Closing summary
Labour members feel “disconnected” from the government and risk losing motivation, Lucy Powell has argued as she and her rival for the party’s deputy leadership, Bridget Phillipson, answered questions at its annual conference. Powell, who was sacked from the cabinet in a reshuffle last month, has presented herself as an independent “shop steward” for members, a balance to what she has called a sometimes isolated leadership.
Workers could be charged a fee to take their bosses to court under plans being explored by Labour as it faces pressure from businesses lobbying to water down its landmark changes to employment rights. In a development described by unions as a “disaster”, sources in Westminster said ministers were looking at reviving a proposal made by the last Conservative government to impose fees on employment tribunal claims.
In his Sky News interview Keir Starmer said that President Trump’s claim that sharia law has been introduced in London was “nonsense” and “rubbish”. In fact, he used both words twice. But, when Beth Rigby asked if the claim was racist (because Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, is Muslim), Starmer just said it was nonsense.
Starmer also told Sky News that he had “no personal issue with Andy [Burnham] in the slightest” when asked by Sky’s Beth Rigby if he would prefer the Greater Manchester mayor to “just shut up”. Starmer’s allies were infuriated by Burnham’s interventions last week, and his suggestion that he would be available to replace Starmer as leader. But his apparent disloyalty triggered a backlash, and as the conference closes there is a consensus that Burnham overplayed his hand, and the threat he posed to Starmer has (at least temporarily) receded.
Keir Starmer has said he will look at how international law is being interpreted by British courts in an effort to tackle small boats, which he labelled “Farage boats” because of their increase in number since Brexit. Speaking after the Labour party conference, the prime minister signalled his unhappiness with how the European convention on human rights was being interpreted by judges making decisions about deportations.
A significant number of EU citizens living long term in the UK post Brexit are experiencing discrimination in work and in public services, a report by the UK’s statutory Brexit watchdog has revealed. Five years after the UK quit the bloc, more than a third reported feeling discriminated against by public bodies.
Keir Starmer has arrived in Denmark ahead of a meeting with European leaders, as the Danish prime minister declared Europe is in a “hybrid war” with Russia. The prime minister touched down at Copenhagen Airport on Wednesday ahead of the European Political Community (EPC) summit on Thursday.
Public support for digital IDs has collapsed after Keir Starmer announced plans for their introduction, in what has been described as a symptom of the prime minister’s “reverse Midas touch”. Net support for digital ID cards fell from 35% in the early summer to -14% at the weekend after Starmer’s announcement, according to polling by More in Common.
Amnesty International UK has expressed concern about Keir Starmer’s comment, in an interview with the Today programme this morning, about wanting to review the way some human rights laws are interpreted in deportation cases. He mentioned specifically articles 3 and 8 of the European convention on human rights, covering the right not to be tortured and the right to family life respectively.
A total of 134 people have been charged with an offence for allegedly showing support for the banned Palestine Action group in London, the Metropolitan Police have said, as it announced the latest 20 protesters who have been told they are to face court action. The 20 defendants, who were all arrested on 9 August, have been sent a formal charge summons in the post to appear in court, the force said.
Selfridges has blamed a slump in the number of international tourists shopping for luxury goods in the UK and weaker consumer confidence for a fall in annual sales, as the retailer racked up losses for a fifth year in a row. The upmarket department store chain reported a 7% decline in sales in the 48 weeks to 4 January 2025 to £775m compared with £835m recorded over the 53 weeks of its previous year.
The date of the unveiling of the Scottish budget could be brought forward by two days, the convener of Holyrood’s finance committee has said. Finance secretary Shona Robison had previously said she was “minded” to unveil her tax and spending plans on 15 January as a result of the UK government not unveiling its budget until the end of November, PA reported.
Workers could be charged a fee to take their bosses to court under plans being explored by Labour as it faces pressure from businesses lobbying to water down its landmark changes to employment rights.
In a development described by unions as a “disaster”, sources in Westminster said ministers were looking at reviving a proposal made by the last Conservative government to impose fees on employment tribunal claims.
A source close to the government said a plan was agreed in chancellor Rachel Reeves’s June spending review, as part of efforts to find savings in the Ministry of Justice budget, in a drive to recover some of the costs of running the service.
Under the leadership of the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives proposed a £55 fee for workers making an employment tribunal claim in early 2024, in plans thrown up in the air by Keir Starmer’s general election victory.
Labour members feel disconnected from government, says Lucy Powell
Labour members feel “disconnected” from the government and risk losing motivation, Lucy Powell has argued as she and her rival for the party’s deputy leadership, Bridget Phillipson, answered questions at its annual conference.
Powell, who was sacked from the cabinet in a reshuffle last month, has presented herself as an independent “shop steward” for members, a balance to what she has called a sometimes isolated leadership.
Phillipson, the education secretary, who is seen as the favoured candidate of Keir Starmer and his allies, said picking Powell could result in the government being derailed by “division and disunity”.
