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Tories accuse PM of 'hit job on taxpayers' after report says EU would make UK pay for better single market access
On Sky News Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, has just said that in principle his party welcomes the announcement from Keir Starmer about joining the EU’s €90bn loan for Ukraine. (See 8.40am.) But he would want to see the details, Stride said.
However, his colleague Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, was a lot less happy about the Times report suggesting the UK could end up paying the EU up to £1bn a year for better access to the single market.
In his Times report, Oliver Wright says:
European negotiators have made it clear that paying the cash, expected to amount to about £1bn a year, is a condition of further access to the EU’s single market.
They want Starmer to make the concession in principle at a summit between the prime minister and European leaders this summer before detailed negotiations on more integration.
“If the UK wants further integration they must ‘pay to play’,” one European diplomat said. “That is not unusual.”
The govenrment has not denied the story, although it has suggested it does not recognise the £1bn figure.
Commenting on the report, Patel said:
Starmer is unpicking Brexit and planning another undemocratic hit job on British taxpayers by signing us up to a £1bn annual payment to the EU.
Once again, this weak prime minister goes to the negotiating table, comes home empty-handed, having fleeced hard pressed taxpayers with his terrible judgment.
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Anas Sarwar says Holyrood election 'isn't over' - as poll suggests SNP gaining ground
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has refused to say if the prime minister should face a leadership challenge if Labour does badly in Thursday’s elections, the Press Association reports. PA says:
While polls suggest Labour could do badly in elections for the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales, and in local councils elections in England, the Scottish Labour leader insisted his “focus” was on “removing John Swinney from office” – and not what could happen in Westminster.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has already criticised the “squabbling” and “political infighting” in the UK government, likening prospective candidates vying to succeed Keir Starmer to “auditions for Labour party Celebrity Traitors”.
There has been speculation that health secretary Wes Streeting, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner could all be considering launching a leadership challenge against the PM.
But Sarwar, who has already called on the prime minister to step down, made clear his focus was on Thursday’s Holyrood ballot – and not on any political manoeuvreing at Westminster.
And despite a poll today showing Labour could drop to just 13 MSPs at Holyrood, Sarwar said: “I’m entirely convinced this election isn’t over.”
He added that Labour’s internal figures were better than they had been in last years Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection, which the party won – and were “going up”.
Sarwar went on to say that 38 of the 73 Holyrood constituencies seats were “on a knife-edge” and could “decide this election”.
But when pressed on why people should vote Labour when the party is in “chaos” at Westminster, he said: “Scotland is in chaos under an SNP government, we need a new government and only I can deliver that new government.
“I don’t care about what’s happening at Westminster or Westminster politicians, I’m only focused on Scotland.
“All I care about is Scotland’s schools, Scotland’s hospitals.”
PA is referring to More in Common’s final MRP poll for the Holyrood election. It suggests Scotland is on course for these results.
Commenting on the figures, More in Common said:
The SNP have flipped five seats since More in Common’s first projection in early April – at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives: Dumbarton and Edinburgh Southern from Labour, Edinburgh Central from Labour (where the Greens have also fallen back), Eastwood from the Conservatives, Galloway and West Dumfries from the Conservatives, and Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch from the Liberal Democrats …
The SNP’s victory is fuelled less by surging support than by fragmentation in the unionist vote. In fact, this result would represent the SNP’s lowest vote share in nearly two decades: their lowest constituency vote share since 2007, and lowest regional vote share since 2003.
Fragmentation and first-past-the-post are fuelling the SNP: Their high seats share comes from the number of high number first-past-the-post constituency seats in Holyrood, and their comparatively more consolidated support in a fragmented party system.
Starmer says 'benefit outweighs cost' of joining EU's €90bn loan scheme for Ukraine
Britain will have to make a contribution to join the EU’s €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine scheme (see 8.40am) and it has been reported that this could be as much as £400m.
Speaking to broadcasters at the European Political Community summit in Armenia, Starmer said this was worth it.
