Early evening summary
Kemi Badenoch has urged Keir Starmer to “be honest with MPs” about the cost to the UK of the deal with the Mauritius over the Chagos Islands. (See 5.05pm.) Britain is transferring sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius, but retaining the right to run a joint airbase with the US on Diego Garcia, and a report today suggests this could cost the UK £18bn. Government sources are saying the figure being reported is not accurate, but No 10 is not denying the claim that the cost will be significantly higher than the £9bn previously agreed. (See 4.32pm.) Other Tories have been even more damning, with Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary and runner-up in the leadership contest, calling the deal “traitorous” and Starmer a “Quisling”. (See 4.47pm.) Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party has overtaken Labour for the first time in a leading national opinion poll (see 9.30am) said on social media:
This is a dreadful decision by Starmer.
Our relationship will be in tatters when the USA wakes up to what our Prime Minister has done.
Updated
Benn says 53% of NI patients wait more than year for 1st consultant appointment, because NHS reform ignored for years
Hilary Benn has delivered a damning verdict on the state of the NHS in Northern Ireland, saying that 53% of people waiting for a first consultant appointment there wait more than a year.
The Northern Ireland secretary quoted the figure – which contrasts with 4% of people in England waiting for a first consultant appointment waiting more than a year – as an example, not just of failures in the health service, but of wider problems with public services.
And he argued that the problem was not lack of money, but the lack of public sector reform in Northern Ireland over recent years.
Benn was giving a speech to commemorate the first anniversary of the revival of Stormont and its power-sharing executive.
Under devolution, the executive is supposed to be in charge of service like health and education in Northern Ireland. But since the Good Friday agreement it has been suspended many times, sometimes for years at a time, because of disputes between unionists and nationalists.
In his speech Benn said:
The challenge for public services is particularly acute in Northern Ireland, and nowhere is this more urgent or obvious than in health.
The facts are frankly shocking.
Waiting time performance against cancer care targets continues to deteriorate, corridor care is becoming more frequent and it is striking how many people in Northern Ireland are now going private.
More than a quarter of people in Northern Ireland are on a waiting list. That is more than double the figure in England.
53% of people waiting for a first appointment with a consultant are waiting for more than a year in Northern Ireland.
In England, that figure is 4%. That’s right, 53% compared to just 4%.
Benn said he agreed with recent comments from Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin first minister, who recently said that the state of the health service in Northern Ireland was “dire and diabolical”. He went on:
And this is despite UK Treasury data showing that spending per head on health is nearly £300 a year higher in Northern Ireland than it is in England.
It is absolutely not that health and social care staff are somehow not doing all they can.
On the contrary, they are working really, really hard to treat patients, but they are doing so in a system that clearly isn’t working.
And why isn’t it working? Because – over many years – the decisions necessary for systemic and not piecemeal reform to the health and social care system in Northern Ireland simply haven’t been taken.
Benn said the challenge for the executive was to “take the difficult collective decisions” to enable health minister Mike Nesbitt to reform health services.
He went on:
I frequently hear it said, however, that more funding is required from the UK government and that that is the reason why public services are in such a state.
But given the needs-based formula that is now in place, and given the increase in funding that the government has given, a lack of funding is not the impediment to public service transformation.
The real impediment has been the failure to reform the system.
The many missed opportunities to take decisions, or to apply lessons, from other parts of the UK where reform has happened.
After the speech Sinn Féin accused Benn of promoting a “Tory austerity agenda”.
Caoimhe Archibald, the Sinn Féin MLA (member of the legislative assembly) who was yesterday appointed economy minister in the executive, said:
Rather than advocating for the people of the north of Ireland, as his title suggests he should, [Benn] has become an apologist for a Tory austerity agenda which his own government has now adopted and which has stripped our public services to the bone.
Updated
Badenoch urges Starmer to 'be honest with MPs' about cost of Chagos Islands deal
Kemi Badenoch has commented on the latest Chagos Islands deal reporting. She says it is time for Keir Starmer to “be honest with MPs” about the cost.
