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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Martin Belam and Ben Quinn

Nigel Farage to stand in Clacton at general election after taking over as leader of Reform party – as it happened

Kemi Badenoch John Swinney SNP STV

Summary of the day …

  • Nigel Farage has made a surprise announcement that he is to stand as a Reform UK candidate in the general election in Clacton and take over the leadership of the party from Richard Tice. Farage said the country was in economic, social and moral decline

  • Keir Starmer has offered a “triple lock” guarantee on the UK’s nuclear deterrent, which he said was at the heart of Labour’s defence police. Legal advice on UK arms sales to Israel would be reviewed under a Labour government, he said

  • The Conservatives have said they will reform the 2010 Equality Act to end what they say is “confusion” over biological sex and gender. Rishi Sunak denied the party was trying to stoke culture war issues

  • Diane Abbott will be reselected to fight her seat tomorrow despite having suggested on social media that Keir Starmer was a liar, the Guardian understands

  • The Liberal Democrats, campaigning on their clean water policies, managed to photobomb a publicity appearance by the prime minister in Henley-on-Thames when they went behind him on a boat

  • A Scottish leaders debate will take place on STV tonight at 9pm. Scottish Greens have said it is not too late for the television network to do the right thing and include them

  • A YouGov MRP has said Labour are on course a landslide majority even bigger than that won by Tony Blair in 1997

  • Around half a million people have been affected by an issue which meant that some child benefit payments did not arrive as scheduled

  • The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry was due to resume today, with Ben Foat, general counsel of the Post Office as witness, but the session was cancelled due to illness in the inquiry counsel team

That is it from me for today. Andrew Sparrow will be back with you tomorrow. Have a good evening, and I will no doubt see you somewhere on the Guardian website soon. Take care.

Here is that first Conservative political broadcast of the campaign, in which it says that “by sticking to the plan, Rishi Sunak is steadying the ship and making progress.”

Conservative election advert

One of the odder moments of television from the campaign so far – defence secretary Grant Shapps appears to have rung up Sky News’ Sam Coates while he was on air and had just been talking about the possibility of Shapps losing his seat, then hung up when Coates put him on speakerphone live on air.

Here is the map from that YouGov MRP, which says, after one week of campaigning, Keir Starmer might be on course for the largest majority for over a century, leading to a sweeping cull of Conservative ministers losing their seats including the chancellor Jeremy Hunt and defence secretary Grant Shapps.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper has also reacted to today’s developments with Nigel Farage and Reform UK, saying:

The Conservative party has already become the mirror image of Nigel Farage’s Reform. Rishi Sunak’s constant pandering to Reform has horrified former lifelong Conservative voters in the centre ground. Sunak must show some backbone and rule out Farage ever joining the Conservative party in future, including if he gets elected to be an MP

Conservatives: Farage risks handing Starmer 'blank cheque to rejoin the EU'

Here is a Conservative spokesperson reaction to Nigel Farage becoming Reform UK leader and standing for election in Clacton. The party said:

Nigel Farage risks handing Keir Starmer a blank cheque to rejoin the EU, impose the retirement tax on pensioners and hike taxes on hardworking Brits up and down the UK.

Farage knows that Reform won’t win any seats, but he doesn’t seem to care that a vote for Reform only helps Labour. He’s doing exactly what Keir Starmer wants him to do.

Just yesterday, EU insiders openly voiced their expectation that Starmer would seek a softer Brexit deal, opening the door to rejoining the EU all together. That would mean uncontrolled immigration and betraying the will of the British people.

Is Farage really willing to risk undoing his life’s work by handing Starmer a blank cheque to rejoin the EU?

Only a vote for Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives can deliver a clear plan, bold action and a secure future for our country.”

My colleague Archie Bland has just published our first Election Edition, which is our campaign catchup email which is coming out every weekday at 5pm. He’s managed to get Nigel Farage and Reform UK into it before pressing send today, and possibly thrown some shade at me for being one of those to mention Nigel Farage’s seven previous election defeats :-)

Last week, Nigel Farage said he wouldn’t be running for election for Reform UK because he had decided that the US election was more important, and Donald Trump needed his help. But it’s devastating news for America: this afternoon, after muttering about his “huge regrets” about his decision in recent days and blaming the establishment, Farage changed his mind, in what he rather grandly described as an “emergency general election announcement”. Somebody call the police!

Not only is he running, in Clacton: he’s taken over as party leader from the presumably disgruntled Richard Tice, who has loaned the party £1.4m over three years and has now had to enthusiastically introduce the man who’s giving him the boot. (Since Reform is, unusually for a political party, structured as a private company with Farage as the majority owner, he can basically do what he likes.)

As well as going on about D-day for quite a long time, Farage said he thought the race needed “gingering up”. And even before he finally broke the suspense, the day has proven one of the iron rules of modern British politics: his unerring ability to make everyone talk about him non-stop, even if it’s only to say that he’s failed to become an MP seven times.

Read more here: Campaign catchup – Farage running, Starmer bombing, Sunak sinking

This projection from YouGov/Sky News suggests that among those losing their seats would be Jeremy Hunt, Grant Shapps, Penny Mordaunt, Esther McVey, Alex Chalk, Mel Stride, Johnny Mercer and Gillian Keegan.

GB News have also just put out a polling press release, in which they say there survey of GB News viewers. It says Labour has almost doubled its lead over the Conservative party in just a month among GB News viewers.

It says:

Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage were the only positively viewed politicians among GB News viewers. They trusted Labour more on the cost of living, the. NHS and Housing, while they still backed the Conservatives on foreign affairs, woke culture, Brexit, criminal justice, inflation, and migration. On the question of growing the economy, Labour have overtaken the Conservatives since the April poll.

JL Partners polled 530 GB News current and recent viewers on 29-31 May 2024.

