Markus Andrews

The leftwing bakers’ union has disaffiliated from the Labour Party with an attack on Keir Starmer for neglecting working class “aims and hopes”.The Labour leader is accused of launching a “factional internal war”, with his changes to leadership election rules that hand more power to MPs at the expense of members.The Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) is also protesting at Sir Keir’s refusal to back a £15 hourly minimum wage, the issue that triggered the resignation of frontbencher Andy McDonald.In a statement, it said the decision had been taken by members “who predominantly live in what’s regarded as Labour Red Wall seats”, the crucial background at the next election.It “shows how far the Labour Party has travelled away from the aims and hopes of working-class organisations like ours”, the statement read.However, the move also follows BFAWU president Ian Hodson being kicked out of the party over his support for Labour Against the Witchhunt – a group banned for support of party members accused of antisemitism.The statement adds: “The BFAWU will not be bullied by bosses or politicians. When you pick on one of us you take on all of us. That’s what solidarity means.”In addition, the union recently lost its seat on Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC), being replaced by the Musicians Union.The Labour Party, which is fighting off criticism that it is fatally split over Sir Keir’s shift to the centre ground, declined to respond directly to the announcement.However, a spokesperson said: “With Keir Starmer, the Labour Party is changing, to face the country, offer credible policies that will positively change the lives of working families, and to show that we are once again fit to govern.”The statement, by Sarah Woolley, the union’s general secretary, accused Labour of failing to “engage with a union that levied its poorly paid members in 1902 to build” the party.The attitude was a “culmination of a failure to deliver those changes during our 119-year relationship”.“We need footballers to campaign to ensure our schoolchildren get a hot meal. Workers in our sector, who keep the nation fed, are relying on charity and good will from family and friends to put food on their tables,” the union said.“They rely on help to feed their families, with 7.5 per cent relying on food banks, according to our recent survey.“But, instead of concentrating on these issues, we have a factional internal war led by the leadership.“We have a real crisis in the country and, instead of leadership, the party’s leader chooses to divide the trade unions and the membership by proposing changes to the way elections for his successor will take place.“We don’t see that as a political party with any expectations of winning an election. It’s just the leader trying to secure the right-wing faction’s chosen successor.” More

Boris Johnson’s proposed three-month working visa for European truckers is not proving a popular prospect for some European lorry drivers.On Sunday the government announced a plan to issue temporary visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers as a response to the acute shortfall of truck drivers that has caused fuel pumps to run dry and massive queues at forecourts across the country.However the visa only lasts until 24 December, which Jakub Pajka – a Polish truck driver who quit his job in the UK after Brexit – said was not long enough to be worthwhile.Speaking from behind the wheel of his red lorry in Poland’s capital Warsaw, he said: “No thank you, Mr Prime Minister, I will not take advantage of this opportunity. No drivers want to move for only three months just to make it easier for the British to organise their holidays.”The additional money couldn’t offset the struggle of moving countries, the threat posed by migrants trying to cross the English Channel on the back of a truck or the separation from his family, he added.“The money you can earn in the UK does not compensate such driver for all the dangerous things that happen to him there,” he said pointing to the scuffles with migrants he witnessed in ports of Calais and Dunkirk.On a different parking lot outside of Warsaw, Jacek Rembikowski, a 60-year old truck driver with 25 years of experience, also said Brexit somewhat influenced his decision to return home after working in Britain for seven years.Despite his thirst for adventure, and his fond memories driving from “Norway to Portugal”, he said he now preferred to stay in Poland.“(There was) an uncertainty as to how we will be treated in this situation,” he said. “Whether Brexit will shake up not only the industry but also whether drivers will still be wanted.”Imran Mustafa moved to Barcelona from Pakistan eight years ago and has been a haulage driver for three years. He said the UK visa offer was too short and that it was not enough time to get to know the UK road network.He said: “It’s a temporary visa and it’s for a very small time period.“These days, people don’t have the money to travel. No-one wants to travel for just three months.“I could move as I live on my own but other people, French people, German people, Spanish people, they’re already earning a lot of money, so why would they move to the UK for three months only on a temporary visa?“I would move but not for three months. It’s not enough time as we don’t know the roads, the maps or how it all works. I think it will create a lot of problems or accidents.”Additional reporting by agencies More

