UK politics live: Tory defector Elphicke says Labour ‘occupies centre ground’ as she joins Starmer for Dover speech

From 26m ago

Elphicke: ‘Labour occupies the centre ground’ in British politics

The recently defected new Labour MP Natalie Elphicke has opened this press conference in Dover by boasting that Labour occupies the centre ground in British politics. She said:

As you all know, this week I joined the Labour party to be part of the change our country needs. Under Rishi Sunak the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division. They have abandoned the centre ground and failed to deliver for the British people.

Under Keir Starmer, Labour occupies the centre ground, and looks to the future to build a Britain of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness. A Britain everyone can be part of.

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Keir Starmer has said the current situation with immigration is neither “progressive and compassionate”, and says that the government has been dragged from being “a serious party of government” and instead “on to the rocks of their own delusion.”

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He said people smuggling was “a criminal enterprise,” going on to say:

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We are dealing with a business that pits nation against nation, that thrives in the grey areas of our rules, the cracks between our institutions, where they believe they can exploit some of the most vulnerable people in the world with impunity. A vile trade that preys on the desperation and the hope it finds in its victims.

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He listed a series of gimmick policies he said had been announced or leaked to the newspaper by the Tories, then went on to say about the Rwanda scheme:

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Can [Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan] really be taken as a serious solution to this important challenge? I don’t think so. They will get flights off the ground. I don’t doubt that. But I also don’t doubt that this will not work.

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A policy that will see just a few hundred people removed to Rwanda a year. Less than 1% of the people who cross the sea in small boats every year. That is neither an effective deterrent or a good use of your money.

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He went on to say:

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We will end this farce, we will restore serious government to our borders, tackle this problem at source, and replace the Rwanda policy permanently.

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He spoke about a visit he made to a camp in the UK housing asylum seekers in 2016, saying it made him feel “profoundly depressed” at how people were being treated, particularly children. He said “People had been brutally let down by governments, of course, not just in terms of the awful conditions, but also because the failure of our asylum system had encouraged a false hope.”

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He says that “these people smugglers are no better than terrorists. They are a threat to our national security and a threat to life. And it’s time we treated them as such.”

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The recently defected new Labour MP Natalie Elphicke has opened this press conference in Dover by boasting that Labour occupies the centre ground in British politics. She said:

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As you all know, this week I joined the Labour party to be part of the change our country needs. Under Rishi Sunak the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division. They have abandoned the centre ground and failed to deliver for the British people.

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Under Keir Starmer, Labour occupies the centre ground, and looks to the future to build a Britain of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness. A Britain everyone can be part of.

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Labour’s Wes Streeting has said he has spoken to more Tories considering a defection to the opposition, but insisted the party would not accept just any MP after the former Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke crossed the floor.

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The shadow health secretary said Elphicke, who is due to appear alongside the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, in her Dover constituency on Friday, had switched sides “with a purpose” and “not out of personal ambition”, defending the move amid a backlash from some Labour MPs.

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Streeting, referring to Elphicke’s defection and that of the former Tory MP Dan Poulter in an interview with the Independent, said: “I think in Dan’s case, as a doctor in the NHS, who has come to the unequivocal conclusion only Labour can be trusted to sort the NHS out, [and] Natalie Elphicke, who is with her community seeing the consequences of what happens when immigration goes poorly managed …

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“I think they are very powerful message-carriers, but they have defected with a purpose, not out of personal ambition, and I think people should take that message really seriously.”

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Streeting said he had spoken to more Tory MPs considering a move because of the “division and incompetence” of Rishi Sunak’s government.

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However, he stressed there were limits, saying: “If Liz Truss were to want to cross the floor, and I don’t imagine she would, I would rather take the lettuce.”

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Read more of Jamie Grierson’s report here: More Tory MPs are considering defection to Labour, says Wes Streeting

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Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has said that despite the small rise in GDP that the government is championing, working people are still “worse off than they were 14 years ago”, and the country “just can’t carry on with that”.

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She told viewers of Sky News:

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I think the government seems to think we should be grateful for the fact that we are no longer in recession and have low growth instead.

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I think this still reflects the fact that working people are still worse off than they were 14 years ago, that people are still paying more on their mortgages, prices are still much higher.

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And actually people are feeling really squeezed.

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So the idea really of the Conservatives trying to do a victory lap on all of this and expecting everybody to think it’s all wonderful and we’ve never had it so good I think just shows how out of touch they are.