You can find our aggregate poll tracker here:

The YouGov/Sky News major polling prediction suggests Keir Starmer is on course for a 194 seat majority, which would be the biggest majority for over 100 years.

They project 422 seats for Labour, 140 for the Conservatives, 48 for the Liberal Democrats, 17 for the SNP and 2 for the Greens. Reform UK are projected to win zero seats.

Sky News are about to unveil a projected seats poll, which they are presumably now somewhat annoyed about being announced into a different electoral landscape to the one they commissioned it in. There’s no doubt that Nigel Farage will generate a lot more publicity for the Reform UK campaign than Richard Tice was achieving.

Nigel Farage says he came to the decision at 2pm yesterday, and he will be reminded of this quote a few times over the coming weeks you suspect. In February he told the Times “Do I want to be an MP? Do I want to spend every Friday for the next five years in Clacton?”

Iain Dale, who abandoned his attempt to be an MP when quotes emerged saying he didn’t enjoy living Tunbridge Wells were he was hoping to get elected, may be looking on ruefully.

In a passage during this Q&A session, Nigel Farage, suggested the Conservative party had been ungrateful to him. He said:

Because in 2019 you know I got rid of Mrs May. We formed the Brexit party. Within six weeks Richard and I got rid of Mrs May. We then stood aside for Boris. I mean, I didn’t even get a thank you.

Nigel Farage has failed in seven previous attempts to be elected as an MP, having contested these elections …

  • 1994 Eastleigh byelection (Votes 952, vote share 1.7%, 4th)

  • 1997 Salisbury (3,332, 5.7%, 4th)

  • 2001 Bexhill and Battle (3,474, 7.8%, 4th)

  • 2005 South Thanet (2,079, 5%, 4th)

  • 2006 Bromley and Chislehurst byelection (2,307, 8%, 3rd - Rachel Reeves was 4th)

  • 2010 Buckingham (8,410, 17.4%, 3rd - running against speaker John Bercow. 2nd was John Stevens representing the Buckinghamshire Campaign for Democracy)

  • 2015 South Thanet (16,026, 32.4%, 2nd)

There will no doubt be a lot of reaction to this announcement from Nigel Farage.

Pippa Crerar and Eleni Courea report for the Guardian:

Diane Abbott will be reselected to fight her seat at a meeting of the Labour party’s executive on Tuesday despite having suggested on social media that Keir Starmer was a liar, the Guardian understands.

Abbott will be on the list of 650 candidates picked to fight the general election that is rubber-stamped by the national executive committee (NEC), sources said.

Hope Not Hate have been quick out the blocks to send out a fundraising appeal off the back of the announcement that Nigel Farage is to stand in Clacton.

In the email they said:

It’s official. Nigel Farage is running to be Clacton’s next MP. This is bad news. In his typical pattern of dishonesty and opportunism, Farage has left it to the last minute to announce he’s standing in Clacton. He doesn’t know the area or the issues in Clacton, he just wants to finally achieve his aim of being an MP.

He is the best known and most popular figure of Reform UK – sorry Tice and Anderson! And we expect this announcement will boost Reform UK and their hateful views, not just in Clacton but around the country. Reform UK has just had a significant boost and we need to rally to stop them gaining seats across the country.

Nigel Farage gets a little testy when someone asks him why he has held this event in London than in the constituency he is going to stand for. “Is this proof that you care more about the London media than you do but your future constituents.”

“Are you coming to Clacton at 12 o’clock tomorrow?” he barks at her.

“Why do it here in London? Because this is where you all are. And you hate leaving your little bubble,” he says to the media, then quickly says “I don’t mean that. You’re very welcome to come to Clacton tomorrow. There’s a very good Wetherspoons.”

Nigel Farage was asked by Christopher Hope of GB News about his previous failures to get elected as an MP. He said he only “stood once in earnest”

He said:

I did stand that one time. I did lose. I don’t mind losing. But when they cheat so much so that one of the party agents gets a nine month prison sentence, you can perhaps understand why I’m not that friendly with the Tory party.

Farage backs electoral reform, and said “if we get a massive, massive vote, and a relatively small number of seats, then the call for reform will be there.”

He said:

I think there is every chance we get more votes than the Conservative party. I genuinely do, and you can all hold me to that and a few weeks time. But I genuinely believe we can get more votes in this election than the Conservative party. They are on the verge of total collapse, and it couldn’t happen, frankly, to nicer people.

Nigel Farage says he intends to 'lead a political revolt' and that 'nothing works' in the country

Nigel Farage has said that he will stand for election in Clacton, and that he is taking over leadership of Reform UK, and he intends to “lead a political revolt” and “a turning of our backs on the political status quo.”

He told the audience at a Reform UK event in London:

Nothing in this country works anymore. The health service doesn’t work. The roads don’t work. None of our public services are up to scratch. We are in decline. This will only be turned around with boldness.

We’re very, very much on the side of that little guy or woman. We’re very much on the side of growth. We’re very much on the side of ending the poisoning of our education system, where 50% of young people don’t even know what D-day is.

So make no mistake. We are unashamedly patriotic. We believe that it’s right to put the interests of British people first. We believe Brexit needs to be implemented properly. And we are going to be the voice of opposition. And I tell you what, I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again. I will surprise everybody.

He said their ambition is to be the opposition in this parliament and the largest party by 2029.

Nigel Farage has said Reform UK will not stand down against Conservative candidates, regardless of their record on Brexit, because they have played a part in what he claimed was a “betrayal” of the British public. He said:

To anyone that says to me. “Well, surely, you won’t stand against Bill Bloggs because he’s a really good bloke and he was a Brexiteer?”. The answer is 2.4 million. The 2.4 million people this Conservative government have allowed the settle in the UK in the course of the last two years. So whether Bill Bloggs is a good bloke or not, he has actually been part of what is a massive betrayal of 17.4 million people who voted Brexit. They voted yes, to get back our independence, but they absolutely voted to get back control of our borders.

