UK Politics

Farage returns to GB News after jungle appearance Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailReform UK leader Richard Tice said Nigel Farage was still assessing his political return but was “very confident” the party’s founder would play some role in the general election campaign.Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday morning to launch Reform’s election campaign, Mr Tice also claimed a Labour government would usher in “Starmergeddon”. He claimed Sir Keir Starmer would drag Britain back toward the EU as he branded the opposition and the Tories as both part of the same “socialist coin”.Earlier, there was speculation over whether Nigel Farage would appear at the press conference. Mr Farage recently took part in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and rumours about his return to frontline politics have abounded ever since.In the end, Mr Farage did not appear but Mr Tice said he was “very confident” that his predecessors would play some role in the general election campaign in the future.Show latest update
1704293598Junior doctors start longest strike in NHS historyThe longest strike in NHS history “couldn’t come at a worse time”, experts said as they warned that elderly patients could put off seeking medical help due to the walkouts.Hospital bosses said the health service is “in the grip of peak winter pressure” as junior doctors in England take to picket lines for six days.NHS Providers said the “unprecedented” action will lead to delays in care for thousands of patients.Maryam Zakir-Hussain3 January 2024 14:531704292235 More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe former boss of the Post Office should hand back her CBE over the scandal which saw postmasters wrongly jailed, a Tory minister has said.Paula Vennells, who was chief executive of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019, should give up the honour voluntarily, Kevin Hollinrake told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.The business minister, whose brief includes postal services, said: “Paula Vennells got a CBE for services to the Post Office.“Ultimately you’ve got responsibility for what happened here, you’re the chief executive, if I was Paula Vennells I would seriously consider handing that back voluntarily at this point in time.”Errors made by Horizon software, which was made by tech firm Fujitsu and used by the Post Office, led to the wrongful conviction of more than 700 people over false accounting and theft between 1999 and 2015.Amid a grilling over the scandal, Mr Hollinrake said he “absolutely” supported criminal prosecutions for those responsible where there is evidence of criminality.He added that an ongoing inquiry should determine “who is responsible” in the Post Office and Fujitsu and “wherever possible those people should be held to account”.Retired high court judge Sir Wyn Williams is chairing an inquiry into the Post Office scandal, considered the worst miscarriage of justice in recent British history.The renewed focus on the scandal comes amid a new ITV drama, Mr Bates vs the Post Office.Alan Bates, played by Toby Jones, has spent two decades of his life fighting for justice after hundreds of fellow postmasters and postmistresses were accused of theft, fraud, and false accounting due to faulty computers.In 1999, Horizon, a defective Fujitsu IT system, began incorrectly reporting cash shortfalls at branches across the country. The accusations tore people’s lives apart, with many losing their jobs and homes.Several people took their own lives due to the stress.To this day, not a single Post Office or Fujitsu employee has been held to account over the scandal, much less faced criminal investigation. Sixty of the victims have died before finding any justice at all.Ms Vennells was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) “for services to the Post Office and to charity” in the 2019 new year honours list.Previous calls for her to be stripped of the title include from the Communication Workers Union. More

Sunak claims Cummings would have ‘nothing to do’ with his government in campaign speechSign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has refused to back his home secretary’s target to bring the number of small boats crossing the channel to zero this year.No 10 said the prime minister would not set a deadline for delivering his pledge to stop the boats.Earlier James Cleverly was asked what his target was for crossings this year and told LBC Radio: “Well, my target is to bring it down to zero. I mean, I’m completely committed…”Asked if he was referring specifically to 2024, he said: “That’s my target. My target is to reduce it to zero, to stop the boats. And I’m unambiguous about that.”The prime minister’s official spokesman said the two men were united in wanting to stop the crossings.But he would not repeat Mr Cleverly’s target. Pushed on the 2024 target, the spokesman said the PM wanted to “stop the boats as soon as possible” but he would not “set out a deadline”.Show latest update
