Starmer says voters being ‘conned’ because Tories and Reform UK preparing for coalition which would be ‘disaster’ for Britain
Keir Starmer has claimed that Conservative voters and Reform UK voters are both being “conned” because neither party is being honest about the prospect of the two parties merging.
In an interview with Beth Rigby from Sky News during his visit to Rossendale in Lancashire, asked whether he was more worried about the Tories or Reform in this week’s local elections, Starmer said he saw them as “equally” challenging. He went on:
The Tories have got a terrible record, 14 years of failure. Reform moan about everything, but have got no answers.
And at the end of the day, Reform and the Tories, there’s all this talk about them getting together merging.
If you’re a Tory voter who doesn’t want a pro-Russia foreign policy, how does a merger with Reform work for you?
If you’re a Reform voter that thinks the Tories have failed for 14 years, how’s a merger or coalition with the Tories work for you?
Both sets of voters are being conned. Behind the scenes, behind the leader of the opposition, other people are looking for a coalition of these two parties. It would be a disaster for Britain.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, and Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, have both rejected calls for some sort of pact or coalition, stressing that they view each other as opponents, not allies.
But many Conservatives have argued – as Robert Jenrick did in private remarks that were made public last week – that, if Reform is still polling well at the time of the next election, the Tories will have to strike some sort of electoral deal with them.
Yesterday the Sunday Times reportedly that, privately, Badenoch agrees. In their story, Caroline Wheeler and Tim Shipman said:
Multiple sources say that in recent conversations with donors the Tory leader has said that she thinks some sort of pact is “inevitable” if Labour is to be defeated at the next general election.
A Tory spokesman claimed that this was a distortion, that Badenoch was under pressure from donors to seek an accommodation with Reform and had resisted. But a credible account of her views was directly relayed to journalists, members of the shadow cabinet and party aides by those involved in the discussions …
A source familiar with Badenoch’s exchanges with donors said: “She hasn’t condemned Jenrick for what he said because she has previously gone even further and told donors she thinks a pact with Reform is inevitable. That’s not gone down particularly well with some and it is an interesting tactic, given the party is struggling to attract funding and has lost some of its biggest donors.”
Key events
Early evening summary
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Plaid Cymru has proposed a new Welsh Development Agency as part of its New Economic Plan for Wales. Launching it, the party’s economy spokesperson Luke Fletcher said: “Our plan will see wealth built, retained and recycled in our communities instead of it leaking, and in some cases flooding, out of Wales. It will grow and sustain Welsh owned businesses, delivering good jobs, reviving our own centres and boosting living standards.”
Steve Akehurst, director of Persuasion UK, has a good thread on Bluesky giving more detail of the Getting to know ‘Reform curious Labour voters’ (see 5.52pm).
Labour could lose twice as many seats from defections to Greens as from defections to Reform UK, report suggests
Today Keir Starmer was talking about the threat to Labour from the right – the Conservative party and Reform UK. (See 1.55pm.) The government is often accused of being preoccupied appealing to voters on the right, but a report published today, by the thinktank Persuasion UK, says that Labour could potentially lose far more seats from disillusioned leftwing Labour voters defecting to the Greens than it might lose from disillusioned rightwing Labour voters defecting to Reform. It says:
Looking forward, about 11% of the 2024 Labour vote is currently open to voting Reform at the next election. But for Labour this is dwarfed by the number of Labour voters on the other side of their coalition open to voting Green (29%) or Lib Dem (41%), who are spread out across Labour-held seats, including in Labour vs Reform constituencies. Basic MRP analysis suggests Labour would lose 123 seats if all Reform curious Labour voters defected, but 250 if all Green curious Labour voters did the same. This creates a difficult balancing act for the government; they need to hold both sides to win next time.
The report is called Getting to know ‘Reform curious Labour voters’ and it explains in considerable detail what the party could do retain the support of both its Reform-curious supporters and its Green-curious supporters.
The answer does not involve just sitting on the fence, or sticking with the status quo. Part of it involves recognising that, while core Reform voters are very hostile to net zero, Reform-curious Labour supporters are not, the report says.
