From 8h ago 06.50 EDT Keir Starmer says Nigel Farage is ‘Liz Truss all over again’ Keir Starmer has launched a series of attacks on Nigel Farage, telling the public they cannot trust the Reform UK leader. Speaking at an event at a business in north-west England, the prime minister said Farage would not have protected jobs in industries subject to tariffs from the US, and compared him to former prime minister Liz Truss. Starmer said: We protected those jobs.
Would Nigel Farage have done the same? Absolutely not. And that’s the question to have to ask about Nigel Farage.
Can you trust him? Can you trust him with your future? Can you trust him with your jobs?
Can you trust him with your mortgages, your pensions, your bills? And he gave the answer on Tuesday. A resounding no.
He set out economic plans which contains billions upon billions of completely unfunded spending. Precisely the sort of irresponsible splurge that sent your mortgage costs, your bills and the cost of living through the roof. It’s Liz Truss all over again.
Share Updated at 07.19 EDT 4h ago 10.59 EDT Closing summary This live blog will be closing shortly. Thank you for reading the updates and commenting below the line. You can keep up to date with the Guardian’s UK politics coverage here.
Here is a summary from today’s blog: The Conservatives are “sliding into the abyss”, Keir Starmer has said, as he described Nigel Farage and Reform as the main challengers to his Labour government. “I do think that the Conservative party has run out of road,” Starmer said. “Their project is faltering.
They’re in the decline. They’re sliding into the abyss. It’s very important, therefore, that we say that and identify that.” During a hastily arranged visit to a glass factory in St Helens, the prime minister castigated Farage as a fake defender of working people and compared him to Liz Truss as someone whose fiscal plans would crash the economy.
Reform’s commitment to “completely unfunded spending” was, Starmer said, “Liz Truss all over again” and “Liz Truss 2.0”. Starmer’s series of attacks on Farage included telling the public they cannot trust the Reform UK leader. Starmer also took personal aim at Farage for arguing that he spoke for working people, contrasting the public school-educated Reform leader’s upbringing with his own background.
“Unlike Nigel Farage, I know what it’s like growing up in a cost of living crisis,” Starmer said. “I know what it’s like when your family can’t pay the bills, when you fear the postman, the bills that may be brought.” 0:58 Nigel Farage is ‘Liz Truss all over again’, says Keir Starmer – video He also condemned Farage for saying Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) “deserved” to go bust after a controversial marketing rebrand. He said: “I would challenge him to go to JLR, stand in front of the workforce and tell them that his policy for JLR is they should go bust.
I [would] very much like to see the reaction.” When Starmer was asked about whether he would back moves to end the two-child limit on some benefits, reportedly being considered, he avoided the question twice before giving a slightly non-committal answer. He said: “I think there are a number of components. There isn’t a single bullet, but I’m absolutely determined that we will drive this down, and that’s why we’ll look at all options, always, of driving down child poverty.” Asked about Starmer’s comments, Zia Yusuf, the Reform chair, said Starmer’s speech showed it was “panic stations at Labour”.
He told Sky News: “Look, Keir Starmer is panicking because his awful government is now trailing Reform by a staggering eight points in the latest YouGov poll.” He also accused Labour of resorting to “their magic money tree” to increase spending beyond manifesto commitments. A second Liberal Democrat MP has said they have changed their mind over the assisted dying bill and will vote against it at the next Commons stage , in another sign of a wider, if so far slight, ebbing away of support for the measure. In an email to constituents, Brian Mathew, the Melksham and Devizes MP, said that while he had backed the bill at its second reading vote, in April, scrutiny of the plans had left “several concerns I feel have been inadequately answered”.
Jobcentres will no longer force people into “any job” available, the employment minister has said, promising there will be long-term, personalised career support for those losing out due to welfare cuts. Alison McGovern said she was ending the Conservative policy under which jobseekers were obliged to take any low-paid, insecure work and that the service would now be focused on helping people to build rewarding careers. The government is “serious” about the rules which water companies must follow, Emma Hardy has said in response to fines imposed on Thames Water of £122.7m , Speaking at a reservoir, the water minister told Times Radio the penalty was the “largest fine there ever has been on record” in the sector.
