Ahoy there: Prime Minister Keir Starmer was joined by European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen aboard HMS Sutherland in central London following the UK-EU Summit © PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
The clocks went back this week to 2019 as Brexit dominated the news agenda and Parliament once again, with the UK-EU Summit taking place on Monday which saw a new agreement between the two, covering areas such as agricultural trade, e-Gates, emissions trading, steel, security and defence, and a ‘youth experience scheme’. While much of the deal was more an agreement to keep talking, concrete outcomes included: the establishment of a Security and Defence Partnership; a new SPS agreement; the linking of the UK and EU carbon emissions schemes; and a 12-year extension to existing fishing arrangements. Seeking to pre-emptively fight off allegations the fishing industry had been hung out to dry, a £360m Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund was also announced to ‘drive growth and boost the sector for the future’.
Reaction was, well, exactly as you’d expect it to have been, with many businesses coming out in favour of a deal seeking to build closer cooperation with the UK’s nearest neighbours, the Conservatives accusing the Government of signing up to EU laws and regulations that it’ll have ‘no say on’, and the Lib Dems calling for the Government to go further and establish a ‘bespoke customs union’. With Reform UK leader Nigel Farage conspicuously on holiday this week (odd timing given the date of the Summit was known about since February) it fell to his deputy Richard Tice to respond, and respond he did, accusing the Government of ‘surrender’ on no less than 20 occasions. Speaking at a Press Conference on Monday, the PM had said it was “time to look forward, time to move on from stale old debates and political fights to focus on delivering common-sense, practical solutions which get the best for the British people”… good luck with that.
3.5% – the inflation rate in the year to April, up from 2.6% in March.
£800m – to be saved per year from avoiding carbon border taxes, after the UK and EU agreed to link their respective Emissions Trading Schemes as part of this week’s UK-EU deal.
431,000 – the net legal migration figure for 2024, showing a 50% drop from 860,000 in 2023.
£360m – investment in the UK fishing industry for new tech and equipment to modernise the fishing fleet, as the Government launched its Fishing and Coastal Growth Fund.
7% – decrease in the energy price cap from 1 July, meaning bills will go down by £129 a year.
500 – extra prison places created during the entire 14 years of Conservative Government, despite the soaring prison population. With huge pressure on the justice system, the current Government has said it aims to open 14,000 additional prison places by 2031.
36,000 – homes completed in 2024-25 by Homes England, up 14% from 2023-24. They also began construction for an additional 38,000 homes in 2024-25.
Winter Fuel Payments are back on the table as the Prime Minister undertook a screeching U-turn at PMQs to announce the Government was exploring the possibility of expanding (read: returning) the benefit to more pensioners, which he claimed was due to the fact that “the economy is beginning to improve” (and nothing to do with the recent local elections results, of course). However, the expansion, which will be dependent on the next Budget, won’t take effect this winter anyway due to the DWP’s outdated online systems.
The Government appeared to run out of patience with Israel when David Lammy announced the suspension of free trade negotiations due to Israel’s planned new military operation in Gaza and denial of aid, amid UN warnings of imminent starvation in the strip. The Foreign Secretary warned the Israeli Government it was “isolating Israel from its friends and partners around the world, undermining the interests of the Israeli people and damaging the image of the state of Israel in the eyes of the world”. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu retorted that the UK had effectively sided with Hamas. Alongside Canada and France, the UK promised ‘further concrete actions’ if Israel proceeds with its military operation and continues to block appropriate amounts of aid from entering Gaza.
Many prisoners will officially only serve one-third of their sentence in prison as the Government accepted most of the recommendations from David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review. The proposals also included reducing the number of sentences which are less than 12-months long, expanding the length of suspended sentences, increasing the use of travel, driving and football bans, and even expanding the use of chemical castration for sexual offenders. The Justice Secretary insisted that sentencing reform was vital as “we are heading back towards zero capacity” across the prison estate.
Net migration dropped sharply in 2024, falling by almost 50% from 860,000 in 2023 to 431,000 in 2024. The ONS said this was principally driven by ‘a decrease in immigration from non-EU+ nationals’ with ‘reductions in people arriving on work- and study-related visas’, and ‘an increase in emigration over the 18 months to December 2024, especially people leaving who originally came on study visas’ after pandemic restrictions eased. Inevitably, both Labour the Conservatives jumped to claim it was their policy interventions that were responsible for the fall.
Public sector workers will get salary rises after the Government accepted pay review body recommendations. Pay for members of the armed forces will increase by 4.5%; doctors, dentists, teachers and prison officers will get a 4% rise; nurses and midwives will receive 3.6%; and civil servants will get 3.25%. The Royal College of Nursing said it was ‘grotesque’ that nurses had been offered a smaller rise than doctors.
