Category Archives: General elections

Nigel Farage says ‘there’s every chance of general election in 2027’

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Reform UK leader criticises Angela Rayner’s ‘entitlement’ and vows to ‘stop the boats’ within two weeks if elected

Nigel Farage has said there is every chance of a general election in 2027, declaring he will run on a pledge to “stop the boats” within two weeks of entering No 10.

Speaking at the Reform UK conference in Birmingham, he said the chaos in government and Angela Rayner’s resignation as deputy prime minister meant the party needed to be “ready” to fight a contest two years early.

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Starmer declines to rule out election pledge-breaking tax rises in budget after claim Treasury must fill £40bn deficit – as it happened

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Prime minister defends government’s handling of economy but will not give assurances over not raising income tax, employee NI or VAT

Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, has urged Keir Starmer to call Donald Trump to encourage him to use his influence to block Israel’s plans for a “full occupation” of Gaza.

In a statement, Davey said:

[Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu’s latest proposals for the occupation of all of Gaza are utterly horrifying.

If realised, they will only wreak yet more destruction on Gazans - while gravely endangering the lives of the hostages still held in Hamas’ captivity.

I see NIESR is talking today about a £41.2bn hole in the UK public finances

Two things are newsworthy:

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Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz sign UK-Germany friendship and cooperation treaty – UK politics live

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UK PM and German chancellor sign first bilateral agreement between the UK and Germany since the second world war

While Rushanara Ali is answering the urgent question in the Commons, Keir Starmer is speaking at the event where he is announcing a “civil society covenant”.

There is a live feed here.

Why does this government think a 16-year-old can vote but not be allowed to buy a lottery ticket or an alcoholic drink, marry or go to war, or even stand in the elections they’re voting? It isn’t the government’s position on the age of maturity just hopelessly confused?

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Voting age to be lowered to 16 in UK by next general election

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16- and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in all elections as part of changes including easier voter registration and crackdown on foreign interference

The voting age will be lowered to 16 in the UK by the next general election in a major change of the democratic system.

The government said it was a reform to bring in more fairness for 16- and 17-year-olds, many of whom already work and are able to serve in the military. It brings the whole of the UK voting age to 16. Scotland and Wales have already made the change for Holyrood and Senedd elections, as well as local council elections.

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Automatic voter registration may be an answer to UK’s troubling turnout gap

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Experts say evidence from abroad shows AVR is effective – and it’s one of several proposals to try to boost voting

A healthy democracy depends on people participating in it. In the UK, the proportion of people doing so is falling. Voter turnout in general elections stayed above 70% from 1945 through to 1997, hitting more than 80% in 1950 and 1951. But it collapsed to 59.4% when Tony Blair won his second term in 2001, and though it rose again between 2010 and 2019, it has not reached the 70% mark since 1997. In the 2024 election, turnout fell to 59.7%.

The decline has been acute enough to trigger concern among Labour officials. Before July, the Guardian revealed they were drawing up plans to introduce automatic voter registration (AVR). In the election, when it came around, just 52% of adults living in the UK exercised their right to vote – the lowest proportion since universal suffrage was introduced. Crucially, this statistic counts all adults eligible to vote in the UK, not just those registered on the electoral roll.

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Turnout inequality in UK elections close to tipping point, report warns

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IPPR says elections could lose legitimacy because of falling turnout among groups such as renters and non-graduates

UK elections are “close to a tipping point” where they lose legitimacy because of plummeting voter turnout among renters and non-graduates, an influential thinktank has said.

Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that the gap in turnout between those with and without university degrees grew to 11 percentage points in the 2024 general election – double that of 2019.

Lowering the voting age to 16.

Implementing automatic voter registration.

Introducing a £100,000 annual cap on donations to political parties.

Creating an “election day service”.

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Britons should be able to use wider range of ID to vote, says watchdog

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Changes proposed after as many as 750,000 people may have been excluded from 2024 election due to lack of documents

Ministers should expand the ID that people can use to vote, the elections watchdog has recommended, after a report found as many as 750,000 people might not have voted in the 2024 general election because they lacked the necessary documents.

The Electoral Commission said the government should also look at allowing people without ID to vote if someone who did have proof of identity was able to vouch for them at a polling station.

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Yvette Cooper says ‘disgraceful scenes’ of election candidate abuse must end

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Ministers will meet to address what home secretary calls an alarming rise in intimidation of politicians

An alarming rise in candidate intimidation during the UK’s general election campaign will be addressed next week at a meeting of ministers and civil servants, the home secretary has said.

Yvette Cooper said there had been “disgraceful scenes” in some areas in the run-up to the 4 July vote, as she announced she would chair a meeting of the defending democracy taskforce.

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Jeremy Hunt’s children leave ‘sweet’ notes for Starmer’s son and daughter

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Prime minister says family ‘very pleased’ to receive letters from former chancellor’s children about life in Downing Street

Jeremy Hunt’s three children left personal notes for Keir Starmer’s teenage son and daughter after last week’s general election, containing advice about living in Downing Street.

The prime minister said his children were “very pleased” to receive the letters from the Hunt’s children, who had lived in the flat above No 11 since their father was appointed chancellor.

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‘Disproportionate’ UK election results boost calls to ditch first past the post

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Campaigners for electoral reform say outcome has renewed pressure for proportional representation

The push for electoral reform in the UK has received a shot in the arm after the “most disproportionate election in history”, according to campaigners and academics.

Longstanding reform campaigners have become uneasy bedfellows with Reform UK’s Nigel Farage in recent days after Labour secured a 174-seat majority with just 34% of the popular vote.

