Starmer tells cabinet he wants to ‘resolve difficult issues’ before Burnham becomes PM, implying he wants final say on defence investment plan
Keir Starmer has told the cabinet that he wants to “resolve difficult issues” before leaves Downing Street.
In a fresh indication of his determination to finalise and publish the defence investment plan before Andy Burnham replaces him, he said he saw it has his job to sort out some outstanding problems in his remaining weeks in office.
At the No 10 lobby briefing, describing what Starmer told cabinet about his decision to stand down, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The prime minister said he wants to thank the cabinet for their hard work over the last two years.
He said they achieved a great deal and done important work, which is not just reflected in policies and announcements but in the impact on real people’s lives.
The prime minister said he wanted whoever became the next prime minister to succeed. He added he wanted an orderly transition, as he set out yesterday and would seek to resolve difficult issues in the coming weeks to support the successor.
The prime minister said he’d seek to make the transition as easy as possible, giving his full support to whoever followed in his footsteps.
The prime minister said the cabinet had responsibilities before he stepped down, adding the normal business of government must proceed.
Key events
No 10 says there will be ‘no new major policy or spending commitments’ before Starmer quits
At the No 10 lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said that Keir Starmer has agreed that there will be “no new major policy or spending commitments” before he stands down.
But this did not cover the defence investment plan (Dip), the spokesperson suggested. Starmer seems to regard this as a policy that is already more or less settled.
Describing how the civil service would operate during the transition period leading to a new PM taking over, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The cabinet secretary [Antonia Romeo] has written to heads of departments to set out the principles of how the civil service should operate during this period.
Keir Starmer remains prime minister, and so the business of government will continue as normal until he has recommended a successor to His Majesty the King.
The civil service will act as it did during similar periods in line with precedent. All ministers remain in office and may carry usual activities …
The prime minister has agreed that there will be no new major policy or spending commitments initiated during this period.
Where a process is already under way or collective agreement is in place, government business will continue.
Asked if the Dip was viewed as an existing spending commitment, not a new spending commitment, the spokesperson said David Lammy, the deputy PM, told MPs yesterday that the Dip would be published before the Nato summit.
Although the Dip has not yet been published, Starmer gave interviews after John Healey resigned implying that, while Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, will be consulted before the final version is published, the overall spending totals (which Healey could not accept) are now settled.
No 10 says Andy Burnham to be allowed ‘access talks’ with civil service before Starmer stands down
At the lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson also confirmed that Andy Burnham will be allowed “access talks” with the civil service before he becomes PM.
The spokesperson said Dame Antonia Romeo, the cabinet secretary, has agreed that access talks can happen. This is a process that normally takes place before a general election, when officials speak to the main opposition parties so they can be in a position to implement their policies if they form a government.
The spokesperson said the access talks would take place with “prospective candidates for the Labour leadership” as soon as possible and before nominations have closed. He confirmed they could start before 9 July, the date when nominations will open.
The spokesperson suggested Burnham will be able to hold talks with officials on this basis. But he did not give details of how the Cabinet Office would decide if any other Labour MP would qualify as a prospective candidate ahead of nominations closing.
Starmer tells cabinet he wants to ‘resolve difficult issues’ before Burnham becomes PM, implying he wants final say on defence investment plan
Keir Starmer has told the cabinet that he wants to “resolve difficult issues” before leaves Downing Street.
In a fresh indication of his determination to finalise and publish the defence investment plan before Andy Burnham replaces him, he said he saw it has his job to sort out some outstanding problems in his remaining weeks in office.
At the No 10 lobby briefing, describing what Starmer told cabinet about his decision to stand down, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The prime minister said he wants to thank the cabinet for their hard work over the last two years.
He said they achieved a great deal and done important work, which is not just reflected in policies and announcements but in the impact on real people’s lives.
The prime minister said he wanted whoever became the next prime minister to succeed. He added he wanted an orderly transition, as he set out yesterday and would seek to resolve difficult issues in the coming weeks to support the successor.
The prime minister said he’d seek to make the transition as easy as possible, giving his full support to whoever followed in his footsteps.
The prime minister said the cabinet had responsibilities before he stepped down, adding the normal business of government must proceed.
Reeves says she is ‘confident’ defence investment plan will be published before likely date for Burnham becoming PM
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has told MPs that she is “confident” that the government’s defence investment plan (Dip) will be published before Andy Burnham becomes PM.