Nigel Farage outlines the Reform UK strategy for the election:

When people start to realise that the “Red wall” with Reform second to Labour, when they start to realise that actually in those seats it’s a Conservative vote. That a vote for Labour is a Conservative vote. That is a wasted vote. Then I think we might just surprise everybody.

He went on to say “And I know that you all think that our votes will simply come from the Conservatives and they’ll get crushed. Believe me, this Conservative party under Rishi Sunak – who nobody ever voted for, not even Conservative party members voted for him – this party needs no help in being crushed. It’s crushed itself already.”

Nigel Farage says Reform UK are targeting more than four million votes, which was the highwatermark for Ukip.

Nigel Farage, who 11 days ago said he would not stand for election, has said he is committing to be Reform UK leader for the next five years.

Nigel Farage announces he will stand in Clacton in general election

Nigel Farage has announced that he will stand for the Reform UK party in the general election in Clacton, his eighth attempt to become an MP after seven previous failures while standing for Ukip. He said speaking to people on the street asking why he wasn’t standing made him feel he was letting them down.

Farage said:

I took the day off yesterday. Had a normal day. Walked the dogs. Did a bit of fishing. Popped into the pub, you know, a normal sort of day, which gave me time to think and reflect. And I began to feel terrible sense of guilt.

He will stand in Clacton.

More details soon …

Nigel Farage: The UK is in 'economic decline, social decline, moral decline'

Nigel Farage has said that the UK is in moral decline as he announced that he was taking over as leader of the Reform UK.

He said:

We’re in economic decline in relative terms. Oh, sure. We’re doing better than our former partners in the European Union. But we’re massively behind America and many other parts of the world. We’re in social decline. And we’re actually in a form of moral decline. We’ve forgotten who we are as a country.

Nigel Farage who first stood for election in 1994 and was an MEP from 1999 to 2020, said “That’s what you get when you lead by a career political class”.

He said that “At every level. The centre of gravity on every national debate has moved hugely to the left since 2010, when David Cameron and George Osborne took power.”

He said “Something is happening out there. There is a rejection of the political class going on in this country, in a way that has not been seen in modern times.”

Nigel Farage says regardless of the outcome of the election “taxes will remain high” and “our people are getting poorer”.

Nigel Farage is to take over as leader of Reform UK for the general election campaign.

He said “Thus far it is the dullest, most boring election campaign we have ever seen in our lives. And it’s funny, because the more the two big party leaders try to be different, the more they actually sound the same.”

He said “we think this election needs a bit of gingering up”.

Nigel Farage to take over as leader of Reform UK from Richard Tice

Nigel Farage to take over as leader of Reform UK from Richard Tice.

More details soon …

Richard Tice has said “How do we turn on the rocket boosters” in this campaign. “We can go from fifth gear, through to sixth gear – this is a fossil-fueled car by the way – to seventh gear. But what about eighth gear?”

Richard Tice is opening this press conference. He has started by saying Reform UK are going up in the polls contrary to the Conservative’s plan to squeeze them out. “This is and must be the immigration election” he has said. “We’re getting the most likes the most shares [on Facebook], because we’re talking about what people want to talk about”.

He said they’ve had a great reception in Boston, Skegness and Ashfield. “Something is going on out there, where it is spreading like wildfire. People know there is something fundamentally rotten, wrong with what’s going on in our country.”

You can watch the Reform UK announcement here:

As a reminder, while we wait for this announcement from Reform UK, this is what Nigel Farage said 11 days ago when he ruled out standing for election himself. In his statement he said:

I have thought long and hard as to whether I should stand in the upcoming general election. As honorary president of Reform UK I am fully supportive of Richard Tice’s leadership and urge voters to put their trust in him and Lee Anderson. I will do my bit to help in the campaign, but it is not the right time for me to go further than that. Important though the general election is, the contest in the US on 5 November has huge global significance.

The Conservatives are touting that you can get an early watch of their first election broadcast of the campaign on WhasApp at 5.30pm.

Liberal Democrat Alistair Carmichael, who is standing again in the Orkney and Shetland constituency which he has held since 2001, has reshared the clip of Rishi Sunak being photobombed by the party’s deputy leader Daisy Cooper in a boat on the River Thames, saying that it was a “top effort” by her and her team.

He said “If the Tories, Labour and the SNP are not having much fun at this election, we in the Liberal Democrats certainly are.”

Scottish Greens call on STV to 'do the right thing' and admit them to TV debate tonight

With hours to go before the first televised Scottish leaders debate of the election campaign, the Scottish Greens are calling on STV to “do the right thing” and invite them to the event.

The Scottish Greens earlier described as “outrageous” the decision to exclude them from the 90 minute programme, which will feature the SNP, Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

STV it was comfortable that fits decision met Ofcom guidelines because the Scottish Greens do not hold any seats at Westminster, although they have seven MSPs at Holyrood and were until recently in governing partnership with the SNP.

Scottish Greens co-chair Ross Greer said: “Even at this late hour, STV can do the right thing and invite our co-leaders. The Scottish Greens have been a permanent presence in Scottish politics for 25 years, including recently as a party delivering big changes in government, like abolishing peak time rail fares and lifting a hundred thousand children out of poverty. We should be allowed to defend that record and share our bold, progressive vision with the people of Scotland.”

Without the Greens on screen, SNP leader John Swinney may avoid awkward questions about an apparent u-turn on his party position against further oil and gas exploration in the North Sea. At his party’s election campaign launch on Sunday he signalled an “exploration” of the policy, saying he wanted to work with the oil and gas industry.

This comes as SNP MPs in the north-east warn that the party’s previous stance on fossil fuels is losing votes, while Swinney and Westminster leader Stephen Flynn have attacked Labour transition plans claiming they would result in significant job losses.

Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker has posted to social media to say he is back from his holiday and on the campaign trail in Wycombe. He also had a little dig at candidates in the election not necessarily being as local as he is.

