Lib Dems denounce new Reform UK chair as ‘Trump sycophant’
The Liberal Democrats have criticised Nigel Farage for appointing someone they describe as a Trump sycophant as Reform UK chair.
In a statement about the appointment of David Bull (see 11.55am), Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said:
The conveyor belt of Trump sycophants appointed by Nigel Farage rolls on.
Reform is more interested in advancing Donald Trump’s agenda over here, not standing up for the communities that they are supposed to represent.
This elevation of yet another Trump lapdog is just further evidence of this.
To justify their comment, the Lib Dems highlighted this tweet from Bull celebrating Trump’s election victory last year, and another showing that, as a Talk TV presenter, Bull once went on air with a bandage over his ear show he could show “solidarity” with Trump after the assassination attempt.
With Labour reluctant to criticise President Trump because they have to negotiate with him, and the Tories reluctant to criticise him because they admire him, the Liberal Democrats are the biggest party in the Commons with ample scope for Trump-bashing, and they rarely miss a chance indulge.
Key events
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Afternoon summary
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Government to abolish Vagrancy Act, 200-year-old law making rough sleeping a crime
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‘We survived Pharaoh, we will also survive Starmer’ – Itamar Ben-Gvir hits back at UK sanctions
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Farage admits Reform UK does not know how it could implement its plan to deport 1.2m illegal immigrants from UK
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Farage says having David Bull, qualified doctor, as Reform UK chair will help it counter Labour claims about its health plans
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Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway join UK in sanctioning two far-right Israeli ministers
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Lib Dems back government’s decision to sanction two far-right Israeli ministers, while Tories equivocate
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Labour says new Reform UK chair backs replacing NHS with insurance-based healthcare model
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Starmer says he hopes other allies will join UK in action tightening pressure on Israel
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MPs to hear Commons statement later after UK sanctions two Israeli government ministers
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Starmer says spending review decisions will make people ‘more safe’, despite police claims to the contrary
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Starmer says Farage ‘looking backwards’ on energy policy by floating prospect of reopening mines in Wales
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Miliband accuses Green co-leader Adrian Ramsay of having ‘none of the above’ stance on clean energy measures
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Miliband accuses SNP of ‘sticking their heads in sand’ with their opposition to new nuclear power stations
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Miliband dismisses Tory claim last government’s nuclear power plans more ambitious
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Lib Dems denounce new Reform UK chair as ‘Trump sycophant’
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3 components of nuclear power investment: Sizewell C, small modular reactors, and fusion energy
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Farage says restoring death penalty will become matter for ‘major national debate’ within next decade – but he is against
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Former TV presenter David Bull confirmed as Reform UK’s new chair
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Starmer promises ‘no more dithering’ over nuclear power, saying Sizewell C announcement ‘statement of intent’
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UK unemployment rises to highest level in nearly four years
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Foreign Office staff told to consider resigning after challenging UK policy on Gaza
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‘Don’t allow your head to tell you this isn’t for me’ – Starmer’s career advice for young people
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Reeves defends proposed welfare cuts as GMB delegate says they are ‘wrong’
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Rachel Reeves speaks at GMB conference
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Miliband says Reeves will find ‘fair way’ to fund winter fuel payments U-turn
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Miliband says government has no need to apologise for cutting winter fuel payments last year
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Miliband says funding plan means Sizewell C will happen as Green party says money could be ‘far better spent’
Afternoon summary
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Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has announced that the former TV presenter David Bull will be the party’s next chair. The Liberal Democrats have denounced him as a “Trump sycophant”. (See 12.52pm.) As Peter Walker reports in a profile, “with his daytime TV teeth and perma-tan, Bull is one of the UK politicians who most resembles the slightly unnerving Donald Trump acolytes who populate Fox News in the US.” But Peter goes on: “Rather than being an unyielding zealot, as the new chair of Reform UK he appears a safe choice.”
For a full list of all the stories covered here today, scroll through the key events timeline at the top of the blog.
Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Here is John Crace’s sketch about the Reform UK press conference this morning.
Government to abolish Vagrancy Act, 200-year-old law making rough sleeping a crime
The government has announced that it is going to repeal the Vagrancy Act, a law passed more than 200 years ago banning rough sleeping. In a news release, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government says:
After 200 years, rough sleeping will no longer be a crime as the government confirms it will formally scrap the Vagrancy Act by spring next year.
The Act was introduced in 1824 – towards the end of the Georgian era – to deal with rising homelessness which increased after the Napoleonic Wars and Industrial Revolution.
While use of the Act against rough sleeping has significantly declined over the years in line with modern attitudes and greater understanding around the causes of homelessness, it remains enforceable in law.
The government will be repealing the Act to ensure rough sleeping is no longer a criminal offence, as it concentrates its efforts on getting to the root causes of homelessness, backed by major funding.
An independent Scotland would break off diplomatic relations with Israel because of what it is doing in Gaza, Stephen Flynn, the party’s leader at Westminster, has said. In an interview with the News Agents podcast, he
Look, I’m deeply, deeply upset and angry about what’s happened in Gaza and what continues to happen in Gaza, and the fact that the UK position has been so weak for far too long in respect of this. And I think it’s important that you convey your views to people who are rational actors …
If you’re in a position to have a rational conversation with these people, we’re not. I’ve gone into the House of Commons on God knows how many occasions now, and listen to David Lammy and Hamish Falconer, the Middle East minister, and they’ve told us how we’re going to do this, or we’re going to do that, and this is the latest thing we’re going to do. And then he stands up and says, but they’re ignoring us. Well, if they’re ignoring you, then do something that captures their attention.
Asked if an independent Scotland would break of diplomatic relations with Israel, Flynn replied: “Yes.”
Hamish Falconer, the Middle East minister, will make a statement to MPs about the decision to sanction Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. But it will not happen until the debate on the planning and infrastructure bill finishes, probably at 7pm.
‘We survived Pharaoh, we will also survive Starmer’ – Itamar Ben-Gvir hits back at UK sanctions
Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has expressed defiance to the UK government’s decision to impose sanctions on him and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich. In a statement, Ben-Gvir said:
We survived Pharaoh, we will also survive Keir Starmer. I will continue to work for Israel and the people of Israel without fear or intimidation!
He went on to compare the UK’s decision to the 1939 UK policy paper limiting Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine.
Smotrich also calls the decision “a white paper”. He said:
Britain has already tried once to prevent us from settling the cradle of our homeland, and we will not allow it to do so again. We are determined to continue building.
Farage admits Reform UK does not know how it could implement its plan to deport 1.2m illegal immigrants from UK
I’ve already covered some of what Nigel Farage said at his press conference this morning. (See 12.20pm, and 3.44pm.) Here are some of the other lines from the Q&A.
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Farage, the Reform UK leader, admitted that the party does not have a plan for implementing its policy on illegal immigrants, which is to deport all of them from the UK. Yesterday Zia Yusuf, the former Reform UK chair, told the Today programme:
I want to be crystal clear about what my position is, and Reform UK’s position is, which is we will deport everybody who is here in this country illegally, which is roughly about 1.2 million people.
Asked for details of how this would happen, Farage replied:
As President Trump is discovering in Los Angeles, this is not an easy thing to do, which is why, whilst it has to happen, I’ve always been cautious about about delving into specifics on it.
I will say this, there’ll be no deportations until we leave the ECHR [European convention on human rights]. There’ll be no deportations until British judges are freed to make their own decisions. Although, even when that comes, given our current crop of judges, then there may still be challenges, given the politicisation that has happened of the judiciary and the civil service and all the things in a post-Blair time.
