Conservative Party

Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant

Chris Bryant rejects claims UK ‘pandering’ to Irish government

Lord Hannan explored how the Glorious Revolution shaped British and American constitutional democracy in this 250th anniversary year of the American Declaration of Independence Pictured is Lord Hannan.

American revolutionaries felt British, says peer

Former NIO minister Lord Caine, speaking in 2024, said the government did not recognise there was 'anything like a trade border' in the Irish Sea.

Former NIO minister says 'fundamental changes' needed to Windsor Framework

Morning View

Editorial: Scotland at least has fiscally prudent voices

The Labour government's Troubles legislation will bring despair for veterans, writes Alex Burghart

Alex Burghart: Bill will not give comfort to veterans – it must be opposed

The emblem of the SAS. Sir David Davis told MPs today that lawyers for the SAS Regimental Association have threatened the government with legal action over its Troubles legacy legislation

Government threatened with legal action by SAS association over Troubles reforms

The Grand Hotel in Brighton after an IRA bomb in October 1985 killed five people, and almost killed Mrs Thatcher. It strengthened her view that the UK needed security co-operation with Ireland

Brighton bomb did not spook Thatcher into Anglo Irish Agreement, says ex aide

The Ulster Reform Club on Royal Avenue in central Belfast – it was formally opened 140 years ago

Opening of Reform Club in 1885 was high point for Ulster Liberal politics

Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn. Photo: Peter Byrne/PA Wire

Hilary Benn brands Tory ECHR exit plans 'utterly irresponsible'

Letters to editor

Letter: We have a plan said Labour, but instead they are destroying the UK

Morning View

Editorial: Badenoch and Truss both right about blunders

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he could officially recognise Palestine by next month

Keir Starmer has 'made a mistake' in giving ultimatum to Israel

Morning View

Editorial: Reward for past strikes made new ones inevitable

Lord Tebbit was in today's parlance ‘old school’, in that he told you the truth, looked you in the eye and left you in no doubt about his sincerity

Letter: If only the PM had Tebbit’s principles

Lord Tebbit’s voice was a brave one in modern politics, and he will be remembered with respect and admiration

Carla Lockhart: Tebbit knew there was always an alternative

Morning View

Editorial: Farage’s chance to take lead on immigration
News Letter editorial on Wednesday May 7 2025:
Editorial

Kemi Badenoch has vowed to end the “cruel” family farm inheritance tax

Kemi Badenoch has vowed to end the “cruel” family farm inheritance tax

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch speaking during the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference at ExCel London, at the Royal Victoria Dock in east London. Mrs Badenoch’s speech made some points that were harder than we have become used to hearing from Tory leaders. She said recent waves of immigration brought, 'behaviours, cultures and practices that will undermine the West and the values that helped make us great'

Owen Polley: Badenoch should apply ‘British people first’ line to NI

Margaret Thatcher arrives at Downing Street after winning the general election on May 1979

Margaret Thatcher’s march into history books started 50 years ago

Morning View

Editorial: Immigration has been at the heart of Nigel Farage’s success

Louise Haigh mistakenly reported a mobile phone missing after she was mugged in 2013

Former shadow NI secretary Louise Haigh admits misleading police

Leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in London yesterday. Earlier this year, Mrs Badenoch claimed to have a special insight into Northern Ireland's problems, because her husband once stood for election in the Foyle constituency. Unionists should see her leadership as a fresh chance to forge better relationships with the Tory party

Owen Polley: New Tory leader has chance to reset party’s policy on NI

Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour government lasted only nine months

Gordon Lucy: Why the first Labour government in 1924 lasted only nine months

Foreign Secretary David Lammy is presiding over the transference of sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius

Letter: Chagos Islands decision undermines UK national security

Kemi Badenoch exuded energy, intelligence, confidence and belief in her country’s potential as she launched her bid to become Conservative Party leader

Ruth Dudley Edwards: Unlike our PM, Kemi Badenoch seems to love her country

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Now in power, the Labour Party tells us they didn’t think the inherited debt was so bad, writes Drew Mansell

Letter: But Labour said they had a plan

Morning View

Editorial: US democracy needs a good election after the attempt to kill Trump
News Letter editorial on Monday July 15 2024:
Editorial

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey and his wife Emily Gasson leave arfter casting their votes in the 2024 General Election at Surbiton Hill Methodist Church in Surbiton, south west London

Exit poll suggests Liberal Democrats set to make massive gains

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris is set to address the Conservative manifesto launch event in Belfast on Saturday

Conservatives to emphasise benefits of Union at NI manifesto launch

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris

Heaton-Harris says he would place election bet if allowed

FSB`s NI policy chair, Alan Lowry says “SMEs are at the heart of the Northern Ireland economy and this general election provides the perfect opportunity for those seeking election to set out how they intend to create a pro-business environment which helps SMEs and supports the risk-takers and job creators to grow the economy."

FSB sets out manifesto with ‘range of important pro-business measures’ for NI

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier this week defended his plan to bring back a form of compulsory national service amid a ministerial backlash and Tory confusion about the policy.

