UK Politics

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailNigel Farage claimed the US election is more important than the United Kingdom’s as he praised Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election.Mr Farage said the world would be a safer place with Donald Trump back in the White House and it would be better to have a “pro-British” president.“The American election is more important. Strong American leadership, standing up to bullies and leading a strong Nato are absolutely vital,” he said.“I believe the world was a much safer place with Donald Trump in the White House than Joe Biden. It would be nice to have a pro-British president back in the White House instead of one that absolutely loathes us.”Mr Farage was speaking on Tuesday morning in Dover, where he introduced Reform UK candidate Howard Cox, and rallied against Labour and Conservative policies on immigration.Mr Farage said the world would be a safer place with Donald Trump back in the White House More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe general election campaign is in full swing with party leaders travelling up and down the country announcing planned policies if they win. Prime minister Rishi Sunak and Labour Leader Sir Kier Starmer have already announced a number of manifesto pledges after a snap summer election was announced for 4 July. Mr Sunak faces the task of preventing the Tories from suffering an electoral wipeout, with Labour consistently 20 points ahead in the opinion polls. Britain’s leading election expert Professor Sir John Curtice said the Conservatives face a “major challenge” to hold on to power and that the election is “for Labour to win”.The Independent has been tracking every policy announcement from the prime minister in his 2024 campaign, including ones he has already pledged. National ServiceIn his first major policy announcement on 25 May, the prime minister unveiled plans for mandatory national service for young adults. Plans are currently being drawn up for 18-year-olds to either join the military full-time or volunteer one weekend every month carrying out community service.Aimed for the first teenagers to take part in September 2025, Rishi Sunak is said to believe compulsory service would help foster the “national spirit” that emerged during the pandemic.Around 30,000 full-time military placements will be on offer, with the vast majority of 18-year-olds expected to do the compulsory community roles instead, working with organisations such as charities, the NHS, police or fire services.The programme will cost an estimated £2.5 billion a year by the end of the decade and plans to fund £1 billion through plans to “crack down on tax avoidance and evasion”.The remaining £1.5 billion will be paid for with money previously used for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), which is a package to support charities and community groups, the Tories said.Labour have attacked the policy with Kier Starmer calling it a “teenage Dad’s Army”. Tax break for pensionersOn 28 May, Mr Sunak pledged to increase the income tax personal allowance for pensioners. The £2.4 billion plan would give pensioners  a tax cut worth around £95 in 2025-26, rising to £275 in 2029-30.Mr Sunak’s new tax policy would see the age-related allowance rise in line with the increase to the state pension under a “triple lock plus” guarantee.That would mean that both the state pension and the allowance – the amount that can be earned before being liable to income tax – rising by inflation, average wages or 2.5%, whichever is highest.The announcement will guarantee in legislation that the pensioners’ personal allowance will always be higher than the level of the new state pension.The policy will cost £2.4 billion a year by 2029/30 and will be funded through the clamping down on tax dodgers – the same pot of money which will help pay for Mr Sunak’s plan for new mandatory national service for 18-year-olds.Labour said it was a “desperate move” from a party, and said it would not match the “triple lock plus”. Defence spendingMr Sunak set out a plan in April to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2030. The announcement included an additional £500m in military support for Ukraine on top of the £2.5bn allocated for this financial year.In a speech earlier this month, the prime minister warned giving Sir Keir Starmer the keys to No 10 would leave the country less safe and embolden Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The funding for this policy would largely come from slashing the size of the Civil Service, the government said. Labour has said it wants to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, but has not set a date for achieving that target and would carry out a defence review if it wins the election.‘Advanced British Standard’ In October last year, the prime minister announced his plan to scrap A-levels and replace it with a new qualification called the Advanced British Standard (ABS). At the annual Conservative Party Conference, Mr Sunak said he would merge A levels and technical T-levels into the brand new ABS to create “parity of esteem” between academic and technical subjects.Teachers in “key subjects” will receive special bonuses of up to £30,000, tax free, over the first five years of their careers to “attract and retain” more people.Sixth formers will now be required to study five subjects rather than three under the new ABS qualification, said the PM – explaining that he wanted students to spend at least 195 hours more with a teacher.No 10 emphasised that it was a long-term reform project, and could take at least 10 years to bring in. It means pupils starting primary school in September 2023 could be the first to take the new ABS. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMore than 120 business leaders have backed Labour as the “party of change” ahead of the 4 July general election.Founders, executives and investors from a range of sectors attacked 14 years of “instability, stagnation, and a lack of long-term focus” under the Conservatives.And, in a letter published in The Times, they called for Labour to be given the chance “to change the country and lead Britain into the future”.Business chiefs have flocked back to Labour under Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA Labour government can be both pro-business and pro-worker, Rachel Reeves will argue in her first major election speech on Tuesday.Ahead of the upcoming general election on 4 July, the shadow chancellor is expected to tell business leaders that, having brought business back to Labour, the party can now “bring growth back to Britain”.She will also tell working people that, by bringing business back to Britain, her party will in turn “deliver a better future” for them.A Labour government can be both pro-business and pro-worker, Rachel Reeves is set to argue in her first major election speech on Tuesday More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe Tories are to unveil a new deal for pensioners to boost their incomes with a “triple lock plus” pledge.With the Conservatives more than 20 points behind Labour in the polls, Rishi Sunak has reached for the playbook of one of his predecessors, David Cameron, in making an offer to the Conservatives’ traditional so-called “grey vote” base.The prime minister will offer to protect the triple lock on the state pension brought in by Lord Cameron in 2010 which means that it is guaranteed to go up by the highest rate of inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is the largest increase.The PM will also announce on Tuesday that from April next year the income tax personal allowance for pensioners will be increased in line with the triple lock.The pledge would mean both the state pension and pensioners’ tax-free allowance will always rise in line with the highest of earnings, wages or 2.5 per cent.This comes because the reduction in national insurance contributions (NICs) from 12 per cent to 8 per cent does not affect pensioners who do not pay that tax.‘We are on the side of pensioners’, says the PM More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA group of 550 parliamentarians have made a final bid before the elecxtion to get the next government to proscribe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a terrorist group.The move by MPs and peers on the British Committee for Iran Freedom has been consistantly resisted by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) even though the USA has led the way on the issue.It is understood that shadow foreign secretary David Lammy have suggested that if he is in charge of the FCDO after 4 July there could be a change of policy.A source close to Mr Lammy said: “Our longstanding position is that we supports proscribing the IRGC either through the existing process, or through creating a new process of proscription for hostile state actors.”Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy (Jordan Pettitt/PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailTheresa May urged compromise as an honourable solution in politics during a period she describes as the most divisive for Westminster she has experienced in her lifetime.“Compromise is not a poisonous word. You should not have to be 100 per cent with someone or 100 per cent against. Polarisation is bad for politics,” she said.She was speaking at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival where she lambasted her “bete noire” – social media. “It amplifies extreme views which then become accepted views unless we are very careful,” she said.The former prime minister was reflecting on a parliamentary career which began when she was elected the Conservative MP for Maidenhead in the second-worst defeat for her party in its history.As party chair, she famously warned the Tories of not being “the nasty party” and would later go on to be home secretary for the entire David Cameron government.Ms May emerged as the leader to replace Mr Cameron from a brutal contest in the wake of the EU referendum which saw her as the last candidate standing.But by early 2019 she was forced out by an increasingly fractious party fighting a civil war with itself.Perhaps reflecting on Boris Johnson taking over from her, she said: “We live today in a world of celebrity. It becomes more about the celebrity and not the politics.”“No one can accuse me of being the celebrity. I was the Maybot,” she joked about her being characterised as wooden by media pundits.She also spoke of the unfair treatment of her final appearance outside No 10 Downing Street when she was filmed crying at the end of her farewell address.“A man in that position would have been applauded, while in a woman it is seen as a sign of weakness,” she said.Ms May explained that she regretted showing so much emotion but that it was an impulsive reaction to how much she cared about trying to do the best for her country. She won a round of applause at the festival for her candour as well as for her campaigns to help victims of modern slavery.She also spoke movingly of equality for women.“Fortunately, my parents were always supportive and wanted me to do my best and what was needed to achieve that,” she said.She recalled how in the 1980s when she was helping a local school to find a new headteacher, one candidate had said that some girls could just become hairdressers rather than strive to seek other more ambitious career paths.She disagreed with such closing down of opportunities for women, and chose a teacher who wanted to empower choice and opportunity. “If you ignore 50 per cent of the talent in the world you are losing out on having 100 per cent of people with a chance to make things better,” she said.She was asked about the absence of Brexit as a subject in the upcoming general election after Michael Heseltine said in The Independent that the refusal to have it as a central subject made this the most dishonest election ever.On Brexit she refused to brand it as a failure or a success, though she conceded there were local firms which had suffered as a result of the border controls. She said it was too early to make a final judgement, as Covid and the Ukraine war skewed the analysis.Finally, on holding hands with Donald Trump in the famous footage of her with the then US President at the White House, she insisted she had not grabbed his hand.“I should point out that he held mine! We were walking along, and he said ‘there’s a bit of a slope here’. I was not worried. I had a pair of kitten heels on. Was he genuinely being a gentleman or was he worried about walking down the slope ?” Ms May did not disclose his intention. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA Tory MP who is leaving parliament has claimed she quit the party and backed Reform UK in the Shropshire seat she is vacating before the Conservatives suspended her.Outgoing Telford MP Lucy Allan said Reform’s Alan Adams would offer an alternative to “more of the same politics and more of the same politicians” as she publicly endorsed him to replace her in her constituency at the upcoming general election rather than her own party’s candidate.The Tory party responded by suspending her with immediate effect on Monday, but she claimed she had already resigned to support Mr Adams rather than Conservative Hannah Campbell.Tory MP Lucy Allan, who is leaving parliament, has claimed she quit the party and backed Reform UK in the Shropshire seat she is vacating before the Conservatives suspended her More