Starmer ‘completely rejects’ suggestion he echoed Enoch Powell in immigration speech, No 10 says – UK politics stay

Vladimir Putin is “prevaricating” and “obfuscating” in peace talks with Ukraine, David Lammy has instructed MPs.

Talking throughout questions within the Commons, the international secretary stated:

We welcome the needs to get a permanent peace, however there should be a ceasefire with a purpose to have interaction in these talks it appears to me, and it’s Putin that’s prevaricating, it’s Putin that’s obfuscating and we should name that out with our lengthy expertise of scrutinising that exact particular person.

In July Labour could have been in energy for a yr. To mark the anniversary, Guardian Reside occasions are internet hosting a dialog in Conway Corridor, London, on Wednesday 9 July the place Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, Rafael Behr, a Guardian columnist, Frances O’Grady, the Labour peer and former TUC common secretary, and Salma Shah, the previous Conservative particular adviser to Sajid Javid, will focus on the way it has gone.

There’s extra concerning the occasion, and a hyperlink permitting you to e book tickets, right here.

Anybody who assists somebody to self-harm – resembling by giving them a blade or drugs – may resist 5 years in jail below plans for a brand new offence, PA Media stories. PA says:

Ministers are looking for to broaden the legislation to criminalise those that encourage or help self hurt on-line or in particular person, as a part of the crime and policing invoice.

The transfer would imply anybody who intend to trigger severe self-harm might be prosecuted, even when that didn’t result in any accidents.

Underneath the On-line Security Act 2023, it’s already unlawful to encourage or help suicide or self-harm by means of content material on-line.

However the change to the legislation seeks to interchange the prevailing offence to cowl all methods self-harm might be aided.

Commenting on the change, Alex Davies-Jones, the victims minister, stated:

The prevalence of significant self-harm, particularly in younger individuals, is vastly regarding.

It’s an terrible fact that some individuals encourage or help such behaviour, and one I wished to attract consideration to throughout Psychological Well being Consciousness Week.

Whether or not encouragement is by communication, or extra immediately by help, the result is identical.

We’re decided that anyone aspiring to see others hurt themselves is stopped and handled within the strongest manner.

David Lammy, the international secretary, has simply began taking questions within the Commons. In response to the primary query, Hamish Falconer, minister for the Center East, stated the UK has joined requires an pressing assembly of the UN safety council this afternoon to debate the scenario in Gaza.

After Overseas Workplace questions, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, is asking an pressing query concerning the Mansion Home accord – a cope with pension corporations supposed to get them to take a position extra in UK corporations.

The federal government’s immigration white paper generated adverse headlines throughout all wings of the press this morning.

Listed here are two of the headlines in rightwing papers.

And listed here are three headlines from papers within the centre or on the left.

However, with out pleasing the left or the correct, possibly Keir Starmer was aligned with the views of people that don’t determine with both facet? That’s the argument made by Luke Tryl, who as director of Extra in Widespread UK spends plenty of time in focus teams researching public opinion. He posted these on Bluesky yesterday.

IMO, each Starmer’s recognition that migration is a part of Britain’s nationwide story, and the warning that with out extra management “we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together” does a reasonably good job of capturing the place most Brits are on immigration.

There are only a few pull up the drawbridgers even in probably the most migration sceptic focus teams we run (or within the polling). However there are very positively worries, even in additional liberal teams, that the tempo/scale of immigration and lack of integration expectations undermines cohesion/id/group.

Insisting extra management is required and we must always have higher expectations on contribution/integration (and we must always truly be ready to spend money on it) tackling reliance on low cost labour, whereas additionally being clear Britain will at all times wish to appeal to individuals, appears to fulfill public expectations on stability

The unemployment price within the UK has risen to its highest stage in nearly 4 years, based on official figures, as the roles market continues to sluggish. Heather Stewart has the story.

Chris Weston, chief government at Thames Water, has defended his determination to simply accept a £195,000 bonus simply three months into the job final yr.

Giving proof to the Commons atmosphere committee, the place he was requested if it was sensible to simply accept such a giant bonus so quickly after her began, Weston replied:

I feel within the first three months I did make a distinction.

I began to place in place the brand new organisational construction, I began to offer individuals confidence and reassurance about how proud they might be of the job they did and what we had been getting down to do. And that helped stabilise the corporate and I feel that was vital.

Weston additionally stated the corporate had “lost direction a bit” when he took over.

I used to be the fifth chief government in 5 years … that creates a confusion for individuals within the firm. I feel it required clearer path, which I’ve given … Sixteen months in I’m fairly happy with the progress we’re making.

