Starmer says Israel’s strikes against Lebanon ‘are wrong’, as he makes statement to MPs about Iran war
Keir Starmer is making his statement to MPs now about the Iran war, and his trip to the Gulf last week.
He says in all his meetings with Gulf leaders he discussed deepening the UK’s commitment to their defence.
He says the ceasefire is welcome, but also “highly fragile”.
A lot of work is needed to reopen the strait of Hormuz, and to have a sustainable ceasefire, he says.
And he says the ceasefire must cover Lebanon.
Israel’s strikes “are wrong”, he says.
Key events
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Starmer refuses to back call from ex-ambassadors for tougher measures against Israel over illegal West Bank settlements
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Ed Davey says Trump has shown he’s ‘dangerous and corrupt gangster’, as he revives call for state visit to be cancelled
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Badenoch says UK should be clear ‘whose side we are on’ in Iran war
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Starmer says Israel’s strikes against Lebanon ‘are wrong’, as he makes statement to MPs about Iran war
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Anas Sarwar says cutting NHS waiting times would be priority as he publishes Scottish Labour’s manifesto
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Streeting claims Reform UK ‘hiding true intentions’ over NHS
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Your Party ‘deeply flawed and dying’, say its Scottish executive committee members as they quit en masse
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Farage says Orbán voted out because 16 years in power ‘too long’, dismissing claims it’s defeat for Reform UK-style politics
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Streeting claims accuses BMA resident doctors’ committee of ‘holding country to ransom’ with strike threats
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Farage dismisses suggestions that Trump posting pictures of himself as Jesus is evidence of cognitive decline
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Reform UK would not let Holyrood hold second independence referendum, Farage says
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Kwarteng claims Farage’s £2m investment ‘historic moment for Britain’s bitcoin future’
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Labour criticises Farage over £2m bitcoin investment through Kwasi Kwarteng’s crypto firm
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Starmer says UK and France will this week co-host summit on multinational plan to safeguard strait of Hormuz when war ends
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Tories claim Farage’s plan for ‘Boriswave’ inquiry amounts to ‘circular firing squad’ given ex-ministers now in Reform UK
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Labour urges HMRC to investigate Tice’s tax affairs
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Southport attack blamed on ‘catastrophic’ failures by agencies and killer’s ‘irresponsible’ parents
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Farage says he’s ‘satisfied’ with Tice’s response to allegations his firm broke law by failing to pay tax
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Farage says Badenoch disowning last government’s migration policies shows why you should ‘never trust the Tories’
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Farage says closer alignement with EU single market would be ‘total betrayal of Brexit vote’
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Farage defends Richard Tice over allegations his firm broke law by failing to pay tax, saying Tice paid up in personal capacity
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How government experts assess impact of legal immigration as positive – contrary to claims made by Reform UK
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Zia Yusuf says ‘Boriswave’ migration surge was political scandal, and Reform UK would hold national inquiry into it
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Farage claims allowing ‘Boriswave’ migants to get citizenship and claim benefits would lead to ‘catastrophic’ costs
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Starmer says addictive scrolling features will ‘need to go’ as part of plan to protect children from social media
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Energy price shock means typical household on course to be £480 worse off this year, Resolution Foundation says
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Starmer signals he will stay on as PM regardless of what happens in May elections
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Badenoch says aligning with single market rules, but staying out of EU, ‘worst of both worlds’
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Government shift on intelligence evidence could revive delayed Hillsborough law
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Fried nuggets and steamed sponges off menu in school food overhaul in England
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Starmer defends proposed law letting Britain align with EU regulations easily, saying ‘closer relationship with Europe’ vital
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Starmer confirms UK will not support US blockade of strait of Hormuz
Starmer refuses to back call from ex-ambassadors for tougher measures against Israel over illegal West Bank settlements
Debbie Abrahams (Lab) asks if he agrees with the former UK ambassadors that the government should impose blacklist firms involved in building Israeli settlements in the E1 area on the West Bank, and suspend trade concessions with Israel because of the settlement building.
