Labour Party (Great Britain)

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares45 Views

    John Prescott, Former UK Deputy Prime Minister, Dies at 86

    by

    Mr. Prescott was a waiter on cruise ships before rising through the trade union movement and entering politics. He became one of the country’s best-known politicians under Tony Blair.John Prescott, who rose through Britain’s trade union movement to become one of the country’s best-known politicians and serve as deputy prime minister for a decade, has died. He was 86.In a statement on social media, his family said he died peacefully on Wednesday, “surrounded by the love of his family and the jazz music of Marian Montgomery.” The statement noted that he had suffered a stroke in 2019 and had latterly been living with Alzheimer’s disease.Plain-speaking and proudly working class, Mr. Prescott served as a visible link to Labour’s traditional origins when the party came to power in 1997 under the modernizing leadership of Tony Blair.In government, Mr. Prescott championed environmental causes — playing a key role in international climate negotiations — and worked hard to shift power from London to the English regions.More important for Labour, he helped defuse internal tensions between Mr. Blair and his chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, a rival who would eventually become Mr. Blair’s successor. At the time, Mr. Prescott was jokingly referred to as the political equivalent of a marriage guidance counselor.Gordon Brown, left, then the chancellor of the Exchequer; John Prescott, center, then deputy prime minister; and Tony Blair, prime minister at the time, at the Labour Party conference in 2006.John Stillwell/PA Images via ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares193 Views

      in Elections

      UK Budget: Labour Party to Raise Capital Gains and Inheritance Taxes

      by

      Rachel Reeves, the new finance minister, announced substantial tax increases in her first budget as she sought to strengthen public finances and services.The new British government, led by the Labour Party, said it would substantially raise taxes and borrow more for investment as it sought to steer the country out of a long run of economic stagnation.Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the Exchequer, delivered her first budget — and the first one ever by a woman — in Parliament on Wednesday. In a nearly 80-minute speech, Ms. Reeves announced about 40 billion pounds ($51.8 billion) in tax increases, more than half of which would come from higher taxes that employers pay on their workers’ salaries. She also increased capital gains and inheritance taxes.“The choices that I have made today are the right choices for our country,” Ms. Reeves said. “That doesn’t mean these choices are easy.”The budget was the first big opportunity for the Labour Party to set Britain’s economic agenda after it was swept into office with a large majority in July’s general election after 14 years out of power.But after a turbulent few months in office for the Labour Party, the budget has been seen as a reset moment for the party itself. Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said this week that the budget would “light the way” toward the government’s priorities of ensuring financial stability, improving public services and encouraging investment.For months, Ms. Reeves has warned that this budget would include “difficult” choices, signaling that Britons will have to swallow pain now for a bigger payoff later. These choices, government officials have said, will help the government achieve its goal of making Britain the fastest-growing economy in the Group of 7.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Nigel Farage’s Anti-Immigration Party Has Big Plans. Can It See Them Through?

      by

      Nigel Farage, a Trump ally and Brexit champion, thinks his Reform U.K. party can become a major political force. At a conference on Friday, he will explain how.A week ago, he was the keynote speaker at a glitzy Chicago dinner for the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank with a history of denying climate science, where the top tables went for $50,000.On Friday, it was back to the day job for Nigel Farage, the veteran political disrupter, ally of Donald J. Trump and hard right, anti-immigrant activist whose ascent has alarmed both of Britain’s main political parties.In a cavernous exhibition center in Birmingham, in England’s West Midlands, Mr. Farage is set to address supporters of his upstart party, Reform U.K., at its first annual conference since its success in Britain’s July general election. He is expected to lay out a plan to professionalize the party and build support ahead of local elections next year.His ambitions are clear. But the jet-setting lifestyle of Mr. Farage, 60, whose visit to Chicago was his third recent trip to the United States, underscores the question hanging over Reform U.K.: Does its leader have the ability and appetite to build the fledgling party into a credible political force?Mr. Farage, a polarizing, pugnacious figure, is one of Britain’s most effective communicators and had an outsized impact on its politics for two decades before finally being elected to Britain’s Parliament in July. A ferocious critic of the European Union, he championed Brexit and helped pressure Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the 2016 referendum.“A fairly strong case can be made that Nigel Farage has been the most important political figure in all the elections of the last decade,” said Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Netanyahu Stands Firm on Cease-Fire Terms Amid Growing Outrage in Israel

