UK

England is facing a social housing crisis if the government pushes ahead with cuts in the spending review, Rachel Reeves has been warned.It comes as the struggle between the Treasury and Angela Rayner’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government over its budget continues, just days before Ms Reeves is set to outline the spending plans until the next election on Wednesday.With no agreement having been reached on housing, the chief executive of one of Britain’s largest housing associations has raised fears of a “cliff edge” over building more homes – which means money is set to run out by 2026.The warning from Fiona Fletcher-Smith, chief executive of L&Q and until last week chair of the G15 group of London housing associations, comes as the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned that 51 per cent of councils are now running deficits on their housing budgets.Homeless charities are also warning of an impending crisis, with new supply unable to keep up with increasing demand for social housing.Crisis has pointed out that over the past 10 years, there has been a net loss of more than 180,000 social homes in England. Currently, 1.33 million households in England are currently stuck on council waiting lists for a social home.Ms Fletcher-Smith explained that the problem began with George Osborne’s austerity budgets in 2010, when he slashed 63 per cent of the capital budget to build new homes.She said he then “welched” on a deal to allow them to make up for the loss by charging CPI inflation plus 1 per cent in rent, which housing associations and councils now want restored for a decade. This will allow them to borrow money to build, as it comes through as guaranteed income.The cumulative effect now means that housing associations no longer have the funds to build projects.Building new social housing homes is facing a cliff edge because of a lack of funds More

Robert Jenrick’s attention-grabbing videos have angered other senior Tories as the party desperately tries to raise the profile of their beleaguered leader, Kemi Badenoch. The shadow justice secretary hit the headlines last week thanks to a stunt that saw him chase down and challenge fare dodgers on London trains. The clip, which follows others on a range of issues including bin collections in Birmingham and the government’s deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, was watched more than 10 million times. But the move overshadowed Ms Badenoch’s own video meeting grooming gang victims, and is far from the first time Jenrick has garnered publicity apparently at the expense of his party leader. A recent mishap, where hundreds of Westminster insiders were added to a WhatsApp group publicising his London marathon run, led to Badenoch being asked if Jenrick, who ran against her for the leadership of the party, posed a fresh threat to her. She laughed it off. But party insiders have told The Independent his interventions are leading to tensions with other members of the shadow cabinet. Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick More

Rachel Reeves could be forced to raise up to £30bn through tax rises or funding cuts as the chancellor seeks to meet Labour’s pledge to boost defence spending, an economist has claimed.The government has promised to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, and has an “ambition” – but no firm commitment – to raise it to 3 per cent in the next parliament, after 2029.But the UK’s Nato allies are expected also to push for a fresh target of 3.5 per cent, with the alliance’s chief Mark Rutte pushing for a “dramatic increase”, with discussions over a possible 5 per cent target – as called for by Donald Trump – also taking place.And Sir Keir Starmer this week vowed to make Britain “a battle-ready, armour-clad nation” as a long-awaited defence review called for major upgrades to the UK’s military.While the major proposals were based around Labour’s current spending pledges for 2027 and the next parliament, the report warned that “as we live in such turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster” on increasing the UK’s defence capabilities.Michael Saunders, a senior economic adviser at the Oxford Economics consultancy, suggested that the government could take steps towards this in the chancellor’s next Budget.“To establish a more credible path to defence spending ‘considerably north of 3 per cent’ next decade, the government may decide in the autumn Budget that it needs to add some extra spending within the five-year OBR forecast horizon,” said Mr Saunders. “It’s not hard to see pressures for extra fiscal tightening of £15bn to £30bn,” he told The Telegraph. Fiscal tightening involves either raising taxes or cutting government spending.The prime minister promises to make Britain ‘a battle-ready, armour-clad nation’ More

