Jordan Bardella and Nigel Farage are trying to look less like protest leaders and more like prime ministers-in-waiting. Institut Montaigne sees their Birmingham summit as a calculated credibility operation, with migration and sovereignty used to advertise a new nationalist cooperation across the Channel.

Germany has crossed a political threshold that its mainstream parties can no longer dismiss as an eastern protest. The AfD stormed to 43.8 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its 2021 result and leaving it just three seats short of an outright majority.

Europe is spending more on defence, but RAND warns that money alone will not make the continent ready for the threats already hitting it. Russian sabotage, hybrid pressure and attacks on critical infrastructure are exposing weak spots far beyond the battlefield.

Europe has spent 15 years pretending it has a common defence procurement market. In reality, most governments ignored the rules, protected national champions and kept buying heavily from outside the EU, especially the United States.

France and Sweden are moving far beyond a one-off arms deal. Stockholm’s €4.3bn order for four French-built Luleå-class frigates is becoming the anchor for a much broader defence partnership covering missiles, air defence, nuclear deterrence and possibly future combat aircraft.

Britain’s migration row is moving into a more dangerous phase as far-right activists shift their attention from asylum hotels to ordinary residential homes. The report shows vigilantes identifying houses used to accommodate asylum seekers, circulating addresses online and turning local anger into direct intimidation and violence.

A fresh scramble for influence is under way across Eurasia, but no new superpower bloc is ready to replace the US-led order. China, Russia, India and Turkey all want more room to manoeuvre, yet each is boxed in by rivalries, economic limits and clashing strategic interests.