and its interests might be seen as the first example of Trump’s second-term foreign policy in action’</p>
Mary Dejevsky

Today, Venezuela. Tomorrow, anyone else who dares threaten US security

<p>The Belarusian people do not support this war. Only through the Kremlin’s support and massive repression was Lukashenko able to cling to power</p>
Valery Tsepkalo, Dmitry Bolkunets

Any Ukraine peace deal without Belarus risks Russian annexation

<p>’The deeper we dug, the shakier and more suspicious these stories became, sounding hauntingly like the work of the very Pentagon Task Force we discovered had been set up in 2010 to destroy Assange and his organisation’</p>
Eugene Jarecki

Think you know the Julian Assange story? Think again

<p>Tony Blair did not say ‘This is my candidate’, but make no mistake, he agreed with her</p>
John Rentoul

Everyone can see Shabana Mahmood is the heir to Blair. Even Tony

<p>‘Thus spake a man who has never stayed at a budget hotel. Also, a man with a word count to fill and only 20 days of prison to fill it with’</p>
Kat Brown

It’s criminal! Sarkozy’s prison diary is 100 per cent pure jambon

<p>‘The collective strength of the European Union is an obvious obstacle to this American power-grab, and so, in a complete reversal of postwar US policy, Trump wants to dismantle it’</p>
Sean O'Grady

It is time to wake up to a chilling truth – America has switched sides

<p>Sir Keir Starmer turns on the Christmas tree lights outside 10 Downing Street</p>
David Walker

The Christmas message is only under attack by ‘rage bait’

However much people try and claim that Christmas is under attack, the reality is nothing of the sort, writes the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker – and it’s time for us to look up to the angels rather than down to the comments

<p>The UK’s exit from the union – as David Lammy correctly noted – badly damaged its economy. It was an act of self-harm, puncturing the economy’s wheels and wrecking the nation’s fiscal position in the process</p>
James Moore

The Brexit do-over that Starmer’s too scared to talk about

<p>A watercolour fruit bat from Frieda Hughes' first solo exhibition in 1993</p>
Frieda Hughes

A gift from the past to anchor me in the present

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Voices

Why the King and Prince William need to open the books on their riches

Voices

Why the King and Prince William need to open the books on their riches

Alan Rusbridger
<p>Keir Starmer</p>
Voices

Starmer finally understands the damage of Brexit – and is ready to act

<p>The health secretary says over 17 million people have already been vaccinated </p>
Health

‘There were clear warnings’: Readers on the NHS ‘flunami’ crisis

<p>‘The mutant strain has sparked an NHS meltdown with hospitals declaring “critical incidents” and the sick being urged to wear masks if they have to go outside to tackle the wave’</p>
Voices

The ‘flunami’ reduced me to a wreck and sent my family to hospital

<p>Streeting’s proposal is a clever one – focusing on boosting career opportunities rather than pay. This ought to be attractive to younger doctors while costing the Exchequer comparatively little, compared to the cost of another bumper pay rise</p>
Voices

What will it take to keep resident doctors in work this winter?

<p>Streeting’s proposal is a clever one – focusing on boosting career opportunities rather than pay. This ought to be attractive to younger doctors while costing the Exchequer comparatively little, compared to the cost of another bumper pay rise</p>
Voices

What will it take to keep resident doctors in work this winter?

<p>‘Streeting would apparently prefer that people just hide what was “wrong” with them and carry on regardless’ </p>
Voices

Wes Streeting is punching down on young people with ADHD

<p>MPs have backed proposals to create a new UK-EU customs union</p>
UK Politics

‘Madness not to’: Why readers back a return to EU customs union

Most commented

Farage claims Reform is now UK’s biggest party as Labour membership plummets

197 comments

Trump says new Epstein photos are ‘no big deal’ but claims he hasn’t seen them: Live

142 comments

Church issues ‘Christmas is for all’ message ahead of Tommy Robinson carols rally

427 comments

Ukraine-Russia war latest: EU agrees indefinite freeze on €210bn of Russian assets

468 comments
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<p>The cast of US reality TV show Selling Sunset (season 5 is pictured here) are known for their explosive arguments at dinner parties</p>
Voices

I’m having friends over for dinner – and I worry they’ll judge me

<p>‘I ask, nay, beg, the Badenoch to put herself in the position of young people straight out of university, desperate to feel as though the three-year debt they’ve accrued won’t be a complete waste’</p>
Voices

Sorry Kemi, but why should I take a job I’m overqualified for?

