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Treasury ‘Suppressed’ Access To Furlough Payments For Workers Sick With Covid

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Keir Starmer has hit out at claims that the government suppressed furlough funding for sick workers self-isolating at the height of the Covid pandemic.

The Labour leader waded into the row after it emerged that senior civil servants had complained that the Treasury was worried about publicising a relatively unknown provision in the furlough rules that allows temporary payments for staff forced to quarantine.

The Politico.eu website said it had seen emails, dated from January and February this year, showing that officials had complained about the failure to make employers and staff aware of the guidance.

“Furlough can be used to cover self-isolation, but [the Treasury] are reluctant to say this explicitly in guidance because it could lead to employees being furloughed who do not need to be,” one email read. “This is a live issue being worked through.”

One senior official explained in their complaint: “Incentive payments are too low to incentivise employees to take tests due to risk of loss of income.”

Both Downing Street and the Treasury insisted that the guidance was clear on the government’s own website that the furlough scheme had never been intended to be used as a substitute for statutory sick pay.

But Labour said the revelations were “shameful and reckless”, with Starmer adding he was “really concerned” about any suggestion of restricting cash help for home quarantine.

“One of the big issues for the 14 months or so we have been in the pandemic has been whether people feel that they can afford to self-isolate,” he told reporters during a visit to Airbus in Bristol.

“Self-isolation is a huge tool in the armoury when it comes to defeating the pandemic, but too many people felt that they couldn’t afford to self-isolate.

“We have been saying this for a year or more, so the idea now that this has been suppressed I think is so wrong in terms of how we fight this pandemic.”

Shadow Treasury minister Bridget Phillipson added: “It is shameful and reckless that the Chancellor ignored professional advice and put countless people and workplaces at unnecessary risk when he had the opportunity to help.”

The government guidance for firms makes clear that short-term illness or isolation “should not be a consideration when deciding if you should furlough an employee”.

But it adds: “If, however, employers want to furlough employees for business reasons and they are currently off sick, they are eligible to do so, as with other employees. In these cases, the employee should no longer receive sick pay and would be classified as a furloughed employee.”

Government sources said that the reason for the rules was that HM Revenue & Customs would have no mechanism or way of identifying those being furloughed for short term sickness, and it could open the whole scheme to fraud risk.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “The guidance on Gov.uk sets out that the furlough scheme is not intended for short-term absences from work due to sickness and self-isolation should not be a consideration when a business is deciding if a business should furlough an employee.”

A Treasury spokesperson added: “It has always been clear that the purpose of the furlough scheme is to support jobs – we’ve been upfront about that from the start.

“We have a specific support package in place for those self-isolating due to coronavirus, including £500 one off payments for those on low incomes.

“If an employer wants to furlough an employee for business reasons and they are currently off sick then they are eligible to do so as with other employees. This has been set out in guidance since April last year.”

Separately, Downing Street tried to play down reports that ministers would legislate to allow a legal right to work from home because of the pandemic.

“We’ve asked people to work from home where they can during the pandemic but there are no plans to make this permanent or introduce a legal right to work from home,” the PM’s spokesperson said.

“There’s no plans to make working from home permanent or introduce a legal right to work from home.”

But he added the government was committed in its manifesto to a possible default right to flexible working. “What we’re consulting on is making flexible working a default option, unless employers have good reasons not to.”

He defined flexible working as “a range of working arrangements around time, place and hours of work including part-time working, flexi-time or compressed hours” but not necessarily working from home.

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Why The Unite Election Has Lessons In Unity For Keir Starmer – And The Left

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“Two down, one to go.” That’s how a Labour MP reacted this week to the news that moderate Gary Smith was just elected to lead the GMB union. It was a reference to the fact that this year’s general secretary elections for the UK’s ‘big three’ trade unions – Unison, Unite and GMB – have seen two victories for candidates seen as friendly to Keir Starmer.

While Smith won the GMB contest on Thursday, earlier this year Christina McAnea saw off three more left-wing rivals in the battle to lead Unison. But although Unison is now the largest union in the country, it is the fight to succeed Len McCluskey that is seen as the race with the biggest prize. A clean sweep of ‘moderates’ would deliver for Starmer more union boss support than any Labour leader since the 1950s.

Of course, the contests are often more than a straight battle between ‘left’ and ‘right’. As a former Communist, McAnea is hardly a Blairite. She was however seen as the most pragmatic of the contenders for the Unison top job. Crucially, she also became the first female leader of a ‘big’ union, which was fitting given just how many women NHS, council and social care staff make up Unison’s membership.

