UK politics: Tory defector Natalie Elphicke apologises for comments about women who were sexually assaulted by her ex-husband – as it happened

• Labour’s newest MP, Natalie Elphicke, has apologised for defending her ex-husband and casting doubt on his victims’ testimonies after he was convicted of sexually assaulting two women.

• Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, has struggled in an interview to explain why Elphicke is allowed to be a Labour MP while Diane Abbott remains suspended. (See 9.47am.)

• The Bank of England has signalled it could start cutting interest rates as early as June after inflation was found to be “moving in the right direction”, as it kept borrowing costs on hold at 5.25% for the sixth time in a row.

• John Swinney has axed the post of minister for independence, in a clear signal to Scottish voters that his government is focused on their immediate cost of living concerns before the general election.

• Senior civil servants are to have their pay linked to their performance in a move criticised as divisive by a leading union.

• University vice-chancellors need to “show leadership” in response to student protests over Israel’s military action in Gaza, Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has said.

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Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, has said that if Nigel Farage were to return to frontline politics, that would create the circumstances in which a new party might be able to replace the Conservatives.

The former Vote Leave campaign director has been writing for some time on his Substack blog about the possibility of a new “Startup party” replacing the Tories, and in an interview with the i published today he explained how it might succeed.

Asked to predict what would happen to the Conservative party, Cumming said:

Depends on what [Nigel] Farage does.

If Farage un-retires, the Tories could easily be driven down to double digit seats and then discussions of a Startup party and replacing them will go from a very fringe idea to being a very mainstream idea.

Explaining the rationale for his Startup party idea, Cummings said:

The only point of doing it is to do something which is completely different from the other parties. The Tories now obviously represent nothing except a continuation of the shitshow; higher taxes, worse violent crime, more debt, anti-entrepreneurs, public services failing, immigration out of control.

But Labour I think will not alter the ultimate trajectory very much, they’ll be continuity Treasury, continuity David Cameron, George Osborne, Sunak, so everything will keep failing and everyone will be even more miserable by 2026 than they are now.

So, to change that you have to have two fundamental things: you have to have an entity which is ruthlessly focused on the voters not on Westminster and the old media. And you have to have something which is friendly towards all the amazing talent in the country, people who build things in private and public sector.

If you can bring those two things together then you have something very powerful and very attractive that most people in the country would get behind.

Cummings thinks a new Startup party should focus on controlling immigration, closing tax loopholes that benefit the richest 1%, investing in public services and reforming Whitehall.

In the interview Cummings did not say whether he had any funding to get his idea off the ground, or whether it is anything more than just talk at this stage. He also claimed a new party could break through without proportional representation. He explained:

It’s seemingly hard but history shows it’s doable but it happens in response to huge system changes. Historically, wars and pandemics are things that reshape states and financial clashes. So now we’ve got all of those things.

9 May 202410.51 EDT

Government says employers may be required to pay travel and visa costs for people getting seasonal worker visas

Emily Dugan

Ministers have some encouraging news for seasonal workers spending thousands of pounds to fly across the globe and pick Britain’s fruit.

A Department for Environment and Rural Affairs paper published last night said the department is exploring introducing changes to the seasonal worker visa to ensure that employers pay for workers’ travel and visa costs.

Known as the “employer pays principle”, it would be a major concession since it would mean that anyone coming to work on British farms would not have to fork out the cost of flights and visas. Advocates for the policy say it better protects workers from being charged illegal fees, though there is industry concern that this cost is borne by supermarkets rather than already stretched farms.

The Guardian has previously revealed that Indonesian labourers picking berries on farms supplying major supermarkets were left up to £5,000 in debt to unlicensed foreign brokers for a single season of work in Britain.

The Defra paper, which also announces that the seasonal worker visa will be extended for another five years, says it has committed “to investigating the use of the employer pays principle for the seasonal worker visa route. Doing so would represent a significant step towards alleviating some of the financial burdens that workers can incur in paying for their visas and travel to the UK.”

It adds that it will now be seeking “evidence of the potential impacts across the supply chain, as well as on consumers and workers”.

The announcement follows the decision by the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (Sedex) to require farming businesses to pay for the recruitment and transportation fees of the seasonal workers they employ. Sedex is a widely backed standard used by major UK supermarkets, who typically demand growers sign up to the scheme before their products are listed.

