Tories accuse PM of ‘hit job on taxpayers’ after report says EU would make UK pay for better single market access
On Sky News Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, has just said that in principle his party welcomes the announcement from Keir Starmer about joining the EU’s €90bn loan for Ukraine. (See 8.40am.) But he would want to see the details, Stride said.
However, his colleague Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, was a lot less happy about the Times report suggesting the UK could end up paying the EU up to £1bn a year for better access to the single market.
In his Times report, Oliver Wright says:
double quotation mark European negotiators have made it clear that paying the cash, expected to amount to about £1bn a year, is a condition of further access to the EU’s single market.They want Starmer to make the concession in principle at a summit between the prime minister and European leaders this summer before detailed negotiations on more integration.
“If the UK wants further integration they must ‘pay to play’,” one European diplomat said. “That is not unusual.”
The govenrment has not denied the story, although it has suggested it does not recognise the £1bn figure.
Commenting on the report, Patel said:
double quotation mark Starmer is unpicking Brexit and planning another undemocratic hit job on British taxpayers by signing us up to a £1bn annual payment to the EU.Once again, this weak prime minister goes to the negotiating table, comes home empty-handed, having fleeced hard pressed taxpayers with his terrible judgment.
Key events
Commenting on the Reform UK detention centres plan (see 10.48am) on Bluesky, Sunder Katwala, head of the British Future thinktank, says it is not just potentially illegal, but also illogical in its own terms.
double quotation mark There is rather inadvertent warped logic that a rival party said to favour “open borders” would mean ‘support detention centre’While the party favouring mass deportations at unprecedented scale means ‘oppose detention centre’ anywhere nearby
double quotation mark These statements could have unwelcome legal consequences for a hypothetical Reform government – which may need to show that decisions which happen to match this pattern were chosen for other legitimate policy reasons, not as partisan political punishment/reward
double quotation mark A hypothetical future government with a thumping majority could have the powers to repeal any treaties, conventions or laws which may constrain this.A hypothetical minority government could find itself impeded by these kinds of public statements about the motive for locating detention facilities
double quotation mark A more logical version of this school sixth form debating society policy might have the opposite design* Mass Detention in Reform-voting areas proud to vote for deportations + detentions
* But Green constituencies could have the refugees instead, if they want to put them up as community sponsors
Katwala also says a Reform UK website highlights the electioneering behind all this.
double quotation mark Reform have launched a website with this “incentive” to voters in an effort to generate profile & controversy in election week
Reform UK plan to site migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas condemned as ‘abhorrent’ by other parties
A Reform UK proposal to prioritise places that vote for Green councils or MPs when it sets up detention centres for migrants facing deportations has been denounced as “abhorrent” from opponents across the political spectrum.
Reform says it would deport “all illegal migrants” and, to make this possible, it has announced plans for deportation centres holding up to 24,000 people.
In a post on social media, Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, said that these would be located in Green-voting areas. He explained:
So here’s our promise:
double quotation mark A Reform government will not put any migrant detention facilities in any constituency with a Reform MP.Nor will we put them where Reform controls the council.
And of the remaining areas, we will prioritise Green controlled parliamentary constituencies and Green controlled councils to locate the detention centres.
Put simply, if you vote in a Reform council or Reform MP, we guarantee you won’t have a detention centre near you.
If you vote Green, there’s a good chance you will.
This is an important exercise in democratic consent, not just for our mass deportation policy, but for where the detention centres are placed.
Given @ZackPolanski openly advocates for open borders, I look forward to their warm embrace of this policy.
Yusuf also promoted the slogan “Vote Green, Get Illegals” on his post.
In an interview with Sky News, Yusuf said that Reform accepted that deportating migrants on the scale proposed by his party would be unprecedented for the UK, although he said it had been done in other countries. He said this policy was about ensuring there was “democratic consent” for the policy.
