Category Archives: Politics

Reform UK fined for failing to declare it was publisher of campaigns material

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Party given additional penalty by Electoral Commission for not paying original fine on time

Reform UK has been fined more than £2,000 for failing to declare it was the publisher of campaign material seen by voters – including an additional penalty for failing to pay on time.

Nigel Farage’s party was sanctioned by the Electoral Commission after four items of elections material were missing an “imprint” – a declaration of the publisher so voters know who has paid for the promotional message.

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Senior Reform official cast doubt over legality of huge donations

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Exclusive: Admission from James Orr to undercover reporter came three months before party was given £72m

A senior Reform UK official raised questions about whether major donations from billionaire backers Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo would be legal under the proposed new foreign donors cap three months before they gave £72m to the party.

James Orr, who was then Reform UK’s head of policy and a Cambridge professor, discussed potential difficulties around future donations from Harborne and Delo in undercover footage captured by the investigative reporting group Verbatim.

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UK to deploy fighter jets to protect Saudi Arabia from Houthi attacks

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RAF Typhoon fighters to fly defensive missions over cities and infrastructure in extension of UK support for Riyadh

RAF Typhoon fighters are to be used in efforts to protect Saudi Arabia from attack by Yemen’s Houthis, flying protective missions over the country’s cities and critical infrastructure as western allies increase their intervention in the escalating conflict.

The operation – the most significant military mission signed off by Andy Burnham as prime minister – will involve RAF pilots attempting to shoot down Houthi missiles and drones, which attacked Saudi airports and oil facilities.

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Thames Water creditors secure former Labour minister to drive rescue deal

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Stricken UK water supplier lines up John Hutton as independent chair designate if takeover goes ahead

The group of Thames Water creditors pursuing a £10bn rescue deal for Britain’s largest water supplier has lined up a former senior Labour minister to chair the company, as it tries to win over the government.

The creditor consortium, called London & Valley Water, said on Tuesday that Lord John Hutton had been selected as independent chair designate of the Thames Water board, if the consortium’s takeover of the utility goes ahead.

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Badenoch says Tories would prioritise cutting taxes for businesses over individuals – UK politics live

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Conservative leader also called for benefit spending to be cut to fund rise in defence budget

Badenoch says Britain needs tax cuts.

We need to get out of the way of job creators who make our country richer. We need to encourage risk taking, wealth creation, enterprise.

Britain’s tax burden has never been higher. You are taxed on the heating in your home. You’re taxed at the petrol pump filling up your car. You’re taxed when you insure that car. You’re taxed if you take the family away on holiday. You’re taxed if you stay in the UK thanks to Andy Burnham’s tourist tax. You’re taxed to buy a home, taxed to live in a home, taxed to pass on your home. This is clearly not working. Britain does not feel better off.

Andy Burnham wrote in The Times yesterday about the moral outrage of the current benefit system. But as far as I could work out, his answer is to spend even more on benefits.

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Ex-Greens co-leader urges council groups to reject Zionism policy

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Exclusive: Adrian Ramsay calls conference motion a distraction and says councillors should maintain coalitions where possible

Adrian Ramsay, the former co-leader of the Greens, has urged his party’s councillors to reject the newly adopted “Zionism is racism” motion if it will help them stay in power in local government, in a fresh sign of internal dissent over the policy.

Ramsay, one of the Greens’ five MPs, said he was pleased that a number of Green council groups had already condemned the policy, which was adopted at the party’s conference and also calls for a single Palestinian state in place of Israel.

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ITV’s exposé of racism and misogyny in Reform? Just a few (more) bad apples | John Crace

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While the party’s MPs went into hiding, it was left to its failed byelection candidate Matt Goodwin to defend it

It was the dog that didn’t bark in the night. After Sunday night’s ITV exposé of widespread racism and misogyny within Reform, you might have expected one of its MPs to have taken to the airwaves on Monday morning to defend the party’s honour. To try to persuade viewers that the real problem lay with the journalists who couldn’t stop themselves from investigating Reform rather than the fact that the party’s bigotry was endemic.