She said: “This is a government that is serious about enforcement. For years, water companies have been allowed to get away with poor behaviour, and we’ve said under this government that is not going to happen.” Twenty-two new settlements in the occupied West Bank represent “a deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood” by Israel, a Foreign Office minister has warned. Hamish Falconer said the UK “condemns” the decision, which Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz described as “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.
The UK has said it wants to accelerate negotiations to conclude a trade deal with Donald Trump in the wake of the US court ruling that the sweeping tariffs he imposed on imports from more than 60 countries were illegal. A UK government spokesperson played down the US court ruling on Thursday plainly indicating it would continue to negotiate despite a technical opening to walk away from the deal. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has urged doctors in England to vote against industrial action as the British Medical Association (BMA) ballots resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, for strike action that could last for six months.
Writing in the Times on Thursday, Streeting said: “We can’t afford to return to a continuous cycle of standoffs, strikes, and cancellations … Strikes should always be a last resort, and I don’t think they are in anyone’s interest today.” The Hamilton byelection campaign is rapidly evolving into a head to head battle between Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, and Nigel Farage – at least in the proxy war being fought on social media. Sarwar has posted increasingly combative videos challenging the Reform leader to a debate while Farage, who is due to make a very rare appearance in Scotland next week, has shot back by again suggesting Sarwar is biased against white people. Farage is “introducing poison into politics”, the prime minister said, as he suggested a campaign video produced by Reform UK for the Hamilton byelection was divisive.
The ad – which the SNP and Labour have demanded be removed by Meta – shows clips of Sarwar calling for more representation of Scots with south Asian heritage, although he did not say he would prioritise any group. The UK faces “disintegration” and will become “less prosperous and secure” if it takes a pick-and-mix approach to international law, the attorney general has said. In a speech on Thursday, Richard Hermer launched a defence of international law and multilateral frameworks which “have kept us safe since 1945”.
The British arm of a US contractor that profits from testing whether some people in the UK should receive disability benefits has paid £10m in dividends to its investors. Maximus, a Virginia-based business, reported a 23% rise in pre-tax profit for its UK arm, from £23.6m to £29.1m, in its financial year to the end of September, accounts lodged at Companies House show. Its revenue rose 2%, from £294m to £300m.
The Scottish Conservatives have accused Holyrood’s presiding officer of “blatant bias” after she evicted Douglas Ross, the party’s former Scottish leader, from the chamber for disrupting first minister’s questions (FMQs). Alison Johnstone, who was a Scottish Greens MSP before her election as presiding officer, told Ross to leave the chamber, and banned him from Thursday’s parliamentary proceedings, after he barracked John Swinney during FMQs. The House of Lords watchdog has launched an investigation into a Conservative hereditary peer who admitted he “erroneously” made claims last year for travel expenses he did not incur.
He is the fifth peer to face an inquiry after Guardian reporting into the upper house. Shadow local government secretary Kevin Hollinrake added that he “can understand” why Keir Starmer is “trying to basically aim his fire all around him”. Hollinrake told Sky News on Thursday: “The other danger the prime minister’s got is from his own backbenchers – there’s hundreds of his own backbenchers who’re very dissatisfied in that he’s doing right now.
So I can understand, he’s trying to basically aim his fire all around him.” A former British ambassador to Egypt has called for the Foreign Office to caution against travel to the country amid fears British nationals face an increased risk of arrest . John Casson, who was British ambassador to Egypt between 2014 and 2018, described the country as a “police state” which is “violent and vindictive”, when he spoke on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday. Former military leaders are urging the UK government to widen its definition of national security to include climate, food and energy measures in advance of a planned multibillion-pound boost in defence spending.
