UK Politics

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentAn “a la carte” Brexit reset is not on the table, the deputy prime minister of Ireland has warned as Sir Keir Starmer made his first official visit to the UK’s nearest neighbour.The prime minister travelled to Dublin on Saturday to meet Taoiseach Simon Harris ahead of the England football team’s match against the Republic of Ireland.Just hours before his arrival, the tánaiste said that the EU wanted to see an improved EU-UK relationship, but the UK could not “cherry pick” new terms.Micheál Martin also blamed Brexit for the deterioration in relations between the UK and Ireland.Speaking to reporters at the British-Irish Association conference in Oxford on Friday, Mr Martin said that while the EU wants a “good and warm relationship” with the UK, it would not offer an “a la carte” menu from which Sir Keir can pick and choose.Taoiseach Simon Harris (left) and prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, hold up England and Ireland football shirts at Farmleigh House, Dublin More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentSir Keir Starmer’s government has signalled a potential openness to setting up overdose prevention facilities after years of Tory opposition, Scotland’s first official centre is set to open in Glasgow.As grim data showed drug deaths in Scotland rose 12 per cent to hit 1,172 last year, councillor Alan Casey confimed that the long-awaited £2.3m drug consumption centre would open on 21 October in Glasgow’s East End, warning that “the urgent need for such a facility couldn’t be more important”.In the first indication of Labour’s approach since coming into power in July, Home Office minister Dame Diana Johnson has now said her department “will consider any evidence emerging” from evaluation of the Glasgow drug consumption room pilot “in due course”.Several councils in England and Wales have approached experts for advice on how to set up the facilities, The Independent understands More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentGreen deputy leader Zack Polanski has vowed to stand against the far-right and “tell the truth” about immigration and racism.In a conference speech weeks after riots erupted across the UK in the wake of false claims about the murder of three girls at a dance class in Southport, Mr Polanski praised counter-demonstrators who marched in opposition to the far-right.And he said the threat to Britain “is not arriving by dinghy or a small boat – they’re flying in a private jet”.Zack Polanski said racist riots were sparked by decades of anti-migrant rhetoric by politicians and in the media More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentThe woman made Britain’s youngest peer by Boris Johnson has a plum new job at an environmental consultancy chaired by the former prime minister, The Independent can reveal.Charlotte Owen, now Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge after entering the House of Lords at the age of 30, has been appointed vice-president of the company Better Earth. Her elevation to the Upper House in Mr Johnson’s controversial honours list two years ago attracted significant scrutiny just six years after she started working in politics and following a brief stint as his aide.News of her latest role – which is paid – emerged in a two-line entry in her Lords register of interests in the last month. Her salary was not disclosed.The website for Better Earth, which is not fully operational but promises “full site coming soon”, describes itself as an “internationally facing company that seeks to contribute to global decarbonisation”. Charlotte Owen was appointed Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentThe prison population in England and Wales has reached a new record high as a scheme to house UK prisoners in Estonia to solve Britain’s jail overcrowding crisis has been branded half-baked and unworkable.Official figures showed there were 88,521 people behind bars on Friday, 171 more than the previous record set at the end of last week. The prison population has risen by 1,025 people over the past four weeks and now stands at its highest level since weekly population data was first published in 2011.Dame Angela Eagle, the Home Office minister, refused to deny reports that some inmates could serve their sentences in the eastern European country, and admitted there were too few places in UK prisons.“The last government closed loads of prison places and didn’t replace any of them, so I think that colleagues in the MoJ (Ministry of Justice) will be considering anything that they can to alleviate the problem,” she said on Friday. “What we cannot have is people who are convicted of perhaps violent or serious crimes not being able to be in jail.”Dame Angela Eagle refused to deny reports that some inmates could serve their sentences in Estonia More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentGreen co-leader Adrian Ramsay has opened the party’s conference with an attack on the “lacklustre offers and U-turns” of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.Kicking off the left-wing party’s campaign against Labour for next year’s local elections, Mr Ramsay painted the Greens as “an inspiring alternative to business as usual”.And, while he promised to work with Labour on issues where the parties agree, he condemned Sir Keir’s decision to withdraw the winter fuel payment from millions of pensioners, his refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap and the approval of an expansion of London City Airport .Mr Ramsay also attacked the “half-hearted” suspension of arms sales to Israel after foreign secretary David Lammy blocked 30 of the UK’s 350 export licences to the country.Two months after the party’s general election breakthrough, which saw the Greens jump from having one Westminster MP to four, Mr Ramsay vowed the group would “use our voices in parliament to raise up the voices of two million Green voters who want so much better”.Carla Denyer was unable to attend the party conference after contracting Covid-19 More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFind out moreCloseAs your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn’t have the resources to challenge those in power.Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November electionAndrew FeinbergWhite House CorrespondentA former Labour councillor has denied encouraging violence while addressing a crowd during an anti-fascist protest in Walthamstow.Ricky Jones, 57, allegedly committed the offence during a speech to a gathering, organised in response to the nationwide violent disorder, in Hoe Street, Walthamstow, on 7 August.A video was shared on social media in which he appeared to call for far-right protesters’ throats to be “cut”. The suspended politician was charged by police with encouraging violent disorder two days later.Jones, who was remanded in custody after his last court appearance, appeared on a videolink from HMP Wormwood Scrubs to Snaresbrook Crown Court. He pleaded not guilty.During a previous hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, deputy senior district judge Tan Ikram said: “It is alleged that using a microphone you addressed a crowd at an anti-fascist protest and, talking about others you described as ‘disgusting Nazi fascists’, you said ‘we need to cut their throats and get rid of them’.”Defence barrister Hossein Zahir KC said Jones accepted the words had been spoken but denied knowing the offence of violent disorder would be committed.District judge Oscar Del Fabbro ordered the defendant to produce a defence statement by October 25, and set a provisional trial date of January 20 next year at the same court.Jones, who has been a councillor in Dartford, Kent, since 2019, was suspended by the Labour Party.In reference to the video, a Labour spokesperson said: “This behaviour is completely unacceptable and it will not be tolerated.” More

Labour MP Angela Eagle on BBC One’s Sunday Politics programme More