Women make up more than half of the GMB’s membership and after an independent report found evidence of “institutional sexism” among its ranks, some had expected Rehana Azam to clinch the general secretary job. On his victory, Smith acknowledged the sexism findings and vowed to implement reforms. Still, some in the union claim the “women’s vote” was split after another candidate, Giovanna Holt, decided to stand.

In fact, “splitting the vote” is often a feature, whether deliberate or unintentional, of general secretary elections. Why? Because unlike virtually every other internal election (say Tory and Labour leader elections), they are run under first past the post rules. When McAnea won the Unison post, her vote was less than the combined total of the three leftwingers who stood against her.

And it’s that first past the post factor which is now very much in play in “the big one”, Unite. Centrist Gerard Coyne is up against three leftwing rivals (Steve Turner, Howard Beckett and Sharon Graham) and as a result could end up winning with less than half of the vote. As Turner conceded to me recently: “If we had the same turnout as last time, there ain’t enough votes to go round on a straight three-way [Left] split to defeat” Coyne.

Turnouts tend to be low in union elections (the GMB’s this week was just 10.6%, Unite’s last time was about 12%). That’s in part because the Conservative government has refused to allow online balloting (something that’s allowed in political party elections), partly because of a lack of public profile and partly apathy among union members.

But given the low turnouts, three Left candidates are often fishing in a small pool for the same votes. After Turner narrowly won last year the crucial nomination of the ‘United Left’ grouping in the union, Beckett opted to still stand. National organiser Graham was always going to stand in her own right too, which means the Left will indeed be split.

I understand that all four candidates now have enough branch nominations to formally stand as candidates. With the final deadline for nominations due on Monday, Coyne and Turner are holding back details for now, possibly to gain even more backing over this weekend. Graham was the first to reach the threshold, and Beckett “smashed” through it this week. There are no signs that any will step aside to unite around a single Left candidate but bragging rights over who has most nominations will be valuable.

Why does any of this matter beyond internal union affairs? Well, Unite has been Labour’s biggest donor in recent years and still retains a significant presence on the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC). Some even think the stakes are so high that this Unite election may have more long-term impact on the party than the May local elections, or even the forthcoming Batley and Spen by-election.

Beckett, who has been suspended from Labour over a tweet about Priti Patel, is almost certain to be reinstated after a reprimand, insiders believe. His supporters think he has the momentum in the race. And if Beckett succeeds McCluskey “he’ll make Len look like a pussycat”, one union source told me. He has already threatened to pull funding for Labour, tweeting his warning just minutes after the party’s Unite staff branch voted to nominate Coyne. Turner, a collegiate trade unionist by nature, has said he would happily work with Starmer.

Beckett’s Twitter controversy may well have helped him raise his profile in the Unite election. Similarly, Newsnight’s allegations of his role in moves to unseat Labour MPs may even boost his credentials among some left-minded union members. However, Coyne’s camp believe he’s the only candidate committed to introducing transparency in how Unite spends their money, be that on the £98m hotel complex in Birmingham or on paying more than £2m in libel costs to ex-MP Anna Turley.

Coyne may also be boosted by the little-noticed fact that in the Labour leadership election, Starmer won a majority of Unite members’ votes. As Steve Turner, who backed Rebecca Long-Bailey, put it to me recently: “We didn’t win the argument inside our own union…We won it amongst the politicos and that group that loves to talk to themselves…But in the real world out there, where 99.9% of our members reside, they’re not.”

And that’s really perhaps why the Unite contest matters. Many of its members, who like both Brexit and state spending, actually voted for Boris Johnson in 2019. If the new general secretary can somehow help Starmer reconnect with those voters, while somehow helping Labour to look more united (the clue is in the union’s name), many of his MPs would be grateful. For the party’s Left, unifying around a single candidate may be just as valuable a lesson too.

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Why The Catch-Up Czar’s Resignation Is Boris Johnson’s Problem

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This was meant to be a quiet week. Commons in recess, a ‘holding pattern’ on Covid, Whitehall treading water while it waits for the latest data on the pandemic. Aside from an update on foreign travel from Grant Shapps on Thursday, the big ‘event’ marked on the No.10 grid was today’s catch-up cash for schools. 