<p>Few will have much sympathy for someone who travelled to Syria at the age of 15 to engage with the murderous Isis reign of terror</p>
The Independent View

Citizenship scandal is Mahmood’s chance to show courage and clarity

<p>‘No doubt Starmer and Lammy will be accused, again, by rebellious Labour MPs, Lib Dems and Greens, of trying to “out-Farage Farage” with their support for a Europe-wide push to align the ECHR better with public opinion’</p>
Voices

Starmer’s ECHR showdown is his last chance to see off Farage

<p>Doctor examining woman with ultrasound scanner device</p>
Health

‘We went private instead’: Readers on NHS maternity failings

<p>‘The number of times I’ve had to suggest that, with it being a special occasion, perhaps we could not be looking at Facebook during a family meal? The teenagers know not to, but the phone etiquette of the retired generation is out of control’</p>
Voices

It’s not under-16s who need a social media ban – it’s the over-65s

<p>‘No doubt Starmer and Lammy will be accused, again, by rebellious Labour MPs, Lib Dems and Greens, of trying to “out-Farage Farage” with their support for a Europe-wide push to align the ECHR better with public opinion’</p>
Voices

Starmer’s ECHR showdown is his last chance to see off Farage

<p>Doctor examining woman with ultrasound scanner device</p>
Health

‘We went private instead’: Readers on NHS maternity failings

<p>‘The number of times I’ve had to suggest that, with it being a special occasion, perhaps we could not be looking at Facebook during a family meal? The teenagers know not to, but the phone etiquette of the retired generation is out of control’</p>
Voices

It’s not under-16s who need a social media ban – it’s the over-65s

<p>‘We already know that due to thoughtless planning, lack of space – and basic lack of care – those of us who have miscarried are forced to sit in the same room as those bearing happy grins and clutching printouts of their pregnancy scans’</p>
Voices

I went into labour in a UK hospital ward surrounded by cockroaches

Voices

I went into labour in a UK hospital ward surrounded by cockroaches

Victoria Richards
<p>‘We already know that due to thoughtless planning, lack of space – and basic lack of care – those of us who have miscarried are forced to sit in the same room as those bearing happy grins and clutching printouts of their pregnancy scans’</p>
<p>Valerie Amos is leading the national maternity and neonatal investigation</p>
The Independent View

Every woman should feel safe in an NHS maternity ward

<p>It ought to be taken for granted that any half-competent political operation would use social media as well as conventional ones</p>
Voices

Forget the under-16s – will someone please ban TikTok for politicians?

<p>Nationalisation might make some things about getting on a train a bit better, and some a bit worse, but it will not be transformative</p>
Voices

I boycotted the railways for 20 years – are they even worth saving?

<p>Young tourists from the UK are leading the surge in Australia’s growing population of working travellers </p>
Lifestyle

‘The UK has little to offer young people’: Readers on Gen Z exodus

<p>Young tourists from the UK are leading the surge in Australia’s growing population of working travellers </p>
Lifestyle

‘The UK has little to offer young people’: Readers on Gen Z exodus

<p>Volodymyr Zelensky, Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz chat on the Downing Street doorstep after a meeting in central London on Monday</p>
Voices

Putin must be hit with every trick in Britain’s book

<p>‘Netflix’s controlling brains will be only too well aware of just how quickly the media marketplace can change, not least because of the changes they themselves are responsible for’</p>
Voices

Netflix has three huge new problems with its Warner Bros takeover

<p>The triumvirate represents a potentially powerful alliance</p>
The Independent View

Will Europe fight for Ukraine?