When Labour negotiate, Britain loses.
Starmer’s foolish deal gets worse every minute. He is surrendering British territory and paying for the privilege.
It’s time for the PM to come to parliament and be honest with MPs about what his government is doing with the Chagos Islands.
Conservative politicians seem to be engaged in a competition to see how can sound the most outraged over the latest report about the Chagos Islands deal. Priti Patel made a good opening bid (see 3.49pm), but she’s been trumped (Trumped?) by Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary. He has put a lengthy post about it on social media, and it concludes:
There’s supposedly no money for winter fuel payments or an increase in defence spending, but Starmer has seemingly found a spare £18 billion of taxpayer money to squander on an ally of China.
Can you think of any other self-respecting nation that would do this to themselves
Quisling Keir cares more about his reputation amongst the international legal fraternity than what’s good for Britain.
This disastrous deal is nothing short of traitorous.
Robert Shrimsley, the FT’s chief political commentator, says on Bluesky that the tone of these comments suggest the Tories are “losing it” in the face of competition from Reform UK.
It’s perfectly legit for the Tories to oppose and attack the Chagos deal. Many will agree. But when a front-bencher @robertjenrickmp.bsky.social refers to Keir Starmer as a “quisling” (a traitor or collaborator) you have to wonder if the Tories are simply losing it in the face of Farage
(Of all the Tories commenting on this story this afternoon, the person who has sounded most reasonable has been Mark Francois [see 3.49pm] – which is probably not something that has every been written by the Guardian before today.)
No 10 refuses to deny reports saying there has been big increase in £9bn cost of Chagos Islands deal
Downing Street has declined to comments on a report saying the Mauritian national assembly has been told there has been a big increase in the £9bn cost to the UK of Chagos Islands deal.
Asked about the report (see 2.49pm), which has led to the Tories describing the deal as “madness”, a No 10 spokesperson repeatedly said the government would not be giving a running commentary. He said:
I’m not going to give a running commentary on the deal. Once an agreement is reached, further details of the treaty will be put before both houses for scrutiny and treaty ratification in the usual way.
Asked specifically if it was true that the deal will now cost the UK around £18bn, and that Mauritius will now have a veto over any decision to extend the UK’s lease on Diego Garcia beyond 99-years, as the Times reports, the spokesperson would not comment.
Asked why the Mauritian national assembly seemed to be getting more information about the deal than the UK parliament, the spokesperson said:
There’s a process. Once an agreement is reached, further details of the treaty will be put before parliament in the usual way.
Asked if the costs of the deal would be categorised as defence spending, and count toward reaching the 2.5% of GDP target for defence spending, the spokesperson would not give a running commentary.
The Times reports Navin Ramgoolam, the Mauritian prime minister as telling his national assembly that the UK has effectively doubled the £9bn price the UK will pay for the deal. It quotes Ramgoolam as saying:
They had agreed to a package for 99 years, but not inflation-proof. The exchange rate — because it’s in dollars — would be fixed once and then last 99 years. How can that be? Any ordinary fifth-form, sixth-form student would agree that you know inflation exists. What is the point of having money and having half of it by the end? This is what would happen — we made the calculation.
UK government sources have rejected suggestions that the final cost will be about £18bn. They point out that Ramgoolam did not put a figure on the cost of the deal when he was speaking in the national assembly.
Updated
NEU calls off strikes for sixth form colleges in England this week while improved pay offer considered
Strikes that were to have closed sixth form colleges in England on Thursday and Friday have now been called off to discuss an improved pay offer, the National Education Union has announced.
The industrial action at 32 non-academy colleges - over pay discrepencies with teachers in academies - has already seen eight strike days, with two more scheduled for the end of this week.
The NEU said:
The strike action planned for Thursday 6 February and Friday 7 February has been suspended while we consult members in non-academised sixth form colleges on the pay offer from the Sixth Form Colleges Association, now that we have received firm assurances around future pay parity.