An emergency £1.4bn, on top of an extra £1.7bn already announced for pupils, could have been spun as a statement of intent, an interim measure pending a bigger funding settlement in the chancellor’s spending review later this year. But thanks to some great work by the Times, which exclusively revealed earlier this week just how much cash had been requested, the PR plan was smashed to bits.

Sir Kevan Collins, the catch-up czar, had wanted £15bn but instead got less than a tenth of that, at least in the short term. And his resignation words tonight blasted both barrels not just at the hapless Gavin Williamson (whose departure from Education in a reshuffle seems all but guaranteed), but also at Boris Johnson himself.

By referring explicitly to the failure to provide help to pupils in deprived areas in the north, Collins appeared to expose the PM’s “levelling up” agenda as a hollow trick played on all those who voted Tory in May. “In parts of the country where schools were closed for longer, such as the north, the impact of low skills on productivity is likely to be particularly severe,” he said.

It’s worth remembering that Collins was never going to be a government pushover. He is widely respected for his work in education, and as recently as March he told the education select committee that the £1.7bn first pledged was “not sufficient”. He wanted a comprehensive recovery plan, not a sticking plaster, so it’s perhaps no surprise he’s ripped it off to lay bare the wounds underneath.

This isn’t just about the education gap. For Johnson, this underlines once more the yawning gap between his rhetoric and actual delivery. Back in June 2020, he promised “a massive summer catch-up operation”, but nothing of the kind materialised. Yes, the fresh lockdowns knocked things even more off course, yet parents, pupils and teachers won’t easily forget the promises made.

This March, I remember vividly Johnson telling a No.10 news conference how much catch-up mattered. “The legacy issue I think for me is education,” he said. “It’s the loss of learning for so many children and young people that’s the thing we’ve got to focus on now as a society. And I think it is an opportunity to make amends.” If the PM can’t deliver on his own professed personal priority coming out of the pandemic, what chance do all the other policy areas have?

Critics will point out too that unlike other areas of government (social care, anyone?), there is at least a plan worked up by Collins to “make amends”. His bigger package was about extra teaching time, not just tutoring. Still, there are some in government who tonight are pointing out the idea of an extra half hour on the school day did not go down well with teachers.

The longer day was “not thought through” and not “evidence based”, both of which are red flags to the Treasury. Moreover, doling out £15bn – half the annual primary and pre-primary school budget – between spending reviews was seen as imprudence fiscal management. Allies of the chancellor insist this isn’t about being stingy. “If we just start signing off massive cheques outside of a formal process, there lies mismanagement of taxpayers’ money!” one says.

Yet ultimately the PM is, as he joked in recent months, the First Lord of the Treasury. If he’d really wanted a big, bold plan for education catch-up with big, bold spending to match, he could have got it. The political problem is that an independent expert in schooling has now delivered a damning verdict on Johnson’s central “levelling up” policy, or rather the lack of one

Collins has also made early years education his priority, stressing its social as well as academic benefit, and its underfunding in recent years. The Tories’ closure of SureStarts is perhaps one of their biggest policy errors in the past decade of austerity. Amazingly, Labour has failed to ram home that very point, and has shown a woeful lack of focus on childcare and early years (evidenced by Jeremy Corbyn’s priority of student tuition fees, but under Starmer there’s been no real grabbing of the agenda either).

A cynic might say that the expected grade inflation in this year’s GCSE and A-level exam results will smooth over the problem. But if metrics emerge that younger children of all backgrounds are falling behind expected benchmarks, the lack of a proper “catch-up” or “recovery” plan will be received bitterly by parents who struggled with the home-schooling imposed on them this past year.

It’s possible Johnson will again wriggle out of this latest tight spot. But remember that two of the biggest U-turns forced on him over the past year both involved education: the A-levels fiasco and free school meals. And both were issues of competence.

Collins’ resignation may have gifted Starmer his most powerful weapon yet, offering at the next election a simple way to sum up broken Tory promises and incompetence. Whether Labour can capitalise is another matter.

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Boris Johnson’s In A Holding Pattern On Covid, But Is Keir Starmer Too?

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Just six days ago, Matt Hancock’s name was mud, his reputation ground into the dirt by Dominic Cummings’ onslaught. Today, the health secretary returned to his bouncy ways as he seized on the news that the UK reported not a single death from Covid for the first time since last July. “The vaccines are clearly working,” he said.