Khalil Ahmed, who came second in the seat in 2019 for Labour is expected to stand for the Workers Party of Britain on 4 July. Labour’s candidate is former Wolverhampton North East MP Emma Reynolds.

The Conservatives have said they will be sending Penny Mordaunt to represent the party in ITV’s multiparty TV debate in 13 June.

Scotland’s first minister John Swinney has reiterated his party’s objection to nuclear weapons, and what he said was the “ineffective” Trident missile system which cost “a disproportionate amount of money”. He told broadcasters:

The SNP has had a principled objection to nuclear weapons for all my lifetime, and for the remainder of my lifetime I expect that to be the case. The SNP does not believe in nuclear weapons, and we don’t believe in their possession or their use.

And the difficulty we face at this moment is that the country’s defence forces, upon which we rely on to keep us safe, have been starved of resources. And we need them to have the resources that are required to deal with a very unstable world and the threats that we now face.

But we can’t do that if we are spending a disproportionate amount of money on the Trident nuclear missile system, which has never been used, and which will be ineffective at meeting the threats that we genuinely face in the period to come.

So some hard choices have got to be made, and those hard choices involve getting out of the Trident missile system and investing in our conventional defence capability.

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who is standing as an independent candidate in Islington North has also responded to discussions around defence, security and the UK’s nuclear capability today, posting to social media:

Nuclear weapons are a profound and existential threat to humanity. Instead of investing in weapons of mass destruction, we should be investing in our schools, hospitals and housing to ensure everyone can lead a happy and healthy life. That is what real security means.

The Conservatives have seized on Corbyn’s comments on social media to attack Labour leader Keir Starmer, quoting them with the question “How many times did Keir Starmer try to make Jeremy Corbyn PM again?”

The official Reform UK account has just posted that Richard Tice will be making an appearance alongside Nigel Farage at the press conference they have scheduled for 4pm, which is rather grandly billed as “an emergency general election press announcement”.

Around half a million people have been affected by an issue which meant that some child benefit payments did not arrive as scheduled.

PA Media reports about 30% of child benefit payments scheduled for Monday were not made – equating to about 500,000 people being affected. HMRC has apologised and said it is working urgently to resolve the issue.

More than one candidate has expressed happiness about getting to campaign in the sunshine today. It is the first July general election since 1945.

The Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has posted a video suggesting his dog Bramble has been helping him with preparations for tonight’s TV debate in Scotland.

In the clip, Cole-Hamilton says:

Today it has been a day largely off the normal run of the campaign. I’ve not really delivered any leaflets or knocked any doors because I’ve been getting ready for the STV leaders debate with my study partner Bramble Cole-Hamilton. She’s a good ally. And she has got some very strangely surprising views on things like taxing big banks and social media giants, and indeed the sewage in our rivers which she likes to swim in. But I think she’s got me there, that we’re about ready, and we’re looking forward to the debate tonight.

The STV debate is on at 9pm tonight.

Mikey Smith from the Mirror here pointing out that it is all beginning to get rather meta on the polling front.

You can find our aggregated poll tracker here – which has Labour on 44.7% and the Conservatives on 23.8%.

Here are some more of the pictures from today’s election campaign.

Rishi Sunak has attempted to laugh off the LIberal Democrats photobombing his campaign visit to Henley by posting a video clip of it with the line “Classic Lib Dems, always selling voters down the river.”

The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry was due to resume at noon today, but shortly before that chair Wyn Williams issued a statement to say that the session was being postponed. He told the inquiry:

Today we would do to hear evidence from Ben Foat, the group general counsel of Post Office Ltd. Unfortunately that cannot take place because the member of the inquiry counsel team who was due to question Mr Foat is unwell. I was informed of this earlier this morning, and Jason Beer KC and I took the view that counsel was not fit to conduct a lengthy questioning session, and that it was not practicable for another member of the counsel team to take over at very short notice. Arrangements will be made in due course for receiving Mr Foat’s evidence.

The inquiry is now due to resume tomorrow at 9.45am to hear evidence from Chris Day, former chief financial officer of Post Office Ltd.

John Swinney chracterised Rishi Sunak’s Equality Act proposal as an “explicit outright threat” to Holyrood and said: “What this tells us is that the Conservatives are interested in using any excuse they can to erode the powers of the Scottish parliament.”

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar also criticised the move, saying that the Conservatives were “trying to create a culture war”.

Updated

First minister of Scotland, John Swinney, has said that today’s announcement by the Conservatives on plans to amend the 2010 Equality Act was part of a “deliberate strategy to undermine the powers of the Scottish parliament.”

PA Media reports Swinney said:

This is just another step in the Conservative attempts to erode the powers of the Scottish parliament. It’s been going on for some time. I want the Scottish parliament to be a parliament that can address all of the issues that affect the lives of people in Scotland. So, what the Conservatives are doing today is part of a deliberate strategy to undermine the powers of the Scottish parliament.

Swinney cited Brexit and the Internal Market Act as examples of Holyrood’s powers being weakened.

Updated

Rishi Sunak has denied that the Conservative party are using gender recognition laws as a way of stoking a culture war during the election campaign, saying that the policy was aimed at protecting “the safety and security of women and girls and the wellbeing of our children.”

He told broadcasters “The Equality Act was passed over a decade ago. And what’s clear today is that there’s a lack of clarity. And that’s risking the safety of women and girls.

“So we’ve announced the bold action that we would change the Equality Act so that sex means biological sex. And what that will do will mean the providers of single sex services and single sex spaces will be able to protect women and girls and ensure their safety and security.”

Earlier the party had posted to social media “We know what a woman is. Keir Starmer doesn’t.”

Sunak, who once refused to apologise to the family of murdered trans teenager Brianna Ghey after making a jibe at Starmer about trans rights during PMQs when he had been informed Ghey’s mother was in attendance, said the policy announcement “builds on our track record of treating these issues sensitively and with compassion.”

