Tories accuse Reform UK of ‘Nazi apologism’ after it defends candidate who said UK should have made peace with Hitler
CCHQ has, until recently, tried to ignore Reform UK. It is issued countless press releases during the campaign attacking Labour, but it has said very little about the challenger Nigel Farage party grabbing votes from the Tories on the right.
Perhaps the Farage attack on Rishi Sunak’s patriotism (see 10.52am) has made difference. Responding to the news that a Reform UK candidate said it would have been better if Britain had made peace with Hitler (“Britain would be in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality … but oh no Britain’s warped mindset values weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people”), and that a Reform UK spokesperson broadly defended the comment, CCHQ issued this statement from Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister. Mercer said:
The suggestion from a Reform spokesman that Britain would have been better off accepting the Nazis’ squalid offer of neutrality instead of standing against them is shameful and shows a shocking lack of judgement.
These comments ignore the millions murdered by the Nazis in their bid for European domination and the ultimate sacrifice paid by the men and women who stood up to Hitler in our darkest hour.
Misusing appeasement to justify Nazi apologism is disgraceful and comments like this are deeply troubling coming from a political party.
Key events
Reform UK might raise some money by cutting interest on QE reserves, but not £40bn it claims, IFS says
Farage puts Reform UK/TUV pact at risk after endorsing two DUP MPs
Tory HQ ‘short of money’ for campaign because donors cutting back, George Osborne claims
IFS says Lib Dem manifesto proposes ‘meaningful change’, but doubts tax plans would raise as much as party thinks
Tories accuse Reform UK of ‘Nazi apologism’ after it defends candidate who said UK should have made peace with Hitler
Labour claims Sunak’s national service plan would in reality cost twice as much as £2.5bn Tories say
Tory manifesto will be ‘most expensive panic attack in history’, Labour says
Ross denies he’s ‘rat deserting sinking ship’ after announcing he’s quitting as Scottish Tory leader after election
Farage dismisses Braverman’s suggestion he should join Tories – but says she’ll be welcome in Reform UK after election
Labour ‘has abandoned plans to raise £800m to reimposing pensions lifetime allowance’, report says
SNP says Douglas Ross has been forced out by his colleagues as Scottish Tory leader over ‘shameful behaviour’
Reform UK says it would fund £40bn income tax cut by ending interest payments on QE reserves
Sunak pays tribute to Douglas Ross, and rejects claims his resignation as Scottish Tory leader sign of more ‘chaos’ in party
Summary of key points from Lib Dem manifesto
Starmer defends free hours system of subsidising childcare
Starmer refuses to rule out raising capital gains tax
How Lib Dems would raise extra £26.9bn in tax, and where they would spend it
Sunak rejects suggestion he considered resigning over weekend over D-day fiasco
Davey says rejoining EU can only be long-term project because Tories have done ‘so much damage’ to EU-UK relations
Ed Davey launches Liberal Democrats’ election manifesto
Sunak declines to hit back at Farage over his ‘not understanding our history’ attack, saying row it caused not good for politics
Don’t write me off, says Sunak, insisting he’ll fight on and election result not ‘foregone conclusion’
Douglas Ross says he will stand down as Scottish Tory leader after election
Bridget Phillipson says Labour colleague wrong to say VAT on private school fees could lead to overcrowding in state schools
Minister ‘surprised and disappointed’ by Sunak’s D-day blunder
Tories split over whether they should seek post-election merger with Reform UK
The home secretary has told Times Radio that he wouldn’t “embrace” Nigel Farage joining the Conservatives.
Asked about Nigel Farage saying Rishi Sunak “doesn’t understand our culture” by leaving D-Day commemorations early, James Cleverly said:
I disregard much of what Nigel says. He’s a showman. He likes getting attention. He does things and says things. So broadcasters like you ask serious politicians like me questions like this and the bottom line is I’m not going to play Nigel’s game. He does these things to get attention. And just like a spoiled child, I don’t think he should be rewarded for doing so.