It’s a massive ship to show round. It is rather troublesome.

Helena Horton is a Guardian atmosphere reporter.

US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins completed a press convention in London the place she stated she want to see the UK and the US extra aligned on meals requirements regulation.

She additionally appeared to melt her stance on getting the UK to simply accept chlorine-washed hen and hormone-treated beef from final week when she stated US agriculture was being handled “very unfairly” by nations such because the UK and that she wished the UK to simply accept “all meat” from the US.

Rollins instructed reporters the market is starting to maneuver away from hormone-treated beef, and that chlorine-washed hen has nearly fully been faraway from the US provide chain.

Requested about US beef producers phasing out hormones she stated:

Our agriculture producers, our cattle producers and so forth, clearly are continuously watching what the markets seem like, and if the markets are calling for a selected sort, or they’ve extra alternative someplace, then I feel that we doubtlessly do see some motion available in the market.

Rollins added that she wished the US, UK and different nations to have extra regulatory alignment and comparable requirements for agriculture. She stated:

One factor … I’ve taken from plenty of the discussions yesterday [when she met Steve Reed, the enviroment secretary] and at present is that the extra our two nations, and people who are aligned with our values, are regulatory aligned, that means that we don’t have all these totally different techniques and constructions – I feel that that’s going to go a tremendously lengthy strategy to supporting the agriculture trade.

Rollins additionally appeared to have softened her stance on asking the UK to simply accept chlorine hen. She stated:

Solely about 5% of our hen in America is definitely handled that manner, with the chlorine. So we’ve moved, during the last decade, fully away from the ‘chlorine chicken’. In order that’s I feel that’s a very vital to dispel, and I’m very grateful to try this.

She additionally stated that, though pork and poultry weren’t included in final week’s US-UK commerce deal, they’re on the high of the record for additional discussions.

In an interview on Newsnight final evening Arlene Foster, the previous DUP chief, stated she thought that somebody in Downing Avenue would have recognized that “island of strangers” was a transparent echo of what Enoch Powell stated in his Rivers of Blood speech. Requested if Keir Starmer would have been conscious of the similarities within the language, she replied:

Someone did Downing Avenue, I’m satisfied of it,

“Island of strangers” is a really specific type of phrases, it’s nearly a time period of artwork. So the place did it come from? And who was the person who stated this could go into the speech?

However Starmer’s allies are saying it was real mistake, and never an intentional echo of what Powell stated. “It was an accident, and not designed to cause a row,” based on a supply near No 10 acquainted with what occurred. The supply accepts that somebody ought to have realised that the “island of strangers” phrase had Powellite connotations. However the truth that this was not picked up is attributed to an error, and never an try to reference the Rivers of Blood speech.

That is from Steve Richards, the veteran political commentator, on social media the Starmer/Powell language row.

Keir Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ remark is a part of a sample.. his willingness to learn out no matter is written for him by clunky advisers ..on this case attempting too laborious to make him sound like Farage..In consequence inauthenticity is a wider drawback for him. There are a lot of arguments to be made for border safety. He made a few of them properly…All misplaced by a single silly phrase that some proper wing populists would suppose twice earlier than utilizing…and anyway predictably results in the Mail and co working their ordinary hostile entrance pages.

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, was additionally doing an interview spherical this morning. Requested about Keir Starmer’s warning in his speech yesterday that Britain was susceptible to changing into an “island of strangers” due to the affect of mass immigration, Jenrick claimed Britain was already like this. He instructed Occasions Radio:

I feel it’s true. In truth, I feel in some locations we already are. Aggressive ranges of mass migration have made us extra divided.

When you take a look at communities in our nation, for instance central Bradford, 50% of individuals had been born exterior of the UK; in central Luton, 46% of residents arrived previously decade.

There are locations like Dagenham the place the white British inhabitants has fallen by nearly 60% within the final 25 years.

Individuals in lots of components of our nation are experiencing profound change because of the degrees of migration that we’ve seen, and we’ve obtained to carry that again to the historic ranges that we loved as a rustic which enabled us to be a well-integrated and united nation, relatively than the one which we’re seeing at present.

(A pedant would possibly level out that, regardless that Enoch Powell and Keir Starmer had been making a rhetorical level after they talked about “strangers”, technically we’re an island of strangers anway. There are nearly 70 million of us right here, and most of us solely personally know a whole lot, or at greatest just a few hundreds, of our fellow residents.)

Good morning. Yesterday Keir Starmer unveiled the federal government’s immigration white paper, a big coverage intervention on a subject that’s close to the highest of the general public’s record of issues. But at present the controversy is dominated not by the precise insurance policies – regardless that they might trigger massive issues in some sectors of the economic system, as we clarify right here – however by the language Starmer used to defend them.