Asked specifically about the Times report saying the UK may have to pay up to £1bn a year for better access to the single market (see 9.31am), Starmer replied:
It’s in our national interest to be closer to Europe, and whether that’s the EU loan scheme, which we are discussing with them, that’s of great benefit to Ukraine, but it’s also a great benefit to the United Kingdom as well, in terms of the jobs that it will create in the United Kingdom. So the benefit there outweighs the cost.
But more generally, it is important that we see our future as a closer relationship with the EU that’s in our national interest, and that’s what I’ve been discussing here and on previous occasions.
UPDATE: According to Sky News, Keir Starmer gave this quote in response to a reporter who asked about the Times report, asked if £1bn a year was a price worth paying, and asked what Starmer would say to people who said he was betraying Brexit bit by bit.
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Siân Berry says Greens have 'extremely good' record scrutinising police, and that they shouldn't get 'blank slate'
The Green MP Siân Berry has said that she does not know whether the force used by the police last week to arrest a suspect after two Jewish people were stabbed in Golders Green was excessive.
At the end of last week Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, apologised after reposting a message on social media implying the use of force was excessive. Polanski later said he remained concerned by what he had seen in video of the incident, but that he accepted posting on social media wasn’t the best way to raise this as an issue.
In an interview with Times Radio, Berry was asked if she thought the police arresting the suspect overreacted. She replied:
I don’t know the answer to that. I think that you have to discuss it with the people who know on the ground. You have to ask people to look at the body camera footage.
These are important parts of scrutiny and Greens in the London assembly, Greens scrutinising the police all around the country, are extremely good at this because we are good at balancing civil liberties and the need for action against crime. No one should be giving the police a blank slate.
In Wales the voting system has changed and the new Senedd will be elected using the closed proportional list system, which is a purer form of PR than the additional member system used previously. There is an explanation of how it works here.
There will be 16 constituencies each electing six MSs (members of the Senedd) using the D’Hondt method.
In its report on its latest MRP poll (see 10.02am), More in Common says this means that “seats allocated later in the process are more sensitive to small changes in the vote, especially the fifth and 6th seat in each constituency, many of which could be decided by less than 2.5 per cent of the vote”. It has produced this chart to illustrate how much uncertainty there is in the forecasts produced by its polling.
Here is the Green party’s official response to Reform UK’s plan to site immigration detention centres in places where people vote Green. (See 10.48am). A Green party spokesperson said:
Reform keep making abhorrent announcements in attempts to distract voters from the fact they want to privatise our NHS, roll back workers rights and hand out tax breaks to their billionaire backers. [Nigel] Farage, the establishment stooge, filled his pockets with a secret £5m donation and then puts forward this disgusting idea as if it is a serious policy.
Greens are focused on building council housing, fixing our public services and bringing down the cost of living.
UK to open talks with EU on joining its deep tech innovation fund, Starmer and Von der Leyen say
The UK is going to open talks with the EU on joining its European Innovation Council Fund, a €4bn fund providing venture capital for deep tech innovation. Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, announced the move after a meeting at the summit in Armenia where they said they wanted to be “ambitious” in strengthening post-Brexit UK-EU links.
In a joint statement, they said:
Today we met to discuss our joint commitment to improving the relationship between the UK and EU to deliver for consumers, businesses and collective European security.
We also reflected on the UK’s plan to participate in the EU’s €90bn / £78bn loan for Ukraine, and agreed it would be a major step forward in the UK- EU defence industrial relationship [see 8.40am] …
We also agreed to commence negotiations on UK participation in the European Innovation Council Fund, including the Scaleup Europe Fund, which will provide support for promising high-growth tech businesses to scale up and support UK and EU ambitions to keep the most promising innovators in Europe.
We looked ahead to the UK-EU summit and agreed on the importance of being ambitious in what we could achieve together for the benefit of both sides.