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Farage defended Reform UK’s decision to call its council cost-cutting teams Doge, after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in the US, even though the Musk has fallen out with Donald Trump. Asked about this, Farage said:
We thought hard about this. We thought about we did have a name; there was a UK name that we thought we’d use. And then what polling showed us is one of the things that’s wildly popular in the UK that’s happening in America is the concept of Doge, and that Doge had seeped into public consciousness, and that to attempt to rebrand that would be a hell of a difficult effort. So that’s why we’ve stuck with it.
Virtually everybody I know that has been successful in business is considering leaving this country. The last official figures were the 10,800 of the wealthy left Britain. The next set of figures – I don’t know what they’re going to be, 20,000, 25,000.
You’ve only got to look at property prices in Westminster, Chelsea, Kensington and see they’ve all fallen by over 20%. Now that doesn’t really matter, and nor does it benefit ordinary folk, because these are houses priced in millions.
But you don’t make those that are not doing so well in society better off by getting rid of your biggest taxpayers.
Do I think, in cultural terms, the burqa fits in with the British way of life? Not really, no.
Asked about this a second time, he replied:
This is about priorities. I don’t like to see the burqa. I think it probably is anti British …
But is it absolutely front line and centre of what we’re going to campaign for? Not given the other major crises we face.
Rows and resignations? Yes, that’s right. Seven Chairman since 2022, and four leaders. They’re called the Conservative party, and they’re like ferrets in a sack.
He also insisted that he was good at retaining the loyalty of colleagues, using language much the same as when he addressed this during his press conference yesterday.
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He rejected claims that today’s figures showing donations to political parties in the first quarter of the year were a disappointment. The figures show the party received £1.5m. Asked if the party was over-reliant on big donors, Farage said the donations were up ten-fold on the previous quarter. “The trend is in the right direction,” he said. He also said that, unlike the bigger parties, he was not able to attract donations by offering people peerages. (This was a joke, because selling peerages is illegal, but no one at Westminster thinks there is no link between donations and honours.) Farage said the honours system was “corrupted beyond belief”.
Farage says having David Bull, qualified doctor, as Reform UK chair will help it counter Labour claims about its health plans
Labour has attacked the new Reform UK chair, David Bull, over his previous comments about the NHS. (See 2.31pm.) But, at his press conference this morning, Nigel Farage said that the fact that Bull worked as a hospital doctor before transferring to a career in TV would help the party. Farage said:
Who knows? Having somebody inside that’s been a hospital doctor might actually be a very useful thing when it comes to answering questions about the National Health Service and the deficiencies within it, without people screaming that we want to make people pay £150,000 pounds for a hip operation, which appears to be what the Labour lie machine is roughly saying at the moment.
Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway join UK in sanctioning two far-right Israeli ministers
This morning Keir Starmer said that he wanted to take action against Israel alongside other allies. (See 2.12pm.) It is now clear what he was talking about, because David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has issued a joint statement with his counterparts from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway explaining why the two ministers should be sanctioned.
In their statement the five foreign ministers say:
Today, the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom have announced sanctions and other measures targeting Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich for inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Settler violence is incited by extremist rhetoric which calls for Palestinians to be driven from their homes, encourages violence and human rights abuses and fundamentally rejects the two-state solution. Settler violence has led to the deaths of Palestinian civilians and the displacement of whole communities.
We are steadfastly committed to the two-state solution which is the only way to guarantee security and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians and ensure long term stability in the region, but it is imperilled by extremist settler violence and settlement expansion.
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous. These actions are not acceptable. We have engaged the Israeli government on this issue extensively, yet violent perpetrators continue to act with encouragement and impunity. This is why we have taken this action now – to hold those responsible to account. The Israeli government must uphold its obligations under international law and we call on it to take meaningful action to end extremist, violent and expansionist rhetoric.
Lib Dems back government’s decision to sanction two far-right Israeli ministers, while Tories equivocate
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has welcomed the government’s decision the two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
Davey said:
I’m relieved to see the government finally sanction the extremist ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Their calls for the forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians are utterly abhorrent, and it’s right that they will now face consequences.
Liberal Democrats have been calling for these sanctions since last February. It’s disappointing that the Conservative government refused and Labour took so long to act.