1704211556We’re finishing up our live politics coverage for today.Thanks for reading and join us again soon for all the latest news from Westminster and elsewhere.Have a good evening.Matt Mathers2 January 2024 16:051704187496Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live politics coverage.Rishi Sunak is facing calls for an inquiry into secret meetings he held with Dominic Cummings.The Lib Dems want the prime minister’s independent ethics adviser to probe whether the talks, which were not logged on official records, broke the ministerial code.We’ll have updates on this story and others from Westminster and elsewhere throughout the day.Stay tuned for all the latest updates.Matt Mathers2 January 2024 09:241704187718What are the meetings all about?The PM reportedly asked Boris Johnson’s ex-chief aide for advice on winning over the public as he pushed for a “secret deal” with Mr Cummings to help the Tories “smash” Labour in 2024.Full report: Matt Mathers2 January 2024 09:281704187774ICYMI: Tory MPs share horror over Sunak’s ‘secret election talks’ with CummingsConservative MPs have expressed their horror at claims that Rishi Sunak held secret talks with Dominic Cummings about the former senior adviser to Boris Johnson making a return to government.Adam Forrest reports: Matt Mathers2 January 2024 09:291704187868Watch: Sunak claims Cummings would have ‘nothing to do’ with his government in campaign speechSunak claims Cummings would have ‘nothing to do’ with his government in campaign speechMatt Mathers2 January 2024 09:311704189398James Cleverly apologises for joking about spiking his wife with date rape drugArchie Mitchell reports: Matt Mathers2 January 2024 09:561704189992Sunak claims to have cleared backlog of legacy asylum claimsRishi Sunak has claimed to have cleared the backlog of older legacy asylum claims but figures reveal that 4,500 cases are still waiting for a decision, Holly Bancroft reports.New data released by the Home Office shows that all cases in the legacy backlog have now been reviewed, with 86,800 decisions made, but thousands of more complex cases are still waiting for the additional checks or investigation needed for a final decision.The government have also processed around 25,300 newer asylum claims, in addition to the legacy cases, taking the total number of decisions made in the past year to over 112,000.Government data published on Tuesday showed that the legacy backlog was drastically cut in the last few months of last year. There were 33,253 decisions left to make in October, but this fell to 4,537 by 28 December. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailJames Cleverly said he regrets making a joke about spiking his wife’s drink with a date rape drug and should never have said it.The home secretarymade the joke last month just hours after announcing plans to crack down on the issue.Mr Cleverly talked about putting “a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night,” adding that it was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit”. His comments, made during what he thought was a private conversation in Downing Street, sparked a furious backlash, with calls for him to resign or be sacked. Pressed on the comment, Mr Cleverly said: “It was a joke that I made and of course you know I regret it and I apologised immediately, and that apology is heartfelt.”Home Secretary James Cleverly is under fire for joking about spiking his wife’s drink He quickly went on to defend himself and the Home Office’s work on spiking: “But the point that I’ve made is that as home secretary I was the first home secretary to put forward legislation to toughen our ability to deal with spiking.“My first visit as home secretary was to an investigation team investigating violence against women and girls, when I was foreign secretary I set a target that 80 per cent of our aid has got to demonstrably have a positive effect for women and girls. I shouldn’t have said it and I apologised immediately.”He added in the Sky News interview: “I’m sorry because it clearly caused hurt, it’s potentially distracted from the work we were doing to tackle spiking to help predominantly women who are the victims of spiking and I regret that. But I’m absolutely determined to continue the work that I’ve been doing for years.”The home secretary went on to say he hopes to be judged on his actions rather than his words following his “awful joke” about spiking.Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, James Cleverly said: “I made a joke, it was an awful joke and I apologised immediately, but I’m absolutely committed and have been throughout my political career to the protection of women and girls.“I’m absolutely undeterred from that focus and you know the people that work with me know my focus on this and I hope to be judged on my actions rather than my words, but I remain absolutely committed to the protection of women and girls.”The apology came after women’s rights group the Fawcett Society said the comments were “sickening” and called for Mr Cleverly to resign.Chief executive Jemima Olchawski said: “It’s sickening that the senior minister in charge of keeping women safe thinks that something as terrifying as drugging women is a laughing matter.