International
Ex-Senior UK Tory Defects To Fringe Right-Wing Party

Embattled UK leader Rishi Sunak suffered a fresh blow Monday when a former ally defected to a right-wing populist party that is worrying the ruling Conservatives ahead of this year’s general election.
Lee Anderson announced that he was joining Reform UK, weeks after he was suspended from Sunak’s Conservative party over comments widely condemned as racist and Islamophobic.
The 57-year-old former deputy chair of the Tories became the first MP to represent Reform, whose honorary president is arch-Eurosceptic and Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage.
The fringe party is currently polling at around 10 percent in opinion surveys, which if replicated at the election could split the right-wing vote in key constituencies.
That would make it even harder for the Tories, in power since 2010, to fend off a resurgent main opposition Labour party that is currently soaring ahead in national polls.
To blunt Reform’s impact, Sunak could take his party further rightward, continuing a trend in recent decades that has accelerated following the 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union.
Doing so risks alienating more socially liberal voters, however.
Anderson is an MP in a so-called “Red Wall” seat of working-class voters in northern England that are crucial to both the Conservatives and Labour’s chances of winning the election.
The seats were former Labour strongholds before ex-prime minister Boris Johnson flipped them for the Conservatives during his landslide win at the last election in 2019 on a promise to “get Brexit done”.
The New Conservatives, a group of MPs on the right of the Tory party who have rebelled against Sunak, said the Conservative party was responsible for Anderson’s defection.
“We cannot pretend any longer that ‘the plan is working’. We need to change course urgently,” the group said in a statement.
– Populist –
Reform rails against immigration, net-zero energy policies and what it calls overbearing “nanny state” government regulations, and its members regularly heap praise on former US president Donald Trump.
“I want my country back,” Anderson told reporters in London as he announced his defection.
He had been widely tipped to join Reform after he was suspended from the parliamentary party of the Conservatives in February for refusing to apologise after saying London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by Islamists.
“Anderson’s defection does highlight the ongoing electoral problem facing Rishi Sunak, with attacks coming from the left and right,” said Emma Levin of the polling firm Savanta.
But she cautioned that the move “will likely mean very little in national polling terms”.
“Lee Anderson’s name recognition among the wider public is low, and if voters are aware of him, it is probably because they saw (and disagreed) with his comments that led to his suspension from the Conservative party,” Levin said.
In the UK, a by-election is not automatically triggered if an MP changes party affiliation, though they may choose to stand down and seek re-election under their new allegiance or as an independent.
Sunak has yet to announce the date of the general election but has said it will be held in the second half of the year.
AFP
International
Pope Francis: Governor Soludo Consoles Global Catholic Community
In his condolence message, Governor Soludo extends his solemn condolences to the Catholic Church in Anambra State, Nigeria, the Vatican, and the global Christian community.

The Governor of Anambra State, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, has expressed deep sadness at the passing of His Holiness, Pope Francis, who departed peacefully on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025, at the age of 88.
In his condolence message, Governor Soludo extends his solemn condolences to the Catholic Church in Anambra State, Nigeria, the Vatican, and the global Christian community.
He said that the loss of Pope Francis, a globally respected icon of faith, humility, and compassion, has indeed grieved the hearts of Catholics and all humanity as his lifelong dedication to championing the cause of the poor, fostering interfaith unity, and advocating for peace and justice has left the world a better place.
Governor Soludo further remarked that Pope Francis was a shepherd whose legacy transcended borders.
His teachings on love, mercy, and solidarity touched base with the people of Anambra, inspiring the government to build a society rooted in dignity and hope.
Indeed, the Holy Father’s passing on Easter Monday, symbolizing Christ’s triumph over death, is deeply instructive and a reflection of the enduring power of resurrection and hope.
Therefore, Governor Soludo stands in solidarity with the global Catholic community during this period of mourning, celebrating a life extraordinarily lived in service to God and humanity, and praying for the soul of Pope Francis to find repose in the comforting grace of the Almighty God.
International
Trump Might Shut Down US Embassies in Africa — Report
A CNN report on Wednesday, citing an internal US State Department document, states that the embassies in the Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Lesotho, and South Sudan are among those proposed for closure.