Yet while it may look to some as if Hancock has gone from zero to hero in less than a week, he himself added a note of caution about “cases continuing to rise”. Although in Bolton there is early evidence of levelling off of cases of the ‘Indian’ variant, nearby Blackburn, Rossendale, Ribble Valley and Hyndburn are all seeing spikes.

Although case numbers are low overall, it’s no wonder many in government are concerned. Week on week, cases have gone up more than 31% and, crucially, hospitalisations by more than 23%. That’s two of the lights on the government’s dashboard flashing red, just as the zero deaths figure is flashing a healthy green (down 10% on the week). Given the lags we are all by now familiar with, those deaths may not stay zero in coming weeks.

Despite the concern, Boris Johnson is not worried enough to give anyone an update on whether his planned June 21 unlocking will go ahead as planned. In our Lobby briefing today, we learned he didn’t even brief his spokesman beforehand. All the spokesman would do was point us towards the PM’s cake-and-eat-it words on the pandemic last Thursday (the “current” data didn’t suggest any need for delay “but we may need to wait”).

The problem with relying on the PM’s words from five days ago is that, well, a week is a very long time in Covid politics. Johnson got married on Saturday and spent Sunday and Monday on a “mini-moon” – a phrase that sounds like a brief display of his buttocks, but is a very short honeymoon, apparently (though perhaps it means both). It all feels a bit like the early pandemic, when his marital concerns (a divorce then, a wedding now) mean Covid is on the backburner.

And in many ways, it feels as if the government machine is not very interested in saying much about Covid for the rest of this week. Grant Shapps has his travel update on Thursday but few expect much change. Michael Gove’s reviews of covid certification and social distancing look either dead on arrival or delayed to June 14. Jonathan Van-Tam said two weeks ago we would have a “ranging shot” of the transmissibility of the Indian variant by last week. It looks like that estimate may not materialise this week either.

With the Commons in recess, there seems to be a generalised holding pattern going on, in political and policy terms. The public seemed to have more of a sense of urgency about Covid than the PM this weekend, with thousands of young people queuing for their jab outside Twickenham stadium when they could have just packed the pubs.

But the virus doesn’t take a parliamentary recess or a bank holiday break. The rise in case numbers is concerning the most even-handed of scientists. The Bank of England hoped for a V-shaped economic recovery this year, but some current graph projections look worryingly V-shaped on Covid cases. Scotland and England are on the same trajectory, though Wales (which has 10% more people given first doses) is not.

The uncertainty is perhaps why Nicola Sturgeon essentially paused her own roadmap today. While the public have not been told any updates on the Indian/delta variant’s transmissibility, maybe Sturgeon has? I understand Keir Starmer is currently holding off calling for any delay to the June 21 unlocking date, until after he gets a private briefing from Sage.

Starmer’s main problem is that no matter what he says, or how correctly he calls it, the public may not be listening. “Keir’s first 16 months have been the politics of the pandemic, and his next eight months may be the politics of the pandemic. It’s very, very difficult,” one insider says. More than anything Labour says or does, Starmer’s team are acutely aware that the Batley and Spen by-election next month could reflect vaccine jab numbers, whether voters can order a drink at the bar and where they can go on holiday.

In the meantime, what Starmer can hope to do is show the public what kind of man he is, as well as what kind of politician. His latest Piers Morgan’s Life Stories interview on ITV tonight shows him choking back tears as he talks about his disabled mum, his strained relationship with his dad, and the death of his wife’s mother. The New Statesman had some fascinating polling last week that 37% of voters say they just don’t know enough about him to make a judgement yet. His team see that as a huge opportunity, not a weakness, and believe interviews like this could shift that dial.

Picking a popular ITV programme was a smart move for Starmer because he needs to reassure a key demographic that he’s a walking, talking human being. Moreover, Labour’s lingering problems with working class voters were highlighted not just in Hartlepool but in London on May 6. While Sadiq Khan made gains with some upper middle class voters, this fascinating breakdown by Lewis Baston points to swings towards the Tories in key council estate areas in deprived parts of the city.

Like many working class kids who went on to do things their parents never dreamed of, he’s clearly uncomfortable with any idea he would exploit his private life for public consumption. Yet in many ways, Starmer embodies the aspiration story (dad a factory worker, son highest prosecutor in the land) that Labour needs to reconnect with voters it has lost.

While the Covid narrative dominates all our lives, Starmer has to keep reminding us he’ll be ready for the moment the conversation moves on to something else. With politics more volatile than ever, it’s even possible he too could move from zero to hero if he can use this May’s election defeats to show a sense of urgency for change.

