Two motorcycle racers have died after a crash involving 11 bikes during a British Supersport Championship race at Oulton Park in Cheshire.

Owen Jenner, 21, was treated trackside and taken to the circuit’s medical centre, but organisers said he died from a “catastrophic head injury”.

Shane Richardson, 29, sustained severe chest injuries and was also given treatment at the scene.

He was transferred to Royal Stoke University Hospital but died before he arrived.

A third rider, Tom Tunstall, 47, is at the same hospital with what organisers called “significant back and abdominal injuries”.

Five others from the British Supersport race were taken to the track’s medical centre but didn’t need hospital treatment.

Motorsport Vision Racing, which runs the race series, said the crash happened on the first lap as riders exited turn one at Old Hall corner.

It said there was a “chain reaction” with 11 riders coming off their bikes.

“Due to the extreme severity of the incident and ongoing medical intervention, the remainder of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship event was cancelled,” organisers said in a statement.

Cheshire Police said they were investigating two deaths on behalf of the coroner.

“The Motorcycle Circuit Racing Control Board and MotorSport Vision Racing are investigating the full circumstances of the incident in conjunction with the Coroner and Cheshire Police,” the force said in a statement.

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The British Supersport Championship features 600cc machines and is the main support class to the blue riband professional British Superbikes series.

The Oulton Park event was the opening round of this year’s championship, which takes place at circuits around the UK.

Both riders had posted on social media in recent days about looking forward to this weekend’s races

Owen Jenner, from Crowborough, East Sussex, is a superstock champion in 2020 and 2023, and GP2 champion in 2024, winning the title with 18 wins out of 20 race finishes.

After, he signed with British superbike team Rapid Honda.

Shane Richardson, originally from New Zealand, is a father-of-two, who, according to his social media, works as a part-time test rider for Triumph.

According to his team, Astro JJR Hippo Suzuki, he previously had a business crafting bespoke kitchens before moving into “competing on the UK’s premier racing circuits”.

For much of its history, the trade union movement’s main opponent has been the Conservative Party. But now it finds itself taking on a different type of adversary – one it might describe as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

It began when Nigel Farage, known for being a staunch advocate of free trade and private markets, declined to criticise the Unite union for its bin strike in Birmingham, before calling for the nationalisation of British Steel following the near collapse of its plant in Scunthorpe.

The Reform UK leader has been sweet-talking the trade unions, speaking their language and brandishing their leaflets in public in what appears to his critics to be a new opportunistic strategy.

Farage’s courting of union members has alarmed the movement’s leaders – so much so that Sky News understands the executive of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which represents unions across the country, has been holding meetings to draw up a strategy on how best to combat his appeal and more broadly, the far-right.

Over the weekend, as the two main parties were processing the battering they received in the local elections largely courtesy of Farage’s party, Unison’s general secretary Christina McAnea urged members of councils now controlled by Reform to join a union.

“Unions are there to ensure no one can play fast and loose with the law,” she said, after Farage threatened to sack staff working in areas such as diversity or climate change.

‘Political fraud’

Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, has begun to step up his criticism of the former UKIP leader – accusing him of “cosplaying as a champion of working people”.

“He is not on the side of the working people,” he tells Sky News. “He’s on the side of bad bosses who want to treat staff like disposable labour.

“Unions will continue to expose him for the political fraud he is.”

At the moment, that campaign is largely focused on highlighting Farage’s voting record – in particular his decision to oppose the Employment Rights Bill, legislation unions say they have wanted for decades.

The bill offers protection from unfair dismissal from the first day of employment and sick pay for all workers from the first day of absence, among other measures.

The TUC says the bill is incredibly popular – and not just among Labour voters.

According to a poll it conducted of more than 21,000 people with campaign group Hope Not Hate, banning zero hours contracts is supported by more than seven in 10 UK voters – including two in three Reform voters from the 2024 election.

“People are going to find there are improvements to their life and work,” an insider tells Sky News. “We want them to understand who was for it, and who was against it.”

The TUC has also begun promoting videos on social media in which workers in the electric vehicle industry accuse Farage of threatening their jobs.

Farage’s response to the bill has been to claim that a clause within in that gives workers protection from third party harassment could herald the end of “pub banter”.

‘There has always been fellow feeling with unions’

But Gawain Towler, an ex-Reform press officer who has worked on and off for Farage for 20 years, insists his former boss isn’t against workers’ rights – he’s just opposed to Labour’s bill.

“Reform don’t see it as a workers rights’ bill – we think it takes away opportunities for work because it scares people away from employing people,” he says.

He believes “mass migration” is the real obstacle to better wages and job security, and argues net zero policies are “costing union members their jobs”.

The government may point to a recent study suggesting the net zero sector has grown by 10% over the past year, supporting the equivalent of 951,000 full-time jobs.

For Farage’s allies, his courting of union members is neither disingenuous nor new.

“He’s anti-union management, he’s not anti-union,” says Towler, who noted Farage’s friendship with the late union leader and Brexit advocate Bob Crow.

“Nigel has always been a free trader, but he’s never been deeply partisan, which is why he was able to start the Brexit Party. There has always been that fellow feeling with unions.”

Indeed, on one issue, a commonality is emerging between Reform and the GMB union.

While general secretary Gary Smith has criticised Farage for being “soft on Russia” and for voting against the Employment Rights Bill, there is an agreement between the pair over the impact of net zero.

Those sceptical of the government’s plans for the green transition point to Port Talbot in Wales, where 2,500 workers are expected to lose their jobs, and Grangemouth, where the closure of Scotland’s last remaining oil refinery is expected to result in around 400 job losses.

Although Unite has no common truck with Reform, it has warned there should be “no ban without a plan” when it comes to issuing new oil and gas licences.