There are also calls to counter the possible “weaponisation of geoengineering” – hostile actors using geoengineering techniques to manipulate weather patterns to cause extreme conditions. A French court has ordered electoral officials to restore a British woman’s pre-Brexit right to vote in local elections , triggering calls for a renewed push for a bilateral treaty on electoral enfranchisement in each other’s countries. A drought has been declared in north-west England as reservoir levels dwindle.
Hosepipe bans could follow, the Environment Agency said, though this is a matter for water companies, which have been directed to follow their drought plans. The government has ordered the building of two reservoirs, the first to be built in England for more than 30 years. The environment minister, Steve Reed, has awarded the status of “nationally significant” to two new reservoir projects in East Anglia and Lincolnshire and ordered that they go ahead.
These will be the first to be built since 1992. Share Updated at 11.16 EDT 4h ago 10.50 EDT Severin Carrell The Scottish Conservatives have accused Holyrood’s presiding officer of “blatant bias” after she evicted Douglas Ross, the party’s former Scottish leader, from the chamber for disrupting first minister’s questions (FMQs). Alison Johnstone, who was a Scottish Greens MSP before her election as presiding officer, told Ross to leave the chamber, and banned him from Thursday’s parliamentary proceedings, after he barracked John Swinney during FMQs (see 1.01pm BST).
After a party spokesperson accused her of “blatant bias” and favouritism to other parties, Ross told BBC Scotland he “struggle(d) to accept she is being neutral” and claimed Scottish National party and Green MSPs were treated differently. It was “unprecedented”, Ross said, for someone to be sent out without a prior warning, and said he want to meet Johnstone to discuss the incident. He added: I have serious questions about the conduct of the presiding officer.
Johnstone has repeatedly warned Ross in particular about his interjections during previous FMQs that he was breaching parliamentary rules. Her order to him to leave seemed carefully prepared. She also named two other Scottish Tory MSPs for sedentary barracking during an at times rowdy session.
Share Updated at 10.51 EDT 4h ago 10.47 EDT Henry Dyer The Earl of Shrewsbury is being examined for a potential breach of rules after revelations he received reimbursement for mileage for four journeys between his home in Derbyshire and Stafford station, which he cannot have made as he was either in London or Liverpool. Leaked emails and documents obtained under freedom of information legislation also revealed Shrewsbury had used his taxpayer-funded first-class ticket for part of a journey to Liverpool from London to attend a board meeting of a commercial company he advised. The peer, whose full name is Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot, wrote “in jest” in an email to his fellow directors that the “government pays” for his travel to the meeting.
Shrewsbury said earlier this month that he had offered to reimburse the taxpayer for the expenses he had “erroneously” claimed and any sums that could be due from part of the first-class ticket he had used to attend the board meeting. Shrewsbury said earlier this month that he had offered to reimburse the taxpayer for the expenses he had “erroneously” claimed and any sums that could be due from part of the first-class ticket he had used to attend the board meeting. Lords watchdog investigates Tory peer over ‘erroneous’ travel claims Read more Share 4h ago 10.12 EDT Matthew Taylor Former military leaders are urging the UK government to widen its definition of national security to include climate, food and energy measures in advance of a planned multibillion-pound boost in defence spending.
Earlier this year Keir Starmer announced the biggest increase in defence spending in the UK since the end of the cold war, with the budget rising to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – three years earlier than planned – and an ambition to reach 3%. Now, in advance of a key defence review, former senior figures in the UK military are urging the government to broaden its definition of what constitutes “national security” to include food, energy and water security as well as measures to protect communities from flooding, extreme heat and sea level rises. There are also calls to counter the possible “weaponisation of geoengineering” – hostile actors using geoengineering techniques to manipulate weather patterns to cause extreme conditions.
Retired R Adm Neil Morisetti said that while there was “most definitely a pressing requirement” to invest in military capability to deter the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the UK’s approach to national security had to be more sophisticated to meet the challenges of the 21st century. “National security needs to be seen more broadly,” said Morisetti, who is now a professor of climate and resource security at University College London. “We need to think about a lot of factors beyond just military capability – including food security, energy security, land security, health security, all of which are impacted by the consequences of a changing climate.
