UK

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseSir Keir Starmer has scored the first major breakthrough in his great Brexit reset with a landmark new defence deal with Germany.Less than four months into his premiership, the prime minister has struck an agreement with the most influential and powerful member state in the European Union.Under the plans, German aircraft in the Luftwaffe, Germany’s air force, will operate from a base in Britain to help protect the North Atlantic from the growing threat from Russia, while around 400 jobs are set to be created in a new munitions factory in the UK.Defence secretary John Healey said the agreement represented a “major strengthening of Europe’s security” and was a “milestone moment” in the UK’s relationship with Germany.But the prime minister was urged to go further in strengthening the UK’s relationship with the EU and seize other areas of cooperation.Keir Starmer is greeted by German chancellor Olaf Scholz ahead of a meeting between the two and other leaders More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseThe health secretary Wes Streeting’s partner has reportedly been appointed to a senior role at Labour headquarters, which will see him earn over £100,000 each year.Joe Dancey is set to become to party’s new executive director of policy and communications, a role that is second only to the general secretary, and will see him attempt to solidify Sir Keir Starmer’s majority for the next five years.The move is likely to provoke further commentary and criticism of the internal politics at Downing Street, which has seen a number of positions filled by those with family links to the party’s leading figures.Sir Keir Starmer has faced commentary around the staffing of top jobs at Downing Street and Labour HQ (Stefan Rousseau/PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseThe biggest review of the water industry for almost four decades will be launched today after a series of scandals involving sewage dumping in Britain’s lakes and rivers.A commission headed by former deputy governor of the Bank of England Sir Jon Cunliffe will be tasked with working out how to “fix Britain’s broken water industry” amid concerns that the regulator Ofwat is set to allow bills to be hiked to pay for repairs.The commission, is a joint venture between the UK and Welsh governments, comes after Sir Keir Starmer’s government introduced legislation which will ban bonuses for water industry executives and potentially threaten jail with criminal charges for major leaks in the system.But there is anger that the review will not look at taking failing water companies back into public ownership.United Utilities has been accused of failing to report sewage dumping in Windermere in the Lake District (Owen Humphreys/PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseTory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch has hit out at Boris Johnson‘s Partygate fines. The former prime minister was found to have lied to parliament over late night bashes in Downing Street while the rest of the country was under Covid restrictions. And he was fined when he received a fixed penalty notice for a birthday party in No 10 when such events were banned. Asked about Covid-era restrictions, Ms Badenoch hit out at the fines.Conservative leadership contender Kemi Badenoch More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseAround a third of UK businesses have urged Sir Keir Starmer to cut post-Brexit red tape in order to support British trade, with campaigners bemoaning “unimagined new layers of bureaucracy”.A survey, conducted by Santander, found that 31 per cent of companies want to see a reduction in post-Brexit regulatory requirements, including customs procedures, obtaining appropriate licences for trading, and strengthened mutual recognition of professional standards and qualifications across Europe.Since the UK left the EU in January 2020, the government has put in place a number of trade regulations for overseas goods, including border controls, customs declarations and health certifications.The UK economy is set to have grown 1.1% this year, the International Monetary Fund has said (John Macdougall/PA) More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseAn inmate gave a “big up” to Sir Keir Starmer and posed with a Bentley after being released from prison early as part of the government’s policy to free up prison space.Daniel Dowling-Brooks, 29, was celebrating with his friends, mother and sister on Tuesday after they picked him up in a convoy of a white Bentley and black Mercedes G-Class outside of HM Prison Swaleside.The 29-year-old told reporters he had been in prison on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, for seven years for kidnap and grievous bodily harm of someone who owed money to his friend – however, he was leaving seven weeks earlier than planned.The father-of-two said the first thing he would do is “go to McDonald’s, go to my hostel and follow all the rules”.On being released, he said: ‘I kidnapped someone who owed my friend money. I tied him up and had him at gunpoint. I beat him up. It was bad but not as bad as they made out. I’m so sorry for it though. Dowling-Brooks poses in front of a white Bentley as he celebrates being released outside HM Prison Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseBritons are already paying more inheritance tax as Rachel Reeves looks to squeeze millions more from the levy, official figures show.Payments swelled the Treasury’s coffers by £4.3bn in the six months since April, £400m more than in the same period in the previous financial year and a rise of 10 per cent, new data from HM Revenue and Customs shows. The chancellor Rachel Reeves has been warned that her plan to hike the tax at next week’s Budget risks punishing middle-class homeowners. Ministers are considering how they can get more money from what critics have denounced as the “death tax”, which raises around £7bn for the Treasury each year.The tax is routinely found to be one of voters’ least favourite measures, despite just 4 per cent of people paying it.Rachel Reeves is considering how to raise millions more from inheritance tax More

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseFormer Conservative minister Richard Holden is leading a campaign to secure protected status for traditional pie and mash as a celebration of the “original fast food”. Mr Holden and producers have made representations to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) about an application for Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) status for the dish.The former Tory party chairman, who was parachuted into the Conservative safe seat of Basildon and Billericay in Essex, will lead a parliamentary debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday to further press the case for the “cracking” products to get the “recognition they deserve”.He was hand-picked by Rishi Sunak to be placed on a shortlist of one at the general election after his North West Durham seat, 300 miles from Essex, ceased to exist following the boundary review.Mr Holden previously declared he was “bloody loyal to the North East”, despite choosing not to stand in any of the local constituencies that would replace his seat. Now, he is fighting to give the traditional Cockney delicacy protected status from the government.TSG is a quality scheme that protects the names of food and agricultural products that are made using traditional methods or ingredients. Bramley Apple pie filling and Cornish pasties are some of the foods protected under the scheme. Traditional pie and mash may be given TSG status if there is agreement between producers on the recipe that would need to be follow to use the name in future, Defra said. The recipe involves a minced beef pie served with mashed potatoes and a parsley sauce known as liquor.The recipe involves a minced beef pie served with mashed potatoes and a parsley sauce known as liquor More