Markus Andrews

Sir Keir Starmer has accused Boris Johnson and the transport secretary Grant Shapps of “stoking divisions” over nationwide rail strikes set to take place this week.The Labour leader will accuse the government of “pouring petrol on the fire” over its handling of the dispute with unions, instead of attempting to take the heat out of the row.His remarks come after the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) confirmed on Saturday the strike action would go ahead after the failure of talks to resolve a bitter dispute over workers’ conditions.Union members at Network Rail and 13 train operators will stage 24-hour walkouts on 21, 23 and 25 June, with disruption also possible for the rest of the week. There will also be industrial action on London Underground services on 21 June.Over the weekend, the chief executive of the industry group UKHospitality, Kate Nicholls, suggested the tourism, leisure and theatre industries were “looking at an economic hit of over a billion pounds”.In a speech to the Labour Local Government Association conference, Sir Keir will claim the prime minister and Mr Shapps “want the strikes to go ahead”, adding: “They want the country to grind to a halt so they can feed off the division.”Referencing adverts posted by the Conservatives labelling the industrial action “Labour’s strikes”, Sir Keir will say: “Instead of spending their time this week around the negotiating table, they are designing attack ads.“Instead of grown-up conversations to take the heat out of the situation, they are pouring petrol on the fire. Instead of bringing people together in the national interest, they are stoking division in their political interest.”He will add: “Businesses will struggle with freight. School exams will be hard to get to. Hospital appointments [will be] missed. That’s why I’ve said the strikes should not go ahead.”Network Rail bosses were set to hold last-ditch talks with the RMT on Sunday in the hope of averting the strike, but union bosses indicated there was little prospect of a breakthrough.Confirming the strike action would go ahead, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said on Saturday: “Despite the best efforts of our negotiators, no viable settlements to the disputes have been created.”He added: “It has to be restated that the source of these disputes is the decision by the Tory government to cut £4bn of funding from our transport systems – £2bn from national rail and £2bn from Transport for London.“As a result of this transport austerity imposed by the government, the employing companies have taken decisions to savage the Railways Pension Scheme and the Transport for London scheme, cutting benefits, making staff work longer and poorer in retirement, while paying increased contributions.”Ahead of the strikes, Mr Shapps issued a statement saying the government had repeatedly urged the RMT not to press ahead with the strike action, which will “cause misery” for the public.He added: “Many people who do not get paid if they can’t get to work face losing money at a time they simply can’t afford to. Children sitting exams will face the extra distraction of changing their travel plans. And vulnerable people trying to attend long-awaited hospital appointments may have no choice but to cancel.“By carrying out this action, the RMT is punishing millions of innocent people, instead of calmly discussing the sensible and necessary reforms we need to make in order to protect our rail network.”Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng accused unions of “bribing” workers to go on strike after some increased hardship payments for staff who will lose pay by walking out.He was quoted in the Sunday Telegraph as saying: “It’s obvious that trade union chiefs have been quietly amassing a war chest to effectively bribe workers into unleashing a summer of strike chaos.” More

