Tag Archives: Politics

Diane Abbott Has Not Been Banned From Standing For Labour, Says Keir Starmer

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Keir Starmer has said it is “not true” that Diane Abbott has been banned from standing as a Labour candidate at the general election.

The veteran MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington has been given the Labour whip back after a lengthy suspension.

But it has been reported she will not be allowed to stand for re-election as a Labour candidate in the seat she has represented since 1987.

Abbott said she was “dismayed” at the suggestion she would be blocked.

But speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Starmer said this was not accurate.

“No decision has been taken to bar Diane Abbott,” he said.

“The process that we were going through ended with the restoration of the whip the other day, so she’s a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and no decision has been taken barring her.”

Asked if repots that she had been banned, the Labour leader said: “No, that’s not true”

Abbott had the Labour whip suspended in April 2023 after she said Jewish, Irish and Traveller people were not subject to racism “all their lives”.

The former shadow home secretary, a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, apologised and withdrew the comments quickly.

BBC Newsnight revealed on Tuesday that Labour finished its investigation into her conduct five months ago, but publicly claimed that the disciplinary process was still ongoing.

Labour’s National Executive Committee wrote to Abbott in December issuing her with a “formal warning” for “engaging in conduct that was “prejudicial and grossly detrimental” to the party.

At the committee’s request, Abbott then completed an “online e-learning module” in February.

Starmer is under pressure to explain what he has said about the investigation. Last week he said Abbott was still “going through” and independent disciplinary process despite it having already concluded.

Abbott was the first black woman to be elected to parliament when she won her seat, which she currently holds with a majority of more than 33,000.

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Pro-Palestine Protest With Up To 10,000 People Stood Near Downing Street Last Night

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Up to 10,000 people took part in a pro-Palestine protest near Downing Street on Tuesday evening amid escalating violence in Gaza.

Demonstrators are calling for government action as the Israel–Hamas war continues to cause devastation in the Palestinian territory.

Israeli tanks moved into the city of Rafah this week, days after bombarding people staying in tents near the city and worsening the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

More than half of Gaza’s entire population had been sheltering in Rafah because Israel previously designated it a safe zone amid its eight-month offensive in the territory.

These events have caused outrage around the world.

Police estimate between 8,000 and 10,000 people attended the Westminster protest, organised by a coalition of groups including the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

The protesters want the government to stop supporting Israel and started a chant calling out Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer for not taking a firmer stance against the UK ally.

Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader who now stands as an independent MP, also made a speech at the protest.

He said anyone who wants to hold public office should be asked: “Are you going to be a voice to end the arms trade with Israel?

“Are you going to be a voice to stop the bombardment of Gaza?

“So that this massive movement that has come together, all over the country and all over Europe, all over the world in support of the Palestinian people, makes that difference, and makes that difference to be a voice for a different world – a world of peace.”

The protest began at 6pm and police called for it to end at 8pm using the Public Order Act.

But around 500 others remained and continued to protest after that time.

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: “Officers engaged extensively before making a number of arrests for failing to comply with conditions.

“As they moved in, some in the crowd resisted physically, requiring officers to use force to extract those who had been arrested.”

A breakaway demonstration soon formed outside Westminster Tube station.

Officers had to enter the crowd before 10pm to arrest those suspected of leading the separate protest.

By 2am, all the protesters had left and the street had been reopened, according to police.

Three officers were injured when dealing with the breakaway march and 40 people were arrested overall for a range of offences such as breaking the Public Order Act, assaulting emergency workers and obstructing a highway.

Pro-Palestine protests have been taking place around the world ever since the war began in October.

The renewed intensity of the attacks of Rafah has sparked a new wave of demonstrations, with protesters in Paris and Italy’s Turin marching until late into the evening.

Student encampments across the US and the UK have made headlines, too, as people call for their universities to cut all Israeli ties.

Meanwhile, the phrase “all eyes on Rafah” continues to spread across social media.

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Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey Falls Off Paddleboard ‘On Purpose’

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Ed Davey deliberately threw himself off a paddleboard on Tuesday, as the Lib Dem leader battled for attention in the first full week of the election campaign.

The Lib Dems have a long history of staging eye-catching stunts to avoid their message being drowned out by the Tories and Labour.

During a campaign stop at Lake Windermere in the Lake District, Davey took a paddleboard into the water then fell off it repeatedly.

Asked by the BBC is he had jumped in “on purpose”, Davey confessed: “Once I did. The rest I just kept falling in. But it’s fun.”

He said the “serious message” the party was trying to highlight was how sewage was damaging the UK’s beaches, rivers and lakes.

The Lib Dems were almost wiped out at the 2015 election following the coalition government and the have struggled to make gains since.

But the party scored a series of impressive by-election victories in the last parliament.

Davey has now tried to position the party as solidly anti-Tory. He said in many parts of the country it was a Lib Dem vote that was the “powerful vote to defeat the Conservatives”.