Saplings in prisons and bogs on military ranges: Labour’s plans for nature-friendly state land
Tree nurseries could be built at prisons and military ranges could be turned into heathland or peat bogs as part of an ambitious plan to make government land more nature-friendly, Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, has said. Peter Walker has the story.
Labour MPs are calling for a close to the “endless drama” of leadership speculation, Peter Walker reports.
However, as Peter also points out, even the Labour MPs who would like nothing more than for all talk of leadership contests to dry up recognise that Keir Starmer faces a perilous moment when the election results are announced on Friday. No one knows for sure how the Labour party will respond, but a challenge seems quite possible.
Today the Mail is highlighting a warning to Labour MPs that replacing Starmer could lead to an early election. In their story, Jason Groves and David Wilcock quote a “senior figure” saying:
People should be very careful what they wish for. There is no road to replacing the PM that does not lead to an early general election.
It is obvious that neither Wes [Streeting] nor Angela [Rayner] command the kind of overwhelming support you would need to produce a stable government.
In his London Playbook briefing for Politico, Sam Blewett has a round-up of some of today’s other Labour leadership stories.
In the Times, Oliver Wright and Aubrey Allegretti hear from allies of Ed Miliband that the energy secretary wants to be “kingmaker” in a [Andy] Burnham leadership bid, in return for being offered the post of chancellor. But this scheme would see the left-wing powerbroker join cabinet colleagues in backing Starmer after the locals to buy time for Burnham to find a route back to the Commons. So that’s sort of good news for the PM.
Then, in the Telegraph, Nick Gutteridge hears that Burnham’s camp have asked some of Starmer’s top staff to stay in No. 10 if the “King of the North” finds his way in. Stuart Ingham and Amy Richards are both named as potential holdovers, in what would seem to be quite a mischievous briefing.
Burnham’s allies in Mainstream are preparing an event in Westminster to champion the “political economy of Manchesterism” in mid-May, Playbook hears. The Manchester mayor is holding off on confirming himself as a speaker at the publication launch – but the preparations allow him a platform to swoop down to SW1 in the weeks after the electoral “bloodbath” if he chooses.
If you are trying to make sense of where this all leaves Labour, you should read Lucy Powell’s interview with Jessica Elgot in the Guardian.
Powell, the deputy Labour leader, told Jess:
There’s no magic bullet here for us. We are in a difficult world.
That, at least, is one claim no one is likely to dispute.
Starmer tells fellow European leaders they must face up to fact relations with US under strain
Keir Starmer has said that Europe has to face up to the fact that its alliance with the US is under strain.
He made the remark in public comments during the plenary session at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan in Armenia.
Starmer said that the leaders were meeting against the backdrop of two wars – the Ukraine war, now in its fifth year, and the Iran conflict.
He went on:
And both of those are impacting all of us in a very material way.
In the United Kingdom, if you look at the economic forecast now and compare it to the economic forecast just three or four months ago, they are in materially different places, and this is going to play out with our electorates in all of our countries.
The impact is not just economic. Certainly in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, there are proxy attacks going on, both Russian and Iranian, on our streets and by way of cyber-attacks.
So this is not something remote. It’s very real …
The third way it’s impacting us … is that we cannot deny that some of the alliances that we have come to rely on are not in the place we would want them to be.
There is more tension in the alliances than there should be. And it’s very important that we therefore face up to this as a group of countries together.
Voters will reject Reform UK's 'Trumpesque' threat to punish communities who don't back them, Scottish Greens predict
Libby Brooks
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
The Scottish Greens’ co-leader, Ross Greer, has dismissed Reform UK’s plan to host migrant detention facilities in constituencies that have voted for Green representation (see 10.48am) as “pathetic” and “Trumpesque”. He said:
Reform are now openly threatening voters and not only that they’re threatening them with a power they don’t actually have. This is absolutely pathetic. People across Scotland are proud of the fact that this is a welcoming country that shows solidarity to people who need it.
Reform are essentially saying ‘If you don’t vote the way we want you to, we will punish you’. I think the people of Scotland and voters across the UK are not going to take kindly to that kind of Donald Trumpesque threat.
