UK

Reform UK is offering staff the chance to work from home despite vowing to scrap remote working when it takes over councils, it has emerged. A job advert for Reform’s south central regional director promises “home working with occasional travel within the region”.The £50,000-per-year role is being advertised online just days after Reform leader Nigel Farage promised that nobody working for a Reform-run council will be allowed to do so from home. Nigel Farage has promised to end working from home as part of a wider ‘war on woke’After taking control of 10 councils, Mr Farage said those with jobs relating to climate change or diversity or who work from home “all better really be seeking alternative careers very, very quickly”.Asked what his party’s priority would be, Mr Farage told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are deeply dissatisfied with the way that county councils and unitaries in Britain have been running their budgets.“We look at the millions a year being spent, in many cases, on consultants. We look at the money being spent on climate change; on areas that county councils, frankly, shouldn’t even be getting involved in.”He added: “No more work from home, increased productivity. That won’t be a magic wand, it won’t solve every problem, but it will be a good start and we’ll be judged on that.”Andrea Jenkyns vowed to scrap diversity roles in Lincolnshire More

The man who persuaded Donald Trump to unleash the hugely damaging global tariffs plan which put the US and western allies on the verge of an economic meltdown has launched an extraordinary attack on Sir Keir Starmer’s government.Peter Navarro described Britain as a “compliant servant of communist China” and warned it is in danger of having its “blood sucked” dry by Beijing in an interview with a UK national newspaper.But the tariffs tsar, who has been under severe scrutiny over his trade policies which have destabilised the US, has himself come under attack from sources close to the administration.Peter Navarro More

Downing Street has reacted with fury to revelations that Nigel Farage plans to use Reform’s control of councils across England to launch a series of legal challenges to tie Sir Keir Starmer’s government in knots.The announcement by Reform’s new mayor for Greater Lincolnshire Dame Andrea Jenkyns came as she spoke to The Independent in her first major interview since her victory was declared on Friday morning.She said that high on the agenda were plans to take the Labour government to court in a bid to block net zero projects like solar and wind farms, as well as attempts by the Home Office to house asylum seekers in Lincolnshire.It came as The Independent revealed that another top priority, to sack council diversity officers, has fallen flat after it emerged Lincolnshire County Council does not employ any.Reform UK won 10 councils and more than 600 councillors, raising questions over the direction of the two main parties More

Kemi Badenoch has admitted that Nigel Farage can become prime minister at the next general election after the Conservatives’ dismal local elections results.Still reeling from her party losing 45 per cent of the council seats it was defending last week, the Tory leader was pressed by Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC over whether Mr Farage could enter Downing Street at the next general election.She replied: “Anything is possible. We live in politically turbulent times. It is my job to make sure he doesn’t become prime minister.”Kemi Badenoch apologised to Conservative councillors defeated in local elections(PA) More

The leader of the House of Commons is facing calls to quit after she appeared to dismiss concerns over the grooming gangs scandal as “dog whistle” politics.Lucy Powell’s remark came on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? when she was responding to a point by Reform UK’s Tim Montgomerie.Ms Powell interrupted as he was trying to question why Labour has blocked a national inquiry into the way gangs of men targeted young girls in towns and cities around the UK with the authorities failing to act.She said: “Oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now, do we? Let’s get that dog whistle out, shall we?”Leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell (Lucy North/PA) More

A campaign group has claimed that the impact assessment produced by the government on assisted dying legislation proves that there will be a financial incentive to end people’s lives early.The claim by the group Care Not Killing (CNK) came after the government identified at least £59.6m savings a year to be made by allowing assisted deaths. CNK believes the real amount is much bigger because savings in benefits cannot be quantified.However, the bill’s sponsor Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has warned: “The cost in human terms of failing to act would be immense.”She said: “It is difficult, if not impossible, to put a price on correcting injustice and providing dignity to our fellow citizens in their final weeks and months, but it is of course right that we look at what effect changing the law would have more widely.”Kim Leadbeater is the Labour MP behind the assisted dying Bill (Jordan Pettitt/PA) More

Labour is being rejected in its heartlands as disappointment among voters about the party’s first 10 months in office has opened the door to Reform, Professor Sir John Curtice has warned.The leading pollster says that the “devastating” local election results have shown Labour support is “in free fall” and voters lost to Reform and the Greens “are not likely to return to the party any time soon”.He also suggested that Labour MPs are now right to fear Reform and Nigel Farage more than Kemi Badenoch and the Tories, with the beleaguered Conservative Party leader already facing plots to have her removed.Sir John’s warning comes as Luke Tryl, executive director of polling organisation More in Common, has warned that the Tories have just 12 months to turn things around before being consigned to irrelevance.John Curtice’s analysis is bad news for Labour and the Tories More

The 2025 local elections have seen unprecedented success for Nigel Farage’s Reform party, which won 677 council seats across England. The Liberal Democrats nearly doubled their seats up to 370 overall, and winning majority control of three councils.But the third-party players’ success came at a price for the Conservatives and Labour, both of which lost two-thirds of the seats they had in 2021. This spells trouble for Sir Keir Starmer, whose newly-formed government are already facing protest votes. Yet most at risk is Kemi Badenoch, who failed to secure success for the floundering Conservative party in the face of its right-wing challenger.Here, the Independent looks at where Labour and the Conservatives received the least amount of votes in this year’s local elections. Reform UK is now in control of eight councils, while the Tories lost all 15 local authorities it controlled going into Thursday’s local elections. (Jacob King/PA) More