Channel Islands may join 80th VE Day World War Two celebrations
Rosindell said: "There is no actual commemoration for those people who liberated those cherished British islands in the English Channel. "Will she ensure that the reunion of the Channel Islands with the United Kingdom and the wonderful liberation of those islands is also commemorated as part of VE 80 this year?"Peacock said Rosindell "makes an incredibly important point about the Channel Islands, and I would be really pleased to meet him to discuss that further to see how we can pay a fitting tribute to and commemorate the role that they played".
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The Guardian
18 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘We would love to enter Eurovision!' The boy who saw some unclaimed land – and founded his own country
Most presidential residences feature a grand entrance, security guards, perhaps a few pillars. They also tend to be inside the country of which the occupant is president. Yet when I arrive at the home of Daniel Jackson, president of the Free Republic of Verdis, it is neither magnificent, nor on the Serbian-Croatian border, where his country is situated, but on a small street round the back of a bingo hall in Dover, Kent. Jackson, 20, was born in Australia to British parents, and lived in Melbourne until he was 17. He was only 14 when he and a group of friends decided they 'wanted to do something that was unique'. While most others their age were scrolling TikTok, Jackson and his friends – some from south-east Europe who he had met online, some from Waverley Christian College, the Melbourne private school he attended – scoured maps, and discovered an unclaimed strip of forest that falls outside the borders of Croatia and Serbia. They thought it would be fun to see if they could make it into a country, and named it Verdis. The 'micronation' (a largely unrecognised small country, as opposed to officially recognised 'microstates' such as Andorra and Monaco) is just 1.6 hectares larger than Vatican City and has never been inhabited. It has not been part of a nation since the dissolution of Yugoslavia. 'Obviously that was more than 30 years ago,' says Jackson. 'So we believe we're rightful to it under international law.' Though there is no single, universal way to acquire sovereignty over a territory, Jackson and his fellow Verdis enthusiasts have formed a government, established laws, mapped out the area, planted a flag (pale blue and white stripes; very similar to Argentina's) and attracted 15,000 applications for citizenship, 400 of which have been accepted. Legal experts have told Jackson that 'under international law, the oldest active claimant to the land is the rightful claimant', he says. 'Which is us, because Croatia and Serbia have never claimed this land.' Verdis is the result of a border dispute in the region. Serbia considers its border to be the centre line of the Danube (this has mostly been the accepted border since the Croatian war of independence ended in 1995). But Croatia wants the border to be 'cadastral' – based on old border maps. The discrepancy has resulted in a few unclaimed pockets of land, such as Verdis (which sits on the Croatian side of the Danube, but outside Croatia's self-defined border). Jackson and his government have always had a 'positive experience' in Serbia, but Croatian authorities have refused to recognise Verdis, presumably seeing it as an unhelpful presence in this border dispute. In October 2023, when Jackson and a group of citizens attempted to settle permanently in Verdis, they were forcibly removed by the Croatian police. Jackson and his vice-president, Hector Bowles, who lives between Dover and Bulgaria and was introduced to Jackson via a mutual friend, were issued lifetime bans from Croatia. This is a significant setback, given that it is difficult to access Verdis without entering Croatia. And so Jackson is now, as he puts it, 'in exile', living with a family friend in Dover, where he works from home as a freelance game developer for the online platform Roblox. Still, when I show up at his door, the 20-year-old is in full president mode, dressed in a suit and tie, a tiny metal Verdisian flag pinned to his lapel, and another, much larger fabric flag stretched across a display stand that has been placed in the corner of the otherwise very ordinary living room. I can't help but feel slightly bemused that Jackson has gone to this effort to prepare for my visit – and even more so when he insists on checking the bathroom has been left in a good condition before allowing me to use it. It's all very endearing, but it feels more like a roleplay of a meeting with a politician. Jackson admits that, at first, Verdis wasn't something that he took too seriously. 'It was a bit of an experiment,' he says, inspired by Liberland, a larger pocket of previously unclaimed land 20km north of Verdis. That micronation is similarly unclaimed by Croatia and Serbia and was declared an independent country by Czech rightwing politician Vít Jedlička in 2015, who intended the nation to be a tax haven. 