UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Inflation in the U.K. fell to its lowest level in two and a half years in March after a further easing in food prices, official figures showed Wednesday.Consumer prices rose by 3.2% in the year to March, down from 3.4% in February, the Office for National Statistics said. That’s the lowest level since September 2021.The fall in the annual rate was not as big as anticipated. Economists had predicted a reading of 3.1% for the month.Inflation is still running higher than the Bank of England’s target of 2% but the direction of the move appears clear. Inflation hit a high above 11% at the end of 2022 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led to sharp increases in energy costs.Inflation is set to fall further in April, possibly to below 2%, as a result of sharply lower domestic energy bills, which economists think could prompt rate-setters at the Bank of England to consider a cut in interest rates in the next few months. However, a number of the nine policymakers have warned that the fight against inflation isn’t over yet as they expect prices to start rising again in the second half of the year.The Bank of England, like the U.S. Fed and other central banks around the world, raised interest rates aggressively in late 2021 from near zero to counter price rises first stoked by supply chain issues during the coronavirus pandemic and then by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Higher interest rates — which cool the economy by making it more expensive to borrow, thereby bearing down on spending — have contributed to bringing down inflation worldwide.Britain’s governing Conservative Party hopes that lower inflation and falling interest rates may trigger a feelgood factor ahead of a general election that has to take place by January 2025. Opinion polls show the main opposition Labour Party way ahead and headed for a big victory over the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMillions of people in the UK with physical immigration documents are being invited to switch to an eVisa as the Government aims for a fully digital immigration and border system by 2025, the Home Office has said.From Wednesday April 17, individuals in the UK with physical immigration documents will receive an email from the Home Office, inviting them to create a UK visas and immigration (UKVI) account to access their eVisa.The rollout of digital status is the next stage in the Government’s plan to digitalise the immigration system.Physical documents will be gradually phased out and nearly all visa holders living in the UK will have access to an eVisa by 2025, the Home Office has said.Tom Pursglove, the minister for legal migration and the border, said replacing physical documents, called biometric residence permits, with a digital system “will ensure firm control over who comes here to live, work or study”.Mr Pursglove added: “We’ve already taken really significant steps to digitally transform the border and immigration system, and this wider rollout of eVisas is a key part of that process.“Replacing physical immigration documents with eVisas will ensure firm control over who comes here to live, work or study, strengthening border security and preventing abuse of the immigration system, while delivering cost-savings for UK taxpayers.”The Government hopes the introduction of eVisas will reduce the risk of fraud, loss and abuse of physical documents and strengthen border security.Those who inspect immigration status will be able to conduct one check using an online service and visa customers will be able to access their digital status anywhere and in real time.An eVisa is linked with the holder’s biometric information to protect against identity fraud.Invitations will initially be issued in phases.The process will open to anyone in the UK who holds physical immigration documents in summer 2024.Customers will be able to create a free UKVI account to access their eVisa.Creating an account will not change, impact or remove their current immigration status or their rights in the UK. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailBritain is on course to ban smoking for an entire generation after Rishi Sunak forced through a historic vote in the House of Commons. The prime minister relied on Labour votes to see off opponents on his own benches, led by the former PM Liz Truss, winning by 383 votes to 67. The legislation, which if passed will mean that anyone aged 15 or younger today will never be able to buy cigarettes legally, will see the UK slowly become a smoke-free country. Earlier Mr Sunak urged members of his cabinet to think of “future generations” and back his flagship plan as he sought to avoid a humiliating backlash at the hands of his own party. But the business secretary Kemi Badenoch was among those who voted against the plan, saying it undermines the principle of equality under the law by treating adults differently even if they were born just a day apart. Other MPs tipped as future Tory leadership candidates, including former immigration minister Robert Jenrick and former home secretary Suella Braverman, also voted against the ban, alongside several serving ministers, while leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt abstained.Ms Badenoch downplayed suggestions that her opposition to the policy demonstrated she was posturing for a future leadership bid, saying it was “a shame” people would view it that way. “We need space for people to be able to have disagreements without it being put down to