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Piers Morgan To Grill Keir Starmer In Special Episode Of Life Stories

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Piers Morgan has announced he’s set to interview Labour leader Keir Starmer as part of a special episode of his ITV talk show Life Stories.

The hour-long interview is set to be filmed next month, and will cover the leader of the opposition’s childhood and career in law, as well as the past year of leading the Labour party in lockdown.

Following the announcement, Piers said: “It’s very unusual for party political leaders to submit themselves to such lengthy personal interviews and I am delighted that Sir Keir has agreed to talk to me about his fascinating life.

“It promises to be a memorable and very revealing Life Stories show.”

ITV’s head of entertainment, Katie Rawcliffe said the forthcoming interview “promises to be a real treat for our ITV audience.”

There’s no official airdate for Starmer’s episode of Life Stories yet, but ITV has said it will air “in the coming months”

Starmer’s interview will be the first with a party leader on Piers’ show since the broadcaster interviewed Gordon Brown when he was prime minister in 2010.

House of Commons – PA Images via Getty Images

Keir Starmer

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Why Union Boss Elections Are As Crucial As ‘Red Wall’ Votes For Keir Starmer

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Aaron Chown – PA Images via Getty Images

Howard Beckett, assistant general secretary of Unite, is among those vying to replace Len McCluskey

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

Bob Crow, the late boss of the RMT transport union, was undoubtedly a controversial figure. 

London commuters late for work due to seemingly endless Tube strikes would curse his name. Politicians and journalists who clashed with the left-wing firebrand would call him a “dinosaur” or, owing to his whopping £142,000 salary, a “champagne socialist”. 

But when Crow died suddenly in 2014, it was notable how tributes came from not just those sympathetic to left-wing politics but from across the political spectrum. 

Even Boris Johnson, then the Tory mayor of London, recognised Crow “fought tirelessly” for better pay and conditions and that he thought his former foe “a man of character”.

Obviously, no self-respecting union leader would want to be seen getting too cosy with Conservative politicians. 

But how Crow was regarded in the political sphere stands in sharp contrast to Howard Beckett, one of the candidates to replace Len McCluskey as general secretary of Unite. 

Keir Starmer moved to suspend him from the Labour Party for saying home secretary Priti Patel, a British-born minister of Indian heritage, “should be deported”. 

Beckett apologised to Patel but remained defiant during an interview with Sky News on Friday, refusing to withdraw from the Unite race and saying his suspension was “completely inappropriate”. 

He added he did not “literally” mean the minister should be deported and was “sorry if” that was not clear to those that read his hastily-deleted tweet. 

While the assistant general secretary claimed he had not been informed of a suspension, Labour sources insist an email was sent and his union informed. 

Unite, meanwhile, does not appear to have taken any action, telling HuffPost UK he “has correctly and unreservedly apologised”, while offering no further comment. 

Beckett’s is the just the latest in a long line of bad headlines and divisive interventions from union chiefs in the seven years since Crow’s death. 

And many of them have targeted not the Conservatives, but Labour. 

McCluskey accused former deputy leader Tom Watson “sharpening his knife looking for a back to stab” and said Starmer faces the “dustbin of history” if he does not change direction. 

The FBU’s Matt Wrack has hit out at Starmer for “watering down” policies and Labour MPs for undermining former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

TSSA boss Manuel Cortes repeatedly went public to hit out at Corbyn for Labour’s “Brexit fudge” when the party was in turmoil over its policy on a second referendum in 2018.  

Former GMB general secretary Tim Roache stood down last year citing ill health and has faced claims of impropriety, which he denies. Separately, an independent report found the union to be institutionally sexist. 

In the minds of voters, all this friendly fire points to more left-wing division and Labour leaders not in control of their party’s agenda. 

Fresh elections this year for the leadership of Unite and GMB follow Christina McAnea’s election as the first female general secretary of Unison in January. 

With Peter Mandelson calling for union reform, these races are just as  important for Starmer’s Labour Party, if not more, than any parliamentary by-election. 

A new era of Labour blood-letting and a “war of the roses” between MPs and the union movement splashed across every newspaper is not likely to boost the electoral hopes of Corbyn’s successor.

Though said to be “McCluskey’s right hand man”, Beckett is unlikely to emerge victorious in the Unite race, however. Some believe he may struggle to even make the ballot.

