UK Politics

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorKing Charles will make his second King’s Speech today to mark the State Opening of Parliament. This is when a new parliamentary year begins, giving the government the opportunity to set out its plans for the coming months.For the first time in almost 15 years, it will be for a Labour government that a monarch makes the speech. Kicking off at 11.30am on Wednesday, viewers can expect details of several bills that will spell out Sir Keir Starmer’s plans for his first year in government.One iconic ceremony the UK sees every year is Black Rod being sent from the Lords chamber to Commons to summon MPs for the King’s speech.Sarah Clarke was appointed Lady Usher of the Black Rod in 2017, and took up the role in 2018. She became the first female holder of the position in its 650-year history.For the latest political updates, follow The Independent’s live coverageBut what is the point of this historic post?Black Rod is a senior official in the House of Lords, who is responsible for maintaining order and organising ceremonial events within the Palace of Westminster.The name derives from the three and a half foot ebony staff that the post holder carries, which is topped with a golden lion to symbolise the power of the office.As the King’s representative in Parliament, Black Rod’s most high-profile ceremonial job is to summon MPs to listen to the King’s Speech in the Lords during the state opening of Parliament.In a symbol of the Commons’ independence from the monarch, the doors of the Chamber are slammed in Black Rod’s face before they strike the door three times with the ebony staff.MPs then follow Black Rod to the Lords, dawdling and talking loudly, to hear the monarch outline the Government’s legislative programme.As well as the ceremonial duties, Black Rod is responsible for organising access to and maintaining order within the Lords Chamber and the precincts, and is responsible for the King’s residual estate in the Palace and the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft.The earliest known reference to the role of Black Rod as the Usher to the Order of the Garter appears in letters in 1361. Walter Whitehorse is believed to have been the first person to hold the post, which 59 others have held since.David Leakey, a former army commander, has been in the post since 2010.The first reference to Black Rod in connection with Parliament comes in a Garter statute of 1522 which states that Black Rod has an additional duty to “keep the doors… in the High Court called Parliament”.It is thought that, when Henry VIII moved from the Palace of Westminster to the Palace of Whitehall, Black Rod – a member of the Royal Household, stayed behind to act as usher to the House of Lords.There are also Black Rods in the parliaments and legislative assemblies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorDonald Trump’s choice for vice-president has provoked fury by describing the UK under Labour as an “Islamist country” with nuclear weapons.Author and Ohio senator JD Vance was announced as Mr Trump’s running mate on Monday, just two days after an attempt to assassinate the former president, who is challenging Joe Biden for the White House in November.Politicians from across the spectrum have condemned Mr Vance’s comments, with former Tory co-chair Sayeeda Warsi suggesting the special relationship between the UK and the US has “become no more than a racist joke”. Writing for The Independent, she added: “It bodes for really dangerous times ahead.”Labour MP Rosie Duffield said Mr Vance had made “obviously a pretty ignorant and racist comment”, while Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer said: “We need to call that out for what it is, it’s Islamophobic.”In a speech for the National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC, Mr Vance recounted a conversation with a friend.“I was talking about, you know: what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon?” he said. “Maybe it is Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we finally decided that it’s actually the UK – since Labour just took over.”Vance , the Ohio senator, was announced as Mr Trump’s running mate on Monday More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditor Britain’s new Labour Party government campaigned on a promise to bring bold change at modest cost. Prime Minister Keir Starmer gets a chance to show how he aims to reconcile those two aims on Wednesday when the government announces its plans for the coming year.Starmer said the measures announced in the King’s Speech to Parliament would “take the brakes off Britain” and “create wealth for people up and down the country” by spurring economic growth.The King’s Speech is the centerpiece of the State Opening of Parliament, an occasion where royal pomp meets hard-nosed politics, as King Charles III dons a diamond-studded crown, sits on a gilded throne and announces the government’s legislative agenda.Starmer said the speech would be a “down payment on our plans for the next five years,” which center on getting the U.K.’s stuttering economy growing strongly.Labour won a landslide election victory on July 4 as voters turned on the Conservatives after years of high inflation, ethics scandals and a revolving door of prime ministers. Starmer has promised to patch up the country’s aging infrastructure and frayed public services, but says he won’t raise personal taxes and insists change must be bound by “unbreakable fiscal rules.”The government said Wednesday’s speech will include more than 35 bills – the Conservatives’ last speech had just 21 – ranging from housebuilding to nationalizing Britain’s railways and decarbonizing the nation’s power supply with a publicly owned green energy firm.“It looks like it’s going to be very ambitious and very wide-ranging,” said Jill Rutter, senior research fellow at the Institute for Government think tank.There will be moves to give more powers to local government, and a law to ensure all government budgets get advance independent scrutiny. Rutter called that the “anti- Liz Truss bill,” referring to the Conservative prime minister whose package of unfunded tax cuts in 2022 rocked the British economy and ended her brief term in office.Also expected are new measures to strengthen border security, following on from Starmer’s decision to scrap the Conservatives’ plan to send people arriving in the U.K. across the English Channel on a one-way trip to Rwanda. The contentious scheme faced multiple legal challenges and cost the U.K. several hundred million pounds (dollars), without a single flight taking off.There is also expected to be a law regulating the development of artificial intelligence, a possible break from the previous government’s light-touch approach to governing AI.The government may also announce significant changes to the U.K.’s political system, including lowering the voting age from 18 to 16, one of Labour’s election promises.It might even tackle an issue that has foxed previous governments: reforming the House of Lords. The unelected upper chamber of Parliament is packed with almost 800 members – largely lifetime political appointees, with a smattering of judges, bishops and hereditary aristocrats. Starmer has said he would like to remove the hereditary nobles and set a Lords retirement age of 80.While much of Starmer’s agenda marks a break with the defeated Conservative government of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Starmer may revive Sunak’s plan to stop future generations from smoking by gradually raising the minimum age for buying tobacco.Wednesday’s address is the second such speech delivered by Charles since the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022. For all its royal trappings – including lords in ermine-trimmed robes and an official known as Black Rod — it is the King’s Speech in name only.