French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that the far right National Rally (RN) party and the leftwing New Popular Front coalition – both of which are frontrunners in the parliamentary election – risked bringing “civil war” to France.

Macron told the podcast Generation Do It Yourself that the manifesto of the RN party – which election pollsters put in first place – and their solutions to deal with fears over crime and immigration were based upon “stigmatisation or division”.

“I think that the solutions given by the far right are out of the question, because it is categorising people in terms of their religion or origins and that is why it leads to division and to civil war,” he told the podcast.

Macron made the same criticism of the extreme leftwing La France Insoumise (LFI) party, which forms part of the New Popular Front coalition.

“But that one as well, there is a civil war behind that because you are solely categorising people in terms of their religious outlook or the community they belong to, which in a way is a means of justifying isolating them from the broader national community, and in this case, you would have a civil war with those who do not share those same values,” said Macron.

Asked to respond to Macron’s comments, RN president Jordan Bardella – seen as a possible prime minister if the RN wins the most votes in the election – replied to M6 TV: “A president should not say that.“

France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon also condemned Macron’s comments in an interview with France 2 TV, saying it was Macron’s own policies that were bringing about civil unrest, for example in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

Macron’s comments were broadcast hours after the RN released its election manifesto, which promises to limit immigration and scrap nationality rights for children born and raised in France by foreign parents.

At the manifesto launch in Paris, Bardella said the party’s long-term priority was to “put France back on its feet” by introducing what he called “a necessary law against Islamist ideologies”. The details of this project were not spelled out.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is expected to plead guilty this week to violating US espionage law, in a deal that could end his imprisonment in Britain and allow him to return home to Australia.

US prosecutors said in court papers that Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Assange is due to be sentenced at a hearing on the island of Saipan at 9am local time on Wednesday (2300 GMT on Tuesday). Under the deal, which must be approved by a judge, he is likely to be credited for the five years he has already served and face no new jail time.

WikiLeaks in 2010 released hundreds of thousands of classified US military documents on Washington’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – the largest security breaches of their kind in US military history – along with swaths of diplomatic cables.

An Australian government spokesperson did not confirm or deny the plea deal but said Canberra was “aware” of the legal proceedings, adding: “prime minister [Anthony] Albanese has been clear – Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration.”

The plea agreement comes months after President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the US push to prosecute Assange.

Assange was indicted during former President Donald Trump’s administration over WikiLeaks’ mass release of secret US documents, which were leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former US military intelligence analyst who was also prosecuted under the Espionage Act.

The trove of more than 700,000 documents included diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts such as a 2007 video of a US Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people including two Reuters news staff. That video was released in 2010.

The charges against Assange sparked outrage among his many global supporters who have long argued that Assange as the publisher of WikiLeaks should not face charges typically used against federal government employees who steal or leak information.

Many press freedom advocates have argued that criminally charging Assange represents a threat to free speech.

Assange was first arrested in Britain in 2010 on a European arrest warrant after Swedish authorities said they wanted to question him over sex-crime allegations that were later dropped.

He fled to Ecuador’s embassy, where he remained for seven years, to avoid extradition to Sweden.

He was dragged out of the embassy in 2019 and jailed for skipping bail. He has been in London’s Belmarsh top security jail ever since, from where he has for almost five years been fighting extradition to the US. The hearing is taking place in the Mariana Islands because of Assange’s opposition to travelling to the continental US and the court’s proximity to Australia.

While in Belmarsh, Assange married his partner Stella with whom he had two children while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act and other offences for leaking classified government and military documents to WikiLeaks.

President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, allowing her release after about seven years behind bars.

Reuters contributed to this report

Just when Luka Modric and Croatia looked ready for one last dance, the rug was pulled away. A beautifully curled equaliser from the Italy substitute Mattia Zaccagni, with virtually the last kick of eight minutes added time, sent Luciano Spalletti’s holders through and surely means Croatia are out. They seemed to have just written a stunning new chapter when Modric blasted in 33 seconds after missing a penalty. Italy barely came close after that until Zaccagni sparked scenes of disbelief in a stadium packed with Croatia supporters who had been ready to party into the Saxon night.

The cruellest of endings looked likely for Modric when, early in the second half, he fired a penalty too close to Gianluigi Donnarumma. Within 33 seconds, though, he had wrought a moment for the record books. In the next attack he thrashed in a rebound to become, two and a half months shy of his 39th birthday, the European Championships’ oldest goalscorer.

