UK politics: Lib Dems denounce new Reform UK chair as ‘Trump sycophant’ – as it happened

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage next to new chairman David Bull at a press conference in London Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

5.30pm BST

Afternoon summary

• Keir Starmer has committed the UK to its first significant stake in a new nuclear power plant since the 1980s.

• The UK has been joined by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in placing sanctions on two Israeli government ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, over their “monstrous” comments about Gaza, including plans to destroy the territory and use violence to gain control of new settlements in the West Bank.

• More than a quarter of a million jobs have been lost in Britain since Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget, official figures show, fuelling a rise in unemployment to the highest level in almost four years.

• Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has announced that the former TV presenter David Bull will be the party’s next chair. The Liberal Democrats have denounced him as a “Trump sycophant”. (See 12.52pm.) As Peter Walker reports in a profile, “with his daytime TV teeth and perma-tan, Bull is one of the UK politicians who most resembles the slightly unnerving Donald Trump acolytes who populate Fox News in the US.” But Peter goes on: “Rather than being an unyielding zealot, as the new chair of Reform UK he appears a safe choice.”

• Farage has said that restoring the death penalty will become “an issue of major national debate” within the next decade – while also stressing that he is opposed to the idea. (See 12.20pm.)

• An attempt to change the law on abortion led by the Labour MP Stella Creasy is not supported by “any of the abortion providers in the country”, a leading pro-choice charity has said.

For a full list of all the stories covered here today, scroll through the key events timeline at the top of the blog.

Updated at 5.32pm BST

5.16pm BST

Here is John Crace’s sketch about the Reform UK press conference this morning.