Reform UK overtakes Labour for first time in nationwide opinion ballot – UK politics reside

Thomas-Symonds says the UK authorities sees “real opportunities to improve the status quo” within the reset taking place this 12 months because the UK and the EU revise how their post-Brexit commerce deal is working.

He says he intends to be a “ruthlessly pragmatic negotiator”.

And he says there will likely be three pillars to the UK’s reset with the EU.

This British authorities was elected on a mandate to strengthen nationwide safety by reconnecting with our allies, to extend folks’s security by robust borders, and to extend prosperity by progress.

Our European buddies are part of each single a kind of priorities, and I imagine it’s these priorities that kind the three pillars of a reset in our relationship.

Thomas-Symonds says the UK and the EU each know that “low growth is not the destiny of our economies”.

They’re each dedicated to “research and innovation, reducing red tape, a new skills agenda, boosting productivity [and] a more resilient economy”, he says.

He goes on:

In a extra unsure world, we’re commonly reminded that allies are safer collectively than they’re aside.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cupboard Workplace minister answerable for post-Brexit relations with the EU, is talking now on the on the UK-EU discussion board’s annual convention. There’s a reside feed right here.

Thomas-Symonds says the UK and the Eu share the identical “mutal goal”, wanting a greater relationship.

He says Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, lately gave a speech saying the federal government has set progress as its fundamental precedence. And he says on the exact same day Ursula von der Leyen, the European Fee president, was setting out her competitiveness agenda.

Good morning. An excellent rule of thumb in political reporting is that any information story about voter intention polling is incorrect. That’s as a result of information tales, by definition, are what’s what new and what’s totally different, and polls that present something uncommon (or at the least something considerably uncommon) are most likely outliers. In polling, what issues is the development (as a result of polls are a dependable information to voting developments) however not a lot the precise numbers (the place polling is far more hit or miss).

So it it’s with some reservation that we begin with YouGov polling, for the Occasions and Sky Information, displaying Reform UK in first place, and forward of Labour for the primary time in a nationwide opinion ballot. It has Reform UK on 25%, Labour on 24% and the Conservatives on 21%.

As Anthony Wells, head of European political and social analysis at YouGov, informed the Occasions, the Reform UK lead is properly throughout the margin of error, and it could be extra practical to see Nigel Farage’s get together degree pegging with Labour. Wells stated:

We’ve had Labour and Reform extraordinarily shut over all our polls thus far this 12 months and this survey exhibits a slim Reform lead,” he stated. “While it remains within the margins of error it reinforces the fact that Reform is roughly equal in support with Labour with Conservative slipping back again.

So why cover it prominently? Because, while the figures may not matter much, the trend does, and this is confirmation that support for Reform UK has been growing significantly since the general election. Here is a poll tracker from Electoral Calculus.

This does not mean Farage is in poll position to be the next PM. The next election is years away, Reform only has five MPs and its surge is miniscule compared to the SDP’s in the early 1980s. The SDP-Liberal Alliance hit 50% in the polls at one point, but it got crushed by first-past-the-post at the 1983 general election and ended up with just 23 MPs.

But politics has changed a lot in the last 40 years, and even if Reform’s prospects of overtaking the two main UK parties still look slim, these figures will alarm MPs from both the Conservatives and Labour.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.40am: Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, gives a speech at the UK-EU forum’s annual conference.

10am: The Today presenter Nick Robinson interviews Wes Streeting, the health secretary, for a world cancer day event.

10am: Education experts, including the National Education Union, give evidence to the Commons education committee about the children’s wellbeing and schools bill.

11am: Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland secretary, gives a speech on how Stormont has been operating.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

11.30am: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

2.30pm: Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.

2.30pm: Gareth Davies, head of the National Audit Office, gives his annual speech to parliament.

And in the evening Keir Starmer is having dinner in Downing Street with the Danish prime minister, Mette Fredriksen.

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