Markus Andrews

Steelmaking in Scunthorpe will continue after the government confirmed the arrival of a new shipment of raw materials on Sunday, crucial to helping ensure the blast furnaces at British Steel keep running for the coming months. The shipment of 55,000 tonnes of blast furnace coke has arrived in the UK to fuel the Scunthorpe plant in North Lincolnshire, and more than 66,000 tonnes of iron ore pellets and 27,000 tonnes of iron ore fines are soon to arrive.It comes after ministers used emergency powers to take control of British Steel and continue production at the site after what was thought to be a plot to sabotage the Scunthorpe plant by its Chinese owners Jingye. After a scramble over the Easter holidays to obtain the coal and iron needed to keep the plant going, the company confirmed earlier this week that both the Scunthorpe blast furnaces will continue to operate.Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds at British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant More

Sir Keir Starmer could be facing an embarrassing blow in this week’s local elections after data seen by The Independent suggests that the city where John Prescott was MP for 40 years has turned its back on Labour.According to canvass returns – voting data collected by parties –- Nigel Farage’s Reform UK are heading the race for mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire, with the Lib Dems a close second and Labour now a distant third.The region, which is electing a mayor for the first time, has historically been a Labour heartland and part of its famous red wall, with Lord Prescott as an MP for four decades and former home secretary Alan Johnson also an MP for the city.John Prescott served as deputy prime minister under Tony Blair between 1997 and 2007 More

England’s local elections on 1 May represent a key test for all the major parties.In what could be a new era of multi-party politics, Labour and Reform are almost neck-and-neck in the latest national opinion polls, with the Tories lagging behind.And it is the latter who face the most difficult challenge. The last time this particular set of council elections was held was at the height of Boris Johnson’s “vaccine bounce”. Since then, Partygate and a series of other scandals have reversed the party’s fortunes, leaving it out of power in Westminster for the first time since 2010. But Labour could also struggle in certain seats. Despite its momentous rise to power at the general election last summer, the party has made a series of controversial decisions since then, including scrapping winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners and sweeping welfare and international aid cuts, that could trigger a backlash from voters. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform will discover whether its momentum in the opinion polls continues or has started to stall. As well as council elections, there are also a number of mayoral positions up for grabs, and a parliamentary by-election. Here are the key seats to look out for in the early hours of Friday morning and beyond – and why they matter. Greater Lincolnshire A recent YouGov poll suggested that the Reform candidate, former Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns, is well ahead in this contest.One of two new mayoral positions being contested for the first time, it is seen as likely to be a two-horse race between the Tories and Reform. While Mr Farage’s party has picked an ex-Tory, the Conservatives have stayed local, with the leader of North Lincolnshire council Rob Waltham. Andrea Jenkyns with Nigel Farage at a press conference in London’s Mayfair on Thursday More

Local elections historically have a pitiful turnout, and this year’s polls for councils, regional and mayoral seats in England – with an added parliamentary by-election in Runcorn – look set to be no exception.But the lack of enthusiasm from voters to head to the ballot box does not prevent these from being the most significant non-parliamentary elections since 2008, when Boris Johnson deposed Labour’s Ken Livingstone to become London mayor.Little did we know then, but that victory catapulted Mr Johnson into leading the successful Brexit campaign eight years later and then on to becoming prime minister in 2019.The results, to be revealed on Friday 2 May, could equally be a herald of an oncoming earthquake about to shake up British politics.We could be witnessing the slow death of the world’s oldest political party, the Tories, and the end of the two-party dominance that has gripped British democracy since Labour emerged in the 1920s.Most of all, these elections will provide a crucial test as to whether Nigel Farage and his Reform UK are just a by-product of opinion polls with no real substance, or a party to be taken seriously.Reform, Labour and the Conservatives are all almost neck-and-neck in the national opinion polls More

Reform UK have narrowly avoided a local election crisis after one of the party’s most high profile candidates, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, was cleared to run as a mayoral candidate just days before the vote.A decision by the chief executive of North Kesteven Council on whether Dame Andrea meets residency criteria to run for Greater Lincolnshire mayor had been deferred until after the weekend.But in a last-minute reprieve issued late on Friday, the council accepted that her address was valid and said the frontrunner could stand. Reacting to the news, Dame Andrea told The Independent: “From the start this has been a political hit job aimed at smearing my candidacy. I am proud to live in Lincolnshire and it would be the honour of my life to be mayor of the place I grew up in and live in.”A senior Tory source confirmed to The Independent that the party would put in a legal challenge to petition a re-election and disqualify her.The mayoralty is being hotly contested between Labour, the Tories and Reform. According to a recent YouGov poll, Dame Andrea is ahead on 40 per cent with the Tory candidate Rob Waltham on 25 per cent and Labour’s Jason Stockwood on 15 per cent.Postal votes for the election on Thursday 1 May have already been returned and the election could have been thrown into chaos if Dame Andrea had been banned from standing.The situation also threatened to do serious damage to Nigel Farage and Reform as they try to show that they are a credible party of government in the 2029 general election.Reform UK’s Andrea Jenkyns is the party’s candidate for mayor of the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority (Danny Lawson/PA) More

The German ambassador to the UK has said he is “really optimistic” about a possible new post-Brexit youth visa scheme, despite apparent confusion within the British government over any deal. On Thursday, senior minister Nick Thomas-Symonds slapped down talk of a new youth mobility scheme between the UK and EU countries. And on Friday the environment secretary Steve Reed insisted there would no return to “freedom of movement” between Britain and the bloc, which was a Labour manifesto pledge. But Chancellor Rachel Reeves has not ruled out the idea, saying discussions are “ongoing”. A youth visa scheme would allow under-30s to live and work in European Union countries, and vice versa More

Rachel Reeves has suggested that resetting the UK’s relationship with the EU is potentially more important than working out a trade deal with the US. The chancellor, who has travelled to Washington for crunch talks on a UK-US trade deal with her American counterpart, treasury secretary Scott Bessent, said that the EU was our closest trading partners. Speaking to the BBC, she said: “I understand why there’s so much focus on our trading relationship with the US but actually our trading relationship with Europe is arguably even more important, because they’re our nearest neighbours and trading partners.”Obviously I’ve been meeting Scott Bessent this week whilst I’m in Washington, but I’ve also this week met the French, the German, the Spanish, the Polish, the Swedish, the Finnish finance ministers – because it is so important that we rebuild those trading relationships with our nearest neighbours in Europe, and we’re going to do that in a way that is good for British jobs and British consumers.”The UK is due to host a summit with the EU in May as part of the ongoing attempt to “reset” the relationship after Brexit. The chancellor has said the relationship with the EU is arguably more important More