'We liked the idea of Liberland, but we didn't agree entirely with its ideology,' Jackson says – so they decided to see if they could create their own version. The name Verdis was chosen for its similarity to the Latin word for green – viridis – and the initial concept for the new country was that it would focus on environmental concerns. For several years, Verdis remained little more than an idea; until 2023, when interest in the micronation began to grow. Jackson, then 18, made several trips to the territory with some of its other supporters. 'We were bringing in tree surgeons. We were doing a lot of cadastral [surveying] work. We camped there for quite a long time if you put all the trips together,' he says. 'I thought: let's make it a reality.' While I can just about get my head around the idea of a hare-brained teenage scheme that got out of hand, I am finding it difficult to understand why Jackson is still pouring so many resources into a project that is a constant struggle – spending hours learning Serbian and Croatian (Verdis's two other official languages, as well as English), constantly raising awareness, and creating passports that you can't even use to travel. (You can, at least, use them as ID in bars, which Jackson says he has done 'many times'.) There is also the matter of funding – though Verdis's government positions are voluntary, the nation pays ministers' travel costs to Verdis and to any political forums for which they are able to secure invitations, as well as paying to host its website (using a third-party hosting company was deemed too insecure). Jackson and his government have come up with a number of ways to raise money, from selling Verdis merchandise to asking for donations and setting up a citizenship-by-investment scheme. This month the country received a donation of more than $37,000 USD, raised by cryptocurrency enthusiasts through an unaffiliated coin known as $Verdis. Clearly there are people who can grasp Jackson's motivation better than I can. It's possible that part of the reason for this is my gender – just as it tends to be the male halves of Grand Designs couples who have a stronger desire to build themselves a palace, whatever the cost, it seems that men are more inclined to start a new country: 70% of Verdis's citizens, and all seven of its government ministers, are men. This is not because of any kind of meninist agenda, Jackson assures me, and it is something he would like to address, but 'it's a lot harder to find women who are interested in getting involved'. While he awaits the day he can attempt to turn these plans for a settlement into reality, Jackson has been spreading the word about Verdis in his local area: he loves a kebab, and his loyal patronage has got the staff at Dover Kebab posting stories about Verdis on Instagram. Jackson moved to Dover after dropping out of school at 17. Australia's 'quite severe' lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic 'killed a lot of my motivation to continue to attend school', he says. He wanted a 'fresh start', and had 'always preferred being in the UK' to Australia, having visited many times throughout his childhood to see family. He initially secured a job with ferry company DFDS, on the Dover to Dunkirk route. Though freelance work suits him much better these days, given his frequent trips to south-east Europe, he still loves the ferries, and plans to treat himself to a short trip to Calais soon. He's had a 'full-on July' travelling to Serbia to raise awareness about Verdis, and briefly to Verdis itself, where he was once again chased off the land by Croatian police. Jackson says he has been assured that the territory is rightfully his under international law, but 'it's hard for us to take legal action against Croatia when they're not allowing us to access their legal system', he says. He tells me about a recent instance when citizens of Liberland tried to take a Croatian police officer to court after he injured one of them, and 'the judge threw the case out because it didn't happen in Croatian territory'. Any attempts by Verdisians to make similar cases would probably be discarded in the same way, he thinks. 'And in order to take a case to the European court of human rights, 'we have to exhaust all resources in Croatia, which is hard for us to do'. The Croatian authorities were approached but have made no comment on Jackson's case. Resuming a settlement on the land is Jackson's primary goal – a presence there will release funding that has been agreed with an NGO (he can't tell me which one, as he has been made to sign an NDA), and will vastly improve Verdis's chances of becoming an officially recognised state. But he says Croatia has 'now installed cameras all along Verdis's coastline, so if you even hover your boat for 10 minutes in the territorial waters, a Croatian police boat will be on its way very quickly'. And Jackson and his affiliates have to be careful – after the 2023 deportation, some of Verdis's boats went missing – he suspects they were taken by the Croatian authorities. He is remarkably hopeful, however. 'Croatia still insists Verdis is not part of Croatia,' he says. 