Starmer says he wants to ensure any disruption during transition to Burnham government ‘absolutely minimised’
Keir Starmer has recorded a pooled TV interview at an event in Milton Keynes this morning, where he was promoting the government’s Great British Summer Savings Scheme.
Asked if he would serve in an Andy Burnham government, he replied:
Let me make my position absolutely clear.
I am stepping down after two years, leaving the country in a better position than when I found it.
I will do that with good grace, and I will do that making sure that there is an orderly transition.
I’m going to be professional. I’m going to have foremost in my mind the sense of service and duty that has driven me as prime minister.
I will continue to faithfully serve my country to make sure that any disruption is absolutely minimised. And that’s why I’m taking steps now to ensure that that can be done in a sensible way.
Starmer also said he wanted to make sure “that whatever comes next is a success”. He went on:
I love this country, I want this country to thrive, and I shall do everything I can to make sure it’s a success and thrives. The first bit of that is making sure that there’s an orderly transition and we go on and build on the good stuff we’ve done in the first two years of this government.
Key events
Make pension tax relief only available to savers prepared to invest in UK, Andy Haldane says
Jenrick says it is legitimate for media to ask Farage about £5m donation – which he said was none of their business
Britain’s six prime ministers since 2016 – ranked!
Labour’s NEC confirms timetable for leadership process, with Burnham set to become PM on Friday 17 July
Draft conversion practices bill will not affect ‘legitimate healthcare’, minister tells MPs
Burnham’s lead over Farage on best PM twice as big as Starmer’s, poll suggests
Climate activist disrupts rightwing Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference
Minister rejects claim UK prioritised UAE ties over Sudan atrocity prevention
Badenoch defends jibe about Bridget Phillipson, saying it’s her job to ‘hold her to account’
Starmer claims he has left UK in ‘better state’ in relation to immigration
Minister urges pupils to choose degree courses ‘carefully’, as research shows earning variations by subject
UK to halve tariff-free steel imports to counter glut of cheap Chinese metal
Senior Trump official delivers scathing attack on Britain in speech to rightwingers in London mocking ‘Yookay’
Starmer says government has been holding official-level Cobra meetings to discuss heatwave
Starmer says he wants to ensure any disruption during transition to Burnham government ‘absolutely minimised’
Labour and Reform UK almost neck and neck in Greater Manchester mayoral contest, poll suggests
Reeves says she wants to see Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields approved
Polanski says government needs to ‘heatproof’ Britain
Phillipson accuses Badenoch of having her own ‘unique brand of unpleasant politics’ after PMQs insult
Reeves insists her changes to fiscal rules already allow more borrowing for defence, as Burnham urged to back ‘war bonds’
Trump calls Burnham a town mayor who’s ‘extremely liberal’, complaining he’s unlikely to ‘open up North Sea’
Reeves hints she accepts Burnham will not keep her as chancellor, and won’t say if she will accept more junior job
Make pension tax relief only available to savers prepared to invest in UK, Andy Haldane says
Pension tax relief worth more than £50bn should only be offered to savers who are prepared to invest in Britain, according to Andy Haldane, the president of the British Chambers of Commerce. Phillip Inman has the story.
Jenrick says it is legitimate for media to ask Farage about £5m donation – which he said was none of their business
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, has said it is legitimate for the media to ask Nigel Farage about his undisclosed £5m donation from the crytocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne.
On Tuesday, in a series of interviews on the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote, Farage became tetchy when asked about the donation, which is now being investigated by the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
At one point Farage told an interviewer the donation was none of their business. In another exchange, he claimed “no one cares” about the donation, apart from the media.
Farage did concede that the parliamentary commissioner may rule that, in not declaring the donation, Farage broke Commons rules. But he refused to say what he had done with the money, and insisted there was no need to declare it because it was not linked to his political work.
At the BCC conference, asked by the host, Sophy Ridge, the Sky News presenter, if Farage was right to say people did not care about this, Jenrick replied:
I’ve knocked on a lot of doors, trust me, in the course of the May local elections, the byelection, and in my own constituency, and I have to say, in all sincerity, not a single person has raised that question with me.
It doesn’t mean that it’s not a legitimate question for the media to ask, but it is not one that, in my experience, is on the tip of the tongue of people across the country.
Ridge said that her experience was different, and that people did want to talk to her about the donation.
Jenrick also claimed that no donor to Reform UK was able to buy influence.