If nothing else, the mathematics behind Croatia’s task were uncomplicated at the outset. This was essentially a straight knockout, unless an improbable set of results came to pass elsewhere, and not one they could take to extra time or penalties. Their ability to go the distance is legendary but only a shorter, sharper shock to a similarly nervy Italy would do here. Zlatko Dalic needed to freshen up a team that had struggled against Albania’s energy so it was little surprise that he rotated in four positions, the forwards Mario Pasalic and Luka Sucic given their first starts of the tournament.

The margin between success and failure for Italy was blurrier. A point would do; anything less would at best consign them to 48 hours chewing on the third-place lottery. Spalletti bore out his promise to shake things up: they had been outplayed by Spain but the intention behind three changes here and a switch to 3-5-2, Giacomo Raspadori and Mateo Retegui deployed as strike partners, was that they asserted themselves.

It was Croatia, though, who began on the front foot. Their support, numerically dominant by a distance, had lit up Leipzig in the previous 24 hours and in the fifth minute Sucic lined up a firecracker of his own. The Red Bull Salzburg player, who at 21 is chief among the prospects Croatia hope will take the baton from their celebrated old guard, cut inside and demanded a flying tip-over from Donnarumma with a rising 25-yard drive.

Spalletti had admitted, in previewing the match, that in some aspects Croatia were a more skilful and technical side than his own. It appeared that way early on, Dalic’s players evidently the more practised at working the ball in tight spaces. Josko Gvardiol earned approval from the chequered throngs with smart footwork in his own half; an incisive move at the other end resulted in Matteo Darmian stretching to stop Pasalic converting an Andrej Kramaric centre.

Italy were finding space with the occasional quick switch out wide and, as the 20-minute mark passed, claimed a foothold. A towering Retegui headed wide, via a snick off Gvardiol, having seemingly done the hard work in meeting Riccardo Calafiori’s delicious left-sided cross. It sparked a prolonged period of pressure that brought three corners and, from the last of them, an even better opportunity to score. Alessandro Bastoni had nobody near him at the far post when Nicolò Barella chipped the ball back across but his header was marginally too close to Dominik Livakovic, whose reflex stop was nonetheless mightily sharp.

Now it became a genuine knife-edge affair. Both teams were snapping, hustling, prowling with intent. Smoke drifted through the air from a series of fireworks set off behind Livakovic’s goal; Donnarumma beat away a driven cross from Modric and, shortly afterwards, his counterpart did well to hold a low effort from Lorenzo Pellegrini. For all the questions asked, no resolution lay in sight when the interval arrived.

Nine minutes into the second half, Croatia had one in view. What a staggering sequence of play it was, and what testament to Modric’s career. Who would have bet on him failing to score from the spot when the referee, Danny Makkelie, awarded a penalty after Kramaric’s shot flicked the arm of the substitute Davide Frattesi?

It took a VAR check but Croatia’s vehement appeals were grounded in reality: Frattesi’s limb was outstretched and Modric had a chance to make history. The look of anguish that crossed his face when Donnarumma dived left to parry resembled, for the briefest moment, that of a man crushed. That was deceptive; of course it was.

Within a minute Croatia roared straight back. A deep Sucic cross from the inside right was guided towards goal by Ante Budimir, introduced by Dalic at the break, and Donnarumma again saved brilliantly. But there was Modric, running around the ball and hammering in emphatically, to offer one of the summer’s most thrilling moments so far.

The stands shook, blazing red. This was now an atmosphere to rival any but Croatia needed to stand firm. Italy embarked upon a kitchen sink job and Bastoni, thudding onto a right-sided corner, missed the target when given a fine opportunity to make amends. Spalletti called upon Enrico Chiesa and Gianluca Scamacca. Croatia were defending for their lives now, although Italy had to be mindful of not conceding again and Bastoni took a Marcelo Brozovic cross away from the lurking Budimir’s head. A frantic Italy seemed to have run out of time before Zaccagni, open on the left flank and given space to size up his finish, applied the late twist.

A new law coming into effect in Colorado in July is banning everyday products that intentionally contain toxic “forever chemicals”, including clothes, cookware, menstruation products, dental floss and ski wax – unless they can be made safer.

Under the legislation, which takes effect on 1 July, many products using per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances – or PFAS chemicals linked to cancer risk, lower fertility and developmental delays – will be prohibited starting in 2026.

By 2028, Colorado will also ban the sale of all PFAS-treated clothes, backpacks and waterproof outdoor apparel. The law will also require companies selling PFAS-coated clothing to attach disclosure labels.

The initial draft of state senate bill 81, introduced in 2022, included a full ban on PFAS beginning in 2032. But that measure was written out after facing opposition.

Colorado has already passed a measure requiring companies to phase out PFAS in carpets, furniture, cosmetics, juvenile products, some food packaging and those used in oil and gas production.

