UK Politics

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreWatch live as Wes Streeting announces government plans to name and shame failing NHS hospitals as part of a package of measures aimed at tackling poor performance on Wednesday, 13 November.Under the new plans, NHS managers will be sacked if they cannot improve patient care and take control of finances, under Government plans.The health secretary is speaking at the NHS Providers conference in Liverpool.He will warn there “will be no more rewards for failure” and NHS England will carry out a “no holds barred” review of performance across England, with the results made public in league tables which are regularly updated.Trusts will be ranked on a range of indicators such as finances, delivery of services, patient access to care and the competency of leadership.Health leaders have criticised the move, saying it could demoralise staff, and accused ministers of “falling for the appealing notion of a magic productivity tree which will make the NHS more efficient just by shaking the magic tree harder”. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead morePolice and organisers of a massive protest by angry farmers have had to relocate the event in Westminster because Trafalgar Square is not big enough to contain the numbers of people who plan to attend.The protest is due to take place on 19 November with numbers of attendees now expected to easily exceed the original 5,000 to 10,000 estimated by the Farming Forum which is organising it. The gathering of people from farming communities around the country is a response to chancellor Rachel Reeves’ controversial decision to impose a 20 per cent inheritance tax on farmland worth more than £1 million for the first time since 1992.Critics warn that the new tax grab will destroy family farms which make up around two thirds of Britain’s agricultural base. The issue has been further enflamed by a leading Labour figure John McTernan suggesting that the country does not need family farms.Farmers are angry over the government’s proposals to reform inheritance tax (Owen Humphreys/PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreSocial media bosses who fail to stop illegal knives being advertised on their sites could face £10,000 fines from police under Government plans.The Home Office said the proposed measures, announced on Wednesday, to make senior technology executives “personally liable” were in a bid to combat the “unacceptable use of social media and online marketplaces to market illegal weapons and glorify violence” and to make sure content is quickly removed.Police will be given the power to issue notices to senior bosses at online companies and order them to remove specific adverts and content, potentially within two days, if the plans progress.The epidemic of knife crime that has grown over the last decade is devastating families and communities right across the countryYvette CooperOfficers can then send a second notice if the company still fails to act which would hold the executive personally liable for a “significant fine” if they do not take action.The amount a person could be fined and the maximum penalty is yet to be determined, with responses to the proposals and court guidelines due to be considered. But consultation documents on the plans suggest a rough example of £10,000 for the worst offenders, the PA news agency understands.The move is the latest step in efforts by ministers to meet Labour’s manifesto pledge of halving knife crime levels over the next decade.It comes as plans to ban ninja-style swords continue in the wake of campaigning by Pooja Kanda, the mother of 16-year-old Ronan Kanda who was killed in Wolverhampton by two 17-year-olds in 2022 using the weapon bought online using a fake name and collected from a Post Office.A consultation to decide the definition and description of the weapon is also being published, marking the first step towards bringing the change into law.Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said perpetrators “must face the full force of the law” as she announced the “tough new sanctions”, adding: “The epidemic of knife crime that has grown over the last decade is devastating families and communities right across the country.“That’s why this Government has set out an unprecedented mission to halve knife crime over the next decade and today we’re taking determined action to get lethal blades off Britain’s streets.”Mrs Kanda said: “I am very relieved that today the Government have kept their promise to proactively ban the ninja sword that killed my son and protect others from having the same fate.”Commander Stephen Clayman, who leads the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s work on knife crime and is carrying out a review into online sales of the weapons for the Home Office, added: “For far too long, deadly weapons have been far too easily accessible online, with content promoting their use for protection and combat rife on many platforms and seemingly little being done to remove it.“We welcome the chance to take part in the consultation and explore the most effective means of achieving this, including using the findings of the ongoing online sales review.” More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreA hereditary peer likened Keir Starmer to China’s President Xi after Labour pushed through a vote in the Commons to reform the House of Lords.The prime minister already facing claims that he is conducting a “class war” by adding VAT on to independent school fees and imposing the new family farm tax by changing the death duty rules.And his government’s victory in the second reading of the Lords reform legislation to absolish hereditary peers has provoked a further backlash.Tory hereditary peer Lord Mancroft claimed Sir Keir Starmer is trying to give himself powers comparable to the authoritarian Chinese leader Xi Jinping that would mean the UK Parliament will be “on its way to becoming like the toothless farce that is the Chinese People’s Congress”.Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart accused the government of attempting to “gerrymander’’ the membership of the House of Lords. “We believe that this nervous, little Bill is misconceived, and perhaps at its worst is dishonest,’’ he said. He added: “What we see here today is really an attempt to gerrymander the membership of the House of Lords undercover of a reform.Starmer has been accused of trying to gerrymander parliament More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreA surge in shoplifting under the Conservatives has led to shoppers paying a 10p “crime tax” on every basket, businesses have warned, as a Home Office minister vowed an end to the “shameful neglect” of retail crime.At the Co-op Group and shopworker union Usdaw’s retail crime summit, supermarket bosses detailed how organised gangs are operating with effective immunity, stealing huge amounts of stock to be resold on the black market.Midcounties Co-operative head of store support Chris Chandler told attendees how staff are facing “being dragged across the shop floor by their hair, attacked in car parks and attacked with hammers, knives and threatened with guns”.