As Trump shows lack of direction on Iran, even Badenoch distances herself

Steady UK opposition to the war and the US president’s insults mean MPs are finding it easier to point out the obvious

When is a U-turn definitely a U-turn? To the consternation of politicians through the ages, this is rarely something within their control, but decided instead by the herd. And thus it is with Kemi Badnoch over Iran and Donald Trump.

The Conservative leader would very much like it to be known that she had not changed her stance on the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, or on the US president.

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Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions – UK politics live

PM to face opposition leader and MPs in the House of Commons

Polanski says the government should be doing more to improve home insulation, and on the drive towards renewable energy.

And he says the government should commit to ensuring energy bills do not rise above the April-June price cap.

The government should guarantee right now that it will not allow energy bills to rise beyond the April-June price cap – instead setting aside approximately £8.4bn to prevent a rise of up to £300 per household that could be coming down the track.

No, it’s not cheap. But the alternative is unacceptable: if the price cap rises, we will see interest rate rises. Mortgage rates up. Bond yields up. And inflation up – and we will be back into the doom loop that has done untold damage to our economy and caused misery for households across the UK for years now.

There are ways to pay. Instead of scrapping the windfall tax on energy companies, as this government is planning to do, we should be strengthening it instead. We need a real, loophole-free windfall tax with no exemptions for reinvesting in fossil fuels. A robust tax that claws back every single pound of reckless profiteering from this crisis and repurposes it immediately to protect every home in the country. And while taxing extreme wealth in the ways we need to will take time to implement, there are levers the government could pull right now – like equalising capital gains tax with income tax and reforming the base, to raise £12bn.

It’s time for the government to act decisively, eliminate the uncertainty that is plaguing people and the markets and insulate us from some of the worst economic effects of Trump’s war.

This was not a war of self-defence, there was no imminent threat. Negotiations were ongoing. It was, as the BBC’s international editor said, a war of choice.

People across the Middle East are terrified of what Trump and Netanyanhu’s war will mean for them and their loved ones. And the repercussions are echoing across the world as instability spreads and oil prices spike.

People are already struggling so hard just to make ends meet. People feel like they’re running every day just to stay in the same place. The idea that yet again – for the second time in just a few years – that we are going to have to deal with another enormous spike in the cost of the basics is unacceptable.

It’s unacceptable because we didn’t need to be here. It’s unforgivable that just four years after we last saw an energy price shock, that one triggered by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, far too little has been done to protect this country, its people, and its economy – from the impact of yet another energy price shock.

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Europe must prepare for drone strikes by terrorists and criminals, warns Zelenskyy

Ukraine’s president says mass attacks on civilians are no longer the preserve of a ‘madman like Putin’

European nations should prepare for attacks by non-state actors including criminal networks, terror groups and lone attackers as drone technology advances, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned.

The Ukrainian president said it was no longer just “a wealthy madman like Putin” who could afford mass attacks as he demonstrated the latest technology to British MPs and peers.

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Zelenskyy says Europe is a ‘global force’ that can stand against any other power in address to MPs – as it happened

Keir Starmer previously reassured that the war in Iran would not distract the UK from supporting Ukraine

Nigel Farage is speaking now at the Reform UK event.

The website promoting the lottery is up. It is called nigelcutmybills.com.

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More than 100 Labour MPs call on PM to stop assisted dying bill being blocked

Letter sent to Starmer claims ‘small number of peers have been using procedural tactics’ to stymie its progress

More than 100 Labour MPs have called on Keir Starmer to stop the House of Lords from blocking the assisted dying bill and give it more time to return to the Commons, with the legislation now certain to fall owing to lack of time.

The private member’s bill, sponsored by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, will fall when the parliamentary session comes to an end in May because peers have used multiple amendments and lengthy debates to prevent it from being put to a vote.

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‘Could be the making of him’: Starmer’s allies praise stance on Trump and Iran

Refusal to kowtow to US president has won public backing – and left Badenoch and Farage playing catch-up

It is not often that Keir Starmer’s allies believe he has Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch on the run – but on Iran, they think he is on the right side of history and public opinion.

“It could be the making of him,” said Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, who was first out of the blocks to say she thought Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran were illegal. “You’ve not had a British prime minister say no to an American president since Vietnam. This is a big deal.”