The incoming law’s diluted version illustrates the challenges lawmakers have in regulating chemicals that are used to make products waterproof, nonstick or resistant to staining. Manufacturers say the products, at best, will take time to make with a safer replacement – or at worst, are not yet possible to get made in such fashion.

The American Chemistry Council said the bill before its dilution would have created “severe disruption for Coloradoans” as well as undercut “the compromises that were reached in 2022 PFAS legislation”. The council said the original bill would have created “broad, sweeping bans before that law [had] even been implemented”.

But the trade group later said that it appreciated “the efforts of Colorado lawmakers to take a more focused approach to the issue”, adding: “Policymakers at both the state and federal levels seem to be recognizing that it is not scientifically accurate to group all fluoro chemistry together and that there are critical, safe uses of this chemistry.”

Gretchen Salter – an adviser with Safer States, a group that says Colorado is one of 28 states to adopt policies on PFAS – told the Denver Post in March: “The more we look for PFAS, the more we find. That makes regulating PFAS really tricky because it is in so many things.”

But the new law does not account for PFAS that are already in the environment. Colorado recently found that 29 of more than 2,000 water treatment facilities in the state do not meet new federal limits on PFAS levels of four parts per trillion.

The ubiquity of “forever chemicals” was illustrated recently by a study that found microplastics in penises for the first time, raising questions about a potential role in erectile dysfunction. The revelation comes after the pollutants were recently found in every human placenta tested in a study, leaving the researchers worried about the potential health impacts on developing foetuses.

In Colorado, state senator Lisa Cutter, one of the sponsors of the new law there, has said she still wants a complete ban on PFAS but acknowledges the problems. “As much as I want PFAS to go away forever and forever, there are going to be some difficult pivots,” she told the outlet.

They include balancing the potential cost to consumers in making products PFAS-free. Cutter told CBS News that it was “really hard” challenging lobbying groups that “spent a lot of money ensuring that these chemicals can continue being put into our products and make profits”.

Cutter said had been accused of stifling innovation and industry. She said she believed companies could be successful while also looking out for the communities they serve.

“Certainly, there are cases where it’s not plausible right away to gravitate away from them, but we need to be moving in that direction,” Cutter said. “Our community shouldn’t have to pay the price for their health.”

George Monbiot, whom I generally greatly respect, sounds more outraged by the RSPCA than by the factory farms, or the supermarkets that support them, or the legislation that allows people to torture birds and animals on a mass scale (How Britain’s oldest animal welfare charity became a byword for cruelty on an industrial scale, 18 June). He tries and finds guilty a charity that raises its funds through small shops and donations, and is dependent on volunteers, for not standing up to big business interests. Instead of criticising the RSPCA, dare I suggest that those of us who care about this could join those volunteers, and help support their aims for a cruelty-free country from a place of solidarity?
Sushila Dhall
Oxford

Thanks to George Monbiot for highlighting this iniquitous RSPCA Assured scheme for animal-rearing. It makes me so angry when I see this displayed in places like Marks & Spencer. Chris Packham should condemn the misuse of animals very publicly and resign as its president.
Molly Sendall
Gateshead, Tyne and Wear

A former employee of Donald Trump’s pre-presidency organization has publicly claimed that he once made jokes about Nazi “ovens” while Jewish executives were in the same room.

Barbara Res – a lead engineer on the construction of Trump Tower and author of a memoir, Tower of Lies, about her almost two decades working for the former president – told MSNBC on Sunday that her erstwhile boss would make “ridiculous remarks”.

“We had just hired a residential manager, a German guy,” Res said. “And Donald [Trump] was bragging among – to us executives, there were four of us – about how great the guy was and he was a real gentleman, and he was so neat and clean. And he looked at a couple of our executives who happen to be Jewish, and he said, ‘Watch out for this guy – he sort of remembers the ovens,’ you know, and then smiled.

“Everybody was shocked,” she continued. “I couldn’t believe he said that. But he was making a joke about the Nazi ovens and killing people, and that’s the way he was.”

The Nazis in Germany systematically murdered more than 6 million Jews during the Holocaust and the second world war, and burned the bodies of many in ovens at concentration camps.

Res’s story on Sunday came as both parties are attempting to court the Jewish vote in November’s election, which is expected to be a rematch between Trump and Joe Biden. That vote may be in play over the Biden White House’s handling of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

Trump has argued that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats hate both Israel and Judaism, saying that he and his Republican party are better placed to help end the Gaza war.

Res, who has been critical of Trump’s treatment of women in the past, said the former president’s “embrace of religion” is “absolute nonsense”. She didn’t elaborate, but at the center of the criminal prosecution which recently led to Trump’s conviction on 34 felonies was hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actor who alleged an adulterous affair with Trump early into his marriage with Melania Trump.