Instead, we got nothing. Every Reform MP was otherwise engaged. Were too busy having breakfast. Nothing from Nigel Farage. Nothing even from Robert Jenrick. Maybe he realised he had crashed and burned a few days earlier by suggesting it was just one of those things. One of life’s little mysteries. The BBC was riddled with paedophiles and Reform was awash with racists, said Honest Bob. No big deal. Every organisation had its crosses to bear.

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North Sea strikes could severely disrupt UK fuel supplies, union warns

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More than ⁠160 ​offshore rig workers plan walkout amid rising tensions between unions and oil companies

North Sea workers are preparing to strike at oil rigs across the ageing basin over the coming weeks in a sign of growing tensions between trade unions and oil companies.

The Unite union said on ⁠Monday that more than ⁠160 ​offshore rig workers would take part ⁠in a 24-hour ​strike from Wednesday that could “severely disrupt” UK fuel supplies.

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Minister says Mahmood’s migration policy will ‘prolong integration’

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In now-removed post, Miatta Fahnbulleh criticised home secretary’s proposal to extend qualifying period for settlement in UK

The energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, appears to have criticised Shabana Mahmood’s migration policy in a post on her constituency website, in which she suggested she had concerns that a longer settlement process could affect integration.

Fahnbulleh has since removed the critique, which appeared in a write-up of a community meeting in Peckham, her south London constituency, in September, saying it was not a true representation of her views.

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Police investigate Reform mayor for allegedly sharing ‘naked and sexualised’ images of himself

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Female colleague says she was forced out shortly after incident with Luke Campbell, Hull and East Yorkshire mayor

A Reform UK mayor is under police investigation for allegedly showing “naked and sexualised” images of himself to a female member of staff.

Luke Campbell, a former Olympic boxing champion and the mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire, is understood to have been questioned under caution by Humberside police earlier this month.

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No action to be taken against wife of PM’s aide over Palestine Action post

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Tweet by Sarah Helm, wife of national security adviser Jonathan Powell, ‘does not meet criminal threshold’

No further action will be taken against Sarah Helm, the wife of the prime minister’s national security adviser, after she was accused of supporting the banned protest group Palestine Action.

Helm, a journalist and author who is married to Jonathan Powell, posted on X on Thursday: “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action.”

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Reform candidate filmed saying asylum seekers should be put in ‘concentration camps’

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Would-be MP recorded telling undercover reporter in ITV investigation that Muslims could not be British

A would-be Reform UK MP told an undercover reporter that Muslims could not be British and asylum seekers should be put in “concentration camps”.

The comments were recorded as part of the undercover investigation by ITV that has already seen Reform accused of “appalling behaviour” and “extreme racism”.

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SNP says campaign for next referendum on independence ‘has already begun’

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John Swinney tells party conference SNP will use ‘six-figure war chest’ to renew argument for leaving UK

John Swinney has said that the second referendum campaign for Scottish independence “has already begun”, revealing a nationwide effort to renew the argument for leaving the UK in his keynote address to the SNP party conference.

On Saturday, the Scottish first minister said that the SNP would launch its “most sophisticated campaign in history” to convince Scottish of the benefits of independence, backed by “a six-figure war chest”. Called Choose Scotland, the campaign aims to build the consensus for leaving the union.

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Jenrick claims Farage has done more to stand against racism than ‘almost anybody’

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Reform MP defends leader after ITV footage shows official warning Farage he is ‘protecting’ candidate over racist David Lammy comments

Robert Jenrick has sought to defend Reform UK against fresh allegations that it hosts extremists by claiming that Nigel Farage has “probably done more than almost anybody to stand against racism and the far right”.