      by

      In his first news conference since the bodies of six killed hostages were recovered, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to budge on his conditions for any truce in Gaza.Brushing aside pleas from allies and the demands of Israeli protesters for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday vowed to maintain Israeli control along the border between Egypt and Gaza, a contentious plan that appeared to dim, if not dash, prospects for a truce.In his first news conference since the bodies of six slain hostages were recovered over the weekend, Mr. Netanyahu told reporters on Monday night that, to ensure its security, Israel needed to assert control over the Gazan side of the border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, calling it the lifeline of Hamas.Hamas has said Israeli control of the corridor is a nonstarter in negotiations for a truce, demanding instead a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.“If we leave, there will be enormous diplomatic pressure upon us from the whole world not to return,” Mr. Netanyahu said of the corridor, as a large crowd protested near his private residence in Jerusalem on Monday night.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Monday that to ensure its security, Israel needed to assert control over the Philadelphi Corridor, calling it the lifeline of Hamas. Ohad Zwigenberg/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Netanyahu made the comments a day after the Israeli military announced that the six hostages had been found dead in a tunnel underneath the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The discovery devastated Israelis and spurred both the mass protests on Sunday and a widespread work stoppage by the country’s largest labor union.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      UK Approves Early Release for Thousands of Prisoners to Ease Overcrowding

      by

      The Labour government, which took power this past week, said it had been forced into the move because previous Conservative administrations had let the issue fester.In one of its first big decisions, Britain’s new Labour government on Friday announced the early release of thousands of prisoners, blaming the need to do so on a legacy of neglect and underinvestment under the Conservative Party, which lost last week’s general election after 14 years in power.With the system nearly at capacity and some of the country’s aged prison buildings crumbling, the plan aims to avoid an overcrowding crisis that some had feared might soon explode.But with crime a significant political issue, the decision is a sensitive one and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, lost no time in pointing to his predecessors to explain the need for early releases.“We knew it was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought, and the nature of the problem is pretty unforgivable in my book,” Mr. Starmer said, speaking ahead of the decision while attending a NATO summit in Washington.There were, he told reporters, “far too many prisoners for the prison places that we’ve got,” adding, “I can’t build a prison in the first seven days of a Labour government — we will have to have a long-term answer to this.”Under the new government’s plan, those serving some sentences in England and Wales would be released after serving 40 percent of their sentence, rather than at the midway point at which many are freed “on license,” a kind of parole.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Election Results in Europe Suggest Another Reason Biden Has to Go

      by

      There’s a dollop of good news for Democrats from the British and French elections, but it’s bad news for President Biden.The basic lesson is that liberals can win elections but perhaps not as incumbents. The election results abroad strike me as one more reason for Biden to perform the ultimate act of statesmanship and withdraw from the presidential race.The U.K. elections on July 4 resulted in a landslide for the Labour Party, ending the Conservative Party’s 14 years in power. Keir Starmer, the new Labour prime minister, achieved this result in part by moving to the center and even criticizing the Conservatives for being too lax on immigration. He projected quiet competence, promising in his first speech as Britain’s leader to end “the era of noisy performance.”But mostly, British voters supported Labour simply because they’re sick of Conservatives mucking up the government. The two main reasons voters backed Labour, according to one poll, were “to get the Tories out” and “the country needs a change.” A mere 5 percent said they backed Labour candidates because they “agree with their policies.”British voters were unhappy with Conservatives for some of the same reasons many Americans are unhappy with Biden. Prices are too high. Inequality is too great. Immigration seems unchecked. Officeholders are perceived as out of touch and beholden to elites. This sourness toward incumbents is seen throughout the industrialized world, from Canada to the Netherlands and Japan.Frustration with incumbents was also a theme in the French election, where President Emmanuel Macron made a bet similar to the one that Biden is making — that voters would come to their senses and support him over his rivals. Macron basically lost that bet, although the final result wasn’t as catastrophic as it might have been.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Labour Wins Back the Trust of Jewish Voters