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Starmer may face more resignations after release of Mandelson WhatsApp messages, say sources

PM has apologised for his handling of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador, but next tranche of files could contain further damaging details

Keir Starmer could suffer further resignations when ministerial WhatsApp messages are published in the next tranche of the Peter Mandelson files, senior government sources have told the Guardian.

With officials bracing for the subsequent releases – expected to include informal communications alongside formal messages like those in the first batch – Starmer apologised again on Thursday over his handling of Mandelson’s appointment, saying: “It was me that made a mistake, and it’s me that makes the apology to the victims of [Jeffrey] Epstein, and I do that.”

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Iranians living in UK tell Starmer that war will only strengthen Tehran regime

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe among more than 100 signatories to letter urging PM not to get drawn further into the conflict

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among three of Iran’s former political prisoners and more than 100 Iranians living in the UK who have urged the British prime minister not to get drawn further into the Iran conflict.

They are all signatories in a letter to Keir Starmer saying the way the war is being conducted is strengthening the regime in Tehran.

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Four US bombers land at RAF base in UK after warning of surge in strikes on Iran

B-1 Lancers arrive at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire after Starmer allows US to use UK as a base for ‘defensive’ action

Four US bombers have landed at an RAF base in Britain to carry out “specific defensive operations” to stop Iran firing missiles into the Middle East, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The B-1 Lancers, which are 45 metres (146ft) long and capable of carrying 24 cruise missiles, arrived at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, one on Friday evening and three on Saturday morning, after Keir Starmer had granted permission for “defensive” US action against Iranian missile sites from UK bases.

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Labour accuses Badenoch of scoring ‘cheap political points’ over Iran strikes

Defence minister urges ‘serious politics’ after Tory leader criticises prime minister’s stance at spring conference

Labour has accused Kemi Badenoch of scoring “cheap political points” after the Conservative party leader said Keir Starmer was “too scared” to join strikes on Iran.

Al Carns, the defence minister, said “serious politics” was required in response to Badenoch’s speech at the party’s spring conference where she criticised the prime minister’s stance on the US-Israel strikes on Iran a week ago.

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RAF jets could legally strike Iran’s missile bases, says David Lammy – UK politics live

Deputy prime minister says while jets currently only shooting down missiles, there is legal basis for them to do more

Hello and welcome to the UK politics blog.

Royal Air Force jets could legally strike Iranian missile sites being used to attack British interests in the Middle East, David Lammy has said this morning.

It is entirely legal to protect our people and protect our staff, and therefore all operational capability is available to us in those circumstances.

It is my understanding that that would be legal.

The UK is sending four additional Typhoon jets to Qatar, as well as Wildcat helicopters with anti-drone capabilities being sent to Cyprus, Keir Starmer said in a press conference yesterday. He said the US has been allowed to use British airfields to carry out defensive missions and that HMS Dragon is heading for the Mediterranean.

Kemi Badenoch has said the UK should take offensive action against Iran after UK bases were attacked. “We need to do what we can to stop the ability for these attacks to take place,” the Tory leader told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Shabana Mahmood put herself on a collision course with Labour MPs after announcing a set of changes to the immigration system that one backbencher said mimicked Donald Trump and another claimed would lead to a Windrush-style scandal. The home secretary announced her plans on Thursday, including an end to permanent refugee status and the removal of government support from asylum seekers who are deemed not to need it or who break the law.

A small number of asylum seekers whose claims are rejected will be offered an “increased incentive payment” of £10,000 per person and up to £40,000 per family to leave Britain under a pilot scheme, Mahmood said. The home secretary said the government would seek to echo reforms introduced in Denmark, where she said there had been “great success” in using incentives.

The husband of a Labour MP and two other men have been released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of spying for China. David Taylor, who is married to the Scottish Labour MP Joani Reid, is accused of assisting a foreign intelligence service.

Nigel Farage has described May’s Senedd elections as a “referendum” on Keir Starmer, as Reform UK gears up to battle Plaid Cymru for the chance to end a century of Labour dominance in Wales. Launching Reform’s election manifesto in Newport on Thursday alongside the party’s newly appointed Welsh leader, Dan Thomas, Farage said: “It’s a Welsh election, but I’m afraid, whether you like it or not, it doubles up as a referendum on Keir Starmer’s premiership.”

