When Andy Burnham declared a border poll “off the table,” he set off a fierce dispute over what the Belfast Agreement actually requires and who has the right to demand a referendum. This piece examines the competing claims of Michelle O’Neill, Malachy O’Doherty and others, and asks whether a future Farage government could change the calculation entirely.

The AfD swept nearly 44% of the vote in Saxony Anhalt, halving Chancellor Merz’s CDU’s vote-share and leaving the left-wing BSW holding the balance of power in an alliance few thought possible. Eoin Ó Murchú examines how working class despair and fatigue with conflict in Ukraine are dismantling the firewall that once kept the German establishment intact.

When Israel declared children’s kites drifting from Gaza an existential security threat and ordered the military to “act massively,” the resulting strikes killed at least three Palestinians, including a four-year-old. Drawing on the analysis of human rights lawyer Jonathan Kuttab, this article by Dianne Kirby argues that such a disproportionate response reveals a pathological insecurity at the heart of Israeli society, one that threatens Palestinians and enabler allies alike.

European leaders are escalating war rhetoric and shifting resources from welfare to warfare. Eoin Ó Murchú’s article for Unity argues that a conflict with Russia is one Europe simply cannot win, with nuclear arsenals setting the stakes. We must oppose the drums of war and the false flag excuses being used to justify escalation. Working class communities, not politicians, will pay the price of warmongering.

The recent court ruling overturning the ban on the Orange Order’s Garvaghy Road march has reopened old wounds and put Stormont back on shaky ground, just weeks after the fleadh was hailed as a turning point for community relations. Raymond O’Connell brings a personal perspective to the controversy, recalling how the Drumcree standoff once cost him the school he ran when it was destroyed in the rioting that followed.

As the United States moves to dismantle the International Criminal Court through sanctions on its judges and prosecutors, one of the last institutions capable of holding political leaders accountable for genocide and war crimes faces an existential threat. This article follows the long history of US hostility toward the court, from the so-called Hague invasion act to the recent arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu and Gallant over Gaza.

Bonfires topped with mosques, placards blaming Muslim immigrants for crime, and politicians warning of “alien cultures” all point to a hardening anti-Muslim narrative taking root across Northern Ireland. Mike Morrissey traces these slogans from the streets of Newtownabbey to the Great Replacement theory and the X posts of the world’s richest man, asking what history this story conveniently forgets.

Across four extraordinary paintings, from the triumphant Assumption of the Virgin to the harrowing Flaying of Marsyas, Titian charted the slow collapse of Renaissance humanism as religious reaction and early capitalism reshaped his world. Jenny Farrell traces how the artist’s brushstrokes registered the shift from republican confidence to alienation and catastrophe.

Iceland has rejected its government’s proposal to open EU accession talks by a 52.5% to 47.5% margin, a result driven overwhelmingly by fishermen wary of surrendering their waters to the Common Fishing Policy. This piece by Eoin Ó Murchú examines why Icelanders saw through the referendum “ploy,” what it means for a recession bound EU already reeling from Brexit, and the uncomfortable questions it raises about how Ireland gave away its own fisheries for nothing.

At Drumcree church the same dreary steeple looms into view once more, and John Molloy argues that its persistent power reveals how political unionism has chosen nihilist loyalism as its guiding star while successive British governments respond with patronising indifference. From Churchill’s “white man’s burden” to Andy Burnham declaring a border poll “off the table,” this piece traces how the British state and its local proxies emerged as the true beneficiaries of 1998, and asks what progressive alternative could finally break the deadlock.