Category Archives: Scotland

‘This changes everything’: how Brexit altered Scotland’s political landscape

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Former party leaders reflect on the turbulence that followed the referendum in which most Scottish voters backed the losing side

The decision to quit the EU bolstered support for Scottish independence, which a decade after the Brexit referendum is at near record levels, according to Scottish Labour’s former leader Kezia Dugdale.

Dugdale said the Brexit vote “creates a frame around fairness” for many in Scotland because, unlike England, Scottish voters comprehensively backed remain in 2016, by 62% to 38%, yet found their country taken out of Europe.

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Five injured in suspected anti-Muslim incidents across Edinburgh

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Counter-terrorism officers investigating as Police Scotland arrest 36-year-old white Scottish man

Counter-terrorism officers are investigating a number of “violent attacks” in Edinburgh on Friday night that injured five men in suspected anti-Muslim incidents.

A 36-year-old white Scottish man has been arrested and police have said there is no further threat to the public.

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Reform UK gloomy about prospects in Makerfield, as one party source says Labour ahead by 2,500 votes – UK politics live

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Result expected around 3am as Labour’s Greater Manchester mayor hopes a win over Reform UK will help force the prime minister to step aside

David Blunkett, the former Labour cabinet minister, has suggested that Keir Starmer should stand down after the Makerfield byelection.

In an interview on the BBC’s Newsnight, Blunkett suggested that Starmer standing aside would be the best option for the party regardless of whether Andy Burnham wins tonight or loses.

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UK defence spending plan ‘well short of what’s required’ and harder choices needed, says John Healey – as it happened

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Ex-defence secretary John Healey and ex-defence minister Al Carns have given resignation statements to MPs

Speaking to reporters at the G7, Keir Starmer also defended the defence investment plan (DIP) draft that led to John Healey’s resignation as defence secretary last week. Starmer confirmed that Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, is getting some input before the publication of the DIP in its final version.

Starmer said:

The position on investment in defence is firstly that we increased last year defence spending from 2.3% to 2.6%, that’s the biggest increase since the 1980s, and that means £270bn will be spent this parliament on defence.

On top of that [the] defence investment plan which obviously gives us capability for the future. We will put even more money in relation to that. I’ve been really clear that’s required difficult decisions, I have taken the decision to reallocate money from other departments.

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Can Starmer’s late-night World Cup openings help Britain’s struggling pubs?

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While venues could stay open until 2am, rising costs remain a far bigger concern for many landlords

Picture the scene: it’s 1am on a sultry July night and Jude Bellingham has just scored the decisive penalty to send England into the World Cup semi-final. Cue wild celebrations among millions of pub goers, fuelled by the realisation that there is still an hour until closing time.

Keir Starmer may have imagined a national morale-boosting spectacle such as this when his government told hospitality venues that they could stay open until 2am on some World Cup match days.

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Call to phase out ‘inhumane’ guga hunt by working with Hebridean islanders

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Annual killing of infant gannets has been carried out on a remote Scottish island for at least 400 years

Animal welfare campaigners have called for talks on phasing out the “inhumane” hunt for infant gannets known as guga, which are killed by hunters on a remote Scottish island once a year.

OneKind and the League Against Cruel Sports said it should be slowly phased out in dialogue with the Hebridean islanders who see the hunt, which has been carried out for at least 400 years, as a cultural pursuit and as sustainable food harvesting.

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Police officer received death threats over Nowak murder case as Mahmood condemns ‘dangerous’ commentary – UK politics live

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Home secretary says officer wrongly linked to case had to relocate after footage emerged of victim being handcuffed while dying

BBC Scotland has more details of the Peter Murrell hearing this morning on its live blog. And, on its live blog, Sky News has pictures of some of the items purchased by Murrell with stolen SNP funds.

Andy Burnham will not call an early election if he becomes prime minister after the Makerfield byelection, a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester mayor has said.

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Wildfires devastating richer areas but fewer hectares burned globally – study

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‘Megafires’ in California, Canada, South Korea and Europe in 2025, but changes to farming slowed spread in parts of Africa

“Devastating” wildfires ripped across the wealthier parts of the world in 2025, a study has found, even as globally, the area ravaged by flames fell.

