If Sir Keir Starmer doesn’t deliver on his reforms, then only Reform UK and the Tories will benefit

Published

5 months ago

March 13, 2025

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When Sir Keir Starmer landed in Hull on Thursday as the latest prime minister proposing to reshape the state, he wanted to show he meant it, announcing he was abolishing the world’s largest quango – NHS England (and with it 9,000 jobs).

Significant, decisive and designed to make the point – the prime minister grabbed attention for the argument that he wanted to make around tackling an “ever-expanding” state that was, in his words, “weaker” than it has ever been, and failing to serve the public properly.

This is his diagnosis and his remedy, reform: dispensing of regulators, cutting red tape, injecting artificial intelligence in the backbone of the state to improve efficiency and cut costs (and jobs).

Politics latest: Thousands to lose jobs as PM abolishes NHS England

On most of this he was vague – heavy on rhetoric but light on detail, but the symbolism of abolishing NHS England was clear for all to see: this prime minister is borrowing from a Conservative playbook in an effort to improve services through deregulation, public service cuts and a bonfire of red tape.

Sir James Bethell, a Conservative peer and former health minister, retweeted the prime minister’s announcement on scrapping NHS England with the words: “I wish we’d had the guts to do this.”

Sir Keir is also signalling he’s prepared to have a fight – not just with the “blockers” or the “NIMBYs”, but with his own party, public sector workers and the unions as he takes a scalpel to the state.

Reforms are ultimately about winning a second term

The prime minister said every arm’s-length governmental body was up for review – and also, in a couple of weeks, he will take aim at the burgeoning welfare budget in an effort to find billions in savings as he looks to deal with the squeeze on the public finances through spending cuts rather than tax rises or loosening his chancellor’s self-imposed borrowing rules.

Taking on the state in one form or the other is something many a Conservative prime minister, not least Liz Truss, have often talked about, and now Sir Keir is adopting this approach. But for him, the ultimate pragmatist, this is not about ideology but something else – delivery, and ultimately, trying to win a second term.

This is him explaining his motivations to his cabinet in a letter he sent to all his ministers last month: “Politics is no longer built around a traditional left-right axis. It is instead being reimagined around a disruptor – disrupted axis. If governments are not changing the system in favour of working people, then voters will find someone else who does.

“We need to be disruptors – on behalf of those ordinary, working people who just want more security in their lives and a country that is on its way back up again.

“That means taking on vested interests of all kinds, it means challenging laws that hold Britain back, stripping back regulation that stifles progress, moving power out of Westminster and back to communities across the country. It means standing up for ordinary people who feel shut out and ignored by elites. Whenever we see barriers to renewal, this government will tear them down.”

At its heart is the admission from the prime minister that if his government doesn’t deliver, the winners will be Reform UK, or even a revived Conservative opposition.

Starmer prepared to fight for his public sector reforms

But as much as he makes this argument, there will be many in his party, in the union movement, and who voted Labour who hear the word austerity when they hear Sir Keir say “reform”.

That’s why I asked him, at the event in Hull, whether this drive was a return to austerity, or, at the very least, will appear that to those on the receiving end of these cuts.

After all, at the general election manifesto launch, when I asked the prime minister whether there would be a return to austerity under a Labour government, he vowed: “There will not be austerity under a Starmer government.”

On Thursday, he insisted there would be “no return to austerity”.

“Part of the problem we’ve got with our public services is what was done to them a decade or so ago. So we’re not going down that route, and none of our plans are going down that route,” he said.

But when those welfare cuts are announced later this month, Sir Keir’s “reforms” might look rather different, as might his plans for public sector reform if thousands of workers lose their jobs.

What was clear as he made his argument on Thursday is that it’s a fight he’s prepared to have.

UK

‘I’m deprived of my UK citizenship but I’m not a convicted terrorist’

Published

9 hours ago

August 24, 2025

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'I'm deprived of my UK citizenship but I'm not a convicted terrorist'

Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) went from a jihadist movement once aligned to al Qaeda to forming the official government of Syria.

It was a monumental transformation for them, their country and the wider Middle East.

But potentially too for British people who went to Syria – and who were stripped of their citizenship as a result, on the grounds of national security.

Tauqir Sharif, better known as Tox, went to Syria in 2012 as an aid worker. He was accused of being part of a group affiliated with al Qaeda, which he denies, and the then-home secretary Amber Rudd deprived him of his British citizenship in 2017.

“As of now, I am deprived of my UK citizenship but I’m not a convicted terrorist – and the reason for that is because we refused, we boycotted, the SIAC [Special Immigration Appeals Commission] secret courts, which don’t allow you to see any of the evidence presented against you,” he said.

“And one of the things that I always called for was, look, put me in front of a jury, let’s have an open hearing.”

HTS is still a proscribed terrorist organisation but the British government has now established relations with it.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy travelled to Damascus to meet the jihadist-turned-Syrian interim president – the man who swapped his nom de guerre of al Jolani for Ahmed al Sharaa.

If the UK government takes HTS off the terror list, what does that mean for those who lost their citizenship after being accused of being part of it?

People who joined HTS are only a subset among the scores of people who have had their citizenship revoked – a tool the UK government has been quick to use.

According to a report by the Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Committee, the UK “uses deprivation of citizenship orders more than almost any country in the world”.

The peak of that was in 2017, and mainly in relation to Syria – especially in the case of people joining Islamic State, perhaps most famously Shamima Begum.