Tories express alarm at report saying cost of Chagos Islands deal has risen far beyond £9bn, saying it's 'madness'
The Conservative party has reacted angrily to the latest reports about the proposed deal to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. (See 2.49pm.)
Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, has issued a statement claiming that Keir Starmer is motivated by “leftie shame” at Britain’s history. She said:
It seems Keir Starmer has learnt absolutely nothing - and is still putting his leftie shame of our country’s history over our national security, and our longstanding relationship with our closest ally.
He has the audacity to tell the British people they will foot the bill and pay for the indignity of his surrender of the Chagos Islands, as he isolates the new US administration by bending the knee to Mauritius and emboldening our enemies with his disastrous surrender deal.
Starmer and David Lammy must urgently explain their epic failure of diplomacy which is putting out special relationship at risk while they play pathetic gesture politics.
In fact, negotiations with Mauritius over the transfer of sovereignty started when the Conservative goverment was in office. The current government, like the last one, says a deal is needed because the UK kept losing cases in international courts over the sovereignty issue.
As Christopher Hope from GB News reports, Mark Francois, a shadow defence minister, has also attacked the proposal.
Referring a Times report saying the cost to the UK government of the deal has in effect doubled, rising to about £18bn (over a century – but with the costs frontloaded), Francois said:
It is utterly unacceptable that Mauritian MPs seem to know more about this deal than our own MPs in parliament.
With the defence budget already under immense strain, the government not only can’t say how much we’d be paying to rent back our own islands, they don’t even know which department would foot the bill. If the reported £18bn figure is true, this is financial and strategic madness.
Updated
New report card will make it harder for Ofsted to tackle its reliability problem, MPs told
Plans to reform school inspections in England will make it harder for Ofsted to tackle its key problem which is reliability, a former senior government adviser told MPs on the education committee today.
Sam Freedman, a policy expert and former adviser in the Department for Education during Michael Gove’s tenure, said he had “quite a lot of worries” about the new Ofsted report card, unveiled on Monday by the chief inspector of schools Sir Martyn Oliver.
Under the proposals, schools will be graded in eight individual areas on a five-step scale, ranging from “exemplary” to “causing concern” with a separate evaluation of safeguarding. Inspections currently look at a maximum of four to six areas on a four-step scale from “outstanding” to “inadequate”.
Freedman told the committee:
I’m worried that this makes it harder for Ofsted to tackle its real issue which is reliability and consistency of inspection, and does not actually deal with any of the concerns schools have and possibly makes it harder for parents to use as well.
The committee, which is considering the impact of children’s wellbeing and schools bill as it makes its way through parliament, also heard from Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, who dismissed concerns that the bill will curb vital academy freedoms, calling instead for greater scrutiny of multi-academy trusts (Mats).
He accused some Mats of “misusing their freedoms badly”, citing reports of financial mismanagement, excessive CEO pay (Harris Federation boss Sir Dan Moynihan’s salary exceeds £500K, according to a report in SchoolsWeek), cuts to maternity and sick leave and high turnover rates among academy staff.
The committee also heard from Clare Canning, head of the Broadleaf Home Ed Co-op in Hmapshire, who raised concerns about the impact of the proposed legislation on parents who choose to home educate.
The bill outlines plans for a national register to identify and track children not in school, while parents seeking to educate their child at home will face greater scrutiny. Canning said it would place an “overwhelming burden” on families and questioned whether it was workable.
Mauritian PM says he's confident Chagos Islands deal will be approved 'in coming weeks'
Keir Starmer remains “confident” that a deal can be reached on the Chagos Islands “in the coming weeks”, the prime minister of Mauritius has told his parliament.
According to PA Media, Navin Ramgoolam told the Mauritian national assembly today that Starmer had discussed the prospect of a deal with him in a telephone conversation on Friday. Ramgoolam said:
The British prime minister informed me that he intends to push ahead with the agreement reached between Mauritius and the United Kingdom on the Chagos archipelago.