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We need a proper plan to properly boost growth right across the country and that’s what Labour is setting out.

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I just think we have had 14 years of low growth, of chaos, and of working people losing out most, and we just can’t carry on with that.

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Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme chancellor Jeremy Hunt boasted about some long-term economic trends in the wake of the news that the UK economy has grown slightly. He said:

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We can see that since 2010 we have created more jobs in the UK than anywhere else in Europe. We’ve attracted more greenfield foreign direct investment not just than anywhere in Europe, but anywhere in the world, outside the US and China.

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In terms of the most rapidly growing industries, we have by far the largest tech industry in Europe, and the International Monetary Fund say that over the next six years, we will grow faster than France, Italy, Germany or Japan.

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He went on to say:

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And so for families who’ve been having a really tough time, I think they can see that the very difficult decisions that we’ve taken in order to get the economy back on its feet after the pandemic after the energy shock are beginning to pay off and we need to see them through.

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He accused Labour of wanting a “French-style labour market”, saying:

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You don’t give a country the prospects that we have as the UK today by accident. It happens because over the last decade we’ve worked very hard to give ourselves one of the most flexible labour markets in Europe.

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Labour want a French-style labour market where unemployment is nearly double what it is in the UK, at the levels that it was in fact under the last Labour government.

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And we need to continue making those difficult decisions. The difficult decision we’re making at the moment is to do the hard work and bring down the tax burden.

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The UK is officially out of recession after figures showed the economy grew by 0.6% in the first three months of the year.

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The Office for National Statistics said the period from January to the end of March marked a return to growth after a mild recession in the second half of 2023. It was the strongest rate of quarterly growth since the end of 2021, and a better performance than expected by economists, who forecast growth of 0.4% in the first quarter.

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The downturn came to an end after an increase in activity across the services sector, which has flourished since the turn of the year as wages have outstripped inflation, easing the pressure on consumers.

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However, forecasters expect the UK to grow slowly this year as high interest rates and last year’s inflation surge continue to take their toll on disposable incomes.

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The shadow home secretary has used the morning media round to set out Labour’s plans to tackle criminal networks smuggling people into the UK.

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Yvette Cooper has pledged to set up a new border security command to centralise law enforcement efforts and grant additional powers.

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She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What Labour is setting out is a new border security command that would pull together the National Crime Agency, MI5, the Border Force, police forces across the UK, but crucially work with Europol, with police forces across Europe.”

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Describing the current system as “really fragmented”, she said a Labour government would provide a new security command with £75m in the first year and grant border police and investigators additional powers.

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PA Media reports she said: “You need additional powers to go after the finances, you need extra stop and seizure powers as well and that’s what we would be giving the new border security command.”

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Labour leader Keir Starmer will give a speech in Dover later today, when he is expected to announce Labour will:

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Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers.

Expand stop and search powers for use against those suspected of people-smuggling.

Use Serious Crime Prevention Orders, enforced on terrorists pre-conviction, to shut off the bank accounts and internet access of suspected smugglers.

Extend seizure warrant powers normally reserved for terrorism to include organised immigration crime.

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You can read Jessica Elgot and Rajeev Syal’s report on the plans here: Starmer to rip up Rwanda scheme and fund new anti-smuggling unit

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Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics for today, where the main stories are that the UK is officially out of recession, albeit with a meagre growth rate of 0.6%, and Keir Starmer is due to make a speech about immigration in Dover.

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Here are your headlines …

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The ONS said the period from January to the end of March marked a return to growth for the UK economy after a mild recession in the second half of 2023

Keir Starmer will promise to rip up the government’s Rwanda scheme and divert £75m to fund hundreds of new specialist officers to tackle people-smuggling

Campaigner Alan Bates has called for protection of the legal funding that helped bring the Post Office Horizon IT scandal to court

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The Lords is sitting, but there isn’t much in the way of any scheduled business today. Rod Ismay is up at the Post Office inquiry, and I will keep an ear on that. He has previously given evidence that his 2010 report was a missed opportunity to discover “a decade earlier than we did” the flaws in the Horizon IT system.

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It is Martin Belam with you again today. You can email me at martin.belam@theguardian.com. I appreciate it especially if you have spotted typos/errors/omissions.

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Key events

Filters BETA

Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of “magical thinking” with his plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

He said:

It’s not hard to see why the prime minister might want a path to deterrence without the hard graft, the boring work of fixing the wider system.