The antidote to the extremism of ministers like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich must be to officially recognise the independent state of Palestine. The Government should take this vital step at next week’s summit – rejecting extremism, demonstrating the UK’s commitment to self-determination, and giving both Israelis and Palestinians hope of a lasting peace.
Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, has also issued a statement about the government’s move. With Kemi Badenoch as leader, and Patel doing foreign affairs, the Conservatives have been almost unequivocally pro-Israel, and this statement is non-committal. It could be read as either supporting the sanctioning decision or opposing it.
We have been clear that the British government must leverage its influence at every opportunity to ensure the remaining hostages are released, that aid continues to reach those who need it, and a sustainable end to the conflict is achieved.
The Conservative party has always been committed to supporting a two-state solution – delivered in the right way, and at the right time – and will work with the government to support efforts to achieve this, where those efforts are effective.
Labour says new Reform UK chair backs replacing NHS with insurance-based healthcare model
Labour says the new Reform UK chair, David Bull, favours replacing the NHS with an insurance-based healthcare system.
In a statement issued after Bull was announced as the replacedment for Zia Yusuf, a Labour spokesperson said:
While the faces change at the top of Reform UK, the commitment to end the NHS as we know it stays the same.
David Bull has parroted Nigel Farage’s plan for an insurance-based healthcare model which would leave working people paying thousands for routine healthcare treatment.
The threat for patients is crystal clear given Farage said he would stop taxation paying for the NHS and Reform MPs voted in parliament to scrap the means of paying for Labour’s additional investment in the NHS, which is bringing down waiting lists.
Labour said that in May 2025, on the BBC’s local election results programme, Bull said:
Nigel [Farage] has talked about looking at insurance-based systems, he’s talked about looking at countries like Australia, for example, Canada, for example.
Labour says Bull was referring to Farage telling Sky News earlier in the week that he did not want the NHS to be paid for out of general taxation.
Starmer says he hopes other allies will join UK in action tightening pressure on Israel
Keir Starmer has said that he is strongly in favour of acting with other countries in tightening pressure on Israel to change its policy in Gaza.
This morning he recorded an interview with Beth Rigby from Sky News, and Rigby said that, although he kept saying the situation in Gaza was “intolerable”, the government was refusing to act. She asked why the government was not taking action, like sanctioning ministers or suspending further arms sales.
Starmer replied:
Well, it is intolerable and it’s getting worse. And I think anybody looking at what’s going on in Gaza, would be shocked, and that’s why we do need to get back to a ceasefire, urgently. It’s why we need to get the remaining hostages out, they’ve been there a very long time. And of course, humanitarian aid needs to get in at volume and at speed.
We are, in answer to your question, talking to other partners about what more we could do, including questions of sanctions.
My strong belief is, when we make a move, if we’re able to do that in company of other countries, that’s a stronger move than doing it on our own. So that’s the basic approach that we’re taking.
But we are working on what more we could do in a pretty short term now.
It is not clear whether Starmer’s reference to action coming soon was just a reference to the sanctions announcement (see 2pm), which was made public about two hours later, or whether further action, with allies, is planned.
MPs to hear Commons statement later after UK sanctions two Israeli government ministers
Two Israeli government ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have been sanctioned by the UK, PA Media reports. PA says:
Ben-Gvir, the security minister, and Smotrich, the finance minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government will both face a travel ban and see their assets frozen.
The move comes as the UK and other Western nations seek to ramp up pressure on Israel’s government amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Israel’s foreign affairs minister Gideon Sa’ar said it was “outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kind of measures”.
Smotrich and Ben-Gvir both belong to right wing parties which help to prop up Mr Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government.
Both have been criticised for their hardline stance on the war in Gaza.
Smotrich has campaigned against allowing aid into Gaza, while Ben-Gvir has called for Gaza’s people to be resettled from the territory.
In the Commons Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, told MPs that a minister will make a statement on this in the chamber later today.
