UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailUkrainians who fled to the UK for sanctuary will be allowed to stay for at least an extra 18 months as the world prepares to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion. Ministers said the move would provide “reassurance” as the war continues. On Saturday, the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky warned global leaders his country’s fight against Vladimir Putin‘s forces was being held back by a lack of long-range weapons. His call came as both foreign secretary Lord Cameron and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer gave firm messages of support for Kyiv at the Munich Security Conference. Lord Cameron has been among European leaders urging US politicians to pass a billion-dollar foreign aid package for Ukraine. The first visas for those fleeing Ukraine granted three years leave in the UK under a number of programmes which were set to expire in March of next year.But these will be extended for another 18 months, the Home Office has said.As the two-year anniversary approaches later this month, the legal migration minister Tom Pursglove said “over 200,000 Ukrainians and their family members have arrived in Britain. Families across the country have opened their homes and their hearts to the people of Ukraine, showing extraordinary generosity, including offering shelter to those fleeing from the horrors of war.“This new visa extension scheme provides certainty and reassurance for Ukrainians in the UK on their future as this war continues, and we will continue to provide a safe haven for those fleeing the conflict.”A demonstrator holds a placard opposing Russia’s nuclear threat during a Munich protest Housing and communities minister Felicity Buchan appealed for more families to come forward to open their homes to those still fleeing the war. “As more families arrive, we will need more sponsors to come forward,” she said. “I encourage anyone interested in hosting to check their eligibility and apply as soon as they can.”Eduard Fesko, the charge d’affaires at the embassy of Ukraine to the UK, described the extensions as “a clear signal of the continuous support” by the government. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailDavid Cameron has said the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands is “not up for discussion” as he prepares to visit in a show of support for its population. The new Argentinian president, Javier Milei, pledged during his recent election campaign that he would gain sovereignty over the islands.He has said Buenos Aires had “non-negotiable sovereignty” over the islands, although he has vowed to get the islands back through “diplomatic channels”.Downing Street insists the issue of sovereignty is “settled”. A referendum in 2013 saw islanders overwhelmingly vote to remain a self-governing UK overseas territory. Ahead of his visit, foreign secretary Lord Cameron said: “The Falkland Islands are a valued part of the British family, and we are clear that as long as they want to remain part of the family, the issue of sovereignty will not be up for discussion.” He described the islands as a “modern, prosperous community” and said locals “should be proud” of what they had built. Lord Cameron will pay his respects to the British armed forces personnel who served and lost their lives during the Falklands War in 1982 after Argentinian forces invaded. Foreign secretary Lord David CameronHe is also expected to thank the military serving on the islands today. The visit will be the first part of a trip that will also see him become the first foreign secretary to visit Paraguay. After that he will travel to a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Brazil and then on to New York. Mr Milei, who has been nicknamed “El Loco” or the madman, is reported to have said during a televised election debate: “What do I propose? Argentina’s sovereignty over the Malvinas islands is non-negotiable. The Malvinas are Argentinian.“Now we have to see how we are going to get them back. It is clear that the war option is not a solution. We had a war – that we lost – and now we have to make every effort to recover the islands through diplomatic channels.”Mr Milei has also proposed that the UK hand over the Falklands in a similar way to how Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule in the late 1990s. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailLord Austin has been suspended as the chair of a housing association over a social media post in which he described Hamas as “Islamist rapists and murderers”. Midland Heart, which is based in Birmingham, also said a meeting has been arranged to discuss removing Lord Austin from the board. But the decision was criticised by Michael Gove, the housing secretary, who said he was seeking an “urgent meeting and explanation” with the group, which provides affordable homes and receives public funding.He also described Lord Austin as a “champion for affordable housing, (who) he has spent his career fighting racism”. In a post on X/Twitter, the peer, a former aide to Gordon Brown, said: “Everyone, better safe than sorry: before you go to bed, nip down and check you haven’t inadvertently got a death cult of Islamist murderers and rapists running their operations downstairs. It’s easily done.”He later deleted it saying: “People have complained about a tweet I issued at the weekend about Hamas’ operations centre being underneath UNRWA’s ( the UN refugee agency’s) offices” in Gaza.