UK Politics

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has refused to rule out a snap general election as his government is buoyed by a positive downturn in the rate of inflation.The prime minister said the fall in inflation, from 3.2 per cent to 2.3, shows there are “brighter days” ahead for the UK. This figure is the closest to the Bank of England’s 2 per cent inflation target since the prime minister took office in late 2022.Speculation is now rife in Westminster that Mr Sunak may call a snap general election soon, bolstered by the positive economic turn.So far, the prime minister has resisted calls to call an election, despite constant pressure from the Labour Party to do so.However, Mr Sunak has previously promised that the country would go to the polls in the second half of this year.It is likely the prime minister has been waiting for the opportune time to call an election, as his party lags behind in the polls. Boosted by economic good fortune, the time may now be soon.Below, The Independent looks at when a general election might be.The prime minister has been urged to call an election date for months More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live from Downing Street on Wednesday 22 May amid rumours of a possible general election announcement.Rishi Sunak has been urged to “get on with it” and call a vote as he fuelled speculation that he could have his eye on a summer polling day.At Prime Minister’s Questions, the Conservative Party leader refused to rule out a summer election as he repeated his mantra that it will happen in the second half of the year – which could be as early as July.Rumours about an imminent announcement swirled amid some rare welcome news for Mr Sunak, as official figures showed inflation slowed to 2.3 per cent in April, the lowest level since July 2021.The rumour mill was stoked further as it emerged defence secretary Grant Shapps delayed a trip to the Baltic states by a few hours and foreign secretary David Cameron cut short a visit to Albania so they could attend a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday afternoon.Downing Street did nothing to quell the speculation or some claims that Mr Sunak could instead announce a reshuffle of his top team, with questions over chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s political fate.The cabinet meeting is due to take place at around 4pm. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailChina is providing Russia with lethal aid for use in its war against Ukraine, Grant Shapps has warned.The defence secretary suggested that British and US intelligence contradicts Beijing’s previous attempts to present itself as a moderating influence on Moscow and President Xi’s government is instead helping to arm Russia.Mr Shapps used a speech at the London Defence Conference to reveal China’s collaboration as he argued Nato needs to “wake up” and bolster defence spending alliance-wide.This follows the UK government committing to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2030. However, many Nato allies still do not meet the 2 percent minimum threshold.Mr Shapps said: “Today I can reveal that we have evidence that Russia and China are collaborating on combat equipment for use in Ukraine.”Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said lethal aid is flying from China to Russia (PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email The parties that agreed to form a Dutch coalition dominated by the far right are struggling to find a prime minister and warned Wednesday that the search might leave the Netherlands without a fully functional government for months. Anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders, who convincingly won the November election, told legislators it might take until after the summer to cobble together a technocrat government. He reiterated that he would not become prime minister as part of the outline coalition deal.The initial candidate for prime minister that Wilders had in mind withdrew early this week following reported allegations of his involvement in medical patent fraud.“It could take one or two months,” or even up to a key parliamentary meeting in September, he said. Wilders has been a divisive figure in Dutch politics for the past two decades and his appointment as prime minister would be seen as a step too far. “No one had predicted this would work,” Wilders said about the coalition. “And I assure you that the government team, including the prime minister, will be presented. We will naturally make that work too.”Wilders was instrumental in building a coalition with outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, the populist Farmer Citizen Movement and the new centrist New Social Contract party. With plans to enforce the most restrictive asylum policy in the history of the Netherlands, Wilders has pushed a Dutch coalition far to the right and obscured the traditional view of the country as an open, tolerant society. The coalition plan has also raised questions about the next government’s climate commitments that are enshrined in European Union policies. The Farmer Citizen Movement has made sure the deal includes soothing language and concessions to farmers who have choked roads with tractors during disruptive protests.Asylum and climate could quickly set up bruising battles with EU headquarters in Brussels, which oversees how policies are implemented in member states, and dent the nation’s stature as a pillar of the 27-nation bloc, which Rutte had carefully nurtured during his nearly 13 years in power.Rutte remains in office in a caretaker capacity and is seen as a strong candidate to become the next NATO secretary general this year.His party, however, risks being expelled from the liberal Renew bloc in the European Parliament because of its alliance with Wilders. The Renew bloc said it would not accept coalitions with the extreme right. ____Casert reported from Brussels More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch as Rishi Sunak faces Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday 22 May.Mr Sunak has declared UK inflation is “back to normal” in a “major milestone” for the country, as it hit its lowest level in nearly three years despite falling by less than economists were expecting. Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation slowed to 2.3 per cebt in April, down from 3.2 per cent in March, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).It is the lowest level since July 2021 when inflation was recorded at 2 per cent – the Bank of England’s target level.But the decline was smaller than expected as economists had predicted CPI would fall to 2.1 per cent in April, within a whisker of the Bank’s target.Speaking in Downing Street, the prime minister said the fall in inflation is a “major milestone”, but he admitted there is “more work to do”.“That is an important moment for our country, for the economy, and shows that our plan is working,” Mr Sunak said. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThere were emotional scenes in the House of Commons as Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, who lost his hands and feet to sepsis, returned to Parliament. Mr Mackinlay, who has joked he wants to be known as the “bionic MP”, received a standing ovation on Wednesday as he made his first appearance in the Commons since his ordeal. His wife Kati and their four-year-old daughter Olivia were sitting in the public gallery to watch the moment.Prime minister Rishi Sunak paid tribute, saying he was in “awe” at his remarkable resilience and indicated NHS procedures would change as a result .Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who shook Mr Mackinlay’s hand, praised his “courage and determination”. MPs are technically barred from clapping but were allowed to on this occasion by the Speaker. Mr Mackinlay said it was “an emotional day for me” as he apologised for breaking Commons rules, including wearing trainers because his shoes would not go on over his new feet and no jacket, because it would not fit over his bionic arm. He praised the prime minister for visiting him multiple times. There was another outbreak of clapping when he paid tribute to NHS staff, also in the public gallery, who “took me from close to death to where I am today”, he said.The MP for South Thanet was admitted to hospital in septic shock last September and was put into a 16-day induced coma.He was given just a 5 per cent chance of survival but pulled through, and said he was “extremely lucky to be alive”.He said he had been “stoic” when he was informed of the decision by doctors to amputate his limbs. “I haven’t got a medical degree but I know what dead things look like,” he said. “I was surprisingly stoic about it… I don’t know why I was. It might have been the various cocktail of drugs I was on.”The MP has been fitted with prosthetic limbs and plans to campaign for early diagnosis of the condition that nearly killed him.A former UKIP member, Mr Mackinlay has been a Tory MP since 2015 and said he intends to run at the next election. He said: “When children come to parliament’s fantastic education centre, I want them to be pulling their parents’ jacket or skirts or their teacher and saying: ‘I want to see the bionic MP today’.”( More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailTwenty-seven nations and the European Union have signed a new agreement to create shared risk thresholds around the development of artificial intelligence (AI) to close the Seoul summit on the safety of the technology.The agreement will see the countries develop an internationally recognised threshold for AI model capabilities and when it should be considered it poses a severe risk without appropriate mitigations.That risk could include the potential for AI to help malicious actors acquire or use chemical and biological weapons, or by the technology attempting to evade human oversight through deception.The agreement, known as the Seoul Ministerial Statement, was signed at the conclusion of the AI Seoul Summit in South Korea, which the UK has co-hosted.Alongside the UK and South Korea, the United States, France, and the UAE were among those to sign up to the agreement, However China, which was involved in the summit talks, did not sign the statement.Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said: “It has been a productive two days of discussions which the UK and the Republic of Korea have built upon the ‘Bletchley Effect’ following our inaugural AI Safety Summit which I spearheaded six months ago. “The agreements we have reached in Seoul mark the beginning of phase two of our AI safety agenda, in which the world takes concrete steps to become more resilient to the risks of AI and begins a deepening of our understanding of the science that will underpin a shared approach to AI safety in the future. “For companies, it is about establishing thresholds of risk beyond which they won’t release their models.“For countries, we will collaborate to set thresholds where risks become severe. The UK will continue to play the leading role on the global stage to advance these conversations.”As part of the agreement, the signatories have now set the target of developing the risk proposals alongside AI companies, civil society and academia, so that they can be discussed at the AI Action Summit, which is due to be hosted by France in 2025.The announcement follows agreements also being reached on the first day of the summit which saw 16 leading AI companies from around the world commit to publishing safety frameworks on how they will approach specific risks around AI, and a second agreement between 10 nations and the EU to create an international network of AI safety institutes that will share research and other data. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak blocked veterans using their IDs at polling stations over fears it could “open the floodgates” to more students voting, a cabinet minister has revealed.Veterans minister Johnny Mercer complained he had tried “for months without success” to convince Downing Street to let veterans use their IDs to vote. But he said the prime minister’s special advisers blocked the plans over fears it would mean students could use their own ID cards too, according to The Times.The newspaper obtained photos of Mr Mercer sitting barefoot on a train typing a memo bemoaning the voter ID rules and Mr Sunak’s Downing Street team.Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Johnny Mercer with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More