Britain Unsettled: Russia's Ireland 'Back Door' and Labour Leadership Battle

British officials warned that Ireland has become a potential "back door" for Russian intelligence into the United Kingdom, exploiting Dublin's liberal visa policy and the open internal borders of the Common Travel Area, The Telegraph reported. Ireland has issued 14,000 visas to Russian citizens since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, at a 90 percent approval rate, and a Russian national who enters Ireland legally can cross to Britain. MEP Barry Andrews, a former Irish minister, said Dublin's intelligence services were less sophisticated than Britain's and urged tighter vetting of Russian and Belarusian applicants as Ireland assumes the EU Council presidency in July -- a warning that follows the 2025 conviction of a Russian spy cell run through Britain by the former Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek.

At Westminster, Labour's slow-burning leadership crisis sharpened. Wes Streeting, who quit as health secretary on May 14 amid a wave of resignations and more than 95 MPs urging Sir Keir Starmer to go after heavy local-election losses, used a Sunday Times interview to stake out distinctive ground: he called for a targeted cut to employers' National Insurance to encourage the hiring of young people and backed new North Sea drilling, saying he expected Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to approve licences for the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields. Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden countered that any tax break "must be paid for," and the government pointed to existing exemptions for under-21s and a 3,000-pound youth jobs grant. Starmer has said he would contest any challenge.

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon gave her first interview since her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, admitted embezzling 400,000 pounds from the SNP. The former first minister told the BBC she had no knowledge of his crimes, refused to apologise, and -- becoming visibly emotional over gifts he had bought with stolen party funds -- said she felt as though she were "serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit."

Violence struck Northern Ireland, where a police officer in Downpatrick, County Down, was seriously injured early Sunday after being hit by a stolen police car and discharging his weapon during a foot chase; a 27-year-old was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and the Police Ombudsman opened an inquiry. Away from the political fray, a Safety Nets study found devolved welfare policies leave a low-income family in Scotland up to 15,000 pounds a year better off than an identical English household; Arm proposed a pay deal worth up to $800 million for chief executive Rene Haas if the chip designer reaches a $1 trillion valuation; and a YouGov survey found more than 40 percent of UK mobile users often cannot get 4G or 5G on the move, with Britain slipping to 59th globally for mobile speeds.