Res offered advice to Biden ahead of his televised debate with Trump, scheduled for Thursday.

“I wish [Biden] would goad him and make him go nuts, because when he goes nuts, he’s really crazy,” Res said.

Res’s MSNBC appearance came after Trump held a weekend campaign rally in Philadelphia. She recalled the Nazi joke Trump once told in part because of his choosing to repeat at the rally a hypothetical situation involving an electric boat that sinks under the weight of its batteries and electrocutes the passengers, who are then circled by a shark.

An opera-loving member of high society turned eco-activist who was forced into police protection with a panic button round his neck. A Hollywood actor who recorded said activist’s life story as he was dying from exposure to the very chemicals he was investigating. Throw in two investigative journalists who realise not everything is as it seems, then uncover some startling truths, and you have “podcasting’s strangest team” on Buried: The Last Witness.

On their award-winning 2023 podcast Buried, the husband and wife duo Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor dug into illegal toxic waste dumping in the UK and its links to organised crime. This time, they focus on “forever chemicals”, specifically polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and set out to discover whether one whistleblower may have been decades ahead of his time in reporting on their harmful impact.

“It’s amazing how big the scale of this story is,” says Ashby, as we sit backstage at the Crucible theatre, where they are doing a live discussion as part of Sheffield DocFest. “With this series, we don’t just want it to make your blood turn cold, we want it to make you question your own blood itself.”

It all started when Taylor and Ashby were sent a lead about the work of former farmer’s representative Douglas Gowan. In 1967, he discovered a deformed calf in a field and began to investigate strange goings on with animals close to the Brofiscin and Maendy quarries in south Wales. He linked them to the dumping of waste by companies including the nearby Monsanto chemical plant, which was producing PCBs.

PCBs were used in products such as paint and paper to act as a fire retardant, but they were discovered to be harmful and have been banned since 1981 in the UK. However, due to their inability to break down – hence the term forever chemical – Gowan predicted their legacy would be a troubling one. “I expect there to be a raft of chronic illness,” he said. He even claimed that his own exposure to PCBs (a result of years of testing polluted grounds) led his pancreas and immune system to stop working. “I’m a mess and I think it can all be attributed to PCBs,” he said.

However, Gowan wasn’t a typical environmentalist. “A blue-blood high-society Tory and a trained lawyer who could out-Mozart anyone,” is how Taylor describes him in the series. He would even borrow helicopters from friends in high places to travel to investigate farmers’ fields. Gowan died in 2018 but the pair managed to get hold of his life’s work – confidential reports, testing and years of evidence. “I’m interested in environmental heroes that aren’t cliche,” says Ashby. “So I was fascinated by him. But then we started to see his flaws and really had to weigh them up. My goodness it’s a murky world we went into.”

The reason they were able to delve even deeper into this murky world is because of the award-winning actor Michael Sheen who, in 2017, came across Gowan’s work in a story he read. He was so blown away by it, and the lack of broader coverage, that he tracked him down. “I got a message back from him saying: ‘Please come and see me because I’ll be dead soon,’” says Sheen. “I took a camera with me and spent a couple of days with him and just heard this extraordinary story.”

What Gowan had been trying to prove for years gained some traction in 2007, with pieces in the Ecologist and a Guardian article exploring how “Monsanto helped to create one of the most contaminated sites in Britain”. One was described as smelling “of sick when it rains and the small brook that flows from it gushes a vivid orange.” But then momentum stalled.

Years later, in 2023, Ashby and Taylor stumbled on a recording of Sheen giving the 2017 Raymond Williams memorial lecture, which referenced Gowan and his work. Before they knew it, they were in the actor’s kitchen drinking tea and learning he had conducted a life-spanning seven-hour interview with Gowan before his death. So they joined forces. Sheen isn’t just a token celebrity name added for clout on this podcast; he is invested. For him, it’s personal as well as political. “Once you dig into it, you realise there’s a pattern,” he says. “All the places where this seems to have happened are poor working-class areas. There’s a sense that areas like the one I come from are being exploited.”

Sheen even goes to visit some contaminated sites in the series, coming away from one feeling sick. “That made it very real,” he says. “To be looking into a field and going: ‘Well, I’m pretty sure that’s toxic waste.’” Sheen was living a double life of sorts. “I went to rehearsals for a play on Monday and people were like, ‘What did you do this weekend?’” he says. “‘Oh, I went to the most contaminated area in the UK and I think I may be poisoned.’ People thought I was joking.” Sheen ended up being OK, but did have some temporary headaches and nausea, which was a worry. “We literally had to work out if we had poisoned Michael Sheen,” says Ashby, who also ponders in the series: “Have I just killed a national treasure?”

