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The Guardian Politics21 Mar 2026

Love Actually? Washington’s current relationship with Britain is more like Contempt Actually | Timothy Garton Ash

If the UK wants to regain serious respect in the world, it needs its European leg as well as its transatlantic one “A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the president should be prepared for that.” Thus spoke Hugh Grant, playing the British prime minister confronting the US president in a famous scene in the romcom Love Actually. Real-life British prime minister Keir Starmer has atte

DefenceHousing
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

UK ministers begin contingency planning amid fears for economic effects of Iran war

Britain authorises use of military bases to strike Iranian missile launchers that target shipping in strait of Hormuz • Middle East crisis – live updates Donald Trump has branded the UK and other Nato allies “cowards” but anger is growing among cabinet ministers that his war in Iran could jeopardise Britain’s fragile finances. Senior members of the government are in despair about the potential effects on the economy, with experts warning of higher energy prices and mortgage and borrowing costs.

PoliticsEconomyDefenceHousing
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

Is it time for the UK to acknowledge the ‘rhetoric to reality gap’ on its military power?

Forces have been stripped back since the cold war but political stasis is dangerous in the face of growing global threats It will have been more than three weeks since the US and Israel first attacked Iran when the first British warship finally arrives off the coast of Cyprus, a belated defensive deployment that has highlighted the lack of military capacity available to the UK. Nominally, HMS Dragon was one of three destroyers available out of six. In reality the warship has had to be hauled out

PoliticsDefence
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

Attacks on synagogues and Jewish shops in the UK, Europe and the US don’t hurt Netanyahu. They just hurt ordinary Jews | Jonathan Freedland

Too many want to cast acts of violence and antisemitism as blows against Israel’s government. But the fear and terror land on real people, thousands of miles away Let us begin with a brief exchange on GB News, confirmed this week as the TV arm of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Following an attack on a synagogue last week in Michigan, in which a gunman drove a car packed with explosives through the entrance to the building before opening fire, a pundit on the channel sought to clarify what the attack

Reform
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

Lowering speed limits among contingency plans to curb UK oil demand

International Energy Agency recommends emergency measures, including working from home, as Iran war hits fuel supply Lowering speed limits to minimise fuel consumption is among potential contingency plans being drawn up by the UK government as the crisis in the Middle East threatens global oil supplies. Sources stressed that there is no shortage of fuel in the UK, but said that officials in the Department for Transport were working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) on

DefenceEnvironment
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

‘We need to think much bigger’: trade minister calls for greater ambition in UK-EU reset

Exclusive: Chris Bryant says policy agreements are being done in bits and pieces but a greater vision is needed by both sides It was all smiles and warm handshakes when the two men in charge of renegotiating the UK’s relationship with the EU met in Brussels this week. Maroš Šefčovič and the UK minister for EU relations, Nick Thomas-Symonds, sharing a stage on the third floor of the vast European parliament building, were at pains to show the cross-Channel relationship was in a good place after y

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The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

Reform UK suspends Scottish candidate less than a day after announcing him

Stuart Niven suspended after it emerged he had been struck off as a company director over financial allegations Reform UK has suspended one of its Scottish candidates after it emerged he had been struck off as a company director, and faces growing attacks for fielding candidates making Islamophobic remarks. Reform confirmed on Friday morning it had suspended Stuart Niven, its candidate for Dundee West, after the Herald revealed he had been struck off after diverting tens of thousands of pounds o

Reform
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

Ministers look at blueprint for economic overhaul amid fears cost of living could hand election to far right

Many MPs say they are frustrated with communications strategy that brands both Reform and Greens as extremists Cabinet ministers have been studying a blueprint for Labour to radically overhaul its economic offer and messaging, including devolving tax powers, abolishing national insurance and major property tax reforms. Passed around dozens of MPs, the paper argues that without a major rethink, the failure to tackle the discontent on the cost of living will hand the next election to a hard-right

PoliticsEconomyEnvironmentHousing
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

The greatest challenge Farage has ever faced – convincing the world he was never besties with Donald Trump | Marina Hyde

The Reform UK leader has belatedly clocked that most British people really don’t like the US president on whose coat-tails he has spent the past decade riding At last, the culture has thrown up a split more nauseatingly up itself than Gwyneth Paltrow’s from Chris Martin. It is Nigel Farage’s attempt to consciously uncouple from Donald Trump, a man up whose backside he’s spent the past decade most firmly lodged. Nigel’s made such a massive, self-satisfied show of his real estate in the presidenti

Reform
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

House of Lords has ‘signed its own death warrant’ by stalling assisted dying bill, says MP

Kim Leadbeater joins protest against delaying of bill to allow assisted dying in the UK and says people are ‘extremely angry’ The House of Lords “signed its own death warrant” over its stalling of the UK assisted dying bill, the MP Kim Leadbeater said as she joined more than a dozen terminally ill and bereaved people in protest outside parliament. Marking the second anniversary of the death at Dignitas of the prominent assisted dying campaigner Paola Marra, Leadbeater, whose private member’s bil

PoliticsDefence
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

Claimants drop lawsuit against Gerry Adams over IRA bombings

Three people were suing ex-Sinn Féin leader for liability over IRA bombings in UK which left them injured Three men who sued the former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams over three Irish Republican Army bombings in Britain have withdrawn their lawsuit, their lawyers told the high court in London. Adams, who became the president of Sinn Féin in 1983 when it was the IRA’s political wing, was for many years the best-known face of the movement seeking to end British rule in Northern Ireland. Continue re

PoliticsDefenceCrime
The Guardian Politics20 Mar 2026

There’s nothing sinister about Muslim prayers in Trafalgar Square. As a bishop, I reject the right’s attacks on worship | Arun Arora

At a time when Britain has never felt more divided, we should draw on Christian values to reject hate and focus on what unites us When you think about the unedifying political furore about the open iftar held in Trafalgar Square, try to bear in mind that every year on Remembrance Day – a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square – the bishop of London leads a public Christian act of lamentation in the open air. It is an act of religious observance which happens in cities, towns and villages across the

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