UK Politics

“Suddenly I felt like everything I’d ever worked for had crashed around me, suddenly I was losing everything,” says Grace Carter. “The idea of losing my business felt like losing a baby. “I really, really struggled.”After trying for years to have a second child, the 33-year-old was overjoyed when she gave birth to her daughter in November 2023.However, she tells The Independent, she was left feeling suicidal as a result of the financial strain of having a baby and is still in a huge amount of debt after trying to keep her business as well as her young family afloat.Ms Carter, from Colchester, has since joined calls for maternity pay to match the national living wage, and is demanding that the “economic contribution of mothers is appropriately recognised and compensated”.She said she received Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), which works out at the equivalent of a full-time worker on a 37.5 hour week earning around £4.99 per hour after the first six weeks of maternity leave. This is roughly just 41 per cent of the 2025 national living wage (NLW) of £12.21 per hour, which has been set out to ensure a basic standard of living.Ms Carter – who is the founder of The Metamorphose Group, a collective of purpose-driven brands aimed at changing the lives of women and girls, which she has been building over eight years – said the combined effects of her being out of work, as the head of her company, and the discrimination she faced led to her business’ yearly turnover shrinking to almost half, from an average of £600,000 to £350,000 that year, and she was forced to borrow £140,000.The mother-of-two – who has had five miscarriages and whose daughters are now aged five and one – has founded the End Parenting Poverty campaign More

Starmer ‘unhappy’ about Trump tariffs, according to ministerSir Keir Starmer has said the “world as we knew it has gone” after US president Donald Trump slapped sweeping tariffs on dozens of trading partners including the UK.Sir Keir has said that his government stands “ready to use industrial policy to help shelter British business from the storm.”It comes after the US president put a 10 per cent tariff on all UK goods exports to America, including a 25 per cent tariff on all British carmakers.Labour minister Darren Jones said that a trade war was in “no-one’s interests” and said that globalisation as we’ve known it has come to an end. However Reuters has reported that the EU is considering retaliatory tariffs on $28 billion worth of US imports. A list of US goods that could be slapped with tariffs will reportedly be presented to EU countries late on Monday. Meanwhile Jaguar Land Rover said it was suspending shipments to the US while it considers how to mitigate the cost of Mr Trump’s tariffs.Taiwan’s president offers zero tariffs as basis for US negotiations Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te has offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the US, pledging to remove trade barriers rather than imposing reciprocal measures and saying Taiwanese companies will raise their US investments. President Donald Trump announced across-the-board import tariffs on Wednesday, with much higher duties for dozens of trading partners, including Taiwan, which runs a large trade surplus with the U.S. and faces a 32 per cent duty on its products.The US tariffs, however, do not apply to semiconductors, a major Taiwanese export.In a video message released by his office after meeting executives from small and medium-sized companies at his residence, Taiwan’s president said given Taiwan’s dependence on trade the economy would inevitably have a hard time dealing with the tariffs, but that he thought the impact could be minimised.”Tariff negotiations can start with ‘zero tariffs’ between Taiwan and the United States, with reference to the U.S.-Canada-Mexico free trade agreement,” Lai said.Taiwan’s cabinet is considering what large-scale agricultural, industrial and energy purchases to make from the United States, while the defence ministry has already put forward its weapons purchase plans, he added.”All purchases will be actively pursued,” Lai said.Holly Bancroft6 April 2025 15:44India does not plan to retaliate against US tariffs – reports India does not plan to retaliate against US president Donald Trump’s 26 per cent tariff on imports from the Asian nation, an Indian government official has told Reuters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has looked into a clause of Trump’s tariff order that offers a possible reprieve for trading partners who “take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements”, said the official, who declined to be named as the details of the talks are confidential.Reuters reported last month that New Delhi is open to cutting tariffs on U.S. imports worth $23 billion.( More