To recap, in a single part of his speech yesterday Starmer stated:

Nations depend upon guidelines – honest guidelines. Generally they’re written down, typically they’re not, however both manner, they offer form to our values. They information us in the direction of our rights, after all, but additionally our duties, the obligations we owe to at least one one other. Now, in a various nation like ours, and I have fun that, these guidelines develop into much more vital. With out them, we danger changing into an island of strangers, not a nation that walks ahead collectively.

This generated big controversy not simply due to the argument (some individuals don’t settle for the declare that prime ranges of immigration undermine social cohesion), however as a result of the argument and the language echo what Enoch Powell stated in his notorious Rivers of Blood speech in 1968. Powell stated:

Whereas, to the immigrant, entry to this nation was admission to privileges and alternatives eagerly sought, the affect upon the prevailing inhabitants was very totally different. For causes which they might not comprehend, and in pursuance of a choice by default, on which they had been by no means consulted, they discovered themselves made strangers in their very own nation.

They discovered their wives unable to acquire hospital beds in childbirth, their kids unable to acquire college locations, their properties and neighbourhoods modified past recognition, their plans and prospects for the longer term defeated; at work they discovered that employers hesitated to use to the immigrant employee the requirements of self-discipline and competence required of the native-born employee; they started to listen to, as time glided by, an increasing number of voices which instructed them that they had been now the undesirable.

Starmer was clearly echoing Powell. However what just isn’t clear is whether or not, for Starmer and/or the one that write the speech, this was intentional, unconscious (individuals can keep in mind phrases with out recalling the place they got here from), or full coincidence (politicians greater than 50 years aside, making an analogous argument, by deploying the identical, not-particularly-unusual phrase).

Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech was denounced as racist as quickly as he delivered it (though not a lot for his feedback about native Britons discovering mass migration unsettling, the place many individuals would agree he had some extent, however for his suggestion that it will culminate in violence, oppression and social collapse, the place he has turned out to be hopelessly incorrect) and it’s nonetheless broadly seen as abhorrent. Yesterday Starmer was condemned by leftwingers for saying one thing that sounded Powellite.

However ministers have defended him. Requested about this on Newsnight final evening, Jacqui Smith, the abilities minister, stated evaluating the Starmer speech to Powell’s was “wrong”. She went on:

Labour and Labour governments have at all times listened to individuals when it comes to their issues about their safety and the alternatives that they wish to have for themselves and their kids. And after we see one thing that we perceive that folks consider is unfair, then we’re going to take motion on that. That’s what the British individuals anticipate us to do, that’s what Labour governments do.

This morning Yvette Cooper, the house secretary, was giving interviews, and on the As we speak programme she stated she agreed with Smith. She went on:

I don’t suppose it’s proper to make these comparisons [between Starmer’s speech and Powell’s]. It’s fully totally different. And the prime minister stated yesterday, I feel nearly in the identical breath, talked concerning the numerous nation that we’re and that being a part of our energy.

Cooper stated that, when Starmer talked concerning the rise of Britain being “an island of strangers”, he was referring to “the importance of recognising the impact … [of] this big increase in net migration, and also that we’ve got to have the support for integration, support for English language speaking, a lot of the measures that are set out as part of that white paper”.

Requested if Starmer or his speech writers knew that the “island of strangers” phrase echoed Powell, Cooper stated she didn’t know.

Right here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cupboard.

10am: Thames Water bosses give proof to the Commons atmosphere committee about reforming the water sector.

11.30am: David Lammy, the international secretary, takes questions within the Commons.

Midday: Downing Avenue holds a foyer briefing.

2.30pm: MPs start a debate on an assisted dying invoice.

3.15pm: Jonathan Reynolds, the enterprise secretary, provides proof to the Commons enterprise committee about industrial technique.

If you wish to contact me, please put up a message under the road when feedback are open (usually between 10am and 3pm in the mean time), or message me on social media. I can’t learn all of the messages BTL, however when you put “Andrew” in a message geared toward me, I’m extra more likely to see it as a result of I seek for posts containing that phrase.

If you wish to flag one thing up urgently, it’s best to make use of social media. You possibly can attain me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X however particular person Guardian journalists are there, I nonetheless have my account, and when you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I’ll see it and reply if essential.

I discover it very useful when readers level out errors, even minor typos. No error is simply too small to right. And I discover your questions very fascinating too. I can’t promise to answer to all of them, however I’ll attempt to reply to as many as I can, both BTL or typically within the weblog.