Starmer suspends Labour rebels over repeated unrest
The suspensions are reportedly due to "persistent breaches of party discipline", with the exact number of affected MPs to be confirmed on Wednesday afternoon.
The move comes as MPs prepare to depart Westminster for the summer recess early next week.
There had been speculation that some Labour MPs were in talks to join a new party being established by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.
Rachael Maskell, Brian Leishman, Chris Hinchliffe, and Neil Duncan-Jordan are understood to be among those expected to have the whip suspended.
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The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘He will find resistance': The Cotswolds braces itself for JD Vance's summer holiday
The narrow lanes and honeyed stone walls of the Gloucestershire market town of Stow-on-the-Wold are not the setting where one would expect to see an angry altercation – unless it was a standoff between Range Rovers for the last parking spot in the gridlocked market square. This is a place of ancient doorways and expensive condiments, where the pavements are dotted with teashops and vintage cars drift past with their roofs down and a plaque on the war memorial records the last time a battle was fought here, in 1646. But could this almost parodistically charming town, or another very like it, soon find itself at the heart of the angry US culture wars? According to reports, the US vice-president, JD Vance, will be holidaying in the Cotswolds with his family next month, and protesters are determined to let him know just how warm the welcome will not be in England's chocolate box countryside. 'JD Vance is every bit as unwelcome in the UK as Donald Trump,' said the Stop Trump Coalition, which mobilises British opposition to the US president. 'We are sure that, even in the Cotswolds, he will find the resistance waiting.' If so, it will not be a new experience for the veep. Vance's wife, Usha, and their three young children had to abandon a ski holiday in Vermont in March after they were met with crowds of protesters with signs reading 'Go ski in Russia'. The Vances were also jeered at Disneyland in California after part of the park was closed off for their sole use. For some, such as the comedian and former chatshow host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, the actor Portia de Rossi, outrage at the Trump administration has gone further. The couple moved to the Cotswolds earlier this year and now regarded it as permanent, DeGeneres said last week, explicitly so they could escape the Trump administration. Luxury estate agents say they are among growing numbers of wealthy Americans seeking a foothold in what some, inevitably, are calling the English Hamptons (others, on account of the many posh people here already, prefer to call it 'the Couttswolds'). And now, the VP? He may not be popular, but in Stow at least, the Vance resistance did not yet appear to have mobilised earlier this week. Local people know the value of the tourist dollar or yuan, and despite the crowds of tourists disgorging from coaches and the backed-up traffic on the A429, they welcome them, if occasionally through gritted teeth. 'That's the balancing act that [we live with],' said Ken Greenway, who had ridden his scooter into Stow 'to escape the crowds in Burford', his equally picturesque village nearby. Vance and his compatriots were welcome, he said, 'and anybody who has got a business must be over the moon to see all these people coming in. But the locals, we're struggling. I mean, it's taken me 20 minutes to come two miles [into town] on the main road.' Some of the VP's countrymen are less polite about his trip. 'I'm glad we'll have gone by then,' says Laurelyn Karagianis, visiting with a family party from Los Angeles. It had been a dream for a decade to visit the Cotswolds. 'When I think about a cosy, Christmassy holiday, I think of Bourton-on-the-Water, Castle Combe,' she says, adding that it is a shame that US politics has followed the family down the winding lanes. 'I just met with a [British] friend who I haven't seen in 15 years, and that was the main topic of discussion over dinner. It's sad that our politicians are kind of a laughing stock that the world has to protest,' Karagianis says Whatever the cause – US political refugees, a post-Covid exodus of London's wealthy, or sun-dappled social media posts in which Americans visit a pub or try to work an Aga – most local people agree that visitor numbers have swelled significantly in the past decade. For some, enough is enough. After eight years living in Stow, Lesley Webb is moving to West Sussex after a change in her circumstances – which she admits is a relief. 'It's an awful thing to say, but for me, it's just become too touristy. Stow itself has got busier and busier and busier. It's just the volume of people, everywhere,' Webb says. Perhaps happily for the village, rumours now suggest the Vances may end up not in this idyllic part of Gloucestershire so favoured by Americans, but across the Oxfordshire border, closer to Chipping Norton. The Spectator, quoting 'almost impeccable sources', reported that 'a filthy rich Anglo' could be lending his own home to the second family to spare them the deprivations of Airbnb. 'Apparently some senior British political figures, who have knowledge of Cotswolds social scene, are helping the Vance family plan their trip,' the magazine said. Whoever could they mean?
