News
Good morning and welcome to your Unbound Daily Briefing for Wednesday 8th July - topics we are covering today include:
- Clacton By-Election - Rejoin EU Party Intend to Stand?
- Marine Le Pen Embezzlement Appeal Success?
Clacton By-Election - Rejoin EU Party Intend to Stand?
Yesterday the Reform UK leader and MP for Clacton, Nigel Farage, stated in a live broadcast that we would resign as the MP for Clacton to allow for his constituents to re-confirm their support for him and his party, following recent accusations of impropriety around personal and party finances. Following this announcement, all major national political parties have distanced themselves from what they have declared to be a political stunt, and declared that they will not legitimize the process by standing a candidate.
The Rejoin EU Party has repeatedly suggested on social media that it intends to field a candidate (though has also posted that it doesn't have one and asked for volunteers), but their statements have been largely ignored by the media who have instead suggested that the by-election will be a two-horse race between Nigel Farage and the satirical comedy candidate of Count Binface.
That none of the media are taking the candidacy of the Rejoin EU Party remotely seriously, instead focusing on a fictional alien overlord with a bin for a helmet, tells its own story.
Marine Le Pen Embezzlement Appeal Success?
In March 2025, the Parliamentary party leader of the French political party Rassemblement National ("National Rally") Marine Le Pen, alongside 24 other party members including MEPs and assistants, was convicted of having used EU funds (intended for use to fund EU political expenditure) to fund national political expenses within France, between 2004 and 2016. This ruling, in the case of Marine Le Pen, meant that should would have been ineligible to stand in the upcoming Presidential election in 2027.
Yesterday the appeal against this decision was finalised, and though the conviction was upheld, the inability to run for President was removed - which has since resulted in Le Pen announcing that she will run as a candidate for the French Presidency.
Rassemblement National are a strongly Eurosceptic party, and are currently leading in the national polls. A victory for Marine Le Pen in 2027 would not only send shockwaves through France, but could have significant implications for the entire European Union.
The reduced sentence on appeal, and the announcement of candidacy that immediately followed, has effectively fired the starting gun on the 2027 French Presidential election campaign - and the topic of France and its place within the EU will be a common feature of any and all debates that take place in the run up, as well as the French relationship with the UK.
The British press are typically bad at covering political stories from the continental Europe, but the Britain Unbound team will bring you all the big stories that have implications for the UK and our relationship with both France and the wider EU.
