UK Politics

Fewer people than ever are prepared to vote Tory or Labour as Reform look set to claim hundreds of seats at this week’s local elections, polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice has said.Speaking exclusively to The Independent, Prof Curtice said less than half of voters are telling pollsters they will vote for one of the two main parties, in a historic shift in voting patterns.He said: “Fewer than half of the people who tell pollsters how they are going to vote say they are going to vote either Conservative or Labour. It has never been quite that low before.” The big winner from the shift in voter intentions is Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which Prof Curtice described as having “already won” next week’s elections before a single seat is declared.The professor said that while Reform, along with its predecessor parties Ukip and the Brexit Party, has previously eaten into the Tory vote, it is now taking thousands of Labour votes as well.Britain’s top pollster says Nigel Farage’s party is the big winner already More

The government will ban its trans employees from using bathrooms that reflect their gender, a Cabinet minister has suggested. Pat McFadden suggested such a decision is the “logical consequence” of last week’s Supreme Court ruling on gender and comes after the equalities watchdog issued interim guidance on the issue. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance states that trans women “should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities” in workplaces or public-facing services like shops and hospitals. The same applies to trans men, who are biologically female, using men’s toilets.Asked whether the government, as an employer, will stop trans people from using the changing rooms or bathrooms that they wish to use, Mr McFadden told the BBC: “Yes, that’s the logical consequence of the judgment and the guidance that’s come out, that people use the facilities of the biological sex. “That’s what the court said and that’s what the guidance has said.” Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden (Jeff Overs/BBC) More

Rachel Reeves has insisted she wants Britain’s young people to be able to work in Europe, amid growing pressure on the government to agree a youth mobility scheme with the EU. The chancellor also said she’s “determined that we can get there” after talks about a trade deal with her US counterpart Scott Bessent in Washington. Asked about the prospect of a youth mobility scheme, Ms Reeves said: “We’re going to bring down net migration and we aren’t going to return to freedom of movement. But we are hosting the summit next month. “We do want to see better trading relationships between our countries and we do want to enable young people from Europe and the UK to be able to work and travel overseas.” Speaking to The Sunday Times, she added: “But we’ve got to get the balance right, because I do not want to see net migration increasing. I want to see net migration falling.” Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has met her US counterpart (Danny Lawson/PA) More

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