Telegraph
27 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Rachel Reeves won't break her fiscal rules, she'll destroy them
For those not paying attention, this Labour Government is turning deception into a fine art. The technique is simple enough: make a pledge that seemingly provides reassurance, then drive a Challenger tank through the pretence, while claiming the literal promise has been maintained. The obvious example is Labour's pledge not to raise the taxes of working people. From the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, to the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, on to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, and any Labour minister being grilled in an interview, the mantra is repeated. Income tax, employee National Insurance contributions and VAT have not been increased – so there have been no taxes raised on working people. The undeniable fact that increases in employers' National Insurance contributions and other taxes result in costs being borne by working people causes no shame, no embarrassment and no admission of a promise being broken. The next big promise to be broken but not betrayed is that the tax and spend plans of Reeves will stay within the fiscal rules she has set herself. By this, the Chancellor means that a responsible government matches its day-to-day spending with its income and only borrows to invest. The latest public borrowing figures have taken a howitzer to this pretence, effectively blowing it out of the water. The deficit for June was £6.6bn higher than the same month last year, while the gap has grown by £7.5bn when you compare this financial year to the previous – and we're only three months in. Andrew Sentance, a former Bank of England economic adviser who served on its Monetary Policy Committee for five years, suggests the 'deficit for 2025/26 [is] heading for £170bn, 5.5-6pc of GDP, even higher than last year – totally unsustainable and over £50bn above the OBR forecast'. Unfortunately for the Government, the many tax rises Reeves announced in her Budget of October 2024 accelerated behavioural responses in the British public to avoid tax increases. The result has been – at best – erratic economic growth, unpredictable tax revenues and a rise in borrowing to meet its everyday commitments. In reality, Reeves is borrowing now to pay for past borrowing and Labour's additional spending that we cannot afford. That is why even the dogs in the street are barking loudly about higher taxes being necessary for her next Budget to stay within the fiscal rules. Were Reeves to abandon her talk of supposed prudence, there would likely be a market response akin to her experiencing skydiving without a parachute. What can the Chancellor do to avoid such a fate? This was signalled in March 2024, when in her Mais Lecture, she revealed an approach to debt financing that would augur greater use of the EU's style of borrowing that, like old Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes, could be used to 'invest' in net zero and other politically driven infrastructure. It will keep some beneficiaries in the private sector happy while allowing Labour to claim it is making investments for our future without driving up the debt burden. Bob Lyddon, an international banking and finance consultant, explained her cunning plan in his paper Decoding Rachel Reeves and remains convinced that while tax rises to meet everyday funding will undoubtedly be necessary, the Chancellor will attempt to balance her bromides with honeyed announcements of grand schemes that promise much but deliver little. Reeves signalled how a small amount of 'borrowing for investment' by the Government could be multiplied by having intermediate public entities (like Great British Energy and the National Wealth Fund) borrow as well, and by the resultant schemes also borrowing, this time from investment companies like BlackRock and UK pension schemes. The result will be an Enron-style debt mountain costing 10pc per annum plus the repayments, all falling on the hapless UK business and personal taxpayers one way or another. It is an EU 'bait and switch' that grows off-balance sheet debt that eventually crystallises and has to be paid, just like off-balance sheet PFI still has to be paid. This vision is consistent with Labour's ambition of realignment with the EU and will result in the UK experiencing the same sub-optimal levels of economic growth. It allows Labour to say it is meeting its commitments to splurge great dollops of money into our economy without us feeling the hit. The price would be paid over a 50-year-long commitment that will not immediately result in higher taxes but will drive up the running costs of the public sector. We should be afraid. When Reeves talked up the supposedly halcyon days of Gordon Brown's grandiose public borrowing and especially his use of PFI 'investment' she ignored how it still costs us billions to repay today. The total PFI payments from 1996/97 up to the final transaction not due until 2052/53 are £278.3bn – representing an astonishing 555pc of the £50.1bn capital sum. Of the total of 669 PFI contracts, 588 were under Labour's Blair and Brown governments. An estimate by the Left-leaning Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) priced £13bn of Labour's 1998 PFI-funded NHS capital investment to have a cost of £80bn, and by 2019, it still had £55bn to pay. My money's on Lyddon being right, meaning Labour's next big political double-cross will be to say its fiscal rules are being met when she's driving that tank right over them. While she distracts us with carefully composed doublespeak about the need to increase taxes (because Reeves knows no other way to make her numbers add up and will not be allowed to cut spending), hidden borrowing will be conjured up, too. Ultimately, that will mean yet further tax rises for our grandchildren and their children too. Whether or not our economy or our people can bear it, we shall never know – for none of us are likely to be around to see the carnage.