Labour’s conference in Brighton closes after the leader’s speech on Wednesday lunchtime. It has been just like conferences of old: arguments, resignations, gaffes and speeches to a cavernous hall full of people, with the wind and the rain and the waves outside. The party leader Sir Keir Starmer seemed to fumble things at the start, being forced to retreat from his plan to bring back the electoral college for electing leaders in future, which would have given MPs and unions more say. But he got the changes that really mattered to him through, making it harder to deselect MPs. He appeared uncertain in his big pre-conference TV interview with Andrew Marr when he was asked whether it was transphobic to say that only a woman has a cervix. And again when he was asked about Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, calling the Conservatives “scum”. But Rachel Reeves, who replaced Anneliese Dodds as shadow chancellor this year, delivered a powerful speech that succeeded in pleasing the conference hall while also committing the party to prudent management of the public finances.And Sir Kier won all the important votes on the conference floor, including deploying the trade unions to steamroller a demand from party members for proportional representation. All except a vote in favour of a £15-an-hour minimum wage, which the leadership didn’t try to defeat because it was supported by some of the unions that had been generally supportive.The issue was divisive nevertheless, prompting the resignation from the shadow cabinet of Andy McDonald, who had been prevented from advocating the £15 policy by Sir Kier. Although the Corbynites won that policy, they lost their last representative in the shadow cabinet and the conference as a whole confirmed their almost total powerlessness.Now all the party’s leader has to do is to use his speech to set out what he intends to do with the party over which he has established clear control. After his speech join me at 4pm for an “Ask Me Anything” to let me know what you thought of it and I will try to ask your questions about where Starmer’s first in-person conference leaves the Labour Party. All you have to do is register to submit your question in the comments below. If you’re not already a member, click “sign up” in the comments box to leave your question. Don’t worry if you can’t see your question – they will be hidden until I join the conversation to answer them. Then join us live on this page at 4pm as I tackle as many questions as I can. More

Keir Starmer has said he is willing to tear up the promises he made during the Labour leadership election if it is needed to make the party electable.In comments which will infuriate Labour’s left wing, Starmer said that his “most important pledge” was to make the party fit for government.During the contest to replace Jeremy Corbyn, Sir Keir issued a list of 10 pledges to continue with key elements of his predecessor’s policy platform, including common ownership for industries like energy, rail and mail.The move won him the support of large swathes of the Labour left, but many have since accused him of breaching his promises.There was fury at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton this week when he said he would not nationalise the big six energy firms.Speaking to BBC News, Sir Keir made clear that he is ready to break with the promises made in early 2020 if he feels they are standing in the way of election victory.“I stand by the principles and the values behind the pledges I made to our members, but the most important pledge I made was that I would turn it into a party that would be fit for government, capable of winning a general election, I’m not going to be deflected from that.”Asked what is most important to him, unity within the party or winning, Sir Keir said: “Winning. Winning a general election.“I didn’t come into politics to vote, over and over again in Parliament and lose, and then tweet about it. I came into politics, to go into government to change millions of lives for the better.”Sir Keir denied that he had broken his pledge by ruling out energy nationalisation.“I didn’t make a commitment to nationalisation,” he said. “I never made a commitment to nationalisation, I made a commitment to common ownership.“They are worlds apart, but the central thing is that those commitments I made, those pledges are made of values that I hold dear.“The world has changed since they were made. But now the question is, how do we apply them in the reflective circumstance we might go into election.” More