“It was not my intention to offend anyone and I have deleted it. As I have written and said many times – including in a national newspaper today – the vast majority of Muslims are just as appalled by racism and terrorism as everyone else.”Austin deleted the tweet, saying that he didn’t mean to offend anyone He told the Daily Telegraph: “The word ‘Islamists’ is very clearly a reference not to Muslim people but to extremists.”He accused “politically motivated bullies” of deliberately misinterpreting his comments about Hamas, which killed 1,200 people in Israel in a massacre at the start of October. “I am particularly appalled that people are claiming the word ‘Islamist’ refers to all Muslims and it is disgraceful for people to claim this is in some way ‘Islamophobic’,” he said. Lord Austin quit Labour in protest under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, when the party was dogged by accusations of antisemitism. Midland Heart have been approached for comment. More

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightReform UK’s hopes of stealing working-class Labour voters away from Sir Keir Starmer’s camp at the next general election has been met with scepticism from leading pollsters, The Independent can reveal.The rebranded Brexit party, led by Richard Tice and co-founded by Nigel Farage, has labelled itself “the party of the working class”, declaring it is now the real home of Labour supporters.But Britain’s top pollster, Sir John Curtice, has poured cold water on the claims, predicting that its prospects in Labour heartlands remain slim.The most recent by-elections saw Reform make a significant dent in the Conservative vote – taking a third of the overall vote share in both Wellingborough and Kingswood. But the party has not yet proven that it can land a blow on Labour. In Wellingborough, despite Reform receiving 13 per cent of the vote share, Labour still overturned a Conservative stronghold with the largest by-election swing since 1994 and a majority of 6,436 votes. Sir John, who is professor of politics at Strathclyde University, told The Independent the crucial factor that distinguishes those who switch to Reform is that “they still believe in Brexit”.Although he conceded that Labour’s vote is not “wholly invulnerable” to the ex-Brexit party, that vulnerability is “limited” because around three-quarters of Labour’s vote stems from people who “want to be inside the European Union”.Sir John said: “If you’re discontenting of the Tories and you change your mind about Brexit, then you tend to go to Labour. If, however, you’re discontented with the Tories but you’re still a Brexit believer, you tend to switch to Reform.”Mr Tice has built the party as a populist right-wing alternative to the Conservatives, campaigning for closed borders, lower taxes and a rollback of net zero targets. Reform has also claimed that the party is currently delivering “phase one” of its project, which is “destroying the Conservative Party”, and will next become a credible alternative to Labour. Sir Keir, meanwhile, is attempting to ensure the working-class vote by putting Labour’s “new deal for workers” – a series of reforms aimed at strengthening workers’ rights in the UK – front and centre of his campaign, while also pledging to take a tougher approach to law, order and immigration. Labour is currently polling 12 points ahead of the Conservatives as voters of all demographics abandon the Tories after 14 turbulent years in government.Mr Tice has warned the country faces “Starmergeddon” if it elects Labour, stating that “only Reform UK is now the party of the working class, who will stop mass immigration, who will scrap net zero, [and] who will help solve the cost of living crisis”.While pollsters say Reform is nibbling away at a certain piece of the 2019 Conservative vote, characterised by working-class voters in traditional Labour heartlands who voted overwhelmingly for Boris Johnson and who became known as the red wall, they refute the party’s chances of damaging Labour.Scarlett Maguire, director at polling and political research company JL partners, acknowledged that while Reform is “pulling away about 21 per cent or so of people who voted Conservative in 2019”, the party is “just not pulling away Labour voters in the same way”.She added that research conducted by her company suggested “69 per cent of current Reform voters voted Conservative in 2019, while just 4 per cent voted Labour”. Clacton-on-Sea – the seat that former Brexit party leader Mr Farage is rumoured to be considering should he run as a Reform candidate – is only polling at 18 per cent, inviting scepticism about the party’s prospects in Westminster.Conservative peer and psephologist Lord Hayward similarly dismissed Mr Tice’s chances, emphasising the ethnic diversity of Labour’s working-class voter base – a group Reform has alienated through its hostile stance on immigration and diversity. A 2019 Ipsos MORI poll estimated that Labour won the votes of 64 per cent of all Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) voters in 2019, while just 20 per cent voted for the Conservatives.