We remain confident that it will reach a speedy resolution in the coming weeks.
The UK had reached an agreement on returning sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius with the previous Mauritian government last year, but Ramgoolam insisted on renegotiating the deal when he came to power in November. Under the deal the UK will continue to have control over the joint UK/US military base on Diego Garcia for at least another 99 years. The UK government said the Biden administration was in favour of the deal, but Starmer wants the Trump administration to approve it too before he signs it off.
Ramgoolam told the national assembly:
President Trump is not a wolf. Let him see if the agreement is good or not.
Now the British have, late in the day, decided that, yes, it is better to let the new administration have a look, that is what the situation is.
Under the original deal, the UK was due to pay £9bn in instalments for the 99-year lease. According to a report in the Times, Ramgoolam said that that payment was in effect being doubled, because the orginal deal did not make allowance for inflation.
He also said that, after 99 years, Mauritius will have a veto over any proposal to extend the lease. Originally the UK could extend it unilaterally.
At the lobby briefing this morning Downing Street said it had “no update” on the situation.
Streeting defends having DEI policies in NHS but says 'daft things' done in its name undermine cause
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has defended having diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in the NHS – while saying some “daft things” done in its name have undemined the cause.
Speaking at an event hosted by Macmillan Cancer Support to mark World Cancer Day, Streeting suggested that it might be popular to cut back DEI initiatives, which are under fierce attack in the US from President Trump, who is trying to remove them from federal government.
Streeting said, in areas like cancer care, there was a strong need for inequality to be tackled. He said:
We’ve got to deal with these challenges against the backdrop at the moment, let’s be honest, where equality, diversity and inclusion is under a lot of spotlight and discussion.
Now, I could get quite a lot of plaudits from quite a lot of people across the country … ‘You know what? NHS, tough times, I’m going to scrap all of those equality, diversity and inclusion people. We’ll save loads of money doing that, and we’ll divert the money into actual patient care’.
Except, ask black nurses about their experiences of being bullied in the workplace in an organisation that has had black people in it since it was founded pretty much … Empire Windrush, NHS foundation, same year, that generation built the NHS.
You look at outcomes: prostate cancer, black men twice as likely to die of prostate cancer than white men, black women three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. We’ve got some real racial inequalities here.
Asked by BBC journalist Nick Robinson if this was a political fight he was willing to have, Streeting replied:
Yeah, but I also need the profession to help. And sometimes there are some really daft things being done in the name of equality, diversity and inclusion, which undermined the cause.
For example, there was one member of NHS staff who was merrily tweeting a job ad online and saying part of her practice was anti-whiteness.
And I just thought, ‘What the hell does that say to the bloke up in Wigan who’s more likely to die earlier than his more affluent white counterparts down in London?’
We’ve got real issues of inequality that affect white working-class people.
Streeting may have been referring to this advert that was circulated on social media.
Updated
Why is Reform UK rising in polls when Brexit is increasingly seen as a mistake?
A reader asks:
How do you interpret the contrasting news of 55% of Brits regretting Brexit and this latest surge in the poll of Farage’s party?
This is a good question. It refers to YouGov polling from last week suggesting that 55% of Britons think leaving the EU was a mistake, and that only 11% of people think Brexit has been a success. These numbers have been going up. But YouGov polling also shows that Reform UK, which is the successor party to the Brexit party and which is led by Nigel Farage (second in the top 10 of people who made Brexit happen, according to the Independent’s John Rentoul), is getting more and more popular. (See 9.30am.)
There are at least three answers to this. To some extent they overlap, but it is helpful, and neater, to separate them out.
