The Latest Breaking News from Britain

Our exit from the EU won’t be a focus of the spring statement, but it should be. Most now accept the need for closer ties, writes Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee

More than 800 objects unearthed near Melsonby show the north was ‘definitely not a backwater’ 2,000 years ago

Most feel financially secure but think UK’s economy is worsening, as chancellor plans welfare cuts in spring statement

The remarkable find offers insights about the wealth and power dynamics of 1st century Britain

The find in Melsonby, North Yorkshire, by a metal detectorist is one of the most important ever found, Historic England has said.

Analysis by The Independent has revealed the scale of Britain’s welfare bill to the taxpayer

As Labour attempts to tighten Britain’s burgeoning welfare belt, Alicja Hagopian and David Maddox investigate the true cost of the welfare state

Letters: David Murray and Bernie Evans on the alternatives open to the chancellor to tackle Britain’s crumbling finances. Plus a letter from Elizabeth Atkinson

What can Indian and Pakistani press archives, government records and memoirs tell us about the Middle East of the 1920s and ’30s, when Britain’s empire was in its twilight years? What did the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, the movement for Egyptian independence, or the crisis in British Mandate Palestine…

An Iraqi man has managed to avoid being deported from the UK after claiming a people smuggler tossed his ID and forced him to get rid of his phone while on his way to Britain.

Britain's Labour government will deliver a highly anticipated fiscal update on Wednesday, with finance minister Rachel Reeves expected to detail billions of pounds of spending cuts to address the country's struggling economy.