Labour and one they are taking seriously in the wake of Reform’s local election success. Streeting said: “I think there’s clearly, on the right of British politics, a realignment taking place. It’s not yet clear at the next general election whether it will be Reform or the Conservatives that are Labour’s main challengers.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said her party are going to “come out fighting” to try to regain public support after their poor showing in this week’s local elections. “We are going to come out with the policies that people want to see, but what we are not going to do is rush out and tell the public things that are not true just so we can win votes,” she said.
Ed Davey claimed the Liberal Democrats are “on track” to overtake the Conservatives at the next general election, saying they were the only party that “stood up” to Reform UK. The Lib Dem leader said: “I think Labour and the Conservatives made a mistake with Reform. The Conservatives have been copying Reform policies, Labour is sounding more and more like Reform.”
A newly elected Reform councillor has said she has been suspended by the party over posts where she hinted she could defect to another party. Donna Edmunds, who was elected in Hodnet, Shropshire, said in a tweet on 28 April: “I’m a Reform candidate. I’m waiting for Rupert (Lowe) and Ben (Habib) to give us a real alternative and then I’ll defect.”
twice Labour’s vote in North East Lincolnshire, a local government area that includes Grimsby and Cleethorpes, a constituency with a Labour MP. Across the country, moreover, as the party took control of 10 councils and the Tories crashed, there was the same sense of a realignment of the right being part of something even bigger.
A vocal chunk of Reform supporters – men in particular – is nothing if not familiar. They want “British shops”, zero immigration, the return of capital punishment and all the other things that usually make it on to the average hard-right shopping list. But in Lincolnshire I also spoke to newly converted Farage voters who spoke in much vaguer, tentative terms about how they simply craved change.
You can read John’s full piece here:
Labour were making a mistake by trying to sound like Reform.
“I think the mistake the Conservatives are making is like trying to become like Reform themselves,” Davey said. “And I think Labour when it tries to sound more like Reform, is making a mistake. I think you’ve got to call them out.”
Davey also said he felt Labour had been “too weak in standing up to Donald Trump”.
You can read more on Wes Streeting earlier saying that Reform may become Labour’s main rivals at the link below.
The health secretary compared the fight between the Tories and Reform to a battle between two Hollywood monsters: “I don’t know whether it will be Reform or the Conservatives that emerge as the main threat. I don’t have a horse in that race, but like Alien v Predator, you don’t really want either one to win but one of them will emerge as the main challenger to Labour at the next general election.”
urged council workers to sign up after Reform won control in several local authorities in Thursday’s local elections.
The leader of the Scottish Conservatives has said he does not understand the appeal of Nigel Farage, PA reports.
Russell Findlay said it was “absolutely questionable” whether Reform UK was “even a party of the Union”.
Findlay ruled out any deals with the right-wing party as he accused Farage of helping to keep the SNP in power.
Asked on BBC Scotland’s the Sunday Show if he understood the appeal of Farage, Findlay said: “Do I understand the appeal? No, I don’t.
“What I understand is why people, voters in Scotland and across the United Kingdom, feel disillusioned, they feel disconnected and left behind with politics.
“I’m not a career politician – I’m new at this. I’ve been doing this job for seven months.
“I completely understand why people feel that way, but Reform are not the answer in Scotland.”
Writing in the Mirror, prime minister Keir Starmer said he wants to see the whole of Britain come together to honour heroes of the Second World War as four days of VE Day commemorations begin tomorrow to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the conflict in Europe.
“This week, in communities across Britain, we will all show how proud and grateful we are for that dedication.
I will be celebrating by welcoming the brave service men and women who wear our colours at home and abroad. Of course, as our special guests, we will host some of the heroes of 1945,” Starmer wrote.
The Greens’ co-leader Adrian Ramsay also spoke on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
He said Reform’s success in the local elections “is not built on strong foundations.”
“Many of their people have been elected without having strong roots in their local communities. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be willing to put in the hard yards.
“Green councillors have strong a track record in our communities. People know what we stand for: fighting to protect local services, defend our environment, get more affordable housing.”
“Whereas I’m now deeply worried where we’re left with Reform arguing for cuts to local councils that are already severely overstretched.”
The Greens gained 44 councillors across the 23 councils involved in this election.
Health secretary Wes Streeting said he has “sympathy” for NHS workers seeking higher pay as the government faces the potential headache of public sector strikes, PA reports.
“What I’d say to resident doctors who are currently balloting is they’ll see and receive in the coming weeks the recommendation of the pay review body,” Streeting said during his appearance on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg this morning.
“So I’d urge them to kind of wait and see the figure that’s recommended and how Government takes that forward, same as the rest of the NHS workforce.
“I do understand, we’ve got a lot of sympathy with the arguments that are being made, particularly by the lower-paid members of the NHS workforce.”
Streeting said he wants to make sure people are paid fairly and asked them to “judge us on our record”.
Resident doctors in England – the new term for junior doctors – will be balloted on strike action over pay later this month, the British Medical Association announced last week.
Kemi Badenoch also said the Conservatives are going to “come out fighting” to try to regain public support
She told Laura Kuenssberg that protest voting has been a factor in recent results, adding: “I do think it is protest but that doesn’t mean we sit back. We are going to come out fighting.
“We are going to come out with the policies that people want to see, but what we are not going to do is rush out and tell the public things that are not true just so we can win votes.
“This is not about winning elections; this is about fixing our country. Yes, of course, you need to win elections to do that, but you also need a credible plan.”
Labour was bad.
“They are looking at the two parties as parties that haven’t delivered
“I need to come up with a plan that will deliver. Easy announcements and easy slogans are not a plan.”
Ed Davey has claimed the Liberal Democrats are “on track” to overtake the Conservatives at the next general election, saying they were the only party that “stood up” to Reform UK, PA reports.
On Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme, the Lib Dem leader said: “I think Labour and the Conservatives made a mistake with Reform. The Conservatives have been copying Reform policies, Labour is sounding more and more like Reform.
“I think the way you defeat Nigel Farage is by calling him out.
“Look what happened in Canada with Mark Carney, who was faced with another hard-right opponent, or Anthony Albanese just now in Australia, faced with a hard-right candidate – both of whom were supporting (Donald) Trump, just like Nigel Farage does.
“I think we need to call Nigel Farage out for that. The Liberal Democrats have been the only party doing that.
“I think the British people don’t want Trump policies here. They don’t want hard-right Farage policies here.”
Source: theguardian.com
