Markus Andrews

Kemi Badenoch has been warned she has six months to turn the Conservative Party around or she will face a leadership challenge.As she marks her first year as leader, senior Tory sources have told The Independent that Ms Badenoch will have to go if the party is hit by another terrible set of results in the May elections in Wales, Scotland and English local councils – with Robert Jenrick the favourite to succeed her.While Ms Badenoch has put in some good performances at Prime Minister’s Questions in recent weeks and was widely praised for her conference speech, critics have noted that she has failed to improve the Tories’ historically low position in the polls.One senior Tory source said: “Before Kemi’s speech we were averaging 17 points in the polls and after Kemi’s speech we were averaging 17 points in the polls. Nothing has changed and we are going nowhere with her.” It is also regularly pointed out that the party was averaging around 24 per cent a year ago, when she became leader.Meanwhile a shadow minister complained that after the conference speech, where she unveiled a number of policies including abolishing stamp duty, she has largely gone to ground again.They said: “She gave a half decent speech at conference and now she thinks she can hibernate all winter. She forgets she’s the leader of the opposition and not a hedgehog.”Another critic described Ms Badenoch as “the living dead” with “everybody waiting for the end”.A well received conference speech by Badenoch has made no difference to the poll ratings for the Tories More

Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will face a cabinet backlash if the chancellor breaks Labour’s manifesto pledge and raises income tax in the Budget later this month.Earlier this week, it was reported that the Treasury is looking into the possibility of putting up the rate by 2p, while simultaneously cutting national insurance by 2p. Just last month, this newspaper reported that Ms Reeves is considering changes to the top 45p rate.The Independent has learnt that a number of senior ministers are concerned that breaking the manifesto pledge to not raise income tax, VAT or employee national insurance contributions could prevent any hope of a political recovery, with the party languishing in the polls.“What those who say we should not stick to that pledge fail to realise is just how important it was in winning the election,” a senior minister said.“Elections are hard to win. They are particularly hard for Labour to win. We don’t win many of them. So breaking that pledge comes with significant risk about us losing the trust of voters.”Another minister suggested: “We are going to struggle to recover in the polls if people do not believe what we are saying.”Leading pollsters warn the government could be facing a point of no return with voters if it breaks the manifesto commitment More

Nigel Farage has been warned his plan to retrospectively strip thousands of people of indefinite leave to remain would “trash Britain’s reputation for fairness”, as lawyers say the policy would be blocked by the courts.Immigration lawyers have told The Independent that the retroactive element of the policy is likely to be successfully challenged in the courts whether or not the UK left the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) because an expectation that laws can’t be changed in hindsight is a “a cornerstone of administrative law around fairness”.Mr Farage’s party has pledged to scrap settled status for all non-EU migrants, requiring those who have been granted indefinite leave to remain to reapply under much stricter rules – meaning tens of thousands of people who have legally settled in Britain could be at risk of deportation. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage unveiled the plans earlier this year More

Extremely well-off Britons leaving the UK for tax havens face having to pay a charge as they depart under plans being drawn up ahead of this month’s crunch Budget.The chancellor Rachel Reeves is reported to be considering slapping a 20 per cent “settling-up charge” on business assets left in the UK as she tries to fill a multi-billion pound hole in the nation’s finances. But shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick hit out at what he said was a “crazy” idea that would “just see wealth and wealth creators sprint for the door… We need more entrepreneurs, not fewer! Reeves must rule out this latest desperate move”. Economists have repeatedly warned Ms Reeves that a combination of Labour U-turns, higher borrowing and sluggish economic growth means she must raise taxes or tear up her flagship borrowing rules in the Budget.Chancellor Rachel Reeves (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More

Rachel Reeves is reportedly considering bringing in new higher bands of council tax to target the owners of expensive homes.With weeks to go until her crunch Budget, the chancellor is hoping that the new higher council tax bands will help her plug a hole in the nation’s finances worth tens of billions of pounds. No decisions have been taken, but Ms Reeves has said higher taxes on the wealthy will be “part of the story” in November 26’s Budget. The chancellow Rachel Reeves(Jordan Pettitt/PA) More

Zarah Sultana has said that Your Party “can win power”, despite a turbulent start for the new left-wing movement. Ms Sultana, who founded the party with ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, told the BBC that she sees it as “a 10, 20, 30-year project”, after the party has been beset with internal rows since its inception. Speaking to the broadcaster’s Political Thinking podcast, the Coventry South MP – who quit Labour to found the party earlier this year – said: “I’m in politics because of a desire to change people’s lives for the better, and that means winning state power, that means actually running government. “We’re building a party of the left that can win power and deliver justice.” The party has faced rows over leadership, financing, and what it will be called since its inception in the summer. The outfit has nevertheless attracted tens of thousands of sign-ups. Ms Sultana told the same podcast that she had been advocating for it to be known as “The Left” or “The Left Party”. The name is expected to be chosen by members. “I don’t think they will go for The Left Party, despite my strong advocacy for it,” Ms Sultana said. “And I’m going to obviously support whatever the members decide. But I think embracing our politics and being proud of who we are on the left as socialists, and then going out and knocking on doors and delivering that vision is incredibly important.” Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have had a rocky start to setting up the new party More

Just two per cent of councils in England believe the government’s new funding commitment to help struggling households will be enough to meet rapidly growing need, a shocking new survey has revealed.Labour has pledged £1 billion a year for at least three years to local authorities through its new Crisis and Resilience Fund. This will replace the Household Support Fund – used by councils to support low-income households – and Discretionary Housing Payments, which are one-off grants to help with housing costs.Councils in England have been allocated £842 million through the new fund for next year, up from £835 million in 2025/26 granted through the two schemes it will replace. While this is a nominal increase of £7 million, it would amount to a real-terms cut of £34.2m based on September’s inflation rate.The vast majority (98%) of local authorities are not confident this funding will meet local need to a great extent, the survey by the Local Government Association (LGA) reveals. Two-thirds also say they have seen household’s financial hardship increase over the past year, and expect this trend to continue.Announcing the Crisis and Resilience Fund earlier this year, the government said the longer-term funding approach was being put in place to enable local authorities to provide preventative support and deliver on its manifesto commitment to end mass dependence on emergency food parcels.Labour has pledged £1 billion a year for at least three years to local authorities through its new Crisis and Resilience Fund (Dominic Lipinski/PA) More

Ministers still do not know when RAF jets will be able to carry nuclear weapons or how much the project will cost, the Commons spending watchdog has found.In a report published on Friday, the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had still not set out how much it would cost to operate new F-35A jets.Sir Keir Starmer announced at the Nato summit in June that the UK would purchase 12 of the jets, which could join the alliance’s airborne nuclear mission.The committee said the project was still “at an early stage”, with the MoD “starting to understand” the requirements of being certified for the Nato nuclear mission.The MoD told the committee that the F-35As were “20 per cent to 25 per cent cheaper” than the F-35Bs currently operated by the RAF and Royal Navy “and slightly cheaper to support”.But with the additional training and personnel required to join the nuclear mission, the committee said it was a “reasonable assumption that this may end up proving more expensive”.One of Britain’s F-35B jets at RAF Marham in Norfolk More