Esther Ghey has revealed that she now considers the mother of her daughter’s killer “a friend”.Brianna Ghey was murdered by Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe in a premeditated attack in Cheshire in 2023.But Ms Ghey says she has developed a close bond with Scarlett’s mother, Emma, because she “had lost a child too”.She told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I really appreciate Emma. I would call her a friend now.”​She added that Ms Jenkinson is “just a normal mother” who was unaware of her child’s online activities, highlighting “the danger with smartphones”.​Reflecting on their shared grief, Ms Ghey said: “It’s helped me to see that we are both navigating something extremely difficult – and she’s lost a child too.”​Jenkinson and Ratcliffe, both 15 at the time, lured Brianna to Culcheth Linear Park in Warrington where she was fatally stabbed 28 times with a hunting knife in February 2023.Jenkinson was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court in December 2023 to a minimum sentence of 22 years in prison, and Ratcliffe to a minimum term of 20 years.In the same interview, Ms Ghey also called for stronger measures to protect children in schools.She supports a “blanket ban” on smartphones in schools across the country, citing concerns over how these devices can be misused by students.She explained: “We need to support teachers in a blanket ban across England. If a school has banned phones in one area and in the same area another school hasn’t – it becomes an issue with parents.“It needs to be done across the board to make it easier.”Ms Ghey has met Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his predecessor Rishi Sunak to discuss the issue and has criticised the Online Safety Act, saying it does not go far enough.She has campaigned for an age limit on smartphone use, stricter controls on access to social media apps, tougher action on knife crime and for mindfulness to be taught in schools. More

Sir Keir Starmer will declare the end of globalisation and admit it has failed the public amid the growing fallout of Donald Trump imposing global trade tariffs, including 10 per cent on the UK.The prime minister will argue in a speech on Monday that the shock from the US president’s trade war means Britain must “move further and faster” cutting red tape to boost economic growth. And, in an article on Sunday, Sir Keir said “the world as we knew it has gone”. “We must rise to meet the moment,” he said.Sir Keir Starmer will say globalisation has failed More

Two Labour MPs who were denied entry to Israel have said they are “astounded” by the decision.Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang have said it is “vital” that parliamentarians are able to “witness first-hand” the situation on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.The current war in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas fighters launched an attack inside Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza. Since then, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 50,000 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military offensive.The MPs were refused entry because they intended to “spread hate speech” against Israel, the nation’s population and immigration authority claimed.Abtisam Mohamed More

Two Labour MPs have been denied entry to and deported from Israel in a move described as “deeply concerning” by the UK foreign secretary.Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed were rejected at the Israeli border after being accused of planning to spread “anti-Israel hatred”.Ms Yang, who represents Earley and Woodley, and Ms Mohamed, the MP for Sheffield Central, had flown to the country from Luton airport on Saturday afternoon.Foreign secretary David Lammy hit out at the “unacceptable” Israeli decision and said it was “no way to treat British parliamentarians”.“It is unacceptable, counterproductive, and deeply concerning that two British MPs on a parliamentary delegation to Israel have been detained and refused entry by the Israeli authorities,” Mr Lammy said.Abtisam Mohamed, the MP for Sheffield Central, had flown to the country from Luton airport on Saturday More

Wes Streeting defended Labour’s controversial national insurance hike as the health secretary accused Reform UK and the Conservatives of plotting to pull billions of bounds of funding from the NHS.As the tax rise comes into effect today, Mr Streeting has challenged critics including Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch to explain how they would pay for a reversal of the policy change. The 2p increase to employer national insurance has been criticised by opposition parties, business chiefs and top economists, who have linked it to the stagnant economy, since it was unveiled by Rachel Reeves back in October. Wes Streeting is being rolled out by Labour as an anti-Reform attack dog More

One of Reform UK’s local election candidates accused Queen Elizabeth of “scrounging” and “sponging” and called for her to be jailed, The Independent can reveal.Mark Wade, council candidate in Chorley Rural West, marked Her Majesty becoming the longest-reigning British monarch with a post on Facebook saying she had spent “a long time scrounging”. He also commented on the late Queen’s visit to Crumlin Road Gaol in north Belfast: “The Queen has just entered an old jail in Belfast, let’s shut the gates and get the rest of her sponging family to join her.” Critics said the comments raise questions about Reform UK’s partiotism More