|
 |
 |
We’ve been hard at work this week ensuring the UK’s EU membership is front and centre of political discussions this party conference season.
Our brand new megapoll - which found Europe is the key to keeping Farage out of power (oh, the irony…) - was featured exclusively on ITV’s Peston, and continues to make waves… read on for more.
 |
Elsewhere, all eyes were on New York, where PM Andy Burnham made his United Nations debut, attacking Russian disinformation and criticising the impact of Brexit on our economy. The General Assembly certainly threw up some worrying headlines; from Aussie leader Anthony Albanese’s revelation that the country’s Medicare system had been hacked by a rogue AI agent, to the US President’s threat to obliterate Iran.
Closer to home, media regulator Ofcom responded to Best for Britain supporters’ emails about Nigel Farage’s GB News show.
And we launched a new campaign to get Apple and Google to remove Reform UK’s small boats app from their stores…
Read on for your Weekend Wire.
 |
Fresh from her victory over the right-wing bloc in Sweden’s election, PM-in-waiting Magdalena Andersson was feeling bullish about the EU in an unstable and volatile world.
Andersson argued: “With Russia still waging war in Ukraine, we have an unpredictable United States, and we have China trying to step forward - we really need the European Union to be strong.”
Part of her pitch for a stronger and bolder EU is the reintegration of the UK into the European project. She stressed that “no country misses you (the UK) as much as we do”. Swede dreams really are made of this…
Speaking frankly to Politico, the PM-in-waiting praised Andy Burnham and called for the UK to rejoin the EU “tomorrow”. (And who are we to disagree?) In welcome news, Andersson also promised to review the immigration status of many Brits in Sweden who have been told that they can no longer stay.
Geek of the Week
EU membership was top of everyone’s mind - and making media headlines - as Westminster geared up for Labour’s annual party conference this weekend. .
On Wednesday night, Best for Britain was crowned “Geek of the Week” on Robert Peston’s ITV news programme thanks to our new seat-level analysis revealing that a pledge to restore the UK’s EU membership could be the difference between a Labour-led government and a Reform-led government at the next election.
Promising EU membership could also see Labour unseat key Conservative MPs including Tory leader Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex), Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith (Arundel & South Downs), and Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick (Newark)... all without increasing overall support for the Tories or Reform UK - win-win!
The findings come at a crucial time as the government shapes its policy on Europe ahead of the heavily delayed UK-EU summit, and Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s upcoming speech in which he is expected to set out his ten-year vision for the country. Watch this space…
As our CEO Naomi Smith rightly puts it…
“These numbers are a wake-up call for both the Prime Minister and Labour backbenchers in previously Leave-voting constituencies. EU membership is the only policy lever that takes Labour close to a majority at the next election and keeps the architects of Brexit out of power.”
We also released additional polling which found that restoring the UK’s membership of the EU is the most popular UK-EU relations policy in every Great British parliamentary constituency – bar four Reform UK held seats – and in every British nation and region.
One key area in which EU membership is the most popular? The Prime Minister’s own seat of Makerfield. There is a clear opportunity and desire for Burnham’s government to pursue a closer relationship with the EU, with all the economic and security benefits it would bring - and we’ll continue making that case, loudly and proudly.
 |
UN, deux, trois
 |
On Tuesday, Burnham made his inaugural address at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). And it only took him a total of three sentences to mention Brexit.
His remarks focused on the lessons learned 10 years on from the 2016 referendum and stressed the vital importance of national security being the foundation of overcoming the division and instability facing the UK. Despite making it clear the UK would not play Russia’s game of “escalatory rhetoric”, Burnham confirmed the UK “will keep investing in our defence… (and) will be relentless in building up our hard power and deterrence”.
The PM also officially met with US President Donald Trump for the first time, who, by the end of their meeting said Burnham “is a man he can do business with”. Despite this, Trump heavily criticised the UK’s plan to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, which house a joint UK-US military base to Mauritius. The government has since confirmed it is reviewing the plans.
Hacked off
 |
On Wednesday, it was revealed that an OpenAI agent had infiltrated an Australian government website in June and accessed private data, in a world first. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters in New York that he had had a “very frank discussion” with OpenAI boss Sam Altman after learning the company had taken weeks to report the breach to his government.
The rogue agent hacked a statistics portal containing information from Medicare, Australia’s equivalent of the NHS. The growing number of reported such incidents of is undoubtedly a concern for national and international security.
Perhaps more concerning still is that it took OpenAI over a month to realise the hack had occurred, and several more weeks to report it to the authorities. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Altman reaffirmed his calls for international regulation of AI development. Those in glass houses…
Arrested development
 |
Far-right activist Daniel Thomas - or ‘Danny Tommo’ - has pleaded not guilty to criminal damage after he allegedly slashed a boat in the English Channel with an emergency responder on board, as the Press Association and others have reported.
He was supported by fellow far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, who sat in the public gallery during the hearing. The court heard a crew member was on the boat whilst it was heard leaking air, after Thomas took a vessel into the English Channel where people aboard a small boat were being assisted by the RNLI, Border Force and the French Coastguard.
