Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Thursday

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Carla Denyer quits as Green party co-leader

The eco-activists are back in the news this morning after Carla Denyer announced she will not stand again as co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales. The parliamentarian has claimed she will instead focus her energies on her MP role after leading the environmentalists for the last four years alongside co-leader Adrian Ramsay. While Denyer achieved the party’s best result ever in winning her Bristol seat last year – ousting Labour frontbencher Thangam Debbonaire in the process – it hasn’t all been plain sailing in recent months… This morning Carla Denyer announced she will not stand again as co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales The

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Could Reform become the official opposition in Scotland?

To Scotland, where some rather curious polling has been published – suggesting that after next year’s Holyrood election, Reform UK could become the largest opposition party north of the border. The Survation survey for True North projects the current party of government, the SNP, will become Scotland’s largest party – taking a third of the constituency and regional list vote and winning 58 seats – with Nigel Farage’s lot leapfrogging both the Tories and Scottish Labour to end up in second place, taking a fifth of the vote to end up with 21 seats. It’s quite the turnaround! Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour lot may be punished at next year’s poll

Owen Matthews

Ukraine’s Victory Day drone swarm is dangerous for Putin

Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on 9 May should mark a triumphal double apotheosis for Vladimir Putin. Not only will it be the 25th Victory parade since the beginning of his presidency, but is also the 80th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany, which Putin has appropriated as a fundamental ideological pillar of his regime. Yet instead of marking the absolute high point of Putin’s reign, the traditional military parade on Red Square will be shadowed by jeopardy and haunted by the ghosts of future failure.   The Russians are apoplectic that Zelensky has so far ignored the unilateral three day ceasefire around Victory Day that Putin proposed last

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Could Trump’s UK deal start a golden age of free trade?

We had the shock of ‘Liberation day’ when punitive tariffs were levied on imports from virtually every country in the world. That was the destructive part of Donald Trump’s trade war. Now we enter phase two: trying to put things back together again. The announcement of trade deal with a ‘big and highly-respected country’ (believed to be the UK) on Thursday morning is significant not just in itself but because Trump added the suggestion that this will be ‘the first of many’. His strategy has become clear: last month’s tariffs were shock therapy intended to precipitate a round of trade deals which would rebalance trade in America’s favour. They were

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

What would a US trade deal mean for the UK?

Later today, Donald Trump is reportedly set to unveil a trade deal with the UK. He’ll make the announcement alongside ‘a big and highly respected country’ which is said to be Britain. If the reports are true then it would make the UK the first country to secure a deal since Trump’s tariff turmoil began.  The announcement will come at 3 p.m. UK time and could be worth billions in what would be an unarguable win for Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer.  Britain has already been somewhat shielded from the president’s wrath (and tariffs) because our trade in goods with the Americans is pretty much balanced (roughly £59 billion each way).

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is the US-UK trade deal a coup for Starmer — or Trump?

It’s musical deals in world politics at the moment. Last week, Donald Trump and his senior officials intimated that a big new trade accord with India was imminent. Yet on Tuesday, Keir Starmer announced that he had reached a major agreement with Delhi. Then, late last night, the New York Times reported that Trump will today announce a beautiful new deal with the United Kingdom.  The British embassy in Washington has yet to comment. But earlier, Donald Trump had written on social media: The President loves announcing deals more than anything: the symbolism is what counts ‘Big News Conference tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M., The Oval Office, concerning a MAJOR

John Charmley

How Churchill shaped our view of the second world war

When Winston Churchill told Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at Tehran that history would treat them kindly, he spoke with the certainty of a man who would write that history. Churchill’s The Second World War has not only shaped our view of that war, but also of Britain’s place in the world that followed it. From Anglo-American relations, through to the role Britain ought to play as Greeks in the new Roman empire, Churchill set the tone for successive British prime ministers. It is only now, 80 years after VE Day and with the dawning of the age of Trump, that some aspects of his account are coming to

Francis Pike

For most of the world, VE Day did not mean peace

While drinking, dancing and laughter were the order of the day in Britain on the VE Day, things were not so hunky dory in Germany. At the liberated Belsen concentration camp situated 65 miles to the south of Hamburg, nurse Joan Rudman cut a depressed and lonely figure. She recalled: ‘One could hardly think of peace when there’s so much human misery here.’ Meanwhile for many Germans, there were mixed feelings. Relief that the war was ended combined with bitterness and a sense of humiliation. These were feelings that led to most Germans blotting out their memories of this period. In Germany is known as Tag der Befreiung (day of

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Kemi shouldn’t play the Trump card

I doubt I’m alone among Spectator readers in feeling a certain slight but nagging discomfort when I hear those on the left in British politics tearing into the present President of the United States. Why so? one asks oneself. Have I a shred of sympathy with this monster? No. Can I do other than deplore the attitudes and personal behaviour of this moral toad? Of course not. Do I for a minute agree with the way he’s handling the presidency – that machine-gun fire of executive orders and constitutional improprieties?’ By no means. Could I by any stretch of the imagination endorse the preposterous policy goals Donald Trump is wont

Douglas Murray

Our politicians find truth more painful than fiction

Do you remember the great Adolescence debate? It may feel like an age ago, but way back in March Netflix released a drama about a 13-year-old caucasian boy who stabs a female classmate to death. For a time it was one of the most watched shows on Netflix. British politicians and opinion writers spent weeks chewing over this entirely fictional programme. What could we learn about the epidemic of white 13-year-old boys from decent two-parent families killing their female schoolmates? Should everyone watch it? Should anyone who hasn’t watched it be hounded from public life? Soon Keir Starmer was convening a roundtable meeting in Downing Street about it: ‘As a