Zia Yusuf’s departure had more to do with his failure to persuade donors to part with cash than a row over Reform’s attitude to the burqa, insiders have told The Independent.But more than that, it was the now-former chairman’s inability to work with people and get on with them that was at the heart of his sudden announcement on Thursday, it has been claimed.It came after he described Reform’s new MP Sarah Pochin as “dumb” after she asked a question about banning the burqa during Prime Minister’s Questions. But in reality, there were many more problems building.The Independent has contacted Mr Yusuf for his version of events and has not received a response. But his critics have not waited long to get their joy over his departure out and give their account of why he was ousted.Zia Yusuf announced he was standing down on Thursday More

Mauritius is using UK government money to pay its debts instead of indigenous resettlement, The Independent can reveal, reigniting anger over Sir Keir Starmer’s deal to hand over the archipelago. It comes after Chagossian campaigners submitted a formal legal communication to the United Nations Human Rights Committee as part of an attempt to challenge the legitimacy of the deal. The agreement, signed last month, will see the UK give up sovereignty of the island territory to Mauritius and lease back the US-UK military base on Diego Garcia at a cost of £101m per year for 99 years.The deal, signed last month, will see the UK give up sovereignty of the island territory to Mauritius More

Kemi Badenoch has admitted she is still learning how to lead the Conservatives after seven months in job, amid dire poll ratings for the party. The Tory leader on Friday said “it takes quite a while to learn how to do the job” and that “every week it gets better and better”.It came a day after her shadow chancellor promised she “will get better”, with the Conservatives tumbling in the polls and falling to fourth in a Scottish by-election on Thursday. Kemi Badenoch said she doesnt ‘need to grow taller or look prettier’ for the Conservatives to win back power More

Councils taken over by Reform UK have been left in a state of “paralysis” as dozens of key meetings are cancelled and newly elected councillors fail to show up.Nigel Farage’s party won huge victories in May’s local council elections, gaining control of nine councils and minority control in a further three.However, opposition councillors have claimed organisation and productivity have been a “shambles” since the election, with some claiming the Reform representatives “do not know what they’re doing”.Across the 12 Reform-controlled councils, 33 meetings have been cancelled or postponed within the first nine weeks since the election.Additionally, at least 21 Reform councillors have missed their first meetings, despite the majority of these only having had one meeting to attend in their first month.The worst-affected councils are Kent and Nottinghamshire, where Reform holds 57 and 39 seats respectively.In Kent, nine out of the 22 meetings – 40 per cent – scheduled have been cancelled since the election up to July 4. That compares to just 15 per cent in 2024.Reform Councillor Linden Kemkaran (front centre), leader of the Reform UK Kent County Council group, with the Reform UK councillors elected to Kent County Council, at County Hall in Maidstone, Kent, ahead of the first full council meeting More