Asked about his predecessor, Suella Braverman, urging the party to embrace the Reform UK leader, he added:
Nigel’s made it clear he wants to destroy the Conservative party and I don’t embrace people that want to destroy my party and hurt the British people.
Rishi Sunak has acknowledged it has become harder for people to own their first home under the Conservatives.
Speaking to the BBC as part of its Panorama interviews with Nick Robinson, Sunak said:
It has got harder and I want to make sure that it’s easier and what we will do is not just build homes in the right places and do that in a way that is sensitive to local communities, but make sure that we support young people in to great jobs so they can save for that deposit. I’m going to go back to tax, because it is important…
Robinson intervened to say most young people are not worried about the deposit or stamp duty, adding they cannot afford to leave their parents’ home.
The prime minister replied:
No, actually when I speak to people it is the deposit that is the biggest challenge because many people earn enough to cover a mortgage payment, but the struggle is saving up for a deposit.
That has always over the last few years been the number one challenge.
The full interview is due to air this evening at 8pm and we’ll bring you more lines from it as we get them.
Reform UK might raise some money by cutting interest on QE reserves, but not £40bn it claims, IFS says
Andrew Sparrow
Reform UK is wrong to claim that it could raise £40bn for tax cuts by cutting interest on QE reserves (see 1.35pm), according to Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He says the government could raise some money this way, but that it would probably be less than half what Reform UK claims, and that the policy might have other disadvantages.
Reform UK propose large permanent personal tax cuts could be paid for by reducing the interest paid on Bank reserves.
It is a complex area but is unlikely to raise even half the £40bn annually that has been suggested, and only in the short term.@PJTheEconomist‘s response ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/EvMleZ7uKe
— Institute for Fiscal Studies (@TheIFS) June 10, 2024
Reform UK propose large permanent personal tax cuts could be paid for by reducing the interest paid on Bank reserves.
It is a complex area but is unlikely to raise even half the £40bn annually that has been suggested, and only in the short term.
That is all from me for today. Tom Ambrose is taking over now.
Ian Jones from PA Media says almost all the constituencies visited by Rishi Sunak so far have been Tory-held ones.
The PM has now visited 31 constituencies since the campaign began, 28 of which are being defended by the Tories.
— Ian Jones (@ian_a_jones) June 10, 2024
The PM has now visited 31 constituencies since the campaign began, 28 of which are being defended by the Tories.
Farage puts Reform UK/TUV pact at risk after endorsing two DUP MPs
Ben Quinn
Cracks have started to appear in the alliance between Reform UK and the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) after Nigel Farage backed two Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) candidates – potentially also putting him at odds with others in the party he now leads.
The Reform UK leader told PA Media:
I want to make it clear that whilst there have been negotiations going on in previous times, I will personally be endorsing Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson.
However, TUV leader Jim Allister issued a statement today criticising Farage, in remarks that could have repercussions for Reform UK’s own unity. Allister said:
TUV entered an electoral arrangement with Reform UK in good faith. We have kept faith with that agreement.
The comments by Mr Farage today are, of course, disappointing and not compatible with the content of a conversation I had with him last week.
The endorsement that TUV seeks in this election is that of ordinary voters who know who has from the start told them the truth about the union-dismantling protocol, while the DUP tried to hoodwink them with false claims that they had got rid of the Irish Sea border.
Reform UK’s joint deputy leader, Ben Habib, has emerged as a strong supporter of the TUV, making pledges to back the party’s candidates financially after he said he would not be supporting the DUP unless it changed its position on the Irish Sea border.
While the DUP had been critical of trading arrangements under the Northern Ireland protocol and Windsor framework, it agreed to revive the power-sharing institutions after securing a deal with the British government aimed at addressing unionist concerns.
Tory HQ ‘short of money’ for campaign because donors cutting back, George Osborne claims
George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor who now co-hosts the Political Currency podcast with Ed Balls, has claimed the Conservative party is short of money. Speaking on the latest edition of the podcast, he said:
The truth is they are short of money, shorter than they thought. They’re behind their targets, a couple of million pounds behind where they thought they would be. And that’s partly, of course, the early election caught the treasurer’s department by surprise as well.
