The prime minister’s ambitions might be ambiguous, but unlike the Conservative leader, he is following voters and the facts

British politics is still polarised around Brexit, although 10 years on from the referendum, the terms of debate are very different. Or they should be. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has moved discussions of European solidarity from the realm of abstraction to a matter of urgent defence partnership. Donald Trump’s presidency in the US, marked by scorn for European democracies and indulgence of Vladimir Putin, has undermined confidence that Britain can rely on any “special relationship” with Washington.

Under these circumstances, it would be absurd to deny that a reappraisal of Brexit is in order. The prime minister acknowledged this in his speech at the Labour party conference last month, calling for a national conversation about the future relationship with every option, including rejoining, on the table. The Eurosceptic opposition are having none of it. The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, accuses the government of stirring division by raising the European question. She told MPs this week that Labour should thank the Tories for the Brexit deal they negotiated.

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Prime minister wrote to ministers saying he did not want them to ‘advocate for specific options or opine on the likely outcome of the process’

Selling nicotine-free vapes to children under the age of 18 has become illegal from today, the government has said.

Children were already banned from buying vapes containing nicotine. But, under the Tobacco and Vapes Act, shops across the UK will now be banned from selling nicotine-free vapes, and nicotine pouches, to children.

Vaping can be a way to help established adult smokers who are already addicted to nicotine from tobacco to swap to a less dangerous product. Vaping is considered safer than smoking, but that is a low bar. Vapes should therefore never be used by children or non-smokers.

Some children have already come to harm from bad reactions to vapes. The long-term health harms of vaping in today’s children will only become clear over time. They are however unlikely to be good; inhaling multiple, often heated, chemicals into the lungs may well do irreversible harm.

The real reasons are that the Brussels club is broke and wants to dump U.S. technology on the battlefield in preference to Britain’s.

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The UK prime minister might go further than merely bringing the EU closer to the UK. But the real reasons are that the Brussels club is broke and wants to dump U.S. technology on the battlefield in preference to Britain’s.

There are increasing signs that Britain’s new PM, Andy Burnham, might consider shifting over to full EU membership, away from his more moderate position of merely a closer working relationship, according to a recent report from a pro-Labour thinktank.

Such a move might be a stroke of genius, as it would give Labour exclusive ground to stand on, creating a clear divide between it and the rest of the political landscape in the UK whose apparatchiks are against re-joining the Brussels club. According to the recent report, as much as 64 percent of the British public would vote to rejoin the EU if there were such a referendum.

Such a large majority could be a real advantage for Burnham and the Labour party, perhaps sealing their fate for at least another term in government.

Yet it is the war in Ukraine and the fabricated so-called threat of war with Russia which is driving this new hardcore idea being floated to Burnham. A combination of wanting to marginalise, if not isolate, the far right and link it to Russia, plus providing a feel-good factor among the general public who have been worn down by successive governments’ failure to fix a broken economy, floating the idea of a referendum around the same time (or even at the same moment) as a general election could easily push Labour way ahead of the pack and leave the right broken and fighting among themselves.

Recently the author accused the PM of lying about Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit Referendum, which proved to be embarrassing for him when the opposition party as well as one of his own ministers actually clearly stated that no such interference occurred. It was a crude attempt to stir up Russian hatred to act as a double-barrelled catalyst to both stoke up war hysteria ahead of conscription and higher defence spending, as well as hammering home the point which aligns with France and Germany’s incumbent leaders that the far right in Europe is financed by Russia.

Yet Burnham’s idea that being in the EU means being part of a bigger defence pact against Russia is also flawed. Given that the EU still has no army of its own, despite decades of hardcore federalists’ wet dream always presenting the subject on the talk-shop circuit in EU institutions, the move to join the EU is purely political and a way of supporting a failed project as the EU itself faces a massive funding crisis (a shortfall of 750 billion euros for its next seven-year budget period). Can we assume that Macron, Merz and Ursula von der Leyen have all been lobbying Burnham and see political capital in the UK rejoining? Likely.

Laura Chappell, associate director at the IPPR thinktank, said: “It’s time to stop talking about Brexit and focus entirely on the future. A lot has changed over the past decade. The prime minister has said his mission is to give people back control, but Britain can’t do that alone anymore,” she is quoted by the British pro-Brexit tabloid the Daily Express – a newspaper favoured by older people and which can be argued played a key role in pumping out flawed information about the benefits of leaving the EU.

Chappell, in a nutshell, seems to be saying that the UK is too tiny and pathetic to hope to achieve anything on its own. “Whether it’s protecting households from swings in the cost of living, restarting industry, or keeping us secure, we lack the weight to act alone. In today’s world, we can’t take back control while being an outsider in Europe.”

And then, almost as an afterthought, the dark truth emerges in the article about why the EU really needs Britain to rejoin.

“The IPPR calls on the government to work with the EU to, among other things, create a European Defence Alliance, with the UK offering capabilities that would allow Europe to rely less heavily on the U.S., including satellite communications,” she gushes.

In plain English, with Britain in the EU, the EU can go ahead with some sort of EU-NATO alliance, with increased budget contributions (not to mention the UK’s) as well as using British technology to replace Starlink and Starshield battlefield intranet systems for Ukraine’s army. In even plainer English, the Czech PM made it even more crystal clear when asked if the UK would be welcome back to the EU. Czechia’s Prime Minister Andrej Babiš: “Yes, of course, we need more money.”

Prime minister wrote to ministers saying he did not want them to ‘advocate for specific options or opine on the likely outcome of the process’

Selling nicotine-free vapes to children under the age of 18 has become illegal from today, the government has said.

Children were already banned from buying vapes containing nicotine. But, under the Tobacco and Vapes Act, shops across the UK will now be banned from selling nicotine-free vapes, and nicotine pouches, to children.

Vaping can be a way to help established adult smokers who are already addicted to nicotine from tobacco to swap to a less dangerous product. Vaping is considered safer than smoking, but that is a low bar. Vapes should therefore never be used by children or non-smokers.

Some children have already come to harm from bad reactions to vapes. The long-term health harms of vaping in today’s children will only become clear over time. They are however unlikely to be good; inhaling multiple, often heated, chemicals into the lungs may well do irreversible harm.