Asked why the government had not amended the 2010 Equalities Act in the 14 years the Conservatives have been in power, Sunak said the announcement “builds on the incredible progress we’ve made in this truly evolving area.”

He went on to say:

The strides that we’ve made, in particular recently, publishing new guidance for teachers and schools about how to treat these issues sensitively, but ensuring the parents are at the heart of all those conversations, over what is common sense and right. It was widely welcomed by children’s campaigners.

We were also, of course, dealing with the SNPS aims to try and make gender recognition on a self-ID basis, which wasn’t right. So that’s what we’ve been dealing with.

The SNP bill blocked by action from Westminster aimed to introduce a system of self-declaration for obtaining a gender recognition certificate (GRC) which would have removed the need for a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria and reduce the time someone had been permanently living in their gender before they could apply.

Proponents of the change had hoped it would streamline a process that many transgender people find intrusive and distressing, but critics argued that the simplification would fundamentally alter who could access women-only services and leave them vulnerable to abuse. The bill was backed in the Scottish parliament by MSPs from the SNP, Labour, Scottish Greens, Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties. Scottish ministers dropped legal action to try to overturn Westminster’s intervention in December 2023.

Earlier this morning the UK government equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, seemed unable to clarify what type of paperwork would be acceptable for people to prove their at birth biological sex. “This is not a paperwork issue. This is a practical issue”. Asked what paperwork would be used to assign people to prisons based on their biological sex, Badenoch said “The fact of the matter is the prison authorities will know. They will know.”

Updated

On his campaign trip today prime minister Rishi Sunak was seen cleaning a boat.

Sky News political correspondent Rob Powell just mentioned on television that he spoke to one of the rowers at the club, who said that particular boat didn’t need much cleaning, as it hadn’t been in the Thames recently, otherwise it would have been “covered in poo”.

The Liberal Democrats have been campaigning on water quality today, and managed to send a campaign boat behind the prime minister while he was speaking to people at the club. A Liberal Democrat source said it was “just another small boat Rishi Sunak can’t deal with”.

Deputy leader Daisy Cooper was on the boat, and in a statement said:

Rishi Sunak is running scared of the Liberal Democrats in blue wall seats like Henley, after our stunning gains at the local elections. We are hearing from lifelong former Conservative voters who are appalled by seeing their local rivers polluted by filthy sewage.

Right across former Conservative heartlands, people are rallying behind the Liberal Democrats and our plan to fix the NHS and care and tackle the sewage crisis. In seats like these right across the country, it’s clear the best way to beat the Conservatives and get rid of this government is to vote for the Liberal Democrats.

Rishi Sunak has said he is not worried about any prospect of Nigel Farage standing to be an MP, saying “At the end of the day on 5 July, one of two people will be prime minister, either Keir Starmer or me.”

Speaking to broadcasters while out campaigning, Sunak made a pitch to potential Reform UK voters, saying:

A vote for anyone who’s is not a Conservative candidate is just a vote for Keir Starmer in Number 10. So if you’re someone who cares about tackling migration, both the boats and legal migration, if you’re someone who wants a more proportionate pragmatic approach to net zero that saves people money, and if you’re someone who wants to lower taxes, it’s only the Conservatives who are going to offer all those things, and that’s the choice at this election.

Isabel Oakeshott, the partner of Reform UK leader Richard Tice, has posted to social media to indicate that “Reform UK will not be standing down any candidates” despite, she says, “increasingly desperate phone calls from Tory MPs”.

Keir Starmer has said that he would dispute the suggestion that there is widespread support across the armed forces for the government’s controversial Northern Ireland ‘Legacy’ act, which offers immunity from prosecution for Troubles-era crimes.

The Labour leader reiterated his commitment to scrapping the legislation and drew on his experience working in Northern Ireland as a human rights advisor when it came to the establishment of a new police force in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement.

Referencing his experience, he told an event in Bury that it was “a mistake” for a government in Westminster to go forward with the legacy act when it did not have the support of a single political party in Northern Ireland.

He added:

I would dispute that across the armed services that they are all against repealing the legislation, because it provide an amnesty for all sides including the terrorists and I know many people feel extremely uncomfortable about it.

I don’t doubt the issue has t be resolved but resolving it without the consent of the political parties involved is not the way to do it.

Both Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, and Chris Heaton Harris, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, attacked Starmer on X:

In April, an international panel of human rights experts calling for the government to scrap moves to grant conditional amnesties for Troubles-era crimes and warned Britain’s reputation will be severely damaged by the Northern Ireland “legacy” act.

Families of those killed by paramilitaries and British soliders have been campaigning against the legacy law, which sets up an independent commission for reconciliation and information recovery.

Its central purpose is to enable the families of the more than 3,500 dead from the Troubles era – which lasted from 1966 to 1998 – to find out how their relatives were killed.

The law allows the commission to give conditional immunity from prosecution to those who reveal details of the killings, while closing down future alternatives such as inquests and civil actions.

Activists have this morning dropped a banner from Westminster bridge in London calling on the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, to say he will end arms sales to Israel if he becomes Prime Minister.

Speaking at a Labour event earlier, Starmer suggested that legal advice on UK arms sales to Israel would be reviewed under a Labour government.

Updated

Hundreds of parents have been sharing their thoughts with the Guardian on how Labour’s plan to impose the standard rate of 20% VAT on private school fees might affect them and their children, and whether the issue could change their vote.

Labour hopes to raise about £1.5bn a year to increase funding for state education through tax changes such as adding VAT to private school fees. Critics have warned that the policy pledge could alienate swathes of middle-class voters, and that it could be difficult for the state school sector’s overcrowded classroms to accommodate children whose parents will no longer be able to afford independent schools.

