General election 2024: Starmer to promise to ‘close the door’ on Putin – as Sunak prepares to put forward plan to cut immigration
Sir Keir Starmer will promise to “close the door” on Vladimir Putin with his homegrown energy plan – while Rishi Sunak will propose an annual visa cap to try to reduce immigration as election campaigning continues today.
The prime minister will look to win over voters after what was perhaps his toughest day of the campaign so far on Monday – with some Conservatives fearing Nigel Farage’s decision to lead the Reform party could split the Tory vote.
Mr Farage is also standing to be an MP in Clacton and will launch his campaign in the Essex constituency today.
A difficult day was made worse for Mr Sunak when a YouGov poll suggested Labour could be on course to win a historic landslide – with the party projected to win a 194-seat majority.
General election latest: Follow live updates
On day 14 of the campaign, Labour leader Sir Keir will claim his party’s plan to set up a publicly owned clean energy company, GB Energy, will help to protect the UK from spikes in the price of fuel like those that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He will say: “With Great British Energy, my changed Labour Party will close the door on Putin.
“Energy policy is now a matter of national security. It is a key component of our country’s resilience and capacity to weather future shocks.
“We simply cannot afford to remain as vulnerable to price spikes as we have been in the past.
“Keeping the lights on and heating our homes should not mean leaving our front door open to Russia.”
Labour has said GB Energy will be headquartered in Scotland and funded through a windfall tax on big oil and gas firms, with an initial £8.3bn capitalisation over the course of a parliament.
Read more about the general election:
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Who loses most from Farage move?
Meanwhile, the Conservatives will propose an annual cap on worker and family visas in their efforts to ensure immigration figures fall year on year if they are still in government after the election.
More than 10,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the Channel and immigration has become a key campaign battleground.
The proposed plan would give parliament a direct role in setting levels of migration, with MPs having a vote on the number.
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Grant Shapps calls Sam Coates live on TV
Mr Sunak will say: “We have taken bold action to cut the number of people coming to this country. The plan is working but migration levels are still too high, so we are going further.
“Labour’s migrant amnesty will make the UK a global magnet for illegal immigrants and they have no plan to reduce net migration, while we have a clear plan to stop the boats and put a legal cap on numbers.
“The Conservatives are the only party that is willing take the bold action needed to cut immigration figures.”
The annual cap would be imposed on the number of visas that can be granted to those coming to the UK on work or family routes.
Temporary work routes, such as seasonal agricultural workers, would not fall within the cap.
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Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats are promising action on an issue described as “deeply personal” for party leader Sir Ed Davey, as they say day-to-day care for adults in need, including the elderly and disabled, would be free.
Provision of care should be based on need rather than ability to pay, the party said, as it promised what it described as free personal care for people either at home or in care homes.
This would cover nursing care, help with mobility, hygiene and medication, it said, adding that people in residential care would still have to contribute towards their accommodation.
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Sir Ed said: “As a carer for my disabled son, and after caring for my ill mother when I was young, care is deeply personal for me.
“That is why I am putting fixing the care crisis at the heart of the Liberal Democrat offer to the country at this election.”
The party said its plan for England – based on the model introduced by the Lib Dems in government in Scotland in 2002 – would cost £2.7bn a year by 2028-29 and would be “fully funded” by reversing tax cuts for the big banks since 2016.
UK
Home secretary admits illegal immigration numbers still ‘too high’ under Labour – but says Farage can ‘sod off’
The home secretary has admitted the UK’s illegal immigrant numbers are “too high” – but said Nigel Farage can “sod off” after he claimed she sounded like a Reform supporter.
Shabana Mahmood, speaking just after announcing a major policy change on migration, said she was “horrified” by the 27% increase of irregular arrivals in the year to June.
Politics latest: Labour MPs attack asylum plans
Speaking to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, the home secretary said: “I acknowledge the numbers are too high, and they’ve gone up, and I want to bring them down.
“I’m impatient to bring those numbers down.”
She refused to “set arbitrary numbers” on how much she wanted to bring illegal migration down to.
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Beth Rigby: The two big problems with Labour’s asylum plan
Earlier on Monday, Ms Mahmood announced a new direction in Labour’s plan to crack down on asylum seekers.