She is referring to this letter in the Guardian.
Starmer said that he set out his position on this a few weeks ago. He is referring to his evidence to the Commons liaison committee, where he condemned the actions of the Israeli settlers, but sidestepped calls for tougher sanctions.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, put it to Starmer that he had not mentioned the illegality of Donald Trump and the Israeli actions in the Iran war.
And he asked why Starmer was not announcing energy protection measures. Ireland has announced support, he says.
Starmer accused Flynn of being “opportunist”.
Ed Davey says Trump has shown he’s ‘dangerous and corrupt gangster’, as he revives call for state visit to be cancelled
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, condemns Donald Trump.
He refers to Trump’s threat last week to wipe out Iranian civilisation. And he goes on:
These words are a stark reminder of how reckless, immoral, and completely outside the bounds of international law this president is.
Regrettably, he is no friend of the United Kingdom. He’s no leader of the free world. He’s a dangerous and corrupt gangster, and that is how we must treat him.
He urges Starmer to call off the statee visit. He says he is afraid of what Trump might say with the king standing beside him.
Starmer says what Trump said about killing a civilisation “was wrong”
A threat to Iranian civilians in that way is wrong. These are civilians, let’s remember, who suffered immeasurable harm by the regime in Iran for many, many long years. And that’s why they’re words and phrases that I would never use on behalf of this government, which is guided by our principles and our values throughout all of this.
But Starmer defends the state visit. He says the king can sustain bonds that have lasted decades.
Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, says her “blood ran cold” when she heard an Israeli minister says Gaza would be the model for the intervention in Lebanon.
Starmer repeats his point about the need for Lebanon to be included in the ceasefire.
Starmer is replying to Badenoch.
He criticises her initial support for getting involved in the Iran war.
He also criticises Badenoch for going back on what she used to say when she was in government about the importance of switching to renewals.
And he says the armed forces were hollowed out when the Tories were in power. So he will resist her offer of cooperation, he says.
Badenoch suggests its time to put party interests aside.
Labour MPs laugh (because, even by leader of the opposition standards, Badenoch is particularly partisan – and loath to agree with Labour on almost anything.)
Badenoch says she is glad that Labours are laughing, because it means people can see they do not want to cooperate.
She says the two parties should cooperate on a plan to increase defence spending.
Badenoch says the government should take rapid action to get fuel bills down.
It should scrap the planned fuel duty increase for September, and allow the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas developments in the North Sea.
Badenoch says UK should be clear ‘whose side we are on’ in Iran war
Kemi Badenoch is responding now.
She says the government must rapidly solve the energy crisis, and make sure the country is able to defend itself.
A nuclear-armed Iran would be an existential threat to the UK, she says.
She says Britain must know whose side it is on.
We should be in no doubt whose side we are on in this war – our allies in the Middle East and the United States.
Starmer ended by saying it is also necessary to boost the UK’s defence capacity.
Starmer says oil and gas will be part of the UK’s energy mix for decades to come.
But the UK does not set the global price, he says.
And that is why the government must hasten the switch to renewables.
Starmer says the energy price cap is down for this quarter.
But an energy shock is not a new experience, he says.
In the past, “the response each time has been to try to return to the status quo”, he says.
This time, Britain’s response must be different, he says (reviving the argument that he was making last week).
Starmer says he wants the strait of Hormuz open.
The impact of the war is visible in the prices shown on garage forecourts, he says.
He says opening the strait will not be easy.
Shipping companies will not sent vessels through it until it is safe to do so.
He confirms that the UK and France will host a summit on this this week. (See 12.57pm.)
It will be about the diplomatic efforts, and about practical measures to protect shipping.
Starmer says Israel’s strikes against Lebanon ‘are wrong’, as he makes statement to MPs about Iran war
Keir Starmer is making his statement to MPs now about the Iran war, and his trip to the Gulf last week.
He says in all his meetings with Gulf leaders he discussed deepening the UK’s commitment to their defence.