The story gets even knottier. Gowan’s findings turn out to be accurate and prescient, but the narrative around his journey gets muddy. As a character with a flair for drama, he turned his investigation into a juicy, riveting story filled with action, which could not always be corroborated. “If he hadn’t done that, and if he’d been a nerdy, analytical, detail-oriented person who just presented the scientific reports and kept them neatly filed, would we have made this podcast?” asks Taylor, which is a fascinating question that runs through this excellent and gripping series.

Ashby feels that Gowan understood how vital storytelling is when it comes to cutting through the noise. “We have so much science proving the scale of these problems we face and yet we don’t seem to have the stories,” he says. “I think Douglas got that. Fundamentally, he understood that stories motivate human beings to act. But then he went too far.”

However, this is not purely about Gowan’s story – it’s about evidence. The Last Witness doubles up as a groundbreaking investigation into the long-lasting impact of PCBs. “We threw the kitchen sink at this,” says Ashby. “The breakthrough for us is that the Royal Society of Chemistry came on board and funded incredibly expensive testing. So we have this commitment to go after the truth in a way that is hardly ever done.”

From shop-bought fish so toxic that it breaches official health advice to off-the-scale levels of banned chemicals found in British soil, the results are staggering. “The scientist almost fell off his chair,” says Ashby. “That reading is the highest he has ever recorded in soil – in the world. That was the moment we knew Douglas was right and we are now realising the scale of this problem. The public doesn’t realise that even a chemical that has been banned for 40 years is still really present in our environment.”

To go even deeper into just how far PCBs have got into our environment and food chain, Ashby and Taylor had their own blood tested. When Taylor found 80 different types of toxic PCB chemicals in her blood it was a sobering moment. “I was genuinely emotional because it’s so personal,” she says. “It was the thought of this thing being in me that was banned before I was even born and the thought of passing that on to my children.” Ashby adds: “We’ve managed physical risk in our life as journalists in Tanzania and with organised crime, but more scary than a gangster is this invisible threat to our health.”

In order to gauge the magnitude of what overexposure to PCBs can do, they headed to Anniston, Alabama, once home to a Monsanto factory. “As a journalist, you have an inbuilt scepticism and think it can’t be that bad,” says Ashby. “But when I got there I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I hate to use words like dystopian, but it was. There is a whole massive school that can’t be used. There’s illnesses in children and cancers. It truly was the most powerful vignette of the worst-case example of these chemicals.”

It’s bleak stuff but instilling fear and panic is not the intention. “Obviously, we’re really concerned about it,” says Ashby. “And although the environmental crises we face do feel overwhelming, it is incredible how a movement has formed and how individuals are taking action in communities. The lesson to take from Douglas is that the response doesn’t have to be resignation. It can be agency.”

Find a project …

Get stuck into some slimy stuff with the year-long Big Seaweed Search and help to monitor seaweed biodiversity along UK coastlines, a key indicator of ocean health. Just download the seaweed guide and recording forms and submit your results to
bigseaweedsearch.org.

If tackling plastic pollution is your thing, you can join beach cleaners worldwide to collect and record plastic particles with the Great Nurdle Hunt (nurdlehunt.org.uk); or help the University of Portsmouth gather pollution data in its Big Microplastic Survey (microplasticsurvey.org); alternatively, find a coastal clean-up near you through the Marine Conservation Society database (mcsuk.org).

For keen divers and snorkellers alike, citizen science project Seasearch offers free training to help divers identify and record what they spot underwater, contributing to a national effort to track the UK’s marine biodiversity at seasearch.org.uk.

Seagrass meadows themselves are powerhouses of biodiversity and sequester tons of carbon, too; you can join the movement to help restore the UK’s wild meadows with Seawildling Scotland, which welcomes volunteers to help plant and survey wild meadows at Loch Craignish (seawilding.org).

The Wild Oyster Project is trying to bring back the UK’s once vast oyster reefs, and invites volunteering, school and family groups to visit its restoration sites in England, Scotland and Wales, where you can pitch in to help conserve the fledgling reefs
(wild-oysters.org).

Keen rock poolers, take a look at the Rockpool Project, choose one of three survey guides, and record your finds at more than 70 coastal sites across the UK (therockpoolproject.co.uk).

Surfers Against Sewage has created the Ocean School, aimed at young nature-lovers, with a trove of free resources, classes and activities to get kids engaged with the sea
(sas.org.uk).