Thousands of protesters marched in London calling for government action to ease the cost of living crisis.The TUC, which coordinated hundreds of coaches to bring demonstrators to the capital from across the UK, called for measures including “a decent pay rise for public-sector workers” and a £15 minimum wage.Union leaders gave speeches in Parliament Square, demanding higher wages, increased taxes on the rich and better working conditions.They also expressed support for the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union rail strikes next week.Onlookers reported a heavy police presence, with around 10 police vans.Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, said: “I have seen the transport secretary Grant Shapps has threatened rail workers that they will strike themselves out of a job.“Well you are wrong Mr Shapps: if you keep stirring, come the next election, you will be out of a job.”Ms O’Grady added: “Let me say this to Boris Johnson: don’t you dare shift the blame for inflation on to working people.“Don’t you dare, not after a decade of austerity, privatisation and pay cuts. Don’t you dare tell working families we have to put up with more pain.“What about bankers’ bonuses? What about the boardroom raking it in? What about corporate profits? It is time to raise taxes on wealth, not workers.”Protester Ben Robinson, who works for a housing charity in south London, said: “We’ve got residents who are coming into our offices who are choosing between feeding their own kids, not themselves, their own kids, and paying rent and heating, and that is just not a choice that anyone should have to face in the fourth-biggest economy in the world.“And the growing disparity between the very richest in society and the other 99 per cent of people who just don’t have enough to get by.”Frankie Brown, 24, a teacher, said: “Every day I have got kids in my class who are going home to homes where they don’t have enough to eat.”The TUC says research suggests workers have lost almost £20,000 since 2008 because pay has not kept pace with inflation.But the government on Saturday warned workers cannot expect pay rises to keep up with the soaring cost of living.Treasury chief secretary Simon Clarke said pay demands which seek to match the rate of inflation risked creating a 1970s-style wage-price spiral, pushing prices in the shops even higher.The Treasury insisted it had “stepped in to ease the burden” of the cost of living crisis.A government spokesperson said: “As part of our £37bn support package we’re also saving the typical employee over £330 a year through the imminent national insurance tax cut, are allowing universal credit claimants to keep £1,000 more of what they earn and have made the biggest cut to all fuel duty rates ever.”Additional reporting by PA More

Tory MPs warn a double by-election defeat this week will pile further pressure on Boris Johnson’s leadership as the embattled prime minister tries to move on from the Partygate scandal.Rebels say Mr Johnson, whose faced criticism when his ethics adviser resigned on Wednesday, would suffer a “loss of authority” if the Conservatives were to lose Tiverton and Honiton, which would require one of the largest ever overturned majorities in a by-election.MPs from across the party told The Independent they were privately expecting a “big defeat” on Thursday in the Yorkshire seat of Wakefield – a former Labour heartland Sir Keir Starmer hopes to seize back.A senior Tory MP – pointing to the “enormous majority” in the Devon seat – told The Independent: “To lose it by one would be a disaster. It will be the scale of defeat [in Wakefield] that will be really telling”. Another Conservative MP agreed, saying: “The scale of the results is important. If we lose Wakefield by a lot and Tiverton by a few thousand people will think, bloody hell.” Reflecting on Mr Johnson, one Tory representing a red-wall constituency told The Independent: “Losing both by-elections will increase the pressure. There will be a loss of authority.“If we lose Wakefield, it’s a real kick in the teeth for MPs who have been backing him and hoping to keep support in the red wall.”While hopeful, Sir Ed Davey’s party cautioned that success in Tiverton and Honiton would represent “the largest majority ever overturned” at a by-election, defeating a previous record in Liverpool Wavertree in 1935. Other contests, however, have recorded bigger swings.But the Conservatives are gloomy, with one senior MP saying that Wakefield was “gone, gone, gone” and that most MPs expected a Lib Dem victory in the southwest.“Look at North Shropshire. It’s a further opportunity for people to send a message to Downing Street that they are not happy,” they warned.One Tory backbencher predicted that if the recent confidence vote in the prime minister had taken place after two by-election losses “it may well have tipped the other way”.But with voters heading to the polls just a fortnight after he narrowly survived, the consensus among the parliamentary party appears to be that he will continue in No 10 for the summer.Under the current rules, Mr Johnson cannot face a challenge from MPs for another 11 months, leading one senior MP to suggest the Tories’ 1922 Committee will be under pressure to change the rules in the wake of any by-election defeat.Many MPs told The Independent that Mr Johnson’s most perilous moment would arrive when the privileges committee published its report into whether he deliberately misled parliament over the Partygate scandal, expected in late autumn.The PM triggered outrage in Westminster during the week with plans to abolish the post of Downing Street ethics adviser, after Christopher Geidt quit in protest at being asked to endorse deliberate rule-breaking by the prime minister. Lord Geidt – the second adviser to resign in less than two years during Mr Johnson’s premiership – said he was put in an “impossible and odious” position when asked to advise on a plan to maintain tariffs on Chinese steel in a way which would breach UK obligations under the World Trade Organisation (WTO).One senior MP suggested the 1922 Committee would not change its rules to allow another no-confidence ballot this year, whatever the by-election results. But they added: “I think he’s much more vulnerable if the privileges committee resolves he knowingly misled the House, in which case he must go.”A second backbencher said: “If the privileges inquiry finds against him, that’s a moment of danger. It will be difficult for him to command a majority of MPs. There could be a delegation going to Sir Graham Brady [to change the rules].”A third added: “I think a lot of people who reluctantly backed him last time would struggle to support him if the privileges committee was to find against him.”Speaking to The Independent ahead of Thursday’s by-elections, polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice suggested that Wakefield was a “write-off” for the Conservatives, who won the seat at the 2019 election with a 3,358 majority. A recent poll by JL Partners found a 20-point lead for Labour in the constituency, with the Tories trailing.He said it is “very difficult for any government to defend, and it doesn’t matter if it’s red wall, blue wall, pink wall, or purple wall, you only need a 3.5 per cent swing”. He added: “It should be inconceivable that the government hangs on to it.”Sir John said that the Tiverton and Honiton by-election was “much more difficult to call” and highlighted the 20-point-plus swing the Lib Dems need to wipe out the Conservatives’ 24,239 majority from 2019.“But of course that’s what happened in North Shropshire,” he added. “It will give you an idea of the extent of discontent in what is pretty firm Tory territory.”A Lib Dem source said winning the seat on Thursday was “doable” but cautioned: “This is one big old heck of a majority. If we overturn this majority, it will be the largest majority ever overturned in the history of British politics.“We’re throwing everything at it,” they added. “What’s coming through loud and clear is a sense of neglect – very similar to Chesham and Amersham, very similar to North Shropshire.” More