Inflation spiked to 3.5% in April, an increase from 2.6% in March. The increase was driven by rises in bills in ‘Awful April’ and means the expected two interest rate cuts this year might be reduced to just one. Borrowing in April also rose to £20.2bn, higher than the forecast of £17.9bn.
The UK has agreed to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Under the deal, Mauritius will assume sovereignty of the islands and the UK will lease back the military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The Government insisted the deal was required to preserve the legal status of the military base, but the Conservatives called it an ‘act of national self-harm’ and criticised the cost of the deal – £3.4bn in total.
The Legal Aid Agency suffered a cyber-attack, with hackers accessing a ‘large amount of information relating to legal aid applicants.’ It urged anyone who applied for legal aid through its digital service since 2010 to be alert to any suspicious activity and update any potentially exposed passwords.
Ping-pong on the Data (Use and Access) Bill continued this week, as the Lords tried to insist on greater protection for artists’ work from copyright breaches by AI – voting to add transparency requirements which aim to ensure copyright holders have to give permission for their work to be used. This was promptly rejected in the Commons, meaning the Bill will continue to go back and forth between the two Houses until agreement is reached. Debate over this was particularly sparked earlier this week when Sir Elton John spoke out, calling the Government “absolute losers” and saying he feels “incredibly betrayed” over plans to exempt tech firms from copyright laws. He urged the Prime Minister not to sell the next generation of musicians “down the river” by letting AI bots “plunder” their work. The Bill will return to the Lords straight after recess to consider Commons amendments.
The Conservatives led Opposition Day Debates on business and the economy, and on immigration on Wednesday, in which they took the opportunity to criticise Government policies including the increase in employers’ NICs, the decision to scrap Business Property Relief, the additional costs that will be imposed on businesses through the Employment Rights Bill and increases to business rates, and the “lack of action” on tackling small boats crossings. Meanwhile, on the legislation front, the Mental Health Bill and the Victim and Courts Bill both passed second reading the House of Commons; and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill began committee stage in the Lords.
Progressive political parties in the UK face a stark choice: reinvent themselves or face irrelevance, warns a new report from the IPPR. The report highlights that populist parties now claim 30% of the vote in Western democracies, surpassing the centre-left’s 24%. The recent local election reflects this, with Labour winning just one in five votes and Reform nearly one in three. Working class support for the left has also collapsed from 40% in 1980 to just 7% today. To address this, the IPPR has launched a project to develop a new 21st century identity for the centre-left which focuses on ‘the three big challenges progressives need to meet and master’: the reassertion of national borders, broken faith in markets, and the lack of common ground across media and shared spaces.
Kemi Badenoch hits her lowest favourability rating yet as Tory leader, with just 17% viewing her positively and 49% unfavourably, according to the latest Ipsos poll. Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick isn’t far behind her, at 16% favourable. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage remains the most popular party leader on 31%, despite 50% viewing him negatively. Among 2024 Reform voters, Farage scores +76 and Badenoch gets a chilly -36.
Reform UK are riding high on optimism, according to YouGov polling, with 55% of Reform voters believing a Farage-led Government would make a very positive difference, compared to only 22% of Labour voters who say the same of their own party. Green voters also show more faith in their party’s potential, with 49% expecting a strong positive impact. Enthusiasm among Tory voters is notably muted, with only 28% believing the Conservatives will deliver.
Reform UK is getting stuff done at record breaking levels… sort of. The party pledged to remove all low-traffic neighbourhoods from the council areas it won control of in the local elections, with Party Chair Zia Yusuf stating the schemes are viewed with the same “suspicion” as mass immigration and net zero. Fortunately for Reform, no such schemes exist in any of the 10 areas they now control – so they’re now free to pat themselves on the back for a job well done.
Rupert Lowe found an unlikely ally in Jeremy Corbyn, albeit briefly, this week, as the former Labour leader signed a motion by the former Reform UK MP calling for ‘young mother’ Lucy Connolly, who posted on X that people should ‘set fire’ to hotels housing asylum seekers, to be released from prison. Lowe’s political victory was short-lived: as soon as he posted about it on X, Corbyn swiftly withdrew his signature. Meanwhile, Shadow Policing Minister Matt Vickers is waging a different kind of battle – against sandwich theft. Vickers revealed that Greggs may begin locking up its sandwiches, drinks, and sausage rolls to deter thieves. Some politicians fight for world peace; others fight for Greggs.
Read a book. In a brief exchange following the Foreign Secretary’s statement on Israel and Gaza, Conservative backbencher Desmond Swayne asked David Lammy what he meant by saying the UK would take ‘further action’ if Israel pursued its military offensive. Lammy curtly advised the former minister to “consult the Oxford English Dictionary and look at the two words."