An open letter from organisations including the union the Landworkers’ Alliance has welcomed Sedex’s announcement but called for the cost to be borne by supermarkets rather than farmers “already struggling with financial pressures”. It argues that retailers “benefit from a greater proportion of the profits while shouldering less of the risk of production”.

Downing Street has issued a readout of what happened at the roundtable at No 10 this morning with universities to discuss antisemitism. Given that it is not available online, and given that this topic is attracting a lot of interest, here is in full. No 10 says:

The PM [Rishi Sunak] began by welcoming attendees to discuss the “growing rise of antisemitism on our campuses”.

He called on universities to “remain bastions of tolerance, where debate takes place with respect for others and where every student feels safe”.

He said that he was looking to university leaders to take “personal responsibility for protecting Jewish students” and adopt a “zero tolerance” approach to incidents of antisemitism, as well as any other form of hatred, prejudice, or discrimination.

The PM also said it was “right” that the Office for Students will be introducing a new condition of registration to deal with harassment, including antisemitism, “because universities should be held to account for their commitment to protect Jewish students”.

Representatives from the Union of Jewish Students described a “year like no other” for Jewish students, with a six-fold increase in the number of antisemitic incidents since 7 October.

University vice-chancellors recognised this challenge and discussed the importance of properly enforcing disciplinary procedures against students found to be inciting hatred or violence, while respecting the legitimate right to protest.

They said that effective dialogue with students was essential and that this included the need to clearly communicate expectations around respect for other members of the university community.

Vice-chancellors also raised support for interfaith networks, cooperation with the police and use of eviction orders, where students are in clear breach of university rules.

Concerns were raised around non-student “agitators” infiltrating on-campus protests in order to stir division.

The security minister [Tom Tugendhat] condemned any “tolerance of hatred” and assured attendees that he was “personally committed” to supporting universities. He said that actions have consequences and freedom of speech didn’t extend to the right to abuse or intimidate.

The communities secretary [Michael Gove] said that tackling antisemitism was a shared responsibility and he noted the government’s BDS [boycott, divestment, sanctions] bill, currently progressing through parliament, which will prevent public bodies fuelling division by imposing boycotts on foreign countries.

The cabinet secretary [Simon Case] said that universities were not alone in dealing with the rise in antisemitism and that it was a growing problem across the public realm. He said that he was committed to working with public bodies to standardise processes and practices in relation to dealing with antisemitism.

The education secretary [Gillian Keegan] concluded by thanking attendees for their commitment to protect Jewish students and foster a positive environment on campus. She said that government would continue to engage closely with sector ahead of the publication of new guidance

The meeting was attended by leaders from 17 leading universities of colleges, as well as representatives from Community Security Trust, the Union of Jewish Students, the University Jewish Chaplaincy and Universities UK.

During the Q&A with journalists after his speech this morning David Cameron also claimed that defence policy, and security, would be dividing line issues at the general election.

The foreign secretary and former prime minister told reporters:

To me, security is definitely on the ballot paper.

If you ask me ‘what’s the most important thing we can do right now as a country’, it is to enhance our security – that is to spend more on defence, to build up our alliances, to work with our partners, to seek out allies, to harden defences at home, to protect ourselves against cyber [attacks], to invest in our intelligence services.

All of these things are about recognising the world’s changed fundamentally compared with a decade ago and the biggest need, in my view, is security.

I would broaden that because, fundamentally, security to me, is the most conservative value of all.

Cameron also said that, while Rishi Sunak has committed to increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030, Labour has not matched that promise.

Labour have not matched the 2.5%, so there’s going to be a very clear choice at the election: if you are worried about the dangerous world, if you want Britain to have strong defences, if you want a government that’s absolutely committed to it and has set out a timetable: here are the guys with a plan.

And if you want a bunch of people who’ve got no plan, who have got no idea, then it’s a very different case from the Labour party.

David Cameron, the foreign secretary, has said the UK will not be following the US in withholding arms sales to Israel, saying the positions are not comparable since the UK is not a large state-to-state arms supplier to Israel. Patrick Wintour has the story here.

Cameron was speaking during a Q&A after his foreign policy speech at the National Cyber Security Centre. The full text of his speech is here, and here is Patrick’s preview story about the main message.

Natalie Elphicke, who defected to Labour from the Conservatives yesterday, has apologised for comments she made supporting her ex-husband after he was convicted of sexual assault.

The comments, made after Charlie Elphicke, her predecessor as MP for Dover, was sentenced to two years in jail for three counts of sexual assault against two women, have been cited by Labour MPs as a particularly powerful reason why she should not be welcome in the party.