      by

      From the day that Keir Starmer became the head of the Labour Party in 2020, he made repairing ties with British Jews a priority, calling antisemitism a “stain” on the party.On Thursday, many British Jews who had turned away from Labour in the 2019 general election gave the party another chance. Labour won back several North London constituencies with significant Jewish populations.Nearly half of Jewish voters planned to support the Labour Party in Thursday’s election, according to a poll of 2,717 Jewish adults who responded to the Jewish Current Affairs Survey taken in June, before the election.Britain’s 287,000 Jews make up less than 0.5 percent of the country’s population, and some of them had been politically homeless under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party’s former leader, who was accused of having let antisemitism flourish within the party. Jewish support for the party under Mr. Corbyn reached a low of 11 percent in the 2019 general election, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, which focuses on Jewish life in Europe.“It’s very clear that Jews have flocked back to what I think to many people has long been their natural political home,” said Jonathan Boyd, the executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, which is based in London.Sarah Sackman, the Labour candidate for the North London constituency of Finchley and Golders Green, where nearly one in five voters are Jewish, the largest proportion in Britain, was elected on Thursday. Labour candidates in the North London constituencies of Hendon, where 14 percent of voters are Jewish, and Chipping Barnet, where nearly 7 percent of voters are Jewish, also won.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Who Is Rachel Reeves, the Woman Taking the Helm of the U.K.’s Economy?

      by

      Rachel Reeves became Britain’s first female chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday, taking on one of the country’s four great offices of state, with responsibility for managing Britain’s budget.After a decade and a half of economic stagnation, Ms. Reeves, a Labour lawmaker with a reputation as a serious and steady manager, faces the tough jobs of boosting Britain’s productivity growth, a key measure of prosperity, and of reviving struggling public services.“I know the scale of the challenge that I’m likely to inherit,” Ms. Reeves told the BBC early Friday. “There’s not a huge amount of money there,” she said, adding that the party needed to unlock private investment.Ms. Reeves is expected to approach her new role with deliberation.“Labour has come a long way to regain the trust of people on their economic record and she doesn’t want to risk that,” Carys Roberts, the director of the Institute for Public Policy Research, said.For example, Labour has moved to more centrist policies in recent years, following former leader Jeremy Corbyn’s left-wing program of higher spending and widespread nationalization of industries.Ms. Reeves, 45, was elected to Parliament in 2010 in the northern city of Leeds. In a bid to prove her credibility, she has frequently referred to her traditional training as an economist during six years working at the Bank of England after college.She has emphasized her goal of creating stability after a period of international and homegrown economic shocks, including a surge in energy prices and the premiership of Liz Truss, who lasted only 49 days in office after her tax cut proposals roiled financial markets.Ms. Reeves calls her economic agenda “securonomics,” a dull-sounding portmanteau that reflects her already earnest reputation. She once told The Guardian that if you want “cartwheels” to turn to someone else.She has described “securonomics” as ensuring Britain’s economic security in a world that is fragmenting, while also ensuring the security of working people’s finances. It is inspired by the policies of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.But the call for stability is also a sign that Britons shouldn’t expect quick or drastic changes in the handling of the economy.Amid high debt levels and relatively high taxes, Ms. Reeves has vowed not to raise corporate, personal income or V.A.T. taxes and to adhere to strict debt rules. Given these restraints, she hopes that stability will induce much-needed economic growth.In practice, that is expected to mean giving more power to institutions, like the fiscal watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility, and working more closely with businesses to encourage them to ramp up private investment.“Labour are pinning a lot on the hope of economic growth, including relying on growth to enable them to spend more on services,” Ms. Roberts said. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Keir Starmer es el nuevo primer ministro del Reino Unido

      by

      El exabogado de derechos humanos, de 61 años, carece del carisma de sus antecesores, pero lideró un cambio de rumbo para el Partido Laborista[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Keir Starmer se convirtió el viernes en el primer ministro del Reino Unido después de la decisiva victoria de su Partido Laborista en las elecciones generales.“En todo el país, la gente se despertará con la noticia de que se ha quitado un peso de encima, finalmente se ha quitado una carga de los hombros de esta nación”, dijo un exultante Starmer a sus partidarios en el centro de Londres a primera hora de la madrugada del viernes.Utilizando la analogía de un “rayo soleado de esperanza” naciente, al principio pálido y cada vez más fuerte, dijo que el país tenía “una oportunidad, después de 14 años, de recuperar su futuro”.Starmer sustituye a Rishi Sunak, el primer ministro saliente, quien tomó posesión del cargo hace menos de dos años y lo llamó para felicitarlo.Starmer, de 61 años, es un exabogado de derechos humanos y ha liderado un notable cambio de rumbo del Partido Laborista, que hace pocos años sufrió su peor derrota electoral desde la década de 1930. Ha impulsado el partido hacia el centro político, al mismo tiempo que le ha sacado provecho a los fracasos de tres primeros ministros conservadores.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More