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Starmer tells his cabinet: now it’s time to deliver on our promises

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PM pledges swift action on NHS and prisons, setting out agenda to reform public services and rebuild international relations

Keir Starmer on Saturday rallied his new cabinet behind an ambitious agenda to reform the country’s creaking public services and reset damaged relations abroad during his first full day as prime minister.

After an extraordinary 48 hours that saw Labour storm to a landslide general election victory with a massive Commons majority of 174 while the Tories were routed, Starmer said he was “restless for change” and determined to deliver on his campaign pledges.

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Starmer installs non-political ministers in ‘government of all the talents’

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Covid adviser Patrick Vallance and businessman James Timpson among appointments from outside Westminster

Keir Starmer brought back senior ministers from the New Labour government on Saturday night, as he announced further additions to his team.

Former cabinet minister Douglas Alexander, who returned as an MP at the election, was made a trade minister, while Jacqui Smith, who served as home secretary under Gordon Brown, was handed a peerage and made an education minister.

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Voter turnout at general election was lowest since 2001 – politics live as it happened

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Keir Starmer ‘restless for change’ as he vows to take action on prisons on first full day as PM

Education spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, Munira Wilson, acknowledged the party benefited from voters wanting to turf out a Conservative government.

According to the PA news agency, the Twickenham MP told Sky News:

We were very clear that after the previous Conservative government, which was frankly full of chaos and incompetence and had broken the trust of the British people and broken our economy, time was up for them and in many of those seats where we won we made it very clear to voters that if they wanted to turf out the Tories they had to vote Liberal Democrat and they did.

So obviously in every election it’s a combination of the two, but I am also confident that our messages around cost-of-living, sewage, health and care did really resonate with voters.”

It’s really important for the British people that there are opposition MPs asking tough questions and scrutinising the legislation that Labour are going to bring forward, and I can assure you that every Liberal Democrat MP in the House of Commons will be doing that and will be focused on the job and not worried about where the party’s going.”

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‘A difficult hand played poorly’: how No 10 slipped from Sunak’s grasp

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Initial Brexit success was undone by poor strategy and repeated unforced errors, say expert observers

Rishi Sunak became Britain’s prime minister quickly and unexpectedly in October 2022 after the short, financially catastrophic premiership of Liz Truss and the leadership of Boris Johnson, whose loose moral compass had allowed Downing Street to party while the rest of the UK was locked down.

The economic situation was dire – inflation at 11%, mortgages threatening to soar by £5,000 a year – and the political inheritance more desperate. But since then the 44-year-old prime minister has failed to turn around the Conservative’s fortunes. Lacking a transformative touch, he led the party to a historic defeat.

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‘Don’t take us for granted’: Muslim voters send message to Labour over its Gaza stance

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Labour lost seats including Jonathan Ashworth’s in Leicester, where angry voters say they felt ignored

When Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth lost his Leicester South seat to the pro-Palestine independent candidate Shockat Adam, it was widely seen as one of the biggest upsets of election night.

But a walk along Evington Road, a busy shopping street with a large Muslim population in the constituency, showed that all the signs were there.

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Keir Starmer promises ‘stability and moderation’ in first speech as PM

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First Labour prime minister since 2010 promises to serve whole country as he speaks outside No 10

Keir Starmer pitched himself as a leader for “stability and moderation” who will rebuild Britain, as he reached out to those who did not vote for Labour with a promise to serve the whole country.

The Labour leader gave a speech on the steps of Downing Street after going to Buckingham Palace to accept the king’s invitation to form a new government.

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Greens to push Labour to ‘be braver’ on climate, sewage and cost of living

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Party co-leader and new MP Carla Denyer says election shows voters ‘have had enough of incremental change’

The Green party will push the incoming Labour government to “be braver” on key issues, from the climate crisis and sewage in rivers to housing and tax, according to Carla Denyer, the party’s co-leader and one of its four new MPs.

The party quadrupled its number of MPs, beating Labour in Bristol Central and Brighton Pavilion and the Conservatives in Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire.

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Labour wins big but the UK’s electoral system is creaking

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Voters turned away from a deeply unpopular party but the true story of this election is more complex

The story of the 2024 general election is of voters turning away from a deeply unpopular governing party. What parties they turned to and how that interacted with the electoral system is a more complex story that may take some time to fully grasp.

Paula Surridge is a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol

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Millions head to polls to cast their votes in general election – live

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Polling stations opened at 7am, with voting taking place until 10pm on Thursday night

It is the King’s duty as head of state to appoint a prime minister, and he is travelling from Scotland to Windsor Castle, ready to be on stand-by after being in Edinburgh for Holyrood Week.

The role is one of the few remaining personal prerogatives of the sovereign, because Charles does not act on advice nor need to consult anyone before doing so.

But the overriding requirement is to appoint someone who can command the confidence of the House of Commons – usually the leader of the party with an overall majority of seats in the Commons – to form a government.

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UK political parties on track to spend £1m on election day online ads

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Digital campaigning gets round media blackout rule restricting broadcasters’ coverage while polls are open

The UK’s political parties are on track to spend more than a million pounds on online adverts on Thursday, circumventing a media blackout rule that forces television and radio stations to stop their election coverage when polls open.

British parties have traditionally ceased top-level campaign activity when voting began as they had no way to get out their message out. This is because of a longstanding broadcasting rule, enforced by the media regulator Ofcom, that states: “Discussion and analysis of election and referendum issues must finish when the poll opens.”

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