UK Politics

Zack Polanski hopes the contrast could not be more stark. As hundreds of suited-up lobbyists swirl around a convention centre in Liverpool for Labour’s conference, he is strolling up and down Bold Street, a short walk away, to hear what “real people” care about. Donning his go-to olive anorak over a black tieless suit, the Green Party leader is pounding the pavement, making the case for disgruntled Labour voters to join his growing ranks. The firebrand left-winger, who was elected leader of the Greens this month with 85 per cent of member votes, claims Sir Keir’s premiership has been “an unmitigated disaster” and has paved the way for the rise of the populist right in Reform UK. Sir Keir and his cabinet have ramped up their attacks on Nigel Farage in recent days, branding Reform UK’s latest immigration policy – a plan to scrap indefinite leave to remain – as “racist”. Rachel Reeves doubled down on the Sir Keir’s comments on Monday, telling the Labour conference that the Reform leader was the “single greatest threat” to Britain. But Mr Polanski claims Sir Keir has failed to challenge Reform through its rise in the polls over the past year, meaning “it has got to the point where Farage has created a public conversation about ending ILR”. In that way, the prime minister is “complicit”, he claims. He also pointed to the fact Sir Keir did not address the nation from Downing Street in the wake of Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally earlier this month, a demonstration which attracted around 150,000, saying it “demonstrates the utter vacancy of moral and ethical leadership”. Labour said the Unite the Kingdom rally did not take place at its conference. Polanski struck a contrast between his party and Labour, saying the Greens’ vested interests are ‘people and the planet’ More

Rachel Reeves interrupted by pro-Palestine heckler at Labour party conferenceAndy Burnham has said Labour should call out the cost of the Brexit “disaster” – as home secretary Shabana Mahmood addresses the Labour Party conferenceAt a fringe event to the conference this afternoon, the Greater Manchester mayor spoke about the impact of leaving the European Union four years ago, claiming “the growth is not there as it once was”.Then talking about the autumn budget, when Labour will need to raise £30 billion, Mr Burnham said chancellor Rachel Reeves needed to rebalance a system in which he said “we overtax people’s work and we undertax wealth and assets”.His comments come amid mounting speculation that he is plotting a leadership bid against Sir Keir Starmer, with Ms Reeves appearing to attack his economic approach in her speech to the conference earlier.She said: “There are still those who peddle the idea that we could just abandon economic responsibility and cast off any constraints on spending. They are wrong – dangerously so.”But at the fringe event organised by the Guardian Politics podcast live, Mr Burnham rejected the suggestion he was “hopeless” on the economy. Meanwhile, Ms Mahmood is talking to the conference in Liverpool a day after announcing a major crackdown on immigration with tougher tests for migrants wanting to remain in the UK.Delegates seem unconvinced by home secretary’s attempt to justify migration reformsThe Independent’s political correspondent Millie Cooke reports from Liverpool:Shabana Mahmood has framed its fresh migration crackdown as an attempt to keep Britain as an “open, tolerant and generous country”.After the government faced criticism for its clampdown on indefinite leave to remain, the main route for immigrants gaining British citizenship in the UK, the home secretary has attempted to justify the reforms – instead saying it is necessary to keep the fabric of the country together.”Unless we have control of our borders, and until we can decide who comes in and who must be, we will never be the open, tolerant and generous country that I know we all believe in”, she said.Unfortunately, the audience didn’t seem convinced.There was applause – but it was lacklustre.( More