They’ve been calling people up [and] people who would have donated £100,000 are saying, well, I’ll give you £50,000. Or if they were going to give £50,000, they’re giving £25,000. So people are giving less than expected.
The Conservative party has in recent years – much more so than when I was involved, where the treasurer’s departments broadened the fundraising base – become very dependent on a few very rich individuals giving very large donations. So they’re extremely vulnerable to one person saying, I’m not giving the 5 million quid that I promised you. So they are short of money.
They’ve, by the way, spent a lot of money under the Sunak premiership – close to £100m, or raised £100m – but they don’t have all the money they’d like in this campaign.
IFS says Lib Dem manifesto proposes ‘meaningful change’, but doubts tax plans would raise as much as party thinks
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has issued a short analysis of the proposals in the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto. It says the proposals amount to “meaningful change to current plans”. But it is sceptical about whether the Lib Dems would really be able to raise the £27bn they say they could. (See 12.13pm.) Here’s an excerpt.
The Liberal Democrats are proposing a package of tax rises that they claim will raise £27 billion in 2028-29. These may look politically attractive: a large sum raised without directly raising taxes on ‘ordinary people’.
But taxes on banks, for example, would need to be raised to new highs – much higher than under the Conservatives – to achieve the planned revenue, and would ultimately be felt at least in part by their customers.
While there are some changes to be welcomed – their proposed capital gains tax reform looks to be in a sensible direction – at least some of the measures are a bad idea economically.
Most notably, there is no economic rationale for a tax on share buybacks. It would distort companies’ financing decisions and further discourage the use of equity finance relative to debt finance.
As to whether the package overall would raise £27bn, the risks are on the downside.
For example, it may turn out to be difficult to raise £7bn from cracking down on evasion and avoidance. Less would be raised from taxing share buybacks if firms change their financing strategies more than the Liberal Democrats expect. Taxing frequent flyers more heavily would require an entirely new administrative mechanism to monitor how many flights people have taken in a year.
And it’s worth noting that expanding the windfall tax on oil and gas profits would only bring in revenue as a one-off – not the permanent revenue stream needed to fund permanent spending commitments.
Tories accuse Reform UK of ‘Nazi apologism’ after it defends candidate who said UK should have made peace with Hitler
CCHQ has, until recently, tried to ignore Reform UK. It is issued countless press releases during the campaign attacking Labour, but it has said very little about the challenger Nigel Farage party grabbing votes from the Tories on the right.
Perhaps the Farage attack on Rishi Sunak’s patriotism (see 10.52am) has made difference. Responding to the news that a Reform UK candidate said it would have been better if Britain had made peace with Hitler (“Britain would be in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality … but oh no Britain’s warped mindset values weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people”), and that a Reform UK spokesperson broadly defended the comment, CCHQ issued this statement from Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister. Mercer said:
The suggestion from a Reform spokesman that Britain would have been better off accepting the Nazis’ squalid offer of neutrality instead of standing against them is shameful and shows a shocking lack of judgement.
These comments ignore the millions murdered by the Nazis in their bid for European domination and the ultimate sacrifice paid by the men and women who stood up to Hitler in our darkest hour.
Misusing appeasement to justify Nazi apologism is disgraceful and comments like this are deeply troubling coming from a political party.
Labour claims Sunak’s national service plan would in reality cost twice as much as £2.5bn Tories say
Ben Quinn
Rishi Sunak’s plans to make 18-year-olds take part in a form of national service will cost double the £2.5bn price tag, Labour have claimed, citing military experts.
The party launched a pre-emptive strike on the eve of the release of the Conservative manifesto (see 4.21pm), claiming that the Tories’ expected tax and spending promises cannot deliver the savings linked to them.
On the national service plans, Labour claimed the Tories had overlooked the “minimum costs” which included training and accommodating new trainees (£1.5bn), paying and supervising trained recruits (£1.7bn) and non-military placements for those who do other types of service (£1.8bn)
All of this would amount to at least £5bn a year, according to the shadow Cabinet Office minister Jonathan Ashworth.