James Heale James Heale

The changing face of Nigel Farage

On Monday night, a hundred Reform staff and donors met at a Marylebone pub to toast the local election results. A jubilant Nigel Farage addressed his troops, who ran up a five-figure bill. They had good reason to celebrate. With 30 per cent of the vote, Reform crushed Labour (20 per cent) and the Tories (15 per cent). They won 677 wards, ten councils and a fifth MP in the Runcorn by-election. Certain results were particularly satisfying: in Ed Miliband’s Doncaster North, Reform won more seats than any other party. Three speeches defined Reform’s campaign. First, there was the Birmingham rally at the end of March. Farage arrived on a

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The Reformation is here

These are dark and bewildering days for Britain’s community of Good People, the ones who – insulated from material discomfort through large incomes and in many cases large inheritances – believe that everything can be accomplished simply by being kind and, further, by wearing one’s kindness as a badge which on the surface proclaims gentility and compassion but which, not very far below, is a polite voice insisting: ‘I am considerably richer than you, which is why I have these beliefs.’ These are the people who could not possibly vote Reform UK because it would be akin to having an avocado bathroom suite, or net curtains, or a bright-yellow Nissan

Gus Carter Gus Carter

Welcome to Scuzz Nation

Reform’s success in last week’s local elections has been attributed to many causes. Labour’s abolition of the winter fuel payment for pensioners. The hollowing out of the Conservative party’s campaigning base. Nigel Farage’s mastery of social media. But if you want an emblem of why voters turned their back on the political establishment let me give you Goat Man. In one ward in Runcorn, the seat Labour lost to Reform by just six votes, residents found that no one would listen when a neighbour filled his derelict house with goats and burned the animals’ manure in his garden. Despite repeated appeals to authority, no action was taken. If the council

Wednesday

The Spectator

Coffee House Shots Live: The local elections shake-up

As a subscriber-only special, get exclusive access to The Spectator’s local elections live post-match analysis with host Spectator editor Michael Gove, former Conservative minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and Chairman of the Reform party, Zia Yusuf, deputy political editor James Heale and political correspondent Lucy Dunn.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Starmer used Kemi’s words against her at PMQs. It worked

Kemi Badenoch tried two ambushes at PMQs. She lambasted Sir Keir Starmer for cutting the winter fuel allowance and leaving old folks to shiver through the coldest months of the year. But Sir Keir claimed that he was merely trying to stabilise the economy. Kemi accused him of balancing the books ‘on the backs of pensioners.’ Sir Keir Starmer blamed his favourite cavity at PMQs, the ‘black hole’ Good start. Kemi has waited a long time to lead on this issue and the clamour of dissent grows daily. She read out a list. The mayor of Doncaster, the Welsh first minister and various grumble-bunnies on Labour’s backbenches are united against

Lucy Dunn

Reform looms large for Scotland’s Unionists

The last twelve months in Britain have seen a general election, leadership contests, council polls, mayoral races and even a parliamentary by-election – and the next year isn’t looking to be much quieter as the Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections loom. The starting gun was fired on the race for Scotland’s Holyrood poll today, as party leaders from all sides of the Chamber took to podiums across the country to make their pitches to the public.  Speaking from Edinburgh this morning, SNP First Minister John Swinney celebrated an anniversary of his own: his first year in the top job, after he replaced his beleaguered predecessor Humza Yousaf in April last

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Neither Starmer nor Badenoch got what they wanted from PMQs

Keir Starmer wanted to spend Prime Minister’s Questions talking about the UK’s trade deal with India, while Kemi Badenoch – and later SNP leader Stephen Flynn – wanted to attack the government’s energy and welfare policies. Neither side really succeeded in its aims: Starmer ended up shoehorning the trade deal into random answers, while Badenoch didn’t exactly get the prime minister on the ropes. But the session did show how many bruises Labour has available for its critics to punch. The Tory leader led on whether Starmer accepted that his government was wrong to have removed the winter fuel payment. He insisted that Labour had to fix the ‘black hole’

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Senior Tory MPs and peers call for recognition of Palestine

Well, well, well. The conflict in the Middle East has caused splits among the Labour lot and now it seems serious divides are forming in the Conservative party over the issue. As reported by the Guardian, it transpires that more than a dozen senior Tory MPs and peers have broken ranks and written to Sir Keir Starmer calling for the UK to immediately recognise Palestine as a state. The seven MPs and six House of Lords grandees have signed a letter that insists ‘recognising Palestine would affirm our nation’s commitment to upholding the principles of justice, self-determination and equal rights’. Yet this is very much not the stance of the

James Heale James Heale

Do the Tories hate free trade? Plus, Reform hits new polling high

15 min listen

Lots to talk about today, including new polling which puts Reform on 29 points compared to the Tories on just 17. We’ve also just had the first PMQs since the local elections. But the trade deal announced yesterday between the UK and India is dominating the headlines, with many concerned about some of the concessions made – namely the decision to exempt some short-term Indian workers from national insurance as part of the new agreement. This comes barely a week after the local elections, where immigration has been widely considered the most salient issue. The Conservatives have gone on the attack, despite the fact that a trade deal with India

Stewart McDonald

A year on, has John Swinney turned things around for the SNP?

It’s difficult to imagine a more cautious revolutionary than John Swinney. When the First Minister was unexpectedly swept into Charlotte Square just one year ago – answering the call of a party in need of healing and direction in equal measure – few expected him to author a radical’s reset. The party of the late Alex Salmond’s braggadocio, Nicola Sturgeon’s sure-footedness and Humza Yousaf’s faltering optimism had turned, perhaps inevitably, to the reassuringly experienced veteran whose political style has been compared to that of a Blairgowrie bank manager.  When he returned to the frontline, some thought Swinney was to play the part of a political caretaker – a soothing interregnum