The Dip has already caused the resignation of John Healey as defence secretary and Al Carns as armed forces minister over their claims that it does not allocate enough spending to defence investment.
During Treasury questions in the Commons this morning, Reeves said that yesterday she met Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, and Sir Richard Knighton, the chief of the defence staff, to discuss the Dip.
She went on:
The Ministry of Defence are producing the Dip that will meet the scale of the challenges and meet the moment with increased readiness.
I am confident that the new Dip will be published before the Nato Ankara summit.
It will involve more money spent more effectively and will meet the scale of challenges facing our country.
The government has always planned to publish the Dip, which will illustrate how the government plans to fund the defence requirements set out in last year’s strategic defence review, before the Nato summit in Turkey. That takes place on 7-8 July.
Yesterday Keir Starmer announced that the Labour party will open nominations for candidates to succeed him on 9 July. With Burnham likely to face no challengers, it is expected that Burnham will become PM at the end of the following week, possibly on Friday 17 July.
There have been claims that Burnham wants the timetable put back so that he can finalise it himself. But, given that there is no easy way a new government could find the money to raise defence spending as quickly as military chiefs want, Burnham may be happy to leave this as a decision for Starmer to sign off.
Here is Severin Carrell’s story about Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, being jailed for embezzlement.
Commenting on the sentence, an SNP spokesperson said:
The Scottish National party welcomes the sentencing of Peter Murrell today for embezzling hundreds of thousands of pounds from us.
As chief executive, Peter Murrell was placed in a position of significant trust by the SNP, and he breached that trust in the most appalling manner.
While Peter Murrell’s sentencing does offer significant closure for SNP members, we are still seeking recovery of the money he embezzled to allow us to spend it on the purposes for which our dedicated donors intended.
Lib Dem MP ordered to apologise to parliamentary contractor for forcefully pulling his lanyard
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.
A Lib Dem MP has been ordered to apologise to a parliamentary contractor after he pulled man’s lanyard-worn security pass to look at it, forcing him to lean forward.
An independent expert panel tasked with investigating the case rejected the insistence of Angus MacDonald, the MP for Inverness, Skye and West Rossshire, that while he might have looked at the pass without warning, he did not do so with any force.
The panel investigated the matter after MacDonald appealed against an initial finding of wrongdoing by Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
The incident happened last year when the complainant was in his first day working in parliament as a verbatim reporter at a meeting of the Commons Scottish affairs committee, of which MacDonald is a member.
MacDonald, the panel said, “grabbed his security pass, which was attached to a lanyard around his neck, without any prior warning and with such force that he was physically tilted forward. He alleged that Mr MacDonald held the security pass in place, keeping him in a semi-bowed position, before eventually releasing it and walking away.”
Rejecting MacDonald’s appeal, the panel ordered the MP to apologise.
Former Tory Brexit negotiator David Frost urges Burnham to ditch reset in relations with EU
David Frost, who was Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, has told a conference this morning that, if Andy Burnham becomes PM, he should ditch much of Keir Starmer’s reset with the EU. Lisa O’Carroll has the story on the Europe live blog.
And these are from my colleague Peter Walker on the Nigel Farage interview on BBC Breakfast covered earlier. (See 10.27am.)
The BBC Breakfast interview with Nigel Farage is worth watching back, in part to see just how grumpy – and patronising – he gets when asked about the £5m gift. “It’s literally none of your business,” he tells Sally Nugent when she asks how much of it has been spent and on what.
Farage’s political gift was in part that he was the one who might be fun to share a pint with. He doesn’t look fun now. He also, very clearly, finds it harder being interviewed/questioned by women, and I think broadcasters are catching on to this.
This is from the Labour MP Samantha Niblett, who attended a reception at Downing Street that Keir Starmer hosted yesterday.
Nicholas Watt, Newsnight’s political editor, says Starmer’s decision to host the reception but not to give the G7 statement to the Commons has been criticised by some of his MPs. He says:
I picked up some criticism last night from Labour MPs over Keir Starmer’s decision to skip his planned Commons statement on the G7 summit in favour of hosting a garden party in the Downing Street garden for friends and allies among Labour MPs. He left it to David Lammy to deliver the statement.
That was an interesting contrast to Margaret Thatcher on the day she announced her resignation. That afternoon she headed to the House of Commons and delivered a speech which played a crucial role in developing the Thatcher mythology.