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Keir Starmer Blasts Rishi Sunak’s ‘Desperation’ And ‘Weakness’

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Keir Starmer has said he is fed up of “wasting” his life in opposition, as he attacked “weak” and “desperate” Rishi Sunak.

Speaking in West Sussex on Monday, the Labour leader said there had been a “smile on my face since January 1” because he “knew this was going to be election year”.

At the start of the first full week of campaigning, Starmer laughed off Tory attempts to copy Donald Trump’s insults by branding him “sleepy”.

“You’ve seen the energy that not only I but the whole team are putting into this election,” he told reporters.

“I’ve wasted nine years of my life in opposition. I have four and half years to change this labour party and now I have the chance to take that to the country.

“We’re doing that not only with the energy but also with a smile, with the positivity, across all of our candidates as we go into the next general election.”

Over the weekend a Conservative source told The Sun Starmer was “Sir Sleepy” and the Financial Times quoted Tory officials as branding him “Sleepy Keir”.

The attacks are an obvious aping of Trump’s attack on Joe Biden as “Sleepy Joe”.

Starmer sought to contrast his attempts to move Labour to the centre ground with Sunak who he said had shown “weakness upon weakness” when it came to standing up to right-wing Tory MPs.

“I have changed this Labour party, dragged it back to service, and I will do exactly the same for Westminster – that is the choice at this election: Service or self-interest, stability or chaos, a Labour Party that has changed or a Tory Party that has run away from the mainstream,” he said.

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Parents Could Be Punished If Children Refuse National Service, Suggests Minister

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Parents could be punished if their children refuse to sign up to the Conservative’s national service programme, a minister has suggested.

In an interview on Monday, Anne-Marie Trevelyan was asked if parents could be fined in the same way they are if their children skip school.

The Foreign Office minister did not rule it out, telling Times Radio: “I’m not going to write the detailed policy now, that’s what a royal commission programme of works will be for.

“The premise has been clear, we would bring in a National Service Act, so that would be in the same way that Labour did when educational training to 18 was brought in.

“The change in the law means that there will be a clear framework set out and we’ll look forward to seeing that roll out should we be fortunate enough to win the election.”

James Cleverly, the home secretary, yesterday said there would be “no criminal sanctions” for 18-year-olds who refused. “Nobody’s going to jail over this,” he said.

Labour has ridiculed the national service policy as nothing more than a “headline-grabbing gimmick”.

Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, dismissed it as a “teenage Dad’s Army”.

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No Jail For 18-Year-Olds Who Refuse National Service, Says James Cleverly

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James Cleverly has said 18-year-olds would not be sent to jail if they refused to take part in the Conservative’s national service plan.

Rishi Sunak has announced if he wins the election he will introduce the “mandatory” new scheme.

Under the policy, every 18-year-old would have to either join the military or spend one weekend a month carrying out a community service.

Labour has ridiculed the idea as nothing more than a “headline-grabbing gimmick”.

In an interview with Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme, Cleverly defended the policy.

“We want to build a society where people mix with people outside their own communities, mix with people from different backgrounds, different religions, different income levels,” he said.

“The bulk of this is about helping build a cohesive society where people mix outside their bubble.”

Asked what the punishment would be for people who refused, the home secretary added: “There’s going to be no criminal sanctions, nobody’s going to jail over this.”

The Tories have said their national service programme will cost £2.5 billion a year by 2029/2030.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “This is another desperate £2.5 billion unfunded commitment from a Tory Party which already crashed the economy, sending mortgages rocketing, and now they’re spoiling for more.

“This is not a plan – it’s a review which could cost billions and is only needed because the Tories hollowed out the Armed Forces to their smallest size since Napoleon.

“Britain has had enough of the Conservatives, who are bankrupt of ideas, and have no plans to end 14 years of chaos. It’s time to turn the page and rebuild Britain with Labour.”

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‘He’s Lost The Plot’: Tories Turn On Sunak As They Brace For Election Massacre

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It is perhaps fitting that the Conservative Party is ending this parliament just as it has spent much of the previous five years: bitterly divided.

Reactions to Rishi Sunak’s shock decision to call a snap election range from astonishment to anger to grim resignation.

“No one sees the reason for the rush and feel like he has lost the plot,” one senior Tory told HuffPost UK. “None of us are ready for this.”

Support was also far from unanimous as the prime minister told his cabinet on Wednesday afternoon that he had decided to go to the country on July 4.

But the PM’s mind was made up, despite the fact that Labour remain 20 points ahead in the opinion polls and election experts all agree that the Tories are heading for a historic defeat.

One minister said most Tory MPs are simply resigned to their fate, and hit out at his malcontented colleagues.

He said: “In the tearoom I see cheerful stoicism all round. I suppose the whingers are the ones who prefer a leadership contest to a general election.”

Another MP was happily laying bets that the Conservatives will still emerge as the largest party in the Commons.

“I’m glad the phoney war is finally over and we can get on with the election,” the MP said. “We will fight for every vote.”

A senior Tory aide summed up the schizophrenic nature of MPs’ response to Sunak opting for a summer poll.

