Nigel Farage’s Reform Party overtakes the Tories in Election poll

Brexit was eight years ago now and during this election campaign there hasn’t been too much chatter about it.

However, the seven main parties were asked whether they would rejoin the EU if they won the election.

Here are the results:

Labour: No

Lib Dems: Not on the table this GE

Green: When time is right

Reform: No

SNP: Yes

Plaid Cymru: When time is right

Conservative: No, but Labour would

The debate now moves to education and Penny Mordaunt calls the school system ‘world-class’ which generates a laugh from the audience.

Angela Rayner says the NHS is one of our proudest achievements, referring to it being set up under a Labour government.

The Tories and Lib Dems implemented austerity in 2010 she saqys, leading to a crisis in the NHS workforce.

She tells viewers the workforce needs to be fixed, and discusses ending the non-dom tax status and tax breaks for private schools to fund their plans.

‘The NHS will remain a public service under Labour,’ she says.

A new poll has put Reform UK ahead of the Tories for the first time ever.

Farage has been quick to recognise this during the debate and declares he is now the ‘opposition to Labour’.

A seven-party election debate on ITV is now under way.

We’ve just heard a brief opening statement from each participant setting out their pitch and now we’re moving onto the first question, which is on the NHS.

It is just weeks until the election now and a suspicious package has been found at Tory Party HQ.

Army bomb disposal experts swarmed the HQ in Madeira Avenue after the alarm was raised earlier today.

It is believed the package was sent yesterday.

The building is used by the MP for Horsham, Jeremy Quin, who served as minister of state for crime, policing and fire under prime minister Liz Truss for a few weeks.

You can read more about this story here.

We’ve had a response over from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to the unveiling of Labour’s manifesto.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he doesn’t seem that impressed by it.

He said: ‘This is Labour’s Tax Trap Manifesto which contains only tax rises and no tax cuts. Under Labour’s published plans, taxes will rise to levels never before seen in this country.

‘But that’s only the tax rises they’re telling you about – it doesn’t include the £2,094 of tax rises they’ll need to fill their £38.5 billion unfunded spending commitments.

‘So what’s most important is not what’s in Labour’s manifesto, but it’s what they have kept out of it.

‘They are refusing to rule out taxing your job, your home, your pension, your car, your business and they think they can get away with it without anyone holding them to account. Be under no illusion, from cradle to grave you will pay more taxes under Labour.’

Let’s try and make this the final part, or it won’t be much better than looking through the actual manifesto.

• Extra two million NHS operations, scans and appointments every year in England – meaning 40,000 more weekly
• Establish new fund to double number of CT and MRI scanners
• Shift NHS resources to primary care and community services
• Train thousands more GPs, guarantee face-to-face appointments for all who want one and end the ‘8am scramble’ with modern appointment booking system
• Provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments
• Create National Care Service with a principle of ‘home first’
• Recruit 8,500 more mental health staff for children and adults during a first term in government
• End cases of HIV by 2030 with HIV action plan in England
• Support immediate ban on MPs taking up paid advisory or consultancy roles
• Introduce legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in House of Lords
• Introduce mandatory retirement age of 80 for peers in House of Lords
• Give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in all elections
• Devolved legislatures to get ‘same free speech protections enjoyed by MPs at Westminster’
• Establish Council of the Nations and Regions to encourage collaboration between prime minister, Scottish and Welsh first ministers, Northern Irish first and deputy ministers, and combined authority mayors
• Remove ‘unnecessary barriers to trade’ with EU
• Create a Clean Power Alliance of countries at the ‘cutting edge of climate action’
• Commit to recognising Palestinian state ‘as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution’

By ‘highlights’, I do just mean most important things – I hope I don’t sound partisan with that choice of words. Anyway, here are a few more…

• New Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, giving communities a ‘named officer’ who can be contacted if ‘things go wrong’
• Introduction of Respect Orders, which would ban ‘persistent adult offenders’ from town centres
• Ban ninja swords, zombie-style knives and machetes
• Give women the right to know the identity of online stalkers
• Introduction of a new criminal offence for spiking
• Introduction of ‘Hillsborough Law’ to place legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, while providing legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths
• Immediate abolition of Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions for private renters
• Open 3,000 new nurseries by upgrading space in primary schools
• Change school inspection system from ‘single headline grade’ to ‘report card’
• Free breakfast clubs in every primary school
• Introduction of Race Equality Act ‘to enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for Black, Asian, and other ethnic minority people’
• Introduction of full right to equal pay for disabled people
• Deliver a trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices ‘while protecting the freedom for people to explore their sexual orientation and gender identity’
• ‘Modernise, simplify, and reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law to a new process’

It’s a long old manifesto, and I’m trying to pick out all the bits that will probably matter most to you – here’s some more.