'So we believe it's a matter of when, not if, we're back on the land.' He hopes that with enough pressure from publicity, or perhaps a change of Croatian government, the country will come to recognise Verdis – and even become open to working together. 'Even though we're not happy with what Croatia's done, especially their violation of international law and the way they've treated our citizens, we still want good relations with them in the future,' Jackson says. I'm not sure if his relentless optimism is simply due to his age or rooted more deeply in his character, but Jackson seems convinced that he will one day live in Verdis, and has plenty of dreams for what the country might eventually look like. Though the original environmental focus has taken a back seat ('We still want to be environmentally conscious … but as Verdis's population builds up we will have to relocate a lot of wildlife'), he envisions the country as a neutral state; 'a middleground between other countries' and 'a good hub for NGOs'. Humanitarianism is a priority for Verdis's government. Most of its cabinet members have previously undertaken aid work – Bowles, for example, set up the Dover-based charity DIY Ukraine in 2022, delivering supplies to Ukrainians, and Verdis previously ran its own Ukrainian aid programme via this charity. Though Jackson says Verdis 'would want to be part of the eurozone', EU membership is not a goal: 'I am a very pro-EU person, but the EU is not designed for small countries.' A Eurovision song contest entry, on the other hand, very much is. 'We would love to, honestly,' Jackson says, adding that Verdis has 'quite a good few connections with Eurovision contestants anyway' – namely Luke Black, Serbia's 2023 entry, who Jackson has met and says is 'quite a big supporter' of Verdis. When approached by the Guardian, the singer said he had found Jackson's vision for Verdis 'interesting, especially given he's in his early 20s and leading such an initiative'. Though he is 'not affiliated with Verdis in any way', the singer added: 'I wish them well in their efforts.' Astonishingly, given all the time he has dedicated to Verdis's creation and his hopes for its future, Jackson plans to step down from the presidency the moment the country becomes an established state. 'I just want to be a normal citizen by then,' he says. His own politics are 'centrist', but he would accept the result of an election. 'Even if I don't agree with the next president's views, that's up to the Verdisians to decide, which I would always respect.' Some of his cabinet members may be interested in running for president, he thinks; but others, like him, have already become 'exhausted' by the workload involved. 'It would be nice to have a break,' he says. 'But we won't give up.' I can't help but wonder again why he is bothering to go through all of this when it's such an uphill battle, and the reward – a sliver of land that is currently uninhabitable – seems so small. 'You have to be nuts to start something like this, of course,' he concedes. 'But the world is boring without trying something crazy.'
Telegraph
24 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Reform should spend less time worrying about flags, says Labour minister
A Labour minister has claimed Reform UK should spend less time 'worrying' about flags amid a row over councils removing the England flag. Torsten Bell said Reform should focus on public services after Nigel Farage's party promised the councils under its control would not remove patriotic flags put up in the streets. Over the past fortnight, local authorities in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham have both pledged to remove Union and St George's flags flown from lamp-posts. The flags had appeared in the east London borough and England's second city as part of an online 'patriotism campaign' called Operation Raise the Colours. When asked about the row, Mr Bell, a Treasury and pensions minister, told Sky News: 'I haven't seen any of those stories. But I'll tell you about an important flag, because it was VJ Day last week and I was in Swansea. 'And there's a flag in the minster in Swansea which is a Union Jack made by people who were prisoners of war, captured in Sumatra during the Second World War, made out of what they could have to hand during that process. And they did that so that they could bury British military servicemen during that war who died in captivity. 'So flags can be really important, that was a very moving ceremony last week. I don't know about the story you're talking about, but flags are really important, particularly when they recognise our national story.' Asked if he believed that flags 'can be' important or whether they were important by default, Mr Bell replied: 'There are Welsh and there are British flags flying in Swansea.' Challenged on whether he had anything against Reform actively making a point of flying British and English flags, he said: 'What, to encourage flag flying? 