Greer was campaigning in Glasgow, where the party hopes to win at least one breakthrough constituency this Thursday, announcing plans for a Green commuter railcard to save a third off fares.
Last week, Reform Scotland’s millionaire leader Malcolm Offord was accused of being “tone deaf” when he boasted on a televised election debate about the number of cars, houses and boast he owned.
Greer said:
Reform know that absolutely bombed last week. The only thing they’ve got to move on to are open threats, not against the Greens but against voters across the country. It’s really quite sinister. This is exactly the kind of politics you see in Donald Trump’s America. People across Scotland are going to reject that on Thursday.
And here is some more comment on social media on Reform UK’s detention centres plan (see 10.48am).
From Fraser Nelson, the Times columnist and former Spectator editor
Another significant evolution in Reform’s style of politics. Its proposed internment camps will only be built in parts of the country that vote for its rivals.
This is a new departure for UK politics: rejecting the idea of PM-for-all and instead a new partisan style.
From Gideon Rachman, the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator
I think most British people believe in the basic principle that no matter who you vote for, the government will treat you equally under the law. Yusuf’s plan to put detention camps in Green voting areas violates that. It is trolling as public policy and I think will damage Reform
From David Aaronovitch, the Radio 4 Briefing Room presenter
The practical and legal problems seem insuperable. No non Reform local council would agree to it. So it’s not really a serious policy.
The biggest concentrations of illegal migrants are almost certainly in the cities. You shouldn’t confuse them with the asylum seekers being accommodated in hostels. It’s likely that potential Green voters are already living among them.
Commenting on the Reform UK detention centres plan (see 10.48am) on Bluesky, Sunder Katwala, head of the British Future thinktank, says it is not just potentially illegal, but also illogical in its own terms.
There is rather inadvertent warped logic that a rival party said to favour “open borders” would mean ‘support detention centre’
While the party favouring mass deportations at unprecedented scale means ‘oppose detention centre’ anywhere nearby
These statements could have unwelcome legal consequences for a hypothetical Reform government - which may need to show that decisions which happen to match this pattern were chosen for other legitimate policy reasons, not as partisan political punishment/reward
A hypothetical future government with a thumping majority could have the powers to repeal any treaties, conventions or laws which may constrain this.
A hypothetical minority government could find itself impeded by these kinds of public statements about the motive for locating detention facilities
A more logical version of this school sixth form debating society policy might have the opposite design
* Mass Detention in Reform-voting areas proud to vote for deportations + detentions
* But Green constituencies could have the refugees instead, if they want to put them up as community sponsors
Katwala also says a Reform UK website highlights the electioneering behind all this.
Reform have launched a website with this “incentive” to voters in an effort to generate profile & controversy in election week
Reform UK plan to site migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas condemned as 'abhorrent' by other parties
A Reform UK proposal to prioritise places that vote for Green councils or MPs when it sets up detention centres for migrants facing deportations has been denounced as “abhorrent” from opponents across the political spectrum.
Reform says it would deport “all illegal migrants” and, to make this possible, it has announced plans for deportation centres holding up to 24,000 people.
In a post on social media, Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, said that these would be located in Green-voting areas. He explained:
So here’s our promise:
A Reform government will not put any migrant detention facilities in any constituency with a Reform MP.
Nor will we put them where Reform controls the council.
And of the remaining areas, we will prioritise Green controlled parliamentary constituencies and Green controlled councils to locate the detention centres.
Put simply, if you vote in a Reform council or Reform MP, we guarantee you won’t have a detention centre near you.
If you vote Green, there’s a good chance you will.
This is an important exercise in democratic consent, not just for our mass deportation policy, but for where the detention centres are placed.
Given @ZackPolanski openly advocates for open borders, I look forward to their warm embrace of this policy.
Yusuf also promoted the slogan “Vote Green, Get Illegals” on his post.
