prime minister

LONDON — Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced Tuesday that he will quit his seat in Parliament and seek reelection in an effort to clear his name over financial allegations linked to millions of dollars’ worth of donations.

The unexpected resignation is an effort by the anti-immigration politician to preempt a standards investigation that could have seen him ejected as a lawmaker, and to present himself as the victim of a witch hunt by the news media and his political foes.

“I have done nothing wrong. I have not broken the law in any way at all. I have not misused public money,” Farage, a prominent ally of President Trump, said in a statement broadcast by his party. Media outlets were not allowed to attend the broadcast and he did not take questions.

Farage faces a parliamentary standards investigation about undeclared and potentially rule-breaking donations, including a $6.7-million gift he received from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire. A finding of wrongdoing could lead to Farage being suspended or expelled from Parliament. But he has made the first move by triggering an election for his seaside seat of Clacton in eastern England.

“The people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions,” Farage said. “This will be a people versus the establishment by-election.”

And, he said: “I will fight to win.”

Farage won Clacton comfortably in the 2024 election, taking 46.2% of the vote, and stands a good chance of winning reelection. Reform UK said it was willing to pay for the special election, which may deflect claims it is wasting taxpayers’ money.

Farage’s opponents were unimpressed. Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the announcement “a desperate stunt” from a man “up to his neck in sleaze.” Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch claimed Farage was having a “hissy fit” and triggering an “ego by-election.”

Farage may run almost unopposed. The opposition Liberal Democrats called on other parties to not enter the contest in order to starve Farage’s “vanity project” of oxygen. The Labor Party said it would not stand a candidate, as did the Conservatives, who also confirmed they would not run.

The gambit may only postpone Farage’s problems. Even if he wins, the standards inquiry is likely to resume.

Farage tipped by some as a future prime minister

Scrutiny of Farage’s finances has spurred speculation about the future of a politician some considered the favorite to be prime minister after the next national election.

One of the most high-profile and controversial figures in British politics, Farage has had an outsized effect as a champion of leaving the European Union and foe of large-scale immigration. He was key in securing victory for the “leave” side in the 2016 EU membership referendum.

His rise has echoes of Trump’s nationalist, anti-immigration playbook. Farage has capitalized on — critics say stoked — concerns about migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, which he has called an invasion, and alleges that white people face discrimination from police.

He also rails against “the establishment” and the media, which he claimed are using “foul means” to stop him.

A skilled communicator whose supporters see a beer-drinking plain-speaker, and whose critics see a populist rabble-rouser, Farage has had a checkered political career and was elected to Parliament in 2024 only after seven failed attempts. He also has a history of walking away from parties he led, stepping down from both the UK Independence Party and its successor, the Brexit Party, in the last decade.

Reform UK has only eight of the 650 seats in the House of Commons but consistently leads opinion polls over the governing Labor Party and the main opposition Conservatives.

Farage’s party was the big winner in local and regional elections in May that led to the ouster of Starmer at the hands of his own Labor Party.

But Reform UK has lost three consecutive special elections that it hoped to win, a possible sign its support may be sagging. The most recent loss was to Labor’s Andy Burnham, who is likely to succeed Starmer as prime minister within weeks.

Donors include a crypto billionaire and a fraudster

Parliamentary standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg is investigating the 5-million-pound donation to Farage from Christopher Harborne, a British businessman based in Thailand. Farage says the money was a personal gift that he used to fund security and came before he was elected to the House of Commons.

U.K. rules state that newly elected lawmakers must declare gifts worth more than $400 they received in the previous 12 months, except where the gift “could not be reasonably thought by others” to relate to their political activities.

Farage is also facing questions about claims, reported by the Sunday Times, over his financial relationship with George Cottrell, an aristocratic crypto-gambling entrepreneur, convicted fraudster and on-off aide to the Reform UK leader.

Cottrell was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare airport in 2016, while traveling with Farage, over allegations he offered to launder money for undercover agents posing as drug traffickers. Indicted on 21 counts relating to money laundering, fraud, blackmail and extortion, he agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of wire fraud, admitting attempting to defraud criminals on the dark web by masquerading as a money launderer. He served eight months in prison.

Cottrell, 32, remains close to Farage, and the Sunday Times said he gave the politician funding for staffing and security before Britain’s 2024 general election, as well as the use of a London townhouse near Buckingham Palace.

Lawless writes for the Associated Press.