“I want us to turn this government around, not to turn on each other,” Phillipson told the hustings. “Change is on the ballot at this election. The choice is: what kind of change? You can choose to push our government to be bolder, to go further, to do more, with me as your voice at the cabinet table. Or you can choose division and disunity that fills the pages of the rightwing papers and puts us back on the road to opposition.”
Powell, the MP for Manchester Central, countered this by saying she did not seek dissent, “but an important conversation about how we can be better, because we need to be. The stakes are too high.” She added: “I won’t shy away from the difficult conversations, but I won’t snipe from the sidelines.”
Asked what the government had got wrong, Phillipson, the MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, identified controversies over winter fuel payments and welfare policy, but said it was important to focus also on what had gone right.
Powell blamed mistakes on “fewer and fewer people taking decisions that are not connected to the communities that we represent, and not hearing that feedback from the doorstep, from our workplaces”, saying this was having an impact on activists.
A total of 134 people have been charged with an offence for allegedly showing support for the banned Palestine Action group in London, the Metropolitan Police have said, as it announced the latest 20 protesters who have been told they are to face court action.
The 20 defendants, who were all arrested on 9 August, have been sent a formal charge summons in the post to appear in court, the force said.
They had been charged with an offence under section 13 of the Terrorism Act, 2000 and were due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 24 November.
Keir Starmer has arrived in Denmark ahead of a meeting with European leaders, as the Danish prime minister declared Europe is in a “hybrid war” with Russia.
The prime minister touched down at Copenhagen Airport on Wednesday ahead of the European Political Community (EPC) summit on Thursday.
Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters on Wednesday that Europe is in the middle of a “hybrid war” waged by Russia and the continent must arm itself.
Ed Miliband announced on Wednesday that Labour is to speed up plans to bring in a “total ban” on fracking.
But how will this work and will it stop a future Reform government from fracking?
Environment reporter Helena Horton has this explainer:
Public support for digital IDs has collapsed after Keir Starmer announced plans for their introduction, in what has been described as a symptom of the prime minister’s “reverse Midas touch”.
Net support for digital ID cards fell from 35% in the early summer to -14% at the weekend after Starmer’s announcement, according to polling by More in Common.
The findings suggest that the proposal has suffered considerably from its association with an unpopular government. In June, 53% of voters surveyed said they were in favour of digital ID cards for all Britons, while 19% were opposed.
Starmer set out plans to roll out a national digital ID scheme on Friday, saying it presented an “enormous opportunity” for the UK that would “make it tougher to work illegally in this country”.
Just 31% of people surveyed after Starmer’s announcement over the weekend said they were supportive of the scheme, with 45% saying they were opposed. Of those, 32% said they were strongly opposed. More than 2.6 million people have signed a petition against introduction of the IDs.
Advocates of a national digital ID scheme are frustrated at the way the policy has been presented and believe that now it may never be implemented.
Selfridges has blamed a slump in the number of international tourists shopping for luxury goods in the UK and weaker consumer confidence for a fall in annual sales, as the retailer racked up losses for a fifth year in a row.
The upmarket department store chain reported a 7% decline in sales in the 48 weeks to 4 January 2025 to £775m compared with £835m recorded over the 53 weeks of its previous year.
Losses narrowed to nearly £16m from almost £42m the previous year but the group has not made a pre-tax profit since 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic forced shops to close their doors for months at a time.
Selfridges Group has four stores in the UK, including its flagship on Oxford Street in central London, two shops in Manchester and one in Birmingham, alongside its online operations.
Read the full story here:
The date of the unveiling of the Scottish budget could be brought forward by two days, the convener of Holyrood’s finance committee has said.
Finance secretary Shona Robison had previously said she was “minded” to unveil her tax and spending plans on 15 January as a result of the UK government not unveiling its budget until the end of November, PA reported.
The finance and public administration committee had complained that would not give it enough time to scrutinise the plans, hoping to bring it forward by a week.
Speaking at the conveners group – where the heads of Holyrood committees quiz the first minister – on Wednesday, convener Kenneth Gibson said: “The finance and public administration committee looked at the 15th, we would have preferred the 7th.
“But having deliberated with the finance Secretary, a collective view was that Tuesday [January] 13th might be a sensible compromise which allows the government that extra week after new year, but doesn’t derail scrutiny, which a Thursday statement might do.”
Back to fracking, and here is some expert comment on Ed Miliband’s announcement.
From Alasdair Johnstone, head of parliamentary engagement at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a thinktank.
Fracking is clearly controversial and was the straw that broke the camel’s back of the Truss administration. There is now a very clear dividing line on energy policy between fracking, opposed by twice as many people as support it, and solar farms which are backed by a clear majority.
Anyone who’s paid and energy bill in the past few years knows gas prices are volatile and fracking in the UK wouldn’t change that. The build-out of British wind and solar is helping insulate the UK against these price swings with electric heat pumps meaning we’re increasingly less dependent on foreign gas imports to heat our homes.
From Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE
The proposed new ban on fracking will just formalise the moratorium on fracking that was re-introduced by Rishi Sunak’s Government in 2022 after a report by the British Geological Survey concluded that it ‘can trigger earthquakes large enough to cause structural damage’.
Although the exact extent of economically viable reserves of shale gas in the UK is not known with certainty, the most recent assessments suggest that there is unlikely to be enough to significantly affect international prices for natural gas, and so would not reduce prices for British consumers.
From Robert Colvile, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, a Conservative thinktank
On Monday, Rachel Reeves said that she was ‘not a zealot’ on green energy, that she was ‘really committed to boosting our energy security’, that ‘investing in homegrown energy is really important’, and that she ‘would prefer us to be using oil and gas from the UK than importing in from overseas’.
Today, Ed Miliband announced a ban on fracking - which has been at the heart of the energy revolution in the US - even as bills for customers rose yet again.
Labour has to decide whether it is a party of ideology or a party that delivers for ordinary people. At the moment, on energy policy, ideology is winning out.
That is all from me for today. My colleague Tom Ambrose is taking over now.
Amnesty International expressess concern about plan to review how ECHR applies in asylum cases, saying article 3 'absolute'
Amnesty International UK has expressed concern about Keir Starmer’s comment, in an interview with the Today programme this morning, about wanting to review the way some human rights laws are interpreted in deportation cases. He mentioned specifically articles 3 and 8 of the European convention on human rights, covering the right not to be tortured and the right to family life respectively.
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said:
Article 3 of the European convention on human rights - the ban on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment - is absolute. It is one of the most fundamental human rights protections and cannot be watered down or reinterpreted to suit political convenience.
There is no grey area between acceptable and unacceptable ill-treatment. If removal would expose someone to conditions that meet the legal threshold of inhuman or degrading treatment, then the UK is legally and morally obliged not to proceed.
At a time when refugees and migrants are already being scapegoated and treated as political bargaining chips, it is crucial that ministers reaffirm, not question, the UK’s commitment to the absolute prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Green party has welcomed the announcement about a full fracking ban – but criticised reports that Ed Miliband is considering allowing more oil and gas extraction from the North Sea. The Green MP Carla Denyer said:
It’s absolutely right that Labour are finally putting the nail in the coffin of fracking, which is unsafe, climate-wrecking and deeply unpopular across the country.
But what Ed Miliband didn’t advertise in his conference speech is that he’s considering giving in to the demands of big oil and gas companies and watering down his long-promised ban on new north sea oil and gas drilling.
This would be the ultimate betrayal to the people of this country who desperately want this government to take the action needed to secure a safe future for us, our kids and our grandkids.
I have updated the post at 12.37pm to include the quote from Lucy Powell about “groupthink” in government, which she blames for the government making “big mistakes”.
Powell says she won't 'snipe from sidelines' as deputy leader, but would have 'difficult conversations' if needed
Powell says this is a party role, not a government one.
Having this debate is not dissent, but an important conversation about how we can be better, because we need to be. The stakes are too high …
I won’t shy away from the difficult conversations, but I won’t snipe from the sidelines.
I’ve been the shop steward for the back benches this past year, and I’ll be your shop steward now.
We all want, we all need this government to succeed, because, as our leader, Keir said yesterday, we are now in the fight of our lives.
And that is the end of the hustings.
Phillipson suggests Powell victory would mean 'division and disunity', putting Labour 'on road to opposition'
They are now on closing speeches.
Phillipson says Labour has a golden opportunity to change Britain and they cannot waste it.
I want us to turn this government around, not to turn on each other.
Change is on the ballot at this election. The choice is what kind of change.
You can choose to push our government to be bolder, to go further, to do more, with me as your voice at the cabinet table.
Or you can choose division and disunity that fills the pages of the rightwing papers and puts us back on the road to opposition.
Q: What is your biggest achievement in government?
Powell says it is delivering a legislative programme for the first year.
Phillipson says it has been getting a Best Start family hubs (the new version of Sure Start).
Future of democracy 'at a precipice', Powell claims
Q: How can the government unite the country?
Phillipson says Labour must take on the “plastic patriots” of Reform. But it must also show people what change it is implementing.
Powell says:
The future of our democracy is at a precipice, and it falls on our shoulders as the Labour party, we’ve always stood up against Division and hate, but also as the party of government to get this right and to really reunite the country. And the challenge couldn’t be greater, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Q: What was the biggest thing you learned moving from opposition to government?
Powell says the transition was hard. But she was not running a government department.
She was proud of what they did getting the king’s speech ready (her job as leader of the Commons). She learned a lot about how government works.
Phillipson says they got some things wrong, like welfare reform. They must learn from that. But being in government is much better than being in opposition.
Q: What is your favourite Labour achievement?
Phillipson says it was the national minimum wage, brought in by the Blair government, something promised by Labour for 100 years.
That happened because John Prescott pushed for it as a deputy leader in cabinet, she says.
