UK Politics

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseLabour is expected to extend an income tax measure that has been described as a “stealth tax” at the upcoming Budget as more people are set to pay higher rates.Officials have said Rachel Reeves is looking to extend the freeze on income tax thresholds, which has dragged millions of earners into paying higher rates of income tax since 2021.Experts predict the move could raise £7bn a year for the Exchequer – but has been criticised by some as an underhand way to raise tax. Some critics have claimed that doing so would break a central Labour manifesto pledge to “not increase taxes on working people.”However, responding to the reports, a government source told the Financial Times: “We said we would protect working people and not increase rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT.”Many have taken this to mean that the government would not consider extending the freeze as an income tax rise, as it would technically remain the same.Rachel Reeves will announce her budget on October 30 (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseRachel Reeves is set to unveil Labour’s first Budget in a generation on Wednesday – and the first ever written by a female chancellor. She has warned that it will involve “difficult decisions” – as she blamed the last Tory government for leaving a £22bn black hole in the public finances. Paul Johnson, the director of the high-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank has already said it could be the “biggest tax-raising budget” ever and yet it still could leave “a lot of public services still feeling squeezed”. Here we take a look at some of the key measures expected:Ms Reeves is expected to raise employer national insurance payments. Labour has pledged before the election not to raise NI, but the party insists that applied only to employees, not employers.But critics have accused ministers of breaking their promises and planning to bring in a ‘tax on jobs’.Rachel Reeves will be unviling Labour’s first Budget in a generation More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreClose Lithuania’ s center-left opposition parties celebrated victory on Monday after prevailing over the center-right ruling coalition in the final round of national elections.With 100% of votes counted from Sunday’s polls, the Social Democrats won 52 seats in the 141-seat parliament, known as the Seimas, ending the four-year rule of the Homeland Union government led by conservative Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė.The Social Democrats will start talks on forming a majority cabinet with two smaller center-left parties, the Democratic Union and the Union of Peasants and Greens, which won respectively 14 and 8 seats. The coalition is expected to control at least 74 seats.Šimonytė’s Homeland Union won only 28 seats in the two-round election.Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, who heads the Social Democrats, thanked supporters as a cheering crowd celebrated victory in downtown Vilnius on Sunday.“I am very grateful to the people of Lithuania who were so active today voting for us” she said adding that “the results have shown that the people want change, a completely different government.”The outcome was a surprise to the ruling conservatives, who were only two seats behind the Social Democrats after the first round.Analysts had predicted that Lithuania is set to continue a historic pattern where voters tend to look a different way every four years.Šimonytė conceded, noting the pattern. “In Lithuania that’s the way it is, every election we see the pendulum swinging in one direction or the other,” she told reporters. “We respect the will of the voters.”The vote in Lithuania, which borders Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave to the west and Belarus to the east, came at a time when Russia’s war in Ukraine is fueling greater fears about Moscow’s intentions, particularly in the strategically important Baltic region. Analysts say there won’t be any significant change in Lithuania’s foreign policy. The European Union and NATO member is a staunch supporter of Ukraine.The outgoing government faced criticism for the strict measures it adopted during the pandemic, with many complaining that her government didn’t do enough to help companies during lockdown. Others say thousands of people didn’t have proper access to health care.Šimonytė also has been lambasted for her handling of migrants arriving via Belarus. Lithuania has claimed its eastern neighbor, as well as Russia, was orchestrating the influx of people, mostly from Africa and the Middle East.Although the country has seen annual double-digit personal income growth and has one of the lowest inflation rates in the 27-nation bloc, most voters did not seem to be impressed.The results also mean that the new cabinet can be formed without the populist Nemuno Aušra party which came in third, with 20 seats. Its leader Remigijus Žemaitaitis had to resign from parliament earlier this year for making antisemitic statements.Following the results, Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, announced his resignation from the leadership of Homeland Union and said he was leaving politics. Turnout on Sunday was 41.31 percent, among the highest for a runoff. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseRachel Reeves has borrowed the language of the former Tory chancellor George Osborne to say her first Budget will be for “strivers” as her party faced a deepening row over the definition of “working people”.Labour has pledged not to raise key taxes, including income tax, VAT or national insurance, on working people. But the government is under mounting pressure to clarify who will be affected after a cabinet minister came under fire for repeatedly refusing to say if a small business owner earning £13,000 a year qualified.In a sign of how high the stakes are, on Sunday Paul Johnson, the director of the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank, warned this could be “one of the biggest tax-raising budgets ever”. And former Bank of England governor Mervyn King warned that Ms Reeves’s plans for extra borrowing could drive up mortgage payments. Chancellor Rachel Reeves will outline her Budget on Wednesday More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseA Nigel Farage-inspired bid to persuade Donald Trump to veto Sir Keir Starmer’s controversial Chagos Islands deal can be revealed today.The Independent has seen legal advice on Sir Keir’s controversial deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius sent to Mr Trump that was requested after the Reform UK leader raised the issue directly with the former president’s team.The advice was drawn