He said that the Conservatives would be “lying” if they said their manifesto would be fully costed. Promises to generate £12bn on welfare savings were based on commitments already factored into the Office of Budget Responsibility’s fiscal projections, insisted Ashworth.
In another area, Ashworth said that the Conservatives would not raise £6bn through plans to crack down on tax avoidance because it failed to take account of the need to make upfront investments in HMRC enforcement capacity.
Ashworth declined to rule out raising capital gains tax if Labour wins the election. Asked about this, Ashworth replied:
Under a Labour government, there will be no increase in income tax, no increase in national insurance, no increase in VAT.
Nothing in our plans requires additional tax to be raised. We will be straight with the British public. Every commitment we put forward in our manifesto will be fully funded and fully costed. You’ll know where the money is coming from.
Tory manifesto will be ‘most expensive panic attack in history’, Labour says
The Conservative party is launching its manifesto tomorrow. Speaking in advance of its publication, Labour described it as “the most expensive panic attack in history”.
Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said:
Tomorrow, you will see a document littered with unfunded commitment after unfunded commitment – a desperate wishlist, the most expensive panic attack in history from a weak, desperate Prime Minister who in the chaotic scattergun of announcements which he has made in his campaign to date has not even bothered to try to make his sums add up.
They tried to mislead the British people once in this campaign, about the costings of Labour’s policies, and now they are doing the same about their own.
Ross denies he’s ‘rat deserting sinking ship’ after announcing he’s quitting as Scottish Tory leader after election
Douglas Ross has defended his decision to announce that he will stand down as Scottish Tory leader after the next election. He said he was doing this so that, if he is elected MP for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, he will be able to focus fully on the needs of the constituency.
Asked if he was standing down because he felt guilty about elbowing aside David Duguid, who had been the party’s candidate in the Westminster seat until last week, Ross said it was the party’s management board that decided Duguid would not be allowed to stand as the candidate.
💥 NEW: Douglas Ross rejects ‘deserting a sinking ship’ as he announces he will quit as Tory leader in midst of general election.
☑️ Admits should’ve handled row over ousted David Duguid differently.
☑️Won’t say if he feels shame over stabbing colleague in back.📺 @SkyNews… pic.twitter.com/A0yqXFbFD1
— Connor Gillies (@ConnorGillies) June 10, 2024
Alex Salmond, the former SNP leader who now leads Alba, described Ross as a rat deserting a sinking ship.
The first case of a rat deserting the sinking ship while simultaneously trying to clamber aboard a gravy train.
Douglas Ross requires to resign as candidate for Aberdeenshire and Moray, where he stabbed David Duguid in the back.
Ross is totally devoid of honour. https://t.co/MoUDjsTVGh
— Alex Salmond (@AlexSalmond) June 10, 2024
The first case of a rat deserting the sinking ship while simultaneously trying to clamber aboard a gravy train.
Douglas Ross requires to resign as candidate for Aberdeenshire and Moray, where he stabbed David Duguid in the back.
Ross is totally devoid of honour
When it was put to Ross that Salmond had a point, Ross said that Salmond himself was not even standing in the election. Salmond could be have been the Alba candidate in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East but chose not to run, he said.
At the end of his manifesto launch Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said he would be going on a rollercoaster later, because election campaigns are described as rollercoaster rides.
Here he is, keeping his promise with Lib Dem colleagues, at Thorpe Park this afternoon. Here is he on the Colossus ride (front, right), with Munira Wilson, the education spokesperson (front, left) beside him. Sarah Olney, the Treasury spokesperson, is behind her.
Judging by the pictures, Davey is having a good time (or pretending to successfully), but Olney is scared witless.
Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
Reform UK has defended a parliamentary candidate who argued two years ago that Britain would be “in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality”, the BBC reports. The party said Ian Gribbin, its candidate in Bexhill and Battle, was highlighting “inconvenient perspectives and truths”.
(An alternative view might be that Gribbin does not understand “where this country is, how it feels about D-day” and that he has “no sense of our history”. See 10.52am.)
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