Sir Keir Starmer has called on the government to give health and care workers priority at the petrol pumps as fuel shortages continued across the UK.The call came after Labour warned that people could die if doctors and nurses were delayed by queues.And the Queen’s Nursing Institute wrote to the prime minister warning that patients were at risk.“Patient visits are being cancelled and patients are at risk of being left without the care they need, at the time they need it,” said the QNI letter. “This is unacceptable.”Calling for health and care staff to be prioritised for fuel, chief executive Crystal Oldman added: “Without the necessary actions, we believe the pressure on hospital services will inevitably increase, as health and care services for patients at home will be compromised.”Petrol retailers today said that pressure on supplies were easing, but said more than a third of forecourts (37 per cent) reported being out of fuel on Tuesday.Speaking at Labour’s conference in Brighton, Sir Keir called on Boris Johnson to take immediate action to give priority to key workers, as well as to extend the temporary visa offer to attract more overseas lorry drivers.The Labour leader held a conference call with representatives of the haulage industry today and said they were “beyond frustrated” at the government’s failure to come up with a plan to resolve the emergency, now in its sixth day.“The government has reduced the country to chaos as we track from crisis to crisis and the government is not gripping this,” Starmer told the BBC.“I spoke to the haulage sector this morning to the businesses that are absolutely in the middle of this, and they are beyond frustrated – and these are their words.“They said it’s a government that is denying there’s a problem, then blaming somebody else, and then coming up with a half-baked plan.”Sir Keir said that visas for foreign HGV drivers should be extended from three to six months to make them more attractive.“The prime minister should take that action today – prioritise key workers and start issuing enough visas and for long enough,” he said.“This problem was predictable and predicted and the government has absolutely failed to plan.”Speaking to Sky News, Sir Keir said: “What is the sole cause of this problem? The government has known for some time that there are consequences of us leaving the EU, one of which is lorry drivers.”But he insisted he was not saying that Brexit was to blame for the crisis.“I wouldn’t say that Brexit is to blame,” he told Channel 5 News. “What I would say is that it was inevitable as we exited the EU that we needed a plan to deal with drivers. That is obvious whether you voted Remain or voted Leave, and we took that decision years ago.”One home care service today said queues at petrol stations were forcing carers to push back calls to vulnerable elderly people and to work long after their shifts to ensure clients are seen.Shaleeza Hasham of CHD Care at Home backed calls for prioritisation for key workers, saying the impact of the fuel shortage on carers and been “enormous”.“Many of our carers are unable to get enough fuel to make their rounds as most petrol stations are limiting them to £30. Carers can do up to 100 miles per day so these restrictions mean that they are having to fuel up more often as they cannot fill their tanks,“ she said. “We look after extremely vulnerable individuals, some of whom cannot even get out of bed without support or assistance, and the situation is proving extremely difficult and stressful. Being unable to get to clients who depend on us just isn’t an option.”Homecare Association CEO Jane Townson said she had been appealing for assistance from the Department for Health since Friday, but had been told only that the situation was being considered.“It seems the government has decided there isn’t an issue and that means local resilience fora can’t invoke their emergency  plans,” Ms Townson said.“We want essential workers, including home care workers, to have access to fuel. We need that now. We need the government to acknowledge that there are risks to the health and well-being of older and disabled people.”Asked if health and care workers should be given priority access to fuel, Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “Yes. We are facing a crisis, because if doctors and nurses and midwives and care assistants can’t get to the bedsides of their patients, then people will be left stranded, people will be left in the most desperate of circumstances, some people could end up losing their lives.”Mr Ashworth called on health secretary Sajid Javid to call an immediate meeting with health and care unions and professional bodies to reach agreement on a system to ensure key workers can access fuel during the current emergency.“We need urgency and we need grip,” he said. “We haven’t had that so far. ”The public sector union Unison has called for designated petrol stations to be set aside for key workers only.And the East of England Co-op has said that if problems persist until Thursday, it will operate a key worker-only policy between 6-7am in order to ensure they are able to fill their tanks.Gordon Balmer, executive director of the Petrol Retailers Association, which represents independent forecourts across the UK, said: “There are early signs that the crisis at pumps is ending, with more of our members reporting that they are now taking further deliveries of fuel.“Fuel stocks remain normal at refineries and terminals, although deliveries have been reduced due to the shortage of HGV drivers.“We have conducted a survey of our members this morning and only 37 per cent of forecourts have reported being out of fuel today. With regular restocks taking place, this percentage is likely to improve further over the next 24 hours”. More