Powell agrees. She says the minimum wage was transformative. But this government is following it up with measures like the employment bill, she says.
Powell says 'groupthink' in government has led to Labour making 'big mistakes'
Q: What can Labour do better?
Phillipson says the party must be honest and learn from what it got wrong, like welfare reform and the winter fuel payments.
But in cabinet Angela Rayner said the party used to spend too much time focusing on the 10% of things that went wrong, not the 90% that went right.
She says the party should talk more about its achievements.
Powell says they should not “sugar-coat” things. The party has made “big mistakes”, she says.
She says there have been “fewer and fewer people taking decisions that are not connected to the communities that we represent”.
The party needs a “feedback loop”, so that ministers know what people think of decisions.
And if that means, as I’ve done in the last year or so, if that means having difficult conversations and speaking truth to power, I will do that.
I’ve been the shop steward effectively for the back benchers over the last year, and I can be the party’s shop steward now.
UPDATE: Powell said:
We’ve got to learn the right lessons, I think, when you have a kind of increasing groupthink of fewer and fewer people taking decisions that are not connected to the communities that we represent, and are not hearing that feedback on the doorstep.
Updated
Powell says her 21-year-old son has struggled with her being minister, because Labour has not enthused young people
Q: What are you plans for young members?
Phillipson says Labour should be welcoming to young members. They played an “amazing” role campaigning at the election. But they should also have a role in policy making, she says.
Powell says young people are not attract to the party in the way they were in the past.
She says she has a 21-year-old son.
To be honest with you, him and his friends have really struggled with me actually being in the Labour government this last 15 months, because we’ve not got some of the politics right to enthuse young people, to make them see that a Labour government, the Labour party, is not just working on their behalf, but that we can make the change that they want to see.
Powell says, not having a job in cabinet, she will be able to work full-time on the deputy leader job.
Phillipson says having a job in cabinet will make it easier for her to get things done for members.
Phillipson says Labour should be 'as ruthless' in fighting Greens as they are in fighting Reform
Q: How do we win back support from the Greens and the Lib Dems?
Powell says her Manchester Central seat is half red wall, half urban, so she knows the threat those parties pose.
Labour should stick to its values and rebuild a progressive alliance.
Phillipson says they should expose the Greens for who they are.
They say, on the one hand, that climate change is the biggest challenge we face, and climate change is an enormous challenge, but a real opportunity to create some brilliant jobs.
But then what do they do? They oppose infrastructure projects. They oppose the investment that will make a huge difference to our communities and to tackling climate change.
So we’ve got to be as ruthless in taking the fight to them as we are in taking the fight to be to Reform.
Labour should not be 'trying to out-Reform Reform', says Powell
Q: How should we take on Reform?
Phillipson says Labour should show what it is doing to improve people’s lives.
Powell says she wants Labour to seize back the megaphone from them.
UPDATE: Powell said:
Being tactical about it and trying to out-Reform Reform is not going to help us in those elections next May.
And that’s what I’ve been saying this week, we’ve got to seize back the political megaphone in this country, because let’s be honest, we’ve ceded it too long in recent months.
Updated
Powell says Labour needs to unite its voter coalition, and avoid policies like winter fuel payment cut
Q: What would you do to help win the elections in Wales next year?
Phillipson says she has a strong record as a campaigner.
Powell says the Senedd elections will be tough. She goes on:
And I think what we’re seeing in Wales is a real example of what we’re seeing elsewhere, which is the fracturing of our voter coalition, the fracturing of the electorate.
Yes, we’re losing some support to Reform, but we’re actually losing much more support to Plaid Cymru in Wales at the moment.
And that’s why we need to reunite our voter coalition with that really strong, compelling story about what we think is really wrong with this country and how we’re going to fix it.
Powell says the government can do better. She cites the winter fuel payment cut as an example of a policy that led to people not being clear “about whose side we are on”. It hit the party particularly hard in traditional Labour area.
We need to be out there telling people what we are doing, but we’ve got to get the politics of this right so that we’re not losing votes to all sides.
This is the first answer contained some criticism of the government.
Nan Sloane, a Labour historian, is moderating.
Q: What is your proudest achievement?
Lucy Powell says it was hearing King Charles deliver the king’s speech, the first Labour one in 15 years.
Bridget Phillipson says her proudest achievement has been bringing back a version of Sure Start.
Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell take part in deputy Labour leadership hustingss
The deputy Labour leadership hustings are starting now. There is a live feed here.
The decision to hold it now, when the formal conference proceedings have finished, and when most Labour delegates just want to go home, has been taken as a sign that the leadership does not want this contest to attract much attention.
It was caused by the resignation of Angela Rayner. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is the candidate preferred by the Labour leadership. And Lucy Powell, who was recently sacked by Keir Starmer from her post as Commons leader, is the candidate arguing, as she put it yesterday, for a “course correction”.
There have been at least two polls of Labour members suggesting Powell is ahead, although one suggested Powell would win quite easily, and another suggested the result would be much tighter.