But I’m afraid like so much of what he says these days, it is magical thinking.

A symbol of the unquenchable Tory desire for the shortcut, the easy things, the sticking plaster. Gimmicks, not serious government.

Let me spell it out again, a scheme that will remove less than 1% of arrivals from small boat crossings a year cannot and never will be an effective deterrent.

Keir Starmer has pledged that a Labour will “rebuild Britain’s broken asylum system”.

Speaking at a press conference in Dover, the Labour leader said:

I believe in a rules based asylum system. I believe that a system that processes claims quickly and humanely, that finds ways without squeamishness or cruelty to detain and remove people who have no right to be, is essential for security, fairness and justice. It is a form of deterrence in itself.

Because until we are seen around the world as a country that has a firm grip of the processes at our border. Until we’re busting the Home Office backlog, arriving at decisions quickly without a fuss, so we can return people who have no right to be here then yes, Britain will be seen as a soft touch.

And it goes without saying we do not have that effective deterrence of our borders at the moment. Our rules based asylum system isn’t working. Ask anyone in this part of the world, that much is obvious.

He says Labour will “save taxpayers billions” by setting up “a new fast track returns and enforcement unit that will make sure the courts can process claims quickly.”

He says “I have no doubt that the British people fully support a rules-based asylum system. No doubt that the fair-minded majority want a system that secures Britain’s borders, and uphold this country’s fine tradition of providing sanctuary to people fleeing persecution.”

Starmer adds “We have to restore integrity and rules to our asylum system. We have to clear the backlog so we can return people swiftly.

Starmer: ‘I don’t doubt’ government will get Rwanda flights off ground, but it is ‘neither an effective deterrent or good use of money’

He said people smuggling was “a criminal enterprise,” going on to say:

We are dealing with a business that pits nation against nation, that thrives in the grey areas of our rules, the cracks between our institutions, where they believe they can exploit some of the most vulnerable people in the world with impunity. A vile trade that preys on the desperation and the hope it finds in its victims.

He listed a series of gimmick policies he said had been announced or leaked to the newspaper by the Tories, then went on to say about the Rwanda scheme:

Can [Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan] really be taken as a serious solution to this important challenge? I don’t think so. They will get flights off the ground. I don’t doubt that. But I also don’t doubt that this will not work.

A policy that will see just a few hundred people removed to Rwanda a year. Less than 1% of the people who cross the sea in small boats every year. That is neither an effective deterrent or a good use of your money.

He went on to say:

We will end this farce, we will restore serious government to our borders, tackle this problem at source, and replace the Rwanda policy permanently.

He says that “these people smugglers are no better than terrorists. They are a threat to our national security and a threat to life. And it’s time we treated them as such.”

Keir Starmer said “it’s great to have you on board” to Natalie Elphicke.

Yvette Cooper has gone on to say:

We’ve seen the sickening images of violence on the French coast. As gangs push more and more people into these flimsy dinghies, gangs that are part of a network of organised criminals making hundreds of millions of pounds in profits.

Those networks have taken root along our borders over the last five years. We cannot let them get away with it. And that is why we have been working with and hearing from national security experts, border security experts, looking at the experiences of security of successful security operations and approaches around terrorism in the past.

She cited Keir Starmer’s experience of “going after terror gangs and networks as director of public prosecutions”

She went on to say:

We cannot just stand by while our border security is undermined and lives are put at risk. And instead of the years of Conservative gimmicks, it is time to get a grip.

She then introduced Labour’s candidate for the next election in Dover, Mike Tapp. Elphicke is stepping down at the next election.

He outlined his own experience as a former soldier who served in Afghanistan and work at the National Crime Agency. He then introduced Starmer, saying he was “the leader we need at this time,” adding:

Somebody who rolls up his sleeves and grips a problem. Somebodywho rejects the cheap headline and the costly gimmick. He offers the leadership our country needs. The first duty of any government is to protect our borders, and with Keir Starmer, you have a patriot and a problem solver, someone who will get the job done.

Natalie Elphicke went on to say:

Nowhere is Rishi Sunak’s lack of delivery clearer on the issue of small boats. They are failing to keep our borders safe and secure. Lives are being lost in the English Channel while small boat arrivals are once again at record levels so far this year.