I recognise that none of this is without cost, but governments need to level with society about the risks that we face today.” UK must consider food and climate part of national security, say top ex-military figures Read more Share 5h ago 09.55 EDT Helena Horton A drought has been declared in north-west England as reservoir levels dwindle. Hosepipe bans could follow, the Environment Agency said, though this is a matter for water companies, which have been directed to follow their drought plans. Much of the rest of the country is in prolonged dry status, which is the step before drought, and without significant rainfall more areas could follow the north-west.
England had the driest period on record between February and April, and despite recent rainfall, rivers are at exceptionally low flows across the country and reservoir levels are declining. United Utilities has particularly low reservoir levels: its Carlisle reservoir is at 46.4%,compared with the 92.5% it was at this time last year. The Haweswater and Thirlmere reservoirs are at 47.5%, compared with 94.8% last year.
These are the reservoirs which serve areas including Cumbria and Manchester, in the drought area. An Environment Agency spokesperson said: The north-west of England has entered drought status due to low water levels in reservoirs and rivers. No other areas in England are in drought and we continue to monitor the situation closely.
Drought declared in north-west England amid declining reservoir levels Read more Share 5h ago 09.42 EDT Earlier, at a media Q&A after Keir Starmer’s speech, our senior political correspondent, Peter Walker, asked the prime minister: You’ve dodged the question on the two-child benefit cap twice now, so can I ask you as a first question: would you personally like to get rid of the two-child benefit cap? And on the wider issue of the opposition you’re now facing, do you think one of the problems is that Nigel Farage can approximate talking like a human being, where you just resort to talking points and dodging questions? Starmer replied: On the question of the two-child benefit cap, apologies.
I think I did first half of the question, not the second. Let me deal with that directly. I’m determined we’re going to drive down child poverty.
One of the proudest things that the last Labour government did was to drive down child poverty and that’s why we’ve got a taskforce working on this. I think there are a number of components. There isn’t a single bullet, but I’m absolutely determined that we will drive this down and that’s why we’ll look at all options always of driving down child poverty.
I’m determined … I’m so proud the last Labour government did it and I’m so pleased that we are taking up that challenge to do it with this Labour government, and that is what we will do. In relation to working people, what matters most in my view is who politicians have in their mind’s eye when they make decisions. I know precisely who I had in my mind’s eye when I took the decisions that I had to on the international stage with the US trade deal.
I had in my mind’s eye the JLR workers that I had taken the time to go and see on a number of occassions and understand for myself the jobs they do, the skills they have and what that means for them, their families and their communities. And that’s the way I do politics, which is: roll up your sleeves, understand the issues, understand the challenges, run towards that challenge and make sure we fix it for working people. And that is exactly what we did with JLR, that’s exactly the approach I would take.
What did Nigel Farage say about JLR? Maybe with a great flourish, apparently contacting with working people, he said they should go bust. I challenge him [Farage] to go to JLR, stand in front of the workforce and tell them that his policy for JLR is they should go bust.
And I’d very much like to see the reaction. Thank you. Share Updated at 09.42 EDT 5h ago 09.16 EDT Lisa O'Carroll A French court has ordered electoral officials to restore a British woman’s pre-Brexit right to vote in local elections, triggering calls for a renewed push for a bilateral treaty on electoral enfranchisement in each other’s countries.
Alice Bouilliez, a former British civil servant, who has lived in France for 38 years, said she was “extremely surprised” but delighted that the Auch court in south-western France had ordered that the authorities put her name back on the electoral register for local elections “I am extremely happy about the result. When I went to get the ruling from the court I was extremely surprised because I was expecting a knock on the knuckles,” she said. View image in fullscreen Alice Bouilliez, who has campaigned for the right to vote in the European elections.
