Category Archives: david lammy

Rachel Reeves Sacked As Andy Burnham Axes Keir Starmer Loyalists In Brutal Reshuffle

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Rachel Reeves has been sacked as chancellor as Andy Burnham axed a raft of Keir Starmer loyalists from cabinet.

In a brutal reshuffle, the new prime minister also dumped David Lammy, Peter Kyle, Steve Reed, Lord Hermer and Liz Kendall.

They are expected to make way for key Burnham supporters, including Louise Haigh.

It is understood that she was offered “a big job” by Burnham but turned it down.

Announcing her departure on X, Reeves said it had been “the privilege of my life to serve as the Chancellor of the Exchequer”.

She said: “The economy today is stronger, fairer and more resilient because of the choices we have taken as a Labour government over the past two years.

“Stability restored, investment delivered and reform to our economy under way. I said when I was appointed chancellor that I would judge my time in office if the lives ordinary working class people have been improved. I’m proud to say that they have.

“And to every young woman and girl let my time in office show there should be no ceilings on your ambitions, your hopes or your dreams.

“I wish the very best of luck to my successor, Andy and his cabinet. You have my full support, and I will continue to play my part in helping this Labour government deliver the change the country needs.”

Lammy, who was Keir Starmer’s deputy PM as well as justice secretary, said he “would have been proud to continue serving” in the cabinet, but had been sacked.

He said: “A new prime minister is entitled to build his own team, and I wish Andy Burnham and the new cabinet every success.”

Housing secretary Steve Reed, one of Starmer’s staunchest defenders, said he was “disappointed to be leaving government now”.

Kyle, who was business secretary, was another Starmer ally ousted as Burnham’s draws up his own top team.

Lord Hermer, who was Starmer’s attorney general, also said it had been “the privilege of my life to serve my country”.

“I will continue to support this Labour government from the backbenches, as it delivers the change this country desperately needs,” he said on Bluesky.

“Andy and his team know they have my utmost support and I wish them nothing but success.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost UK on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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Lammy Effortlessly Demolishes Farage’s Claim To Be Anti-Establishment With Brutal Putdown

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David Lammy tore into Nigel Farage during deputy prime minister’s questions on Wednesday over the Reform UK leader’s decision to trigger a by-election.

The Clacton MP dramatically declared that he was resigning, only to run again in a “people versus establishment” contest in his constituency yesterday.

The announcement came as Farage faces a growing list of questions about his finances.

He is currently under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner for failing to declare a £5 million “gift” he received from a crypto-billionaire shortly before he ran for parliament in 2024.

Farage could face further probes for not declaring his entire property portfolio to parliament or for the support he quietly took from “posh” George Cottrell.

It recently emerged the convicted criminal offered Farage funding for staff, security and the use of his London townhouse before he became an MP.

Farage has denied any wrongdoing and claims to be the victim of an “establishment stitch-up”.

But, in the Commons on Wednesday, Lammy – who was representing the government while Keir Starmer is away at the Nato summit in Turkey – questioned Farage’s claim of being a man of the people.

Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper kicked off the conversation by asking Lammy if Farage’s resignation should be delayed until after the probe into his undeclared gifts.

She joked: “The honorable member for Clacton used to say leave means leave, but it seems his latest stunt is to leave this place so he can return as a fully-fledged member, after not just one referendum on his behaviour, Mr Speaker, but possibly two.”

The deputy PM replied: “Everyone can see that the Reform leader is just trying to distract from the fact that he is up to his neck in sleaze.

“He’s got serious questions to answer and he can’t run away from them.

“Labour isn’t going to be part of this circus.

“I hear it’s the people versus the establishment – the city trader, Putin-admiring, professional politician who is pals with crypto billionaires versus Count Binface.”

All other political parties have decided not to run a candidate against Farage in Clacton, leaving only comedy candidate Count Binface to compete against the Reform leader.

