UK

One of Nigel Farage’s closest allies has suggested the Tories will merge with Reform UK after the next general election under Robert Jenrick’s leadership. Gawain Towler, who began working for Mr Farage as a Ukip press officer in 2004 and sits on the Reform governing board, said Mr Jenrick and a handful of remaining Tory MPs would abandon the Conservative Party in favour of Reform. Mr Towler, who was Reform’s director of communications until last year, said Mr Jenrick would not want to lead “a rump party”. Gawain Towler is one of Nigel Farage’s longest-serving aides More

Sir Keir Starmer has urged students not to attend pro-Palestine protests on the second anniversary of the “heinous” October 7 terror attacks on Israel and just days after two people were killed at a synagogue in Manchester.Hundreds were arrested at a Palestine Action demonstration in London on Saturday, which went ahead despite calls from Sir Keir and others in the wake of the attack on British soil, leading Amnesty International to say it should not be the job of police to arrest people “peacefully sitting down”.Thousands of students are expected to attend rallies on Tuesday on the second anniversary of the atrocity in which 1,200 people were killed.But the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “Just because there is freedom to protest does not mean you should necessarily go ahead with these gatherings, given the context.” A Palestine Action march at the weekend saw hundreds of people arrested in London More

The Conservatives have vowed to abolish business rates for high street shops and pubs should they secure victory in the upcoming general election.Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride made the commitment at the Conservative Party conference on Monday, arguing the “burden of Labour’s tax rises” had been “simply too much to bear” for many businesses.Pledging to “get business rates down”, he said: “I can announce that as a direct result of getting public spending under control, a future Conservative government will completely abolish business rates for shops and pubs on our high street.” He added: “End of. Finished. Gone.”The policy is expected to cost £4 billion, with the Conservatives arguing it would help protect jobs, particularly for young people, at 250,000 businesses across the country.Setting out what he called a “radical plan to rebuild our economy”, he pledged that the Tories would “always be there” for businesses.Sir Mel Stride made the commitment at the Conservative Party conference on Monday More

The Conservatives would give young homebuyers a £5,000 national insurance rebate to help with their first house purchase as part of a plan to “reward work”. In a bid to win over younger voters, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride will use his conference speech to announce the “first-job bonus”. His plan will see national insurance payments initially diverted into a savings account, which can then be drawn upon when purchasing a property, The Times reported. The Tories claimed it would help 600,000 people per year, with the £2.8bn cost funded by a wider plan to cut the benefits bill and bar foreigners from receiving welfare payments.Mel Stride will also outline plans to cut funds for non-citizens More

The Liberal Democrats are set to win more seats than the Conservatives due to the electoral system, if polling stays the same, polling expert Sir John Curtice has said.The polling expert told a fringe panel at the Conservative party conference in Manchester that the party needed to make it to “base camp” before they could even think about climbing the electoral “Himalayas” of getting back into government.Recent YouGov polling showed the Liberal Democrats on 15 points, one behind Kemi Badenoch’s party on 16. Reform led on 29%.Addressing Tory members at the event run by thinktank Demos, Sir John said: “The Liberal Democrat vote is now much more geographically concentrated than your vote, and the electoral system is now treating you like it treated the Liberal Democrats.“And so the Liberal Democrats are just behind you in the polls, they are going to almost undoubtedly win more seats than you.”Sir John Curtice issued the warning to the Tories after leader Kemi Badenoch addressed the conference on Sunday More

Kemi Badenoch has been warned that she has a death wish for the Conservative Party with her new hard-right policies of mass deportations and potential withdrawal from an international treaty on human rights.The warning from former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve came as Ms Badenoch made the move to the right in a bid to reverse her party’s decline in the face of the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.As the Conservative Party conference in Manchester opened yesterday, the party’s leader confirmed that she would withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if she won the next general election.The policy came with an added pledge of deporting 150,000 foreign criminals and illegal immigrants a year with no clear detail on where they would be sent.Badenoch at the Tory party conference in Manchester on Sunday More

Attendees at the Conservative Party conference could be forgiven for forgetting who their leader is, as Kemi Badenoch’s face is not the most prominent in the Manchester exhibition centre. Instead, the main hall is plastered with pictures of Margaret Thatcher as the party harks back to its days under the Iron Lady’s leadership.The merchandise stall is flogging mugs, Christmas baubles and bottles of whisky bearing Thatcher’s face as the Conservatives celebrate what would have been her 100th birthday. Despite the milestone, the prominence of Thatcher makes the absence of Ms Badenoch all the more stark. After polling guru Sir John Curtice said the Tory leader has failed to make an impression on the country, it is the sign of a party unsure of itself, clinging to a bygone era in which it had a strong, unwavering leader. The Tory conference is dominated by Margaret Thatcher More

The home secretary has refused to describe China as an “enemy of the UK” as she insisted there was no ministerial interference in the collapse of a Chinese espionage case.Shabana Mahmood said she was “very disappointed” that the trial of Christopher Berry, 33, and Chris Cash, 30, a former parliamentary researcher, did not go ahead, as she was grilled over whether there was any influence from government advisers over the decision. Both men had denied the allegations.The Sunday Times reported that Sir Keir Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell met with other senior Whitehall mandarins, including the foreign office’s top civil servant Sir Oliver Robbins, to discuss the case early last month, days before the charges against the pair were dropped on 15 September.In order to prove the case under the Official Secrets Act, prosecutors would have had to show the defendants were acting for an “enemy” – but Mr Powell reportedly revealed the government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which does not use that term to describe China.The Sunday Times reported this meant Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser due to give evidence for the prosecution, would be unable to say Beijing was an enemy.Christopher Berry (left) and former parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash (right) who had denied the Chinese spying allegations More