Category Archives: Politics

Labour must reunite progressive voters to win the next election, says Lucy Powell

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The deputy leader wants the party to take advantage of a split on the right and not be embarrassed to show its values

Labour must “reunite the progressive voter coalition” if it is to take advantage of a split on the right and win the next election, the party’s deputy leader has said.

Lucy Powell, who won the race to be deputy leader 12 months ago with a warning that Labour was losing the fight to be heard as Reform UK surged, said the government now had a second chance under Andy Burnham.

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Healey appoints Labour manifesto writer, fuelling election speculation

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Exclusive: Economist Ravinder Athwal who worked in Keir Starmer’s team is poached from Flint Global

Ravinder Athwal, the economist who wrote Labour’s 2024 manifesto, is taking on a senior role as an adviser to John Healey, in a move likely to fuel speculation about an early general election.

The chancellor is keen to beef up his team before the critical budget on 28 October, as the economy is buffeted by high oil prices and rising government borrowing costs.

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Iran awaiting response from Trump on proposal to open strait of Hormuz in six days

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Country says US must lift sanctions on its oil exports and end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon

Iran said it has told Donald Trump it is willing to open the strait of Hormuz in six days, and to start talks on its nuclear program the day after, so long as the US lifts sanctions on Iran’s oil exports in return, ends the war on all fronts – including in Lebanon – and releases some of Iran’s frozen assets.

The proposal is designed to accelerate the steps first laid down in the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran in June, particularly by helping the talks on Iran’s nuclear program start much more quickly than previously agreed.

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Ukrainians in UK fear homelessness over host scheme funding cuts

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Monthly ‘thank you’ payments for people hosting refugees to be cut from £350 to £100 from next year

Ukrainian refugees in the UK fear they could be left homeless after the government quietly axed 70% of funding for hosts of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, reducing monthly “thank you” payments to them from £350 to £100.

The scheme was launched after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has provided support for 181,000 of the 234,000 Ukrainians who have since sought sanctuary in the UK.

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France says EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ law should not include the UK

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‘If you’re not in the internal market, you don’t get the same protection,’ says French minister of policy designed to curb Chinese competition

France is leading a push to exclude the UK from the EU’s “Made in Europe” policy that could result in British companies losing out in the race to supply European countries with low-carbon technologies and electric cars.

The plans were raised by Andy Burnham when he met the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on the sidelines of the UN general assembly earlier this week.

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‘Cash to trash’ levy on house developers too low to offset damage to Norfolk Broads, say critics

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Exclusive: Levy that allows almost 16,000 houses to be built on Norfolk Broads will not cover cost of mitigating environmental damage, critics say

A new levy on developers to allow almost 16,000 homes to be built in the environmentally protected Norfolk Broads has been cut by tens of thousands of pounds per house, the Guardian can reveal.

Ministers say the government’s environmental delivery plans (EDPs) were created to unblock housing growth across the country and are a “win-win” for development and nature.

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UK losing up to £6.5bn a year in EU trade due to mismatched product rules

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IPPR finds failure to align testing standards has forced companies to abandon exporting to EU and is costing costing 0.18% of national income

The UK is losing out on annual exports to the EU that could be worth as much as £6.5bn without a deal with Brussels that allows manufacturers to jettison duplicate product testing.

In the latest attempt to calculate the loss of trade with the EU after Brexit, the IPPR thinktank said many companies have given up selling goods to the EU or set up subsidiaries inside the trade bloc after successive governments failed to secure a mutual recognition agreement that would avoid the extra administration costs.

Motor vehicle and part exports would have been between £2.48bn and £3.42bn higher each year.

Electronic exports could have been between £1.17bn and £1.67bn higher.

Pharmaceutical exports would have had an estimated annual uplift of between £740m and £820m.

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Tories target universal credit claimants in plan condemned as ‘fast track to poverty’

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Proposals aim to push people into work, but charities say families are still paying price of austerity cuts and rise in cost of living

People claiming universal credit (UC) would have their payments cut by a third if they have not paid enough national insurance, under a Conservative plan condemned by one charity as “a fast track to increased poverty”.

Under the proposals, those who receive this “subsistence allowance” would have it paid into a dedicated debit card that would prevent from them buying alcohol or tobacco, based on an Australian system that was scrapped after trials found limited evidence it changed behaviour.

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Milei threatens at UN that Argentina will take ‘matters into our own hands’ on Falklands

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Argentinian president accuses United Nations of being filled with ‘parasites’ in bellicose general assembly speech

Javier Milei has condemned the UN as he warned that Argentina would take “matters into our own hands” in its dispute with Britain over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.

In a caustic speech at the general assembly in New York, the Argentinian president criticised the UN for being ineffective when it came to the long-running tensions over the British overseas territory in the south Atlantic known in Argentina as the Malvinas.

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UK shares findings of damning climate crisis national security report suppressed under Starmer

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El Niño poses critical threat to nations’ defences, says Ed Miliband in presentation to global foreign ministers

The UK has warned countries around the world that the climate and nature crises and the coming El Niño threaten their national security and defence, presenting foreign ministries with the findings of an explosive report suppressed under Keir Starmer.

Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, made a presentation to the foreign ministers of the EU as well as Kenya and other countries on Wednesday night at a private meeting during the UN general assembly in New York, based on the report by the UK’s spy chiefs that found the collapse of natural systems around the world would lead to conflict, migration and food shortages.

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No signs Chagos deal can be adapted to suit Trump, say UK officials

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Agreement with Mauritius over Diego Garcia unlikely to be revived unless president changes his mind, insiders believe

The Chagos Islands deal is on hold for as long as Donald Trump objects to it, UK officials believe, with no immediate signs it can be adapted to suit the US president.

After Trump savaged the three-way plan as “a terrible deal” during a meeting with Andy Burnham at the UN general assembly, the prime minister said he was “confident” the UK would be able to find a solution to revive the idea.

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UK to launch military squadron to protect satellites in space

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New RAF unit will warn of incoming missile attacks, and support offensive and defensive operations

A new military unit dedicated to defending satellites, protecting services people need on Earth and potentially supporting offensive operations is being launched by the UK.

The No III Space Effects Squadron will be announced on Wednesday, with the defence secretary, Wes Streeting, warning that Britain needs to “keep pace in the new space race”.

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UK to join EU ocean science scheme to better predict extreme weather events

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Cooperation on OceanEye, which aims to create ‘real-time’ model of world’s oceans, comes amid efforts to boost EU ties

Britain is to join a major new ocean science programme, led by the EU, to better forecast extreme weather and climate events, the environment secretary is to announce in New York.

The announcement on Wednesday will come as Andy Burnham’s government aims to rebuild the UK’s relationship with Europe, and follows warnings this year’s “supersized” El Niño, tracked in the Pacific Ocean, will fuel more extreme weather globally.

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Critics of UK government’s economic forecaster are ‘shooting the messenger’, say MPs

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Treasury committee rejects calls for fundamental reform of independent watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility

Attacks on the government’s independent economic forecaster from left and right of the political spectrum are akin to “shooting the messenger”, according to an influential group of MPs.

The Treasury committee rejected “siren calls to fundamentally reform” the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and said it should not be blamed when policymakers had to make tough decisions because of tight public finances.

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Thinktank linked to Reform UK calls for abolition of state pension

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‘Radical’ report likely to influence party’s platform also proposes abolishing inheritance and capital gains taxes

A thinktank linked to Reform UK has called for the abolition of the state pension and £75bn worth of sweeping tax cuts in a “radical” report likely to influence the party’s platform for the next election.

The Centre for a Better Britain’s (CFABB) report – which also calls for weaker rules for UK banks and Trump-style investment accounts offering £1,000 to newborns – will be formally launched at a private event with City executives on Wednesday.

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Davey says far right in Britain now better funded and supported than in the past – UK politics live

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Lib Dem leader tells party conference that ‘something big and dangerous is happening in our country’

If Andy Burnham wanted to inject some edge into his meeting with Donald Trump later (which he doesn’t), he could bring along a copy of today’s Financial Times. This front page headline speaks for itself.

Mortgages ‘on the front line’ as Iran war deals £840 blow to homeowners

British homeowners are paying an average of £840 a year more when they refinance their mortgages, as the rising borrowing costs triggered by the Iran war start to impact consumers’ spending power.

Approximately 1m households have rolled off fixed-rate mortgage deals since February, according to Bank of England data.

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UK borrows £18bn in August, putting pressure on Healey before budget

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Some economists say it is now ‘inevitable’ that chancellor will need to raise taxes in the budget next month

The UK government borrowed a higher-than-expected £18.3bn last month, increasing the pressure on John Healey as he attempts to calm jittery bond markets before next month’s budget.

Some economists said it was “inevitable” that the chancellor would need to raise taxes on 28 October if he is to meet demands for extra spending on defence without further borrowing investors on international money markets.

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British banks warned not to invest in planned Israeli settlement before UK trade ban begins

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MPs send out letter as Israeli government seeks bids for construction of large E1 settlement in West Bank

British banks and financial institutions are receiving written warnings from MPs that they should not invest in Israel’s E1 settlement project even though new UK laws banning trade with illegal settlements are unlikely to be in place for months.

A letter was sent to banks on Tuesday by the all-party Britain-Palestine group of MPs saying the onus was now on banks to review their obligations not to cooperate with new settlements.

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Andy Burnham does not rule out Brexit reversal being in next Labour manifesto

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PM says immediate focus is on rebuilding bridges with EU as he prepares for first meeting with Ursula von der Leyen

Andy Burnham has opened the door to fighting the next election on the UK rejoining the EU, but said his immediate priority was continuing to rebuild bridges with European allies.

The prime minister, who will hold his first meeting with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Tuesday, did not rule out including reversing Brexit in Labour’s next manifesto – but suggested the country should focus on securing closer trading ties first.

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UK minister warns of impact of Trump’s Iran war on next month’s budget

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Bridget Phillipson says Burnham’s past criticisms of US president not an issue as PM prepares to meet Trump at UN

Next month’s budget will be made more difficult by Donald Trump’s war with Iran, one of Andy Burnham’s cabinet ministers has said, while adding she did not expect the prime minister’s previous disparaging comments about the US president to be an issue.

Burnham is expected to meet Trump early next week at the UN general assembly summit in New York, the pair having previously spoken twice by phone since Burnham entered No 10.

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