1) For many people voting for Brexit was more about disrupting the status quo than leaving the EU. Ardent Brexiters, like Farage, had very strong and coherent objections to EU membership. But the vote to leave cannot be understood without also recognising that it harnessed disruptive, anti-establishment sentiment that has become increasingly powerful since the financial crash of 2008 and the rise of social media. This has been well documented by many people, over many years, including in a report from the Tony Blair Institute only last week. It said:
Around the world, democracy is changing shape. Trust in politicians is declining, as is respect for all kinds of authority. Traditional political loyalties have dissolved as economic and social forces buffet people’s lives and a pervasive sense of decline takes hold. More and more voters seek easy solutions to complex problems.
People who are fed up with the status quo vote for insurgents. And Farage is able to pose as an insurgent, just as he did in 2016 (and despite getting much of his funding from plutocrat donors) because he has never been in government.
2) The Brexit vote was also in part a protest against high levels of immigration, and this issue remains at the heart of Farage’s electoral pitch. In 2016 he was arguing that the end of free movement would address what he saw as the problem. But net migration remained high, and Reform UK, now primarily an anti-immigration party, is proposing more extreme measures.
3) Winning elections is not necessarily about being right anyway. In theory, politicians associated with bad ideas and flawed policies get punished by the electorate. Farage ought to suffer as a result, because there is a growing consensus that Brexit has been one of the biggest policy failures in modern UK history. But that is not happening because the theory is wrong, and voting isn’t as rational as it could or should be. The political scientists Chrisopher Achen and Larry Bachels set out this argument in their 2016 book, Democracy for Realists. They argue that “group and partisan loyalties, not policy preferences or ideologies, ar fundamental in democratic politics” and that policy, ideology and record count for little if voters just want change.
Elections that ‘throw the bums out’ typically do not produce genuine policy mandates, not even when they are landslides. They simply put a different elite coalition in charge … The parties have policy views and they carry them out when in office, but most voters are not listening, or are simply thinking what their party tells them they should be thinking. That is what an honest view of democracy looks like. It is a blunder to expect elections to deliver more.
This is not a consensus view. But Achen and Bachels are right to say the electoral process does not necessarily reward people with the best record or ideas. Also Farage can argue that since he was not in charge of implementing Brexit, if it did go wrong, that wasn’t his fault.
Ed Davey urges Starmer to show 'total solidarity' with Denmark in dispute with Trump in meeting with Danish PM
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has urged Keir Starmer to express “total solidarity” with Denmark when he has dinner with the Danish PM, Mette Frederiksen, tonight. (See 11.44am.) In a statement ahead of the meeting, Davey said:
His attempts to threaten a Nato ally with military force are dangerous and wrong, and will just embolden the likes of Putin who want to see the west divided.
I hope Keir Starmer will express the UK’s total solidarity in his meeting with the Danish prime minister today. The UK has a proud history of standing with our allies when their sovereignty is threatened, and we must do the same with Denmark now.
In public, ministers and No 10 have been very restained in what they have said about President Trump implicit threat to use military force to seize Greenland, which belongs to Denmark. While siding with Denmark, No 10 has avoided criticising Trump and described his comments as hypothetical.
Miliband says he played no part in decision to approve solar farm project linked by Labour donor Dale Vince
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, told MPs that he had no part in approving a solar farm linked to Labour Party donor Dale Vince.
During energy questions, the shadow energy spokesperson Joy Morrissey said that Miliband should refer himself to the PM’s adviser on ministerial standards over the decision to appove a solar farm project at Heckington Fen, which is being developed by Ecotricity. She said:
The secretary of state recently approved a 524-hectare solar farm in Lincolnshire, a farm linked to Dale Vince, a £5.4 million donor to the Labour party.
The public have a right to be certain that this decision was carried out properly. So will [he] refer his conduct of this application to the independent adviser on ministerial standards, yes or no?”.
Miliband replied:
I’m glad [she] asked about this, because I took no part in this decision and recused myself from it.
And here we go, you see they’ve got nothing to say, they’ve got nothing to say about the country, desperate scraping of the barrel. And let the whole house hear it.