The key moment came when the Labour veteran Dennis Skinner joked that Thatcher should head up the European Central Bank. “What a good idea,” she said after a brief pause. To laughter Thatcher then said: “I’m enjoying this.”
Nick also points out that Thatcher was replying to a no confidence motion, which is the sort of parliamentary occasion a PM can’t avoid. G7 statements are far less important.
Lib Dems say Britons ‘paying dearly’ for Brexit that earned Farage £5m ‘reward’
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.
The Liberal Democrats are marking the tenth anniversary of Brexit by enjoying their favourite pursuit – being rude about Nigel Farage.
Ed Davey’s party have paid for a series of billboards across the UK showing a grinning Farage and a newspaper headline about his £5m gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which at one point Farage described as a reward for Brexit, and the slogan: “Ten year on… do YOU feel better off?”
Unveiling one placard in west London, Davey said:
Nigel Farage pocketed a £5m “reward” for the damage he’s caused, while the rest of us are paying for it dearly. When he promised we would be better off, he clearly only meant himself. We are taking over billboards across the UK today to say enough is enough.
This is from my colleague Jessica Elgot on a potential Darren Jones leadership bid (see 9.34am).
Key to a serious Jones run seems to what he makes of Burnham’s economic policies in the coming days – including public control of utilities. And whether Ed Miliband ends up as chancellor.
Farage claims ‘no one cares’ about his undisclosed £5m donation from crypto billionaire, ‘apart from media’
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK, has claimed that “no one cares” about the undisclosed £5m donation he recieved from Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency billionaire, shortly before he was elected as an MP in 2024.
Asked about the donation in an interview on BBC Breakfast this morning, Farage said: “No one cares, apart from the media, no one cares.”
He went on:
I’m absolutely convinced I’ve done nothing wrong in any way at all. I also know that since I was elected as an MP, I’ve taken zero in personal expenses. I’m very careful and very cautious about these things.
Under Commons rules, MPs have to declare donations they receive, including in the 12 months before their election, if they are linked to their political work, or might reasonably be thought to be related. Farage did not register the £5m because he says it was a personal gift to fund his security, and it only became public when revealed by the Guardian.
One person who clearly does care about this is Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, who is investigating whether Farage broke parliamentary rules.
Farage largely gave up on holding press conferences after the £5m donation became public, and he frequently got tetchy when asked about, but today he has been doing interviews to mark the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote and could not avoid the topic.
On BBC Breakfast, asked how much of the money had been spent, Farage replied: “It’s none of your business.”
Farage also gave an interview to the Today programme, where the presenter, Nick Robinson, asked him:
Would you be happy if the next prime minister of this country secretly banked a £5m cheque from a billionaire whose business interests he was promoting?
Farage said he would “refute that entirely”. He said he did not promote Harborne’s business interests.
He questioned Robinson’s decison to describe the donation as secret. When Robinson pointed out that he did not declare it, Farage switched tack and claimed that he did not need to.
Farage claimed that he had been arguing in support of the cryptocurrency industry “for years”. He also suggested that, even if London were to change its rules on crypto trading, that was unlikely to affect Harborne’s investments in the sector because it was such a “minute part of the global market”.
Harborne has said that he has never asked for anything in return for his donations to Reform UK, or in return for the personal donation to Farage.
When news of the donation first broke, Farage said that on the basis of the legal advice he had been given he was confident that Commons rules did not require him to declare it. The parliamentary commissioner for standards is now investigating this, and this morning Farage sounded less confident about being cleared. He told BBC Breakfast.
I believe [the donation] to be a wholly private matter. The standards commissioner may take a different view.
It is easy to see why Farage is claiming “no one cares” about the donation. He wants the media to stop asking about it. Research published last week showed that, of all the many lines used by Labour to attack Farage, those highlighting the donation, and accusing Farage of being in the pocket of rich donors, are most likely to influence voters.
In a Guardian story last week, Tom Burgis and Rowena Mason revealed that Farage has been trying to block a Bank of England cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for Harborne.
Former SNP chief executive jailed for 5 years and 3 months for embezzling more than £400,000 from party
Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive and estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, has been jailed at the high court in Edinburgh for five years and three months after he admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.
In Scotland Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, is being sentenced for embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.
You can watch the live proceedings here.