Turn your coastal sightings into citizen science by helping to monitor seabirds with the British Trust for Ornithology (bto.org), seals with the Dorset Wildlife Trust (seals.dorsetwildlifetrust.net), cuttlefish with the Cuttlefish Conservation Initiative (cuttlefishconservation.com), seahorses with the Seahorse Trust (theseahorsetrust.org), and even turtles with the Marine Conservation Society (mcsuk.org).

Where to visit …

With a recent £11.6m injection from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Plymouth will soon be home to the UK’s first national marine park, focused on connecting people with nature, restoring local salt marsh and seagrass habitat, and rehabilitating coastal landmarks such as Plymouth’s art deco seaside lido (plymouthsoundnationalmarinepark.com). The project is still in the early phases, but for the time being you can visit the local National Aquarium, the UK’s largest charitable aquarium, run by the Ocean Conversation Trust and focused on marine education (national-aquarium.co.uk).

Down in Devon, catch a wave or just enjoy the view at the UK’s first surfing reserve, established by Save the Waves, a nonprofit that works to protect places where wave ecosystems overlap with hotspots of marine biodiversity (savethewaves.org).

Head to the protected waters of Portelet and Bouley Bay around the island of Jersey, home to rare cold-water corals and kelp forests, and follow self-guided snorkel trails provided by the Blue Marine Foundation (bluemarinefoundation.com). Or scope out the self-guided trails on offer from the Scottish Wildlife Trust (scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk).

A bit farther afield, this year the Outer Hebrides wildlife festival returns between 22 and 29 June, with a fringe festival running throughout July, a celebration of coastal ecosystems with guided beach walks, wildlife surveys, exhibitions, and boat, surfing and snorkelling trips (outerhebrideswildlifefestival.co.uk).

Head to the Norfolk seaside towns of Horsey and Winterton to see one of the largest grey seal colonies in the UK: thousands of baby seals are born here during pupping season from November to January, a spectacle that you can observe from a safe distance on the surrounding dunes. The animals are protected by Friends of Horsey Seals, which can also arrange guided walks (friendsofhorseyseals.co.uk).

Annette Dittert: It’s bizarre that nobody’s talking about Brexit, or challenging Farage

For a German audience currently staring with disbelief at an upsurge of far-right populism on its own doorstep, the British elections are mostly a reminder of where the destructive cluelessness of populist politicians can lead a country. Nothing you want to look at too closely, when you are potentially just at the beginning of such a turn of events yourself.

But then there is something else. It’s not that Labour’s Keir Starmer is boring, as is often complained about here in London. (No, boring is good in Germany. It’s the ultimate German virtue.) The current mix of slight lack of interest and amazement in Germany stems from something different. It is the rather bizarre fact that nobody seems either able or willing to talk about what has happened since the 2016 referendum to leave the EU. Brex-omertà is a fascinating phenomenon, but one that is rather hard to explain in Hamburg or Berlin. It is a cliche, but we tend to acknowledge our problems, then try to develop strategies to fix them. This, however, is not what Britain generally, nor the Labour party specifically, has decided to do. And most of the UK media weirdly plays along.

This leaves the country with a big, problem that can’t be named, which increases the risk that past mistakes will be repeated. Seeing Nigel Farage re-emerge as the anti-establishment figure is surreal, to say the least. With some honourable exceptions, most interviewers are not willing to challenge Farage or break the Brexit taboo. Instead, they accept his deceitful narrative that he is (still) an outsider. They do not hold him to account for having used false claims and promises to lead Britain out of the EU. Instead they give him space to rant, again. It feels like a very British Groundhog Day.

The eerie silence around the issue seems even more absurd given that a large majority of British voters now regret Brexit. Those who would like it to be rectified have to hold their noses at the ballot box and hope Starmer is lying, or at least omitting parts of his plans for Britain’s future. If Labour does prove more radical in power than it currently appears – and to solve Britain’s economic problems it will have to be – others who vote Labour may feel they have been deceived.

Yet this is not a way to restore trust in politics so badly damaged by the populism of recent years. The total absence of a proper political debate on what has happened post-Brexit will also make it much harder for Labour when in office. Starmer might prove us all wrong and I genuinely hope he does, but seen from a continent that is just about to confront its own populist wave, his overly defensive tactics are hardly inspiring.

María Ramírez: The tone is more civil than in Spain but is filling potholes really a promise in a G7 country?

A few weeks ago, I interviewed James Hall, a British countertenor I once saw on Broadway playing Farinelli alongside Mark Rylance. He was on his final days of permitted work in the EU due to Brexit rules, and spoke about missing opportunities to sing around Europe, “maddening” bureaucracy and the sadness of British musicians who are no longer part of a “continental community”. Labour is promising to ease rules for touring musicians and Hall hoped things would change with Keir Starmer. But, talking to him, something seemed broken beyond immediate repair. The limited opportunities at home mean Hall is now singing less and seeking alternative employment as a teacher.