Parents who spoke to the Guardian included Jonathan, a father and top earner from Surrey, who was among many thousands of UK parents for whom a Labour win at the general election would probably mean an immediate financial disadvantage. Nut he does not mind, saying: “My daughter goes to private school, and I’m OK with VAT being added to school fees. Is it fair? No. Is it morally right? Yes.”

Legal advice on UK arms sales to Israel would be reviewed under a Labour government, Keir Starmer also suggested at the Labour event earlier.

The UK Government has resisted pressure to halt UK export licences to Israel in recent months, amid concerns that Israel could be in breach of international humanitarian law over the conflict in Gaza.

Answering questions, Starmer said:

It is for the Government obviously to review the licences. They do it one by one. They have got legal advice. We’ve been pressing them to disclose that legal advice. And I still press them to disclose that legal advice.

Obviously, if we’re privileged to come in to power, we’ll be able to see that advice or commission our own. But look, I will just add this, that the Rafah offensive should not go ahead. And that I think our Government should follow the US lead on this in relation to arms sales and review the licences to see whether any of them would be or are being used in the Rafah offensive.

Starmer said his “number one priority is to ensure we get a ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war. In answer to another question, he insisted human rights, international law and accountability “matters in Gaza”, adding:

You wouldn’t be human if you were not affected by the images that we’ve seen, the reports coming out of Gaza, the sheer number of people who have been killed - many of them women and children - and also the knowledge that hostages are still being held.

Pressure on Labour over its stance has continued, both inside and outside of the party. More than 100 artists and celebrities including Steve Coogan, Miriam Margolyes and Juliet Stevenson called at the weekend on the Labour leader to revoke UK export licences to Israel if his party wins the election.

For more on this, you might find this interesting from Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, on how Labour has walked a tightrope in recent months on Gaza.

Updated

Keir Starmer used a question and answer session at a Labour event earlier to accuse Rishi Sunak of “making money betting against the country in the financial crisis”

Answering a question from the Guardian’s Aletha Adu at a campaign event at the Fusilier Museum in Bury, the Labour leader said:

On the question of the hedge funds, we have raised this before. I think it is relevant at this election for the voters to know what did the two candidates for prime minister do before they came into politics.

I was working for the Crown Prosecution Service ... trying to protect those who live in the United Kingdom from crime, Rishi Sunak was making money betting against the country in the financial crisis.
I think that’s for him to answer as to what he was doing before he came into politics.

The Guardian reported this morning that Labour is aiming to turn the spotlight on Sunak’s time before politics in the days before the first TV debate between the two leaders, after a week dominated by rows over Diane Abbott’s candidacy.

Key to Labour’s attempt to get back on the front foot will be to scrutinise Sunak’s time as a partner at TCI, the hedge fund which launched an activist campaign against Dutch bank ABN Amro which resulted in its sale to RBS in 2007.

The takeover was later described as “an extremely risky deal” by the independent financial regulator which said it was a key factor leading to RBS’s failure.

It’s Ben Quinn picking up the blog now while Martin takes a break.

Updated

Out on the campaign trail this morning deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has been visiting Doncaster in England.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who will take part in the STV debate tonight alongside the leaders of the SNP, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in Scotland, has visited a community food pantry at the Pearce Institute in Glasgow alongside Scottish Labour candidate Dr Zubir Ahmed, an NHS surgeon who is standing for the party in Glasgow South West.

Defence secretary Grant Shapps has responded to Labour’s defence announcements this morning by asking on social media “How can anyone trust [Keir] Starmer on defence when he tried to make [Jeremy] Corbyn prime minister twice?”

Starmer was shadow secretary of state for Exiting the European Union in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet during the 2017 and 2019 general elections.

Nigel Farage has posted to social media that he is making “an emergency general election announcement at 4pm today”.

Updated

Here is a picture of that Labour event, which was being held at the Fusilier Museum in Bury.

Keir Starmer has finished taking questions now.

Keir Starmer has been asked by a reporter from Channel 4 about Labour selection processes, and if “enraging the Labour left is actually part of your campaign strategy.”

He somewhat sidesteps the issue, preferring to focus on the fact that he is appearing alongside Labour election candidates who used to serve in the armed forces. The Labour leader replied:

This is a changed Labour party. And part of that change is being absolutely clear about the importance of defence and security which is what we are doing this morning.

And part of it is about making sure I’ve got the best possible candidates to put before the country. I am delighted that what you’re seeing behind me is some of our brilliant candidates who’ve served their country, distinguished individuals, who have served their country and are now not standing by, but want to come and join the Labour team. We’ve got 14. That’s a record. That is evidence of a changed Labour party. That’s the highest number in recent times.

So I make no apologies for the fact that I wanted the best possible candidates to go into this election. This is a changed Labour party. The Labour party back in the service of working people. The Labour party that puts defence of the realm and national security is our number one issue.

Keir Starmer is now taking questions from the media. The first questions was from Chris Mason at the BBC, who asked “You could be prime minister next month. If circumstances necessitated, would you authorise the firing of nuclear weapons? Yes or no?”

He was also asked about David Lammy and Angela Rayner having previously voted against renewing nuclear weapons.

On the first question, the Labour leader said “It’s a vital part of our defence. And of course, that means we have to be prepared to use it.”

On the latter, he said “This is a changed Labour party. The most important thing is that I voted in favour of a nuclear deterrent. And if we are privileged to come in to serve, I will serve as the prime minister of this country. And my commitment to the nuclear deterrent is absolute.”

He has also been asked if he has thought about what he might write in his letters of last resort if he became prime minister.

Starmer replied “That is a matter of high confidentiality. You wouldn’t expect someone who is serious about being prime minister to disclose the circumstances in which he or she might take action.”

Starmer: national security and economic security must go 'hand-in-hand'

Keir Starmer has said the Labour party will “never shy away from doing our duty at home and abroad” and that “national security and economic security must go hand-in-hand.”