It is clear that Rishi Sunak has failed to keep our borders secure and cannot be trusted. A fresh approach is needed. An approach that puts out his heart a commitment to border security, which tackles the criminal gangs behind the small boats crisis and saves lives.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper is speaking now.

Elphicke: ‘Labour occupies the centre ground’ in British politics

The recently defected new Labour MP Natalie Elphicke has opened this press conference in Dover by boasting that Labour occupies the centre ground in British politics. She said:

As you all know, this week I joined the Labour party to be part of the change our country needs. Under Rishi Sunak the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division. They have abandoned the centre ground and failed to deliver for the British people.

Under Keir Starmer, Labour occupies the centre ground, and looks to the future to build a Britain of hope, optimism, opportunity and fairness. A Britain everyone can be part of.

Labour’s event in Dover has started with Natalie Elphicke MP speaking. I’ll bring you the key lines.

Libby Brooks

John Swinney has been talking about his government’s independence strategy, and insisting that the plan still stands to take winning the majority of seats at the general election as a mandate to negotiate independence with Westminster.

After scrapping the much-mocked post of minister for independence on Wednesday, Swinney has a fine line to tread in terms of strategy and keeping his party’s independence-supporting base content and willing to get out and campaign ahead of the upcoming general election.

The scrapping of that role was a symbolic move, a signal to the general voter that the party is focused on their cost of living concerns after a year of distraction from shock arrests, policy rows and internal strife.

But Swinney also has to keep previous SNP voters onside, and stop them drifting to Labour. Given that the party agreed the majority seats strategy for the general election at its conference last autumn, Swinney doesn’t have much room for manoeuvre on this, but it’s a strategy that a lot of SNP MPs are deeply unhappy about – they say it’s too confusing to explain on the doorstep, feeds opposition attacks that the SNP is obsessed with independence to the exclusion of voters’ day to day worries, and sets too high a bar.

Both Swinney and Humza Yousaf before him were keen to escape the “never-endum” process discussion of how a second vote could be held, and concentrate on persuading doubters by emphasising how much more could be done to ameliorate the impact of the cost of living crisis and Brexit with independence.

But one of the current problems that the SNP has is that – even though support for independence has never been higher, at roughly 50% – many supporters seem in no hurry for a second vote.

The Post Office Horizon IT inquiry is about to get under way again. Sir Wyn Williams is in the chair, and the witness is Rod Ismay, former head of product and branch accounting at Post Office limited. You can watch it here.

Post Office Horizon IT inquiry

James Cleverly has posted to social media in response to Labour leader Keir Starmer talking up his plans for immigration policy. In his message, Starmer said:

People have a right to expect security at our borders. When I was the country’s chief prosecutor, we smashed terrorist gangs abroad. If I’m privileged enough to become prime minister, we will smash the people-smuggling gangs.

Cleverly has retorted:

Labour’s big ideas: Scrap Rwanda eg. have no deterrent. Amnesty for small boat arrivals because they would scrap Rwanda and have nowhere to send them. Re-brand Small Boats Command, which was set up by this Conservative government and is led by a British army officer.

In its polling, YouGov has consistently found that people care more about the economy and the health service than they do immigration as an issue.

More Tory MPs are considering defection to Labour, says Wes Streeting

Jamie Grierson

“I think they are very powerful message-carriers, but they have defected with a purpose, not out of personal ambition, and I think people should take that message really seriously.”

Streeting said he had spoken to more Tory MPs considering a move because of the “division and incompetence” of Rishi Sunak’s government.

However, he stressed there were limits, saying: “If Liz Truss were to want to cross the floor, and I don’t imagine she would, I would rather take the lettuce.”

Read more of Jamie Grierson’s report here: More Tory MPs are considering defection to Labour, says Wes Streeting

John Swinney has defended the SNPs record in government while admitting the party has been through a difficult period.

Speaking to Sky News he said:

We’ve got really good record in government. We’ve transformed lives of people in Scotland. We’ve lifted 100,000 children out of poverty. And we’ve transformed the infrastructure of Scotland. We’ve strengthened our education system. We have very low levels of crime in Scotland as a consequence of the approach to justice that we take.

All of these things are strong aspects of the record of the Scottish National party government.

I want to build on that. I’ve got to move the party forward. But I acknowledge that the period of the last couple of years has been very, very difficult for the party, and we’ve got to recover from that.

He went on to say

I’ve got to bring people together. Join the party together … to make sure that everybody feels they’ve got a part to play in building the future of Scotland by having a strong and successful Scottish National party.