The remarks came after Farage was berated by a Reform official for “protecting” a mayoral candidate who was accused of making racist remarks about the former Labour deputy prime minister David Lammy.

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Farage accused of ‘protecting’ Reform candidate over racist slurs against David Lammy

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Exclusive: ITV investigation shows leader stood by mayoral candidate who said Labour MP should ‘go home to the Caribbean’

Nigel Farage was told by a senior Reform official that he was “protecting” a high-profile mayoral candidate accused of making racist comments about David Lammy, an undercover investigation has revealed.

The latest footage from an undercover investigation by ITV also shows Sarah Pochin, one of two female MPs for Reform, complaining that other party officials “are so fucking chauvinistic” and that “they just exclude you if you are a woman”.

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Wes Streeting urges US to back Ukraine on Washington visit after Starlink row

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UK defence secretary trying to cool tensions and is arguing it is in America’s economic interests to support Kyiv

Wes Streeting urged the US to stand by Ukraine on his visit to the American capital and sought to cool tensions between the two countries in the wake of the Starlink row that is threatening to set back Kyiv’s war effort.

The British defence secretary, giving a speech before a meeting with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, argued that supporting Ukraine was in the long-term interests of Washington, and a business opportunity.

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Eritrea accuses Shabana Mahmood of ‘political gimmick’ over visa ban threat

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Home secretary says she will block all Eritreans from UK unless a returns deal is agreed for rejected asylum seekers and criminals

Shabana Mahmood has been accused of launching a “perfunctory political gimmick” by the Eritrean government in a row over the return of rejected asylum seekers and criminals.

After the home secretary threatened to block all Eritreans from entering the UK unless a returns deal was agreed, the country’s embassy claimed the UK had failed to engage in “meaningful and appropriate” dialogue.

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New UK sanctions powers will enable action against supporters of illegal Israeli settlements

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Global human rights commitments adopted by government extend reach to enablers of unlawful activity

The UK is expanding its sanctions powers to freeze assets and target entities enabling illegal Israeli settlements, obstructing humanitarian aid or unlawfully holding prisoners.

The statutory instrument introducing the global human rights and international humanitarian law sanctions adds three new grounds to the 2020 regime: serious violations of international humanitarian law, obstruction of humanitarian assistance and serious violations of the right to liberty and security of person.

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Campaigners decry slow progress in repaying victims of carer’s allowance crisis

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Only 1.04% of estimated 230,900 cases reviewed in first five months of £75m three-year scheme

Campaigners have urged Andy Burnham to step in after it emerged just a handful of the tens of thousands of unpaid carers who unknowingly racked up huge debts when welfare officials unlawfully changed benefits guidance have been repaid.

The first official update on the carers allowance reassessment exercise launched by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in April confirms that progress in cancelling wrongful overpayments has started slowly.

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Andy Burnham hosts Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Downing Street – UK politics live

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Burnham welcomes Ukraine’s president to No 10 for the first time since he became PM

PMQs is about to start.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

After @genevieve_holl reported this last night, various sources in the Trump administration who are supportive of Farage said Badenoch was needlessly trying to cause a political row (per @katyballs @MrHarryCole) and accused her of undermining the Anglo-American relationship.

It is possible that these people are particularly sensitive about this topic because they are still considering buying the islands, as @connorstringer and I reported earlier in the year. Domestic opposition to the idea of the US running Chagos in the UK would be a problem for the White House.

Calamity Kemi Strikes Again.

Kemi Badenoch has risked causing a diplomatic row with Britain’s allies, all because she cannot control the Tory spin doctors around her that oversaw the disastrous premierships of Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Theresa May, and even David Cameron.

Kemi and the Conservatives cannot be trusted by the Chagos people.

If they really have interest in the Chagos, why would you have started negotiating about things you already own?

We are confused at why @KemiBadenoch is attacking @Nigel_Farage …

We understood Nigel Farage’s comments to mean that we would get perpetual use of the base, which, frankly, we’ve always had.

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