Politics

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

Monday

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Nine lessons from the elections

Here are the big things I learned from Thursday’s elections and their aftermath. 1. The Scottish parliament will vote to hold a referendum on independence for Scotland — but the legislation probably won’t be introduced till late 2022. 2. The earliest there would be a referendum would be 2023. 3. Boris Johnson’s revealed preference is to persuade the people of Scotland of the merits of remaining within the UK, rather than exploiting the Westminster government’s ‘reserve power’ to veto independence. He wants to avoid what would be widely seen in Scotland as the tyranny of Westminster depriving the Scottish people of a voice on their future. That means a referendum in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How Keir Starmer’s reshuffle backfired

13 min listen

After a messy and delayed reshuffle, there is more rancour in the Labour party than there was before the weekend. Has Keir Starmer taken a serious hit to his authority? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about the possible future for Labour.

Matthew Lynn

Rachel Reeves can easily make life difficult for Rishi Sunak

There is one thing to be said for Anneliese Dodds: as shadow chancellor, she set the bar very low. Virtually invisible, with few ideas, and a manner designed to send even political obsessives to sleep, her successor Rachel Reeves won’t have to do much to look like an immediate improvement. A wet tea towel would have more impact. And yet if Reeves wants to make a real impression, there is one move she should make, even though it would require some courage. She should focus on attacking the government from the liberal, pro-consumer right rather than the left – because that’s where the space is. After a disastrous set of

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Starmer is Labour’s Iain Duncan Smith

After a gruelling election campaign the most important thing to do is to have a rest and have a think. Everyone is exhausted and things done in the heat of the moment are liable to be ill-considered. During my own brief time in electoral politics, I learned this the hard way. I played a leading role in an idiotic falling out at the top of Ukip after it secured almost four million votes but just one seat in the 2015 general election. A more seasoned colleague went on holiday and later described to me how he had watched the unedifying feuding unfold on a smartphone from his balcony while sipping gin

Steerpike Steerpike

Jon Lansman finally gets a left victory

While the Conservatives in Cornwall may celebrate winning control of the council in last week’s election, they had one notable setback: Liberal Democrat Thalia Marrington won the Mousehole, Newlyn and St Buryan division, which has been Tory for as long as anyone can remember. What did it take for the Tories to lose England’s biggest fishing port? According to those sages at the Guardian it was the Cornish fishing vote turning against the government after the Brexit deal. Others argue that the traditional rivalry between farmers and fishermen means they were never going to vote for a farmer like William Bolitho.  Bolitho is a name that carries brand recognition in this part of

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Diane Abbott calls for Labour to embrace free movement

Left-wing figures are picking over the carcass of the Labour party this morning, after the party performed poorly in Hartlepool and in the local elections across the north and Midlands of England. With the Labour candidate for Hartlepool admitting this morning that he doesn’t know what Labour stands for, a fight is now on to define where Labour goes next. Happily, the left of the party have come up with their solution to Labour’s woes: for Keir Starmer to re-embrace the ten pledges he made when fighting to be elected as Labour leader, which broadly mirrored Jeremy Corbyn’s policy platform. The left fear that the pledges, which include common ownership

Sunday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is the reshuffle the answer to Labour’s woes?

More than 24 hours after he started trying to reshuffle his shadow cabinet, Sir Keir Starmer has finally got what he wanted. He has moved his shadow chancellor, sacked Nick Brown as chief whip and moved Angela Rayner. Yesterday he told the party’s deputy leader that he didn’t want her to be party chair or campaign coordinator, and instead that she should move to shadow cabinet. After hours of negotiations, Rayner is now confirmed as – deep breath – Deputy Leader, Shadow First Secretary of State, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work. As I reported earlier, Rayner had been

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Labour reshuffle: Keir Starmer’s new team

Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet reshuffle is finally over. The Labour leader ran into trouble early on when he kicked off the shake up of his frontbench team on Saturday afternoon by sacking his deputy Angela Rayner from her role as party chair. His plan for a wider reshuffle had to be put on hold after his decision to demote Rayner succeeded in uniting MPs on both the left and right of the party in anger.  Since then, the pair have spent much of the day in talks over a reconciliation. With Starmer eventually finding Rayner a job she would accept as Michael. Gove’s opposite in the role of Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Starmer

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

All quiet on the Labour front: Starmer’s delayed reshuffle

After a day of furious briefings between factions, the Labour Party has fallen mysteriously – and ominously – quiet. Shadow cabinet members I’ve spoken to are none the wiser. They are waiting by their phones to hear the latest moves in a reshuffle that was expected to begin at some point today but which has only managed to achieve one thing so far: an almighty and very ugly row about the sacking of Angela Rayner. And that was 24 hours ago. I understand that there should still be something later this evening, but the main problem facing Starmer is that he is trying to move Rayner from party chair and

Steerpike Steerpike

Defeated Labour councillor: ‘The voters have let us down’

With dozens of Labour councillors defeated across the country, the recriminations and inquests have already begun. Various reasons have been suggested for Tory gains across the Red Wall including the vaccine rollout and Boris Johnson’s own personal popularity, with Labour’s leadership using the occasion to (attempt) a reshuffle of its top team. One defeated Labour councillor in Amber Valley though has now offered up his own explanation for his defeat and that of 200 other colleagues across the country. Outgoing leader Chris Emmas-Williams, told the Derby Telegraph today: ‘It’s been a disastrous day for us. I don’t think I’ve ever been in an election with so acrimony and so many

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Sturgeon says legal challenge to referendum would be ‘completely outrageous’