They oppose a solar plan, they oppose a solar plant that will put up panels throughout the country and give clean power to the British people. The state of the Conservative party is something to behold.
ONS finding it much harder to get people to fill in surveys for official data since pandemic, MPs told
The Office for National Statistics is finding it harder to gather data because people are less willing to respond to surveys, MPs have been told.
Sir Ian Diamond, who as national statistician is in charge of the ONS, said that it now takes twice as long to get people to reply to surveys as it did before the pandemic.
Giving evidence to the Commons Treasury committee, he said:
We’re finding very, very, very high levels of flat refusal compared with pre-pandemic.
He also accepted that the ONS was having problems with the reliability of its labour force data.
Having shorter survey forms could help, Diamond said. He told MPs that the ONS was following the example of its Australian and US counterparts, who are using shorter forms, and he said he wanted “people to be able to, for example, fill in the questionnaire on the bus on the way home on their mobile phone, if that is the best way for them to be able to support us”.
He went on:
We’ve worked with them [Australia and the US] to look at exactly what they’re doing and indeed that has led to us shortening our draft online questionnaire to now six minutes per person.
Asked if the ONS needed “more cash and better data linkage” within government, Sir Diamond replied: “Yes.”
Carla Denyer, the Green party co-leader, asks Miliband if he agrees that any airport expansion will not allow the UK to meet its carbon targets. She says the carbon savings in the clean power action plan will be “wiped out” if Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton expansion go ahead. And she says it is unrealistic to expect sustainable aviation fuels to address the problem, because that would require the use of half the UK’s agricultural land to produce the fuel.
Miliband says any airport expansion would have to take place “within carbon budget and within environmental limits”.
He goes on to claim the government had done more to promote clean energy in six months than the Tories did in 14 years.
Miliband sidesteps question about whether government views Rosebank as existing oilfield licence application, or new one
As the Guardian reports this morning, Keir Starmer is facing a growing internal backlash over the potential approval of the Rosebank oilfield, after Treasury sources indicated Rachel Reeves was likely to give it her backing.
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is taking questions in the Commons and the Tory MP Harriet Cross has just asked him if the government will treat Rosebank as an existing licence application when it reviews the case, or a new one.
The distinction is important because at the general election Labour said it would allow existing licences to continue, but that it would not approve new ones.
Cross did not get very clear answer. Miliband replied:
This is an individual planning case, and I’m going to be careful what I say.
What I would say is that the last government made an unlawful decision. According to the court, we are going to follow due process.
Starmer to hold talks with Danish PM in Downing Street tonight
Keir Starmer will host his Danish counterpart for a working dinner in Downing Street tonight, PA Media reports. PA says:
The prime minister and Denmark’s premier Mette Frederiksen are expected to discuss European security as well as the issue of migration at the meeting.
The dinner comes amid a diplomatic row between Denmark and the US over Donald Trump’s claims that he wants to acquire Greenland.
Frederiksen has insisted the autonomous Danish territory is not for sale, but the US president has repeatedly expressed an interest in taking control of the island.
Downing Street would not be drawn over whether Britain would support the US or Denmark in a dispute over the territory when asked by journalists on Monday.
Frederiksen has called for a “collective and robust response” within the EU should the president press ahead with his threats to take over the territory.
Here is Jennifer Rankin’s report on Starmer’s dinner with EU leaders in Brussels last night.
Farage says UK's Brexit deal with EU can be improved - but struggles to say how
Nigel Farage has said the UK could be “friendly” with the EU but did not outline what kind of ties with the bloc his party would support, PA Media reports. PA says:
The Reform UK leader said that “industrial collaboration” with the EU will give the UK “less flexibility” to make a deal with the US.
His comments came in an interview on the Today programme after his party edged ahead of Labour to top a voting poll from YouGov for the first time.
Farage was asked why he did not see it as a good move for Labour to seek closer trading ties with the EU after pledging to do so in its manifesto.
