UK Politics

Keir Starmer and other European leaders have warned Vladimir Putin he faces “massive” new sanctions and increased military aid to Ukraine if he does not agree to an almost immediate 30-day ceasefire. The prime minister said they were “calling out” the Russian leader with the backing of Donald Trump. “If [Putin] is serious about peace, he has a chance to show it now,” Sir Keir said. And he warned there were “no more ifs and buts” after he flew to Kyiv to stand side by side with President Zelensky, saying Putin had not required extra conditions to be met when “he wanted a ceasefire to have a parade – and he does not need them now”. In an extraordinary turnaround just weeks after President Trump’s showdown with Zelensky in the Oval Office, Sir Keir also said Europe and the US were “speaking with one voice” on the issue. (Left to right) Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More

Keir Starmer was on a secret mission when he flew off to Norway for the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) meeting with heads of government of European Nato allies.Yes, he was there to press the case for the “coalition of the willing” to protect Ukraine in a post peace settlement reality before heading to Kyiv.But he had other important business linked to his government’s economic growth and defence cooperation agendas – selling frigates.The Norwegian government is about to make a decision on buying new frigates for their navy, but who to buy from? The choice (as often seems to be the case) is Britain or France.It certainly helped that when Sir Keir had his bilateral meeting about a Norwegian ship with Norway’s PM, Jonas Gahr Støre warmly described him as “our best friend.”As the sun shone down on the two men standing on the ship’s deck in the idyllic setting of Oslo’s harbour, it seemed like a match made in heaven.Sir Keir Starmer (left) meets Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store on the Norwegian coastguard vessel Jan Mayen in Oslo (Alistair Grant/PA) More

Peter Mandelson has described Donald Trump as a “people person” who could cut levies on British goods again after extraordinary scenes which saw the two men hold hands in the Oval Office this week. The UK’s ambassador in Washington said he was looking forward to negotiating with the US to “bring down further tariffs”.He also revealed that when he first walked into White House, President Trump said to him: “God, you’re a good looking fellow, aren’t you?”.And he described Trump as a “people person” who takes people at “face value”, saying that the president had judged him on his merits.Lord Mandelson and Donald Trump in the White House More

Whitehall departments are at risk of failing to get part of their funding in Rachel Reeves’s spending unless they decant hundreds of civil servants to other parts of the UK.A major government shake up will require more civil service jobs to be based in 12 locations outside London, delivering and developing government policy closer to the communities it affects.The move is expected to provide a £729m boost for local economies across UK in shake up to bring government closer to communities.The 12 growth areas are: Greater Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow, Darlington, Newcastle and Tyneside, Sheffield, Bristol, Edinburgh, Belfast and York.Pat McFadden will write to departments (Lucy North/PA) More

Sir Keir Starmer has revealed how his special relationship with Donald Trump helped secure a historic trade deal between the UK and US.In an exclusive interview with The Independent, the prime minister lifted the lid on how nurturing their friendship won the prize, proving critics wrong about his approach to dealing with a tricky opponent.Sir Keir said the “grown-ups” had set aside their huge political differences to reach a deal, and told how a last-minute telephone call from Mr Trump on Wednesday night finally secured a deal after weeks of negotiations by both sides.A joint news conference the next day, in which the two leaders were on first name terms, gave the appearance of the warmest relationship between a prime minister and president since Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.It marks an extraordinary turnaround for a Labour leader whose foreign secretary David Lammy once referred to the president as a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”.Independent political editor David Maddox speaks to Keir Starmer More