Updated
Miliband's speech to Labour conference - summary of key points
Ed Miliband’s speech had a policy announcement (see 11.14am), but it contained a lot more too and got a very good reception. His comments about Elon Musk are at 11.48am. Here are some of his other lines.
Miliband said Reform UK were “ideological extremists”. He said:
And friends, friends, we’ve got to call out Farage and his cronies for who they are.
They are the investment crushing, job destroying, bill raising, poverty driving, science denying, Putin appeasing, young people betraying bunch of ideological extremists.
That is who they are.
And we know where they want to go next because they have told us.
And he said Labour would campaign against them because of their support for fracking too. (See 11.14am.)
He said Reform were wrong about the reasons for Britain’s problems.
We know what Reform’s approach is:
Scapegoat anyone or anything they can pretend is the cause of all our problems:
They want to blame diversity, net zero, anything they can find to stir up division.
Friends I’ll tell you this. They’re wrong, they’re dead wrong about the causes of our country’s problems.
He said two Tory ideas were really to blame for the state of Britain.
Here’s the thing, It’s two dominant right wing, Tory ideas that have devastated Britain over the last few decades.
The first idea, from the 1980s, trickle down economics, remember that, enrich those at the top, everyone else would feel the benefits.
But we all know how that worked out.
All it did was bring the deep inequality that still scars us to this day.
It didn’t work.
It can never work.
The second idea, from the 2010s
Austerity: that if government got out of the way and cut, cut and cut again, it would sort out our economic problems.
And we all know, and you all know from your communities, that was a disaster too.
He said firms wanting to benefit from the government’s clean industry bonus awards for renewable energy would need to recognise unions.
Our Clean Industry bonus rewards the offshore wind industry for investing in Britain and that’s the right thing to do - but under a Labour government, public money must serve the public interest.
That’s why I can announce that we will introduce a new Fair Work Charter as a condition of that bonus. And let me spell it out, fair wages, the very best rights at work, and yes access to unions.
He said he was also extending employment rights to people working on offshore renewables.
You know what I discovered when I walked into this department for energy.
Current rules mean that if you work offshore in renewables, more than 12 miles out at sea, you are literally in no man’s land when it comes to employment protection.
You’re not even guaranteed the minimum wage.
It is a scandal, It is a Tory scandal.
And I say we will end it.
Our principle which we will put in law - offshore, onshore, land or sea: you will be guaranteed fair pay and decent rights at work.
He recalled a speech given by his father, the leftwing political philosopher Ralph Miliband, to a Labour conference in 1955
You know my dad spoke at conference only once as a delegate, the party conference was in Margate, it was 1955, 70 years ago.
Recently I looked back at his speech: in 2 minutes, he attacked the national executive committee, he complained about the composite he was being asked to support, and he called for the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy.
It’s good some things don’t change in the Labour party.
But he said something in that speech that has always had special meaning for me: he said being part of this party was a great adventure: and we had a vision the Tories will never have.
A great adventure
For me, for us, for our party, that’s the point of being in politics.
Updated
Miliband tells Elon Musk to 'get the hell out' of British politics
Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used his speech to the Labour conference to say that Elon Musk should “get the hell out” of British politics.
Referring to the far-right billionaire who owns Tesla and X, and who delivered a virtual “fight back or die” speech at the recent “Unite the Kingdom” rally calling for a new government, Miliband said:
The truth is, I wish Nigel Farage was just the snake oil, Tory city boy we’ve known about for years.
But he’s actually morphed into something even more dangerous.
He’s now a key part of a global network who want to destroy the ties that bind our communities and our way of life.
And I can sum up the threat for you in two words: Elon Musk
He incites violence on our streets.
He calls for the overthrow of our elected government.
He is an enabler of disinformation through X.
He thinks he can tell us how to run Britain.
Conference, we have a message for Elon Musk:
Get the hell out of our politics and our country.
Environmentalists welcome total ban on fracking
Here is some more reaction to Ed Miliband’s fracking announcement. (See 9.19am and 11.14am.) This is from Greenpeace UK’s political campaigner Angharad Hopkinson
The government is absolutely right to ban fracking for good. After years of hype, all this industry has brought to the UK are earthquakes and a couple of holes in a muddy field in Lancashire. Fracking is polluting, deeply unpopular, and even if it could be made to work in the UK, it’ll do nothing to lower energy bills.
The Friends of the Earth reaction is at 10.46pm.
Zia Yusuf, the Reform UK policy chief, claimed this morning that the parliamentary security department has cut Nigel Farage’s security detail by 75%. (See 9.35am.) He did not elaborate on what he meant by this.
Asked to comment, a House of Commons spokesperson said:
The ability of members and their staff to perform their parliamentary duties safely, both on and off the estate, is fundamental to our democracy.
Any assessment of an individual MPs’ security arrangements or advice is subject to a rigorous risk-based assessment, conducted by security professionals and with input from a range of professional authorities.