Experts have warned the government that next week’s rail strikes could devastate Britain’s post-Covid recovery and cost key industries over a billion pounds.The tourism and leisure industry has already been severely impacted after pandemic lockdowns and would take a “big hit”, said Kate Nicholls, chief executive of industry group UK Hospitality.It comes after the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) confirmed industrial action would go ahead on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, although disruption is possible for the rest of the week.According to the RMT, next week’s planned strike action will be “the biggest dispute on the network since 1989” and will involve 40,000 workers.Speaking to Times Radio, Ms Nicholls said: “At the best, we think it’s going to take a hit to hospitality revenues of over half a billion pounds.“But that presupposes that many people will travel on those shoulder days when the trains and the Tubes will still be disrupted – it could be more significant than that.“And if you look across the whole tourism, and leisure and theatre industries as a whole, you are definitely looking at an economic hit of over a billion pounds.”Strikes on Network Rail and 13 other train operators are expected on three days next week, while London Underground workers will walk out on Tuesday.During the strikes, only 22 per cent of passenger train services will run, with most of them on key links to and from London.Coach services have seen a spike in bookings as a result of the planned strike. Stagecoach, the country’s biggest bus and coach operator said that next week’s bookings for its Megabus service rose by 85 per cent.Ms Nicholls said tourism and hospitality businesses had already been damaged by the cost of living crisis and urged the government, rail networks and the RMT to reach an agreement.“Next week’s strikes are so devastating because… we were starting to get back on our feet, starting to rebuild those cash reserves,” she said.“This is a big hit next week where we will lose the best part of a week’s income for many of those town centre, and particularly central London, businesses.“We would urge all sides in this dispute to try and come together to resolve this issue so that we don’t put commuters, visitors, tourists at a disadvantage and we don’t damage our businesses.”Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: “With the upcoming train strikes fast approaching, many people will be wondering what to do if they bought a ticket and have now had their train cancelled.“If you can’t travel and you have an unused ticket, you should be able to cancel and get a fee-free refund.“A full refund also applies if you have started your journey but are unable to complete it due to delay or cancellations, and so have returned to your departure point.” More