Catastrophic blazes claimed lives, homes and jobs last year in California, Canada, Europe and South Korea. But the 335m hectares burned was the second-lowest since 2002, the review found, largely owing to the expansion of African farms that have fragmented landscapes and hampered the spread of large savannah fires.

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‘Deep unease’ at BBC Radio Scotland as majority of axed presenters are women

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Changes are part of sweeping shake-up by Victoria Easton Riley, BBC Scotland’s new head of audio and events

There is a “deep sense of unease” among staff at BBC Radio Scotland after a succession of respected arts presenters, more than half of them women, were dropped from schedules.

The changes have prompted questions about diversity of coverage amid an apparent shift to a “more commercial sensibility” for the public broadcaster.

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Starmer urged to intervene in ‘rigged’ Indian prosecution of British human rights activist

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Senior lawyers call on prime minister to request Indian prosecutors drop charges that would breach double jeopardy rule

Four senior lawyers, including the former attorney general Dominic Grieve, have written to Keir Starmer urging him to request that Indian prosecutors drop charges against the British national Jagtar Singh Johal on the basis that continued prosecution would be in manifest breach of the double jeopardy rule which prevents someone being tried twice for the same offence.

Johal has been held in an Indian jail for eight years, and in March last year was acquitted of the terrorist charges laid against him in a court in Punjab. The court found the prosecutors had “miserably failed” to present any reliable evidence, despite having had seven years to do so.

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ChatGPT and other AI bots made huge errors before Scottish election, study finds

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Exclusive: Electoral Commission calls for new controls, as Demos finds tools made up fake scandals, invented candidates or gave wrong date

The Electoral Commission has called for new legal controls over misinformation from AI chatbots, after a thinktank found they had made serious mistakes during the recent Scottish election.

The thinktank Demos said its investigation had found that AI services gave voters misinformation to 34% of the questions it posed, which it said raised worrying questions about the lack of regulation of AI platforms in the UK.

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Magnus the wandering walrus leaves Scotland for Norway

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After drawing delighted crowds since first sighted in Orkney the young male has swum 400 miles across the North Sea

A peripatetic walrus who became a local celebrity as he toured the north-east coast of Scotland has now been spotted in Norway, bringing to an end his Celtic sojourn.

The young male was christened Magnus after he after first hauled his estimated 2.5-metre frame out of the sea on to Stronsay pier in Orkney on 16 April.

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John Swinney urges Starmer to show Scotland ‘greater respect’ after SNP victory

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Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, concedes his party was comprehensively beaten in election as count puts his party on 17 seats, a tie with Reform

John Swinney, the Scottish National party leader, has challenged Keir Starmer to show “greater respect” to the Scottish government after winning the Holyrood elections by a comfortable margin.

The Scottish National party secured a record fifth term in office on Friday after securing 58 of Holyrood’s 129 seats.

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Elections 2026 live: ‘I’m not going to walk away,’ says Starmer as Farage hails ‘historic shift in British politics’

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The Reform UK leader said Labour is being ‘wiped out by Reform in many of their traditional areas’ as results paint a bleak picture for the prime minister

We’re getting statements from some of the political parties now as we wait for results.

For the Conservatives, party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said:

We have run an energetic and positive campaign, showcasing that we have a clear plan to get Britain working again and that we have the team to deliver it... We know that so soon after a historic general election defeat and contesting wards won during the Party’s polling highs, that this will be a difficult set of elections for us. But we will continue to rebuild and to show the public that we have changed, to demonstrate that only this new Conservative party is a credible alternative.

People are deeply disappointed with a Labour government that has been too timid to fix the country, but they are also appalled by the rise of Reform and Nigel Farage’s Trump-style politics. While those on the extremes of the right and the left want to burn everything down, Liberal Democrats want to fix what’s broken. Every Liberal Democrat local champion elected today will fight tirelessly for the communities they serve.

I’ve travelled across England and Wales and I’m hearing the same everywhere I go – confidence that we will win more councillors than ever before. The news from the doorstep is that we will be taking seats from not just Labour but the Tories and Lib Dems too, from all across the country. Voters are responding to the fact that Greens are the only party taking the cost-of-living crisis seriously, with real plans to cut bills, reduce rents and provide genuinely affordable homes, as well as tackling the climate and nature crisis.

