Key events
Activists across Europe prepare two days of protests against datacentres
Protesters across Europe are planning two days of action against datacentres this week with demonstrations taking place in 15 countries, Dan Milmo reports. The planned protests include an event in the Brick Lane area of east London, where a datacentre development has met local opposition.
Britons see US under Trump as greater threat to world peace than North Korea and China, and as bad as Iran, survey shows
Britons did not get to vote in the US midterm elections, but if they had, it is not hard to guess what would have happened. New research out today from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey shows that, under Donald Trump, Britons now regard the US as a greater threat to world peace than North Korea and China, and about as dangerous as Iran.
This is not great news for Reform UK, whose leader, Nigel Farage, used to boast about his friendship with Trump and some of whose policies are directly inspired by the Maga playbook.
Perhaps not surprisingly, BSA also found that, by a margin of more than four to one, people are now more likely to say Britain’s interests are best served by closer links to Western Europe than to the US. On this measure, British opinion is more supportive of Europe over the US than at any time in the past 40 years.
Again, these are also bleak figures for Brexiters in Reform UK and the Conservative party who argued that leaving the EU would be a good move because Britain would be better off aligned with the US.
In their London Playbook briefing for Politico, Andrew McDonald and Megan McElroy quote a Reform UK source downplaying the problems caused to the party by Trump’s toxicity on the grounds that Farage has been trying to distance himself from his old pal for a while now. They report:
Farage’s long friendship with Trump is something else bound to keep rearing its head. But we’ve been hearing much less about discussions or meets between the pair for some time. “A distancing has already been going on,” a senior Reform official told my colleague Sam Blewett. “I don’t think this [the US midterm election results] is going to change anything fundamentally. Reform is looking to be a UK government and though the US is important and has massive implications for international policy, nonetheless that doesn’t alter what Reform needs to focus on, and that’s U.K. interests.”
Ministers pledge to halve proportion of care leavers facing homelessness
Efforts to reduce the proportion of young care leavers in England who are at risk of or end up homeless will ensure this group “don’t face a cliff edge just when they need support most”, the government has vowed. The Press Association reports:
There are more than 6,000 households with a care leaver aged 18-24 owed homelessness support by councils, according to official data.
The government estimates 2% of care leavers in this age group are deemed to be owed help from local authorities for homelessness each quarter, and is now pledging to halve that proportion by the end of this parliament in 2029/30.
Difficulties faced by care leavers were highlighted in a report published in August which found young adults who left care had a death rate around four times higher than the general population – having often been left alone “with no safety net and with catastrophic consequences”.
On turning 18 years old, people leaving care in England often lose “significant levers of support”, the government-commissioned report concluded as it warned the so-called “care cliff” must be addressed.
The government has set out the new target in a care leaver homelessness reduction action plan.
Josh MacAlister, the children’s minister, said:
Too many care leavers step into adulthood without a strong support network around them, and homelessness can be one of the tragic consequences.
We’re changing children’s social care from top to bottom, making enduring relationships the focus of the system and expanding support for care leavers to help ensure they have a place to call home.
Farage appoints RAF commander as spokesperson, saying he’s got more military experience than entire MoD team
Nigel Farage is holding a press conference later to formally announce that Angus MacIntyre, an RAF wing commander with a military career spanning 40 years, will be what Reform UK is calling its “shadow armed forces minister”.
That means he’s the party’s armed forces spokesperson. You are only a proper shadow minister if you are a member of the official opposition, which at the moment is the Conservative party. Farage has been criticised for some time for not having a defence spokesperson, and MacIntyre’s title implies Farage is still looking for someone who could be defence secretary in a Reform UK government. The actual armed forces minister is Louise Sandher-Jones, a junior member of the Ministry of Defence’s ministerial team.
Announcing MacIntyre’s appointment, Farage said:
Having someone of Angus’ stature and calibre speak for us on defence shows how seriously Reform UK takes protecting the interests of Britain’s military.
Angus has more experience than the entire government defence team combined. He is representative of our drive to bring into politics people with high-level and real-world experience – as opposed to career politicians – to run government departments.
In its news release, this is what Reform UK said about MacIntyre’s experience.
MacIntyre is a senior RAF regimental officer with a military career spanning 40 years. He stood down as a commissioned wing commander in the Royal Air Force in order to become the party’s shadow armed forces minister.
His 40 years of military service alone exceed the combined total of Labour’s entire defence team, with just two of their five ministers serving over 31 years between them. They also surpass the Conservatives’ shadow defence team, where five of seven have served for a collective 35 years …
A chief of the air staff’s fellow, MacIntyre earned an MA in applied security strategy at the University Exeter. He later spent a year in Mogadishu with the UN Headquarters in Somalia, negotiating between the UN and Somali National Army.
He also spent 12 months in the Pentagon as a joint staff J5 strategic planner, contributing to the five US global campaign plans and the global pandemic and infectious diseases framework, and helped integrate the US Space Force and Space Command into joint staff planning. He holds all three of the UK’s space qualifications.
Most recently he completed the Changing Character of War Course at Pembroke College, Oxford, and has lectured on Nato deterrence at All Souls College, Oxford.
Ministers to target ‘wild west’ of ebikes blocking pavements
Ministers are seeking to end the “wild west” of parked ebikes blocking pavements, as they attempt to crack down on antisocial behaviour such as cyclists jumping red lights, Peter Walker reports.
UK could rejoin EU without having to join euro, says former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier
Good morning. Andy Burnham is back from the Commonwealth summit, but the Commons is on mini-recess until Tuesday, and there is not much in the political diary for today. But Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, will be holding a press conference, which means reporters will have the chance to ask him why his eve-of-poll “I don’t go with the consensus that Trump is going to get smashed” prediction turned out to be so wrong.
Another recent claim from Farage has been that, if the UK were to reapply to join the EU, it would have to sign up to the euro. This allegation was never taken particularly seriously by people who actually know how the EU works; while new members are theoretically obliged to sign up to the euro, six of the 27 current members do not use it, one has a formal opt-out (Denmark), and there is plenty of precedent to suggest the EU would easily accept a fudge giving the UK an opt-out.
This morning this has been confirmed by Michel Barnier, who was the lead negotiator for the EU during the Brexit process. In an interview with Cathy Newman for Sky News, he said it would be “perfectly possible to begin such a negotiation [on rejoining the EU] without any kind of obligation to take part in the euro”.
All EU new member states are legally required to join the euro area. However, Barnier said it would be “possible to negotiate a new relationship without this obligation”.
But the EU would not compromise on free movement, Barnier said:
But what is, and what remains unnegotiable, is the condition to join the single market. There is no negotiation possible. No possible negotiation on any kind of cherry-picking or the single market ‘a la carte’. The UK knows quite perfectly the condition to be part of and to rejoin the single market and the customs union.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, and Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, are questioned by the London assembly.
Noon: The Bank of England announces its decision on interest rates. They are expected to go up.
2pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, holds a press conference with Danny Kruger, how is in charge of the party’s preparations for government.
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