The Donald Trump administration might shut down nearly 30 United States embassies and consulates around the world, including several in Africa, as part of a sweeping plan to reduce the country’s diplomatic presence abroad.
A CNN report on Wednesday, citing an internal US State Department document, states that the embassies in the Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Lesotho, and South Sudan are among those proposed for closure.
A US consulate in South Africa may also be shut down.
“The list also includes five consulates in France, two in Germany, two in Bosnia and Herzegovina, one in the United Kingdom, one in South Africa, and one in South Korea,” the report stated.
International
UK Supreme Court rules definition of ‘woman’ based on sex at birth and not by transgender

The UK supreme court has ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex, in a victory for gender-critical campaigners.
Five judges from the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).
In a significant defeat for the Scottish government, the court decision will mean that transgender women can no longer sit on public boards in places set aside for women.
It could have far wider ramifications by leading to much greater restrictions on the rights of transgender women to use services and spaces reserved for women, and prompt calls for the UK’s laws on gender recognition to be rewritten.
The UK government said the ruling “brings clarity and confidence” for women and those who run hospitals, sports clubs and women’s refuges.
A spokesperson said: “We have always supported the protection of single sex spaces based on biological sex. Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government.”
John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, posted on social media: “The Scottish government accepts today’s supreme court judgment. The ruling gives clarity between two relevant pieces of legislation passed at Westminster.
We will now engage on the implications of the ruling. Protecting the rights of all will underpin our actions.”
Lord Hodge told the court the Equality Act (EA) was very clear that its provisions dealt with biological sex at birth, and not with a person’s acquired gender, regardless of whether they held a gender recognition certificate.
That affected policymaking on gender in sports and the armed services, hospitals, as well as women-only charities, and access to changing rooms and women-only spaces, he said.
In a verbal summary of the decision, he said: “Interpreting sex as certificated sex would cut across the definitions of man and woman in the EA and thus the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way.
It would create heterogeneous groupings.
“As a matter of ordinary language, the provisions relating to sex discrimination, and especially those relating to pregnancy and maternity and to protection from risks specifically affecting women, can only be interpreted as referring to biological sex.”
Trans rights campaigners urged trans people and their supporters to remain calm about the decision.
The campaign group Scottish Trans said: “We are really shocked by today’s supreme court decision, which reverses 20 years of understanding of how the law recognises trans men and women with gender recognition certificates.
“We will continue working for a world in which trans people can get on with their lives with privacy, dignity and safety. That is something we all deserve.
”Ellie Gomersall, a trans woman in the Scottish Green party, called on the UK government to change the law to entrench full equality for trans people.
Gomersall said: “I’m gutted to see this judgment from the supreme court, which ends 20 years of understanding that transgender people with a gender recognition certificate are able to be, for almost all intents and purposes, recognised legally as our true genders.
“These protections were put in place in 2004 following a ruling by the European court of human rights, meaning today’s ruling undermines the vital human rights of my community to dignity, safety and the right to be respected for who we are.”
The gender critical campaign group For Women Scotland, which is backed financially by JK Rowling, said the Equality Act’s definition of a woman was limited to people born biologically female.
Maya Forstater, a gender critical activist who helped set up the campaign group Sex Matters, which took part in the supreme court case by supporting For Women Scotland, said the decision was correct.
“We are delighted that the supreme court has accepted the arguments of For Women Scotland and rejected the position of the Scottish government.
The court has given us the right answer: the protected characteristic of sex – male and female – refers to reality, not to paperwork.”
Hodge, the deputy president of the court, said it believed the position taken by the Scottish government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission that people with gender recognition certificates did qualify as women, while those without did not, created “two sub-groups”.
This would confuse any organisations they were involved with. A public body could not know whether a trans woman did or did not have that certificate because the information was private and confidential.
And allowing trans women the same legal status as biological women could also affect spaces and services designed specifically for lesbians, who had also suffered historical discrimination and abuse.
In part of the ruling that could have sweeping implications for policymakers in the sports world and sports centres, he said some services and places could “function properly only if sex is interpreted as biological sex”.
“Those provisions include separate spaces and single-sex services, including changing rooms, hostels, medical services, communal accommodation, [and] arise in the operation of provisions relating to single-sex characteristic associations and charities, women’s fair participation in sport, the operation of the public sector equality duty and the armed forces.”
Hodge urged people not to see the decision “as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another”.
He said all transgender people had clear legal protections under the 2010 act against discrimination and harassment.
Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which had intervened in the case to support the Scottish government’s stance, said it would need time to fully interpret the ruling’s implications.
However, the commission was pleased it had dealt with its concerns about the lack of clarity around single-sex and lesbian-only spaces.
“We are pleased that this judgment addresses several of the difficulties we highlighted in our submission to the court, including the challenges faced by those seeking to maintain single-sex spaces, and the rights of same-sex attracted persons to form associations.”
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