Sadness and cautious hope are common emotions I have found in my reporting from a UK on the cusp of a change that seems long overdue, considering how unusual it is to find voters declaring their support for the Conservatives.

The energy of “cool Britannia” which I covered over two decades ago is nowhere to be found. Promises are as underwhelming as the state of the public finances. I find it puzzling that filling potholes is an actual electoral promise of a national party in a G7 economy.

The tone of this election campaign is more civil, less polarised and more policy-based than what we see in Spain. At the same time, debate and interviews occur within a constrained framework of accepted truths: “net migration” is bad and everyone is tired of Brexit.

Pollsters and political experts keep telling me Brexit is no longer a main public concern as an explanation for why candidates and the journalists interviewing them talk so little about it.

Citizens may be tired of it, but my experience is that Brexit comes up in almost every conversation, especially when discussing broken Britain. No matter the topic, whether it is polluted water, a climate protest chorus, shady university donations, tomato shortages, high-speed trains or conspiracy theories on traffic filters: Brexit just comes up. When people learn that I am from Spain, they sometimes apologise to me as if the Brexit vote was an offence against European neighbours, even clarifying that they didn’t support leave. I take no offence, but I feel sorry for them.

Antonello Guerrera: Farage can smell blood. And Starmer should let his hair down

I have covered several election campaigns here in the UK and abroad, but I have never seen anything duller than this one. The Tories are destined to collapse after 14 tempestuous, sometimes scandalous years. Rishi Sunak, a pragmatic prime minister who toned down the hostile rhetoric and improved relations with the EU, has promised several tax cuts and more benefits for pensioners. Nevertheless, talking with voters along the campaign trail, a substantial chunk of the conservative base say they wouldn’t vote for the Tories this time, not even if they got their national insurance slashed by 70%.

The Labour party knows this well and has been playing it safe for two years. Labour invokes “change”, but there is no bold or inspirational promise. Just a pledge that they will be the good chaps, protecting Britain’s finances and restoring solidity and the country’s reputation.

At least Nigel Farage’s comeback to lead the Reform party has stirred things up, which tells us an awful lot about the state of the UK. Farage can smell blood.

To British friends and voters who advocate proportional representation, I always say: no system is perfect, but so far, first-past-the-post has saved your country from extremism or populist entities like the Five Star Movement in Italy.

I have travelled a lot along this campaign trail and find the British people have an overwhelming sense of disillusionment and fatalism. In Worcester, I met a young man, Muhammad Waleed, and he told me he was not sure if he would vote for Labour because he could not see real change coming. Jane, a GP and Conservative party member in Wiltshire, sounded hopeless: “The NHS gets less and less money.” Compared to other campaigns I have covered, this one has no room for dreams and big hopes, not least because the leaders sound either robotic or artificial.

Yet I travelled with Sunak to the G7, and I can assure you that he is way more entertaining and funny during informal chats than he appears in public. Recently, Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, said the same thing about her boss, Keir Starmer. It’s true, we live in a social media age where every little mistake goes viral and this petrifies both Sunak and Starmer. But if both let their hair down, showing more wit and a common touch, it would help them and British voters. Being natural and unpredictable has made the fortune of several controversial leaders, such as Boris Johnson, Silvio Berlusconi and Farage, despite the many flaws in their political records.

Tessa Szyszkowitz: The Austrian right is watching closely: will the Tories turn into a Trumpist party?

After Boris Johnson “got Brexit done”, feverish Austrian interest in Britain died down. When Brexit turned out to be what in Vienna we call a Rohrkrepierer (a dud), a tiny bit of shameful but quite delicious schadenfreude kept my readers going for a bit. But a medium-sized country with neither partners nor plans is only mildly newsworthy.

Now the general election has put the UK back in our news. For one, because Nigel Farage is back. Austrians, of course, like to know that their own far-right party is not the only one whose candidates entertain the public with eccentric views on Adolf Hitler. A Reform UK candidate who thinks the UK should have accepted Hitler’s offer of “neutrality”? Almost Austrian in spirit.

Farage is arguably a lesser threat to democracy than Austria’s far-right Freedom party. But he deserves our attention for a different reason: he could be hugely dangerous to the Tories. If the Conservative party needs a new leader after a painful defeat, the radicalised, populist right wing around Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg could try to crown the Reform UK leader.

Will Brexit, the poisoned gift that keeps on giving, turn the Tories into a Trumpist party like the Republicans in the US?. Austrian conservatives are watching closely since they are still reeling from the legacy of their own baby Trump, Sebastian Kurz, whose forced exit in 2021 left them directionless.