Provided noticeable cost and inconvenience to consumers is avoided at a policy level, unambiguously pro-net zero signalling is more or less all upside within the Labour coalition, being one of the most vote moving positions we tested. This is not because climate action is highly salient to Reform curious Labour voters – it isn’t. But rather, it’s not unpopular, meaning it helps Labour stem defections to its left without costing it votes to the right. For the same reason, in our experiment, reneging on net zero was one of the most vote losing positions Labour could adopt among its 2024 vote.
The report also argues that framing the next election as a Labour v Reform contest (which in part is what Starmer was doing today) could help the government.
Labour can avoid alienating either end of its vote en masse, there is some evidence framing the next election as a choice between Labour and Reform could reap electoral benefits. The party’s tactical voting advantage against the Conservatives has diminished since the election, but when voters are asked to choose between Labour or Reform, the government’s lead over Nigel Farage’s party extends significantly.
Jess Phillips says she expects Home Office to set up more than five local grooming gang inquiries
Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has said she expects the total number of local local grooming gang inquiries being funded by the government to be more than the five promised in January.
Speaking in response to an urgent question in the Commons she said that, while the government has committed to five inquiries, “I expect to actually go further.”
A “framework” for how these inquiries will take place will be published next month, she said, when the government is also publishing a report by Louise Casey, who has been asked to compile “a comprehensive picture of the nature, scale and profile of group-based child sexual abuse”.
Phillips also suggested that the final number of inquiries might depend on what Casey recommends. She told MPs:
All of these things will rely on each other. I can’t stand here and say exactly, I don’t know what Baroness Casey is going to say about which particular area and how and what I might need to focus on.
I’m going to go on the basis of facts, and I’m going to follow them wherever they tell me. Wherever they tell me there are victims that need help, that is where I will go.
Phillips was responding to an urgent question from Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, who restated the Tories’ call for a national inquiry into the scandal. He said:
The last government took action by setting up the wider [Prof Alexis] Jay inquiry and the Grooming Gangs Taskforce, but the truth is, that is not enough.
There is now clear evidence that those in authority covered up these rapes because the perpetrators were mainly of Pakistani heritage …
The government said there would be five local inquiries, but we know nothing about four of them … Five local inquiries, which can’t compel the production of evidence just won’t do. Fifty towns are affected, not five.
Responding to Philp, Phillips said she did not need to read out the results of previous reports to know the extent of this problem, because she had spent so much time talking to victims herself. She said:
I know exactly the issue of the cover up as does everybody already because of the many local inquires that have told us that this happened, and the national inquiry that has told us that there were cover ups …
I have been trying to change the issue of this on the ground, for all of my life, since the very first time I ever met a girl who has been ignored. I will continue to do that and do what is right for the victims.
Later Lee Anderson, the Reform UK MP, asked:
Thousands of young, white, British working class girls have been raped, tortured and abused by Pakistani grooming gangs, and yet this minister here refuses to support a full national public inquiry. All I want to know is, is she part of the cover up?
After saying the Anderson’s question did not deserve a response, Phillips, who ran refuges for women who were abuse victims before becoming an MP, went on:
I have spent my entire career. I wonder how many victims he has sat and held hands with in court, of grooming gangs. How many he’s gone round to their house in the morning to get them out of bed, to get them into a courtroom.
There is absolutely no way that I would be part of any cover up. I will do everything I can under a Home Secretary who will do everything she can to make sure that those who are responsible are held accountable.
UK proposes statement of shared values with EU as part of post-Brexit reset, document suggests
Britain has proposed a broad statement of shared values with the EU that emphasises support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the Paris Climate Agreement and open and free trade, according to a report by Reuters.
In her story, Lili Bayer says the text, which has recently been shown to EU members, is a possible preamble to a new UK-EU strategic partnership both sides hope to agree at a summit on Monday 19 May. This has been described as a post-Brexit reset.
As quoted in the story, the document says:
We reaffirmed our continued support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders …
We confirmed our shared principles of maintaining global economic stability and our mutual commitment to free and open trade …
We remain committed to keeping the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C within reach.