He promised that under a Labour government “the UK would be a point of stability in a chaotic world.”

He said defence was not “a party political issue”, it was “a national issue”.

He said “It affects every single individual, every community and Labour will always put our country first. We will serve working people across our nation, respect our armed forces as they continue to protect our country.”

Starmer told the audience:

So with Labour, Britain will be fit to fight within the first year of a Labour government. We will carry out a new Strategic Defence review. We are absolutely committed to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence as soon as possible. Because we know our security isn’t just vital for our safety today. It’s absolutely central to our success for the future. National security and economic security must go hand-in-hand.

We also know that playing our part on the world stage makes us stronger and better off at home. So make no mistake I am absolutely committed to rebuilding relationships with our allies.

Starmer criticises Tories for partisan attacks on Labour over national security

Keir Starmer has criticised the Conservative party for partisan attacks over Labour’s defence policies, saying he would “not let that stand”.

Starmer described the increasing threats from “malign actors” around the world targeting the UK with “hybrid threats to our energy supply, cybersecurity [and] information warfare” and said that the “the rumble of war” was “rolling across our continent”.

He went on to say:

I would prefer if politics are kept out of this issue, even at this election. Throughout the whole of this parliament, I have deliberately not been partisan over issues of national security.

Just before this election, the Tories questioned this Labour party’s commitment to national security. And I will not let that stand. The people of Britain need to know that their leaders will keep them safe and we will.

The truth is that after 14 years of the Tories we are less safe and less secure. You don’t have to take my word for it. The Tories own former defence secretary says the government has failed to take defence seriously.

He added “With my changed Labour party national security will always come first.”

Starmer: 'postwar era is over' and 'new age of insecurity has begun'

Keir Starmer, speaking about defence and national security, has said that “the postwar era is over” and a “new age of insecurity has begun”.

He said he had never expected in his lifetime to see the “rumble of war” in Europe as Russian tanks rolled into a European country.

Starmer said the threat was not just conventional warfare, “We must face down malign actors who tried to attack and weaken our nation. And not just through traditional warfare over air, land and sea but with hybrid threats to our energy supply, cybersecurity information warfare.”

He also spoke of his family’s own experience of service, describing an anxious wait for news during the Falklands War, after his mother’s brother’s ship was bombed.

Keir Starmer has started talking, he opened by paying tribute to soldiers who took part in D-day, which has its 80th anniversary this week.

John Healey, shadow defence secretary spoke next. He promised “Britain will be better defended with Labour.”

He told the audience:

What does it say to our adversaries when the ex-defence secretary, Ben Wallace, admits to me in the House of Commons that over 14 years the Conservatives have hollowed out and underfunded our forces?

What does it say when they’ve cut the size of the British army to the smallest since the Napoleonic wars. When they’ve wasted at least £15bn on bad defence procurement. When they’ve missed recruitment targets every year. When morale has fallen to record lows and when service families have to live in damp, mouldy housing, and increasingly draw on universal credit and food banks to get by. This is the shameful record of the Conservatives on defence for the last 14 years.

This has not been the most convincing performance of the campaign so far, to be honest. He stumbled over the delivery a couple of times and it was a rather downbeat tone for a rallying speech.

Louise Jones, Labour’s candidate in North East Derbyshire, has opened this Labour event. She said she is hoping to become Labour’s first female military veteran MP.

She said that the Tory government has made the bond between the country and its armed forces “increasingly fragile” and that it was eroding the offer to the military.

She said:

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the deteriorating state of the accommodation for our armed forces, whether it’s dodgy electrics, failed boilers, or mouldy walls. Too many of our military personnel had been let down.

We also now have the smallest armed forces since the Napoleonic Wars, but their workload has not decreased. We’re continually asking them to do more with less.

In the military, you’re taught to get involved. To not stay on the sidelines. We say the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. Well, I’m not going to simply walk past while our national security is threatened. That’s why I’m standing to be Labour’s first female veteran MP.

Keir Starmer will be speaking shortly on defence and security. The Labour leader is expected to reaffirm his commitment to a “triple lock” for the UK’s nuclear deterrent, and his aim to raise defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product “as soon as resources allow”.

Labour’s nuclear deterrent triple lock includes a commitment to construct four new nuclear submarines in Barrow-in-Furness, maintaining Britain’s continuous at-sea deterrent, and the delivery of all future upgrades needed for the submarines to patrol the waters.

We’ll bring you the key lines when he speaks.

Labour’s shadow armed forces minister Luke Pollard, speaking on GB News, has said that while Labour would not seek to rejoin a customs union with the EU, it would seek to change aspects of the current Brexit deal.

He told viewers:

It’s certainly true that since the botched Brexit deal was put in place, many of our businesses – exporters of food, fish, agricultural products in particular – have really struggled with the additional paperwork.

What Labour has set out is our ambition to have a veterinary agreement with the EU. That’s an agreement that New Zealand has with the EU, that removes the paperwork on food and drink exports. That would make a substantial difference to fishers and farmers right across the UK

Rishi Sunak has chosen not to offer and not to negotiate a veterinary agreement. He chose to not argue for one when Boris Johnson put through that botched Brexit deal. And I don’t think honestly anyone who voted leave was doing so to do over our fishers and farmers, quite the opposite. I think they wanted better support.

That’s why at this general election, Labour are saying we won’t be joining the single market. We won’t re-join the customs union. But we will seek to renegotiate a deal on veterinary agreements that removes paperwork. This is a sensible change to improve what was a pretty rubbish deal.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has published a video compilation of some clips of her on the Labour battlebus tour, which she claims has a real “carnival atmosphere”.

In the clip Rayner says:

The main thing from the road trip, for me, is getting out there and meeting ordinary people, and I love it. Each area is different. But everyone is saying exactly the same thing – that’s that they desperate for that change.