MANCHESTER, England — Andy Burnham, likely the next U.K. prime minister, pledged Monday to give away a chunk of his power by handing greater autonomy to local leaders in a “circuit-breaker” for the sclerotic British state.

The former mayor of Greater Manchester also said he would move part of the prime minister’s office from London’s 10 Downing St. to northwest England as part of “the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen.”

“Growth cannot be ordered from the top down. Instead, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up,” Burnham said in a speech aimed at bringing voters, Labour Party colleagues and financial markets up to speed with his economic vision.

Burnham is the strong favorite to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced his resignation last week.

“If councils can’t fix potholes, what chance do they have of bringing forward major regeneration schemes to get growth going?” Burnham said. He set out a 10-year plan to get “good growth in every postcode,” in a country where wealth and power are concentrated in London and the south of England.

He said he would reverse almost two decades of low growth since the 2008 financial crisis through an approach dubbed “Manchesterism” — harnessing private and public money to invest in areas like transport, housing and infrastructure. He also pledged to create new industrial jobs and better educational opportunities, and to reform the U.K.’s inefficient and expensive privatized water and energy utilities.

Moving the new ‘No. 10 North’ to Manchester

During the speech at the People’s History Museum in the city where he spent nine years as mayor, Burnham said a new government office in Manchester – dubbed “No. 10 North” — would oversee regional development and become “the nerve center of a rewired Britain,” tasked with equalizing living standards across the country. Regional mayors would get more power over housing, welfare and education as part of his planned reforms.

Burnham’s rousing speech was short on specifics about where the government would find more money, and he didn’t take questions from journalists.

Burnham won praise for his role in revitalizing and regenerating Manchester, but he has not served in a U.K. government for almost two decades, and may struggle to replicate “Manchesterism” on a U.K.-wide scale.

The Institute for Public Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank, said Burnham is right to focus on “rebalancing Britain.”

“The U.K.’s concentration of power and opportunity in Westminster has held back growth, productivity and living standards for too long,” said IPPR Executive Director Harry Quilter-Pinner. “The real test now is delivery.”

Matthew Flinders, a politics professor at the University of Sheffield, said replicating Burnham’s Manchester approach on a national level would require “a fundamental shift” in the way politics is done in Britain.

“And at the heart of that would be moving from a very traditional, elitist, centralized model of politics toward something that is in many ways far more European, far more based on power-sharing in order to develop long-term policymaking capacity,” he said.

Burnham is likely to inherit Starmer’s challenges

Burnham will be aware that Starmer also announced a 10-year mission — the equivalent of two full terms in government —- to transform Britain soon after he was elected in a landslide in July 2024. Starmer is leaving after two years in office marred by missteps and judgment errors that eroded his standing with his party and the public.

Burnham won a special election for a seat in Parliament on June 18 and was sworn in as a lawmaker on June 22, the same day Starmer announced that he will resign as soon as a successor is chosen.

Burnham is so far the only contender in the Labour Party leadership contest. If no one challenges him, he will become prime minister by July 20.

While Burnham is considered more charismatic than the stolid Starmer, he will face many of the same political and economic challenges, including a sluggish economy, tattered public services and a cost-of-living squeeze. He will also be constrained by the platform the center-left Labour Party was elected on in 2024, with its pledges not to increase taxes on working people.

And like other NATO countries, the U.K. is under pressure to dramatically increase defense spending to counter a more aggressive Russia and less reliable United States.

The government’s long-awaited defense investment plan — which sparked the resignation of Defense Secretary John Healey on June 11 — is expected to be published before a NATO summit in Turkey on July 7 and 8. Starmer’s successor will be expected to stick to the commitments in the plan.

“Andy Burnham’s big idea is to shuffle power between politicians,” said opposition Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake. “Not fix the welfare system. Not cut the taxes strangling working families and British business. Not fund the defense our country desperately needs.”

Grant and Lawless write for the Associated Press. Lawless reported from London. AP writer Brian Melley contributed to this report.

PARIS — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney became a symbol of middle power resistance after a celebrated speech earlier this year, but he is expected to be more muted in his criticism of President Trump at an upcoming summit in Europe.

Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, helped make him an international political star in January, when he declared the global rules-based order over and condemned coercion by great powers on smaller countries. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks and upstaged Trump at the gathering.