In an interview with Sky News, Yusuf said that Reform accepted that deportating migrants on the scale proposed by his party would be unprecedented for the UK, although he said it had been done in other countries. He said this policy was about ensuring there was “democratic consent” for the policy.
Responding to the announcement, Mothin Ali, the Green party’s co-deputy leader, said:
Reform keep making abhorrent announcements to distract voters from they fact they want to privatise the NHS. Greens are focused on building council housing, fixing our public services and bringing down the cost of living.
Anna Turley, the Labour chair, said:
This grotesque policy reveals Reform’s contempt for all voters – including their own. Threatening to punish places where people don’t vote your way is a betrayal of basic democratic principles. Nigel Farage has sunk to a new low: he is clearly more interested in stoking division and anger than in serving the whole country.
And, on social media, Kemi Badenoch reposted a tweet from Simon Clarke, the Tory former business secretary, saying:
We need to stop illegal immigration, but this is abhorrent from Reform.
Zia is proposing the siting of detention centres expressly as a form of political punishment for people and places that don’t vote Reform – not just Green, but presumably Conservative, Liberal and Labour too. (And what about Reform voters in those constituencies?)
It would almost certainly be deemed an abuse of ministerial power for political purposes, and as such would likely be stuck down in court before ever being implemented, wasting millions for the taxpayer without detaining anyone.
If it were to go ahead, it would still represent an appalling waste of public money as these sites might well not be in any way suitable for the proposed centres, or near the other infrastructure required. What’s worse is that he is doing all this to provoke outrage and draw attention to Reform a few days out from the local elections. Reform know what they are doing. But this goes beyond a pre-election stunt. It’s declared as a major policy commitment, and should be treated as such.
We need a proper plan to leave the ECHR and restore safe border controls, not gimmicks that wouldn’t survive first contact with reality.
Labour vote in Wales being further squeezed ahead of Senedd election, poll suggests
More in Common has published its final MRP poll for the Welsh Senedd election. It suggests that Plaid Cymru and Reform UK are on course to come equal first in terms of numbers of seats, and that Labour is doing significantly worse than when More in Common last ran an MRP poll in April. More in Common says:
The model suggests Labour could fall into third place with just 14 seats [down from 24, as the last More in Common MRP projected]. In an echo of the Caerphilly byelection it seems that as the election approaches Labour’s voter share is being squeezed, particularly by Plaid, with progressives rallying behind [Rhun] ap Iorwerth’s party as the best vehicle to stop Reform.
The Conservatives would end up with 9 seats (their position stabilising since early April), and the Green party would end up with 5 – their first ever seats in the Senedd.
In a post on his Substack newsletter, the Welsh political commentator Will Hayward says he would expect a result like this to result in Plaid governing as a minority administration.
To get a majority in the Senedd, you need 49 seats. As you can see [the figures in the chart – see below], under these projections, the path to 49 seats is tricky for any party. Reform and the Tories together have 43 seats, so would be six short of a majority. Given that no other party would work with them, this makes it very hard for them to form the next government.
Plaid and Labour combined are actually one seat short of a majority while Plaid and the Greens together are 10 seats short.
If I had to guess at what would happen under this scenario I would say: Labour and the Greens would support Rhun ap Iorwerth as first minister BUT would not enter into a formal coalition. We would then have a Plaid Cymru minority government.
Tories accuse PM of 'hit job on taxpayers' after report says EU would make UK pay for better single market access
On Sky News Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, has just said that in principle his party welcomes the announcement from Keir Starmer about joining the EU’s €90bn loan for Ukraine. (See 8.40am.) But he would want to see the details, Stride said.
However, his colleague Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, was a lot less happy about the Times report suggesting the UK could end up paying the EU up to £1bn a year for better access to the single market.
In his Times report, Oliver Wright says:
European negotiators have made it clear that paying the cash, expected to amount to about £1bn a year, is a condition of further access to the EU’s single market.