Sir Keir Starmer is under the heaviest pressure of his premiership. More than a year after entering Downing Street, he faces a Labour Party increasingly uncertain about his leadership, a resurgent Nigel Farage threatening to seize the political initiative, and deepening rows over policy and personnel.Angela Rayner’s departure from government has intensified speculation about Starmer’s grip, while allies and rivals alike float names such as Andy Burnham and Lucy Powell as potential successors. New polling shows Labour slipping behind Reform, and questions over Morgan McSweeney’s undeclared donations have added to the sense of drift.Amid U-turns on welfare reform and the fallout from Peter Mandelson’s chaotic Washington posting, MPs and activists are asking whether Starmer can survive – and if not, who might credibly replace him.In a recent Q&A with Independent readers, I tackled your questions on Andy Burnham’s chances – and why he hasn’t learned the lessons of Liz Truss; on Labour’s digital ID plan – and whether it really matters; on Reform’s rise – and why the boats may decide the next election. Here are some of them – and my answers:Q: Why wasn’t digital ID in Labour’s manifesto?KingswoodA: ID cards have long been quite popular, although I don’t think most people feel very strongly about them. The most recent YouGov poll, which asked about the Keir Starmer plan, found (just) more opposed than in favour, which suggests that people don’t like anything he proposes.Q: What safeguards would stop digital ID being used for discrimination?BobA: I am not too worried about that aspect of the plan. My view is that future megalomaniacs and would-be dictators will have plenty of means to do bad things whether we have a formal government digital ID or not. Look at what Donald Trump is doing in the US, where they don’t have unified government IDs.Q: Does Starmer really understand the threat from Reform?Jim987A: I think he is beginning to. I don’t think it is a matter of Reform’s propaganda machine, though. It is the reality of the small boats and the asylum hotels. If the government can stop the boats and close the hotels, that will give it the chance of countering the threat from Reform. Then I think Labour can win a contest against Nigel Farage.Q: Is the ID card plan just a dead cat to distract from Starmer’s leadership crisis?Jason O’RourkeA: I said so in a recent article, although by that I meant only that it was an attempt to set the media agenda, which all governments do. This one was more successful than many.Q: Why don’t Reform and the Tories get the same criticism as Labour or the Lib Dems?RaptorRedA: I don’t think Farage gets positive publicity from all media. You may not be a frequent reader of The Independent!PS. I was interested in yet another variant of the Fabian Society conspiracy theory in your question. I think this originated in the fact that David Bean, the judge in court case about the asylum hotel in Epping, had been chair of the Fabian Society a long time ago. The multifaceted conspiracy theory is quite the most interesting thing that has happened to the Fabian Society since the time of Sidney and Beatrice Webb!Q: In what scenario can Labour win, without opponents imploding?XmachinaA: I have written about this for The Independent today. My answer is that if Shabana Mahmood can stop the boats, Labour has a chance. If not, not. Stopping the boats means cutting the numbers coming uninvited across the Channel to fewer than 10,000 a year, I think, compared with 45,000 a year now. The trouble is that no one knows how this could be done, except by ramping up the one in, one out pilot scheme to the point where all or nearly all small-boat arrivals are returned to France. If that can be done, the traffic will cease, but I am not sure the French will continue to cooperate with the scheme at that scale.There must be other ways of stopping the boats, though, and in my article today I come down on the side of thinking that Mahmood will find them – because she has to.Q: What impact would a new deputy leader have on Starmer?Last of the BoomersA: It is unhelpful to have a cabinet minister you have sacked elected as deputy leader of the party, but it is more a symptom of Keir Starmer’s existing problems than a cause of new ones.Q: Who would be chancellor if Burnham became PM? Is he serious about the bond markets?PaulKA: I don’t think it is very likely that Andy Burnham will become PM, but the question is not so much about individuals as about the policy. When Burnham said, “We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets,” he revealed that he had learned nothing from Liz Truss’s experience. It is the same with all those Labour people urging Rachel Reeves to relax her fiscal rules. The fiscal rules are not some arbitrary constraint imposed by the chancellor on herself for fun: you can quibble with the details, but the essence is that they explain how government debt will be kept within sustainable bounds over the next few years. If the financial markets don’t believe that will happen, it will become more expensive for the government to borrow.Q: When will Ed Miliband be sacked and replaced with someone sensible?BigmanA: Well, Keir Starmer tried to move Ed Miliband in this month’s reshuffle. I think it would cause problems with the Labour membership to move him against his will, but I think Miliband realises that anything that adds further to consumer electricity and gas bills would make him vulnerable, so there is a kind of stand-off at the moment.These questions and answers were part of an ‘Ask Me Anything’ hosted by John Rentoul at 4pm BST on Saturday 27 September. Some of the questions and answers have been edited for this article. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article.For more insight into UK politics, check out John’s weekly Commons Confidential newsletter. The email, exclusive to Independent Premium subscribers, takes you behind the curtain of Westminster. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, head here to find out more. More

Rachel Reeves has warned of “harsh global headwinds” battering Britain’s economy, as she failed to dispel fears over major tax rises at the next Budget. In an upbeat but policy-light speech on the main stage of the Labour conference in Liverpool, the chancellor attempted to fight back against a growing sense of doom and gloom about the economy, instead saying she sees a country that is “primed for economic success”. She also appeared to take aim at Andy Burnham over his economic approach, warning that unrestrained borrowing is “dangerously wrong”. Appearing more confident and relaxed than she has been in months, the chancellor received ten standing ovations as she set out her pitch to Labour members ahead of what will be a difficult Budget in November. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that there’s no difference between the Conservatives and Labour”, she repeatedly warned. Rachel Reeves addressed the main stage of the Labour conference in Liverpool More

Britons believe the UK is viewed as “weak” and a “soft touch” by people abroad, according to a leading pollster who found that just one in four think the UK is seen in a positive light.The new poll, from More in Common and Save the Children, shared exclusively with The Independent, found that three out of four Britons (75 per cent) say that the UK’s international perception matters.“Britons are not little Englanders,” said Luke Tryl, director of More In Common. “They care about how our country is seen on the world stage, even if only a quarter think we’re seen positively right now.”Three out of four Britons say that the UK’s international perception matters More

The UK’s leading polling expert has warned Labour not to make the same “mistake” as the Conservatives and focus too heavily on immigration. Professor Sir John Curtice cautioned against focusing too much on an issue over which ministers did not have complete control until the world becomes a safer place. It came as Rachel Reeves defended Sir Keir Starmer’s attack on Reform UK’s plans to remove indefinite leave to remain for non-EU migrants already living in Britain as “racist”.Sir John told an event at the Labour conference that the party must not “repeat the Tories’ mistake, where you focus on an issue where you don’t have total control”, and that improving the economy and the NHS was more likely to return voters to the party.Political scientist Curtice says many voters still don’t know what the prime minister stands for More

Keir Starmer has revealed to friends that the “Unite the Kingdom” march in London was the moment he realised he needed to publicly fight back against Reform UK and the growing anti-immigration rhetoric in Britain. The prime minister is understood to have expressed his shock at the size of the event, which took place earlier this month, after seeing “that many people follow a far-right figure like Tommy Robinson”.The march in Whitehall and the surrounding streets, which amplified racism and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, was estimated by police to have attracted around 150,000 people.Far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, told his followers in a video posted to X that “the spark has started, the revolution is on”, while tech billionaire Elon Musk told the rally that “massive uncontrolled migration” was contributing to the “destruction of Britain”. Tommy Robinson with fellow far right activist Katie Hopkins on the march More