ulterior motives,” she told an LBC phone-in. “Everything we do is looked at through the prism of the worst possible intention. And I think that’s one of the reasons why politicians feel they don’t get a fair hearing, that many people decide not to do this job.”Ms Truss earlier hit out at what she described as a “virtue-signalling” piece of legislation and urged true Tories to reject it, saying there were enough “finger-wagging, nannying control freaks” on Labour’s benches. In the end, 57 Tory MPs defied Mr Sunak’s call and voted against the ban, while more than 100 did not vote. Ms Truss said it was “emblematic” of a “technocratic establishment” that wanted to “limit freedom”. She also told MPs that she feared that the “health police” would push on other issues if a ban was introduced. “People are concerned about this,” she told the Commons. “They want to be able to make their own decisions about what they eat, what they drink and how they enjoy themselves.” Former health secretary Kenneth Clarke also warned that the move risked being difficult to enforce.“You will get to a stage where if you are 42 years of age, you will be able to buy them, but someone aged 41 will not be allowed to,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Does that mean you will have to produce your birth certificate? It may prove very difficult to enforce. Future generations will have to see whether it works or not.”MPs had a free vote on the ban, plans for which were announced at the Tory conference in 2023 More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailBusiness secretary Kemi Badenoch has said she will be voting against Rishi Sunak’s flagship plan to ban young people from ever smoking.Ahead of a vote on Tuesday night, Ms Badenoch announced her decision on social media, saying: “We should not treat legally competent adults differently in this way, where people born a day apart will have permanently different rights.”She added: “I do not support the approach this bill is taking and so will be voting against it.”The cabinet minister’s decision comes after hours of speculation as to whether or not she would back the prime minister’s public health proposals.There have been divisions within the Conservative Party over the bill as senior Tories from the right of the party – including former prime minister Liz Truss – have expressed concerns over the workability of the legislation and its impingement on personal freedom.Mr Sunak earlier urged his cabinet to think of “future generations” and back the plan as he sought to avoid humiliation at the hands of his own party.No 10 said the prime minister believes that building “a better future for our children” involves tackling the habit, which costs 80,000 lives a year.But he is braced for more than 50 Tory MPs to defy his call and vote against the plans, which would prevent those born after 1 January 2009 from ever buying cigarettes.Rishi Sunak has urged his cabinet to back the bill More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Belgian police shut down a gathering of far-right politicians and supporters on Tuesday, citing concerns about public order, while attendees protested curbs on free speech and vowed to find another venue for Day 2.The annual National Conservative conference, held this year in Brussels, comes ahead of Europe-wide elections. As campaigning for the June 6-9 event heats up, mainstream parties fear that disenchanted voters might turn to the people at NatCon 2024.“This is what we’re up against. We’re up against a new form of evil ideology,” Nigel Farage, the man credited with taking Britain out of the European Union, told the gathering of a few hundred stridently nationalist and fundamentalist Christian politicians and think-tankers.Anti-migrant sentiment featured in a number of speeches. Some targeted what they saw as the follies of climate policy, “narco-socialism” or “woke indoctrination,” often with sharp opposition to multinational organizations like the EU.Lashing out at the bloc’s treaties, and the pledge in the preamble of the founding EU texts to an “ever-closer Union” among the 27 member countries, Polish lawmaker Ryszard Legutko said it all makes “medieval monks look almost like intellectual anarchists.”Surveys suggest that mainstream political parties are likely to retain power after the June elections, but quite possibly with a reduced majority.Belgian police quietly shut down the conference by barring attendees from re-entering the venue if they dared to leave. A dozen or so officers blocked the main entrance. It was the third venue for the gathering after the owners of two other locations shied away when anti-fascist protesters vowed to disrupt proceedings.This year’s NatCon, organized by the conservative U.S. think tank the Edmund Burke Foundation, was held under the banner of “National Conservatism, Preserving the Nation-State in Europe.”French far-right figurehead Eric Zemmour was scheduled to criticize the EU’s new migrant and asylum rules but was turned away by police. Suella Braverman, who served as U.K. home secretary for just over a month in 2022 before being fired, railed for 27 minutes against the European Court of Human Rights.Politicians and former leaders from Spain, Poland and the Netherlands were also on the agenda. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was due to speak on Wednesday.