• Construction of 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament
• Build a ‘new generation of new towns’ across England
• Reduce net migration by with ‘appropriate restrictions on visas, and by linking immigration and skills policy’
• Ensure that migration meant to address skills shortages triggers a plan to upskill UK workers
• Combine Jobcentre Plus and National Careers Service to ‘provide a national jobs and careers service’
• Guarantee of access to training, an apprenticeship, or support to find work for all 18- to 21-year-olds
• Ban zero hours contracts, end fire and rehire, and introduce basic rights to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal
• Ensure minimum wage is ‘a genuine living wage’, and remove age bands so all adults are entitled to the same amount
• Double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030
• Get the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station ‘over the line’
• No new licences to explore new oil and gas fields in the North Sea, no new coal licences and ban fracking for good
• Creation of Great British Energy, which would co-invest in clean power tech and ‘deploy local energy production’
• Invest an extra £6.6 billion to upgrade energy efficiency in five million homes
• Creation of nine new National River Walks and three new National forests in England
• Work to eradicate Bovine TB and end the ‘ineffective badger cull’

Here are a few things that have stuck out to me in the Labour manifesto.

• Strategic Defence Review in the first year of government, and setting out ‘the path’ to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence – Labour has not committed to reaching that target by 2030 as the Tories have
• Introduce Martyn’s Law, named for a man who died in the Manchester terror attacks, which would introduce greater security at public events – Tories have pledged the same
• Create new Border Security Command, funded by scrapping Migration and Economic Development partnership with Rwanda
• Hire more caseworkers to help clear the asylum backlog and end the use of asylum hotels
• Appoint Covid Corruption Commissioner to recoup public money lost in pandemic-related fraud
• No increase to National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT
• Establish a National Wealth Fund for public investment, which would ‘support Labour’s growth and clean energy missions’
• Cap corporation tax at 25% for the entire next parliament
• Fix an additional one million potholes across England in each year of next parliament
• Bring railways into public ownership
• Introduce binding regulation on ‘the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI models’ and ban the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes

Starmer has finished answering questions from the media now, and that’s the manifesto launch over.

Apart from the hiccup with the environmental protester – which the Labour leader quickly recovered from – it all seemed to go to plan.

Now it’s time to get into the weeds of the manifesto and see what it says. There’s not much in there that hasn’t already been announced, but let’s take a look.

Tony Blair made the Bank of England independent in his first week as PM, a reporter points out – what would Keir Starmer do as a priority?

‘The first thing I’d do is return politics to service,’ he says vaguely.

‘To service, to serve this country. I came into politics to serve, I had a career in the law before this.’

He has said the word ‘service’ a lot in his answer. He isn’t any more specific about policies he would carry out.

I’m searching through the Labour manifesto for a few keywords – we were promised a few lines on House of Lords reform, and here they are:

‘Although Labour recognises the good work of many peers who scrutinise the government and improve the quality of legislation passed in Parliament, reform is long over-due and essential.

‘Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy.

‘Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big.

‘The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.

‘Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords.’

An environmental group named Green New Deal Rising has posted a video admitting they were behind the interruption of Starmer’s speech earlier.

Labour’s manifesto is now out and available online. It’s the longest I’ve seen so far – 136 pages, compared to 117 from the Lib Dems and just 80 for the Conservatives.

Its chapters include:

• Strong foundations
• Kickstart economic growth
• Make Britain a clean energy superpower
• Take back our streets
• Break down barriers to opportunity
• Build an NHS fit for the future
• Serving the country
• Britain reconnected

I’m going to dive in – if you want to take a look yourself, it’s available here.

Keir Starmer is trying to emphasise his party’s economic credentials in his manifesto launch speech.

‘I make no apologies for being careful with working people’s money,’ he says.

‘We will not raise income tax, we will not raise National Insurance, we will not raise VAT, that is a manifesto commitment.’

In a dig at Nigel Farage, he says: ‘If you want politics as pantomime, I hear Clacton is nice this time of year.’

A protester has interrupted Keir Starmer’s manifesto launch speech.

The young woman appeared to be saying Labour had let down young people with its climate policies.

The Labour leader responded by saying: ‘We stopped being a party of protest a long time ago.’

He doesn’t appear to be too shaken by it.

Not inside it – yet.

But there’s the front cover – a familiar black-and-white picture of Keir Starmer, who’s now stepped up to speak.