He says the ceasefire is welcome, but also “highly fragile”.
A lot of work is needed to reopen the strait of Hormuz, and to have a sustainable ceasefire, he says.
And he says the ceasefire must cover Lebanon.
Israel’s strikes “are wrong”, he says.
Anas Sarwar says cutting NHS waiting times would be priority as he publishes Scottish Labour’s manifesto
A UK Labour government will always work with the Scottish government, Anas Sarwar has said. As the Press Association reports, the Scottish Labour leader launched his party’s manifesto this morning in Edinburgh, with the 94-page document offering very little in terms of new policy pledges. PA says:
Throughout the campaign, Sarwar has faced questions over his relationship with prime minister Keir Starmer – whom he urged to stand down just weeks ago.
He would seek a collaborative relationship with Downing Street if elected as first minister after the 7 May election, he told party faithful at the event, despite the cooling of his once close relationship with the occupant of Number 10.
Speaking to PA after the event, Sarwar said the suggestion his relationship with Sir Keir had broken down was “nonsense”.
“I’ve made my views clear, I stand by my views, I don’t recoil from my views, but I will always do what’s in the best interests of Scotland,” he said.
Sarwar said he did not question the prime minster’s integrity and is certain he wants to “do what’s best by our country”.
Pushed on whether he could have that relationship with Starmer, Sarwar said: “I’m confident that a UK Labour government would, of course, work with the Scottish government to deliver for Scotland.”
The party put the health service at the heart of its policy pledges, with the drive to cut waiting times in the NHS described as “the main thing” by Sarwar.
“As someone that has worked in our NHS – I was an NHS dentist before coming into politics – the NHS is personal to me and that’s why fixing the NHS, making sure it’s fit for the future and cutting waiting lists, is so important,” he said.
“Are there other priorities too? Yes. But if you’re asking me specifically the one I’m most passionate about, it has to be the NHS, because that’s in my DNA.”
Despite Sarwar’s optimistic tone, the party has been lagging behind in the election campaign, with polling putting them in a battle with Reform UK for second place with the SNP well ahead.
But the party leader has resolved to prove wrong those journalists and commentators who have written his party off.
Asked if he would resign if he failed to do so, Sarwar said: “It’s your job to hypothecate, it’s my job to persuade.
“I’m going to spend the next three-and-a-half-weeks persuading people that Scotland needs change, because after 20 years of SNP government, they’ve lost their way.
“I’m asking people to give me five and, in those five years, I will demonstrate that the NHS can work, I will demonstrate that we can have an education system that’s there for our young people.
“I will demonstrate our skill system can give opportunities to all our amazing young people, I will demonstrate that we can end homelessness and eradicate rough sleeping and I will demonstrate that we can have a government with the right priorities stops the waste and respects people’s money.”
The document makes a raft of pricey pledges, including £5.3bn to build more than 50,000 affordable homes; £2bn for rail infrastructure; and more than £600m for 2,000 teachers and 1,500 classroom assistants.
All of which, the party said, could be funded through existing forecasts for the budget, but it appears to fail to reckon with the almost £5bn blackhole looming in the Scottish government’s budget by the end of this decade.
“We’re really clear that these are fully costed commitments that are within the portfolio and envelope available to the Scottish government,” Sarwar said.
The party is also aiming to cut taxes in the next parliament if a Labour government is able to increase economic growth.
A review of the Thistle safe consumption room in Glasgow was among the new pledges, but was not touted by Sarwar from the stage in Edinburgh.
There are four ministerial statements in the Commons after 3.30pm. They are: Keir Starmer on the Middle East; Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, on the Southport inquiry; Stephen Doughty, the Foreign Office minister, on the Chagos Islands deal; and Al Carns, the defence minister, on Russian activity in the North Atlantic.
The latest episode of the Guardian Politics Weekly UK podcast is out. It features Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot talking about the election in Hungary, the UK aligning more with the single market, and the latest developments in the strait of Hormuz.