Whilst these are naturally kept under continuous review, we do not comment on specific details so as not to compromise the safety of MPs, parliamentary staff or members of the public.
Last year Farage claimed he had been told not to hold constituency surgeries by the Commons Speaker. But the Speaker’s office disputed this, and Farage subsequently retracted his claim.
Miliband vows to ban fracking
This is what Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, told the Labour conference in his speech about his decision to impose a total ban on fracking. (See 9.19am.)
Fracking will not take a penny off bills.
It will not create long-term sustainable jobs.
It will trash our climate commitments.
And it is dangerous and deeply harmful to our natural environment.
The good news is that communities have fought back and won this fight before and will do so again.
Remember Liz Truss and her 42 days of disaster.
The Tories tried to overturn the fracking ban – led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, remember him?
Friends, we sent those frackers packing.
I say: let’s ban fracking and vow to send this bunch of frackers packing too.
Updated
Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, told the Labour conference in her speech that the government has more to do in cleaning up rivers. She said:
This Labour government has passed a new law that puts water companies on notice.
Banning multi-million pound bonuses for polluting water bosses.
Launching 81 criminal investigations.
Introducing new prison sentences for pollution.
Conference, there will be no more undeserved payouts on the back of your bills, no more ripping off the British people and no more rewards for failure.
Those days are over.
It is a Labour government that will drive the renewal of this broken system …
Turning around a broken water system will not happen overnight. But I am determined to drive this fundamental change and clean up our rivers, lakes and seas.
First, we will abolish Ofwat and create a new single powerful regulator to stand firmly on the side of consumers and the environment, ending the abuses of the past.
Second, we will go further and introduce a new water reform bill to deliver a water system designed for the long term.
And third, we will use the fines on water companies – over £100m pounds to date – to invest in cleaning up our waterways.
Conference, we will make the polluter pay.
In his Sky News interview Keir Starmer said that President Trump’s claim that sharia law has been introduced in London was “nonsense” and “rubbish”. In fact, he used both words twice.
But, when Beth Rigby asked if the claim was racist (because Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, is Muslim), Starmer just said it was nonsense.
Rigby also asked Starmer if he believed Trump when he told the press conference at Chequers that he did not know Peter Mandelson, who was sacked as UK ambassador to the US. Trump does know him because he has had meetings with him in the Oval Office.
Starmer said he could not answer for what Trump said at a press conference.
When Rigby put it to him that he should mind if Trump was saying something untruthful, Starmer replied:
Well, what matters to me is the relationship between the US and the UK on defence and security … the closest relationship in the world.
At the Labour conference Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has just started his speech.
Responding to the news that he will announce a total ban on fracking (see 9.19am), Asad Rehman, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, said:
By providing a clear vision for our energy future based on helping people, not on ignoring the science, the energy secretary has sent an important message that the government is listening to communities.
Fracking is and always has been unpopular, both with people facing it off locally and the wider public. The government must now translate its plans to ban fracking permanently into policy, alongside closing a loophole in planning law that still allows it to happen by the backdoor.
Expanding our clean energy infrastructure with the promise of hundreds of thousands of new jobs will bring down energy bills, put more money in people’s pockets, revive our economy and safeguard the planet.
Starmer says he has 'no personal issue with Andy [Burnham] in the slightest'
Keir Starmer told Sky News that he had “no personal issue with Andy [Burnham] in the slightest” when asked by Sky’s Beth Rigby if he would prefer the Greater Manchester mayor to “just shut up”.
Starmer’s allies were infuriated by Burnham’s interventions last week, and his suggestion that he would be available to replace Starmer as leader. But his apparent disloyalty triggered a backlash, and as the conference closes there is a consensus that Burnham overplayed his hand, and the threat he posed to Starmer has (at least temporarily) receded.
Asked about Burnham, Starmer said:
Andy Burnham is doing a fantastic job as the mayor of Manchester. I actually worked closely with him. We’ve reset that relationship between Westminster and our mayors, and we’re working well together. So I’ve got no personal issue with Andy in the slightest.
Labour to launch 'Send the Frackers Packing' campaign against pro-fracking Reform UK in shale gas areas
Helena Horton is a Guardian environment reporter.
Ed Miliband will be announcing the fracking ban (see 9.19am) as part of the North Sea Transition consultation results which are coming out this autumn. There will be new legislation to permanently ban the extraction method.
He plans to take on Reform UK by sending campaigners out to the 141 seats at risk of fracking, in a series of campaigns labelled “Send the Frackers Packing”.
Labour say they will be “ensuring the 141 constituencies that sit above shale gas areas are protected from dangerous unsafe operations.” Miliband’s own seat sits above shale gas.
There have already been fractures in Reform over the fracking issue, with Lancashire council, which is under Reform control, saying it would not welcome drilling in the area. Richard Tice and Nigel Farage have both backed the energy extraction method and (incorrectly) claim it would quickly bring down bills.
Fracking faces resistance in local areas because it can blight water and air quality, and the industrial sites are viewed as an eyesore. There is also a risk of earthquakes and the gas is a fossil fuel which contributes to climate breakdown.