“No wonder women don’t feel safe. We know that ‘banter’ is the excuse under which misogyny is allowed to thrive.“How can we trust him to seriously address violence against women and girls? We deserve better than this from our lawmakers and Cleverly should resign.”Conversations at Downing Street receptions are usually understood to be “off the record” but the Sunday Mirror decided to break that convention because of Mr Cleverly’s position and the subject matter.It is just the latest controversy surrounding the home secretary since he replaced Suella Braverman last month.He has repeatedly refused to deny calling Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda deportation policy “bats***”, a claim made by Ms Cooper.And he denied claims that he called a Labour MP’s northeast constituency a “s***hole”. He admitted using the expletive in the House of Commons, but said instead he had described Alex Cunningham as a “s*** MP”, not his constituency as a “s***hole”.Questioned about the series of controversial remarks by the Today programme, Mr Cleverly lashed out at presenter Mishal Husain. Ms Husain aked the home secretary “what’s going on” and why “so often in a short space of time” he had made embarassing gaffes. But a testy Mr Cleverly hit back at her questions, saying “you need to do better research”. And amid a grilling over whether he had called Stockton North a “s***hole” or Mr Cunningham a “s*** MP”, Mr Cleverly said “I know what I said… other people couldn’t have [heard something else] because I only said one thing… that’s not how science works”. More

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightLabour has promised British farmers a better deal with the EU and vowed to make sure British produce is used for 50 per cent of food offered in schools, hospitals and prisons.Sir Keir Starmer’s party set out its “new deal” for the sector at the start of a general election year – citing figures that suggest more than 6,000 UK farming companies have collapsed in recent years.The party said it would use government buying power to back agricultural businesses as it seeks to woo rural voters going to the polls in 2024.A quota-driven approach across parts of the public sector will run alongside Sir Keir’s pledge to pursue a new veterinary agreement with Brussels in an effort to ease the friction in trade following Brexit.Labour hopes an agreement on shared standards to relax the red tape – which some food-sector chiefs have been calling for since the Brexit trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) came into force – would boost UK exports.While Sir Keir has ruled out any wider realignment with the EU – vowing to keep Britain out of the single market and the customs union – he raised eyebrows in September by saying he would seek a “much better” deal when the TCA is reviewed in 2025.Labour has also pledged to make sure that at least half of all food supplied to hospitals, schools and prisons is British, through the use of public contracts. Sir Keir has said that 50 per cent “is just the minimum – we will do everything to go beyond it”.Keir Starmer on a visit to Home Farm in Solihull, West MidlandsThe party also said it will create a Cobra-style “flood resilience taskforce” to reduce the flood risk for Britain’s farms by delivering drainage systems, flood defences and natural flood management schemes.Labour claimed that the Tories are presiding over the “destruction” of agricultural businesses – with a new party analysis of official data suggesting that more than 6,300 such companies have been terminated since 2017. This includes almost 5,000 meat, fruit, vegetable and dairy producers. The analysis of figures from the Office for National Statistics shows that the number of people employed in agriculture has fallen by a third over the same period.Shadow environment secretary Steve Reed said: “This Conservative government has wrecked our farmers. It is time we turned the page and embraced a decade of national renewal with the countryside at its heart.”