<p>‘In a City speech last month, Farage again repeated his call for the deregulation of crypto. He says Reform has received “a couple” of donations in cryptocurrency but refuses to supply the details’</p>
Voices

Dark money is flooding Nigel Farage’s push for power

<p>What bothers me isn’t Norris himself, who is clearly sincere, but the creeping realisation that sport – men’s sport in particular – has become almost suspiciously wholesome</p>
Voices

Why Gen Z ‘soft boys’ like Lando Norris are replacing alpha males

<p>‘There is no mistaking Trump’s materialism, both on behalf of his country and for himself and his family. He’s a real estate guy who enjoys wealth, almost for its own sake’</p>
Voices

Donald Trump is selling out his allies while he still has time

<p>Syrians marked the anniversary with a weekend of celebrations</p>
Voices

One year on from the fall of Assad, the UK wants Syria to succeed

<p>‘Removing the defendant’s ability to overrule the court’s decision will not only save taxpayers’ money but will drastically reduce the number of cases needlessly clogging up crown courts’</p>
Voices

The court backlog crisis needs bold solutions to put victims first

<p>Mohamed Salah has been named on the bench for Liverpool’s last three matches (Peter Byrne/PA)</p>
Football

‘It’s disgusting’: Fans react to Salah benching row

<p>Keir Starmer is expected to reiterate the UK’s strong support for Ukraine at talks in Downing Street on Monday </p>
The Independent View

European leaders can still help achieve a positive outcome for Ukraine

<p>Christmas fridge with a view: Six in ten GLP-1 users say medication is transforming what a traditional Christmas looks like in the UK</p>
Voices

How Mounjaro has completely changed my Christmas fridge

Voices

How Mounjaro has completely changed my Christmas fridge

Charlotte Cripps
<p>Christmas fridge with a view: Six in ten GLP-1 users say medication is transforming what a traditional Christmas looks like in the UK</p>
<p>Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, are reported to be heading to California for Christmas</p>
Voices

Most Americans love the Cotswolds at Christmas – why doesn’t Ellen?

<p>‘Look, Clooney is one thing, but Kelce, who is 36, is another, not least because his partner is one of the most powerful (if not the most powerful) artists on the planet’</p>
Voices

Can you truly know your partner if you’ve never argued?

<p>Have you gone too early with your Christmas tree this year?</p>
Lifestyle

Readers divided on when the Christmas tree should go up

<p>Why The Independent’s Christmas appeal matters so much</p>
The Independent View

Give young people a lifeline

<p>Why The Independent’s Christmas appeal matters so much</p>
The Independent View

Give young people a lifeline

<p>The prime minister’s job security is no laughing matter, particularly with threats like Angela Rayner waiting in the wings</p>
Voices

Keir Starmer’s power drains away as talk grows that he won’t last

<p>Liz Truss, whose online show looks ‘extraordinarily cheap’</p>
Voices

The Liz Truss Show - the worst thing to hit YouTube in its 20 years

<p>On 30 October Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor gave the minimum 12 months’ notice that he would surrender Royal Lodge (Jordan Pettitt/PA)</p>
Voices

Andrew’s last Christmas at Royal Lodge – how bad could it be?

<p>US President Donald Trump looks on during a meeting of his Cabinet in the Cabinet Room of the White House on December 02, 2025 in Washington, DC</p>
Voices

Donald Trump’s war on drugs is fraught with danger for the president

<p>The depressed permanent employment market was ‘exacerbated by Reeves’s shock hike in employers’ national insurance’ (Frank Augstein/PA)</p>
Comment

What the Budget has really done to the housing market

<p>Last month, Keir Starmer visited the Welland Academy in Peterborough to highlight the government’s free school meal expansion</p>
The Independent View

Labour’s child poverty strategy is a great step forward

<p>Meghan Markle and her father, Thomas, who is in gravely ill in hospital following amputation surgery</p>
Voices

I’m with Meghan – no one should lecture you on dealing with a parent

<p>‘The prospect of national service in some form was proposed by Rishi Sunak before the last election, and occasionally floats back into view’</p>
Voices

Rishi Sunak was right: Britain needs to bring back national service

<p>Nigel Farage has insisted the Thai-based crypto billionaire who gave Reform a record £9m donation “wants nothing from me”</p>
UK Politics

‘Why is this allowed?’ Readers hit out after £9m Reform donation

Voices

All I want for Christmas is... a tractor across two parking spaces

<p>Browder: ‘Anyone who has done business in Russia knows exactly how that ends. You’re welcomed with smiles and contracts; you leave defrauded, ruined or – if you’re unlucky – dead’</p>
Voices

