Lead News

Zarah Sultana, who co-founded Your Party with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over the summer, said “there has to be conversations around electoral alliances” as she suggested this could help stop Nigel Farage, the Reform UK party leader, from becoming prime minister at the next general election. Young people on benefits will be offered job opportunities in construction and hospitality ...

Sir Keir Starmer has hit back at criticism from several backbench Labour Members of the Senedd (MSs) by saying he’s a “big believer in devolution”. On a visit to Ely in Cardiff on Friday, the prime minister denied claims made in a letter that he was rolling back devolution by bypassing ministers in the Senedd to make decisions for Wales. ...

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is backing an inquiry into pre-Budget leaks from the Treasury which knocked business and consumer confidence and moved markets. The chief secretary to the Treasury told the Commons on Wednesday an inquiry into pre-Budget leaks was under way, led by top Treasury civil servant James Bowler and had “the full support of the chancellor”. Policies such as ...

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has asserted that evidence gathered in multiple corruption cases “clearly and unequivocally” demonstrates that British MP Tulip Siddiq played an active role in aiding and abetting offences committed during Sheikh Hasina’s tenure. The commission dismissed claims circulating in foreign media that Siddiq — daughter of Sheikh Rehana and niece of the deposed former prime minister — ...

Labour MP and former minister Tulip Siddiq has described her two year prison sentence in Bangladesh as “deeply unfair” after a court convicted her in her absence on corruption charges. She was found guilty of influencing her aunt, Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to secure a plot of land for her family in the outskirts of the capital Dhaka, ...

A court in Bangladesh has sentenced the British MP Tulip Siddiq to two years in jail after a judge ruled she was complicit in corrupt land deals with her aunt, the country’s deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina. In a ruling on Monday, a judge found Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, guilty of misusing her “special influence” as ...

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will give his backing to the chancellor’s Budget in a speech on Monday, and commit the government to going “further and faster” on pro-growth measures. He will say Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s statement will help to alleviate cost of living pressures, lower inflation and ensure economic stability. It comes as the Treasury faces questions over whether ...

Zarah Sultana has accused leading figures in the new party she is founding with Jeremy Corbyn of carrying out a “witch hunt” to purge left-wing activists. Sultana boycotted the first day of the founding conference of the project, currently operating under the name Your Party, after several members who also belonged to the Socialist Workers Party were expelled. Party officials ...

Asylum seekers will be banned from taking taxis to medical appointments after it was revealed the Home Office spends about £15.8m a year on the service. From February they will have to use alternative transport such as buses, no matter how urgent their medical needs. The government, however, has so far rejected pleas to give asylum seekers free access to ...

A low-paid carer from Ghana has cancelled all the benefits she is legally entitled to, including the disability allowance one of her children receives, owing to fears about her immigration status after the policy changes announced by the home secretary. The radical changes to legal migration announced by Shabana Mahmood on 20 November will penalise those who are living and ...