“You can have negotiations, you can be friendly, you can do all those things. But if we start to tie ourselves to industrial collaboration, as appears was agreed last night, then we find ourselves with less flexibility in doing deals with countries like America,” he said.
Asked about polls showing that many Britons want closer ties with the EU, Farage said: “We voted to leave. That was very, very clear. We can be friendly, we can be co-operative.”
He was pressed to explain what that means in practice.
“Well, I think the deal that was negotiated by the Johnson government wasn’t a very good one. We can improve on that.”
But Farage suggested that he would not back a new deal involving closer links, even if it ruled out more fishing access to EU boats.
“I do not see that any steps … back towards a failing European Union makes sense in a world that is changing very, very quickly,” he said.
"What does being friendly mean? We're not mates in a pub. Can you commit to something?"@Emmabarnett presses Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on what he would like to see in a relationship between the EU and UK post-Brexit.#R4Today
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) February 4, 2025
Ex-Tory MP reportedly joins Ukraine foreign legion in non-combat role
Jack Lopresti, a former Conservative MP ousted in the 2024 election has reportedly joined the International Legion in Ukraine in a non-combat role to help the fight against Russia. Jamie Grierson has the story.
Richard Fuller, the shadow chief secretary, said the YouGov poll showing his party in third place behind Reform UK and Labour (see 9.30am) showed voters were “very frustrated”. He accepted his party had to restore trust.
Fuller told Sky News:
People are very frustrated. They were very frustrated with the Conservative party ahead of the election, that’s why the Conservative Party ended up with its worst result.
But the party was now under new leadership, he said.
Clearly, we’ve got to learn lessons. That’s what Kemi Badenoch has said and it takes time for us to restore trust with the British public.
But the public now has seen the new government. They’re very frustrated. They think that Rachel Reeves is out of her depth. They think that Keir Starmer is a bit all over the place.”
They’re very frustrated. They’re not yet ready to say ‘we can see the Conservatives under new leadership are setting a new direction’.
YouGov poll showing Reform UK ahead highlights 'dire state' of Tories, says Labour minister
The YouGov poll showing Reform UK in first place for the first time (see 9.30am) highlights the “dire state” of the Conservative party, a Labour minister said.
Asked about the poll in an interview with Times Radio, Karin Smyth, the care minister, said:
We had a very big poll seven months ago [the election that Labour won].
I’ve seen a lot of polls come and go. I think it particularly highlights the dire state of the Conservative party at the moment as well. It’s a volatile time in politics. We understand that.
Smyth accepted that Labour did look at polls, but she said “we’re very much focused on what we’re trying to do at the moment”.
Labour dropped plan to ban foreign donors after Waheed Alli intervened, book claims
Labour reportedly dropped a plan to ban foreign political donations after an intervention from Waheed Alli, the Labour peer who paid for Keir Starmer’s clothes and glasses. Jessica Elgot has the story.
Thomas-Symonds says UK and EU to review Brexit deal in spirit of 'ruthless pragmatism' ahead of summit in May
Thomas-Symonds says Keir Starmer showed his commitment to working with the EU on security during his visit to Brussels yesterday.
On law enforcement, he says the UK wants more cooperation on tackling small boats and people smuggling.
And, on trade, he confirms that the UK wants a new sanitary and phytosanitary agreement (covering food safety rules), progress on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and more cooperation on energy and the green transition.
And he says Keir Starmer plans to meet Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, at a summit in May to resolve these issues.
He ends by again proposing “ruthless pragmatism”.
The time for ideologically driven division is over. The time for ruthless pragmatism is now. It is through a new partnership between the UK and the EU that we will deliver for the people of the United Kingdom and for people across the continent.
As Politco reports, the UK-EU summit is expected to be held in Britain. Last night António Costa, president of the European Council, suggested it would by on 19 May.