The far-right agitator has risen to prominence in the past few weeks as the figurehead of balaclava-clad marches through Portsmouth and Dover under the banner of his ‘Patriot Platform’ group. The group’s activities has resulted in some RNLI Lifeboat stations closing temporarily to protect the safety of their crew members.
Reform UK has chosen this week to launch a mobile app that makes a game out of repelling asylum seekers back into the sea. Horrifying stuff and a truly inappropriate moment to throw that into the mix.
So in return Best for Britain has launched a tool so that our supporters can send a letter in less than a minute to the CEO of Apple and the Managing Director of Google Play. The letter calls on both Apple and Google to remove Reform UK’s ‘Small Boat Watch’ app from their respective app stores as the game is in clear violation of both companies’ terms and conditions.
Podium ready
 |
This weekend marks the beginning of the Labour Party conference, and it’s fair to say a lot has changed since Keir Starmer’s keynote address last year. This time round, a new man(c) will take centre stage and lay out his vision for Britain.
The slogan for this year’s conference is “Hope Again”. Be sure to keep an eye out for a rejuvenated party after YouGov’s latest MRP showed that Labour would be the largest party if an election were held today – albeit in a hung parliament. Andy Burnham’s speech is likely to highlight his own 10-year plan, which pundits suggest will have affordability at its core.
Rumours of an early election are growing in some quarters, but it still seems unlikely that Burnham would call one without a much greater lead in the polls than he currently enjoys. He insisted in a round of regional media interviews with the BBC on Friday that he was not tempted to call an early general election and there will not be one “anytime soon” and that his focus was on helping people with the cost of living, and running businesses. Although, stranger things have happened… and the Guardian are reporting that Ravinder Athwal, the economist who was heavily involved with Labour’s 2024 manifesto, has been hired as an adviser to Chancellor John Healey.
Labour’s conference follows hot on the heels of the Lib Dems’ shindig in Brighton last weekend. Their main question mark going into the autumn is the future of leader Ed Davey, currently the longest-standing leader of any UK political party, and whether he is the right man to take the Lib Dems into the next general election. One council leader even went as far as to suggest that the party was “sleepwalking into irrelevance under Davey”. Harsh?
Nice to Xi you, to Xi you nice
 |
Trump welcomed his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to the White House after the UN General Assembly on Thursday evening. During their meeting, Xi raised the “Thucydides Trap” - the political theory that argues that when a rising power threatens an existing superpower, the fall out can often make conflict inevitable. Despite calling on such chilling warnings from history, Xi was keen to stress he believed conflict between China and the U.S. could be avoided with great cooperation.
In a rare piece of good news for global markets, both countries agreed to extend the pause on their trade war until the new year. But beyond the extension of that agreement, Sino-American relations experts were sceptical any tangible breakthrough on other areas such as Taiwan or AI had been reached.
Earlier in the week, Trump enraged the American press corps by banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. The not-totally-unprecedented move (he previously pulled this stunt with former CNN reporter Jim Acosta) drew ire from all sides of the political spectrum across the Atlantic,. Many questioned how the President’s decision could align with the constitution’s protection on free speech. Spoiler: it can’t. The courts have since ordered the White House to reinstate the journalists’ access. The move led to fellow broadcasters Fox News, NBC, CBS and ABC to pull their own coverage in solidarity. Which led to quite an amusing scene…
Ofcom respond!
 |
Nigel Farage leads a political party. He’s a sitting MP. And he hosts his own primetime show on GB News. We believe Ofcom should investigate whether he broke impartiality rules on September 15, 2026.
A huge thank you to all of you who have written to Ofcom’s CEO or signed our petition over the last week. We are pleased to report Ofcom reached out to us to acknowledge the petition and have asked us to direct our supporters to their complaints portal.
Farage showed again this week by siding with Trump over the Chagos Islands why he cannot be allowed to have a weekly hour-long party political broadcast masquerading as a current affairs show.
Let’s make sure this is an issue Ofcom cannot ignore.
 |
Despite a very difficult few weeks for the RNLI, there has been a welcome silver lining. Since the beginning of the campaign of abuse against these life saving volunteers, the RNLI has seen a tsunami of donations enter their coffers - helping them save more lives. Recent numbers suggest that donations have risen by a staggering 5000% for the life-saving crews.
A charity spokesperson said: “We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of donations we have received this week, and we’ve welcomed a number of new supporters to our charity.”
 |
Not content with merely patting a bacon sandwich every week, Lee Anderson has now moved on to patting packages of bacon and sausages - in front of an opened and ready to eat avocado. Take that lefty liberals!!
|
*We apologise for the X-link. To our knowledge, this content hasn’t (yet) been shared on BlueSky or Instagram. Thankfully.
Next week is likely to be dominated by coverage of Labour’s conference. What will Burnham announce? How will the polls respond? We’ll update you in full next week!
That’s all before the Conservative, Green Party and Plaid Cymru conferences get underway.
The European Foreign Affairs Council will meet to talk about all things defence and the Ofgem Q4 energy price cap will come into effect. Yay.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Joshua Edwicker and Eliza Snider
Senior Content Officer and Senior Press Officer
Best for Britain
You’re currently a free subscriber to The Best for Britain Wire. For the very latest analysis, expert commentary and political intrigue, upgrade your subscription.
| ||||||||||