Streeting claims Reform UK ‘hiding true intentions’ over NHS
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
Wes Streeting has challenged Nigel Farage to “come clean” on how much a Reform UK government would charge patients to use healthcare as Labour sought to make the future of the NHS a dividing line in upcoming elections.
The health secretary used a speech at the offices of the IPPR to highlight the absence thus far of a named Reform UK front bench spokesperson on health, saying: “That might be because if Farage becomes prime minister, there will be no NHS.”
Battles about the NHS dating back to its very origins were having to be fought again, said Streeting, who added that a political consensus which had been in place for decades was now fraying as he accused the Conservatives and other “siren voices” of claiming that the NHS should be abandoned.
However, he reserved most of his criticism for Reform, using past quotes by Farage including his support for moving to a more insurance-based healthcare system and opposition to the NHS being funded from general taxation.
Streeting posed a series of questions for Farage, including on how a government led by him would pay for the administrative costs of an insurance system via higher taxes or cuts.
Farage and his gang know what National Health Service means to this country. It is no coincidence that the Vote Leave campaign plastered the NHS on the side of a bus – they knew how to tug on the nation’s heartstrings.
These same charlatans who sold us a pack of lies during the Brexit campaign are now hiding their true intentions for our National Health Service.
Asked at a Reform UK press conference why he had less to say about the NHS than about other issues, Farage said that the party was working on policies in the area and was in talks with a prominent figure who had been involved in “turning around” an NHS Trust. Farage said:
We are going to, of course, put forward some radical ways of getting better bang for buck for the British people of the National Health Service.
And, contrary to what Labour will tell you, or the Tories will tell you, we’re not going to privatise it or charge you. But it’s not working well, and the more, the higher percentage of GDP, we put into health, the fewer hospital beds we have.
The tax expert Dan Neidle says Nigel Farage misrepresented what he has said about Richard Tice’s tax affairs at his press conference this morning. (See 12.22pm.) In a post on social media, he says:
I hope @Nigel_Farage retracts this false statement.
I did not say Mr Tice paid the full amount. I said we don’t know what tax Mr Tice and his offshore trust paid.
And the “little bit more” is an invention.
Your Party ‘deeply flawed and dying’, say its Scottish executive committee members as they quit en masse
Your Party, the leftwing party led in parliament by Jeremy Corbyn, has lost the leadership of its Scottish wing.
All 12 remaining members of the party’s interim Scottish executive committee (ISEC) have resigned, complaining about the way Scotland was being sidelined by the party’s UK leadership. Your Party was “deepy flawed and dying”, they said. Niall Christie, Scotland’s representative on the party’s central executive committee (CEC), has also resigned.
The final straw was a CEC meeting where proposals to allow Your Party Scotland to operate with a degree of independence were ignored.
In a statement, the outgoing members of the ISEC said:
As a result of this consistent denial of autonomy for Scotland, and a willingness by the UK leadership to sideline an entire nation by withholding funding and mailing lists and refusing to engage, we have, after careful thought and consideration, taken the collective decision to resign our positions on ISEC, having found ourselves completely blocked when we attempted to carry out the clear mandate set for us by members from across Scotland.
No serious attempt to unite the left can be done through purges of socialists or by disregarding entire nations and their representatives. It is clear that these are fatal blows to the Your Party project from which it cannot recover.
Despite this generational fumble of the left in Britain, the need for a new party on the left in Scotland couldn’t be more urgent, and it is our clear intention to continue working towards this. We call on others who share our vision to join us in doing so over the coming weeks and months, as the reality of a rising far-right and its representatives joining our national parliament set in. Simply put, the best time for change has passed, but the next best time is now. In Scotland, we intend to continue building that change, but to do so outwith the constraints of the deeply flawed and dying Your Party.
And Christie said:
It has become clear the party has run out of road. This is in no small part down to the consistent disrespect shown to Scotland and Scottish members, with decisions about us being made without our input, and on our behalf.