“The king has zero agency in this,” Rutter said. More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorFormer prime minister Boris Johnson has claimed that Donald Trump “will be strong and decisive” in his support of Ukraine and in “defending democracy”.The Conservative ex-premier was in Washington this week to attend the Republican National Conference in Milwaukee, where Mr Trump was named the party’s official candidate in the upcoming US presidential elections.After a photograph circulated showing him giving a speech to a near-empty room at the conference on Tuesday, Mr Johnson later shared an image of himself meeting with Mr Trump, just days after the ex-president survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.“Great to meet President Trump who is on top form after the shameful attempt on his life,” wrote the former PM. “We discussed Ukraine and I have no doubt that he will be strong and decisive in supporting that country and defending democracy.”Mr Johnson’s government was viewed in Ukraine as having been a staunch ally in its existential fight against Russia, after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion in February 2022.Mr Johnson was ousted by his own party five months later over a series of domestic political scandals.But his buoyant remarks run in stark contrast to alarm that has been raised over the potential impact of a second Trump presidency on vital military aid for Ukraine in its war against Russia, which intensified on Monday as he announced isolationist senator JD Vance as his pick for vice-president.One senior EU official told Politico on Monday that the appointment of Mr Vance was a “disaster” for Ukraine, as a former senior British defence official told Sky News they feared a Trump-Vance White House would lead to the “immediate termination of all financial and military aid for Ukraine”.Mr Vance, who came to prominence with his 2016 memoirHillbilly Elegy, was one of the biggest opponents of sending more money to support Ukraine, insisting that Washington does not have the financial or manufacturing capabilities needed to sustain Kyiv in its defence against Moscow’s full-scale invasion.Donald Trump has chosen JD Vance as his prospective pick for vice president More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorOpponents of Brexit have warned that the latest figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) confirm that leaving the EU “has drained the life out of the British economy”.The claims come as Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government begins a reset of the UK’s relationship with the EU following their victory in the general election.The prime minister is set to host European leaders at the European Political Council at Blenheim Palace on Thursday just days after his new EU relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds went to Brussels to start talks on a new Brexit deal.But the urgency of the problem appears to have been highlighted in the latest IMF projections.The Labour government is seeking to reset relations with the European Union More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorDonald Trump’s choice for vice president described the UK as an “Islamist country” with nuclear weapons during a speech at a right-wing conference last week.JD Vance, the Ohio senator, was announced as Mr Trump’s running mate on Monday after the former president was shot in the ear during a rally in Pennsylvania at the weekend.Recounting a conversation he was having with a friend, the 39-year-old said he had been wondering which “truly Islamist country” would be the first to gain access to nuclear weapons.“I was talking about, you know, what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon?” he said. “Maybe it is Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we finally decided that it’s actually the UK – since Labour just took over.”JD Vance , the Ohio senator, was announced as Mr Trump’s running mate on Monday after the former president was shot in the ear during a rally in Pennsylvania at the weekend More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorVaughan Gething has dramatically resigned as the first minister of Wales just hours after four of his ministers quit his government.In a parting shot, the group told him they could not do their jobs “without you standing down”.Mr Gething said he recognised that “rebuilding and renewal” was “not possible” under his leadership.In a statement announcing his resignation, he said: “I have this morning taken the difficult decision to begin the process of stepping down as leader of the Welsh Labour Party and, as a result, first minister.“Having been elected as leader of my party in March, I had hoped that over the summer a period of reflection, rebuilding and renewal could take place under my leadership.“I recognise now that this is not possible.” He added: “It has been the honour of my life to do this job even for a few short months…I have always pursued my political career to serve Wales.”Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer thanked him for his service and said he had decided to quit “because he feels it is the best decision now for Wales”. The announcement came hours after four Welsh ministers quit the government in Cardiff and called for Gething to stand down More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorPrime minister Keir Starmer’s review of Britain’s defences comes as the West faces a “dangerous quartet” of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, according to Nato chief Lord Robertson.Russia remains the key threat, as it is continuing to wage war in Ukraine, including a deadly missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv last week. Relations with Russia are at their worst since the Cold War period, and military experts believe that European countries need to be prepared for conflict.But how do Britain’s armed forces compare now to 40 years ago, in 1984, when the UK was engaged in a stand-off with Russia?In terms of personnel and vessels, the UK’s capacity is substantially lower than in 1984, primarily because the UK is in peacetime.Sources: IISS Military Balance 1984, ‘World’s Air Forces 1989’, Flight International, Ministry of Defence 2023 official figures More