You get a feel of how difficult it’s been. You know, Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives really seem out of touch. They’re saying that everything’s fine now, but actually, people have seen that their cost of living has increased, and people are just tired. They really want a stable government.

Lib Dems: Tories waging 'phoney culture war' over gender recognition

Liberal Democrat Deputy leader Daisy Cooper has accused the Conservatives of trying to wage a “phoney culture war” with their announcement on gender recognition changes this morning.

PA Media reports she told LBC News radio:

I do think this is a cynical distraction form their failings on so many issues, like the economy, like the cost-of-living crisis, like the NHS, like social care, like protecting our local environment and tackling the issue of raw sewage discharge.

I think the Government is failing on so many counts – time and again we have seen how it tries to wage these phoney culture wars.

On the specifics of the proposal, Liberal Democrats have said that, of course, where there is confusion within service providers there could be better guidance, but I really don’t think there’s any demand to unpick, or any need to unpick, the Equality Act itself.

It’s been in place since 2010, it includes hard-won protections for women and for trans people and lots of other different groups with protected characteristics.

Just to mark your cards for what we are expecting later on, Keir Starmer is in the north west where he will meet veterans and talk about defence. Rishi Sunak is campaigning in the south east and is expected to continue pushing on gender recognition reform. Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper is going to be in Oxfordshire promoting their policies on clean water. It is unclear if we can expect her to fall into some, as Ed Davey did so notably last week. SNP leader John Swinney is due to be in Stirling and Strathallan, while his Scottish Tory counterpart Douglas Ross is in Glasgow.

We have reached the point in the election campaign cycle where the media are asking people if they would push the nuclear button. It was shadow defence secretary John Healey who was being asked today if Keir Starmer would do it.

He told listeners of the Radio 4 programme:

The first duty of any government is to protect the country and keep citizens safe, and the nuclear deterrent is, as Keir Starmer has said, the bedrock of our national security

Unless you have a secure nation, you can’t have a secure economy. You can’t have growth. You can’t have good jobs. You can’t you can’t rebuild, as we must do, our public services for the future.

The important thing about a deterrent is that there’s a deliberate ambiguity. And Keir Starmer has said “I will do what’s necessary to defend this country”. That’s an important message to any would-be adversaries.

No one should doubt Keir Starmer. As director of public prosecutions he put away some of the most dangerous terrorists this country has ever faced. He knows what needs to be done to protect this country. He will do what’s required, if it’s required.

Scotland’s first minister John Swinney has called for a “respectful” contest ahead of the Scottish leaders’ first television debate of the election campaign.

STV will host the debate in which SNP leader Swinney, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton will participate.

PA Media report Swinney said:

I am looking forward to tonight’s TV debate and I hope it is a respectful contest based on ideas to improve the lives of the people of Scotland.

I have been leader of the SNP for just a few weeks, and I have already united my party ahead of what is a very important election.

Scotland’s people and public services have suffered as a result of austerity, Brexit and the cost of living crisis, all of which were made in Westminster.

In tonight’s debate, and in the election campaign ahead, I and the SNP will set out a genuine alternative to the broken Westminster status quo.

The debate is on STV tonight at 9pm. Despite being the fourth largest party at Holyrood the Scottish Greens have been excluded from the debate, a decision that the party has described as outrageous.

Kemi Badenoch in terse media exchanges over gender recognition proposals

Kemi Badenoch has been on the morning media round, explaining a Conservative proposal to change the Equalities Act as it relates to transgender women – but also, as can be her habit, getting into some slightly grumpy exchanges with interviewers.

Badenoch, who is both business secretary and minister for equalities, was setting out a plan detailed here by Jessica Elgot which would set out that the protected characteristic of sex means biological sex, allowing organisations to bar transgender women from single-sex spaces, including hospital wards and sports events.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What we are trying to do is reemphasise that sex in the law means biological sex. It always has done but there has been a lot of misinterpretation, and we are adding that clarification so that the law is clear.”

This was not, she said, a diktat saying that all such space should bar transgender women, just giving them legal protection if they did: “If a rape crisis centre decides that it wants to allow a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate, they will be able to do so. If they choose not to then they can’t be sued for that.”

Quizzed on R4 by Mishal Hussein about how this would work in practice, for example what documentation people might have to show to prove their gender, Badenoch became slightly impatient, accusing Hussein of “trying to trivialise what is a very serious issue”.

Things became even more testy when Hussein asked about then decision of Liz Truss to appear on a podcast co-run by Carl Benjamin, a YouTuber and controversialist who has previously made jokes about whether or not he would rape the Labour MP Jess Phillips.

Saying it was not up to her to have an opinion on this, Badenoch again complained about the line of questioning: ”I think it is trivial. It is unserious.”

Does such irascibility matter? Perhaps not. But it is the first time Badenoch has done a broadcast round this election campaign, and some of her colleagues worry she is too combustible to be considered as a future leader if the Conservatives lose the election.

Labour say Tories have had 14 year to amend Equality Act and Badenoch announcement is 'a distraction from election campaign'

Labour has this morning dismissed the announcement by the Conservatives, saying there was no need to amend the Equality Act.

Speaking on Times Radio, PA Media reports shadow defence secretary John Healey said:

We will not want to amend the Act, it’s not needed. It already provides a definition of a woman, and sex and gender are different.

What is needed is clearer guidance for service providers, from the NHS to sports bodies, and in prisons, on what single-sex exemptions need to be, and the best way to be able to do that is in guidance, not primary legislation.

The government has had 14 years to do that and it hasn’t. This, to be honest, is a distraction from the election campaign

Updated

Good morning, and welcome to our continued coverage of the 2024 general election campaign. The Conservatives are campaigning today by trying to open a culture war wedge over gender recognition. Labour have today marked down as a day to discuss defence and national security. Here are your headlines …

It is Martin Belam with you again today. Email is the easiest way to reach me – at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

Updated

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