Throughout this election, we have heard a clear appetite for change. People want a government that will stand up for Wales and focus relentlessly on the key issues affecting their lives. People have told us they have been inspired by Rhun ap Iorwerth’s leadership and driven by a desire for a positive alternative to Reform UK’s chaos and division.

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Polanski says he is not ready to be PM, but might be in two years’ time – UK politics live

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Green leader also apologised for misrepresenting his work with the Red Cross, and defended party policy on drugs

Labour has criticised Zack Polanski for saying he was concerned about how the suspect in the Golders Green stabbings was treated when he was arrested by the police.

Referring to what Polanski said about this in his Today interview this morning (see 9.33am), a Labour party spokesperson said:

Our brave police ran towards a suspected terrorist and tackled him while he was still carrying a knife and before they could handcuff him.

The fact that Zack Polanski is still sympathising with this individual is utterly astounding. For the Green party leader to be litigating the case for the defence against the police shows whose side he is truly on.

The latest unemployment figures for February showed a fall, interest rates were expected to come down, the markets were pricing in a couple of cuts during the course of the year.

The truth is, with the effect of the Iran war, we can’t count on any of that at the moment. There is likely to be an effect on prices, which feeds through from energy costs, and there may well be labour market implications.

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Next Scottish government faces ‘really difficult’ spending choices, economists say

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Parties accused of ‘fiscal denial’ and failing to tell voters the scale of the challenge

The next Scottish government will need to make “really difficult” spending decisions soon after taking power, including tackling its large public sector pay bill, senior economists have said.

Economists with the Fraser of Allander Institute, at the University of Strathclyde, believe the manifestos published by Scotland’s political parties during the campaign failed to tell voters about the true scale of the challenge.

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Reform UK plan to set up migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas condemned by other parties – as it happened

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Nigel Farage’s party proposed to place detention centres in places that vote for Green council leaders or MPs

Keir Starmer has said that Europe has to face up to the fact that its alliance with the US is under strain.

He made the remark in public comments during the plenary session at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan in Armenia.

And both of those are impacting all of us in a very material way.

In the United Kingdom, if you look at the economic forecast now and compare it to the economic forecast just three or four months ago, they are in materially different places, and this is going to play out with our electorates in all of our countries.

Reform are now openly threatening voters and not only that they’re threatening them with a power they don’t actually have. This is absolutely pathetic. People across Scotland are proud of the fact that this is a welcoming country that shows solidarity to people who need it.

Reform are essentially saying ‘If you don’t vote the way we want you to, we will punish you’. I think the people of Scotland and voters across the UK are not going to take kindly to that kind of Donald Trumpesque threat.

Reform know that absolutely bombed last week. The only thing they’ve got to move on to are open threats, not against the Greens but against voters across the country. It’s really quite sinister. This is exactly the kind of politics you see in Donald Trump’s America. People across Scotland are going to reject that on Thursday.

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Two drivers killed in motorway crash in Perth and Kinross

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Two men died at the scene after head-on motorway collision near Kincross, Police Scotland say

Two drivers have died in a motorway crash in Scotland involving a car apparently travelling in the wrong direction on the carriageway, police have said.

The two men died at the scene of the collision on the M90 near Kinross, a town in Perth and Kinross, at 10.30pm on Friday.

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Badenoch calls Farage an ‘opportunist’ after he urges Scottish nationalists to back Reform

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Tory leader criticises Farage for saying that holding another independence vote ‘probably quite reasonable’

Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative party, has accused Nigel Farage of being an opportunist who does not believe in unionism after he urged Scottish nationalists to back Reform.

Farage said earlier this week he believed “genuine nationalists” would not support the Scottish National party’s bid to rejoin the EU, and urged them to vote Reform in the Holyrood election on 7 May.

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Scottish ultrarunning champion dies during Highlands record attempt

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David Parrish, who won Cape Wrath Ultra in 2023, had been attempting gruelling route again as fundraising challenge

A 35-year-old ultramarathon champion from Dumfries has died while attempting to beat the record for a race to the most north-westerly point on mainland Britain.

David Parrish, a former Royal Marine, was trying to become the fastest man to complete the Cape Wrath trail, one of Britain’s most gruelling race routes.

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