Responding to the announcement, Mothin Ali, the Green party’s co-deputy leader, said:
double quotation mark Reform keep making abhorrent announcements to distract voters from they fact they want to privatise the NHS. Greens are focused on building council housing, fixing our public services and bringing down the cost of living.
Anna Turley, the Labour chair, said:
double quotation mark This grotesque policy reveals Reform’s contempt for all voters – including their own. Threatening to punish places where people don’t vote your way is a betrayal of basic democratic principles. Nigel Farage has sunk to a new low: he is clearly more interested in stoking division and anger than in serving the whole country.
And, on social media, Kemi Badenoch reposted a tweet from Simon Clarke, the Tory former business secretary, saying:
double quotation mark We need to stop illegal immigration, but this is abhorrent from Reform.Zia is proposing the siting of detention centres expressly as a form of political punishment for people and places that don’t vote Reform – not just Green, but presumably Conservative, Liberal and Labour too. (And what about Reform voters in those constituencies?)
It would almost certainly be deemed an abuse of ministerial power for political purposes, and as such would likely be stuck down in court before ever being implemented, wasting millions for the taxpayer without detaining anyone.
If it were to go ahead, it would still represent an appalling waste of public money as these sites might well not be in any way suitable for the proposed centres, or near the other infrastructure required. What’s worse is that he is doing all this to provoke outrage and draw attention to Reform a few days out from the local elections. Reform know what they are doing. But this goes beyond a pre-election stunt. It’s declared as a major policy commitment, and should be treated as such.
We need a proper plan to leave the ECHR and restore safe border controls, not gimmicks that wouldn’t survive first contact with reality.
Labour vote in Wales being further squeezed ahead of Senedd election, poll suggests
More in Common has published its final MRP poll for the Welsh Senedd election. It suggests that Plaid Cymru and Reform UK are on course to come equal first in terms of numbers of seats, and that Labour is doing significantly worse than when More in Common last ran an MRP poll in April. More in Common says:
double quotation mark The model suggests Labour could fall into third place with just 14 seats [down from 24, as the last More in Common MRP projected]. In an echo of the Caerphilly byelection it seems that as the election approaches Labour’s voter share is being squeezed, particularly by Plaid, with progressives rallying behind [Rhun] ap Iorwerth’s party as the best vehicle to stop Reform.The Conservatives would end up with 9 seats (their position stabilising since early April), and the Green party would end up with 5 – their first ever seats in the Senedd.
In a post on his Substack newsletter, the Welsh political commentator Will Hayward says he would expect a result like this to result in Plaid governing as a minority administration.
double quotation mark To get a majority in the Senedd, you need 49 seats. As you can see [the figures in the chart – see below], under these projections, the path to 49 seats is tricky for any party. Reform and the Tories together have 43 seats, so would be six short of a majority. Given that no other party would work with them, this makes it very hard for them to form the next government.Plaid and Labour combined are actually one seat short of a majority while Plaid and the Greens together are 10 seats short.
If I had to guess at what would happen under this scenario I would say: Labour and the Greens would support Rhun ap Iorwerth as first minister BUT would not enter into a formal coalition. We would then have a Plaid Cymru minority government.
Tories accuse PM of ‘hit job on taxpayers’ after report says EU would make UK pay for better single market access
On Sky News Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, has just said that in principle his party welcomes the announcement from Keir Starmer about joining the EU’s €90bn loan for Ukraine. (See 8.40am.) But he would want to see the details, Stride said.
However, his colleague Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, was a lot less happy about the Times report suggesting the UK could end up paying the EU up to £1bn a year for better access to the single market.
In his Times report, Oliver Wright says:
double quotation mark European negotiators have made it clear that paying the cash, expected to amount to about £1bn a year, is a condition of further access to the EU’s single market.They want Starmer to make the concession in principle at a summit between the prime minister and European leaders this summer before detailed negotiations on more integration.
“If the UK wants further integration they must ‘pay to play’,” one European diplomat said. “That is not unusual.”