“It would therefore be an interesting concept for a party that’s majored its campaign at essentially the white working class 2019 Tory voters, suddenly setting out to capture a group of people that effectively their campaign has set about alienating,” Lord Hayward told TheIndependent.A Labour source also dismissed Reform UK’s chances, saying the party was only concerned with fighting the Conservatives. The source added: “We’re focused on winning elections, and to do that we need to beat the Tories. We’re not wasting our time worrying about whatever Richard Tice is saying to get attention this week.”Reform UK has been approached for comment. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailKeir Starmer has spoken movingly of his late father’s death in a new biography of the would-be prime minister. The Labour leader has previously talked of how his relationship with his toolmaker father, Rodney, was more “distant” as he cared for his mother, Josephine, who suffered with a rare illness. His mother, an NHS nurse, died just weeks before he became an MP in 2015, while his father passed away three years later. While helping to clear out his father’s house, he found a scrapbook filled with cuttings about him when he was younger, then as a lawyer and then again as a politician. The book had been made by his father, who wrote dates underneath the cuttings, but hidden at the back of a cupboard. Soon afterwards he said he remembered his father saying he was proud of him only once. That prompted a family friend, Mary Seller, to write to him. Starmer says in the new book: “Mary told me something I didn’t know: Dad was proud of me and loved me, even if he couldn’t tell me to my face.” “And it’s now too late for me to tell him to his face that I was proud of him, that I loved him too.”In the book he also recalls when Rod was dying: “I could tell there was something different about him: he was giving up. I understood too how any chance Dad and I might have had to speak properly — to sort everything out — had gone. We hadn’t hugged each other for years. Not since I was a kid. I thought about trying to put my arms around him in that hospital room but, no, it wasn’t what we did.”Instead, he walked away: “I knew he was dying and I didn’t turn around to go back and tell him what I thought. And I should have done.”Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer (Jonathan Brady/PA)In Keir Starmer: The Biography by Tom Baldwin he also spoke for the first time about the “tough life” of his younger brother who suffers from learning disabilities and reveals he got into fights in order to protect him after he was called “thick” or “stupid” by other kids.Mr Starmer was challenged this week about what he was working on personally as he looks to become the next prime minister. He told BBC Breakfast he was working to “be the best leader I can be … in difficult circumstances”. The Labour leader has had a tough fortnight. First his party U-turned on plans to spend £28 billion on green projects in government. Then he was forced to drop a candidate in a by-election after it emerged he has said Israel allowed the Hamas attack that killed 1,200. But there was success on Friday when Labour defeated the Conservatives in back-to-back parliamentary elections. Sir Keir said the results showed the country was “crying out” for change. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Thousands of people rallied in Croatia’s capital on Saturday, accusing the ruling center-right party of corruption and demanding that this year’s parliamentary election be held as soon as possible.The gathering in Zagreb was organized by 11 center and left-leaning opposition parties, with political tensions in the European Union member nation rising.Croatia is set to hold both parliamentary and presidential elections in 2024, as well as those for the European Parliament in early June. The dates for the domestic votes have not been determined yet.The opposition parties want the parliamentary vote held immediately. They have lodged a formal demand to dissolve Croatia’s parliament amid a row over the election of the country’s new state attorney.Powerful Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has defended the recent appointment of former judge Ivan Turudic to the post despite reports of his communication with people involved in corruption. Plenkovic and his nationalist Croatian Democratic Union have ruled Croatia for years. The country joined the EU in 2013, following an era of wars and crisis, and last year Croatia joined Europe’s visa-free travel zone and single currency market. Government opponents at Saturday’s rally — the biggest against Plenkovic in years — waved flags and posters showing a clenched first and reading “It’s enough!” The crowd booed and jeered at the mention of the prime minister and his party, shouting “go!” and “elections now!” Davorko Vidovic, of the Social democratic party, opened his speech by honouring Alexei Navalny, the main Russia’s opposition leader, who died Friday in a remote prison. Vidovic then accused Plenkovic of curbing democratic freedoms in Croatia.“Our power is in our pens, in our hands,” he said referring to the upcoming elections. “Our land and our people deserve the best decision. We must not allow them to take us into an autocracy.”Sandra Bencic, from the Mozemo, or We Can, group that holds municipal power in Zagreb, evoked a constant exodus from Croatia of young people toward richer EU nations. She urged the people to “go to the polling stations” instead.“Let those go who should go! You are not the ones who should leave,” she said.Croatia, a nation of some 3.8 million people, remains one of the poorest economies in the EU, surviving largely on tourism along the country’s beautiful Adriatic Sea coast line that attracts millions of visitors every year. More