Thousands of people gathered in Romania’s capital on Friday for a pro-European Union march. It came a week before the final vote of a closely watched presidential election that pits a hard-right nationalist front-runner against the capital’s pro-EU mayor.Marchers converged in Bucharest in front of the government building, where many waved the blue and yellow flags of Europe. Many chanted slogans such as “We are in Europe” and “Bucharest is not Budapest,” referring to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a member but also a longtime critic of the EU.A communist country until 1989, Romania joined the EU in 2007. But last year it was plunged into its worst political crisis in decades when a top court voided the previous election. The far-right outsider Calin Georgescu topped the first round following allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.The rally was held nearly a week after the first round of a presidential election redo that saw hard-right nationalist George Simion, 38, emerge as the front-runner. In second place was 55-year-old incumbent Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan. “We need to develop … we want to be like the best countries, and we don’t have the possibilities on our own,” said Stefan Gheorghe, a 23-year-old lawyer. “You need the European Union to help us out. It is very important to us to stay together … and to benefit from each other.”A median of polls ahead of the runoff suggests Simion holds a lead in the vote, which will be held between the two staunchly antiestablishment candidates on May 18. Observers have warned that the outcome could reshape the EU and NATO member country’s geopolitical direction.After reaching second place on Sunday night, Dan called the final vote a choice “between a pro-Western direction for Romania and an anti-Western one.”Simion’s critics have long accused him of being Russia-friendly and warn that his presidency would undermine both the EU and NATO as Moscow’s war drags on in Ukraine. But in an interview with The Associated Press this week, Simion rejected the accusations and said, “It’s not for the good of the Romanian people to be close to Russia.”“We want to be a member of the European Union. Some fake news were saying that we want to exit the European project,” said Simion, who leads Romania’s second-largest party, the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians. “We don’t want to leave. We are here to stay. We invested a lot.”Simion, who came fourth in last year’s race and later backed Georgescu, said in an earlier interview with the AP that he wants to see “more power” go to the bloc’s 27 individual members, “not toward the European institutions.”Similar rallies were held in several cities across Romania on Friday to mark Europe Day, a date that proclaims to celebrate peace and unity in Europe.Although Simion and Dan are ideological opposites, they both made their political careers railing against Romania’s old political class, which has fallen out of favor as strong antiestablishment sentiment among voters grips the country. For Diana Draghici, 38, the upcoming runoff will be a pivotal moment for Romania’s future and a choice between forging stronger EU ties or potentially shifting East. “I think it’s important that the young people who were undecided and didn’t vote so far … to have a wake-up call and choose who they want to have represented,” she said. “It could decide two extremely different scenarios for Romania’s future.” More

Sir Keir Starmer has declined to rule out changes to taxes on tech giants as part of a future trade deal with the United States.The Prime Minister said discussions are “ongoing”, but that the agreement announced on Thursday “doesn’t cover” the digital services tax, a levy that applies mainly to US tech companies.It comes as Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she is concerned that the UK “will probably now not get a comprehensive free trade agreement” with America following Thursday’s announcement with US President Donald Trump.The digital services tax imposes a 2% levy on the revenues of several major US tech firms. Previous speculation had suggested that the UK could revise the measure as part of a deal.Speaking to broadcasters on board HMS St Albans during a visit to Norway, Sir Keir said: “The deal that we signed off yesterday doesn’t cover that.“That’s predominantly focused on steel and aluminium and reducing those tariffs on car manufacturing and reducing the tariffs there, and then future proofing for pharmaceuticals, three really important sectors, and that, as I say, will be measured in thousands and thousands of jobs that will be protected, saved and will thrive as a result of this.“On digital services, there are ongoing discussions, obviously, on other aspects of the deal, but the important thing to focus on yesterday is the sectors that are now protected that the day before yesterday were very exposed.”As part of the agreement, US import taxes which had threatened to cripple British high-end car makers were cut from 27.5% to 10%, while the 25% tariff on steel has also been removed.The blanket 10% tariff imposed on imports by Mr Trump as part of his sweeping “liberation day” announcement remains in place, but talks are ongoing in a UK effort to ease it.Kemi Badenoch has said she is “concerned” about the prospects of the UK going on to strike a full free trade agreement.Speaking to reporters during a visit in Essex on Friday, she was asked whether she though Thursday’s deal was a success.“It’s not a huge success at all,” she said. “It’s not even a trade deal, it’s a tariff deal, and we are in a worse position now than we were six weeks ago.“It’s better than where we were last week, so it’s better than nothing, but it’s not much.“One of the things that concerns me is that we will probably now not get a comprehensive free trade agreement.A Treasury minister said earlier on Friday that the agreement was urgently needed to protect as many as 150,000 livelihoods.Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones told the BBC: “We’ve signed that trade deal. We’ve got lower tariffs in critical manufacturing sectors in the UK, 150,000 people’s livelihoods that we’ve protected as a consequence of that trade deal.”The terms for the deal were published late on Thursday, and stated that the UK and the US are “beginning negotiations” to “develop and formalise the proposals” that have been made.It also suggested that either country could “terminate” the “arrangement” in the future with written notice, and it could be further altered in the future at the request of either side.“On request of either country, the United Kingdom and the United States will consult with a view to considering any changes that may need to be made to this arrangement to ensure that it remains mutually beneficial,” the general terms for the deal say.It also states that the US will compose a “quota” for UK steel and aluminium products, and there will also be a quota of 100,000 UK vehicles that will be allowed into the US at the newly agreed 10% tariff rate. More