‘Not words that I would have used’: Stride distances himself from Jenrick’s ‘no white faces’ comments – as it happened

6.10pm BST

Early evening summary

• Robert Jenrick has been accused of fuelling a “fire of toxic nationalism” after he doubled down on his complaint about “not seeing another white face” in part of Birmingham. In an interview with the World at One, Dame Sara Khan, who was a counter extremism commissioner for the last government between 2018 and 2021, said what Jenrick said was racist. She said:

I do believe it’s a racist comment. It’s the fact that he wasn’t talking about anything else [other than skin colour].

And I think him trying to now suggest it wasn’t about race, it was about integration, again I find troubling. Because when he talks about integration, what are the indicators that he’s using to judge that Handsworth isn’t integrated?

Colleagues that I’ve spoken to from that area are very clear about the diversity that exists there. You have Pakistani people living there, Indian people living there, Black African, Black Caribbean, Bangladeshi people living there. I mean that is the definition of integration.

• Kemi Badenoch has said lack of proper community integration could take Britain to “a very dark place”. She has defended Jenrick, and in an interview with the BBC she claimed:

There are numerous parts of our country now where the same story is happening, and at the extreme levels, a lack of integration leads us into a very dark place as a country.

We’re here in Manchester today, a week on from a terrible terrorist attack where a man who lived in our country for 30 years clearly wasn’t well integrated, clearly didn’t share British values because he went on to murder British Jews.

• Robert Jenrick has been accused by Labour of resorting to an unwarranted personal attack after comparing the attorney general, Lord Hermer, to a mafia lawyer and calling him a “useful idiot” for Britain’s “enemies”.

• Kemi Badenoch has repeatedly avoiding saying whether or not she admires Nigel Farage. In a Sky News interview, Beth Rigby asked her if she admired the Reform UK leader. Sky reports:

[Badenoch] responded first, “on what basis”, then “I don’t understand your question” and thirdly, “why aren’t you asking about Keir Starmer or Ed Davey?” Beth then explained that she also asked the prime minister about Farage during the Labour conference, and that he said the Reform leader is “formidable”. Badenoch responded: “I think it’s very interesting that a lot of the media in Westminster is very interested in asking about Nigel Farage. I’m not interested in Nigel Farage, I’m interested in the Conservative party.”

• The NHS and social care would cease to function under the government’s new rules to be imposed on foreign staff, nursing leaders have said, as hundreds of medics condemned the policy as “divisive and xenophobic”.

• The EU has announced it will match Donald Trump’s steel tariffs, doubling levies on imports to 50% in a move condemned as “an existential threat” to the industry in the UK.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

Updated at 6.13pm BST

5.45pm BST

Earlier I said Sadiq Khan would definitely be standing down as London mayor in 2028. (See 5.09am.) A reader points out that Khan gave an interview before the Labour conference saying that he would stand for a fourth term. I’m sorry for the error. But I’m told that when Khan gave that answer, he did not want to say he would be standing down in case that triggered headlines about his intending to challenge Keir Starmer etc (Andy Burnham was making headlines at the time), and there is still an expectation that he will call it a day after three terms.

Updated at 9.40pm BST