But the G7 summit of industrialized democracies that begins Monday in France comes ahead of the scheduled July 1 review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, the latest iteration of the North American free-trade pact that has intertwined the economies of the United States, Mexico and Canada since the early 1990s. It is a crucial moment in trade talks, and Trump said this week that he may not renew the deal.

More than 70% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S., so preserving the accord is critical for Canada.

Canadian historian Robert Bothwell said Trump is more of a problem for Carney “than anybody else because we are more exposed to the United States than anybody else.”

Trump leaves for the G7 summit right after he hosts UFC fights at the White House on Sunday for his 80th birthday.

The summit will unfold as tensions are ramping up between Trump and Canada. One of the world’s most durable and amicable alliances — born of geography, heritage and centuries of common interests — is broken, as seen in several recent examples of tension between leaders.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, the leader of Canada’s most populous province, had a reception with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington canceled Monday at the last minute. Vic Fedeli, one of Ford’s ministers, said if Trump forced the chamber to cancel, “Ford should be wearing that as a badge of honor.”

Trump said again this week that the U.S. doesn’t need anything that Canada has. Carney has set a goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade, saying Trump’s trade war is causing a chill in investment.

In other developments, the opening of a major Canadian bridge across the Detroit River that Trump previously threatened to block was delayed Thursday due to unresolved issues.

Trump’s actions, including launching a trade war and suggesting Canada become the 51st U.S. state, have infuriated Canadians and created the political environment for Carney to win the job of prime minister after promising to confront Trump.

Trump administration officials keep noting that only two countries, China and Canada, retaliated against America in the trade war. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says Canada’s retaliatory measures are a major issue in talks.

Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said Carney seems to have moderated his tone toward the Trump administration to avoid worsening relations.

“There is a clear tension between what Prime Minister Carney said in his Davos speech about middle powers standing up to hegemons and his attempt to nudge the U.S. administration ‘in the right direction’ with regard to the USMCA review and trade policy more generally,” Béland said.

Carney has downplayed Trump’s most recent comments about Canada becoming the 51st state.

Canada and Mexico want the USMCA to be renewed for another 16 years. Trump has mused about withdrawing from it. More likely it will be subject to annual reviews for the next 10 years.

Carney arrived in Paris on Friday morning and will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in the evening, a few days before the summit in Évian-les-Bains, France.

The prime minister will also travel to Ireland this weekend to meet with the Irish prime minister in a bid to diversify trade away from the U.S.

This is Carney’s ninth trip to Europe in the 15 months since he became prime minister in March 2025.

The U.S. “will clearly remain Canada’s largest trading partner for the predictable future,” Béland said, calling it an inescapable reality that Carney “must keep front of mind even as he seeks to make Canada somewhat less dependent on trade with the U.S.”

Gillies writes for the Associated Press.

NUUK, Greeland — Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said Monday that he had a respectful and positive meeting with President Trump’s special envoy to the Arctic territory, but that he made it clear that the Greenlandic people continue to insist on self-determination.

Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and Trump in the past has frequently insisted that the U.S. should take control of the island for security reasons, which has raised sovereignty concerns and pushback from Greenlandic and Danish leaders.

“The Greenlandic people are not for sale. Greenlandic self-determination is not something that can be negotiated,” Nielsen was quoted by Danish TV 2 as saying after meeting on the island with the envoy, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.

Nielsen also reiterated that the Greenlandic people “seek good cooperation” with the U.S., and said his “courtesy meeting” with Landry took place with “mutual respect and in a positive atmosphere.”

Landry reportedly said upon his arrival in Greenland on Sunday that Trump had told him to “go over there and make as many friends as we can get,” public Danish broadcaster DR reported.

Greenland’s Foreign Minister Múte B. Egede told reporters Monday that a working group involving the U.S., Greenland, and Denmark continues to try to find a solution to the repeated U.S. demands for control over Greenland. Trump has suggested that Russia or China may be on the verge of seizing Greenland, a notion that regional experts have dismissed.

“We haven’t been the ones creating obstacles to cooperation between the United States and Greenland,” said the Greenlandic foreign minister, who also participated in the meeting with Landry and his delegation in the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk.

“So if we are to continue down this positive and constructive path, we must await the working group’s report,” he said, according to TV 2, adding that the work in the group appears “more promising” than before.

U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Ken Howery, who is also part of the American delegation in Greenland, is expected to inaugurate the U.S. Consulate’s new offices in Nuuk, and both he and Landry are to attend a business fair on Tuesday and Wednesday, local media reported.