In her story Bayer points out that, while the document does not mention President Trump, “several elements of the text present a striking contrast to current US policies”.
Caoimhe Archibald, the Sinn Féin economy minister in the Northern Ireland executive, has told reporters that “clearly” she does not agree with the alleged ‘kill MP’ comment from the Irish language band Kneecap. But she also defended the band for speaking out about the killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
Asked about the controversy generated by video of the group at a November 2023 gig appearing to show one member saying “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP”, she said:
Clearly, I don’t agree with what was said.
I think that Kneecap are a group that has been very vocal on issues that are important to them like Gaza.
I think the most outrageous issue facing the world today is the ongoing genocide that we are seeing in Palestine and the bombardment that continues on a daily basis, the blockading of aid, the slaughter of innocent women and children.
I think that is what our focus should very much be on as an international community, in bringing an end to that.
Asked if the band should apologise, Archibald said that was a matter for them.
Green co-leader Carla Denyer defends right of trans women to take part in women’s sports
The Green party co-leader Carla Denyer has defended the rights of trans women to take part in at least some women’s sports.
In an interview with Times Radio, asked if trans women should be allowed to compete in sports against cis women, Denyer replied:
The thing is, in a lot of sports the research shows that there is no substantial gender difference. And, what’s more, I’ve also seen research that shows that trans women do not retain much, if any, biological advantage. And we have to acknowledge that in sports, there’s a variety of heights, weight, strength amongst people.
When it was put to Denyer than in some cases being born male did give people a physical advantage over women that would persist after they transitioned, she replied:
I think we have to bear in mind here that trans people are less than 1% of the population.
And this hyper-fixation on them in society, treating trans people who are very vulnerable groups, by and large, as a political football is not actually tackling any of the problems we’re facing in society, is it? While we focus on this debate about what toilets they should use, we are not talking about the chronic underfunding of women’s refuges and domestic violence services.
Last week Adrian Ramsay, Denyer’s co-leader, angered some pro-trans activists in his party by saying Greens should not expel members who say that trans women are not women. Denyer has been more explicitly pro-trans, and in her interview she rejected the suggestion that this might lead some people to think the Greens were not standing up for the rights of cis women. She said:
I’m a biological woman, I’m a cis woman, I’m not trans myself. But I’m very, very clear that my feminism is expansive, it’s inclusive. For me, it’s really important to include trans women in my definition of feminism.
And I don’t see my rights as in conflict with trans people’s rights at all. Of course, there are some details that need to be worked out. And those are areas where I’d be keen to take expert advice. But broadly speaking, I think this pitching of women’s rights and trans rights against each other as if they’re in opposition simply doesn’t match my understanding of how the world works.
In reality, women and trans people both suffer from misogyny. We both suffer from inaccurate stereotypes about what we are and what we should be. And I think we can push for a better world, a more inclusive world that helps all of us together.
RCN says pay award for nurses must be ‘fully funded’ – not paid for by cuts to other services
The Royal College of Nursing has said this year’s pay award for nurses must be “fully funded” – and not paid for by cuts to other health services. The RCN also sounded unimpressed by a Times report saying the NHS pay review body is recommending a pay rise of about 3%, marginally above the 2.8% proposed by the government.
In a response to the Times’s story (see 10.04am), Jo Galbraith-Marten, the RCN’s director of legal, employment and member relations, said:
This level of award will do little to turn things around. Nursing is crucial to delivering the government’s reforms, but the profession is in crisis, with fewer people joining and the numbers quitting skyrocketing.
We need direct negotiations with the government, not a pay review body process from a bygone era. Any pay award must be fully funded, taking resources away from frontline services is unfair on staff and bad for patients. We have a live survey of members open on what they think about the government’s 2.8% proposal and what action, including industrial action, they might be prepared to take.
When our members meet in two weeks’ time at our annual congress, they need answers, not endless speculation. This year’s pay award is already late, and the government needs to provide some certainty for staff and patients as a matter of urgency.