Photograph: Alice Bouilliez Bouilliez first mounted legal action against the disenfranchisement in 2020 with a case going all the way to the European court of justice, which ruled against her in 2022. The court followed the advice of advocate general Anthony Collins who said the EU treaty had made “nationality of a member state” an “essential condition of a person to be able to acquire and retain the status of citizens of the Union and to benefit fully from the rights attaching to that status”. Julien Fouchet, a French lawyer representing Bouilliez, said the court did not determine conclusively what happened to those acquired rights British citizens such as Bouilliez had received when she became a permanent resident of France under the free movement rules that were available to Britons before Brexit.
The ruling by the Auch tribunal judiciary could now be used to restore rights across France for British citizens living in France before Brexit who did not opt to apply for French citizenship and wanted to win back their right to vote, he said. British woman wins back pre-Brexit right to vote in France Read more Share Updated at 10.26 EDT 5h ago 09.04 EDT Twenty-two new settlements in the occupied West Bank represent “a deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood” by Israel, a Foreign Office minister has warned. The PA news agency reports that Hamish Falconer said the UK “condemns” the decision, which Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz described as “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.
Labour last year in its general election manifesto committed to “recognising a Palestinian state as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution”. In government, ministers have repeatedly committed to recognising a Palestinian state, but Falconer has previously said the government “will make a judgment about when the best moment is to try and make the fullest possible contribution” to a peace process. Falconer wrote on X: The Israeli government’s approval of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank is a deliberate obstacle to Palestinian statehood.
The UK condemns these actions. Settlements are illegal under international law, further imperil the two-state solution, and do not protect Israel. Share Updated at 10.27 EDT 6h ago 08.48 EDT Eleni Courea The UK faces “disintegration” and will become “less prosperous and secure” if it takes a pick-and-mix approach to international law, the attorney general has said.
In a speech on Thursday, Richard Hermer launched a defence of international law and multilateral frameworks which “have kept us safe since 1945”. He rebuked the leader of the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch, and her shadow attorney general, David Wolfson, who have accused ministers of rigidly following international law, and said “their arguments if ever adopted would provide succour to [Vladimir] Putin”. “Their temptingly simple narratives not only misunderstand our history and the nature of international law, it is also reckless and dangerous, and will make us less prosperous and secure in a troubled world,” he said.
Hermer, who is a human rights lawyer and former colleague of Keir Starmer, was appointed the government’s chief law officer when Labour entered office last summer. Earlier this year he was attacked in sections of the press over his past clients, and also faced claims from internal critics that he was slowing down the work of government. He has also faced criticism over the government’s decision to agree to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after an advisory ruling by the international court of justice.
Pick-and-mix approach to international law will make UK less secure, says attorney general Read more Share 6h ago 08.38 EDT Keir Starmer is “panicking”, the chair of Reform UK has said, after the prime minister hit out at what he called the party’s “fantasy” economic policies. Speaking to Sky News, Zia Yusuf said: It’s obviously panic stations at Labour. Look, Keir Starmer is panicking because his awful government is now trailing Reform by a staggering eight points in the latest YouGov poll.
And we talk about economic credibility, this government, in their manifesto last June, they promised £10bn of increased spending. In their actual budget, their first budget three months later, they increased spending by up to £60bn and on their magic money tree found another £30bn to give away sovereign territory in the form of the Chagos Islands. Share 6h ago 08.14 EDT Keir Starmer has launched a series of attacks on Nigel Farage, telling the public they cannot trust the Reform UK leader.
Speaking at an event at a business in north-west England, the prime minister said Farage would not have protected jobs in industries hit with tariffs from the US and compared him to the former prime minister Liz Truss. 0:58 Nigel Farage is ‘Liz Truss all over again’, says Keir Starmer – video Share 7h ago 08.01 EDT Severin Carrell Douglas Ross, the former Scottish Conservative leader, has been ejected from the Scottish parliament by Holyrood’s presiding officer after ignoring her warnings about his interjections during questions. Alison Johnstone, the presiding officer, ordered Ross to leave and banned him from the rest of today’s parliamentary sitting after he shouted at John Swinney from his seat soon after first minister’s questions began.