Thousands of people are set to join a mass demonstration in London urging Boris Johnson’s government do do more in the cost of living crisis and provide a better deal for workers.The Trade Union Congress, which is organising the event on Saturday, said workers are suffering the “longest and hardest” squeeze on their earnings in modern history. Frances O’Grady, the head of the TUC, said millions had been left “without a safety net as bills and prices skyrocket”, with the Bank of England forecasting that inflation could reach 11 per cent in the autumn. More

Government officials have accepted that a four-day week “may work” for some businesses, as the world’s largest trial of shorter working hours kicks off in the UK.The Independent understands that officials from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) are keeping a close eye on the pilot programme and have already met the study’s organisers to find out more.A group of civil servants from BEIS discussed the design of the project and how the policy of cutting working hours with no loss of pay would work in practice. More

A Labour MP has written to Priti Patel to demand the removal of the person she selected to lead an inquiry into London mayor Sadiq Khan’s handling of the resignation of Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick.Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy claimed that Sir Thomas Winsor was not a fit person to run the inquiry because he had “a history of taking positions which are politically in favour of the government”.She pointed to Sir Thomas’s 2012 review of police officer and staff pay, which she said was “widely criticised as a vehicle to pursue the then home secretary’s controversial policing agenda rather than a genuinely independent review”.After the review, Sir Thomas was made chief inspector of constabulary, a post he still holds.Ribeiro-Addy said that his report into the Met’s policing of a vigil for Sarah Everard, murdered by a serving police officer, “went above and beyond” in defending the heavy-handed actions of officers and in criticising Mr Khan’s response.Dame Cressida was forced out as head of London’s police service in February after Mr Khan made it clear she no longer enjoyed his confidence in the wake of a number of scandals, including the botched investigation of serial killer Stephen Pond, the murder of Ms Everard and evidence of a culture of misogyny at Charing Cross police station.Ms Patel was said to have been blindsided by the mayor’s action. She announced a review of the affair after Dick’s deputy, Sir Stephen House, suggested that City Hall did not follow due process.The home secretary will choose Dame Cressida’s successor and is legally required to take Khan’s opinion into account, but reports suggest she has asked Winsor to consider whether the mayor’s role should be scaled back to reduce political influence on England’s top policing role.In her letter, seen by The Independent, Ms Ribeiro-Addy demanded confirmation of whether these claims were correct.And she said that, if the inquiry could not be called off altogether, Sir Thomas should be replaced as its head.“To attempt to influence the outcome of the review before it is complete would be an abuse of power and further calls into question the independence of the review and its subsequent findings,” she said.“The focus now should not be on a politicised review of the past, but on working with the mayor of London to appoint a new commissioner capable of delivering the widescale reforms urgently required to rebuild trust in London’s police going forward, while continuing to reduce serious violence in our capital.”A Home Office spokesperson said: “Sir Thomas Winsor has a well-established reputation for providing robust, well-evidenced and independent reports to government, so to suggest otherwise is offensive and wrong.“In the interests of transparency, the terms of reference for the review have been published online, and the home secretary has committed to report back to parliament on the review’s outcomes.” More

Cost of living crisis protest underway in LondonThe head of the TUC, which has organised thousands of people to rally against the cost-of-living crisis, has warned the prime minister not to put responsibility for it on workers.“Let me say this to Boris Johnson – don’t you dare shift the blame for inflation on to working people,” she told crowds.“Don’t you dare, not after a decade of austerity, privatisation and pay cuts. Don’t you dare tell working families we have to put up with more pain.”Earlier, Mr Johnson said Britain would get through the crisis and “come through on the other side strongly” as he said he sympathised with people facing pressure.The TUC says workers have lost almost £20,000 since 2008 because pay has not kept pace with inflation.Meanwhile, home secretary Priti Patel said the “absolutely scandalous” European court decision that effectively grounded the first flight to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda was politically motivated.Mr Johnson said the government would press ahead with its Rwanda plan, and defended Home Office plans to electronically tag some asylum-seekers arriving in the UK.Show latest update

