Afternoon summary
Keir Starmer has said that he expects to get the report from his ethics adviser on Angela Rayner quickly – but refused to say she will have to go if she has broken the ministerial code. (See 4.20pm.)
Starmer has confirmed that the government is considering digital ID cards as a means of reducing illegal immigration. He told the BBC in an interview that he thought views on this had changed since a plan by Tony Blair to introduce ID cards failed in the face of public opposition. Starmer said:
We all carry a lot more digital ID now than we did twenty years ago, and I think that psychologically, it plays a different part …
My instinct is [digital ID] can play an important part. Obviously we need to look through some of the detail.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, says he has heard “very powerful” evidence about British complicity in the sale of arms to Israel at the first day of his Gaza Tribunal inquiry.
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.
Only 19% of people agree with Robert Jenrick that Reform's immigration policies not tough enough, poll suggests
In an interview with the Spectator, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary (who is widely seen as a likely replacement for Kemi Badenoch) has said that the Conservatives should become even more anti-immigration than Reform UK. In his article Tim Shipman reports:
Jenrick says ‘there’s a lot to welcome’ in Reform UK’s plan. ‘It’s obviously going to be very important that we deport all the illegal migrants in the country and the next government has to make that their priority.’ He does criticise Farage’s suggestion that a Reform government would focus on deporting undocumented males, rather than women and children. ‘The people-smuggling gangs would exploit women and girls and it would encourage even more young men to pose as 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds,’ he says.
Jenrick does not stop there. On legal migration, he wants to outflank Farage and throw down the gauntlet to Badenoch. ‘Damaging though illegal migration is, legal migration is even more harmful to the country because of the sheer eye-watering numbers of people who have been coming across in recent years perfectly legally. It’s putting immense pressure on public services.’
He calls for a return to the situation in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s when the UK was a net emigration country. ‘I think the country now needs breathing space after this period of mass migration. The age of being open to the world and his wife, who are low-wage, low-skilled individuals, and their dependents has to come to an end. Reversing recent low-skilled migration will likely mean a sustained period of net emigration. I would support that’ ….
[Jenrick] goes further than Farage on the housing of asylum seekers. ‘They should be detained in camps,’ he says. ‘The facilities will need to be rudimentary prisons, not holiday camps. It’s not what Reform have suggested, which is cabins with a fence around them.’
According to new polling by YouGov, this is very much a minority view. Only 19% of people think Reform’s immigration policies are not tough enough, the poll suggests.