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Starmer is facing a cocktail of dissent that is growing ever more potent

After the Greens’ byelection win, PM’s failure to make a progressive offer has angered Labour’s soft-left majority

But for the Iran crisis, Labour’s first major policy announcement since the party’s calamitous defeat in the Gorton and Denton byelection would have been arguably the biggest political story of the week.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, pressed ahead with what is intended to be the party’s full-throated answer to the competition it faces from Reform UK as she declared an end to permanent refugee status and the removal of state support from some asylum seekers.

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Starmer’s slow start in the war against Iran could leave UK playing catch-up

Prime minister’s initial refusal to help US could constrain Britain’s ability to protect its nationals in the Gulf and reassure allies

Britain knew that the US was considering attacking Iran from the moment Donald Trump told protesters that “help is coming” in the middle of January. It was obvious to the world that the White House was serious when the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group was sent to the Arabian Sea in late January.

But as Trump gradually built up his “massive armada”, reinforcing it with a second carrier strike group in mid-February, UK deployments were constrained and limited even though there was a recognition that it was likely allies and bases with British soldiers would be attacked in an Iranian retaliation.

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Labour MP says she had no reason to suspect her husband may have broken law after his arrest on suspicion of spying for China – as it happened

Joani Reid asks for privacy after it was revealed her husband David Taylor was one of the three men arrested

Starmer begins PMQs by telling the Commons that his thoughts are with Sarah Everard “on this very painful anniversary” of her death.

He says the government is working hard to prevent boys and men from becoming abusers.

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Trump rebukes Starmer again for not letting US attack Iran from UK bases

US president criticises prime minister for third time 24 hours, describing him as ‘not Churchill’ over initial refusal

Donald Trump has launched a deeply personal attack on Keir Starmer over his refusal to let the US launch initial strikes on Iran from British bases, telling reporters: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”

In his latest extraordinary salvo, the US president said he was not happy with the UK even though the prime minister eventually agreed the US could use Diego Garcia for strikes on Iranian missile facilities.

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Starmer vows to avoid ‘mistakes of Iraq’ that have haunted Labour for decades

Prime minister does not believe US has a plan beyond ‘shock and awe’ stage, as some MPs dread what lies ahead

US-Israel war on Iran – live updates

What we know so far on day three of the Iran war

A visual guide to strikes on Iran and Tehran’s response

Tony Blair’s support for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 has long loomed like a spectre over the Labour party.

It was present in 2013 when Ed Miliband as opposition leader voted to block UK military action against the Syrian regime.

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‘Simply not true’ UK is being dragged into Iraq-style conflict, says foreign secretary

Yvette Cooper says plans under consideration to evacuate about 300,000 Britons from Middle East amid Iran war

It is “simply not true” that the UK is being dragged into another Iraq-style conflict in the Middle East, Yvette Cooper has said, after an RAF base in Cyprus was struck by an Iranian drone.

The attack was part of a barrage of strikes by Tehran around the Middle East after a US-Israeli attack on Saturday that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The UK foreign secretary confirmed ministers were considering possible plans to evacuate about 300,000 Britons from the region.

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UK to allow US to use British bases for defensive strikes against Iran

Keir Starmer says decision was taken amid increasingly reckless Iranian actions, as Liberal Democrats demand parliamentary vote

The UK has agreed to let the US use British military bases to attack Iranian missile sites, Keir Starmer has said.

The UK has so far not been involved in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, but in a recorded statement on Sunday evening, the prime minister said that Iran’s approach was becoming more reckless and putting British lives at risk, leading to the decision to allow the US to use two of its military bases.

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Starmer faces greater quandary over ‘special relationship’ after Iran attack

PM is in diplomatically precarious position of declining to endorse US strikes while also refusing to condemn them

It was perhaps naive of No 10 ever to position Keir Starmer as a “Donald Trump whisperer” capable of persuading the unpredictable US president to step back from reckless decisions.

The “special relationship” has been under severe strain in recent months over the UK’s decision to give up sovereignty of the Chagos Islands and the refusal of European countries to back Trump’s play for Greenland.

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Green party wins Gorton and Denton byelection, pushing Labour to third place in blow to Keir Starmer

Hannah Spencer elected as party’s first MP in northern England, as Labour sees a 25.3% drop in vote compared to 2024

The Green party has pulled off a landmark victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection in a significant blow to Keir Starmer.

Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green party councillor, was elected as the party’s first MP in northern England after overturning Labour’s 13,000-vote majority.

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