I have spent years waiting for Putin’s assassins to come for me

Voices

I have spent years waiting for Putin’s assassins to come for me

Bill Browder
<p>Browder: ‘Anyone who has done business in Russia knows exactly how that ends. You’re welcomed with smiles and contracts; you leave defrauded, ruined or – if you’re unlucky – dead’</p>
<p>Keir Starmer and education secretary Bridget Phillipson visiting a primary school breakfast club</p>
Voices

Lifting the two-child benefit cap is laudable – but just a start

<p>Readers slam energy bill hikes</p>
Home News

‘Just watch us get ripped off’: Readers slam energy bill hikes

<p>‘Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Ireland – which is a joint record-holder for the most Eurovision wins – will now boycott the event unless Israel is excluded from the competition over the war in Gaza’</p>
Voices

I’m a fan, but it’s time the UK pulled out of Eurovision

The Independent View

It is unbelievable that so many people are in indefinite detention

The Independent View

It is unbelievable that so many people are in indefinite detention

<p>Despite evidence of a mental health crisis among men, there’s still a stigma attached to seeking help</p>
Health and Wellbeing

‘Therapy isn’t just about feelings’: Readers on why men fear help

<p>Despite almost four years of tough talk about the Russian threat, countries like Britain have seen their firepower shrink since 2022</p>
Voices

Why a war with Europe has never looked so tempting to Putin

<p>In ‘Nightbitch’, Amy Adams plays an artist who pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mum – before her nightly routine takes a surreal and horrifying turn</p>
Voices

Everything in my life seems to have gone wrong at once

<p>‘I’m sad and angry about this choice. That anger would exist even if I didn’t have a child, and even if we weren’t involved with Girlguiding’</p>
Voices

Those banning trans girls from Girlguiding need to look at Brownie Law

4 December 2025
The Independent View

Why Vladimir Putin insists the war in Europe must go on

<p>Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has denied reports he hopes to form an electoral pact with the Conservative Party, following reports, citing unnamed donors, that he believes such an agreement is ‘inevitable’</p>
Voices

Even tactical voting will not help Labour survive a Tory-Reform pact

<p>‘The chorus of outrage that has greeted David Lammy’s plan to curb the right to trial by jury is predictable, but rather extreme’</p>
Voices

Who needs juries anyway?

<p>As the gulf grows between the haves and the have-nots, feelings of discomfort around being rich can be a natural response</p>
Money

‘Shame is a waste of time’: Readers on wealth and philanthropy

<p>Sarah Everard was murdered by police officer Wayne Couzens</p>
Voices

The police have learned nothing from Sarah Everard’s murder

<p>One danger that David Lammy must reassure public and parliament about is any sense that jury trial as a democratic backstop is about to end</p>
The Independent View

The jury is still out on David Lammy’s ‘swift court’ reforms

<p>As several MPs pointed out, if only 3 per cent of trials are heard in front of juries, reducing that number to, say, 1.5 per cent is hardly going to speed things up significantly</p>
Voices

David Lammy’s jury lay-offs aren’t swift justice – they’re a sellout

Voices

David Lammy’s jury lay-offs aren’t swift justice – they’re a sellout

John Rentoul
<p>As several MPs pointed out, if only 3 per cent of trials are heard in front of juries, reducing that number to, say, 1.5 per cent is hardly going to speed things up significantly</p>
<p>It is often the postie who spots that something is wrong with the elderly customers they say hello to. Or they might notice an unexpected build-up of unopened mail at a customer’s home. This is as much social service as it is business</p>
Voices

Denmark’s postal service is sending Royal Mail a chilling message...

<p>Residents of Tunbridge Wells collect bottled water after a failure at a treatment site meant that the supply was shut off to the Kent town (Gareth Fuller/PA Wire)</p>
Voices

How did Tunbridge Wells become the spa town that ran dry?

<p>‘The average privately owned car spends 98 per cent of its life parked in the street – surely the maddest £10,000-£50,000 investment known to humanity’</p>
Voices

Who will mourn my beloved Zipcar?

