UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSir Keir Starmer has been accused of paying “lip service” to victims of violence against women and girls after welcoming Natalie Elphicke into the Labour Party.The Labour leader unveiled the Dover MP at PMQs after her shock defection on Wednesday, sparking a furious reaction among his MPs and charities in the sector.As well as a backlash over Ms Elphicke’s right wing views, the defection raised questions about Sir Keir’s commitment to tackling violence against women and girls, which he has made a central part of his pitch as Labour leader.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer with former Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA defiant Lord Cameron has defended UK arms sales to Israel hours after Joe Biden threatened to withhold weapons if there is a ground offensive into Rafah.In highly unsual step, the US president publicly vowed to cut supplies if the heavily populated southern Gaza city is attacked.Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure, including from within his own party, to immediately suspend arms to Israel amid a growing outcry at the number of civilians killed in its war on Hamas.Those calls intensified on Wednesday, after the US said it had paused a shipload of bombs bound for Israel amid fears over the country’s plans. But Mr Biden went further overnight, saying in an interview: “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah … I’m not supplying the weapons.”Asked if the UK would follow the US’s lead, the foreign secretary insisted arms exports from Britain were very different, in part because they were much smaller in scale and policed by strict rules.He said: “There’s a very fundamental difference between the US situation and the UK situation.””The US is a massive state supplier of weapons to Israel … we do not have a UK government supply of weapons to Israel, we have a number of licences, and I think our defence exports to Israel are responsible for significantly less than 1 per cent of their total.”Smoke billows from Israeli strikes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailNadhim Zahawi has become the latest Conservative MP to announce he will step down at the next election.With the party expected to face heavy losses in the general election, the former chancellor said the time is right for “a new, energetic Conservative” to take over.The Stratford-on-Avon MP becomes the 64th Conservative to announce he is standing down at the end of this parliament, with the country expected to go to the polls in October or November. Mr Zahawi, who served as chancellor in 2022, was facing a tough re-election, with polls suggesting he was on course to lose the seat, which has only elected Conservatives since 1950.Nadhim Zahawi is the 64th Conservative MP to announce he will step down at the election More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailNadhim Zahawi, the MP for Stratford-on-Avon, has announced he will not stand at the next general election, saying the time is right for a “a new, energetic Conservative” to take over in his West Midlands seat.Once touted as a rising star of the party, he was praised for his role as vaccines minister during the rollout of jabs during the Covid-19 pandemic and by July 2022 had been promoted to chancellor by then-prime minister Boris Johnson.But by the beginning of 2023 , he had been cast out of frontline politics after being sacked by the now Tory leader Rishi Sunak after an ethics inquiry found he had broken the ministerial code several times over his tax affairs.“My mistakes have been mine”, Mr Zahawi said in a statement on Thursday, announcing his intention to step down as an MP.Mr Zahawi, born into an influential Kurdish family, came to the UK fleeing persecution when they fell foul of Saddam Hussein’s regime.He said he arrived on the shores of Britain unable to speak a word of English, but later rose to the top of the business world before entering politics.But like so many who have gone before him, Mr Zahawi, whose reputation as a clear and effective communicator saw him rise to the top of the Conservative Party and government, exited his most recent high-profile position under a cloud.He was sacked by Rishi Sunak as Tory Party chairman after an ethics inquiry found he had broken the ministerial code several times over his tax affairs.The investigation was launched after it emerged that Mr Zahawi had cut a multimillion-pound deal to settle a tax dispute with HMRC while briefly serving as Boris Johnson’s chancellor, having been appointed to the role in the dying days of the former prime minister’s time in office.The estimated £4.8 million bill included a penalty when he was ultimately the minister in charge of the tax office.Mr Zahawi had been previously praised for helping roll out the coronavirus vaccine programme, which ended punishing lockdown restrictions. His political stock was rising fast, helping him secure the chancellor and then party chairmanship roles.File photo: Nadhim Zahawi previously served as chancellor and education secretary More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRosie Duffield has urged fellow Labour MPs to speak up about the defection of Natalie Elphicke, amid criticism of Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to accept the controversial former Tory. The outspoken Canterbury MP said “yet again” she was the only Labour MP willing to put her name to quotes about the decision, despite “so many of us feeling exactly the same”. “It would be great if colleagues also spoke up,” she said. Ms Duffield