Letter: Plan to force people into community service is concerning

The former Conservative had left the party over the NI Protocol to join the DUP - which he has now quit over the same issue.

DUP policy director quits over Irish Sea border

There is probably a limit to the vote the TUV can attract, mostly around what might be regarded as a fundamental unionist vote, traditional in faith to God and Country, and currently lying across the TUV and DUP electorate

David Hoey: Unionism was restless, even before the events of this weekend

Ben Habib says he has previously given financial backing to both the DUP and TUV - but won't support the DUP again unless they change their stance on the Irish Sea border.

‘Honorary Ulsterman’ Habib pulls DUP cash

Morning View

Editorial: Key political points are undermined by conspiracies

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood says the past 12 months have been a waste and that progress must be made on "serious crises" facing communities in Northern Ireland. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye

SDLP leader 'hopeful' of Stormont return early next year

Edgar Graham, on the day he was called to the bar, left, with his sister Anne centre and father Norman and mother Anna. Picture taken around 1980 but exact date unknown. Anne recalls: "I remember worrying about whether Edgar’s coffin would have to be closed and whether my mother could survive the horror if so. Thankfully his face was undamaged. The gunman shot Edgar in the back of the head at close range"

Anne Graham: BBC reported a unionist shot at Queen's - it had to be Edgar

Dame Priti Patel has urged the UK and EU to prioritise 're-opening' the Windsor Framework, calling for the UK government to 'put an end to the tentacles of EU control over Northern Ireland'

Letter: Patel’s timely reminder of framework’s constitutional problems

Secretary of State for Wales, Sir Robert Buckland arrives for a cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street, London. Picture date: Tuesday October 11, 2022.

Villiers backs early frontrunner to take influential NI job

Home Secretary Suella Braverman looks at some of the names on the Shoah Wall in Vienna of Austrian Jews who died during the Holocaust, earlier this month. She has in an article said: "They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups - particularly Islamists - of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland" Pic: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Sammy Wilson calls for clarification from Braverman over Gaza-Ulster claim

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has argued Britain's relationship with the EU could be much stronger - but insists he will not allow the UK to become a 'rule-taker'

Letter: For unionism, it’s powersharing or the protocol - but not both

The 2nd Duke of Abercorn was Ulster’s premier aristocrat and landed magnate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

The 2nd Duke of Abercorn's life was 'quiet and useful'

Alford Gardner, who stepped off the Empire Windrush - a ship which brought about 500 migrants to the UK from the Caribbean - had a special visit from HRH Prince William of Wales at his home in Leeds, West Yorkshire as part of Pride of Britain

Thursday: Pride Of Britain: A Windrush Special (ITV1, 9pm)

The prime minister Rishi Sunak, centre, and the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, on Tuesday meet Northern Ireland Tories at the Heathrow Lounge in the Manchester Convention Centre for a reception by the NI Conservatives at the annual Tory conference. Pic by Ben Lowry

Ben Lowry: NI was barely on radar at the Tory party conference in Manchester

There has been a widespread welcome in NI for plans by the Prime Minister to crack down on smoking. Photo: Alamy/PA.

Welcome for Sunak's plan to crack down on smoking and vapes

Morning View

Editorial: Prime Minister gives a good speech but barely mentions NI

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivers his keynote speech at the Conservative Party annual conference at Manchester Central convention complex. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

Politics not working as it should, all over UK says PM Rishi Sunak

The Prime Minister has unveiled plans to scrap A-levels in a huge shake-up to the UK’s education system. Credit: Carl Court/Getty Images

Breaking A-levels and T Levels to be scrapped, Rishi Sunak announces

NI's ex first minister Arlene Foster speaks as Margaret Thatcher at a balloon debate at Policy Exchange room at the Conservative Party conference at Manchester on Tuesday October 3 2023. She won the debate against panellists including Lord Frost, left, as Ronald Reagan and Michael Gove, right, as Teddy Roosevelt

Foster wins good humoured balloon debate at Tory conference

Nigel Farage talks to the News Letter editor Ben Lowry at the Conservative Party conference yesterday and says that Lord Empey’s criticism of him was “misguided”

I don't think an all Ireland is likely and I'm not SF's friend, says Farage

Doug Beattie, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, attended the Conservative Party conference on Monday and observed that the conference 'isn’t talking about Northern Ireland, this conference isn’t focused on the Windsor Framework'

UUP leader Doug Beattie ‘pessimistic’ over Stormont assembly return

Shipping containers stored at a site at Belfast Harbour. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Unionist division remain as new GB/NI customs measures come into force

Morning View

Editorial: Barrier to trade with rest of UK is now bigger than it has ever been

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris delivers his address during the Conservative Party annual conference at Manchester Central. Mr Heaton-Harris said that business "truly recognises" the opportunities that exist due to the Windsor Framework

Windsor Framework is a major improvement on NI Protocol, says Heaton-Harris

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