That triggered yet more laughter in the Commons, to which Lammy said: “There have been unqualified joke candidates in the past. Let’s see what the people of Clacton decide.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

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‘He Should Be Ashamed’: Lammy Tears Tory MP Apart For Joking About Arson Attacks Targeting Starmer

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David Lammy told the Conservatives’ deputy chairman he should be “ashamed of himself” after he mocked the arson attacks targeting Keir Starmer.

Two Ukrainians set alight to the prime minister’s family home and his car in 2025 after being recruited online by a Russian-speaking Telegram user “El Money”.

Roman Lavrynovych, and Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc were convicted of conspiracy to carry out arson attacks on Monday.

But on Tuesday, Matt Vickers joined Talk’s Peter Kyle in laughing at the incident.

The Tory MP joked about the far-right conspiracy theory that the two Ukrainian nationals found guilty of conspiring to carry out the attacks on Starmer’s property and car were “rent boys”.

So when Vickers stood up to ask about the high rates of unemployment during deputy prime minister’s questions, Lammy hit back by pointing out the MP had been “laughing and joking” about the arson attacks against Starmer only yesterday.

Standing in for Starmer, Lammy said: “I must say to this Tory deputy chairman, yesterday he was on television laughing and joking about the arson attack on the prime minister’s home.

“Laughing about a firebomb targeting the prime minister and his family.

“Not only that, he joined with promoting conspiracies about the attack and laughed along to demeaning, homophobic remarks.

“He should be ashamed of himself.

“My advice to him is to grow up, apologise, and do considerably better.”

Vickers just shook his head from the Commons’ opposition benches.

Labour chair Anna Turley later said: “It is frankly sickening that anyone would seek to laugh and joke about an appalling attack on a fellow politician’s family home.

“To do so on the same day as we stood in unity to mark the anniversary of our dear friend and much missed colleague Jo Cox, is beyond the pale.

“Matt Vickers is not fit to be an MP and if Kemi Badenoch had an ounce of integrity or respect for the safety of those who seek to serve the public, she would do the right thing and sack him today.

“Just two days ago, Kemi Badenoch rightly called out the perpetrators of the vile attack against the Prime Minister. Some issues go beyond the rough and tumble of Party politics. If she fails to act now, her words clearly will have meant nothing.”

When asked for his take on the story on Talk on Tuesday, Vickers did begin his interview by acknowledging the serious concerns around Russian influence in the UK and the subsequent impact on security.

However, he soon added: “The idea that there some secret Russian effort to destabilise the country via the prime minister… I mean, you’d leave him in office!”

Kyle laughed loudly while Vickers continued: “Let him destroy the country! Don’t distract him, because he’s doing a pretty canny job of blowing himself up.”

Referring to the false rumour spread by Russia around the attacks, Kyle asked: “Were they rent boys?”

“I’m not familiar with them,” the MP replied, smiling.

Kyle said: “His front door was firebombed wasn’t it? Why are you laughing? It wasn’t his back door, it was his front door.”

The presenter then turned to the backlash to the PM’s attempts to introduce a social media ban for under-16s, adding: “He’s trying to bring a social media ban in through the back door quite quickly, isn’t he?”

Vickers struggled to stop his laughter.

A Tory Party spokesperson said: “If you’ve got an issue with the content of the programme, I suggest taking that up with Jeremy Kyle.”

He said party leader Kemi Badenoch had outright condemned the arson attacks on Tuesday.

The spokesperson said: “If you listen to what he actually says, the content of his words isn’t actually saying anything wrong. He laughed on that part, he was purely polite to the host of a radio programme.”

Watch the Talk interview here:

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

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Labour MP Attacks Plan To Scrap Most Jury Trials After Revealing She Was Raped

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A Labour MP has condemned David Lammy’s plan to scrap most jury trials after revealing for the first time that she had been raped.

Charlotte Nichols accused the justice secretary of using victims as a “cudgel” to force the controversial reforms through.

