Fin Heath

In 2016 I voted Remain. Straightforward self-interest: my life ran on the EU freedom of movement and freedom to work. The person pouring my coffee or fitting my bathroom didn't need to sound like me, and if anything I'd take Polish builders over white British ones fifty times over - better work, cheaper price, none of the fleecing. Despite which, if that referendum came round again in 2026, I'd vote Leave. Not because I've turned on continental Europe. The opposite. I want trade deals, military cooperation, AI and cybersecurity partnerships, counter-terrorism coordination - maximum cooperation with the European Union as an organisation and with European Union member states as countries. Britain is a small state in an age of intensified global competition; we need alliances, and a divided Europe squabbling internally is exactly what Russia and China want. None of this requires EU membership. What leaving the European Union is meant to deliver - what it COULD deliver - is the capacity to govern as a fully sovereign nation. That is where we've failed, catastrophically. Brexit wasn't the disaster. The Conservative governments since 2016 were the disaster. Too busy with internal scandals and parliamentary pantomime to do anything beyond the bare logistics of extraction. No plan to compensate for lost trade efficiency, no plan to actually USE the sovereignty we'd recovered. It’s simple. A decade in a space leaves an astronaut’s muscles atrophied; stepping out doesn't fix it, exercise does. Our sovereign decision-making atrophied inside the European Union, and after Brexit we never bothered rebuilding it. We just stood in the airlock complaining that walking was difficult. So I'd vote Leave now because the problem was never the destination. It was that we refused to walk once we arrived.

@jakelchambers @YoungBobRB 💯

@YoungBobRB Why do you, a 17 year old male, feel any right to comment on a females body?

Coming soon, my first ever structured debate on abortion. Young Bob vs Cambridge Union student. I think I've fared pretty well.

Joseph, you are boasting about paying off £26.9m of Leicestershire debt “inherited from the Tories.” But your own Capital Strategy doesn’t explain how that’s happening or where the money came from. Meanwhile you’re planning £84m of new borrowing over the next four years. If this is real, publish the accounts that prove it.

"I am not interested in any arrangement of any kind that involves Zia Yusuf." A fiery Mark Francois says the Tories shouldn't form a pact with Reform if it means working with someone who called him and his fellow MPs traitors. @petercardwell

It’s important that Nick Ferrari and Julia H-B have asked Farage difficult questions today about the £5m donation. Makes it much harder for him to complain about BBC bias for doing the same. But the highlight of Farage’s interviews today is on another subject altogether. This grilling from the BBC’s Sally Nugent on the question of mandates is superb.

@Joseph_Boam Patronising and lacking in any form of self awareness. And you can’t read the accounts, it seems.

This is mental! Reform are trying to claim they've paid off debt when all they've done is move revenue account debt into the capital account 🤣🤣🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

@Joseph_Boam @kevinhollinrake And it's taken you this long to get to that point? Shows reform didn't understand what they were dealing with when they first came in.

@kevinhollinrake That capital strategy was approved in Feb 2025 under the tories, that’s literally why we need the efficiency review to prevent what was the Tory plan to borrow.

Read the accounts, Chris Reform say they’re paying off Leicestershire’s debt. Their own Capital Strategy shows £84m of new borrowing planned and total debt rising to £266m by 2029. leicestershire.gov.uk/sites/default/…

Here we have it. Reform acknowledge they’re borrowing an additional £80 million. Seems like a strange gotcha moment! Thanks to @kevinhollinrake for being unafraid to call out Reforms tagline politics

@Joseph_Boam @kevinhollinrake So it’s taken you 13 months to figure something out? What happened to DOGE? To cutting taxes and reducing waste… Instead you’re borrowing more and more and cutting services. I’d have spent less time in Makerfield, and more time doing the job you were elected to do.

Jordan and Cian Adams are the pride of Redditch, and that is why they are being honoured with Freedom of the Borough. But we should go further. Will you sign the letter and call for Jordan and Cian's incredible work to be recognised at the highest level? chrisbloore.co.uk/ftdbrothers

@SuellaBraverman and you one of the worst Ministers @Conservatives

24 years in the military and never seen someone bomb this badly.

I'm not sure this is sustainable. Farage says he'd be put "in danger" by saying how much of his £5m has been spent on security. "It's not the public's business." But people do want to know who is bankrolling politicians. Esp if it's crypto money. thetimes.com/comment/column…

Chances of Farage quitting before next election, partly because he hates this sort of questioning, still underpriced.

‘I can spend it on Ferraris if I want to!’ 'Then why did you say it was for personal security?’ Nigel Farage is confronted by @NickFerrariLBC on his £5 million crypto gift. It gets very tense...

Squirming Farage knows this is now a scandal that could end his chances of being PM. Everyone, including his own supporters, knows his failure to declare a secret £5m bung from a Thailand-based crypto tycoon absolutely STINKS.

If you have a spare 3 mins and 45 secs today, watch this fantastic grilling by Sally Nugent on BBC Breakfast. The very first time I've seen Farage questioned properly about his £5M bung, and it's fair to say, he totally fluffed it. There are points when you can see Farage tremble and even accuse the BBC of putting him in danger. 🤦‍♂️ It was for security. It was for cars. Nobody cares. It's no one's business. He won't tell us. DANGER! At one point, he let slip that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards may 'disagree' with him on the rules around donations. He knows he's going to be found guilty on this one. He's in trouble, and his face gave it away gloriously. Top hats off to Sally Nugent. Stellar work. 👏

Al Carns has issued a list of things the next Prime Minister must consider doing (although I get the impression from this article he is not looking to run as a leadership candidate). He added: “I spent twenty-four years in uniform before entering politics. I commanded men and women in combat. I buried friends, and stood beside families receiving the worst news imaginable. I did not leave the Marines and stand for Parliament to watch the country I served, the country I love, tell itself it cannot afford to be secure, healthy or growing. I resigned as Minister for the Armed Forces last week because I believe honesty now requires action. “The question is not what we cut to fund defence. The question is how we govern differently so that Britain becomes stronger on every front at once. “You do not transform a country through a single budget or spending review. You do it by creating visible successes, proving change is possible, and using each one to build the public confidence for the next. You treat the country as a system, not a set of departmental silos fighting over the same shrinking pot. You sequence.”