Sunday newspaper round-up: Reform, Ukraine, 'Swift courts', Airbus, Elon Musk
By Iain Gilbert
Date: Sunday 07 Dec 2025
(Sharecast News) - Reform UK expelled a senior local figure on Friday after broadcaster Sangita Myska alleged she had been subjected to racial slurs, with the Guardian reporting that Nigel Farage's rhetoric was emboldening attacks on people of colour. Myska, who has presented programmes for the BBC and LBC, said former Staffordshire council leader Ian Cooper told her she was English "only in your dreams" because of her south Asian heritage. Cooper, a two‑time Reform UK parliamentary candidate, was forced to resign his council leadership role after the party revoked his membership. The Guardian noted that the incident has raised fresh concerns about the tone of political debate and its impact on minority communities.
Reform UK secured a high‑profile defection over the weekend as Lord Malcolm Offord, a millionaire Conservative donor elevated to the Lords by Boris Johnson, announced he was quitting the Tories to join Nigel Farage's party, the Independent reported. Offord said he planned to stand for election to the Scottish parliament next year, arguing the Scottish Conservatives had "given up" on the country. Farage introduced the former Tory minister at a rally in Falkirk on Saturday, hailing the move as "a brave and historic act" and predicting Offord would have a transformative impact on Reform's presence in Scotland. The Independent noted the defection marks a significant boost for Farage as he seeks to expand the party's influence north of the border.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that "next steps" had been agreed in talks with the United States over the country's post‑war future, the Independent reported. Zelensky posted on X that he had spoken with Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son‑in‑law Jared Kushner to review the third day of discussions, and would await the return of negotiators Rustem Umerov and General Hnatov from Florida before working on "ideas and proposals". Earlier in the day, Zelensky condemned Russia's latest drone strike as "meaningless from a military point of view", accusing Moscow of seeking only to inflict suffering on millions of Ukrainians. The Independent noted the comments came as Kyiv continued to face regular overnight attacks despite ongoing diplomatic efforts.
Justice secretary David Lammy unveiled plans this week to tackle the crown court backlog by introducing "swift courts", the Times reported. Under the proposals, judges sitting alone would decide guilt in cases carrying sentences of up to three years, as well as complex fraud trials, while magistrates' sentencing powers would be extended to 18 months. With around 80,000 cases currently waiting to be heard and forecasts suggesting the queue could top 100,000 without intervention, Lammy argued the reforms could cut trial times by 20% and rescue the system from "total collapse". However, senior legal figures told the Times they doubted the measures would resolve the crisis, pointing instead to deeper dysfunctions in the chronically underfunded justice system.
Airbus is set to safeguard 2,750 UK engineering jobs after reaching a long‑awaited agreement with Boeing, the Times reported. Sources said the world's largest aircraft manufacturer will confirm as early as Monday that it is taking on 1,550 staff at the former Short Brothers factory in Belfast and 1,200 roles at Prestwick in Scotland. The move forms part of Boeing's $4.7bn takeover of Spirit AeroSystems, which owns both sites, and follows months of uncertainty for workers kept in place by short‑term arrangements while negotiations continued. According to the Times, the deal will provide significant relief across the UK aerospace sector, where job security had been in question since Boeing first announced its acquisition plans last year.
Elon Musk has called for the European Union to be "abolished" after the bloc fined his social media platform X €120m, the Telegraph reported. Musk lashed out at officials over transparency breaches and threatened to pursue individual countries in a series of posts on the site, which he rebranded from Twitter in 2022. "The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people," he wrote. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk later defended the bloc, describing Europe as America's closest ally, while tensions between Washington and Brussels continued to mount. According to the Telegraph, Donald Trump's administration released a national security strategy on Thursday accusing the EU of undermining "political liberty and sovereignty," censoring free speech and encouraging uncontrolled migration, while pledging to prioritise fair treatment of US workers and businesses in dealings with the continent.
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