The results from the ‘Super Thursday’ elections are now in, and they are raising existential questions, both for the Labour party and for the United Kingdom. The SNP re-established their dominant position across Scotland, hoovering up most of the constituency seats, but falling just short of an overall majority once the ‘list’ seats were taken into account. Nicola Sturgeon has already announced her plans to introduce another independence referendum in a speech yesterday. On the Andrew Marr Show, she responded to the suggestion that her plans could be bought before the Supreme Court, either by the government, or another challenger: NS: I think it would be absurd and completely outrageous…

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Gove’s approach to IndyRef2: don’t talk about it

After the SNP fell short of a majority by just one seat in the Scottish Parliament elections, a stand off has formed between Nicola Sturgeon and the UK government. The First Minister has heralded a pro-independence Scottish parliament majority in Holyrood – arguing that when you take the Green party’s gains north of the border into account, there is a clear case for a second independence referendum. Sturgeon plans to press ahead and legislate for a border poll – suggesting that the only way Boris Johnson can stop her is to go to court. The UK government response so far is to not engage and instead talk about the whole of the UK

Steerpike Steerpike

Laurence Fox loses his deposit

The London election results have finally been declared and it turns out the poll were not lying: Laurence Fox is not to be the capital’s mayor. The onetime actor lost his £10,000 deposit last night after managing just 47,364 votes or, as he preferred to call it, ‘a football stadium’s worth of voters.’ This was despite boasts of a £5 million war chest, the benefit of having been an ITV star for years and reams of publicity in the national press. In fairness to Fox he was not alone in this feat; other than Labour, the Tories and the Greens every other mayoral candidate lost their deposit last night. For

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Who is more upset about Labour’s results: Starmer or the BBC?

It’s not just the Labour party which is institutionally incapable of understanding why the Conservative party kicked the hell out of them in these elections. It is also, of course, the BBC. The prime offender was — hold your breath in surprise — Emily Maitlis on Newsnight. Furlough and vaccines were the sole reason the Tories did well, according to this very affluent, metropolitan, liberal woman, who has a child in boarding school, natch. Dimbo voters again then, too dense to grasp the ‘realities’. But then there was Huw. There always is Mr Edwards. Conducting an interview with Labour’s Lucy Powell, he exuded sympathy and gratitude. No hard questions. Just

Saturday

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

The London mayoralty needs to be reformed

Who does a capital city belong to? In the case of London tonight, one answer could be ‘Labour’, now that Sadiq Khan has claimed victory, as the party performs disastrously elsewhere. And clearly Khan’s strong support among the left-wing, the middle class, EU nationals (who are permitted to vote for the mayoralty), and some of the largest ethnic minority communities, shows that his chippy ID politics goes down well among enough residents of the capital to keep the keys to City Hall securely in his pocket. London’s decision to return Khan, when Labour is at such a low ebb, is a telling one Indeed, London’s decision to return Khan, when

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can the UK government navigate the SNP’s calls for a second referendum?

The Unionist tactical voting in Scotland makes it tempting to see the country as split down the middle between pro-independence and anti-independence voters. But this is not quite right. There is a good argument that the Scottish electorate is actually split three ways between Unionists, Nationalists and those who aren’t fully decided on the constitutional question. It is this third group who will determine the result of any second referendum. So, the UK government has to have them in mind when thinking about how to handle the inevitable request for a Section 30 order and a second referendum. The first thing to say is that the UK government should ensure

Steerpike Steerpike

Alex Salmond’s comeback disaster

As the dust settles from Scotland’s elections and the war of words heats up over a future referendum, one thing is perfectly clear: Alex Salmond’s Alba party has been a monumental failure. The former First Minister, whose disastrous party launch six weeks ago set the tone for what followed, failed to be elected as one of the seven North East MSPs, despite much talk of ‘gaming’ the list system. The 17 seats in that region were divided between the SNP (9) Conservatives (5) Labour (2) and Green (1).Salmond himself polled just 2.3 per cent of the vote in what was once his mighty heartland, with Alba failing to win a

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Labour recriminations begin: Angela Rayner sacked as party chair

The local election results are not over yet but the recriminations in Labour over the party’s bad results are already well under way. Following the party’s loss in Hartlepool as well as losses in various red wall councils, Keir Starmer has started to rearrange his top team. This afternoon the Labour leader made the bold decision to sack Angela Rayner as party chair and campaign coordinator. Rayner remains the party’s deputy leader – a role that was decided by the membership and Starmer cannot remove from her. The reaction is so furious that Labour sources have come out to insist Rayner will still play an important role and could be given a new role

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Andy Burnham makes life more difficult for Starmer

As Keir Starmer spends the weekend working out how exactly to bounce back from disappointing results for his party in the local elections, not every Labour politician is down and out. Step forward Andy Burnham. The Greater Manchester mayor has this afternoon been re-elected with an impressive 67.3 per cent of the vote. In his victory speech on hearing the news, Burnham appeared close to tears as he thanked his family for their support and called for more devolution in England.  But it’s another part of Burnham’s speech that’s likely to set the cat among the pigeons. The former Labour MP used his speech to offer advice on devolution, not just to the Prime

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Andy Street’s success is part of the English political realignment

Andy Street won the West Midlands mayoralty in 2017 by the slimmest of margins, with 50.4 percent of the vote to Labour’s 49.6 percent in the second round. He has been re-elected by a far more comfortable margin: 54 percent in the second round, and was within eight thousand votes of winning on the first round. Street’s success is part of the broader English political realignment. Just look at his vote share in the Black Country. But he also has a distinct political style, emphasising his business experience – he’s the former boss of John Lewis – and a more consensual approach. Voters have clearly decided that they prefer this