As panicked British drivers queue around the block to top up their tanks at petrol stations amid fears of a flash fuel crisis, many are asking whether we are witnessing the latest evidence of a back-firing Brexit in action.While transport secretary Grant Shapps did admit on Tuesday that Britain’s decision to withdraw from the European Union (EU) had been “a factor” in the chaos, for the most part Boris Johnson’s government and the fuel industry have been quick to downplay the problem, insisting there is no actual shortage of petrol and diesel reserves and that this is merely a short-term snafu caused by a lack of HGV drivers to make deliveries from distribution terminals to the pumps.But Mr Johnson’s critics have been much more forthcoming in blaming the haulier shortage on Britain’s divorce from the administrative bloc, citing the estimated 25,000 European lorry drivers who were forced to return to the continent in the wake of Brexit curtailing the free movement of labour and introducing strict visa requirements.Speaking to Times Radio on Tuesday morning, Labour’s shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said the crisis “is to do with the government’s complete and utter incompetence. It is to do with the government’s handling of Brexit and it is to do with the government’s failure to plan over recent months. The blame lies squarely with them, it lies with no one else.”Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, was also in agreement, telling Sky News from the party conference in Brighton, that Brexit was “obviously a contributory factor… To deny that, I think, flies in the face of reality”.Shadow justice secretary David Lammy likewise rammed home the message, at the risk of further alienating Leave voters in crumbling “red wall” constituencies, by declaring: “This fuel crisis is a direct result of the decision to exit the EU in the way that Boris Johnson has done. There are no queues for petrol in France, or Germany, or Spain at this moment… The truth is we came out of the customs union and those drivers are now subject to tariffs and, surprise, surprise, they’re not coming here because they’re not getting paid as much.”Ex-Conservative MP and Remain campaigner Anna Soubry was equally emphatic when she pointed out during an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Monday that the snaking lines of traffic – and empty supermarket shelves – we are currently seeing were entirely unfamiliar on these shores prior to the 2016 referendum.Mr Johnson’s enemies in Europe have also wasted little time in blaming Brexit for the disaster, with a gloating tone detectable in the words of former EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier when he said Britain’s current woes are “a direct and mechanical consequence of Brexit” and in those of France’s European affairs minister, Clement Beaun, who this week denounced “the intellectual fraud that was Brexit”.Olaf Scholz, leader of Germany’s Social Democrats, the party that came first in the country’s election on Sunday, joined the dots to link Britain’s worker shortages to Brexit when he said: “The free movement of labor is part of the European Union, and we worked very hard to convince the British to not leave the union. Now they decided different, and I hope they will manage the problems coming from that.”Europe’s newspapers have been scathing in their coverage of the UK’s supply chain disruption throughout the summer, with Germany’s Der Spiegel memorably labelling Britain: “The kingdom of empty shelves.”Another German outlet, the TV station ARD, likened our present conditions to the notorious Winter of Discontent of 1978-79 while Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia compared post-Brexit Britain to “boycotted Cuba”.Among those who know the realities of the road haulage industry best, the verdict has been arguably most damning of all.Dismissing the UK government’s plan to offer three-month temporary visas to 5,000 EU lorry drivers to boost the flow of deliveries, Edwin Atema from the Federation of Dutch Trade Unions was brutally frank on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.“The EU workers we speak to will not go to the UK for a short-term visa to help the UK get out of the s*** they created for themselves,” he said. “Drivers from across Europe have completely lost all trust in this industry. Long before coronavirus and Brexit this industry was sick already, plagued by exploitation… which ended up with drivers voting with your feet and leaving.”Radu Dinescu, general secretary of the National Union of Road Transporters in Romania, told the Associated Press that his fellow countrymen, who worked in the UK in large numbers before Brexit, now “prefer EU stability” and would be unlikely to take up the rather desperate new offer, favouring better paid jobs across France and Germany.“The UK seems to be experiencing a paradox,” he said. “British citizens do not want to practice the job of truck driver, while at the same time they do not want other non-UK citizens to come to do this job.” More