The government wants to get rid of juries in cases where the sentence is expected to be less than three years.

Ministers say the move is necessary to clear the huge backlog of court cases in England and Wales.

But critics say the planned reforms, contained in the Court and Tribunals Bill, will remove a fundamental right while not actually solving the problem.

During a Commons debate on the bill, Nichols said she had waited 1,088 days for her case to get to court.

The MP for Warrington North said: “Every single one of those days was agony, made worse by having a role in public life that meant that the mental health consequences of my trauma were played out in public, with the event that led to my eventual sectioning for my own safety still being something that I receive regular social media abuse from strangers about to this day.

“But here’s the kicker, in this debate, experiences like mine feel like they’ve been weaponised and are being used for rhetorical misdirection, for what this bill actually is.

“The violence against women and girls sector haven’t had the opportunity to come together to discuss it, and the government’s framing and narrative has been to pit survivors and defendants against each other in a way I think is deeply damaging.

“We have been told that if we have concerns about this bill, it is because we have not been raped or because we don’t care enough for rape victims.

“The opposite is true in my case, it is because I have been raped that I am as passionate as I am about what it means for a justice system to be truly victim focused.

“It is because I have endured every indignity that our broken criminal justice system could mete out that I care what kind of reform will actually deliver justice for survivors and victims of crime more widely.”

She added: “There is so much that we can be doing for rape victims that isn’t [David Lammy] using them as a cudgel to drive through reforms that aren’t directly relevant to them.”

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‘Lammy Must Ditch Plan To Scrap Jury Trials Or Face Embarrassing Defeat’, Warns Senior Labour MP

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David Lammy’s forced announcement last week after the apparent accidental leak of his plans to scrap some jury trials came as a shock to Labour backbenchers.

There was reference in our election manifesto to addressing the Crown Court backlog which grew exponentially under the previous government, but there was never any suggestion that we, the Labour Party, would ever consider doing away with the rights of those accused of serious crimes to be tried by a jury of 12 good men, women and true.

Not least when current justice ministers, including the Lord Chancellor, have made very public statements pleading the case for juries in criminal proceedings, to be maintained. After all, juries have existed in the English (and Welsh) legal system for over 800 years.

Threatening to restrict jury trials is both a dereliction of duty and an ineffective way of dealing with a crippling backlog of cases. The erosion of jury trials not only risks undermining a fundamental right, but importantly, will not reduce the backlog by anything like enough to speed up justice for victims and those that are accused and prosecuted by the Crown.

If this ever comes to the House of Commons, I will rebel and vote against it, and I think the government would be defeated on this issue. The House and the public will not stand for the erosion of a fundamental right, particularly given that there are more effective ways to reduce the backlog.

Sir Brian Leveson is a well-respected figure whose words carry much weight but even Sir Brian is not wedded to this idea. But the outcry from stakeholders in the criminal justice system must not be ignored.

Our system rightly prevents the judiciary from speaking out on such matters, but when you have the Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association united in their opposition to these destructive plans, then it is easy to work out what judges and recently-retired judges are saying to lawyers when they are speaking privately.

Karl Turner MP
Karl Turner MP

Houses of Parliament

These warnings need to be heard and acted upon before it is too late. Let’s be honest now, the problem (which is massive) was not caused by juries and it will not be solved by their removal. If this is not ditched, then the government risks another embarrassing defeat.

Labour MPs deserve better from the prime minister to have us marched up the proverbial hill to be marched back down again and then have us pretend that we were never asked to do the unthinkable in the first place. Parliamentarians from across the political divide recognise the constitutional importance of trial by jury and the danger of their erosion from public life.

Backbench MPs see this as a step too far, and no responsible parliament can allow a cornerstone of justice and our democracy to be savagely attacked on the basis that the government is actually doing something to fix the problem when in fact anybody that is anybody, practitioners, academics or the judiciary itself know full well that these plans will not do what it says on the tin and will most definitely not protect and promote the interests of victims of crime.

