NatWest Settles Dispute With Farage That Led to CEO's Ouster
The terms of the settlement are confidential, NatWest said in a statement, which noted the bank had also apologized to Farage. Sky News first reported the dispute had been resolved.
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Keir Starmer Is Walking a Fine Line in Tackling Immigration
Do you beat the populists or join them when they whip up public outrage over immigrant numbers? That's the dilemma facing center-left and center-right parties across Europe — and Britain is no exception. Nigel Farage, leader of the populist Reform UK party, is riding high in the opinion polls this summer while campaigning on the alleged links between crime and high immigration. Labour and the Conservatives struggle to respond: They have to tread a fine line between acknowledging genuine public fears and inflaming rank prejudice.
Yahoo
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Labour accepted £40k donations from criminal it kicked out of party
Labour has said it is returning more than £40,000 donated by a convicted criminal who the party had already expelled as a member. The donations came from businessman Abdul Sattar Shere-Mohammod, 55, known as Shere Sattar, who was convicted of actual bodily harm in 2022, and thrown out of Labour later that year. The money includes £10,300 given to the central party last June, a figure that is just below the threshold to be disclosed to the elections watchdog, the Electoral Commission, the Sunday Times reported. The revelations raise questions about Labour's procedures for accepting political donations, a hot topic in the wake of reports earlier this year that Elon Musk planned to give Nigel Farage's Reform UK party $100m. In its manifesto at the last election, Sir Keir Starmer's party pledged to 'protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties'. As well as the money given to the party, £15,000 was donated by Mr Mohammod to, in part, support the re-election of Portsmouth MP Stephen Morgan, the early education minister. The party said Mr Morgan was not aware of his conviction. His local party should have declared these, but blamed an 'administrative error' that it said was being 'rectified'. Mr Mohammod also gave £10,000 to the local party of Southampton MP Satvir Kaur and £5,000 to Amanda Martin, another Portsmouth MP. Both declared the money in their parliamentary register of interests. The paper said the donations to Mr Morgan and his local party only emerged when a reporter contacted Mr Mohammod. Asked about his conviction this week, Mr Mohammod said he had been present during a violent confrontation after his son's bike had been stolen. He said he had tried to prevent a 'bad situation' but that his sons had gotten into a fight. He denied personally assaulting the victim. Labour told the paper the £10,300 donation to the party was below the £11,180 limit set by the Electoral Commission, meaning it didn't need to be declared. In a statement, the commission said: 'Donations that have been reported late by parties and accounting units are considered in line with our enforcement policy. We can confirm we are currently considering this matter.' Labour said that because Morgan's crowdfunding page said that donations would also support other campaigns in Portsmouth, it could not be considered a direct donation to him and did not need to be declared in his register of interests. It added that the donations would be submitted to the Electoral Commission in the party's next quarterly return. A spokesman said: 'These donations were made to Portsmouth Labour Party. Action has since been taken to return them.' They also said that Ms Kaur returned her donation last year, Martin was in the process of doing so, while the national party did so on Thursday after being contacted by the paper.
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a day ago
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Prince Andrew has no public future - and lack of royal status 'annoys him,' author claims
The author of a new book about Prince Andrew has called for "more accountability from the Royal Family and more transparency" after encountering what he claims was considerable secrecy while researching his book. Andrew Lownie has spent four years working on Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York - a book unauthorised by Prince Andrew - and submitted hundreds of Freedom of Information requests to government departments. However, he's revealed to Sky News that all of his applications for information about Prince Andrew and his official work were knocked back. The royal household and the royal archive are already exempt from FoI requests. Speaking ahead of the book's publication, which has already attracted considerable attention because of more lurid claims about the duke, Mr Lownie told Sky News: "Clearly there are details that people have picked up on and run with. And you know, that's inevitable in these sort of books." But he added: "If they're to earn our trust and support, they have to show that they are not hiding things - that they are behaving well." Mr Lownie said he was given a catalogue of reasons by the likes of the Foreign Office and the Department for Business and Trade as to why they couldn't help with information about Prince Andrew's public work as a trade envoy in the 2000s. Sky News was shown a selection of those response letters. "They blame everything from security reasons, to cost and man hours, to data protection, to my questions being too broad," the author said. But Mr Lownie believes it's in the interest of the Windsors to be more open if they want to guarantee long-term backing from the public, and he hopes his book may trigger more calls for greater transparency. Read more UK news: It comes as a new YouGov report found that Prince Andrew remains the most unpopular royal in the country, with 87% of people having a negative view of him. According to the survey, just 5% of people have a favourable view of the Duke of York. The poll also found the royals are less popular with a younger audience. Only 36% of 18 to 24-years-olds believe the monarchy is good for the country, compared with about 60% of Britons overall. The generational difference is underlined given 81% of over-65s think Britain should continue to have a monarchy, but this falls with each age group to just 41% of 18 to 24s. Stories about Prince Andrew continue to attract a huge amount of attention and regularly still make him a difficult distraction for the Royal Family. Mr Lownie says he got no sense of any appetite to reintroduce him into public life while doing his research. "I don't think he has any public future. I would say his private future is pretty limited too. I mean, he lives in Royal Lodge [on the Windsor Estate], he plays golf, watches TV, and presumably sees his grandchildren ... he's living the life of a retired man." But according to one member of staff, the removal of his royal and military titles has stung more than Prince Andrew has publicly shown. "What most annoys him is his lack of a royal status," Mr Lownie added. "That's what really sort of gave him his whole sense of identity. And that's, you know, it's not being able to put on his uniforms and strut around and being self-important." Buckingham Palace has not made any comments on the book as the Duke of York is no longer a working royal. Sky News approached the Duke of York's office but received no response.