They want Starmer to make the concession in principle at a summit between the prime minister and European leaders this summer before detailed negotiations on more integration.
“If the UK wants further integration they must ‘pay to play’,” one European diplomat said. “That is not unusual.”
The govenrment has not denied the story, although it has suggested it does not recognise the £1bn figure.
Commenting on the report, Patel said:
Starmer is unpicking Brexit and planning another undemocratic hit job on British taxpayers by signing us up to a £1bn annual payment to the EU.
Once again, this weak prime minister goes to the negotiating table, comes home empty-handed, having fleeced hard pressed taxpayers with his terrible judgment.
No 10 says UK set to announce further sanctions on Russian companies involved in military supply chains
The UK is set to announce further sanctions on Russian companies involved in military supply chains, Downing Street says. In its news release, it says:
The move to support the financial boost for Kyiv [see 8.40am] is expected to be followed by another tranche of stinging sanctions by the UK on Russian companies to disrupt military supply chains later this week, further degrading Russia’s military capability.
In recent weeks and months, Ukraine has successfully outmanoeuvred Russian forces and continued to regain territory, including 200sq km around Kherson, while imposing strategic cost on Russia. Losses on the battlefield now exceed Russia’s ability to mobilise replacements.
Here are some pictures of Keir Starmer at the European Political Community summit in Armenia. Downing Street says Starmer is only the second British prime minister to visit the country; the first was Margaret Thatcher in 1990.
Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Store (left) and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni at the EPC summit. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Starmer says UK opening talks with EU on joining €90bn loan scheme for Ukraine
Good morning. In the UK many MPs will be spending the bank holiday campaigning for the elections on Thursday, but Keir Starmer is in Armenia, where he has announced that he wants the UK to join the EU’s €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine.
Starmer is attending a European Political Community summit in Yerevan. The EPC is the group set up four years ago comprising all the EU countries, plus almost all the other European countries that are not EU members. Mark Carney, the Canadian PM, is also attending (on the grounds, presumably, that in the light of the geopolitical upheavel caused by Donald Trump, the Canadians now count as honorary Europeans.)
The €90bn loan for Ukraine is the one that has been long talked about, but which only became possible after Viktor Orbán, the pro-Russian Hungarian PM who was vetoing it, was kicked out of office last month. The advantage for the UK of joining (besides boosting military support for Ukraine) is that it would allow British firms to access the contracts the loan will fund.
Speaking to the media as he arrived at the summit, Starmer said:
In relation to the EU loan that we are discussing participating in, that is very good for Ukraine, because it will give Ukraine capability that is desperately needs in year five of this conflict.
It’s very good for the UK, because of the capability that leads to jobs in the United Kingdom.
And it’s very good for UK-EU relations, which is very important as we go on to the various discussions.
As Downing Street says in its news release, this initiative is not a one-off; it is part of Starmer’s bid to improve and deepen the UK’s post-Brexit relations with the EU.
The extra funding to Ukraine could unlock opportunity for British businesses to fill urgent capability needs for Ukraine as part of the initiative and give British defence industry access to major contracts.
The move is a significant step towards a new ambitious relationship between the UK and EU – building on the prime minister’s calls at the Munich Security Conference in February to deepen defence and security cooperation to match the rapidly evolving threats faced by both sides. It also comes ahead of the UK – EU summit, expected to be held this summer, where both sides will discuss further economic and security cooperation.
This morning the Times is splashing on a story saying that, if Starmer wants the UK to have closer access to the EU single market, it will have to start making annual payments to Brussels for the first time since Brexit, perhaps worth around £1bn a year. In response, the government said that it did not recognise this figure, but that it would not comment on ongoing negotiations.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Starmer is in Yerevan in Armenia for the EPC meeting, and is also due to hold various bilaterals. He is expected to be speaking to the media early afternoon (UK time).
10am: Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has a campaign event. And, separately, Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative leader, is campaigning in Edinburgh.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is campaigning in Essex.
We’re unlikely to have comments on open today, and so if you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