Starmer dismisses criticism of his leadership, saying he will be judged at next election
In his interviews being broadcast this morning, Keir Starmer was repeatedly asked about criticism of his leadership, and calls in the party for him be replaced. He dismissed these suggestions.
He told the Today programme that he did not enter politics to be popular.
I didn’t come into politics as some sort of popularity contest. I came in with one focus, which is changing my country for the better.
He repeatedly brushed asked the criticism by arguing that he had been under-estimated in the past, and that he had a record of proving his critics wrong. He told Sky News:
I took over as leader of our party. And people said to me, you’re not the right person to change the party. I said, yes, I am, and we did it.
Then people said to me, you’ll never win an election. We went on and got a landslide victory.
Now they say to me, you’re not able to change the country. We will change the country, and I will be judged at the next election.
When Kate McCann from Times Radio asked him if he would be willing to stand aside for someone else if he thought another leader had a better chance of winning the election, Starmer said that he won the last election and that he intended to “carry out the mandate we were given at that election, which is to change the country”.
Starmer defends talking so much about Reform UK, saying ignoring threat it poses would be 'grave mistake'
Some people have argued that it is a mistake for Keir Starmer and Labour to talk about Nigel Farage and Reform UK as much as they have. There is a case for saying that this just shores up the credibility of a party with only five MPs, and it switches the news agenda towards immigration and small boats (issues where Reform UK polls well) and away from “Labour issues” like health.
And part of this argument is that, by calling the Reform UK migration policy racist, Labour is also making it easier for Farage to leverage grievance (which, as Starmer himself argued in his speech yesterday, is part of what lies behind Reform UK’s electoral support).
In his interview with Starmer, Robert Peston from ITV News put it to Starmer that he had just given Farage “the platform that he craves”.
Starmer replied:
I think it’s a mistake to pretend this isn’t the fight of our times.
If it is the fight of our times, we’ve got to recognise that, and we’ve got to be in it. I think simply ignoring it is a mistake, a political mistake.
If you look across Europe, most centre-right parties are withering on the vine. That’s what’s happened to the Conservative party here. This is not a UK issue, you can see it in other countries. It’s a pattern.
To ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist and not run towards the fight and win the fight, would be a grave mistake for our country.
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Starmer rejects Farage's claim that his comments about Reform UK could put its activists at risk
In a response to Keir Starmer’s conference speech, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, claimed yesterday afternoon that the PM’s comments about his party would put his activists at risk of attack from the “radical left”.
In his interviews, Starmer rejected that claim.
In his interview on GB News, when he was asked about the Farage claim and it was put to him that he was inflaming tensions, Starmer replied:
No, not at all. There is a political fight that has to be had, and it’s about the future of our country.
And when Kate McCann on Times Radio put it to Starmer that, in using provocative language, he was adopting tactics used by Farage himself, Starmer said that his language was appropriate because this was not a normal political battle. He said:
This is a different fight to the traditional Labour/Conservative fight. You can see versions of this going on in many other countries across Europe. I think that if Reform were to gain power, they would tear our country apart and fundamentally change us as a country.
In interviews this morning Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s head of policy, accused Starmer of inciting violence against Farage. He told Times Radio:
We have seen the most extraordinary 48 hours of demonisation, and I’m going to say it again, incitement to violence against the man who is the bookmakers’ favourite to be the next prime minister.
Yusuf also claimed the parliamentary security department had cut Farage’s security detail by 75%, without saying why. He said party donors had stepped in to make up for this.
Ed Miliband to announce total ban on fracking, going beyond current moratorium
Helena Horton is a Guardian environment reporter.
Ed Miliband is due to take to the stage to deliver his speech today, and he is set to announce a “total ban” on fracking.
There is currently a moratorium on the controversial energy extraction method which involves drilling deep into the earth then shooting at high speed a mixture of sand, water and chemicals to dislodge shale gas. Reform UK supports fracking across Britain, but it is unpopular as it causes earthquakes.
Miliband told the campaign group 38 Degrees:
I am about to announce something you have been calling for and campaigning on, which is to ban fracking for good. You called for it, I’m going to do it, thank you for your campaigning.
Veronica Hawking, campaigns director at 38 Degrees said:
What an amazing result for our environment, our local communities, and the thousands of committed people and groups right across the country who’ve spent years fighting for fracking to be banned for good – including the many who signed 38 Degrees supporter Geoff’s recent petition. Not long ago, it felt like fracking might make a comeback, with Reform UK pushing to put it back on the agenda. But thousands of us stood up, demanded a permanent ban, and made our voices impossible to ignore.
There is not currently a permanent ban in law, just a temporary moratorium, which was briefly lifted by Liz Truss in 2022 then reinstated by her successor Rishi Sunak.
Starmer says government will review 'interpretation' of some ECHR provisions to tackle 'Farage boats'
Keir Starmer has said he will look at how international law is being interpreted by British courts in an effort to tackle small boats, which he labelled “Farage boats” because of their increase in number since Brexit, Eleni Courea reports.