“If this is not ditched, then the government risks another embarrassing defeat.”

The Lord Chancellor would be better promising less and doing more. There is much to do. The government chief whip is a good and well-respected MP, but he isn’t Paul Daniels – the chief whip’s best magic trickery cannot magic the inevitable rebellion away.

One of the primary causes of the backlog is the restriction on ‘sitting days’, the number of days Crown Courts operate a year. Around 130,000 sitting days are available to the courts, but, despite a capacity crisis, sitting days are restricted by around 20,000 a year.

While the government has rightly announced that it is increasing the number of sitting days by 5000, this is still a substantial shortfall. This inexplicable misuse of court time needs to be rectified.

The parliamentary timetable for these wrongheaded proposals is most likely to be the second half of next year, perhaps October or November. If the emergency is now, then why isn’t the justice secretary arguing for time on the floor of the House now?

Why, if it is so very urgent and just about reducing the backlog, won’t David Lammy put in a sunset clause on the face of the bill so that this policy can be scrapped once the backlog is down to a manageable number? At which time he himself would revert to saying that “criminal trials without juries are a bad idea, you don’t fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair”.

And why not start using the promised £550 million for victims support service immediately? The government doesn’t need primary legislation for that. There isn’t a backlog in every court centre. Certain courts have managed to delete any backlog to manageable numbers by proactive case management. Let’s look at the model before we throw out the baby with the bath water. The government should reconsider this now, before lasting damage is done to public confidence in our courts, the justice system and this government.

Karl Turner is the Labour MP for Kingston-upon-Hull East

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Exclusive: Labour Rebels Believe They Can Defeat Starmer’s Plan To Scrap Jury Trials

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Labour rebels believe they can defeat their own government’s controversial plans to scrap some jury trials, HuffPost UK has learned.

Justice secretary David Lammy provoked a major backlash when he unveiled the policy last week.

Under the reforms, jury trials will be scrapped for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years.

Those cases will be heard by a lone judge in a newly-created Crown Court Bench Division.

The most serious offences such as murder and rape will continue to be dealt with by juries.

Lammy said the changes, which are backed by Keir Starmer, would help to clear the huge backlog of cases in the courts and deliver swifter justice for victims.

But critics say it would undermine the right of accused people to be tried in front of a jury, and will not clear the courts backlog either.

Labour rebels are confident that, when it comes to a vote in the House of Commons, they would be able to overturn the government’s majority of around 160.

One MP told HuffPost UK: “Even normally-loyal MPs are deeply uncomfortable with it.”

Another rebel said: “There’s no way this ridiculous policy will ever get on the statute book. The PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) will not wear it.”

Former frontbencher Karl Turner, who is a lawyer, posted on X: “I’m confident there enough of us to stop this utterly ludicrous proposal. Numbers are growing from those that are not considered the ‘awkward squad’.”

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I’m confident there enough of us to stop this utterly ludicrous proposal. Numbers are growing from those that are not considered the “awkward squad”. I am also aware that the PM has had others write to him that are not on my list. But they will be in the event that we need them. https://t.co/Ysnw5qDEuJ

— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) December 7, 2025

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I’m confident there enough of us to stop this utterly ludicrous proposal. Numbers are growing from those that are not considered the “awkward squad”. I am also aware that the PM has had others write to him that are not on my list. But they will be in the event that we need them. https://t.co/Ysnw5qDEuJ

— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) December 7, 2025

Despite Labour’s landslide victory at last year’s election, Starmer has struggled to force through unpopular policies because of opposition from his own MPs.

The government was forced to ditch plans to slash £5 billion from the welfare bill in the face of a huge backbench rebellion.

Pressure from Labour MPs also forced No.10 to U-turn on the decision to axe winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners, while Rachel Reeves announced in the Budget that the two-child benefit cap is being scrapped, despite previously claiming it was unaffordable.

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