Darren Jones and Al Carns decline to rule out challenging Burnham for Labour leadership
This is what the Press Association is reporting about the two MPs who have not ruled out challenging Andy Burnham for the Labour leadership. PA says:
Cabinet minister Darren Jones and former armed forces minister Al Carns are being considered as potential candidates by Labour MPs wary about installing Mr Burnham in No 10 without a contest.
Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister and a key ally of Keir Starmer, is one potential candidate with support from those loyal to the outgoing Labour leader.
Sources close to Jones said he was not currently minded to run in a contest but that he would want assurances on Burnham’s approach to economic policy, amid concerns among some of potential unease in the markets.
Burnham is set to make a major speech next week to set out key aspects of his economic policy, including confirmation he will stick to the current chancellor Rachel Reeves’ rules for managing the public finances.
The second potential rival to Burnham is former Royal Marines officer Carns, who is making up his mind whether to launch a leadership campaign.
He suggested on ITV’s Peston he was considering what to do before nominations for the Labour leadership open on 9 July .
“I’m not ready to make a decision on this in any way, shape or form,” he said.
“What I would say is we need to move from the politics which talk through the tactics and actually think about the strategy, and what I’m really looking for are big objective outcomes that we want to get to in 2029 and 2034-35”.
He said: “we need to have a clear and concise discussion about what this country wants to be at the next general election and the general election after that”.
Ed Miliband to say UK must stick to net zero targets to deliver jobs and growth
Ed Miliband is to say that the UK must stick to net zero targets to deliver jobs and growth, as speculation surrounds the energy secretary’s role under a new prime minister, Fiona Harvey reports.
It is the 10th anniversary of the vote to leave the EU. There will be some coverage of related events here, but Jakub Krupa will be covering this in more detail on his Europe live blog.
Minister says Andy Burnham should become leader in ‘swift transition’ without other Labour MPs mounting challenge
Good morning. Nothing is inevitable in life, but it is now all-but-certain that Andy Burnham will become the next Labour leader. There are still more than two weeks before the nominations for the leadership open on Thursday 9 July but – unless the Mail on Sunday can somehow unearth some surprise scandal about how Burnham has fathered a secret lovechild while also taking bribes from Israeli defence companies or whatever (which they won’t) – Burnham has in effect already won. He is the clear choice for Labour party members, and yesterday Labour MPs showed that they overwhelmingly back him too.
There is no realistic prospect of any alternative candidate beating Burnham in a leadership election. And there almost no realistic prospect of any person who does launch a leadership bid getting the support of 81 MPs, and the nominations from 5% of constituency Labour parties, or at least three affiliate organisations (of which two have to be unions), that they would need to be a candidate.
But that has not stopped chatter about some sort of challenge. It is possible to imagine some sort of shadow contest happening over the next fortnight, involving candidates declaring an interest, giving speeches, setting out a platform and perhaps attending hustings (before probably pulling out by 9 July when they don’t have enough support). This morning, the BBC is reporting that Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, and Al Carns, the former armed forces minister, have not ruled out a bid.
Other figures in the party are trying to discourage this sort of challenge. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister for EU relations, has been giving interviews this morning. He was a Keir Starmer loyalist, but today he said that he wanted to see Burnham become leader and that he wanted to see “a swift transition”.
He told Sky News:
I’m backing Andy Burnham and, yes, looking for a swift transition.
Asked if that meant he did not want a contest, he said:
I just think we have to weigh up what is in the best interests of the country. I am of the view that it needs to be a swift transition, but of course I understand colleagues have difficult decisions to make.
And Margaret Hodge, the former minister and Labour peer, told the Today programme that, while she could see the case for an election, “on balance” she thought it would be better not to have one. “We’ve got to get on with delivering, we’re in government,” she told the programme.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
9am: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, launches a poster campaign at an event to mark the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum vote.
9.30am: Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, and Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband, is sentenced at Edinburgh high court for embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.
10am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, publishes an article defending Brexit on his Substack account.
10am: Sir Martyn Oliver, the head of Ofsted, gives evidence to the Commons education committee.
11am: More in Common publishes MRP polling on views on rejoining the EU.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
12.15pm: Michel Barnier, the lead EU negotiator during the Brexit process, speaks at a UK in a Changing Europe conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the referendum. David Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, is also speaking.
2pm: Kemi Badenoch speaks at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.
2.30pm: Lord Hermer, the attorney general, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.
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