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Trump ally Nigel Farage deals major blow to Starmer in local UK elections as resignation calls mount

Trump ally Nigel Farage deals major blow to Starmer in local UK elections as resignation calls mount

The United Kingdom’s ruling Labour Party is on track to suffer a major defeat in Thursday’s local elections as Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK surges in support, prompting calls for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign. British local elections are widely viewed as a functional referendum on the popularity of the ruling party and its head. With Labour having already suffered a net loss of nearly 500 local council seats with just over half of the councils called, multiple Labour MPs are saying that Starmer must agree to a timeline for his exit from office.  “Many, many Labour voters that I represent, I guess, in the north of England and elsewhere that the direction the government [has] taken has not delivered the change that they thought they voted for,” Labour MP Jon Trickett said of the results. “They’re angry, they’re upset, they feel let down, they’ve sent us a clear message: The party, the leadership, must change with immediate effect if we want to recover.” Starmer, for his part, has accepted responsibility for the losses but resisted calls to immediately resign in the wake of the local election results, stating that he was “not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos.” He has not, however, explicitly ruled out a managed exit. AS EPSTEIN-LINKED APPOINTMENT SPARKS BACKLASH, UK PM STARMER FACES PARTY REVOLT AMID RESIGNATION CALLS Farage, an ally and friend of President Trump, told supporters: “Personally, I’ll be very sad to see the Prime Minister go. I will be very, very sad indeed. He’s the greatest asset we’ve got.” English local elections span over 5,000 seats across 163 local councils and six mayorships. The semi-autonomous parliaments in Scotland and Wales also held elections on Thursday. Labour’s losses were driven by defections both to the right and the left. Reform UK, which has seen a net increase of about 650 seats as of writing, picked up considerable ground in post-industrial parts of northern and central England. Many of those seats are described as part of the country’s “Red Wall,” a mass of constituencies that have historically supported the Labour Party. ENGLAND FLAG DISPLAYS POWERFUL SYMBOL IN IMMIGRATION FIGHT AS TRUMP-STYLE POPULISM SWEEPS THROUGH UK Farage’s party sought to appeal to voters by promising to take a hard-line stance on immigration policy, cut taxes and repeal environmental policies they believed were hampering economic growth. Labour also saw losses in urban cores and areas near universities to the far-left-wing Green Party and candidates running independent of established parties, many of whom were Muslim.  Green Party leaders made the center-left Labour government’s approach to the war in Gaza, which they view as too closely aligned with Israel, a focal point in their campaign for local control. MARK LEVIN TORCHES UK LEADER STARMER, DETAILS WHY HE’S ‘SICK AND TIRED’ OF EUROPE’S LECTURES TO ISRAEL Zach Polanski, the head of the party, declared on election day that “Palestine is one of the elements on the ballot.” A poll conducted ahead of Thursday’s elections found that roughly 60% of Muslim voters would consider backing a pro-Palestinian independent candidate to prevent Labour from winning locally. About half said they would consider voting for the Green Party to do so. The same poll found that Muslim voters saw support for Palestinians as more important than the economy when determining who they would vote for. Independent and Green Party candidates have so far won a net increase of approximately 90 seats. The Conservatives, Labour’s historic rival, are also on track to see considerable losses as a result of Thursday’s elections. As of writing, the party has so far suffered a net loss of roughly 300 local seats. Farage called the results, which academic observers say could mark a shift away from the United Kingdom’s functionally two-party system, a “historic change in British politics.”

Virginia Supreme Court rules on new congressional map

Virginia Supreme Court rules on new congressional map

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday invalidated a new, voter-approved redistricting map, delivering a significant victory for Republicans in the state ahead of the fast-approaching 2026 midterm elections. “We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia,” the Virginia Supreme Court said in the ruling. “This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy.” The Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments last month over the newly passed congressional map, which voters in the state approved by a narrow 51% to 49% margin. The ballot measure would have given  the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through 2030. It was also expected to yield a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge. This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

Omar camp breaks silence on fraud probe, blames Walz, Trump as new claims clash with earlier statements

Omar camp breaks silence on fraud probe, blames Walz, Trump as new claims clash with earlier statements

FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., has not publicly or privately responded to a top investigative committee in Minnesota’s request for information on her possible ties to the massive fraud scandal, but a recent email from one of her former top staffers to the committee sheds light on how her camp may view the situation and who they blame. “As the District Director for Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from 2019-2022, I read with interest your comments in Session Daily regarding H.R.6187 – MEALS Act,” former Omar District Director Kendal Killian wrote in an email, obtained by Fox News Digital, Wednesday afternoon to the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee Chair Kristin Robbins. The email was also sent to Rep. Dave Pinto, the lead Democrat on the committee. Killian wrote, “If the quote is accurate, you said, ‘She passed the MEALS Act in March 2020.’ Given that you were elected in 2018, I find it surprising that I need to explain to you how a bill becomes law, but one person cannot unilaterally pass legislation.” Republicans have long argued that the pandemic-era school meal waivers tied to the MEALS Act, sponsored by Omar, helped create the conditions that enabled the massive Feeding Our Future fraud scheme, which federal prosecutors say totaled roughly $250 million.  OMAR ACCUSED BY GOP OPPONENT OF OPENING UP THE DOOR TO MASSIVE MINNEAPOLIS FRAUD: ‘DEEP, DEEP TIES’ Killian went on to explain to Robbins, who has previously served as a legislative director in Congress, that because Republicans controlled the Senate and the White House when the larger bill was passed, that they have “responsibility for implementation” of the legislation. “So your characterization that Rep. Ilhan Omar passed this legislation unilaterally (and oversaw its execution) is off base,” Killian said. Killian went further in his effort to distance Omar from the legislation, claiming that the bill critics have been citing “never even passed.” “Again, it is bizarre to have to explain this to a State Representative, but maybe you need some help,” Killian’s email says. He claimed that Robbins is suffering from “confusion,” because “similar legislative language to that in the MEALS Act was included in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.” ILHAN OMAR PRESSED TO EXPLAIN HOW FRAUD IN MINNESOTA GOT ‘SO OUT OF CONTROL’ “While the original Meals Act (which never passed) was more similar to universal school meals legislation Omar championed and Representative Sydney Jordan in Minnesota later shepherded, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (supported by McConnell and signed by Trump) added waiver authority that facilitated much of the Feeding Our Future fraud,” Killian wrote. “The fraud was not committed under any bill authored by Omar, but rather under broader COVID-19 legislation and by taking advantage of USDA emergency waivers granted by the Trump administration. Those flexibilities, combined with weak oversight and rapid funding expansion, created conditions that were later exploited in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.” In bold, Killian wrote that the Families First Coronavirus Response Act was not “chiefly sponsored” by Omar and “thus is grossly inaccurate to claim so” and ended the email saying that “perhaps” the committee should subpoena President Trump rather than Omar. While the MEALS Act itself did not pass as a standalone bill, it is listed on Congress.gov as related legislation to the broader Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which became law in 2020 and included similar school meal waiver provisions. Robbins told Fox News Digital the former Omar staffer is “lying” about the impact Omar had, arguing the core purpose of the MEALS Act, expanding USDA waiver authority, was part of the broader legislation. WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT MINNESOTA’S ‘FEEDING OUR FUTURE’ FRAUD AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP’S LATEST CRACKDOWN  “I’m talking about the MEALS Act that got incorporated in the larger coronavirus package,” Robbins explained. “In the related bills section it links to the Ilhan bill and lists it as one of the bills included in the Act, the language is identical.” Congress.gov, the official legislative database run by the Library of Congress, lists Omar’s MEALS Act (H.R. 6187) as “related legislation” to the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R. 6201). Robbins pointed to numerous examples of Omar taking credit in messages to her constituents back in Minneapolis for the legislation that did ultimately pass and citing her MEALS Act. WALZ ACCUSED BY JORDAN OF TRYING TO ‘HIDE BEHIND’ COURT ORDER IN FEEDING OUR FUTURE PAYMENTS In Omar’s own September 2020 press release, she explicitly says she “passed into law this spring” the MEALS Act provisions and describes them as legislation that “directly authorized these school meal waivers.”  “Ilhan’s MEALS Act, a bill aimed at protecting students’ access to school meal benefits during school closures, was passed into law as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” Omar’s campaign website reads. Additionally, Omar publicly pushed back after the Trump administration signaled in the summer and fall of 2020, after the legislation passed, that it would begin scaling back or letting some of the waivers expire and return programs closer to their pre-pandemic rules. In August, she again linked the legislation she sponsored in the House to the overall situation, saying in a letter to the Trump administration, “In March, Congress authorized the use of waivers in the MEALS Act and the COVID-19 Child Nutrition Response Act in order to continue to provide school meals for children during the pandemic.” “Absolutely not, it did help feed kids,” Omar said in December when asked if she regreted her support for the MEALS Act. Killian’s email also directly contradicts his own words in a LinkedIn post from a year ago, reviewed by Fox News Digital, in which he characterized the significance of the legislation differently. “When I worked in Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s office during the pandemic, she wrote and passed the MEALS Act, a vital bill funding schools and feeding all kids,” Killian wrote. In the same post, Killian described the bill as laying “the groundwork” for broader school meals policy, a