said on Wednesday that Labour MPs were “baffled” by her “really peculiar” move to swap sides. Many have complained about the move behind the scenes, with a shadow cabinet member telling The Independent it is a disgrace. Rosie Duffield has urged Labour colleagues to speak up about the defection of Tory MP Natalie Elphicke More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailLabour has resistered its biggest poll lead since Liz Truss was prime minister, with the party now sitting 30 points ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives.A new YouGov survey suggests the Tories would hold on to just 13 seats in a general election, with Labour enjoying a 452-seat majority.The poll, carried out for The Times, showed Labour on 48 per cent and the Conservatives on 18 per cent – just five points ahead of Reform UK among people who said they would vote and expressed a preference.It would mean the party’s support is lower than at any point since Mr Sunak became prime minister in October 2022, following Ms Truss’s disastrous 49-day administration.The polling comes as a senior Tory said the prime minister is ultimately to blame for the chaos engulfing the party.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Teesside last week following Lord Ben Houchen’s re-election as Tees Valley Mayor (PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe winner of the next general election will have to raise taxes to maintain the current provision for public services, according to new analysis by a leading think tank.The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) added that there is “essentially no fiscal headroom for any further tax cuts” amid slow economic growth and easing inflation.The UK economy grew by 0.1 per cent in 2023 after pressure from higher interest rates and hikes by ratesetters at the Bank of England to slow rampant inflation.In its latest economic outlook report, NIESR said it forecasts GDP (gross domestic product) will have grown 0.4 per cent over the first quarter of 2024 and will rise 0.8 per cent for the year as a whole, compared with 2023.Nevertheless, it said this still represents an “anaemic UK GDP growth trend”.It comes a week after the UK’s economic growth prospects were downgraded for the next two years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), adding that it is on track for the weakest growth of the G7 group of countries next year.Stephen Millard, deputy director for macroeconomic modelling and forecasting at NIESR, said: “Despite the welcome fall in inflation, UK growth remains anaemic.“This will make it difficult for any incoming government to carry out the much-needed investment in infrastructure and the green transition, as well as increase spending on public services and defence, without either raising taxes or rewriting the fiscal rules.“This makes clear the need to reform the fiscal framework to enable the government to do what is needed for the economy in a fiscally sustainable way.”It is currently widely expected that the next UK general election will take place in the second half of 2024, with the Labour Party shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves saying earlier this week that they plan to fight the next election on the state of the economy.NIESR also said in the report that it predicts there will next be an interest rate cut, from the current level of 5.25 per cent, in August. It has factored in two cuts this year.The forecasts also indicated that average living standards are due to improve by around 6 per cent in 2024/25 compared with the previous year, but stressed this picture varies significantly between the income distribution.The poorest tenth of households will experience a 2 per cent decline in disposable income, while households in deciles four to nine will see a 7 per cent-8 per cent improvement.Adrian Pabst, NIESR deputy director for public policy, said: “While real wages are rising, households in the bottom half of the income distribution continue to feel the impact from the cost-of-living crisis, with housing costs wiping out the benefits from higher real wages.“Similarly, the freezing of the personal allowance and tax bands is making low and middle-income households worse off despite the cut to National Insurance Contributions.“Despite some efforts, regional inequalities are persistent and, in some cases, getting worse.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA former UK national security adviser has criticised Rishi Sunak for failing to suspend arms sales to Israel after the US paused a shipment of bombs overnight. Crossbench peer Peter Ricketts said it was unfortunate that Britain had not taken a stand, adding that it should have been “ahead of the US” on the decision. The prime minister is facing mounting pressure, including from within his own party, to immediately suspend arms to Israel amid a growing outcry at the number of Palestinian civilians killed in its war on Hamas.The Biden administration halted the munitions shipment as concerns grew about Israel’s plan to launch a full-scale assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. More than a million civilians are sheltering in the area after they were forced to leave other parts of the strip. A senior official in the US – a huge contributor of military aid to Israel – said a final decision had not yet been taken on whether the shipment of 1,800 2,000lb bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs would go ahead as planned. Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on buildings near the separating wall between Egypt and Rafah More