The contest is between Steve Turner, a figure who prefers to keep his powder dry until behind closed doors, and moderate Gerard Coyne, who pointedly told HuffPost UK that Unite can no longer be Starmer’s “backseat driver”.  

Whoever leads a union affiliated to Labour will have a voice and a platform. But, as Crow proved, how they use that influence will be their legacy. 

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‘Time For Blair’ Is Trending And Everyone Knew What To Do

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With the Labour Party in turmoil following the loss of the Hartlepool by-election and the subsequent botched shadow cabinet reshuffle, questions are being asked about the leadership of Keir Starmer.

Does the former Director of Public Prosecutions have the charisma to match Boris Johnson? Could anyone realistically do better against a government spending lots of money and successfully vaccinating its population against a deadly pandemic?

As many wrestle these questions and more, one man has an answer: Time for Blair. 

That’s the simple solution proposed by Andrew Adonis, the former Labour Cabinet minister in the 2000s who now sits in the House of Lords.

The proposition on its surface is pretty simple: bring back the man who steered Labour to a hat-trick of general elections, a man with a proven track record of success. 

And he boiled it down to just three words. And used it again.

The polls, however, don’t quite see it that way, with Andy Burnham and Jeremy Corbyn regarded as better placed than TB.

But the argument seemed lost on most who engaged with the idea on Twitter, and there seemed to be three directions to take it.

The most popular was to reference Blair’s foreign policy, and implicit in all of them was the war in Iraq. 

A second was to apply the maxim to the more trivial moments in life. 

Or deliberately get confused about which famous Blair is being referenced.

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Starmer Warned Ducking Brexit ‘Not Viable Strategy’ As Pro-EU Campaign Launched

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Leon Neal via Getty Images

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer 

Keir Starmer has been warned Labour cannot duck challenging Boris Johnson over Brexit as pro-EU campaigners launched a new platform to monitor damage to the economy. 

Brexit Spotlight will track how withdrawal from the EU hits the UK, from the loss of workers’ rights and free movement, to science funding, jobs and new regulations. 

The initiative by Another Europe Is Possible is aimed at pressuring politicians on the left into backing closer ties with Europe in future. 

After Leave voters in seats across the midlands and north backed Boris Johnson at the 2019 general election, Labour MPs voted for the Conservatives’ trade deal with Brussels in December. 

Starmer has since said rejoining the EU was “not realistic” and there was no scope for “major renegotiation” of the government’s deal. 

But pro-EU Labour members, most of whom backed Starmer in the Labour leadership election, are thought to be increasingly frustrated at the party’s approach and want to see Johnson’s deal scrutinised. 

The new site will monitor Brexit’s impact “in real time” and also focus on the environment, exports and human rights, as well as feature exclusive investigations and research. 

Laura Parker, a member of Another Europe is Possible’s national committee and a former national coordinator of Momentum, told HuffPost UK: “The fallout from Brexit is going to dominate our politics for decades to come, and if last week’s elections demonstrated anything, it was that refusing to talk about the issue is not a viable strategy – for Labour or for anyone else.

“Places like Hartlepool voted Tory because they have been neglected for decades and then sold a lie about immigration being to blame rather than this deliberate, chronic under-investment.

“English nationalism is the force which Boris Johnson will use to mobilise his new voter base; Labour and the wider progressive left must learn to put forward a positive alternative.”

Gareth Fuller – PA Images via Getty Images

Another Europe is Possible organiser Michael Chessum addressing protesters in central London

The Office for Budget Responsibility said in March that Brexit was likely to shrink the UK economy by 4% over the next 15 years. 

Labour MP Nadia Whittome said the party should respond to Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda by referencing Brexit’s impact.

She said: “The real effects of leaving the EU have only just begun to be felt. The government wants to use Brexit to create a race to the bottom on rights and living standards, destroying decades of progress to benefit the super-rich and giant corporations. 

“Attacks on workers’ rights and environmental standards will hurt all of us, regardless of whether we voted Leave or Remain, as will job losses and toxic trade deals which bring down our food standards.” 

There were signs Labour was willing to task the government to task on Brexit, however, with new shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves telling ministers on Thursday voters “haven’t heard a word still about this government’s vision of how we will become global leaders in manufacturing and industry outside of the European Union”. 

She said: “They are lacking in ambition, and they are in denial about what businesses need to thrive in a new environment.”

Michael Chessum, Another Europe is Possible’s national organiser, said: “Brexit is already an unfolding disaster – and not just for the people who opposed it. Farmers, fishers and exporters are already facing ruin, and as the process continues so will many of the people who voted Leave. 

