UK Politics

Rachel Reeves has hit back against her critics in Labour in a passionate defence of her economic policy as she fends off a cabinet backlash over her spending review. Labour heavyweights, including deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and home secretary Yvette Cooper, have been holding out on agreeing spending settlements with the Treasury, accusing the chancellor of trying to impose cuts to public services.Among the issues being fought over are funding for local government finances, social housing budgets, border control, and policing.But in an exclusive article for The Independent about the announcement on extending free school meals to 500,000 more of the poorest pupils, Ms Reeves underlined her record of trying to rebalance the economy in favour of the less well-off.Reeves making an announcement on transport investment More

Recent voting intention polling from YouGov (May 27) shows Reform UK in first place, 8% ahead of Labour and 10% ahead of the Conservatives, who are now in third place.The rising popularity of Nigel Farage’s party is an unprecedented threat to the major parties. This was driven home in recent local elections in England, where Reform won 677 seats and took control of 10 local authorities. But where does this support come from?The survey compares respondent voting intention to their votes in the 2024 general election.If we look at Conservative voters, 27% of them have switched to Reform in their voting intentions, while 66% remain loyal. Alarmingly for Labour, only 60% of their 2024 voters have remained loyal, and 15% intend to vote for Reform, while 12% switched to the Liberal Democrats and 9% to the Greens.Labour has been squeezed from both sides of the political spectrum, but the loss to the left is significantly larger than the loss to the right.Labour has been squeezed from both sides of the political spectrum More

Sir Keir Starmer appears to be heading for a number of major U-turns amid growing concern from MPs about the direction of government and following a devastating performance at the local elections. The prime minister last month announced plans to reverse his controversial cuts to winter fuel payments, saying he wants more pensioners to be eligible for the benefit.There is also a growing expectation he will lift the two-child benefit cap. While nothing has been announced yet, the prime minister is privately said to be in favour of lifting the cap – but has refused to commit to anything until the child poverty strategy is published in the autumn. Below, The Independent looks at all the times Sir Keir has U-turned on his promises or let voters down on the journey from Labour leader to prime minister.Sir Keir Starmer has been repeatedly accused of u-turning on key issues More

Liz Truss has lashed out at the Conservatives after the party formally apologised to the public for her disastrous so-called mini-budget. The former prime minister said Tory shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride “kowtowed to the failed Treasury Orthodoxy” and had worked to undermine her as prime minister. “My plan to turbocharge the economy and get Britain growing again provided the only pathway for the Conservatives to avoid a catastrophic defeat at the election,” Ms Truss claimed. It came as Sir Mel made a speech in which he promised the Conservatives will “never again” make spending pledges the government cannot afford. Attacking Ms Truss over her chaotic premiership, Mr Stride said: “The credibility of the UK’s economic framework was undermined by spending billions on subsidising energy bills and tax cuts, with no proper plan for how this would be paid for.”Liz Truss said her economic plans were the only way the Tories could have stayed in power More

Rachel Reeves must invest billions to prioritise economic growth in Britain and not just “balance the books” in the spending review, Sir Tony Blair’s think tank has warned. The choices made next week by the chancellor will show how “bold” the government is willing to be to deliver growth, the Tony Blair Institute said. Both Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Reeves have said that making the country better off is their number one aim in government. But earlier this week Ms Reeves was warned by experts that she will have to increase taxes and cut public spending amid rising prices and the impact of Donald Trump’s trade war.Chancellor Rachel Reeves faces pressure over the spending review (Yui Mok/PA) More

Rachel Reeves will next week make one of her biggest statements to MPs since Labour’s general election victory. The chancellor will unveil the results of her line by line spending review, setting out the budgets of government departments until the end of the decade. The review will be the first conducted by a Labour government since Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown’s comprehensive spending review in 2007. And it will see Ms Reeves walk the tightrope between delivering on the party’s election promises while seeking to squeeze within her self-imposed fiscal rules. Rachel Reeves is braced for a row over her spending review More

Questions have been raised over Rachel Reeves’ winter fuel U-turn after it emerged the government plans to reinstate the payments for all pensioners before attempting to claw it back from millions through higher taxes. The chancellor is expected to set out Labour’s plans to reverse the controversial policy change at Wednesday’s spending review, but fresh questions have been raised over how the government will distribute the payments. Reports suggest Ms Reeves will from this autumn restore the grants, worth up to £300, to the 10 million pensioners who had lost out. But only those in the bottom half of average incomes will keep the payments, with the top half of earners forced to repay the grant through higher tax bills over the course of the year. One option for the threshold at which pensioners are eligible is average household disposable income, currently around £37,000, The Times reported. Such a plan would resemble George Osborne’s high income child benefit charge, which sees 1 per cent of total child benefit received taxed for every £100 earned over £60,000. It means that, over whatever threshold Ms Reeves sets for the payments, an amount will be clawed back from those on higher incomes. Rachel Reeves has said her fiscal rules are ‘non-negotiable’ More

The chairman of Reform UK has appeared to brand the party’s newest MP “dumb” for asking Sir Keir Starmer to introduce a burqa ban.Sarah Pochin, the new Runcorn and Helsby MP, used her first PMQs question to call on the prime minister to ban burqas “in the interest of public safety”. She said: “Given the prime minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interest of public safety, follow the lead of France, Belgium, Denmark and others and ban the burqa?” Sir Keir welcomed Ms Pochin to the Commons, but said “I am not going to follow her down that line”. Sarah Pochin called for a ban on burqas More