Closing summary
Keir Starmer has insisted the special relationship is “in operation right now” despite not having spoken to Donald Trump since a public fallout over his refusal to allow initial US strikes on Iran from British bases. The prime minister sought to highlight UK-US intelligence-sharing on a “24/7 basis” amid the spiralling Middle East war this week as he faced questions about the American president’s repeated criticism of him.
Starmer said that the “long-standing British position is that the best way forward for the regime and the world is a negotiated settlement with Iran where they give up their nuclear ambitions”. He said his decision not to join the US and Israeli offensive strikes was deliberate and that he stands by it.
The UK is sending four additional Typhoon jets to Qatar, as well as Wildcat helicopters with anti-drone capabilities being sent to Cyprus, Starmer said in a press conference this afternoon. He said the US has been allowed to use British airfields to carry out defensive missions and that HMS Dragon is heading for the Mediterranean.
Cabinet ministers, led by energy secretary Ed Miliband, blocked Keir Starmer from allowing Donald Trump to use British airbases for its attacks on Iran, it has been reported. Chancellor Rachel Reeves, foreign secretary Yvette Cooper and home secretary Shabana Mahmood rallied behind Miliband to oppose the prime minister granting the US permission to use bases in Gloucestershire and the Chagos Islands for bombing runs to the Middle East, according to the Spectator.
Kemi Badenoch has said the UK should take offensive action against Iran after UK bases were attacked. “We need to do what we can to stop the ability for these attacks to take place,” the Tory leader told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Shabana Mahmood put herself on a collision course with Labour MPs after announcing a set of changes to the immigration system that one backbencher said mimicked Donald Trump and another claimed would lead to a Windrush-style scandal. The home secretary announced her plans on Thursday, including an end to permanent refugee status and the removal of government support from asylum seekers who are deemed not to need it or who break the law.
A small number of asylum seekers whose claims are rejected will be offered an “increased incentive payment” of £10,000 per person and up to £40,000 per family to leave Britain under a pilot scheme, Mahmood said. The home secretary said the government would seek to echo reforms introduced in Denmark, where she said there had been “great success” in using incentives.
The home secretary said that without “restoring order to our borders,” Labour will allow a populist right-wing government to seize the narrative. She said: “When fearful people turn inwards, their vision of this country narrows and their patriotism turns into something smaller, something darker. And ethnonationalism emerges.”
More than 2,000 people had arrived in the UK on Wednesday on eight flights from the United Arab Emirates, MPs have been told by a Foreign Office Minister, Hamish Falconer. A further eight flights are expected from the UAE today.
The first government rescue flight from the Middle East failed to take off because of problems “getting passengers on board”, a minister has said. Technical issues meant the flight did not depart on Wednesday night from the Omani capital Muscat.
The husband of a Labour MP and two other men have been released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of spying for China. David Taylor, who is married to the Scottish Labour MP Joani Reid, is accused of assisting a foreign intelligence service.
Nigel Farage has described May’s Senedd elections as a “referendum” on Keir Starmer, as Reform UK gears up to battle Plaid Cymru for the chance to end a century of Labour dominance in Wales. Launching Reform’s election manifesto in Newport on Thursday alongside the party’s newly appointed Welsh leader, Dan Thomas, Farage said: “It’s a Welsh election, but I’m afraid, whether you like it or not, it doubles up as a referendum on Keir Starmer’s premiership.”
Ed Miliband has said he is confident the country’s energy supply is robust despite the conflict in the Middle East disrupting oil and gas shipping lanes. The energy secretary defended the government’s policy not to allow new North Sea exploration licences, and said they would not make any difference to energy bill.
MPs are planning to redact the names of 2,000 parliamentary staff from an official register that has been in place for decades, in a move that experts say will reduce transparency around lobbying by passholders. The proposal has been put forward by the House of Commons standards committee after evidence sessions held in private with staff unions, which raised concerns about the safety of those working for MPs.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called out the “hypocrisy” of the Labour party over the arrests of three men, believed to have ties to the Welsh wing of the party, on suspicion of spying for China.
Reform’s former Welsh leader, Nathan Gill, is serving a 10-year prison sentence for taking bribes in return for making pro-Russia statements in the European Parliament.
“It is true that a former senior figure, very briefly in the party, from Reform Wales, did take foreign money and he’s in prison, as he should be,” Farage said.
“But from Labour we have had the moral high ground. We will not hear in this campaign another word of commendation or criticism from the hypocrites in the Welsh Labour Party.”
On Wednesday the Welsh Conservatives called on Eluned Morgan, the first minister, to answer questions in the Senedd on the case. In a short written statement, Morgan said: “Since [this] is a live police investigation, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on any aspect of this case.”