In an interview with the Sun in 2020, after her husband’s conviction, Elphicke dismissed the claims of his accusers and said that he was being punished for being “charming, wealthy, charismatic and successful – attractive, and attracted to, women”. Last night the Labour MP Jess Phillips told ITV’s Peston programme that what Elphicke said at the time was “very painful” to the victims, and that she needed to apologise.

In a statement today Elphicke said:

My decision to join the Labour party is not one I have taken lightly but one I made because I am convinced that this country needs a new government led by Keir Starmer to fix the problems we see from housing to small boats.

I always knew that this decision would put a spotlight on the prosecution of my ex-husband and I want to address some of the commentary around this head on.

The period of 2017 - 2020 was an incredibly stressful and difficult one for me as I learned more about the person I thought I knew. I know it was far harder for the women who had to relive their experiences and give evidence against him.

I have previously, and do, condemn his behaviour towards other women and towards me. It was right that he was prosecuted and I’m sorry for the comments that I made about his victims.

It is vital that women can have confidence in the criminal justice system and our rates of prosecution and conviction are far too low as a country.

Keir Starmer’s mission to halve male violence against women and girls is critical and I wanted to take the opportunity to express my explicit support for Labour colleagues working to realise it.

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9 May 202408.51 EDT

Swinney rejects Green party claim Forbes' appointment takes Scotland back to 'repressive 1950s' at inaugural FMQs

Severin Carrell

John Swinney endured a difficult inaugural outing at first minister’s questions with Patrick Harvie, his former colleague in government, accusing him of returning Scotland to the “repressive values of the 1950s” by appointing Kate Forbes as his deputy.

In an early taste of the opposition attack lines Swinney faces as first minister, Harvie followed up challenges from the Conservatives and Labour on protecting teachers’ numbers by accusing Forbes, a member of the conservative Free Church of Scotland, of being a social reactionary.

Harvie, the former housing minister who is now a backbench opposition leader, said human rights and equality were at stake. He said:

The Scottish Greens have been clear that we acknowledge the SNP’s right to form a minority government. But we’ve been equally clear that the first minister must quickly give a signal of the direction his government will take.

Yesterday that signal came pretty clearly: progressive ministers sacked and the second most powerful job in government given to someone who has opposed LGBT people’s legal equality, who’s expressed judgmental attitudes against abortion, and who’s even expressed the view that people who have families without being married are doing something wrong.

Is this the Scottish government’s vision for the future of Scotland, taking us back to the repressive values of the 1950s?

Swinney rejected that attack, first insisting his government “will be led from the moderate left of centre position that I have always occupied and which is the policy position of my party, and which is supported by all of our members”.

Harvie alleged Forbes, a former finance secretary, was opposed too to progressive taxation – a charge Swinney rejected. He said it was “a matter of historic record” Forbes had pushed through higher income taxes for the better off and seen the Scottish child payment introduced. He went on:

I take very seriously the challenge that Mr. Harvey puts to me because I want people to be reassured in this country by my leadership. And when I say that I want to be the first minister for everyone in Scotland, I deeply mean that.

I want to lead a modern, dynamic and diverse Scotland, a place for everybody. Where everybody feels at home, at peace, that they have a place and that their place in our society is protected by my leadership of this country.

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The Liberal Democrats claim that Nadhim Zahawi might be standing down as MP for Stratford-on-Avon at the next election because he fears he will lose his seat. A Lib Dem source said:

Conservative MPs across the Blue Wall are standing down because they’re worried about the threat posed by the Liberal Democrats.

We have taken control of the council in Zahawi’s seat so it doesn’t come as a surprise that he is giving up the ghost.

It is clear Liberal Democrats are best placed to beat the Conservatives in Stratford-on-Avon.

At the last election Zahawi had a majority of 19,972 over the Liberal Democrats. But a YouGov MRP poll published last month suggests that the Lib Dems are on course to win the seat, beating the Tories by 38% to 31%. At the last election the Tories were on 61% in Stratford-on-Avon, and the Lib Dems 24%.

David Cameron, the foreign secretary and former prime minister, has claimed that Keir Starmer’s decision to Natalie Elphicke join his party shows Labour doesn’t have any core beliefs.

Taking questions after his foreign policy speech this morning, Cameron said:

What does this tell us about the party she’s joining? In life, if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

I thought that’s sort of what yesterday showed, that there isn’t a policy about anything, it’s just been about clearing the decks to try and focus attention on the governing party.