‘Completely irresponsible, totally wrong’ – Phillipson condemns Farage for his comments about special educational needs
During education questions in the Commons, Helen Hayes, the Labour chair of the Commons education committee, asked Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, to condemn Nigel Farage’s comment about special educational needs and disabilities last week.
Referring to Farage, the Reform UK leader, claiming that doctors are “massively over-diagnosing” children with Send and mental health conditions, Hayes said that there was a real Send crisis in schools and that blaming parents and GPs for the increase in diagnosis was “both inaccurate and insuting”.
In response, Phillipson said:
I cannot agree more …
[Hayes] is absolutely right that, just days from the local elections, the comments of the member for Clacton [Farage] will have sent a shiver down the spines of so many parents right across our country. Completely irresponsible. Totally wrong.
This government is focused on better outcomes for all of our children, including children with Send.
Campaigners also pointed out that Farage was wrong to say that children were being assess as having Send by GPs over Zoom.
Starmer says voters being ‘conned’ because Tories and Reform UK preparing for coalition which would be ‘disaster’ for Britain
Keir Starmer has claimed that Conservative voters and Reform UK voters are both being “conned” because neither party is being honest about the prospect of the two parties merging.
In an interview with Beth Rigby from Sky News during his visit to Rossendale in Lancashire, asked whether he was more worried about the Tories or Reform in this week’s local elections, Starmer said he saw them as “equally” challenging. He went on:
The Tories have got a terrible record, 14 years of failure. Reform moan about everything, but have got no answers.
And at the end of the day, Reform and the Tories, there’s all this talk about them getting together merging.
If you’re a Tory voter who doesn’t want a pro-Russia foreign policy, how does a merger with Reform work for you?
If you’re a Reform voter that thinks the Tories have failed for 14 years, how’s a merger or coalition with the Tories work for you?
Both sets of voters are being conned. Behind the scenes, behind the leader of the opposition, other people are looking for a coalition of these two parties. It would be a disaster for Britain.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, and Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, have both rejected calls for some sort of pact or coalition, stressing that they view each other as opponents, not allies.
But many Conservatives have argued – as Robert Jenrick did in private remarks that were made public last week – that, if Reform is still polling well at the time of the next election, the Tories will have to strike some sort of electoral deal with them.
Yesterday the Sunday Times reportedly that, privately, Badenoch agrees. In their story, Caroline Wheeler and Tim Shipman said:
Multiple sources say that in recent conversations with donors the Tory leader has said that she thinks some sort of pact is “inevitable” if Labour is to be defeated at the next general election.
A Tory spokesman claimed that this was a distortion, that Badenoch was under pressure from donors to seek an accommodation with Reform and had resisted. But a credible account of her views was directly relayed to journalists, members of the shadow cabinet and party aides by those involved in the discussions …
A source familiar with Badenoch’s exchanges with donors said: “She hasn’t condemned Jenrick for what he said because she has previously gone even further and told donors she thinks a pact with Reform is inevitable. That’s not gone down particularly well with some and it is an interesting tactic, given the party is struggling to attract funding and has lost some of its biggest donors.”
UK announces £100m package of support for Palestinian territories
Keir Starmer will announce a package of support for the Palestinian territories when he hosts the prime minister of the Palestinian authority Downing Street this afternoon, PA Media reports.
Starmer and David Lammy, the foreign secretary, will meet Mohammad Mustafa for the first such official visit since 2021, PA says. The support package will include £101m for humanitarian relief, economic development and governance and reform.
At the lobby briefing this morning, the PM’s spokesperson replied:
The meeting today is with the prime minister of the Palestinian authority, obviously discussing UK’s steadfast support to the Palestinian authority and its own reform agenda, as well as obviously our support of the Palestinian people at a critical moment.
There will be two urgent questions in the Commons this afternoon. At 3.30pm there will be one on the Headingley crossbow attack, and at about 4.15pm there will be one on the child rape gang scandal. A Home Office minister or ministers will be responding.
Here are some more picture from Keir Starmer’s visit to the Rossendale primary health care centre in Lancashire today.