UK Politics

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailNigel Farage is planning to attend the launch of Liz Truss’s new “Popular Conservatism” project this week, as the former prime minister attempts to rally right-wing Tory MPs.The former Ukip leader is said to be one of hundreds of guests planning to attend the conference in London and will join Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and former Tory deputy chair Lee Anderson, who will be speaking at the event. The PopCon movement is Ms Truss’s latest project since she was forced out of Downing Street. It is a platform for right-wing MPs to push Rishi Sunak to adopt hardline policies on immigration and tax before this year’s general election.The attendance of Mr Farage, reported by The Sunday Times, will pile pressure on Mr Sunak to listen to the group, as he remains a hero of much of the Tory right.Nigel Farage’s attendance will add to pressure on Rishi Sunak to pay attention to the PopCons Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, the arch-Brexiteer said he was “very interested” in the event, which he is attending in his capacity as a GB News presenter.Former business secretary Sir Jacob and Ms Truss will be the headline speakers at the PopCon launch.The director of the group is Mark Littlewood, who ran the Institute for Economic Affairs think tank and was seen as the architect of many of Ms Truss’s policies.The latest push by free-market right-wingers is also backed by former ministers in the Truss government Simon Clarke and Ranil Jayawardena.It promises a “new movement aiming to restore democratic accountability to Britain” and deliver “popular” Tory policies.The Independent understands that the group is aiming to help shape the next Conservative manifesto in the months ahead, as Mr Sunak and party chiefs prepare their election campaign for the second half of 2024.Ms Truss’s latest association joins an extremely crowded field of Conservative groups and factions. It comes hot on the heels of gatherings by the so-called “five families” of the Tory right who tried to toughen up the Rwanda deportation bill.Liz Truss has been largely unapologetic about her unfunded spree of tax cuts that saw her short premiership unravel in October 2022 The European Research Group joined dozens of MPs aligned with the New Conservatives, the Common Sense Group, the Northern Research Group and the Conservative Growth Group to plot amendments which ultimately failed.Mr Farage’s attendance at the PopCon launch comes as he is expected to return to Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party, as it seeks to fight the Tories in the general election.Speculation has been mounting for months about Mr Farage’s return, which could add to the scale of the electoral challenge facing Mr Sunak.His involvement would boost support for Reform among voters across the country concerned about high levels of immigration, and risks splitting the Conservative vote in dozens of Tory seats. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailLabour’s shadow technology secretary is planning a flurry of meetings with tech giants to discuss artificial intelligence developments during a visit to the United States.Peter Kyle arrived in Washington DC on Saturday in preparation for a week of discussions with the US government and tech firms, including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple.He will also meet others involved in developing artificial intelligence (AI), such as Oracle, Open AI and Anthropic.Party officials said the Opposition frontbencher will use the talks with leading AI labs to discuss the potential for the emerging technology to improve public services, with plans to use it to speed up cancer scans and create personalised lesson plans for children.UK businesses can benefit hugely from the innovation this latest wave of technology can bringShadow technology secretary Peter KyleMr Kyle, whose brief also includes science, said he has already seen AI tools that he believes could have detected his mother’s lung cancer “earlier”, making its potential advancements in healthcare “personal”.The MP for Hove, in an article for The Daily Telegraph in November, said his mother died 12 years ago, with her illness going undiagnosed for 18 months despite presenting to doctors with pain “numerous times”.Speaking after arriving in the US, Mr Kyle said: “New technology is the greatest opportunity we have to restore our public services and grow the economy.“I have seen AI tools which I believe would have caught my mum’s cancer earlier.“It is personal for me to get this technology used in a way which keeps families together for longer.“UK businesses can benefit hugely from the innovation this latest wave of technology can bring.“A Labour government wants to unleash innovation and give companies the certainty needed to invest in our country, boosting wages and getting the economy growing again.”Labour, which is well in front of the Conservatives in opinion polls ahead of a likely general election later this year, has said it will introduce a Regulatory Innovation Office to speed up existing AI regulations and make safety reporting requirements mandatory for labs at the heart of innovation with the technology.In November, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak chaired the first global AI summit at Bletchley Park as world governments look at regulating the technology, which experts have warned could pose a danger to humanity if not effectively controlled.Andrew Griffith, the Conservative minister for science, said: “Despite attempts to mask their anti-business record and ideas, the reality is Labour can’t say how they would support businesses to use AI safely whilst utilising it to grow and thrive, because they do not have a plan.