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightRishi Sunak has called on all those on the right of politics to “come together” – with him – after disastrous double defeats in the Wellingborough and Kingswood by-elections.The Tories lost votes to Labour and a strengthened Reform UK, the successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. The results mean the government has suffered more by-election losses than any administration since the 1960s, surpassing John Major’s eight defeats. Mr Sunak sought to play down the losses, blaming “challenging” circumstances which led to each vote. But he has now called on right-wing and Conservative voters to unite behind him to prevent Sir Keir Starmer winning the keys to Number 10.In an article in the Telegraph, he said: “At the next election, I will need the support of everyone who wants lower taxes and secure borders because the alternative, Keir Starmer, believes in neither of those things.“The Conservative family must come together to defeat Labour and ensure a brighter future for our country. A vote for anyone other than the Conservatives will just help Starmer.”Mr Sunak has come under pressure to change course from many within the so-called ‘five families’ inside his own party, including the New Conservatives who on Friday called on him to “change course”. The by-elections were called after former Tory MP Peter Bone was found to have subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct, while ex-minister Chris Skidmore resigned in protest at plans to boost drilling for fossil fuels in the North Sea.Polls opened at the same moment that official figures showed the UK slipped into recession at the end of last year.Earlier in the week there had been some good news for the Tories, as the rate of inflation defied expectations to hold steady. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called on the wider conservative movement to unite to keep Sir Keir Starmer out of Number 10 (Dan Kitwood/PA)The party also received a major boost when Labour was forced to dump its candidate in a separate by-election, in Rochdale at the end of the month, after he said Israel had allowed the Hamas massacre that killed 1,200.But Labour romped to victory in both of Thursday’s votes, leading Sir Keir to say the results showed “the country is crying out for change”. “Things aren’t working. Their NHS isn’t working. They’ve got a cost-of-living crisis. I think they’ve concluded that the Tories have failed after 14 years.”In the wake of the defeats, Mr Sunak is facing further pressure from within the right of his party to bring in tax cuts in the Budget and take a harder stance on immigration. Many Tory MPs are concerned that while Reform is unlikely to win any seats in this year’s general election it has the ability to take enough votes in certain constituencies to ensure they switch to Labour. Labour overturned majorities of 11,220 and 18,540 with the results, the government’s ninth and 10th by-election defeats of the current parliament. But Reform scored more than 10% of the vote for the first time in a by-election, mirroring an increase of support for the party in opinion polls. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailKeir Starmer paid £99,431 in tax last year, according to a summary of his returns released by the Labour Party.The summary showed nearly half the total – £44,308 – was paid in income tax while the Labour leader also handed over £52,688 in capital gains following the sale of a field in December 2022 partly owned by himself and partly owned by his father’s estate.It was previously reported that Mr Starmer had sold a plot of land he had bought in the 1990s for his parents, who used it to care for neglected donkeys.Reports at the time put the sale at £400,000. According to the latest tax summary, Mr Starmer gained £275,739 from the land sale.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has released a summary of his latest tax return (Joe Giddens/PA)Rishi Sunak published a summary of his own tax affairs earlier this month, showing that he paid £163,364 in tax on a total income of £432,884.The PM also paid £359,240 in tax on around £1.8m in capital gains from a US-based investment fund.It was the second time he has published details of his earnings since entering No 10 in October 2022 after replacing Liz Truss.Similarly to Mr Sunak, the Labour leader published “a summary” of his UK taxable income, capital gains and tax paid over the last tax year as reported to HM Revenue & Customs, prepared by his chartered accountants.The one-page document showed that he earned £79,098 as an MP, with an added salary of £49,193 for his role as leader of the opposition, bringing his income to £128,291. More