“It is genuinely unprecedented… I have been in retail for 28 years and I have never seen crime like it in our stores,” he warned.And, setting out the financial cost to retailers and the public, the Association of Convenience Stores said crime against retailers is now leading to an extra 10p “crime tax” per transaction.Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson told the conference one of her constituents was punched 50 times by a customer he was trying to help More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreThe UK risks infuriating Donald Trump after the frontrunner to be Britain’s next ambassador to the US suggested he could combine the job with another role.Former Labour cabinet minister Lord Mandelson said that becoming the UK’s man in Washington was not “incompatible” with being next chancellor of the University of Oxford. Lord Mandelson is seen as the leading contender for the Washington job, as the Labour government comes under pressure to woo the president-elect. Relations between the two are rocky, after Trump’s election campaign team hit out at Labour , accusing it of attempting to interfere in the election, in a row over UK activists helping Democrats. Sir Keir’s foreign secretary David Lammy has also had to try to tried to play down comments he made in the past, in which he called Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”. Lord Mandelson is also in the running to become the chancellor of the University of Oxford (PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreRevenge porn should be made a statutory civil offence to allow victims redress without having to go through a “retraumatising” criminal trial, MPs have been told.In a Westminster Hall debate on tackling image-based abuse, Labour MP Kirith Entwistle said allowing a civil process for victims would give them a “second chance”, and highlighted the rise in deep fake intimate images generated using AI.Reports to the Revenge Porn Helpline doubled last year, reaching nearly 19,000, according to the organisation’s 2023 report.In an increasingly digital world this abuse, this violence, is an escalating crisisKirith Entwistle, Labour MPSince 2015 the helpline has reported 338,000 intimate images.Ms Entwistle said survivors often describe their experiences as “digital rape – a term that captures the intensely personal and profoundly scarring nature of this violation”.The member for Bolton North East said: “Image-based sexual abuse encompasses a wide range of violations. From digitally altered images like deep fakes to invasive acts such as upskirting, downblousing and so-called revenge porn.“In an increasingly digital world this abuse, this violence, is an escalating crisis.”Ms Entwistle told MPs: “Our legislation fails survivors by denying them accessible civil remedies such as immediate takedowns and compensation for emotional harm outside a criminal process.“For survivors who endure years of abuse, the inability to seek swift relief without a lengthy, retraumatising trial is a devastating gap.“Creating a statutory civil offence for image-based abuse would not only empower survivors to seek redress directly against perpetrators and platforms, it would give them that all-important second chance.”Ms Entwistle referred to former Love Island star Georgia Harrison, who has been an active campaigner against image-based sexual abuse after having an intimate video posted online by her ex-boyfriend without her consent.She said: “There is a glaring failure to criminalise abusive images themselves.“Georgia’s story illustrates this brutal oversight.“Despite her abuser’s convictions the absence of a stay down provision allows her images to still circulate online, forcing her to relive the trauma with each resurfacing.”The MP added: “Survivors deserve certainty that once their abuse is addressed it is addressed permanently.”Conservative former minister Dame Caroline Dinenage, who was involved in the creation of the Revenge Porn Helpline in 2015, said the rise in deep fake pornography “opened up a new front of the war on women”.“The fact that the use of nudification apps and the creation of really ultra-realistic deep fake porn for private use is still legal, and worse becoming more popular, that is a war on women’s autonomy,” she said.“It’s a war on our dignity and it’s a war on our identity.”Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said the Government is “absolutely committed” to tackling violence against women and girls.Many of us will have experienced it ourselves or know friends or family who haveAlex Davies-Jones, justice ministerShe said: “Tackling online abuse is of course crucial to doing this and the statistics are clear.“But behind these stats are real people, real victims.“Many of us will have experienced it ourselves or know friends or family who have.”Ms Davies-Jones said that current laws targeting intimate image abuse were developed in “piecemeal fashion, with new offences introduced over many years to address different forms of offending”.She added: “The result is a patchwork of offences with known gaps in protection for victims.“For example, while it is currently an offence to share a deep fake image without consent it is not an offence to make one.”The minister said the Government was undertaking a number of new measures, including more training for police, and requirements for social media platforms to take non-consensual content down.Ms Davies-Jones added: “This is a start but I am clear that this is not the be-all and end-all of tackling intimate image abuse.If we want to see true and lasting change we need a culture shiftAlex Davies-Jones, justice minister“We can and we must do more.“If we want to see true and lasting change we need a culture shift.“I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it: we need everyone – especially men – to play their part.”The Revenge Porn Helpline highlighted that in 2023 it received a low number of complaints relating to deep fake or generated content, which its annual report describes as “an anomaly when compared to the societal and political coverage that the issue has received”. More

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreMinisters have been accused of a serious error over winter fuel payment cuts that will damage public confidence in the policy. The row erupted after the department in charge of the changes wrongly claimed that pensioners made up more than half of one MP’s constituency. Tory MP Alicia Kearns hit out at the “preposterous” mistake and challenged ministers on how locals can have confidence in “what the government is doing if they… can’t even get the basic numbers right?” Millions of pensioners are to be stripped of the help to pay their winter fuel bills, after Labour blamed the last Conservative government for leaving a £22bn black hole in the public finances. Ministers have pledged to protect less well-off pensioners and urged them to apply for pension credit, under which they would still be eligible for the £200-300 this winter.Millions of pensioners are to be stripped of the help to pay their winter fuel bills More