Cameron said that, as the general election got closer, people would stop being asked to take part in “a referendum on the governing party” and instead have to choose between two parties. He went on:

And I thought yesterday, you wake up and hear about the defection, you think ‘oh no, not another one, how are we going to handle this?’

By the end of the day it was like ‘that says so much more about Keir Starmer and the Labour party having a complete lack of a plan than it does about a prime minister who is a good man doing a great job at a difficult time’.

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Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, and Lucy Powell, her Labour shadow, both joked about Natalie Elphicke’s unlikely defection from the Tories to Labour during questions in the Commons on next week’s business in the chamber.

Mordaunt said she would not be following Elphicke.

I am not about to defect to the opposition benches. They wouldn’t be interested in me, I’m too leftwing.

And Powell said the defection showed “our reach into previously undiscovered support is really much broader and deeper than I ever imagined”.

Rishi Sunak urged university vice-chancellors to take a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitic incidents and to take responsibility for protecting Jewish students at this morning’s summit at No 10, Downing Street said.

At the morning lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson also told journalists that Sunak said universities should “remain bastions of tolerance where debate takes place with respect for others and where every student feels safe”.

The meeting was called to discuss how universities should respond to the pro-Palestinian protests at British universities. More than a dozen campuses have encampments where students are showing their support for Gaza.

After the meeting Guy Dabby-Joory, head of campaigns at the Union of Jewish Students, told PA Media:

It was a very productive meeting, we were very grateful to the government for arranging it.

Every vice-chancellor understood there is a huge issue of antisemitism on campus, that Jewish students have been struggling for the last seven months. We hope the universities will take their duties far more seriously, we hope they will show zero tolerance to antisemitism of any form.

And Edward Isaacs, president of the Union of Jewish Students, said: “The burden is now on vice-chancellors to ensure we don’t see scenes in the US replicated in the UK.”

As they left the meeting Prof Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of Oxford University, said the meeting had been “really positive, while Prof Nic Beech, vice-chancellor of the University of Salford, also it had been “very good’ and “really constructive”.

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John Swinney has axed the post of minister for independence, in a clear signal to Scottish voters that his government is focused on their immediate cost of living concerns before the general election, Libby Brooks reports.

The NHS waiting list for treatment remains “stubbornly high”, with millions of people left in pain or unable to work, a leading health expert has said.

Commenting on today’s NHS England waiting list figures (see 10.41am), Siva Anandaciva, chief analyst at the King’s Fund, a health thinktank, said:

As the NHS comes out of a tough winter, it is encouraging to see some green shoots in today’s statistics which show that improvements have been made in several key measures of cancer care.

In March, 77% of people had their cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days of referral, surpassing the national target of 75%.

But the road ahead to make further progress in recovering performance in other areas of the NHS, including reducing lengthy waiting times for planned care and A&E, will be long.

The hospital waiting list remains stubbornly high at 7.5 million in March, representing 6.3 million people waiting, often in pain or unable to work, for treatment.

A&E departments also continue to be under extreme strain as we head towards summer, with over 2.2 million attendances in April, and only 74% of people being seen within four hours.

Diane Abbott has joined those arguing that Keir Starmer’s decision to admit Natalie Elphicke as a Labour MP makes it harder for the party to justify her ongoing suspension. (See 9.47am.)

She has retweeted John Crace’s Guardian column from the yesterday – while pointing out that our headline might not be 100% accurate.

Not sure I can confirm this headline.

Natalie Elphicke’s queasy welcome shows Labour will turn no one away

And she has retweeted an article from the Evening Standard, quoting from what it says.

London MP Kate Osamor gets back Labour whip after probe on Gaza war comments
The move piles pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to do the same for veteran MP Diane Abbott

There is a lot more about Diane Abbott, and the purge of leftwingers under Keir Starmer, in Andy Beckett’s new book about the Labour left, The Searchers, an insightful, sympathetic, brilliantly researched and extremely readable 50-year history of the Labour left told through the biographies of five of its leading players: Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Abbott. Beckett argues that under Starmer the party is imposing “a level of ideological control not even achieved by New Labour at its most intolerant”.

Sunder Katwala, head of the British Future thinktank and a former head of the Fabian Society, the Labour thinktank, has launched a debate on X about whether the party has ever had a more rightwing MP than Natalie Elphicke. Here are his opening suggestions.

For more suggestions, the replies are worth reading in full.