Badenoch offers new explanation for Tory attack on Muslim event, saying party objecting to gender segregation – UK politics live
Unite leader Sharon Graham says she expects Starmer to face leadership challenge after May elections
Keir Starmer will face a leadership challenge after the Scottish parliament, Welsh Senedd and English local elections in May, the Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has said.
This is not a novel view, but in an interview on Sky News this morning Graham said what many Labour MPs will only say in private.
Asked if she would like to see Angela Rayner replace Starmer, she replied:
Irrespective of what I believe, I think after the May elections there will be a move to change leader because I think Labour are going to pretty much be decimated in those elections.
As Sky News reports, Graham said she thought the government did not understand “how bad” the anger was from “working people” about its lack of delivery.
Key events
Andrew Sparrow
Anna Turley, the Labour chair, issued this statement after Kemi Badenoch’s press conference.
Kemi Badenoch used her local election launch to back her shadow justice secretary when she should have already sacked him. It’s shameful that she lacks any backbone and won’t condemn his despicable comments on Muslims.
The Tories have now joined Reform in the gutter by adopting Tommy Robinson endorsed views over Muslims peacefully praying in London. The majority of Brits – including many Conservatives – will rightly be appalled by it. It shows just how far the Tories have sunk.
Tom Ambrose is now taking over the blog for a bit. I will be back later.
Badenoch offers new explanation for Tory attack on Muslim prayer event, saying party objecting to gender segregation
Q: [From Peter Walker from the Guardian] Yesterday you backed what Nick Timothy said about the Ramadan event in Trafalgar Square. What was your objection to it? Yesterday your party said it was a segregation matter. This morning the party chair, Kevin Hollinrake, said it was a general point about prayer in public. But in an article this morning Timothy said this was a specific point about Islam. What is the party’s position?
Badenoch says they are both right.
She says the Tories believe in freedom of religion.
But this debate which Nick is having is not about freedom of religion. It is about how religion is expressed in a shared public space, and whether those expressions fit within the norms of British culture.
She says Keir Starmer pulled out of an an event organised by the group that organised the Trafalgar Square event when he was opposition leader because they are “highly controversial”. He was “sucking up” to British Jews. So his stance is “the mother of all hypocrisy”, she says.
She says Timothy is a ‘“fantastic shadow justice spokesperson”.
She says, as a woman from an ethnic minority, she is “very uncomortable seeing women pushed to the back in Trafalgar Square in an event which is exclusionary”.
She says she is happy to see religious events in Trafalgar Square. But they have to be inclusive.
(Although this Badenoch is claiming that the Tories primarily objected to the Trafalgar Square prayer event because it involved gender segragation, Timothy did not mention this at all in his original tweet attacking the event as “an act of domination”, or in a subsequent defence of his stance.)
Q: Do you think you will do better than last year? And what would be a good result?
Badenoch says a good result would be winning all seats.
She says that last year the party did not do well because it was still associated with the previous government.
Q: [From Martina Bet from the Sun] Is there a plan to bring new faces into your team? Many of your team are from the last government?
Badenoch does not accept that. But she says she needs new faces, and experience. The ex-ministers in her team are people who tried to stop the last government making the mistakes it was making.
Q: [From Ben Clatworthy from the Times] Can you really fund these pledges. Where are you going to get the money?
Badenoch says the Tories have identified savings worth £47bn.
Q: [From Aaron Newbury from the Daily Express] Do you think Sadiq Khan’s comments show Labour wants to betray the Brexit vote?
Badenoch replies:
I came into parliament a year after the referendum, and I saw what happened when MP spent three years litigating a referendum where the public gave a very, very clear verdict. I do not want us to have that again. We need to start thinking about the future.
She says Labour is going back to 2016 ideas because they don’t have any new ideas.
Q: Are you really coming back? Or are you just being replaced?
Badenoch says the Tories are coming back for the country’s sake.
Q: [From GB News’s Christopher Hope] How bad could it get for you? Nigel Farage says you will be wiped out. And would you encouraging tactical voting against Reform UK?
Badenoch says she does not care what Farage says. She says the Conservative party is coming back.
Q: [From Rob Powell from Sky News] You talk about the war causing prices to go up. Yet at the start of the war you said Britain should be more involved. Do you regret that?
Badenoch says she has not changed her mind. She has always favoured allowing the US to use British bases. She says it is Keir Starmer who changed his position.
Badenoch is now taking questions.
Q; [From ITV’s Harry Horton] The PM is unpopular, growth is low, we have had U-turn after U-turn, and yet your party is still polling worse than at the election. What would it mean for you if you lose seats at these elections?
Badenoch says this is a new party under new leadership. She is fighting to win, she says.
Badenoch also criticises other opposition parties.
The Lib Dems can’t stand still for five minutes without breaking into a conga. The Greens say yes to crack pipes, but no to Nato.
And look at what Reform have done at Kent County Council. They came in with a new Doge team promising to cut people’s council tax, only to find out that the Conservatives had already made the savings ….
There’s war in the Middle East pushing up prices and threatening our economy, British servicemen and women are already involved, yet Reform can’t even be bothered to appoint a Foreign affairs or a defence spokesman.
Badenoch says Labour holding shadow leadership contest because they don’t know what they stand for
Badenoch says Labour came into power not knowing what it wanted.
Labour’s problem is that after 14 years in opposition, they came in without a single idea of how to fix anything. They’re now having a shadow leadership contest, talking about what the party should stand for.
Kemi Badenoch says voters will get a choice at the election. They could vote for one of the many parties “whingeing”, who have not bothered to do the work on policy and who would cost them more, or for the only party with a plan.
She says the Tories are on the side of “hard-working people”. They would abolish business rates for pubs, restaurants and high street shops, cut energy bills, allow more North Sea oil drilling, and scrap stamp duty on family homes.
And they would make sure people who aren’t contributing “get what they deserve”. She makes it clear she is talking about criminals, saying the Tories would hire more police officers. And they would triple stop and search, she says.
The police would be told to stop e-bikes being ridden on pavements. And they would be told not stop allowing people to smoke drugs in public places.
She says she would put the rights of ordinary people above the rights of the “small minority” making life a misery for everyone else.
And the Conservatives would pay for this with welfare cuts, she says.
She goes on:
Some people want more benefits with Labour. Some people want nationalisation with Nigel Farage. Some people want bigger boobs with Zack Polanski. That’s fine. That’s what they want.
We’ve got a better offer. We offer those who want jobs and opportunity, those who want society to judge people based on merit.