<p>‘When you’re carrying a baby, you become hypersensitive to touch, sound and every single ache and twist and lurch. You know each stage of the baby’s development intimately: from tiny sunflower seed to giant watermelon’</p>
Voices

Sienna Miller is busting the final pregnancy taboo in plain sight

<p>‘When you’re carrying a baby, you become hypersensitive to touch, sound and every single ache and twist and lurch. You know each stage of the baby’s development intimately: from tiny sunflower seed to giant watermelon’</p>
Voices

Sienna Miller is busting the final pregnancy taboo in plain sight

<p>‘Like a consultant tracing symptoms back to their root cause, we need to step back and ask what truly lies behind the unrest. And though this might not fit neatly with what the British Medical Association wants to say, I don’t think it should focus on pay’ </p>
Voices

I’m a doctor – here’s how I feel about the strikes

<p>Andreas’s view was that his paper was to be positioned above the rest, in tone and quality.</p>
Comment

‘Anything threatening independence for monetary gain was off limits’

<p>‘Kemi’s blistering and bombastic riposte at the despatch box last Wednesday was both strikingly effective and proof that she has finally found her footing’</p>
Voices

If Kemi Badenoch carries on like this she’ll be prime minister ...

<p>Andreas Whittam Smith at the 1986 launch of The Independent, Britain’s ‘first new quality broadsheet newspaper since early Victorian times’</p>
Voices

I count myself lucky to have worked for Andreas Whittam Smith

<p>‘Witkoff would also appear to share with Trump the ability – honed in business – to gauge how things might look from the other party’s perspective and tailor his approach accordingly. It’s a simple schtick but it works a treat’</p>
Voices

Trump’s man in Moscow: is Steve Witkoff about to seal a Ukraine deal?

<p>‘It is at least encouraging that the prime minister has tried to return to the growth agenda and welfare reform in his latest speech’</p>
The Independent View

This PM has changed the Labour Party once – he must now do so again

<p>Reeves wants more people to invest in British companies. They’re not going to do that if they think the game is rigged</p>
Voices

If Rachel Reeves was CEO of a company, she’d have been fired by now

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves has come under fire for her ‘misleading’ statements prior to last week’s Budget</p>
Voices

What are the charges made against Reeves in relation to the Budget?

<p>‘It is at least encouraging that the prime minister has tried to return to the growth agenda and welfare reform in his latest speech’</p>
The Independent View

This PM has changed the Labour Party once – he must now do so again

<p>Reeves wants more people to invest in British companies. They’re not going to do that if they think the game is rigged</p>
Voices

If Rachel Reeves was CEO of a company, she’d have been fired by now

<p>Chancellor Rachel Reeves has come under fire for her ‘misleading’ statements prior to last week’s Budget</p>
Voices

What are the charges made against Reeves in relation to the Budget?

<p>On World Aids Day, England launched an Action Plan to become the first country in the world to end new HIV cases</p>
Voices

Ending HIV in England shows the power of patient-centred healthcare

<p>Andreas Whittam Smith, the co-founder of The Independent, who had an ‘urbane style that disguised a steeliness that could be quite chilling’</p>
Voices

Andreas came over to the news desk and gave us a pay rise on the spot

<p>Jeremy Corbyn at the inaugural conference of Your Party in Liverpool</p>
Voices

Why Your Party will end up as no one’s party

<p>‘“We've got to come together and be united,” said Corbyn. Meanwhile, Sultana was furiously briefing the press outside the conference hall. May the left wing never change!’</p>
Voices

The revolution will not be organised: Your Party farce on day one

<p>Rachel Reeves told broadcasters on Sunday that a £4.2bn surplus against her fiscal rules would not have been enough</p>
The Independent View

A return to Budget ‘purdah’ would be no bad thing for Labour

<p>‘Adam Raine confided his darkest thoughts to the chatbot – but no emergency protocol was forthcoming. The faux-therapy speak it used to reply would be laughable were the outcome not so tragic’</p>
Voices

OpenAI says a suicidal teenager should’ve read their fine print

<p>‘“I do not know how I will survive this winter,” Osama told me. “The heavy rains have not arrived yet, but even so, rain is already falling inside the tent”’</p>
Voices

Winter in Gaza has washed away the memory of my childhood comforts

<p>‘While obviously it’s frustrating to learn that someone on a dating app isn’t ready to date, it seems like a kinder and more polite way of letting a person know they aren’t interested in seeing you again’</p>
Voices

Can’t handle rejection? You shouldn’t be dating, then

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