UK News

Labour has lost almost 200,000 members in the past five years, according to the party’s latest annual accounts. The party’s membership has been steadily falling since Sir Keir Starmer became leader in April 2020, from a peak of 532,046 at the end of 2019. Despite the party’s landslide election victory last summer, it shed another 37,215 members over the course ...

More than half of the council areas with asylum seeker hotels are fully or partly controlled by Labour, according to BBC analysis of figures released by the government. On Tuesday, Conservative-controlled Epping Forest District Council won a temporary injunction in the courts to stop 140 asylum seekers living at the Bell Hotel in Epping. The ruling could hinder the government’s ...

Councils across England are poised to take legal action to remove asylum seekers from hotels in their areas. It follows the High Court granting a district council a temporary injunction to block asylum seekers from lodging at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex. All 12 councils controlled by Reform UK will “do everything in their power to follow Epping’s lead”, ...

Sir Keir Starmer has called US President Donald Trump’s commitment to security guarantees for Ukraine a breakthrough, as he hailed the movement towards a meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. The prime minister joined the leaders’ summit at the White House on Monday, having cut short his family holiday in Scotland. From what Sir Keir said overnight, it seems ...

MPs, members of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLAs), Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and Welsh Senedd (MSs) have urged the prime minister to “act now” and exert pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza. Parties joining in the SDLP-led letter include Sinn Féin, Alliance, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party and People Before Profit. The letter calls for Parliament ...

Labour MP Afzal Khan has resigned as the UK’s trade envoy to Turkey following criticism of his visit last week to the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The territory isn’t recognised by the UK government as Turkish troops have occupied Cyprus’ northern third since the 1974 invasion. Mr Khan, the MP for Manchester Rusholme, also met Turkish-Cypriot leader Ersin ...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he discussed security guarantees with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at their meeting in Downing Street. The pair held talks ahead of a vital summit in Alaska between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Sir Keir has said he believes there is ...

Hundreds of books have been left strewn across the pavement by council-employed contractors outside a former library in south London. The books were pictured by local news website Inside Croydon in large piles outside Broad Green Library, which closed late last year as part of cost-cutting measures at Croydon Council. Mayor Jason Perry apologised, saying the way the books had ...

The trial of Labour MP Tulip Siddiq over corruption allegations has formally begun in Bangladesh. The former minister did not attend the hearing, where investigators from the country’s corruption watchdog set out the case against her and 20 other individuals, including her aunt, her mother, her brother and her sister. She is accused of influencing her aunt Sheikh Hasina, who ...

There is a “viable chance” of a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said, ahead of Friday’s summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two leaders are meeting in Alaska to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders, who are not ...