“A week ago they all wanted it over and done with and now they are furious it hasn’t gone longer,” he said. “I strongly suspect vast majority are resigned to fate and don’t feel that strongly about it.”

The sight of a bedraggled Sunak announcing the election date in the pouring rain outside No.10 has summed up the Tory campaign so far.

That gaffe was further compounded on Friday when the PM inexplicably visited Belfast’s Titanic Quarter, thereby linking him in voters’ minds with the world’s most famous sinking ship.

Nevertheless, Tory bosses want to run a presidential campaign, urging voters to stick with the man who bankrolled the government’s response to the pandemic rather than take a risk with the untried Keir Starmer.

The problem with that approach, however, is that voters already seem to have decided that they want Sunak and the rest of his government ejected from office as soon as possible.

Chris Hopkins, political research director at pollsters Savanta, said: “The prime minister already had a mountain to climb in this election, with a massive polling deficit and Labour leading them on every policy issue.

“On top of this, Sunak himself is hugely unpopular with the public, and based on our research, so are his most senior ministers.”

Polling done by the More in Common think-tank in the wake of the election announcement, shared exclusively with HuffPost UK, shows that only 29% of voters see Sunak as an asset to his party, compared to 46% who don’t.

Jenna Cunningham, More in Common’s research and data analyst, said: “There’s no doubt that Rishi Sunak was a popular Chancellor, especially after the furlough scheme, but questions remain about the effectiveness of the current presidential campaign strategy when only three in ten voters think he is an asset to the Conservative Party.

The general feeling among senior Labour figures is one of bafflement at Sunak’s decision to call an election now rather than wait until the autumn.

“I don’t understand the logic,” one adviser to Starmer told HuffPost UK. “If he’d gone for May he could at least have masked the local election results. Summer seems to be the worst of all worlds for them.

“It could be that the economic conditions are much worse than they thought they were and Rwanda isn’t going to work as well, so he’s decided they couldn’t hang on any longer. But you can see why Tory MPs are furious about it.”

One word we are all going to be sick of hearing over the next six weeks is “change”. It was on Starmer’s lectern as he responded to the PM’s announcement and will be emblazoned on thousands of Labour posters on the run-up to polling day.

Labour want voters to think that only Keir Starmer represents "change".
Labour want voters to think that only Keir Starmer represents “change”.

Gareth Fuller – PA Images via Getty Images

“It’s very important that voters know that the only way to end the chaos of the last 14 years is to vote Labour,” said one party stretegist.

“The fact that the Tory campaign has so far been so chaotic – his ludicrous speech in the pouring rain and their MPs all saying he shouldn’t be doing it – just helps us to reinforce that message.”

At the moment, Labour’s main opponent seems to be complacency.

“We’re going to fight this campaign as if it’s still neck and neck,” said one insider. “We will be fighting to win day by day, week by week

“We need to fight as if the polls don’t exist.”

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Channel 4 Presenter Uses ‘Basic Economics’ To Debunk Reform Leader’s Latest Migration Claim

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Reform UK’s Richard Tice was torn apart on Channel 4 News last night when he tried to blame the NHS’s struggles and our economic woes on immigration.

Tice – who does not have a seat in parliament at the moment – said the Tories are terrified of his party splitting their vote, because Brits know the Conservatives have “broken Britain”.

He explained: “Slower healthcare, more health delays, ambulance delays, A&E delays, greater waiting lists – the greatest ever. Why?

“Because the huge extra pressure, because the Tories have betrayed Britain on mass immigration.”

The Conservatives vowed to cut migration, but recent stats showed net migration reached a historic high under Tory rule.

Channel 4 News’ Cathy Newman replied: “Well, the waiting lists could be just as much to do with the fact that we’ve got an ageing population, a sicker population.

“Migrants tend to be pretty young,” she pointed out.

“Actually it’s all to do with the extra surge in demand,” Tice said.

’What, the NHS waiting list?” Newman said with incredulity. “All the migrants are young, they’re not going to put particular pressure on…”

“So you’re saying that none of the 2.5m who have arrived here in the last two years, none of them are using the NHS? That’s ridiculous, Cathy. It’s a serious contributor,” Tice replied.

“No, I’m just querying your evidence for that,” Newman said.

“The evidence for that is… All elements of healthcare is a disaster,” Tice said.

Newman asked if he really believed Reform’s “net zero immigration” policy would actually boost the economy.

Tice said “absolutely”, and claimed that “basic economics” shows this would drives up demand for Labour.

But Newman hit back: “On the contrary, the basic economics is that the economy is fuelled by migration and that’s why successive administrations have allowed migration to flourish.”

The far-right party has only one MP right now – Tory defector, Lee Anderson – although Tice is standing in the Boston and Skegness constituency.

Nigel Farage, the party’s honorary president, was rumoured to be considering a return to lead Reform in a move expected to give the party a much-needed boost.

However, Farage claims he was “wrong-footed” by Rishi Sunak’s sudden election news and so has decided not to stand.

He said: “What I could not do in the space of six weeks… was to find a constituency from scratch and go around the country.”

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