Starmer says he does not think Farage and his supporters are racist - though poll suggests 43% of voters think they are
Keir Starmer has said that he does not think Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, or his supporters are racist.
He made this point in several of the interviews being broadcast this morning, explaining that that what he is calling racist is the Reform UK migration policy announced last week that could lead to hundreds of thousands of people with indefinite leave to remain in the UK being told they must leave the country.
The single most important comment from Starmer during this party conference probably came on Sunday, on the BBC, when Laura Kuenssberg asked him if he thought the Reform UK policy was racist and Starmer said he did. This interview signalled a transformation in how Labour will fight Reform UK, which has a lead of about 10 points over Labour in the polls. Much of Starmer’s speech yesterday was just devoted to fleshing this argument out. But it has led to Labour figures repeatedly being asked about Farage potentially being racist, sometimes with embarrassing results.
In an interview with Sky News, Beth Rigby asked Starmer if he thought Farage was racist. Starmer replied:
No, nor do I think Reform voters are racist.
They’re concerned about things like our borders. They’re frustrated about the pace of change.
So I’m not for a moment suggesting that they are racist. I was talking about a particular policy and making a distinction – and a really important distinction in my mind – between deporting those who have no right to be here, illegally here, which this government is doing and I agree with, and, on the other hand, reaching into migrants lawfully here who’ve been here for years working in our hospitals, our schools, and deporting them. That to me would tear our country apart.
In other interviews, asked if he was calling people who voted Reform UK, Starmer said “not in the slightest”.
In his interview, Robert Peston, ITV News’ political editor, pointed out that, if Starmer does not think Reform UK supporters are racist, he is out of step with the plurality of voters who do. He referred to some polling by YouGov for his Peston programme that illustrates this.
Peston asked Starmer how he could call a policy racist, but not the people supporting it. Starmer just gave a version of the answer he gave to Sky, saying:
I am not calling Reform voters racist. Most of them are simply concerned and frustrated because they want to see change and are concerned that we secure our borders, as I am. That is not racist.
Updated
Starmer: Leaving EU has hampered efforts to return migrants
Good morning. Keir Starmer recorded about 10 broadcast interviews yesterday afternoon, after his conference speech, on the basis that they would all be broadcast this morning. They are playing out now. As you would expect, they are very repetitive – a lot of the questions and the answers are the same – but there are still plenty of new lines in them.
One of his most audacious answers came when he was speaking to Christopher Hope, political editor of GB News, Reform UK’s favourite TV channel. Hope asked if the government would stop the small boats, and Starmer said that the returns agreement that he negotiated with France would make a difference. But then he went on to claim that they were “Farage boats, in many senses” because after Brexit the Dublin convention returns agreement that used to be in place no longer applied.
Here is Starmer’s answer in full.
The returns agreement with France is important because we need to establish that if you come by boat, you will be returned to France.
I accept the numbers [returned so far under the agreement] are low. We had to prove the concept and prove that it could work. We’ve now done that. But now we need to ramp that up.
I would gently point out to Nigel Farage and others that before we left the EU, we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU. And he told the country it will make no difference if we left. Well, he was wrong about that. These are Farage boats, in many senses, that are coming across the channel.
Starmer does not seem to have used this line in other interviews and it is not clear yet whether this is the start of a sustained government attempt to rebrand these as “Farage boats”, or whether Starmer was just trying to wind up Hope, who often asks questions that reflect the views of his Farage-loving viewers.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, made a similar argument in his party conference speech. John Rentoul, the Independent commentator who is broadly sympathetic to Labour, said this morning Davey and Starmer were both wrong to argue that being out of the Dublin convention made much difference to small boat arrival numbers.
Surprised by PM repeating Ed Davey’s bogus analysis: boats are nothing to do with Brexit; & the Dublin convention never worked
But in fact the Dublin convention probably isn’t the key issue. Peter Walsh, a senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, a migration thinktank, argued recently that Brexit is making the small boat problem worse because the UK no longer has access to an EU fingerprint database, and that means asylum seekers can come to the UK knowing they won’t automatically be thrown out because they have applied in another European country. He said:
There’s also increasing evidence of a Brexit effect [in explaining why migrants want to leave France and come to the UK]. We speak with asylum seekers now, and often they’ve claimed asylum in the EU country, sometimes been refused, but they understand that because the UK is no longer a part of the EU, and no longer party to the EU’s fingerprint database for asylum seekers, if they can get to the UK, they have another bite of the cherry and another chance to secure asylum status and remain in Europe.
There are plenty more lines in the Starmer interviews. I will post them shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The conference starts, and the main speakers are Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, at 10.30am, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, at 10.40am, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary who is winding up the conference as incoming chair of Labour’s national executive committee, at 11.15am.
11.30am: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, and Lucy Powell, the former Commons leader, take part in a deputy leadership hustings.
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