Britain’s six prime ministers since 2016 – ranked!
John Crace has ranked the six prime ministers of the last 10 years. And he’s decided that the worst is …
Labour’s NEC confirms timetable for leadership process, with Burnham set to become PM on Friday 17 July
Labour’s national executive committee has agreed the timetable for the new leadership selection process. Nominations will open two weeks today, and if only one candidate gets the required number of nominations from Labour MPs (20% of the PLP, or 81 MPs) they will become leader three weeks tomorrow.
The timetable also includes the relevant dates for getting affiliate (union) nominations, or PLP nominations, and for voting over August – if there is more than one candidate.
If Andy Burnham is the only candidate nominated by 81 MPs, he will still have to get nominations from at least three organisations affiliated to Labour, of which two must be unions, or from 5% of CLPs (constituency Labour parties). He could get both easily. Getting union nominations can happen more quickly, and the timetable has been drawn up on the assumption that he will get the affiliate nominations before 17 July, and there will be no need for CLP nominations.
Unless something wholly unexpected happens within the next fortnight to derail the Burnham candidacy, there won’t be another candidate, and so the August elections parts of the timetable almost certainly won’t be needed.
Here are the dates from the Labour briefing.
In January Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, announced major plans to restructure the police forces in England and Wales. She said this would include some mergers, and Bernard Hogan-Howe, the former Metropolitan police commissioner, was appointed to lead a review making specific recommendations on this issue.
Now Sam Coates at Sky News has been told that an Andy Burnham government may scrap these plans. In his report, Coates says: “We have been told that the likely incoming prime minister is not keen on combining police forces, which is currently the subject of a review by a former head of the Metropolitan police.”
Draft conversion practices bill will not affect ‘legitimate healthcare’, minister tells MPs
A trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban will not see healthcare workers criminalised for speaking about sexuality and gender with their patients, a minister has said. The Press Association says the government has unveiled its draft conversion practices bill, designed to stop abusive attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. PA says:
Equalities minister Olivia Bailey told the Commons: “This bill does not remove anyone’s rights to freedom of expression or religion or how to parent – this bill simply prevents abuse.
“And to ensure there is no inadvertent chilling effect on important healthcare, there is an exemption for all healthcare professionals on the face of the bill.”
She faced a question from Lisa Smart, the Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove, who asked how the proposal would stop somebody setting up, for example, “a mental health charity in an attempt to circumvent the aims of this Bill”.
Bailey replied: “It is my view that legitimate healthcare would not fall under the remits of this bill in any way, shape or form, because legitimate healthcare would never be abusing somebody to try and change their identity and causing them serious harm.”
She repeated she had heard concerns a conversion therapy ban could have “a chilling effect” on healthcare.
She continued: “We don’t want that because therapy and good therapy and good conversation is really important. That’s why we put this exemption on the face of the bill.”
Here are some comments on the Greater Manchester mayoral election poll covered earlier. (See 11.26am.)
From Luke Tryl, the More in Common pollster
Have to admit I’m surprised how low the Green share is here. Would imply significant loss of momentum since the locals and/or that prospect of Burnham is already reuniting the left. Regardless if first round is anything close to this looks like a solid Labour hold in the second
From Ben Walker, the New Statesman’s elections expert
FocalData poll for the Greater Manchester mayoralty has Labour on 33%, Reform 30.
Compares to Ref 31% in the May council elections and Lab 23%.
Greens on 13%, down from 19.
Burnham’s lead over Farage on best PM twice as big as Starmer’s, poll suggests
YouGov has some polling out today that suggests Andy Burnham’s lead over Nigel Farage on who would make the best PM is twice as large as Keir Starmer’s.
Burnham is also ahead of all other main party leaders on this measure – unlike Starmer, who was beaten by Ed Davey, and level with Kemi Badenoch.
YouGov says:
Although the outgoing prime minister consistently held a lead over Nigel Farage when it comes to who would do better at Downing Street, the 10-point margin Starmer holds over the Reform UK leader in our most recent figures from May is half the lead held by Burnham today.
Likewise, Burnham performs significantly better in opposition to his fellow progressive leaders. His 27-point lead over Zack Polanski compares to Starmer bettering the Green leader by just five points, while the public’s view that Burnham would be a superior PM to Ed Davey contrasts with them favouring the Lib Dem leader over Starmer by 27% to 23%.