1655583008Boris Johnson’s former ethics adviser quit ‘over PM’s readiness to break law’Former Downing Street ethics adviser Christopher Geidt has prompted fresh calls for Boris Johnson’s resignation, by declaring that his decision to quit his post was prompted by the prime minister’s willingness to deliberately breach international law.In a second letter to explain his shock resignation on Wednesday, Lord Geidt said that the details of the row over steel tariffs which finally provoked his departure were a “distraction” from his real motivation. Andrew Woodcock reports:Jane Dalton18 June 2022 21:101655581208Opinion: Return power to the people to tackle twin challengesWe face the twin challenges of building a country that fires on all cylinders and the climate emergency, writes Lisa Nandy for The Independent.The solution must be tilting the balance of power back in favour of the people who have stake in the outcome We have to ensure every area has a local growth plan and the powers to deliver on it, and we must smash up a century of centralisation and restore power to people who can use it to rebuild their parks, libraries, high streets and youth clubs that make up the social fabric of a place:Jane Dalton18 June 2022 20:401655580008Tory rebels to pile pressure on PM as by-election ‘disaster’ loomsTory MPs warn a double by-election defeat on Thursday will pile further pressure on Boris Johnson’s leadership as the embattled prime minister tries to move on from the Partygate scandal:Jane Dalton18 June 2022 20:201655578808Four-day week may work well, government admits, as pilot startsGovernment officials have accepted that a four-day week “may work” for some businesses, as the world’s largest trial of shorter working hours kicks off in the UK, writes Jon Stone.The Independent understands that officials from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are keeping a close eye on the pilot programme and have already met the study’s organisers to find out more. Jane Dalton18 June 2022 20:001655576408Beware Ukraine fatigue setting in, warns JohnsonBoris Johnson has said the West must continue to support the Ukrainians as they seek to recover territory seized by Russia, saying it would be a catastrophe if President Vladimir Putin was able to claim victory.After visiting Kyiv yesterday, the Prime Minister warned that Ukraine should not be encouraged to accept a “bad peace” which would simply be the prelude to a renewed Russian offensive.Mr Johnson also defended his decision to pull out of a conference of northern Tories on Friday so he could meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.The timing of the visit led to accusations that he was snubbing the north ahead of a crucial by-election in Wakefield in West Yorkshire which the Tories are widely expected to lose.However, speaking to reporters at RAF Brize Norton on his return, Mr Johnson said it was important to demonstrate the UK’s support at a time when the Ukrainians were “suffering terribly” in the face of the ongoing Russian offensive in the Donbas.“I think it is very important to go to Ukraine at a particularly critical time. The worry that we have is that a bit of Ukraine-fatigue is starting to set in around the world,” he said.Jane Dalton18 June 2022 19:201655573408Opinion: Trade war with Europe is the latest in PM’s string of deflections and deceptionBoris Johnson is trying to bait the EU into a trade war as he also trashed the UK’s international reputation by breaking international law and amplifying division in Northern Ireland, writes Caolán Magee. Other recent deflections include imperial measurements on pint glasses, a smoking ban, and sending refugees to Rwanda:Jane Dalton18 June 2022 18:301655570408Judges who blocked Rwanda flight racist, claims Priti PatelThe European judges who stopped the Rwanda deportations on Tuesday are racist, home secretary Priti Patel has claimed.Rwanda has a recent history of genocide and human-rights abuses, she said, but it was rebuilding.“If it was France, if we were sending people to Sweden, New York, Sydney, would they [the critics] change their mind?” she asked. “That actually speaks of inbuilt prejudice and, I would even go as far as to say, racism,” The Times reports.Jane Dalton18 June 2022 17:401655567408Angela Rayner joins London demonstratorsLabour deputy leader Angela Rayner has joined protests in London calling for action on the cost-of-living crisis. More