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘People have seen through him and he's not welcome': Scotland tees up for Trump visit
Rohan Beyts first visited the dunes overlooking the slate grey North Sea at Menie, Aberdeenshire, as a teenager. Later she brought her own children to play across the spectacular landscape of dunes and slacks, vibrant with butterflies and wildflowers. Beyts attended the initial meeting called in 2006 to galvanise local resistance to the then business tycoon Donald Trump's plans to bulldoze this legally protected site of ecological rarity to make way for his first Scottish golf resort. 'I've been at this for 19 years,' she says, ahead of the now US president's expected Friday evening arrival in Scotland. 'I'm still disgusted by what Trump did at Menie and now what he is doing across the rest of the world.' After a bitter and protracted dispute with local people and environmentalists, who fought to save the dunes and the dwellings around them, Trump eventually won planning permission to build 'the world's greatest golf course'. At the time, he promised a £1bn coastal resort including expansive courses, luxury housing and high-rise timeshare flats – promises Beyts points out have yet to be fulfilled. 'Where's the huge development that was heralded as replacement jobs for the oil industry? I don't understand how the politicians were so taken in,' she adds. Beyts, who later won a moral victory in court against Trump International staff who photographed her when she paused to answer the call of nature on a walk around the dunes, will not be protesting against the president's latest visit. 'I fully support people who want to demonstrate and if I thought it would make any difference to people in Gaza or Ukraine I would, but I worry it plays to his ego.' David Milne was one of the local people whose refused to budge after Trump tried twice to buy his home, a former coastguard station Trump described as a 'visual slum', and then attempted to secure a compulsory purchase order. 'His entire attitude was one of entitled arrogance – 'I will do what I like.' People up here have a bad habit of saying: 'I don't think so,'' says Milne. On one of Trump's previous visits to Menie, Milne flew a Mexican flag from his flagpole in solidarity with those targeted during the Republican's first presidential term. This time he will fly the saltire. 'People are upset that this is being described as a private visit yet there's a huge cost to the country for security. Things are tight enough – why are we paying for this? He's pulling British police into a deliberate stunt for publicity for his new course,' says Milne. While Beyts and Milne are willing to reflect on their years of resistance, and the close friendships forged, they acknowledge that others are exhausted by the relentless disruption and media interest that accompanies proximity to the resort. The police have already knocked on Milne's door to warn him about access restrictions. However, Tommy Campbell, a local trade unionist who will compere the 'festival of resistance' planned for Aberdeen city centre on Saturday, says peaceful protesters will get as close to the resort as possible on Tuesday morning, when Trump is expected to open his new golf course, with the intention of writing protest messages in the sand at Balmedie beach while the tide is out. 'The world has changed since he first appeared in Aberdeen as a businessman and some people were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,' says Campbell. 'People have seen through him and he's not welcome.' Like Beyts and Milne, Campbell also expresses his disappointment that Keir Starmer and the Scottish first minister, John Swinney, will meet Trump during the president's visit. 'They are not representing the true feelings of the people of Scotland,' he says. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Across Scotland, on the west coast, the residents of Turnberry are facing road diversions, security checkpoints and a swelling police presence, with transit vehicles trundling along the country roads. There is metal fencing around Trump's luxury resort and lines of police in hi-vis jackets blocking the beach, where the late Janey Godley regularly stood to greet him with her infamous handwritten protest sign: 'Trump is a cunt.' In March, Trump described members of a pro-Palestine group accused of vandalising the Turnberry course by painting the grass with the words 'Gaza is not 4 sale' as 'terrorists'. On Friday, some local people were exercised about the 'partial lockdown' they found themselves in. One pensioner questioned why the UK government was contributing to expensive policing for what is a private visit while limiting his generation's winter fuel payments. But others mentioned the employment Trump had brought to the area. Menie's new course is dedicated to the president's late mother, Mary Anne Trump, who was raised on the Isle of Lewis, further up the west coast, before immigrating to the US. In Lewis's main town of Stornoway, Sarah Venus has rehung the protest banner she was ordered by the local council to remove in May. It reads: 'Shame on you Donald John,' a maternal-style admonishment prompted by his treatment of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at a White House press conference in February. The banner will now go on a tour of the island around private homes, as Trump's visit continues into next week. 'This time the protests will be a bit different because of the broader context,' says Venus. 'People are beginning to connect the dots and realise this is a transnational struggle against fascism. It's not just happening over there in the US and maybe there's an opportunity to be vigilant and head it off over here.'