The “restoring order and control” plan includes:
• The removal of more families with children – either voluntarily through cash incentives up to £3,000, or by force;
• Quadrupling the time successful asylum seekers must wait to claim permanent residency in the UK, from five years to 20;
• Removing the legal obligation to provide financial support to asylum seekers, so those with the right to work but choose not to will receive no support;
• Setting up a new appeals body to significantly speed up the time it takes to decide whether to refuse an asylum application;
• Reforming how the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is interpreted in immigration cases;
• Banning visas for countries refusing to accept deportees;
• And the establishment of new safe and legal refugee routes.
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Home secretary announces details on asylum reform
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the plan was much like something his party would put forward, and said Ms Mahmood sounded like a Reform supporter.
The home secretary responded with her usual frankness, telling Rigby: “Nigel Farage can sod off. I’m not interested in anything he’s got to say.
“He’s making mischief. So I’m not going to let him live forever in my head.”
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Nigel Farage said the home secretary was sounding like a Reform supporter
She earlier announced refugee status would be temporary, only lasting two and a half years before a review, and they would have to be in the UK for 20 years before getting permanent settled status, instead of the current five years.
Ms Mahmood said Reform wanted to “rip up” indefinite leave to remain altogether, which she called “immoral” and “deeply shameful”.
The home secretary, who is a practising Muslim, was born in Birmingham to her Pakistani parents.
Earlier, in the House of Commons, she said she sees the division that migration and the asylum system are creating across the country. She told MPs she regularly endures racial slurs.
BBC chair Samir Shah has said there is “no basis for a defamation case and we are determined to fight this” – after Donald Trump said he would sue the corporation for between $1bn and $5bn.
It comes after the US president confirmed on Saturday he would be taking legal action against the broadcaster over the editing of his speech on Panorama – despite an apology from the BBC.
Samir Shah said the BBC’s position ‘has not changed’. Pic: Reuters
In an email to staff, Mr Shah said: “There is a lot being written, said and speculated upon about the possibility of legal action, including potential costs or settlements.
“In all this we are, of course, acutely aware of the privilege of our funding and the need to protect our licence fee payers, the British public.
“I want to be very clear with you – our position has not changed. There is no basis for a defamation case and we are determined to fight this.”
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On Saturday, President Trump told reporters legal action would come in the following days.
“We’ll sue them. We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion (£792m) and five billion dollars (£3.79bn), probably sometime next week,” he said.
“We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”
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The BBC on Thursday said the edit of Mr Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021 had given the “mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”.
The broadcaster apologised and said the splicing of the speech was an “error of judgment” but refused to pay financial compensation after the US leader’s lawyers threatened to sue for one billion dollars in damages unless a retraction and apology were published.
Deborah Turness. Pic: Reuters
Tim Davie. Pic: PA
The Panorama scandal prompted the resignations of two of the BBC’s most senior executives – director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness.
The broadcaster has said it will not air the Panorama episode Trump: A Second Chance? again, and published a retraction on the show’s webpage on Thursday.
A British man who hacked the X accounts of celebrities in a bid to con people out of Bitcoin, has been ordered to repay £4.1m-worth of the cryptocurrency, prosecutors say.
Joseph James O’Connor, 26, was jailed in the United States for five years in 2023 after he pleaded guilty to charges including computer intrusion, wire fraud and extortion.
He was arrested in Spain in 2021 and extradited after the country’s high court ruled the US was best placed to prosecute because the evidence and victims were there.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Monday it had obtained a civil recovery order to seize 42 Bitcoin and other crypto assets linked to the scam, in which O’Connor used hijacked accounts to solicit digital currency and threaten celebrities.
The July 2020 hack compromised accounts of high-profile figures including former US presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
O’Connor and his co-conspirators stole more than $794,000 (£629,000) of cryptocurrency after using the hacked accounts to ask people to send $1,000 in Bitcoin to receive double back.
Prosecutor Adrian Foster said the civil recovery order showed that “even when someone is not convicted in the UK, we are still able to ensure they do not benefit from their criminality”.
The order, which valued O’Connor’s assets at around £4.1m, was made last week, following a freeze placed on the hacker’s property, which prosecutors secured during extradition proceedings.
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A court-appointed trustee will liquidate his assets, the CPS said.
The attack also compromised the X (then Twitter) accounts of other high-profile figures including Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, investor Warren Buffett, and media personality and businesswoman Kim Kardashian.
The hack prompted the social media platform to temporarily freeze some accounts.
X said 130 accounts were targeted, with 45 used to send tweets.
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