“This project is about exposing that reality in real time, so that the effects of Brexit are not just a series of disconnected shocks, and building a case for a much closer relationship with Europe in the future with regulatory alignment and free movement at its heart.”

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Keir Starmer’s Commons Aide Carolyn Harris Quits Amid Briefing Row

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Carolyn Harris

Keir Starmer’s parliamentary aide has quit amid claims that she spread groundless rumours about fellow MPs’ private lives.

Carolyn Harris resigned from her post of parliamentary private secretary (PPS) after a formal complaint was made by a senior MP about her conduct, HuffPost UK has been told.

The departure of the Swansea East MP, who is also deputy leader of the Welsh Labour Party, was seen as the latest fallout from a bitter briefing war over Starmer’s shadow cabinet reshuffle and his decision to “sack” deputy leader Angela Rayner as party chair and campaigns chief.

In a statement issued by Starmer’s office, she said: “It has been the proudest moment of my career to co-chair the campaign that saw Keir Starmer elected as Labour leader, and to serve as his PPS for the past year.

“Stepping back from this role is the right thing at this moment, coming as it does after some trying personal times and an ever-increasing workload as deputy leader of Welsh Labour. I have enjoyed every minute, and look forward to supporting Keir the best way I can in the months ahead.”

It is understood that Harris, who has made no secret of her combative approach to the leader’s critics within the party, sparked a backlash with recent briefings about shadow cabinet ministers’ alleged disloyalty and about MPs’ personal lives.

The Times, which first broke the news that she was stepping down, alleged that Harris had spread “salacious rumours” about colleagues.

One frontbencher told HuffPost UK: “She’s been stirring it about shadow cabinet members, among the PLP, for weeks. She’s been spreading it about in the [Commons] tea room, everywhere. And she’s finally been caught red handed this weekend.”

“The job of PPS is to be the ears and eyes of the leader, not the mouth,” one senior MP said. “She was playing too high a profile role, throwing her weight around, interfering rather than feeding back what the PLP felt. Listen, assess, report, that’s the job.”

Another said: “It felt like Keir wasn’t fully aware of what she was up to, or at least I hope he wasn’t. It would be much worse if he sanctioned it.”

Starmer is now on the hunt for a new PPS. “We need to stop thinking of PPSs as some new intaker, and maybe appoint someone who’s been around a bit,” one backbencher said. “Amiable, clubbable, friends with everybody, that’s what you want.”

Relations between the Labour leader and his deputy soured badly on Saturday night when she learned from the Sunday Times of a plan to fire her from her campaigns role.

At one point, Rayner was tempted to go public with her anger at being apparently made a scapegoat for Labour’s poor local elections performance in parts of England.

Starmer used the Queen’s Speech debate in the Commons to joke about his recent showdown with Rayner over her move to a new role, saying a “black belt” in martial arts would be useful for “the next shadow cabinet meeting”.

Boris Johnson jibed that Rayner, whose authority in the party was enhanced by several new roles including shadow first secretary of state, was a “lioness” who was likely to become hungrier “the more titles he feeds her”.

Sitting opposite, she gestured that she had her eyes on the Tory leader, and later wrote on Twitter: “The only title I’m hungry for, Boris Johnson, is Deputy Prime Minister.”

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5 Key Takeaways From The Local Election Results

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Most of the results are now in and the parties are now conducting their post-mortems of the “super Thursday” local elections.

The Tories were the big winners in England, gaining control of 13 councils and adding 240 councillors, at the time of writing when 140 of 143 councils had declared.

Labour meanwhile had a terrible election, losing control of eight councils as the party shed 318 councillors, prompting Keir Starmer to embark on a shadow cabinet reshuffle.

But with elections of metro mayors across England, and for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments also taking place, the full picture is more complex.

With the help of YouGov’s Patrick English and Tory polling expert Lord Hayward, here are the five key things you need to know:

1. Labour turmoil in the ‘red wall’

Owen Humphreys – PA Images via Getty Images

Boris Johnson in front of a giant inflatable of himself as he meets and newly elected Tory MP Jill Mortimer at Jacksons Wharf in Hartlepool

There were bitter recriminations in Labour after it lost a slew of council seats and the crunch by-election in the so-called “red wall” seat of Hartlepool, which the party had held since the constituency’s inception in the 1970s.