She interrupted Swinney to say: Let’s hear one another! Mr Ross, Mr Ross, you have persistently refused to abide by our standing orders and I would ask you to leave this chamber and you are excluded for the rest of the day. Ross, who quit as party leader after ill-judged attempts to oust a popular colleague before last year’s general election, then sat still with his right elbow resting on his desk, propping up his chin, and appeared to ignore her instruction.
As Swinney resumed answering a question from Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay, Johnstone interrupted and again told Ross to leave. The chamber fell silent and Tory MSPs looked away, or down at their desks. Unlike in the House of Commons, which is habitually more theatrical, these ejections are very rare but Johnstone has warned Ross before.
Her precise wording and assertive action suggests she had prepared in advance to eject him. Share 7h ago 07.48 EDT Nigel Farage is “introducing poison into politics”, the prime minister said, as he suggested a campaign video produced by Reform UK for the Hamilton byelection was divisive. The advert claimed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar would “prioritise” the Pakistani community.
The ad – which the SNP and Labour have demanded be removed by Meta – shows clips of Sarwar calling for more representation of Scots with south Asian heritage, although he did not say he would prioritise any group, reports the PA news agency. Speaking at a campaign event in north-west England, Keir Starmer said: What we’ve seen with Reform in Scotland in relation to this particular video is manipulation. And it is, as ever with Reform and Nigel Farage, trying to divide people with a toxic divide, and to poison our politics.
And I think our politics is above that, and that’s why I think it’s absolutely right that Anas Sarwar has called this out for what it is. It is toxic divide, it is introducing poison into our politics, and that is exactly what turns people off politics. And that is why restoring trust in politics is so important to my project and the project of Scottish Labour.
Share 7h ago 07.38 EDT Conservative party has 'run out of road' replies Starmer when asked why he is focusing on Farage The Conservative party has “run out of road”, the prime minister said, as he told reporters the choice for voters was between Labour and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Asked why he was focusing so much on Farage’s party, Keir Starmer said: I do think that the Conservative party has run out of road. Their project is faltering, they are in decline.
They’re sliding into the abyss. And it’s very important, therefore, that we say that and identify that, but equally politics is about choices. And the choice at the moment is between the choice of a Labour government that thinks stable finances are at the heart of building better lives for working people, or Nigel Farage and Reform, who only this week said they would spend billions upon billions upon billions, tens of billions of pounds, in an unfunded way, which is an exact repeat of what Liz Truss did.
And it wasn’t Nigel Farage that lost, he’s all right, it’s working people across the country who lost out, and I am not prepared to allow that ever to happen in this country again. Share 7h ago 07.34 EDT Keir Starmer said he is looking at “all options” to drive down child poverty when asked if he would like to get rid of the two-child benefit cap. “I’m determined we’re going to drive down child poverty,” the prime minister said during a visit to a business in the north-west.
Starmer added: One of the proudest things that the last Labour government did was to drive down child poverty, and that’s why we’ve got a taskforce working on this. I think there are a number of components. There isn’t a single bullet, but I’m absolutely determined that we will drive this down, and that’s why we’ll look at all options, always, of driving down child poverty.
Share 7h ago 07.30 EDT Starmer says he does not need 'lessons' from Farage on issues that matter most to working people Keir Starmer said he does not need “lessons” from Nigel Farage on what life is like for working people. The prime minister said he wanted to “protect” working people from what the Reform UK leader would do. View image in fullscreen Keir Starmer speaks to workers during a visit to Glass Futures in St Helens, Merseyside, on Thursday.
Photograph: James Speakman/PA Chris Hope of GB News asked: Are you panicking because Reform are so ahead in the polls it seems? … You went to a state school, your dad worked in a factory, your mum worked in the NHS, so why is a public school educated former city trader got more in common with the ‘red wall’ than you have? Starmer replied: I know what it means to work 10 hours a day in a factory five days a week, and I know that because that is what my dad did every single working day of his life, and that’s what I grew up with.
So I don’t need lessons from Nigel Farage about the issues that matter most to working people in this country. Share