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as Stormont sits on Saturday, 3 February, after two years of political collapse in Northern Ireland.Devolved government is expected to return as MLAs gather at Parliament Buildings for a sitting where ministers will be appointed to a powersharing executive, bringing an end to the impasse.Michelle O’Neill is set to become the first nationalist first minister.Sinn Fein’s vice president hailed Saturday as a “historic day.”“It is about the future. It is about working together to deliver for workers and families, and creating new and exciting opportunities that ensure our children and grandchildren can achieve their dreams and ambitions in life,” Ms O’Neill added.The DUP, the largest unionist party in the region, agreed to drop its two-year Stormont blockade in exchange for government measures aimed at addressing its concerns about post-Brexit trading arrangements that created economic barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak tried to cheer up deflated Conservative MPs by comparing the party to England cricket’s heroes.The prime minister likened the Tories to the English cricketers who produced an unlikely comeback by beating India in the first test.The Conservatives have been trailing Labour in the polls by around 20 points for months – but the Tory leader told his troops this year’s general election could still be won.The PM made the comparison at a dinner with around 100 of his MPs on Thursday night, according to Politico – insisting the party was down but not out.The Tories’ general elections chief Isaac Levido is said to have used the event at the Londoner hotel to tell MPs than there are an estimated 10 million voters who “don’t know” which party they will back.And Mr Levido promised the MPs that they would be getting another 15,000 leaflets for their constituency after chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s March 6 budget.Current polls predicts a Tory wipeout for Sunak and the Conservatives The Tory strategist recently attempted to gee up MPs by insisting he wouldn’t waste his own time on a doomed enterprise. “I wouldn’t be here unless I thought we could win,” he said.CCHQ is grasping at the idea of winning over enough “don’t knows” to force a closer contest, perhaps denying Sir Keir Starmer a majority even if Labour win the most seats.One minister recently revealed that internal polling shows that at least 20 per cent of Tory voters in 2019 have not made up their minds which party they will support.Mr Sunak’s address comes as cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch shrugged off claims that she is a member of a WhatsApp group titled “Evil Plotters”.The grassroots Tory favourite told ITV News on Thursday: “I think this is a nonsense story. This is the media trying to fuel lots of gossip about Westminster.”The business secretary is not believed to be pushing to replace Mr Sunak – but she has reportedly been holding regular lunches with key backers including housing minister Lee Rowley and digital minister Julia Lopez.Dougie Smith, a senior Tory strategist who has worked as an adviser to successive PM, is aiding a group of rebels MPs and ex-advisers actively plotting to oust Mr Sunak, according to The Times.Although Ms Badenoch has no involvement with the plotters, the group of disgruntled right-wingers are said to believe she is best placed to succeed Mr Sunak if he is pushed out in the months ahead.Kemi Badenoch reportedly a member of an ‘Evil Plotters’ WhatsApp groupCommons Leader Penny Mordaunt, another leadership favourite, was urged to reveal if she is a traitor or a faithful after being accused of giving a “bizarre” tribute to Mr Sunak – akin to the misdirection efforts in the hit BBC show.Labour raised questions about Ms Mordaunt’s recent defence of the “best of Great Britain” PM after senior Tory Simon Clarke had called for Mr Sunak to be sacked.Shadow Commons leader Lucy Powell compared it to The Traitors, the BBC reality programme in which a small group of “traitors” remain undetected as they plot to remove a wider group of “faithfuls” in order to win a cash prize.Ms Mordaunt did not directly answer the accusations – instead insisting that she and the Tory party had been “faithful” to the British public. “I will make the case that we are faithfuls on this side of the House.”LBC host Nick Ferrari is also said to have joked about the BBC show as he spoke at the Tory dinner last night – saying his listeners now believed party is “more like an episode of The Traitors”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as closing statements are heard in Phase 4 of the Post Office inquiry on Friday 2 February.Yesterday, three former subpostmasters had their decade-old convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal, taking the total number of quashed convictions due to the Horizon scandal to 100.Allen Reynolds, Nilufar Ali and Davinder Bangay were cleared of their convictions for theft or fraud, each dating back to between 2008 and 2011.Each of the former Post Office workers was ordered to carry out at least 100 hours of unpaid work in their sentencings, with two of the former subpostmasters ordered to pay back more than £10,000 each after then-unexplained shortfalls in their accounts.The three appeals were lodged within the past two weeks and bring the total number of convictions successfully overturned to 100, including eight cases prosecuted by other bodies than the company.More than 700 Post Office branch managers around the UK were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty Horizon accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their shops.Hundreds of subpostmasters and subpostmistresses are still awaiting compensation despite the government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed are eligible for £600,000 payouts. