Tribalism has not faded over the past decade. Instead, new research reveals our politics has become ever-more polarised and fractious

On 23 June 2016, the British voter changed. Before that day, they picked a party, usually red or blue. By that morning, only two tribes mattered: remain or leave. And they kept mattering long, long after the result was declared. Rather than bin those short-lived and now stale allegiances, voters made them their personas. No longer a “Labour man” or a “Conservative family”, they became instead “remoaners” or “Brexiters”. Even today, 60% of Britons still identify themselves by where they scrawled a single cross in a one-off poll 10 years ago.

Ask about the difference Brexit has made and the answer normally concerns policy or high politics: how our economic trajectory has become bumpier, or how the Tories keep getting into punch-ups with each other. But it became so much bigger than Boris v Dave. The civil war blazed through the country, and recruited nearly all of us to one side or the other. The effects still ripple through our elections and media today.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

‘After every tour, I hate the sound of my voice,’ the actor and comedian says. Yet here he is, working on a new standup act and about to host Saturday Night Live. What does he have to talk about this time, apart from his stag do, fatherhood, the remake of The ’Burbs … ?

The day I meet Jack Whitehall in central London, it has just been announced that he will be hosting Saturday Night Live (SNL) this Saturday. He is also about to get married and his stag do, which was two days before our interview, has been meticulously documented by the tabloids. It feels like a lot, so his immaculate appearance – even his beard looks polished; you wouldn’t believe this man had ever been fall-over drunk – is baffling. He is 37, but doesn’t look markedly different from the baby-faced man of 23 who appeared on our screens in Jesse Armstrong’s and Sam Bain’s stinging student satire Fresh Meat. That series sealed his place as the country’s posh mascot on panel shows including Would I Lie to You?, Mock the Week, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and 8 Out of 10 Cats.

His last comedy tour ended in 2024 and the wait for his next, at the start of 2027, is his longest hiatus yet. “After every tour, I hate the sound of my own voice,” he says. From 2017 to 2024, “I did tours back to back. I’d run out of life experience. I’d talked about every fucking thing that had ever happened to me, I’d done every possible iteration of joke about my dad. In the interim three or four years, I’ve got engaged, I’m planning a wedding, I’ll have had some time in married life, I’ve had a daughter, I’m now the father of a toddler. It felt as if I had stuff to talk about again.”

When Putin invaded Ukraine, he raised murder to the level of national policy. I felt guilt by association. And I had to act

One morning in May 2025, I walked briskly down Bayswater Road along the northern edge of London’s Kensington Gardens until I reached the gates of the Russian embassy. Its formidable outer wall, already topped with razor wire, now had the additional protection of a crowd control barrier. But there was no crowd, just a lone man feebly protesting from the other side of the road. In the early days of the war, the embassy was besieged by angry protesters. Back then, you couldn’t walk down a British street without spotting the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. That time was long gone.

Feeling uneasy, I was ushered inside by a guard who patted me down and checked the contents of my backpack before pointing the way inside. I knew this routine from my previous visits. Even the guard – a friendly Nepali man who knew about three words of Russian – hadn’t changed in years. I used to come here to renew my Russian passport and, on one noteworthy occasion, in March 2000, to vote in the Russian presidential elections. This time, I had an altogether different purpose: I was here to renounce my Russian citizenship.

The star returns as Ian Fletcher in this mockumentary from the makers of Twenty Twelve. But for every funny moment, there is a slightly off gag – and some truly woeful ones

It’s a Monday morning in Miami and Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) is in a meeting. The meeting has been set up to action another meeting, the outcome of which will be actioned – or at least consciously tabled – at a third, or possibly seventh, meeting. The meeting is also a meeting in a deeper sense, in that it is an opportunity for Ian, the “incoming director of integrity” at the organising body for world football (which, states the narrator, David Tennant, “we’re unable to name for legal reasons”), to establish his place in a corporate culture that is “irretrievably American”.

“Shall we begin?”, Ian asks his new colleagues. “Oh my God,” gasps the sustainability tsar, Sarah Campbell (Chelsey Crisp), pressing the palm of her hand swooningly to her breastbone. “Soooo British!”

The dish, adapted from one brought by US soldiers after the Korean war, has sparked thousands of variations and sits at the forefront of the K-food wave

Inside a teaching kitchen south-east of Seoul, I coat a whole chicken – cut into eight parts – in batter and dip the pieces carefully into a bowl of powdered mix until covered in a light, fluffy layer.

A chef watches intently. “Don’t rub it,” he says. “Keep it delicate.”

At the peak of the Israel-Gaza conflict, 10 children a day were losing one or both legs. For those who cross the border for medical help, physical recovery is only the start of their struggle

Ola Jamal, 36, was breastfeeding her two-month-old son, Zain, when the missile struck al-Nasr hospital in Gaza in November 2023. When the explosion hit the building, the shrapnel went through Jamal’s arm while she held her infant.

“I ran with my family to the hospital and stayed there to hide,” she says at a prosthetic centre in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. “We thought it would be safe because it’s a children’s hospital.”

A row of customised prosthetic limbs, labelled with the names of patients, lined up in a clinic wall

US president warns that the US will start ‘shooting’ again unless Iran fully complies with deal

• Middle East ceasefire in serious doubt as Israel assaults Lebanon and Iran blocks oil tankers

The UK foreign minister, Yvette Cooper, has said Lebanon must be included in any ceasefire agreement. In other remarks now being reported by Reuters, Cooper added that shipping through the strait of Hormuz must be toll-free.

Amid ceasefire talks, Tehran has proposed fees or tolls on vessels to safely pass through the strait. Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested the US and Iran could collect tolls in a joint venture, while the White House said the priority was reopening the strait without limitations.

And my principles and values made sure that our decisions were that we wouldn’t get involved in the action without a lawful basis, without a viable, thought-through plan.”

Foreign secretary to address City leaders in London as Israel intensifies bombing and Vance says Lebanon is not part of deal

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Lebanon must be included in the ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran, the British foreign secretary is to say, as a two-week pause in the conflict hangs in the balance.

Addressing an event at the Mansion House in London, Yvette Cooper is expected to say there “must be no return to conflict” after the ceasefire announced by the US president, Donald Trump, late on Tuesday.

Mark Rutte praises ‘very frank’ talks but declines to say if president discussed potential withdrawal from alliance

Mark Rutte, the secretary general of Nato, has said Donald Trump was “clearly disappointed” that the US’s allies had refused to join its war against Iran, following a closed-door meeting in Washington on Wednesday.

Speaking to CNN after his private meeting with the US president, Rutte declined to say directly whether Trump raised his threat to withdraw from the military alliance over the Iran war, but described the exchange as a “very frank, very open” discussion between “two good friends”.

John Healey says warship and aircraft forced Russia to abandon activity in North Sea in month-long operation

A British warship and aircraft tracked and monitored Russian submarines attempting to survey vital undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic, ensuring they abandoned their mission, the defence secretary, John Healey, has announced.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Healey said the UK operation lasted more than a month and saw a Royal Navy warship and P8 marine patrol aircraft “track and to deter any malign activity” by three Russian submarines.