Burnham’s 4-point advantage over Kemi Badenoch, though, represents a much smaller improvement, as Britons were evenly split 33% to 33% over whether she or Starmer would make the better PM in our May figures.
Climate activist disrupts rightwing Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
A climate activist has disrupted an international summit of rightwing politicians activists and their financial backers by infiltrating the venue and interrupting a speech.
The activist was from a group called Fossil Free London, which had been protesting outside the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference (ARC) in London.
Backers of the event – encompassing social conservatives, libertarians, far right supporters and others – have included fossil companies that have also backed Donald Trump.
Keynote speakers have included Trump’s energy secretary, a former fracking executive who used a speech at ARC this week to accuse successive UK government of making a “tragic mistake” with net zero policies.
Fossil Free London said:
ARC’s mission is to enrich oil barons, tech executives and corrupt politicians, seeding backward-looking, violence-espousing narratives so people fight it out over characteristics like race and gender.
ARC said that an individual had bypassed security and entered the main stage of the conference at the Olympia, disrupting a speech by the CEO of US company Banylon Bee, Seth Dillon. “He was briefly detained while the facts were established and quickly released.”
In response to the claims against it, ARC said: “Too often we have failed to acknowlegde complex trade-offs or the reality that abundant, reliable and affordable energy are the base layer of martial civilization.”
Minister rejects claim UK prioritised UAE ties over Sudan atrocity prevention
A minister has rejected claims the Foreign Office prioritised its relationship with the United Arab Emirates over preventing “genocidal slaughter” in Sudan, the Press Association reports. PA says:
Chris Elmore said London “acted swiftly” when it learned the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group was likely to attack El Fasher, a city in western Sudan.
An RSF offensive in El Fasher killed more than 6,000 people over a three-day period last year, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health found in July 2023 that a “full-scale attack” by the RSF was likely. According to evidence submitted to the Commons international development committee, HRL briefed UK Foreign Office staff privately “over two dozen times” about the threat.
But according to the HRL’s executive director Nathaniel Raymond, who gave the evidence, the Foreign Office appeared to have “prioritised the government’s economic, security and diplomatic relationships with the UAE above preventing the intentional starvation, forced displacement, and the genocidal slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians living in El Fasher and its surrounding communities”.
Sarah Champion, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, has written a letter about this to the international develoment miniser, Jenny Chapman. Champion said: “This evidence was profoundly shocking and, if accurate, would be some of the most concerning accounts I have heard of Foreign Office failure to take seriously its commitments to atrocity prevention.”
In response to an urgent question in the Commons on the allegations, Elmore said: “I have to tell the house that we completely reject these claims.
“The UK acted swiftly, including on June 13 2024, when the previous government were in office, that we penned the UN security council resolution – we demanded that the RSF halt the siege on the city.”
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative cabinet minister, told MPs: “It seems that whoever comes into government, the Foreign Office’s weak policy with regards to the UAE pertains.
“Surely it is time for a British government to stand up and say, ‘Enough is enough – we are going to sanction all of those individuals responsible for the decision-making in the UAE and in other countries providing arms to the rebels’. If we don’t do that, then all the talk is worthless.”
Badenoch defends jibe about Bridget Phillipson, saying it’s her job to ‘hold her to account’
Kemi Badenoch has declined to apologise for calling Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, a “spiteful class warrior”. (See 10.20am.)
Speaking to reporters today, the Tory leader defended what she said about the education secretary at PMQs. She said:
Yesterday I said that Bridget Phillipson was spiteful and incompetent. It’s interesting that she hasn’t complained about being incompetent, and Keir Starmer didn’t say that she was competent.
Badenoch claimed Phillipson’s imposition of VAT on private schools had “displaced” 40,000 pupils through school closures or because their parents could no longer afford the fees.
And she said Phillipson had failed to deliver the extra 6,500 teachers promised in Labour’s manifesto, saying there were 2,000 fewer teachers than when the party came to power. She said:
We have gone backwards both years she has been education secretary. That is a failure. It is my job as leader of the opposition to hold her to account.
Badenoch also said Phillipson had been “rude” about the shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, calling him “a racist” during women and equalities questions in the Commons before PMQs.
Phillipson, who is minister for women and equalities as well as education secrtary, said Timothy had “engaged in appalling racism towards Muslims in our country”. She was referring to the way he condemned a mass prayer event held by Muslims in Trafalgar Square as “an act of domination” and “straight from the Islamist playbook”.
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