Labour also lost control Durham, the county of the miners’ gala and a previous bastion of support for the party, and endured “staggeringly bad” losses in the likes of Rotherham, according to Hayward.

English says these losses to the Tories in working class Leave-voting areas are a continuation of the realignment of British politics that followed the Brexit vote in 2016.

And they are a stinging indictment of Starmer’s strategy to win back ex-Labour Brexit supporters who deserted the party for the Tories en masse in the 2019 general election and handed Boris Johnson a huge parliamentary majority.

The Labour leader is now facing an internal battle for Labour’s future, as he prepares to embark on a shadow cabinet reshuffle to refresh his top team amid a backlash over the sacking of his deputy Angela Rayner from her party chair job.

Plenty are now also asking whether Labour can ever recover, or whether the party is finished as an electoral force.

2. Glimmers of hope?

Hollie Adams via Getty Images

Starmer leaves home on Saturday morning

There were small glimmers of hope for Labour, with the party performing well in Wales where it secured an effective majority and “stemmed the tide of Leave voters flooding away to the Conservatives”, according to English.

The party also did well in so-called “blue wall” traditionally Tory seats, but which voted Remain in 2016 and are now beginning to turn to Labour.

Starmer is likely to be pleased with Labour taking the West of England and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralties.

And there were signs of a “Brighton effect” stretching out across the south coast as Labour took a swathe of seats on Worthing council, according to Hayward.

Starmer’s party even won a county council seat from the Tories in Chipping Norton, in the affluent Cotswold area where former prime minister David Cameron lives.

Labour can at least begin making up ground on the Tories thanks to these types of university-educated, Remain voters, as voters continue to turn British politics on its head.

But “in terms of the mathematics there are not enough blue wall areas to gain a majority in a general election, absolutely not”, English says.

“If Keir Starmer is looking for silver linings, he got beaten 5-2,” the pollster adds.

“Okay, you got hammered, but you scored two goals.”

3. Green surge

Labour supporters may want to look away now, because they have another problem with the Greens enjoying a good day across England.

The party has 14 seats on Bristol council, with the city still counting remaining areas, helped push Sheffield into no overall control following the long-running tree-felling row, and has done well in the suburban home counties.

Hayward says this is “a problem” for Labour as the Greens are “showing signs of being able to do well in towns and cities as the alternative [to Labour]”.

English meanwhile talks of a “pincer movement” with Labour losing seats to both the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.

But the Greens are also appealing to different kinds of voters, and have taken more seats from the Tories than Labour, according to English.

“They are winning seats off everyone all over the country, including in places where Labour couldn’t even dream of winning,” he says.

“And they are building these coalitions of voters who are very different types.

“It would be really daft to think that they are just young, hippy, liberal voters and old tree huggers who vote for them, it’s not.”

4. High profile Tory mayors dig in

Ian Forsyth via Getty Images

Re-elected Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen with health secretary Matt Hancock

While Labour looked set to win 11 of the 13 mayoralties being contested in cities and metropolitan regions across England, the party’s heavy defeats in former strongholds in the West Midlands and Tees Valley provided more evidence of the Brexit alignment.

Andy Street was re-elected in the West Midlands with more than 48% of the vote, embarrassing Labour challenger Liam Byrne, who suggested he could win easily.

And Ben Houchen’s thumping victory in Tees Valley with 73% of the vote inspired Johnson to reportedly leave a voice note for the current toast of the Tory Party saying: “You’re just showing off now with that majority”.

English says: “Is it because the Conservatives are flooding money into these places so the mayors can campaign on it?
“Or you could flip it around, and the Conservatives would say that’s just evidence the mayors have done a bloody good job, securing money for their areas.

“There are general incumbency effects as well – once you’ve got a mayor in there and they have done a good job, they are going to get rewarded.”

5. Scottish independence

Perhaps the most significant result of them all was north of the border, where Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP fell just short of the overall majority that would have made her calls for a second independence referendum even more difficult to ignore.

However, there is a majority in Holyrood for another referendum, thanks to the pro-independence Greens picking up eight seats to add to the SNP’s 64.

In response, there are signs that the UK government’s position on a referendum may be softening slightly.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove made clear on Sunday that now was not the time for an independence vote, with the UK recovering from coronavirus.

But he pointedly refused to say the Westminster government would go to the Supreme Court to block referendum legislation from Holyrood, and stopped short of an outright rejection of another vote in an interview with ITV Scotland.

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