Updated
Thomas-Symonds says the UK government sees “real opportunities to improve the status quo” in the reset happening this year as the UK and the EU revise how their post-Brexit trade deal is working.
He says he intends to be a “ruthlessly pragmatic negotiator”.
And he says there will be three pillars to the UK’s reset with the EU.
This British government was elected on a mandate to strengthen national security by reconnecting with our allies, to increase people’s safety through strong borders, and to increase prosperity through growth.
Our European friends are a part of every single one of those priorities, and I believe it’s these priorities that form the three pillars of a reset in our relationship.
Allies like EU and UK 'more secure together than they are apart', says Nick Thomas-Symonds
Thomas-Symonds says the UK and the EU both know that “low growth is not the destiny of our economies”.
They are both committed to “research and innovation, reducing red tape, a new skills agenda, boosting productivity [and] a more resilient economy”, he says.
He goes on:
In a more uncertain world, we are regularly reminded that allies are more secure together than they are apart.
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of post-Brexit relations with the EU, is speaking now at the at the UK-EU forum’s annual conference. There is a live feed here.
Thomas-Symonds says the UK and the Eu share the same “mutal goal”, wanting a better relationship.
He says Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, recently gave a speech saying the government has set growth as its main priority. And he says on the very same day Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, was setting out her competitiveness agenda.
Reform UK overtakes Labour for first time in YouGov opinion poll
Good morning. A good rule of thumb in political reporting is that any news story about voter intention polling is wrong. That is because news stories, by definition, are about what new and what’s different, and polls that show anything unusual (or at least anything significantly unusual) are probably outliers. In polling, what matters is the trend (because polls are a reliable guide to voting trends) but not so much the actual numbers (where polling is much more hit and miss).
So it it is with some reservation that we start with YouGov polling, for the Times and Sky News, showing Reform UK in first place, and ahead of Labour for the first time in a leading national opinion poll. It has Reform UK on 25%, Labour on 24% and the Conservatives on 21%.
As Anthony Wells, head of European political and social research at YouGov, told the Times, the Reform UK lead is well within the margin of error, and it would be more realistic to see Nigel Farage’s party level pegging with Labour. Wells said:
We’ve had Labour and Reform extremely close over all our polls so far this year and this survey shows a narrow Reform lead,” he said. “While it remains within the margins of error it reinforces the fact that Reform is roughly equal in support with Labour with Conservative slipping back again.
So why cover it prominently? Because, while the figures may not matter much, the trend does, and this is confirmation that support for Reform UK has been growing significantly since the general election. Here is a poll tracker from Electoral Calculus.
This does not mean Farage is in poll position to be the next PM. The next election is years away, Reform only has five MPs and its surge is miniscule compared to the SDP’s in the early 1980s. The SDP-Liberal Alliance hit 50% in the polls at one point, but it got crushed by first-past-the-post at the 1983 general election and ended up with just 23 MPs.
But politics has changed a lot in the last 40 years, and even if Reform’s prospects of overtaking the two main UK parties still look slim, these figures will alarm MPs from both the Conservatives and Labour.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.40am: Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, gives a speech at the UK-EU forum’s annual conference.
10am: The Today presenter Nick Robinson interviews Wes Streeting, the health secretary, for a world cancer day event.
10am: Education experts, including the National Education Union, give evidence to the Commons education committee about the children’s wellbeing and schools bill.
11am: Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, gives a speech on how Stormont has been operating.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
11.30am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
2.30pm: Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.
2.30pm: Gareth Davies, head of the National Audit Office, gives his annual speech to parliament.
And in the evening Keir Starmer is having dinner in Downing Street with the Danish prime minister, Mette Fredriksen.
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UPDATE: The blog originally said this was the first time Reform UK has been ahead of Labour in a national opinion poll. I have changed the headline, and the wording in the second paragraph, because a colleague pointed out that Reform were ahead in a Find Out Now poll last week. Find Out Now is one of the newer polling companies, and is not as prominent in the market as companies like YouGov.
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