“I guess they couldn’t take free speech any longer,” Orban posted on the social media platform X. “The last time they wanted to silence me with the police was when the Communists set them on me in ’88. We didn’t give up then and we will not give up this time either!”Speakers summoned the grand ideas of figures like the Pope, Homer, Dostoyevsky, Leo Strauss, Tocqueville and Gramsci. English was the common language, spattered with classical Latin. Modern liberal democracy was likened to a form of “neo-Marxist authoritarianism.”Mostly though, those who could speak before the gathering was shut down for the day focused on their “enemies” among the mainstream political parties.“We have to know our enemies are in panic and they show it every day,” said EU lawmaker Hermann Tertsch, from Spain’s far-right Vox party. “The enemy knows their time is running out.”As Brussels police warned that the conference’s time was limited, too, Edmund Burke Foundation Chairman Yoram Hazony invited participants to stay as long as they dared.“The new democracy works in mysterious ways. Your goal as someone in the new democracy is to prevent the other guy from speaking,” Hazony said. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailLabour has referred Sadiq Khan’s Conservative rival in the London mayoral race to the Crown Prosecution Service in a row over an election leaflet.The party has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to investigate whether a Susan Hall campaign leaflet claiming Sadiq Khan was planning to introduce road charging in London was properly labelled as political advertising.Mr Khan has repeatedly ruled out introducing such a system.Karen Buck MP, chair of Mr Khan’s campaign, said: “We’re now seeing tactics being used by the Tories which rival even those used in their disgraced 2016 mayoral campaign.“The Tories are scaremongering people who are already worried about their bills thanks to the catastrophic cost-of-living crisis they created. These tactics are legally questionable and certainly mark another low in this desperate Tory campaign characterised by dirty tactics and lies.“Sadiq has ruled out ever bringing in pay per mile as long as he’s mayor – no ifs, no buts.”Alongside a picture on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Ms Hall said: “Stop Sadiq Khan’s pay-per-mile plans. Vote for change.”In a separate post Ms Hall said: “He’s (Mr Khan) spent £150m on tech for pay-per-mile already.”Mr Khan has in the past considered, and spoken favourably about, a pay-per-mile system which would replace other charges, such as the Ultra-low Emission Zone (Ulez).However, he has since abandoned that position and ruled out introducing such a system while he is Mayor of London. Meanwhile, Transport for London (TfL) has said that “no such scheme is on the table or being developed”.“As of January 2024, approximately £3m had been spent on elements of the Future RUC (road user charging) project and it is now closed,” TfL added.The row came after Mr Khan pledged to wipe out rough sleeping in the capital by 2030 if he is re-elected as London mayor.In a speech on Monday, the Labour incumbent will promise to end “once and for all” the “indignity, fear and isolation” felt by those enduring a life on the street.The number of people recorded sleeping rough in London has hit a record high, data shows, with homeless charities branding the statistics a “disaster”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThere are just hours left to register to vote in the upcoming local, mayoral and police commissioner elections taking place on 2 May. Potential voters who have not yet registered, or are not sure if they are eligible, have until 11.59pm on Tuesday night to submit their application.This can be done online on the government’s register to vote website.Nearly 2,700 council seats in England are up for grabs across 107 local authorities, while 37 police and crime commissioners in England and Wales will also be chosen.Polls are also taking place to elect some of the most high-profile mayors in the country, including in London, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.Around 44 million people are estimated to be eligible to vote in the elections on 2 May, but as many as seven million people are either incorrectly registered or missing from the register entirely, according to the Electoral Commission, which oversees all elections in the UK.All voters in England and Wales will be able to cast a ballot in at least one election on May 2 More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA leading pollster has said Rishi Sunak made the “wrong political choice” cutting National Insurance in the spring budget, as 61 per cent of voters say there is zero per cent chance they will vote Conservative at the next election.Director of More in Common Luke Tryl said there was only a 5 per cent chance of a Tory victory at the next election as new research by the thinktank revealed the extent of Tory woes – as voters reject key policies and the party haemmorhages support across demographics. Polling by the thinktank shows that most voters feel that the government’s national insurance cuts won’t help them personally and would have instead favoured income tax cuts or other cost of living policies. Only 44 per cent of voters said national insurance tax cuts would help their personal financial situation, while 40 per cent said they would not at all. Meanwhile, 65 per cent of voters thought cutting income tax would be helpful, and 77 per cent and 73 per cent thought price caps on energy and basic goods respectively would have a positive impact on their personal circumstances.Jeremy Hunt unveiled a 2 per cent reduction in national insurance contributions in the spring budget More