And what’s crystal clear to me from any analysis of history is that Scotland does well when the SNP does well. And I need to get the SNP into a strong condition to fight the Westminster elections, to do really well in the Westminster elections, to continue building support for independence, to win the whole of elections in 2026, and to deliver Scottish independence. That’s what I’m all about. That’s what I’m here to do.

He told Sky News that independence could be delivered within five years “because the arguments for it are compelling”.

He also, questioned about the role of Kate Forbes, said that “The protection of the rights of LGBT individuals in our society is absolutely fundamental to my government – the protection of those rights and the enhancement of those rights.”

If you fancy something for your ears, then Today in Focus features Kiran Stacey, the Guardian’s political correspondent, talking to Helen Pidd. “Rishi Sunak has been talking about the possibility of a hung parliament this week, using the local election results to try to gee up his Tory MPs,” Kiran tells Helen. “But just as he’s doing that we see a new poll out on Thursday from YouGov showing Labour now has a 30-point lead in the national polls.”

You can listen to it here: Rishi Sunak staggers on – but for how long?

Cooper: government ‘victory lap’ over 0.6% growth shows ‘how out of touch they are’

She told viewers of Sky News:

I think the government seems to think we should be grateful for the fact that we are no longer in recession and have low growth instead.

I think this still reflects the fact that working people are still worse off than they were 14 years ago, that people are still paying more on their mortgages, prices are still much higher.

And actually people are feeling really squeezed.

So the idea really of the Conservatives trying to do a victory lap on all of this and expecting everybody to think it’s all wonderful and we’ve never had it so good I think just shows how out of touch they are.

We need a proper plan to properly boost growth right across the country and that’s what Labour is setting out.

I just think we have had 14 years of low growth, of chaos, and of working people losing out most, and we just can’t carry on with that.

Jeremy Hunt talks up long-term economic trends and accuses Labour of wanting heavily regulated ‘French-style’ labour market

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme chancellor Jeremy Hunt boasted about some long-term economic trends in the wake of the news that the UK economy has grown slightly. He said:

We can see that since 2010 we have created more jobs in the UK than anywhere else in Europe. We’ve attracted more greenfield foreign direct investment not just than anywhere in Europe, but anywhere in the world, outside the US and China.

In terms of the most rapidly growing industries, we have by far the largest tech industry in Europe, and the International Monetary Fund say that over the next six years, we will grow faster than France, Italy, Germany or Japan.

He went on to say:

And so for families who’ve been having a really tough time, I think they can see that the very difficult decisions that we’ve taken in order to get the economy back on its feet after the pandemic after the energy shock are beginning to pay off and we need to see them through.

He accused Labour of wanting a “French-style labour market”, saying:

You don’t give a country the prospects that we have as the UK today by accident. It happens because over the last decade we’ve worked very hard to give ourselves one of the most flexible labour markets in Europe.

Labour want a French-style labour market where unemployment is nearly double what it is in the UK, at the levels that it was in fact under the last Labour government.

And we need to continue making those difficult decisions. The difficult decision we’re making at the moment is to do the hard work and bring down the tax burden.

UK has moved out of recession, official figures show

Phillip Inman

The UK is officially out of recession after figures showed the economy grew by 0.6% in the first three months of the year.

However, forecasters expect the UK to grow slowly this year as high interest rates and last year’s inflation surge continue to take their toll on disposable incomes.

Labour pledges reform of ‘really fragmented’ approach to border security

The shadow home secretary has used the morning media round to set out Labour’s plans to tackle criminal networks smuggling people into the UK.

Yvette Cooper has pledged to set up a new border security command to centralise law enforcement efforts and grant additional powers.

Labour leader Keir Starmer will give a speech in Dover later today, when he is expected to announce Labour will:

Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers.
Expand stop and search powers for use against those suspected of people-smuggling.
Use Serious Crime Prevention Orders, enforced on terrorists pre-conviction, to shut off the bank accounts and internet access of suspected smugglers.
Extend seizure warrant powers normally reserved for terrorism to include organised immigration crime.

You can read Jessica Elgot and Rajeev Syal’s report on the plans here: Starmer to rip up Rwanda scheme and fund new anti-smuggling unit

Welcome and opening summary …

Here are your headlines …

It is Martin Belam with you again today. You can email me at martin.belam@theguardian.com. I appreciate it especially if you have spotted typos/errors/omissions.

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