Nigel Farage is back in the spotlight, and Reform’s dramatic rise in the polls has sparked fresh debate — and a flood of questions in a recent Independent Ask Me Anything Q&A.Once dismissed as a protest vehicle, the party is now polling at nearly 30 per cent, with some models even predicting Farage as a potential prime minister. Whether or not that comes to pass, the momentum is real, and both Labour and the Tories are scrambling to respond.Farage has long been known for bombast over substance. While there are signs he’s learned from his past failures, the resignation of Zia Yusuf – the day after our Q&A took place – was a departure that underscored the fragility behind the party’s outward gains.But for all the talk of Reform’s breakthrough, its near miss in the Hamilton by-election on Thursday was just that – a near miss. Despite heavy campaigning and high expectations, the party came third in a race many expected it to win, behind both Labour and the SNP.Farage showed up in person, received some cheers, and still couldn’t push Reform over the line – in a seat the SNP previously held with ease.Labour’s narrow win was hard-fought and symbolic, not least because Reform had been billed as its main challenger by SNP spin.That misdirection may have backfired, turning a likely Labour defeat into a surprise morale boost. Reform’s rise is real, but its ceiling may already be showing.In any case, many voters seem ready to roll the dice – not because they believe every promise, but because they’ve lost faith in the status quo.During the Ask Me Anything session, several readers asked: why do so many voters fall for Reform’s “lies”? But that’s the wrong question. These aren’t unreasonable or unpersuadable voters – they’re people who feel utterly let down. Until the main parties deliver better public services, higher living standards, and real action on immigration, Reform will keep rising.Below is more from the Q&A on Wednesday that delves deeper into what’s driving this moment – and what it could mean for Britain’s political climate, which is shifting faster than ever.Q: With Farage’s history of not seeing things through, who do you think will be the party leader at the next election?SRogersA: It is possible that Reform will fall victim to infighting and personality clashes, as all of Farage’s vehicles have before. But it would be foolish for his opponents to rely on it, in my opinion.Farage shows what for Labour and the Tories should be alarming signs of learning from mistakes, and of trying to run a more professional operation [I wrote this before Zia Yusuf resigned as party chair!].It seems unlikely that a government could be successful if it were formed almost entirely of MPs who had just been elected for the first time, but it is still possible that enough voters will decide that it cannot be any worse than what is on offer from the main parties.Q: Why doesn’t the government – or Labour, at least – more boldly challenge Farage by reopening the debate on Brexit and making him own its consequences, especially if Reform’s rise suggests they have little to lose?AJayDA: I think there are two problems with that line, however superficially attractive it may seem. One is that there isn’t much more that Labour can do without, in effect, rejoining the single market, adopting a Swiss-style status, which includes being part of EU free movement.The other is that immigration is an issue that most voters care about. A lot of people voted to leave the EU partly because they wanted immigration to be reduced; it really wasn’t Farage’s fault that immigration quadrupled instead. He is entitled to say that the Tories promised lower immigration and delivered the opposite.Q: Why has the Labour Party lurched to the right and disenfranchised millions of traditional supporters?FaithofOurFathersA: I think that there is a realistic possibility that Nigel Farage could be prime minister after the next election, in which case I would have thought that Labour’s traditional supporters would want Keir Starmer to do whatever was necessary to avoid this outcome. I don’t think it is “lurching to the right” to take the issue of immigration seriously.Q: Is it not simply that Farage promises the earth to an electorate credulous enough and desperate enough to believe it?AFTGTSIVA: There is an element of that in all democratic politics. I wrote repeatedly before last year’s election that neither Labour nor the Tories had plans for tax and spending that added up.But there are degrees of pie in the sky. Since the Liz Truss experiment, both the main parties have accepted the need in principle for planned debt to be falling as a share of national income over the medium term. The Reform prospectus is so far away from that that Keir Starmer is wholly justified in mentioning Truss when criticising Reform as often as he can.Q: How does the structure of Reform differ from other parties?avidmidlandsreaderA: Reform is no longer a private company; it is a company limited by guarantee, a non-profit body with no shareholders. It has a normal-ish party constitution, although clearly in practice it remains very much the personal vehicle of Nigel Farage.Q: Why is the media giving Farage so much oxygen?NomoneyinthebankA: A lot of people have asked a version of this question. A party that has the support of 30 per cent of those intending to vote has to be taken seriously. It represents millions of people who feel that they have been let down by the two main parties, and who feel that neither the Lib Dems nor the Greens, nor in Scotland and Wales the nationalists, have the answer.It is true that the Lib Dems and the Greens do not get as much attention from journalists, although the Lib Dems have far more seats in parliament and the Greens have almost as many as Reform. I personally think that the Lib Dems ought to be scrutinised more, but journalism is mostly driven by what readers want to read, what listeners want to listen to and what viewers want to watch.These questions and answers were part of an ‘Ask Me Anything’ hosted by John Rentoul at 3pm BST on Wednesday, 4 June. Some of the questions and answers have been edited for this article. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article.For more insight into UK politics, check out John’s weekly Commons Confidential newsletter. The email, exclusive to Independent Premium subscribers, takes you behind the curtain of Westminster. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, head here to find out more. More