Boris Johnson has committed to appointing a chair for the Covid inquiry before Christmas after meeting bereaved families at No10 this afternoon.The PM hosted the private meeting with representatives of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group on Tuesday afternoon – more than a year after promising to meet with those bereaved by the pandemic.Five families told the stories of their lost loved ones face to face with Mr Johnson who told them there is a “clear role for bereaved families in the inquiry”.In a statement from the group released this afternoon, they said the he had also committed to appointing a chair for the Covid inquiry before Christmas this year.The five families who met with Mr Johnson at Downing Street, said: said “Although we wish this meeting had taken place a long time ago, we’re pleased that the Prime Minister has chosen to finally engage with us and that he explicitly acknowledged the importance of ensuring that bereaved families are at the heart of learning lessons from the pandemic.“However, we are still disappointed by the lack of urgency the Prime Minister displayed as we see no reason why preparations for the inquiry cannot begin now, particularly as nearly 1,000 people are still losing their lives each week.“What really matters is what happens next. The Prime Minister must appoint a chair as soon as possible following and he must stick to his commitment to bereaved families having a role in deciding the Chair and the Terms of Reference.“We hope that we can accept the Prime Minister’s commitments in good faith and, going forward, that there will be ongoing and meaningful dialogue with bereaved families.”More to follow… More

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has admitted that Brexit has been “factor” behind the fuel crisis – despite his previous claims the UK’s exit from the EU had helped the country adjust to supply problems.The cabinet minister insisted last week that cynics were “wrong” to blame Brexit for the drastic shortage of lorry drivers causing petrol shortages and the closure of forecourts.Mr Shapps continued to argue on Tuesday that the main cause of the fuel shortages had been the cancellation of heavy goods vehicle (HGV) driver tests last year due to the pandemic.However, the transport secretary added: “Brexit I hear mentioned a lot, and it no doubt will have been a factor.”Speaking to broadcasters, Mr Shapps said: “On the other hand, it has actually helped us to change rules to be able to test more drivers more quickly. So, it has actually worked in both ways.”Mr Shapps also rejected criticism that the government has been too slow to mobilise the Army to help deal with the fuel crisis.Ministers have announced they were putting troops on standby to deliver supplies as filling stations continued to run dry. “There is a series of escalations that you go through in a crisis like this,” the transport secretary told broadcasters.He added: “We have already put 18 different steps in place which stretch right the way back to the spring. The system was just about coping until last weekend and it would have been capable of continuing to do so.”Mr Shapps condemned motorists who tried to fill up plastic water bottles with petrol. “It is dangerous and extremely unhelpful,” he said. “Unfortunately, as we have seen with toilet rolls and other things, once people start to pursue a particular item, it can quickly escalate.”Mr Shapps also claimed there were early signs that pressure on filling stations is beginning to ease. “There are now the first very tentative signs of stabilisation in forecourt storage which won’t be reflected in the queues as yet,” he said.Brian Madderson, chair of the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) said that “disappointingly” people were continuing to panic buy fuel.But the PRA said only 37 per cent of its petrol station forecourts have reported being out of fuel today. “With regular restocks taking place, this percentage is likely to improve further over the next 24 hours,” the association stated.“There is still a problem out there. There is still a bit of panic buying, there is still queuing but we are hopeful that we are seeing the first signs of a move towards equilibrium later in the week,” Madderson told Sky News.Meanwhile, Mike Granatt, the former head of the civil contingencies secretariat, said it was time for Boris Johnson to stop “hiding away” and make a clear announcement to discourage panic buying.Ministers are holding another meeting on Tuesday to monitor the fuel crisis. The government has said Army tanker drivers are on standby, with defence sources saying 75 drivers would initially be given training to enable them to drive fuel tankers.The government has also committed to issuing 5,000 temporary, three-month visas to foreign drivers.Mr Shapps last week suggested that foreign workers had helped create “systemic” problems in haulage – saying UK wages had been held down by “importing cheap European, often eastern European labour”.The EU’s former chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said Britain’s fuel crisis is a “direct consequence” of Brexit and the decision to “end the freedom of movement” for workers across the continent.It followed similar comments by Olaf Scholz, the man set to replace Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor. “We worked very hard to convince the British not to leave the union.“Now they decided different and I hope they will manage the problems coming from that,” said the leader of the Social Democrats, referring to the driver shortage and freedom of movement. More