up by legal experts who worked alongside Mr Farage in the Brexit campaign.Mr Farage says he was not directly involved in the legal advice but his links with Mr Trump are believed to have played a vital part in the initiative.The aim of Mr Farage and his allies is to persuade Mr Trump to block the deal if he becomes president again.The UK/US airbase on Diego Garcia More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseRachel Reeves is set to unveil Labour’s first Budget in a generation on Wednesday – and the first ever written by a female chancellor. She has warned that it will involve “difficult decisions” – as she blamed the last Tory government for leaving a £22bn black hole in the public finances. Paul Johnson, the director of the high-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank has already said it could be the “biggest tax-raising budget” ever and yet it still could leave “a lot of public services still feeling squeezed”. Here we take a look at some of the key measures expected:Ms Reeves is expected to raise employer national insurance payments. Labour has pledged before the election not to raise NI, but the party insists that applied only to employees, not employers.But critics have accused ministers of breaking their promises and planning to bring in a ‘tax on jobs’.Rachel Reeves will be unviling Labour’s first Budget in a generation More

Keir Starmer refuses to rule out raising national insurance contributionsYour support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseRachel Reeves’ tax-hiking Budget will hit workers however Labour frame it, the former governor of the Bank of England has said. Lord Mervyn King, who was head of the Bank of England for a decade until 2013, said that the debate around who Labour are classifying as a “working person” is “a terrible illusion”. Speaking on Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Lord King said: “Taxes are paid by people, they’re not paid by companies or institutions, ultimately, they fall on the amount that people can spend, and you only can raise significant amounts of money by raising taxes on most people, however you care to define that, but it’s most people will have to pay higher taxes.”He added: “Ultimately, the impact of these higher taxes has to be on the consumption of most people, however you care to define that group.”Ms Reeves has promised a Budget “for the strivers” but admitted tough decisions have been made.We’ll be bringing you all the latest updates ahead of the big event here, on The Independent’s liveblog. Show latest update 1730039990Scheme to boost French school trips to Britain ‘in peril’A scheme that brings more French children to the UK for school trips is reportedly in peril as a result of new Brexit rules.The Financial Times has reported that the scheme is at risk because of the UK’s new electronic travel authorisation (ETA) scheme, which is due to come into force on 2 April 2025. This will require all EU visitors to the UK to register before their travel. Registering will require the children to have a passport. French president Emmanuel Macron and then-prime minister Rishi Sunak had agreed that French school children could travel to the UK just on ID cards, however this seems to have been scuppered by the new ETA requirements. Holly Bancroft27 October 2024 14:391730038383Rachel Reeves’ expected tax hike will hit working people, says ex-Bank of England governorFormer Bank of England governor Mervyn King has said the debate around not putting up taxes on working people is a “terrible illusion”.Lord King told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “All this debate about not putting up taxes on working people is a terrible illusion, really.“Taxes are paid by people, they’re not paid by companies or institutions, ultimately, they fall on the amount that people can spend, and you only can raise significant amounts of money by raising taxes on most people, however you care to define that, but it’s most people will have to pay higher taxes.“And if they, instead of unwinding the cuts in employees’ national insurance contributions, put up employers’ national insurance contributions, that will make it less likely that companies will exceed to wage demands, they will press down on that, they will probably be less enthusiastic about creating new jobs.“Ultimately, the impact of these higher taxes has to be on the consumption of most people, however you care to define that group.”Holly Bancroft27 October 2024 14:131730038159Daughter of murdered MP says he was failed by governmentThe daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess said he was “catastrophically” failed by the government’s Prevent programme, as she called for a full inquest into his death.The veteran MP, 69, was stabbed to death by Ali Harbi Ali, then aged 26, at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex in October 2021.Katie Amess, 39, said she was told Ali had been reported to Prevent in 2014, but after one meeting his case was not followed up by the anti-radicalisation programme “due to an admin error”.She told The Sunday Times: “He was reported. People were trying to help us, and so why was he allowed to just go on and do whatever he wanted for seven years?“What happened to my dad should not have been an admin error.”Sir David, a father of five, had been holding a surgery in his Southend West constituency when he was attacked by Ali, who was sentenced in 2022 to a whole-life prison term for the murder.In an interview with The Sunday Times, Ms Amess, an actress who lives in West Hollywood in the United States, said the pain of his death was “unbearable” and “unspeakable”.She added: “It’s pretty obvious that Prevent isn’t fit for purpose, it has consistently failed people.“It failed me. It failed my family catastrophically, it failed the public and also it failed other Members of Parliament.”( More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseThe daughter of David Amess, murdered by an Islamic State supporter at his MP surgery, says she was “catastrophically” failed by the government’s Prevent programme.Katie Amess reportedly launched a High Court civil case for personal injury against the Home Office and Essex Police earlier this year following her father’s murder in 2021.Sir David, 69, was stabbed 21 times by Ali Harbi Ali, who pretended to be a constituent interested in local churches before launching an attack he had planned for seven years outside the constituency surgery held at a Methodist church in Leigh-on-Sea.Ali, 28, had been referred to the Home Office’s deradicalisation scheme Prevent seven years earlier but boasted he was able to look compliant when dealing with the organisation.Sir David Amess with his beloved pugs Lilly and Botox More