‘Labour has one shot with workers’

For some unions, Labour’s position on certain issues has provided Reform with an opening.

There’s disappointment at some Labour policies in government – from partly watering down the Employment Rights Bill to stave off dissent from business leaders, to welfare cuts and offering below-inflation pay rises for public sector workers.

Gawain Little, the general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions, tells Sky News the party risks leaving “space open for fakers like Farage to come along and pretend they have people’s interests at heart”.

Only a sense that austerity is over, likewise the cost of living crisis, will truly “challenge” the Reform leader, he says.

One GMB member says Farage’s strategy is “from the same playbook” as right-wing parties in Europe, such as the AfD in Germany and Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy.

By “continuously legitimising” Reform by talking tough on migration, union activists who usually get the word out for Labour have been left demoralised.

Farage on the picket line?

The current distance with some unions did not start in government. It began in opposition, when Labour refused to back workers who were on strike and when the party did not endorse some candidates put forward by some of the more left-wing unions.

But so far, sources in Labour have dismissed Farage’s tactics as just words – and believe his previous anti-union rhetoric will weigh against him when he tries to court votes.

In fact, Mr Farage’s calls for the renationalisation of steel have been interpreted as him “trying to jump on the bandwagon” of Labour’s success.

However, Damian Lyons Lowe, the founder of pollster Survation, spots danger for Labour if Farage is able to successfully tilt in the direction of workers’ rights – especially if the government finds itself unable to follow.

He says taking the side of unions in an industrial dispute over pay would be an example of a classic “wedge” strategy that Farage can deploy to back Labour into a corner.

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And given the government’s initial 2.8% pay offer to public sector workers is below that reportedly drawn up by the independent pay review body for NHS workers and teachers, there is the very real prospect this scenario could arise.

“It could pose a real threat to Labour,” Lyons Lowe says, with union members in “post-industrial” areas potentially receptive to a message of “protectionism, industrial revival, and national self-sufficiency”.

Could what started with Farage brandishing leaflets end up with him joining the picket line?

While one union insider doesn’t think Farage will ultimately convince union leaders, members may be tempted.

The Starmer government has “one shot to deliver for workers”, they warn.

“If they don’t, Farage and Reform are waiting in the wings.”

The Royal Family watched an RAF flypast from the balcony of Buckingham Palace to mark the start of four days of celebrations for the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day.

The thousands of people gathered in front of the palace gates and along The Mall cheered, clapped and waved flags as the spectacular Red Arrows red, white and blue display flew overhead.

The King and Queen, who were joined by the Prince and Princess of Wales, their three children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, and other senior royals waved from the balcony before the band played God Save The King.

Since Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022, it is the first landmark VE Day commemoration event without any of the royals who waved to crowds from the balcony in 1945.

The King earlier stood to salute as personnel from NATO allies, including the US, Germany and France, joined 1,300 members of the UK armed forces in a march towards Buckingham Palace.

Crowds gathered near the Cenotaph – draped in a large Union Flag for the first time since the war memorial was unveiled by King George V more than a century ago in 1920 – fell silent as Big Ben struck 12.

Actor Timothy Spall then read extracts from Sir Winston Churchill’s stirring victory speech on 8 May 1945 as the wartime prime minister told cheering crowds: “This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole.”

The military parade was officially started by Normandy RAF veteran Alan Kennett, 100, who was in a cinema in the north German city of Celle when the doors burst open as a soldier drove a jeep into the venue and shouted: “The war is over.”

The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery led the march down Whitehall, through Admiralty Arch and up The Mall, while representatives of the Ukrainian military were cheered and clapped by crowds.

More than 30 Second World War veterans are attending celebrations in the capital, which include a tea party inside Buckingham Palace.

The King watched in front of Buckingham Palace along with the Queen, Sir Keir Starmer, other senior royals and Second World War veterans.

It is the monarch’s first public appearance since Prince Harry said his father will not speak to him and he does not know how much longer his father has left.

But a Palace aide insisted the Royal Family were “fully focused” on VE Day events after Harry’s shock BBC interview after losing a legal challenge over his security arrangements on Friday.

The King and Queen were said to be “looking forward” to the week’s commemorations and hoped “nothing will detract or distract” from celebrating.

Prince Louis fiddled with his hair in the breezy conditions, while Kate sat next to veteran Bernard Morgan, who earlier appeared to show her some vintage photographs.

Monday is the first of four days of commemorations of the moment then prime minister Sir Winston declared that all German forces had surrendered at 3pm on 8 May 1945.

It marked the end of almost six years of war in Europe, in which 384,000 British soldiers and 70,000 civilians were killed, and sparked two days of joyous celebrations in London.

Sir Keir said in an open letter to veterans: “VE Day is a chance to acknowledge, again, that our debt to those who achieved it can never fully be repaid.”

Along with the events in the capital, people are celebrating across the UK with street parties, tea parties, 1940s fancy dress-ups and gatherings on board Second World War ships.

The Palace of Westminster, the Shard, Lowther Castle in Penrith, Manchester Printworks, Cardiff Castle and Belfast City Hall are among hundreds of buildings which will be lit up from 9pm on Tuesday.

A new display of almost 30,000 ceramic poppies at the Tower of London will form another tribute.

On Thursday, a service at Westminster Abbey will begin with a national two-minute silence before Horse Guards Parade holds a live celebratory concert to round off the commemorations.

Churches and cathedrals across the country will ring their bells as a collective act of thanksgiving at 6.30pm, echoing the sounds that swept across the country in 1945, the Church of England said.

Pubs and bars have also been granted permission to stay open for longer to mark the anniversary two extra hours past 11pm.