'Look, my honest view is that if Reform spent more time worrying about improving public services rather than which flags they were either wanting up or wanting to ban, then the country would be a better place.' Earlier this week, Reform said Union and St George's flags 'can and should' fly across the country. In May, the party told the 10 councils it won control of at the local elections that they would only be allowed to fly the Union flag and the flag of St George. The decision saw the Ukrainian flag, as well as flags representing LGBT Pride and Black History Month, removed from Reform-led council buildings across the country. Responding to Mr Bell's comments, Mr Farage told The Telegraph: 'I think Torsten Bell reveals the real Labour Party. 'They hate the English national flag with a passion which puts them at odds with working-class England.' The Treasury minister's remarks struck a different tone from comments made by Downing Street earlier in the week. Sir Keir Starmer's official spokesman said that while the Prime Minister was not familiar with the stories involving the councils, he was a 'patriot' who backed people flying the flag. Tower Hamlets, run by Aspire, a local political party, has said it will remove any St George's flags from council property, including lamp-posts, 'as soon as possible'. In Birmingham, the Labour-run council has claimed the flags put the lives of pedestrians and motorists 'at risk'. Birmingham council declared effective bankruptcy in 2023 and has been grappling with bin strikes for more than five months. Refusing to rule out property tax raid Earlier in his Sky interview, Mr Bell had refused to rule out Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, launching a tax raid on high-value homes at her second Budget in October. Treasury officials are expected to push the Chancellor to consider a mansion tax on property sales after she ordered them to review Britain's complex web of taxes on homes. More radical options would include annual levies that would disproportionately hit homeowners in London and the South East. On being asked what reform of property taxes would look like, Mr Bell said: 'I'm a newish MP but I'm not an idiot. 'And you know tax decisions are made by the Chancellor, so I'm not going to speculate on individual taxes because then you'll ask me another three questions about other taxes. So the answer is taxes are matters for budgets and matters for chancellors. 'What I can say is this Government is going to get things built again.' When it was put to him that he is a Treasury minister, Mr Bell replied: 'That's another reason why I'm not going to start speculating on individual taxes. 'You'll get the same [answer as when] you ask any minister all the time and at some point there'll be a learning curve and we won't just go through rehearsing each individual question.'
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
Ukraine 'destroys key Russian train' in massive blow to Putin as 'nothing left alive'
The train, said to have been carrying Russian fuel and cars, was reportedly blown up and derailed following a Ukrainian military operation which caused it to spew fire and smoke A Russian train was reportedly blown up and derailed by Ukrainian saboteurs in a major attack which saw flames tear through the vehicle and thick black smoke billowing into the sky. Forces are said to have hit an area between Tokmak and Urozhaine in the occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine, following a Ukrainian military operation. Petro Andryushchenko, former adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, claimed "nothing alive was left" as he announced the attack on Telegram. "Yes. It's burning down. The train. There is no more Russian rail service through occupied Zaporizhzhia," Andryushchenko wrote. "Nothing alive was left. Who asked why the Russians were hauling fuel and cars at night? That's why," he added. "To avoid such losses. It didn't work. A unique operation by the Defense Forces of Ukraine. Just great, believe me!" Images shared to Telegram show the extent of the damage caused, with a huge train covered in flames and dark smoke filling the sky. Ukraine or Russia are yet to make an official comment on the attack. It is not clear exactly how the blast happened, but the logistics train is said to have become derailed between Urozhayny and Tokmak in Ukraine's south. It comes after a number of successful operations by Ukraine deep behind enemy lines, most notably in June when more than 100 Ukrainian drones struck air bases deep inside Russia. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the operation, dubbed Spider's Web, took more than 18 months to plan. This latest attack comes just a day after Russian missiles tore through Zaporizhzhia Cit, killing three people and leaving 20 injured. While Russian forces control major areas of Zaporizhzhia, Vladimir Putin has reportedly told Donald Trump he would consider freezing the frontline in both Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, in exchange for Ukraine withdrawing from Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The US President is now arranging to have Zelensky and Putin in the same room within the next two weeks to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine, German chancellor Friedrich Merz said after talks at the White House on Monday.
