UK Politics

When Nigel Farage kicked off the party conference season for Reform in Birmingham he joked to party members: “It’s not all about me.”He pointed a line of 11 Reform UK football shirts with the names of leading party members on them, insisting “we are not a one man band, we are a full team”. Except when it came to buying one of those shirts, the only one available was the one with Farage’s name on the back.But with Farage propelling Reform to new heights in the polls, the traditional main political parties have taken it all to heart and decided that their conferences should be about them too.Farage has a lot to smile about More

Angela Rayner is facing questions after her taxpayer-funded bodyguards were seen helping her partner move belongings into her second home. The former deputy prime minister, who quit Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet after underpaying stamp duty on the purchase of a seaside flat, was accused of wasting public money. Pictures published in the Mail on Sunday showed two close-protection officers helping the former Labour MP Sam Tarry, Ms Rayner’s boyfriend, move bags and boxes in a BMW X5 between their two homes.Angela Rayner is facing questions over the use of her personal security detail More

Shabana Mahmood has said that people are “justified in asking for more from their government” after David Lammy was heckled at a Manchester terror attack vigil.Appearing on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the home secretary said that she “absolutely understands the strength of feeling” that members of the Jewish community are experiencing in the wake of the attack, which saw Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, killed.Kuenssberg said that young Jewish children told her how they are now experiencing incidents of antisemitism “daily”, which Mahmood described as “devastating to hear”.“I fully accept that people are grieving and want more from their government.” She added: “They are justified in asking for more when they feel that they and their children are going to have to live smaller Jewish lives here in the country that is their home. It is their land too.” More

Police are to be given greater powers to restrict repeated protests, the home secretary has announced, hours after hundreds were arrested at a Palestine Action demonstration in London. The event went ahead despite calls from Keir Starmer and others in the wake of the terror attack on a synagogue in Manchester during which two people were killed. The home secretary Shabana Mahmood said repeated large-scale protests had caused “considerable fear” for the Jewish community. Palestine Action protest More

A senior police officer has declared “enough is enough” after “exhausted” officers arrested hundreds of people at a Palestine Action protest in London, days after the Manchester synagogue attack.Met Police said 492 people were arrested at the protest in support the proscribed group, which was classed by the UK government as a terror organisation earlier this year. The bulk of the arrests were made at Trafalgar Square, where around 1,000 protesters sat silently, some holding signs backing Palestine Action, despite calls by Sir Keir Starmer and police chiefs to stay away following the terror attack in Manchester. Amnesty International, meanwhile, said it should not be the job of the police to arrest people “peacefully sitting down”, and that the arrests amounted to a breach of the UK’s human rights obligations. The Met said many of those arrested had to be carried out of the square after refusing to walk, with each person taking up to five officers to move away safely. Some were pictured holding their hands in the air defiantly. Police officers detain a protester during a mass demonstration organised by Defend our Juries, against the British government’s ban on Palestine Action More

Sir Mel Stride has issued a warning to any Conservative colleagues plotting leadership challenges, urging them not to risk derailing the party just as he says it is starting to get back on track.On the eve of the party conference, the shadow chancellor has told The Independent that voters “will never forgive” the Tories if they return to “self indulgent” leadership contests again – less than a year after Kemi Badenoch was elected leader.It comes after a dismal first year out of power for the party, which has continued to slip in the polls – despite Labour’s woes – while Nigel Farage and Reform UK have surged ahead and now sit as the most likely challengers to the government at the next election.The Conservatives’ downfall has promoted speculation that Ms Badenoch could face a serious leadership challenge, with shadow cabinet colleagues Robert Jenrick and Sir James Cleverly tipped as the main contenders to replace her, but Sir Mel has insisted a change at the top now would be counterproductive.“I think we’ve got to hold our nerve,” he said. “Look, nobody finds it comfortable to be where we are in the polls. “Nobody finds it comfortable to have lost the last election as decisively as we did and the difficulties we had in the more recent local elections. So I understand totally why people are uncomfortable with that, but what we’ve got to do is hold our nerve. Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride (Jeff Moore/ PA credit) More

Kemi Badenoch is an unknown politician who the public do not trust, Britain’s top polling guru has said. The Tory leader has been unable to halt the decline in support for her party, which collapsed over Partygate and Liz Truss’s premiership and has been falling ever since, Professor Sir John Curtice said. In a damning assessment ahead of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Sir John said: “The Tories are now barely more popular with those that voted Brexit than they are with the people who voted Remain, despite being the party that delivered Brexit.” Even Conservative supporters do not believe the party is ready for government More

A majority of Conservative Party members support Britain’s commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050, despite Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to scrap landmark climate legislation if the Tories win the next election. In a survey of Tory members, by Professor Tim Bale at Queen Mary University of London, 51 per cent said they back the UK’s net zero plans, while 45 per cent said they were opposed. Among the general public, 69 per cent said they support the net zero target, while just 20 per cent said they were opposed to it.A row over net zero could overshadow the Tory conference in Manchester More