I went to Stevenage to take the temperature in a bellwether constituency that first voted for Tony Blair’s Labour in 1997 and has been Conservative since 2010. In 2016, 60% voted for Brexit. Today, I found no one who still supported it. On the contrary, the town needs foreign workers. Especially big companies located there, such as Airbus. Voters feel betrayed by the government.

After 14 years voters are turning quite naturally away from those in power. That might have happened, with or without Brexit. And now the UK, having delivered the rightwing populist project Brexit, may now get a social democratic government just as most of its EU neighbours are battling the rise of far-right parties. These parties might not be campaigning to quit the EU, but they certainly plan to undermine EU institutions and replace genuine European cooperation with nationalism. Only in the UK is the tide going in a different direction. As a result, with Labour in power, the UK might become more pro-European than some of the actual member states. The irony is not lost on me.

Jakub Krupa: With Trump and Marine Le Pen focusing minds, Poles still care about who runs Britain

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Polish coverage of the UK elections is that there is so little of it.

Despite still being one of the largest economies in the world, a Nato ally, and home to as many Poles as some of the largest Polish cities, Britain has quite astonishingly disappeared from the news horizon. Donald Trump versus Joe Biden? Sure. Emmanuel Macron’s gamble in France? Up to a point. But the UK general election, not so much.

Some of that is due to Poland’s extremely polarised domestic politics. There is little bandwidth for international news other than the war in Ukraine and the Moscow-induced migration crisis on Poland’s eastern border with Belarus.

The all-but-certain change of government in London is seen primarily through that lens. Will Labour-led Britain still support a free and independent Ukraine and Nato’s defence of the eastern flank?

For all the criticism of Conservatives domestically, both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak made the UK seem an important and reliable ally.

Some in Poland vaguely recall Labour’s ambiguous defence policy during Jeremy Corbyn’s years and want clarity on what, if anything, would change under Keir Starmer. Nothing? Great – there’s not much else to see here, then.

After the astonishment at the descent of the UK, once seen as a paragon of political stability and common sense, into utter chaos during the Johnson and Truss years, Poles have become so inured to unusual things happening in the UK that, paradoxically, the unusual no longer seems that unusual.

Brexit seems largely consigned to history, primarily seen as a cautionary tale for anyone thinking they could follow the same path. There is some surprise that despite growing signs of Bregret, there is little movement to reverse the decision. Similarly, the unexpected re-emergence of Nigel Farage as a political player and the almost existential challenge to the Conservative party are both noted, but mostly as political anecdotes or trivia.

Britain is no longer considered a tempting place to live. In fact, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, recently even made a specific political point at Britain’s expense. On the 20th anniversary of Poland’s accession to the EU, he promised Polish GDP per capita would surpass Britain’s by 2029. “It’s better to be in the EU,” he declared.

There are still enough reasons for Poles to care about who runs Britain, particularly as the spectre of Trump and Marine Le Pen focuses minds on international affairs. However, the contrast with previous campaigns could not be starker.

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The blood-red tentacles of the beadlet sea anemone seem to wave underwater, beckoning to be touched. I reach out a finger. Caitlin Woombs, engagement officer for the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust (HIWWT), bounds over. “You know how it feels as if they’re sticking to you?” In fact, that’s the sensation of the anemone firing dozens of microscopic harpoons into your skin, in the vain hope that it can reel you into its gaping mouth, she says, flashing a broad grin.

Contemplating this miniature drama is a huddle of volunteers, crouched beneath Ryde Pier on the Isle of Wight. It’s an unexpected place to go searching for sea life, and yet it is abundant here. The pier is a veteran survey site in the Wildlife Trusts’ citizen science Shoresearch programme, a “long-term monitoring project that allows us to understand the wildlife on our shores, and track changes over time,” says Daniele Clifford, marine conservation officer at the organisation. The expedition in Ryde is one of 12 local intertidal surveys scheduled by the HIWWT for 2024, and one of hundreds more that are available to join countrywide each year, under the broader Wildlife Trusts network. Volunteers range in age and experience, and surveying is open to all.

Today’s group of 20-odd is a mix of Isle of Wight residents and others who have ferried across a roiling Solent sea to join in. Curiosity is what brought lifelong island resident Mike Davis here. “I must have been up and down that pier hundreds of times, and it never occurred to me what might be beneath it,” he says. Beside him, one of the pier’s enormous iron struts bristles with barnacles, sponges and oysters, the base tasselled with plush anemones. The surrounding sand is thick with sea lettuce and bladderwrack, strewn with cockles and clams.