Shabana Mahmood tells MPs asylum system is ‘out of control and unfair’ amid Labour backlash over proposals – UK politics live

Labour MP calls government’s asylum plans ‘dystopian’ as home secretary announces measures in Commons

Momentum, the leftwing Labour group, has also denounced the government’s asylum plans. In a statement it says:

The home secretary’s new immigration plans are divisive and xenophobic.

Scapegoating migrants will not fix our public services or end austerity.

Draconian, unworkable and potentially illegal anti-asylum policies only feed Reform’s support.

The government has learnt nothing from the period since the general election.

Some of the legal changes being proposed are truly frightening:

Abolishing the right to a family life would ultimately affect many more people than asylum-seekers.

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Reform’s public-sector pensions plan could cost billions extra, union warns

Prospect says proposals to make payouts less generous would damage public finances rather than save money

Reform UK’s plans to make public-sector pensions less generous could cost billions extra a year and cause a ticking timebomb in the public finances, a leading trade union has warned.

Prospect said the plans unveiled by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, would damage the public finances rather than save money “and end up costing taxpayers tens of billions of pounds in the years to come”.

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Farage accused of betraying pensioners after triple lock hint in speech Tories say was rambling and incoherent – UK politics live

Reform leader refuses to commit to keeping mechanism that guarantees how pensions are increased

Farage is speaking now. He says another “depressing budget hoves into view”. It will be a budget that “doesn’t have the guts to cut public spending”.

He says Britain has been living under an illusion.

I think for some years we’ve actually been living under an illusion. We’ve not been prepared to face up to just how much of an economic mess we genuinely in.

As we slipped down the global league tables, we kid ourselves that it’s OK, we’ve got GDP growth.

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Richard Tice accepted stay at French Riviera home of Tory donor

Reform deputy leader’s trip, worth £1,400, to Lubov Chernukhin’s property was for ‘discussing gas power in UK’

Reform UK’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, accepted a £1,400 stay at the French Riviera home of Lubov Chernukhin, a Conservative donor and the wife of Russia’s former deputy finance minister, new filings show.

Tice enjoyed accommodation valued at £1,000 and meals worth £400 between 4 and 6 August at the Chernukhins’ property on the Mediterranean coast, listing the purpose as “discussing gas power in the UK”, according to the register of MPs’ interests.

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Stella Creasy and Richard Tice call for scrutiny over which EU laws UK ditches

Labour MP says she and Reform MP want a committee set up, after news of UK’s post-Brexit environmental rollbacks

Stella Creasy and Richard Tice are pushing for Labour to allow a Brexit scrutiny committee to be formed in parliament, after the Guardian revealed environmental protections had been eroded since the UK left the EU.

The Labour and Reform UK MPs argue that there is no scrutiny or accountability over how Brexit is being implemented. Creasy, the MP for Walthamstow and chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, said the UK needed a “salvage operation” to clear up the environmental and regulatory havoc caused by Brexit.

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Starmer ‘not telling truth’ over Gaza family asylum decision, claims Badenoch, after PMQs clash – as it happened

Opposition leader says PM was wrong when he said that the decision was taken under the last government

After PMQs there will be an urgent question in the Commons, tabled by the Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine, on “the potential security implications of the involvement of Chinese companies including Mingyang in energy infrastructure projects”. After that Dan Jarvis, the security minister, will make a statement to mark the publication of the report into Prevent’s dealings with Ali Harbi Ali, the man who killed the Conservative MP David Amess.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has blamed Home Office foot-dragging for a failure to change the rules to allow forces to sack officers who fail vetting procedures, Matthew Weaver reports.

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Reform deputy leader Richard Tice splitting time between Skegness and Dubai after partner leaves UK

MP says he is totally committed to his constituency after Isabel Oakeshott moved to the Emirates

One weekend, it will be the straightforward delights of Skegness seafront; the next, the flashy private beach clubs of Dubai.

Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK and its MP for Boston and Skegness, is splitting his time not just between his Lincolnshire ­constituency and the House of Commons, but is also spending time 3,500 miles away in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). “We are spreading our international reach,” he said.

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Reform can learn from Lib Dems on ground campaigning, says Richard Tice

Party’s aim is to build base of local councillors and activists, deputy leader says before conference

Reform UK plans to mimic the Liberal Democrats in building up a national base of councillors and activists to try to expand its support, the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, has said before its annual conference.

While the mood in Birmingham will be celebratory, with Tice joining Nigel Farage as two of the five Reform MPs elected on 4 July, there could also be some internal dissent over a planned new party constitution, with one senior party figure saying it would allow Farage to act as an “absolute dictator”.

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Oliver Dowden reportedly reveals preferred choice for next Tory leader – UK general election live

Deputy PM says Victoria Atkins is ‘star’ and is one of only people he could see leading Tory party

Meanwhile Rishi Sunak is expected to tell voters today that “If just 130,000 people switch their vote and lend us their support, we can deny Starmer that supermajority,” PA reports.

Keir Starmer has said a big majority would be “better for the country”, as the Tories continue to urge voters to proceed with caution and not hand Labour a “blank cheque”.

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Tice and Farage, the happy couple wedded to migration incoherence | John Crace

Our Nige at least manages to sound slightly plausible while talking utter rubbish

It’s not hard to pick out where the power lies at any Reform party event. Just check out the middle-aged men with a tan. Richard Tice, Nigel Farage and David Bull all look like they’ve spent a suspiciously long time on the sunbed. Or maybe they’ve got a bulk offer on spray tan. Either way, you have to blink several times when you see them in the flesh. The glare is oppressive. Welcome to the party with heavy 1970s Benidorm vibes.

Nigel Farage had insisted that when he first booked Glaziers Hall near London Bridge, it had been to announce that he was planning to stand as a candidate in the election. Like a lot of things Our Nige says, this may be wishful thinking. Or a straight porky. Check out the timings. Rishi Sunak calls a general election last Wednesday. Nige books the room the next day. All set to go. Then changes his mind within days. Mmm. Maybe not.

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‘When’s Nigel coming back?’ Farage absence looms large over Reform UK conference

In Doncaster, at the insurgent rightwing party’s ‘biggest ever’ gathering, one absence is on everybody’ lips

On a sunny day at Doncaster racecourse, those gathered for Reform UK’s “biggest ever party conference” were presented with a dizzying array of pledges to cut tax and ­freeze “non-essential” immigration as its leading lights published a ­programme to “save Britain”. Yet even as the sun beamed down, the shadow of one absent figure seemed to hang over proceedings.

There was a jubilant mood at the South Yorkshire gathering as they cheered leader Richard Tice’s demands for an inquiry into vaccine harms, to break with the World Health Organization and to fire headteachers who refused to drop “critical race theory”.

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‘Done with Labour and the Tories’: Reform UK attracts angry voters

The rightwing populist party could play an outsize role in the next UK election – and cost the Conservatives dearly

“A sinking ship” was how Antonia, an administrator from Middleton, described Britain at the start of 2024. That assessment, while damning, isn’t unusual, with “broken”, “mess” and “struggling” the top words used to describe the UK today. But Antonia, and her fellow focus group participants – former Conservative voters from the “red wall” seats of Heywood and Middleton, Great Grimsby and Dudley North – weren’t planning on expressing their exasperation with the state of Britain by voting Labour. Instead, they were tempted by the successor to the Brexit party – Reform UK.

Since October, Reform has enjoyed a steady rise in support, hitting 10% in some opinion polls. While unlikely to win seats of their own, by attracting former Tory voters Reform could play the role of spoiler. An analysis by the thinktank More in Common suggests that at present polling levels Reform could enable more than 30 additional Conservative losses.

Luke Tryl is the UK director of the research group More in Common

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