And because people cannot be made entirely stateless, and need to have a second nationality, or be potentially eligible for one, there are worries of racism in who the orders apply to.

Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh offer dual nationality, whereas other nations do not. In 2022, the Institute of Race Relations said “the vast majority of those deprived are Muslim men with South Asian or Middle Eastern/North African heritage”.

Legal grey areas

Sky News submitted Freedom of Information requests to the Home Office asking for a breakdown of second nationalities of those deprived of citizenship, but was refused twice on national security grounds.

The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, told Sky News there are issues around transparency.

“I do think there is a problem when you have people whose relationship with the country that they’re left with is really technical and they may never have realised that they had that citizenship before and may never gone to that country,” he said.

“Me and my predecessors have all said, owing to how frequently this power is used, it should be something that the independent reviewer should have the power to review. I asked, my predecessor asked, we’ve both been told no, so I agree there’s a lack of transparency.”

No automatic reversal

Even if the government does remove HTS from the terror list, it would not automatically invalidate decisions to deprive people of their citizenship.

Macer Gifford gave up a career as a banker in London to join the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) as a foreign volunteer between 2015 and 2017.

He told Sky News that decisions “made years ago in the interest of the British public have to remain”.

“We can’t sort of go through previous cases nitpicking through it, wasting time and money to bring it up to date,” he added.

“We can’t be naive because the intent to go out, the decision to go in itself is a huge decision for them. So it shows commitment when they’re there, they then, if they take an active participation in the organisations that they’ve been accused of joining, again, that involves training and perseverance and dedication to the cause.”

But those born and raised in Britain, who joined the same cause, and lost their citizenship as a result, might reasonably ask why that should remain the case.

UK

Criminals could be banned from pubs and sports grounds under new plans

Published

9 hours ago

August 24, 2025

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Criminals could be banned from pubs and sports grounds under new plans

Criminals face being banned from pubs, sports grounds and concerts under new government plans to give judges powers to pass tougher community sentences.

The new measures, which would apply to people in England and Wales, “should remind all offenders that, under this government, crime does not pay”, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said.

Offenders’ freedom could also be curtailed with limits on driving, travel bans and restriction zones confining them to specific areas, the government said.

Similar measures could also apply to prisoners let out on licence, while drug testing would be expanded to include all those released, rather than just those with a history of substance misuse.

While judges are currently able to impose limited bans for specific crimes, such as football bans for crimes committed inside a stadium on match day, the new measures would allow for such bans to be handed down for any offence.

The justice secretary said: “When criminals break society’s rules, they must be punished.

“Those serving their sentences in the community must have their freedom restricted there too.

“These new punishments should remind all offenders that, under this government, crime does not pay.

“Rightly, the public expect the government to do everything in its power to keep Britain safe, and that’s what we’re doing.”

The proposals are part of the Labour government’s efforts to tackle overcrowding in prisons.

Back in June, it emerged that prisoners were to be transferred to lower security jails in an effort to ease overcrowding, as part of a new measure quietly unveiled by the government.

Sky News reported earlier this month how the prison system was close to collapse on a number of occasions between autumn 2023 and summer 2024, according to an independent review by former chief inspector of prisons, Dame Anne Owers.

The report said there was a systemic problem which has led to recurring prison capacity crises over the last 18 years.

UK

Police separate anti-immigration and anti-racism protesters across the country

Published

22 hours ago

August 23, 2025

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Police separate anti-immigration and anti-racism protesters across the country

Protesters have gathered across the country as groups demonstrated against asylum seeker housing and were met by anti-racism campaigners.

Demonstrations under the Abolish Asylum System slogan were held in England, Scotland and Wales, including in Bristol, Exeter, Tamworth, Cannock, Aberdeen, Mold, Perth, Nuneaton, Liverpool, Wakefield, Newcastle, Horley and Canary Wharf.

Counter-protests were also organised by campaign group Stand Up to Racism.

In Bristol, mounted police separated the two groups in the Castle Park, with officers scuffling with protesters.

Police kept around 200 anti-immigration protesters draped in English flags away from roughly 50 Stand Up to Racism protesters in Horley, Surrey.

One man, wearing a West Ham United football shirt, was held by police as he yelled: “You’re not welcome here, you’re not welcome here, you’re not welcome here” at anti-racism protesters.

Anti-immigration protesters also chanted: “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy Robinson” in support of the far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

The anti-racism protesters chanted “say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here” and held signs calling for solidarity and to “stop deportations”.

The Stand Up to Racism protesters were shepherded into a smaller area as they continued to chant: “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here”, which was met with “No they’re f****** not” from the other side of the street.

In Perth, protesters gathered outside the Radisson Hotel.

The anti-migration protesters held up signs with slogans such as “Perth is full – empty the hotels” and “get them out”.

Stand Up to Racism Scotland said it had achieved “victory” in Perth, with more than 200 gathering to oppose the Abolish Asylum System demonstration.

In Liverpool, a dispersal order was issued to try and contain the protests.

Saturday’s events come amid continued tension around the use of the hotels for asylum seekers.

Regular protests had been held outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, which started after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl on 10 July.

Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, was charged with trying to kiss a teenage girl and denies the allegations. He is due to stand trial later this month.

In the wake of those protests, Epping Forest District Council sought and won an interim High Court injunction to stop migrants from being accommodated there – a decision which the government is seeking permission to appeal.