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe chancellor has dialled down expectations about the size of the tax cuts coming in next month’s Budget, as the Bank of England offered a fresh warning that Britain’s economy was not out of the woods.Jeremy Hunt told Tory MPs that he had far less “scope” for pre-election tax cuts than he did in November’s autumn statement beacuse of new inflation forecasts.Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, said wages remained too high for inflation to come down “sustainably” to its 2 per cent target anytime soon, as the Bank held interest rates at a 15-year high of 5.25 per cent.The Bank forecast that inflation is set to fall to its target of 2 per cent in the second quarter of 2024.However, Mr Bailey said the prediction that inflation is expected to reach the all-important target in the summer is not enough for him to cut rates – saying he wanted to stress the “the degree of persistence of inflation”.Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey offered fresh warning on ‘persistent’ inflation “It is not as simple as ‘inflation returns to target in the spring and job is done’,” he told reporters. “We need to see more evidence that inflation is set to fall all the way to the 2 per cent target, and stay there, before we can lower interest rates.”Explaining that wage growth was too high, the governor said the question of pay restraint for British companies was “important”.Economists have warned that persistent inflation problems will keep government borrowing costs higher than desired, and could leave the Treasury with less “headroom” for spending than hoped.Mr Hunt said on Thursday that it was positive news that interest rates “appear to have peaked” – but he also warned that inflation “never falls again in a straight line – it may tick up a little bit later this month”.The chancellor said: “The plan is working but now is not the time to junk that plan by a big spending spree, borrowing £28bn a year more as [Labour] want to do.”Jeremy Hunt has teased some form of tax cuts for 6 March Budget The borrowing comment was a jibe at Labour’s green investment plan – but Mr Hunt is well aware that most Tory MPs would like him to go on a “spending spree” by slashing taxes next month.The chancellor’s tone appears to have changed since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned earlier this week that he could not afford tax cuts. The body said it would be “very challenging” to carry out, considering the UK’s mounting debt pile and need to spend more on an ageing population.The IMF has downgraded the UK’s growth forecast, expected to reach 0.6 per cent this year. This would make the UK economy the second-worst performer in the G7 this year.Mr Hunt insisted that he still wants to “lighten the tax burden”, but tried to temper Tory expectations of a big pre-election giveaway.“It does not look to me like we will have the same scope for cutting taxes in the spring Budget that we had in the autumn statement,” the chancellor told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast.Inflation could rise in second half of 2024, Andrew Bailey says as interest rates held at 5.25%The chancellor is said to have fiscal headroom of only £14bn, according to Treasury estimates, leaving him little room to reduce income tax or national insurance. MPs have warned that England’s councils are facing a £4bn black hole.And the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank has said the government would need to find another £20bn to keep current levels of spending on the NHS, defence, childcare and international aid.The IFS has warned that tax cuts are not possible without “significant” spending cuts – calling on both Labour and the Tories to be “transparent” about the difficult choices ahead.Helen Miller, the IFS’ head of tax, told The Independent: “Talking up tax cuts means not talking honestly about the consequences to come – it’s not ideal to be saying we’ll cut taxes today and not saying how that’s going to be achieved.“There needs to be an honest discussion about spending cuts, and which bit of the state will get smaller to make room for tax cuts. If we don’t want the state to get smaller, then we have to have tax rises.”The Resolution Foundation’s James Smith said that “while politicians spar over tax cuts, they are ignoring the elephant in the room – namely the big spending cuts pencilled in after the next election. The public deserve to know what these planned cuts would mean for the state of public services”.Dr George Dibb, head of IPPR’s centre for economic justice, said: “Right now, further cuts to taxes aren’t what the public want, aren’t in the interests of the wider economy, and won’t help many voters feel economically better off.”Despite Mr Bailey’s warnings, Downing Street claimed that it was “good news” that wages have been growing faster than inflation.Mr Sunak’s official spokesperson said wage growth was “giving households much-needed relief” and said it was “really important” that living standards were growing again. More