“Labour will give British farmers their future back,” the frontbencher added. “We will deliver lower energy bills for farmers by switching on GB Energy, lower red tape at our borders to get our great food exports flowing again, and use the government’s own purchasing power to back British produce.”The party hopes its plan for GB Energy, a new publicly owned company to invest in clean, homegrown power and make Britain energy-secure, will deliver cheaper bills for farmers.It has promised to “rewire Britain” in a way that allows farmers to “rapidly plug their renewable energy into the grid”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailConservative MPs have expressed their horror at claims that Rishi Sunak held secret talks with Dominic Cummings about the former senior adviser to Boris Johnson making a return to government.Mr Cummings has claimed that Mr Sunak sought a “secret deal” with him in a bid to “smash” Labour and win the looming general election. His price for returning to the fold was that the prime minister would have to enact radical reforms – a deal that Mr Sunak ultimately rejected, according to The Sunday Times.Tory MPs shared their alarm after No 10 did not deny that Mr Sunak had met Mr Cummings twice for discussions about political strategy last year.One senior Tory, a former cabinet minister sympathetic to Mr Sunak, told The Independent: “It is a disgrace and shows poor judgement.”Another senior Conservative added: “Whoever advised him to [meet Mr Cummings for advice] should immediately be sacked. Cummings needs to be handled with asbestos gloves.”A third senior Tory MP, also allied to Mr Sunak, warned the prime minister: “Never bring an arsonist into your home. They will burn it down, and finger you for it.”Cummings says Sunak wanted his advice on how to win votes Staunch Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries said Mr Sunak had “repeatedly denied, on the record, having contact with Cummings, which makes him an on-the-record liar”.It came as a video re-emerged that showed Mr Sunak claiming during the 2022 Tory leadership contest that Mr Cummings would have “absolutely nothing to do with any government that I am privileged to lead”.Mr Sunak was branded “weak and desperate” by Labour and the Liberal Democrats for “secretly begging” Mr Cummings to return to No 10.However, the Tory leader apparently decided against bringing Mr Cummings back, after the meetings saw the strategist make a series of demands about government priorities.Mr Cummings urged Mr Sunak to abandon his cautious approach, hold an emergency Budget, settle the NHS strikes, and double the threshold at which people pay the 40p rate of income tax from £50,000 to £100,000, The Sunday Times reported.The former adviser also advocated leaving the European Convention on Human Rights as part of a plan to reinvigorate the Rwanda deportation scheme.Downing Street has not denied Mr Cummings’s account of secret meetings in July and December 2022 – but insisted that no job offer was made. A No 10 source said: “It was a broad discussion about politics and campaigning; no job was offered.”According to the report, based on Mr Cummings’s account, Mr Sunak told the strategist: “The MPs and the media will go crazy. Your involvement has to be secret.”But Mr Cummings said he was “only prepared to build a political machine to smash Labour” if the prime minister would commit to taking action on issues “we started fixing in 2020 but Boris abandoned”.Sunak had vowed not to give any role to Cummings after Boris Johnson’s government ended in a shambles On the topic of Mr Sunak rejecting his advice, Mr Cummings said: “The post-2016 Tories are summed up by the fact that Sunak, like Johnson, would rather lose than take government seriously. Both thought their MPs agreed with them, and both were right.”The Liberal Democrats have called for an official Cabinet Office inquiry into whether Mr Sunak breached the ministerial code by failing to declare any meetings he may have held with Mr Cummings.The party pointed to Mr Sunak’s transparency returns – which do not make reference to the meetings – and urged that an inquiry take place to look at whether the discussions were reported to the Cabinet Office, as is required under the code.Lib Dem chief whip Wendy Chamberlain said that any “shady attempts to bring back Cummings through the back door need to be properly scrutinised”, adding: “We urgently need to know why these meetings weren’t declared in the proper way.”A government spokesperson said: “In full accordance with the ministerial code, meetings with private individuals to discuss political matters do not need to be declared.”Johnson sacked Cummings at the end of 2020 The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, questioned Mr Sunak’s judgement in respect of the “secret meetings” with “this loathsome individual who has brought so much chaos on our country”.The frontbencher said on his LBC radio programme: “You’d have thought he would have learnt something from his poor judgement on Suella Braverman.”The shadow paymaster general, Jonathan Ashworth, said: “From Cameron to Cummings, the prime minister is admitting he’s out of ideas and too weak to come up with his own.”A Lib Dem spokesperson said: “This is a desperate move from a desperate prime minister.”Mr Cummings, who helped to mastermind the Vote Leave campaign, is widely credited with helping Mr Johnson to win the 2019 election. But he left the following year after a spectacular fallout with the then prime minister.He later admitted he had been working to bring an end to Mr Johnson’s tenure. He also became embroiled in a public scandal when it emerged that he had driven from London to County Durham at the height of lockdown. More