The govenrment has not denied the story, although it has suggested it does not recognise the £1bn figure.
Commenting on the report, Patel said:
double quotation mark Starmer is unpicking Brexit and planning another undemocratic hit job on British taxpayers by signing us up to a £1bn annual payment to the EU.Once again, this weak prime minister goes to the negotiating table, comes home empty-handed, having fleeced hard pressed taxpayers with his terrible judgment.
No 10 says UK set to announce further sanctions on Russian companies involved in military supply chains
The UK is set to announce further sanctions on Russian companies involved in military supply chains, Downing Street says. In its news release, it says:
double quotation mark The move to support the financial boost for Kyiv [see 8.40am] is expected to be followed by another tranche of stinging sanctions by the UK on Russian companies to disrupt military supply chains later this week, further degrading Russia’s military capability.In recent weeks and months, Ukraine has successfully outmanoeuvred Russian forces and continued to regain territory, including 200sq km around Kherson, while imposing strategic cost on Russia. Losses on the battlefield now exceed Russia’s ability to mobilise replacements.
Here are some pictures of Keir Starmer at the European Political Community summit in Armenia. Downing Street says Starmer is only the second British prime minister to visit the country; the first was Margaret Thatcher in 1990.
Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Store (left) and Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni at the EPC summit. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Starmer says UK opening talks with EU on joining €90bn loan scheme for Ukraine
Good morning. In the UK many MPs will be spending the bank holiday campaigning for the elections on Thursday, but Keir Starmer is in Armenia, where he has announced that he wants the UK to join the EU’s €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine.
Starmer is attending a European Political Community summit in Yerevan. The EPC is the group set up four years ago comprising all the EU countries, plus almost all the other European countries that are not EU members. Mark Carney, the Canadian PM, is also attending (on the grounds, presumably, that in the light of the geopolitical upheavel caused by Donald Trump, the Canadians now count as honorary Europeans.)
The €90bn loan for Ukraine is the one that has been long talked about, but which only became possible after Viktor Orbán, the pro-Russian Hungarian PM who was vetoing it, was kicked out of office last month. The advantage for the UK of joining (besides boosting military support for Ukraine) is that it would allow British firms to access the contracts the loan will fund.
Speaking to the media as he arrived at the summit, Starmer said:
double quotation mark In relation to the EU loan that we are discussing participating in, that is very good for Ukraine, because it will give Ukraine capability that is desperately needs in year five of this conflict.It’s very good for the UK, because of the capability that leads to jobs in the United Kingdom.
And it’s very good for UK-EU relations, which is very important as we go on to the various discussions.
As Downing Street says in its news release, this initiative is not a one-off; it is part of Starmer’s bid to improve and deepen the UK’s post-Brexit relations with the EU.
double quotation mark The extra funding to Ukraine could unlock opportunity for British businesses to fill urgent capability needs for Ukraine as part of the initiative and give British defence industry access to major contracts.The move is a significant step towards a new ambitious relationship between the UK and EU – building on the prime minister’s calls at the Munich Security Conference in February to deepen defence and security cooperation to match the rapidly evolving threats faced by both sides. It also comes ahead of the UK – EU summit, expected to be held this summer, where both sides will discuss further economic and security cooperation.
This morning the Times is splashing on a story saying that, if Starmer wants the UK to have closer access to the EU single market, it will have to start making annual payments to Brussels for the first time since Brexit, perhaps worth around £1bn a year. In response, the government said that it did not recognise this figure, but that it would not comment on ongoing negotiations.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Starmer is in Yerevan in Armenia for the EPC meeting, and is also due to hold various bilaterals. He is expected to be speaking to the media early afternoon (UK time).
10am: Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has a campaign event. And, separately, Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative leader, is campaigning in Edinburgh.
Afternoon: Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is campaigning in Essex.
We’re unlikely to have comments on open today, and so if you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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