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Nigel Farage steps up demands for ‘general election now!’ with new petition.H
Reform UK is piling pressure on Andy Burnham to call a snap general election
Nigel Farage is piling pressure on Andy Burnham to call a snap election (Image: PA)
Nigel Farage repeated his call for a general election as Reform UK launched a petition demanding a snap vote. The Reform UK leader insisted new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has “no mandate” after he replaced Sir Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street yesterday. Mr Burnham, who returned to Parliament just weeks ago in the Makerfield by-election and was unopposed in the Labour leadership race, has pledged “the biggest changes in 40 years” to UK politics.
Speaking at a Norfolk rally today, Mr Farage said: “Andy Burnham has no mandate, no mandate whatsoever to bring about the biggest change for 40 years in British politics and downstream from that the biggest change in this country for 40 years.”
Andy Burnham entered 10 Downing Street on Monday (Image: Getty)
Mr Farage said: “The Conservatives don’t want an election, funny that. The Liberal Democrats don’t want an election, funny that.
“The British people clearly in opinion polls by a large majority do want a new general election, especially if there’s a Prime Minister who comes in with no mandate and wants to make fundamental change.”
Reform has launched the petition on a website it has said up with the slogan “Andy has no mandate”.
Mr Farage also hit out at Mr Burnham over his plan to scrap VAT from energy bills in a bid to ease the cost of living.
He said: “If you add up all of the green levies, the renewable obligation certificates and I could go on, if you got rid of all of those, you’d reduce household bills by £200 per household, not the £45 offered by Burnham this morning.”
Turning to the small boats crisis, Mr Farage said: “And will Andy Burnham stop the boats? Not a hope in hell.
“All the while, we stay part of the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights).
“We are not free in this country to get rid of those who come into our nation illegally and that is very near the top of voters’ priorities.”
Mr Farage also claimed credit for Sir Keir leaving No 10, saying: “And he’s gone and we did it – we did it.”
Shortly after Mr Farage’s speech, Mr Burnham hosted his first Cabinet meeting in Downing Street.
He told his new top team: “We need to be a cost-of-living Government, getting that cost of living down, looking at all possible ways of doing that.”
Andy Burnham blasted as last-ditch bid for Parliamentary debate blocked
Tories accuse new Prime Minister of ‘bending over backwards to avoid telling Parliament what his plans are’
Andy Burnham entered 10 Downing Street on Monday (Image: Getty)
A last-ditch Tory bid to force Labour to answer questions in Parliament about Andy Burnham‘s plans has been blocked. The Conservatives pressed for a vote in the House of Lords for the new Prime Minister’s policies to be debated by peers before they go on summer recess.
But the motion, which would have seen one of Mr Burnham’s ministers summoned to the red benches tomorrow, was defeated by 234 votes to 173. Mr Burnham has been accused of dodging scrutiny by not taking questions from MPs before they went on their summer recess last week. He entered 10 Downing Street on Monday but the Commons broke up last Thursday.
Lord True, the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, said: “It looks as if the Prime Minister is bending over backwards to avoid telling Parliament what his plans are.
“But yesterday, outside Parliament, while Parliament was sitting here, he declared grandiloquently that he would be, and I quote ‘a circuit breaker for Britain’, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last 40 years – a new political model.”
He added: “We have government by continuous press conference and media spin, and it isn’t what this great House has ever believed in, or should readily accept.
“In this unprecedented situation, the Government should answer in detail and with details to this part of Parliament that is sitting.”
Leader of the House of Lords Baroness Smith of Basildon said the Government will “welcome scrutiny”, but added: “In politics, as in life, patience is a virtue.
“This is day two of a new Prime Minister. The Government is still being formed.”
After the vote, Lord True hit out at the Lib Dems for voting against, saying: “It is disappointing but not surprising to see the Liberal Democrats collude with the new Labour administration and help Andy Burnham shirk scrutiny.
“They have been happy to support similar motions aimed at Conservative Governments in the past, but now Labour are in power, they have gone soft.
“There is only one Party holding Labour to account in Parliament, and that is the Conservatives.”
Mr Burnham came under fire from the Tories last week after they were blocked from an attempt to delay MPs’ summer break until Monday 20 July “to enable the new prime minister to make a statement about his plans for Government”.
Sir Keir Starmer‘s government cancelled the scheduled Opposition Day debate, which would have allowed the Conservatives to choose the topic discussed, to make way for a general debate on Iran and a statutory instrument related to national security.
It comes as Mr Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor who returned to Parliament just weeks ago in the Makerfield by-election, has promised the biggest change to British politics in 40 years.
John Healey ‘won’t be a check’ on Andy Burnham’s ‘dangerous’ appetite for spending
John Healey’s appointment as Chancellor does nothing to neutralise the danger posed by Andy Burnham’s borrowing and spending instincts, a CEO says
John Healey is ‘unlikely to act as a check’ on Andy Burnham’s ‘appetite for spending’ (Image: Getty)
John Healey is unlikely to act as a check on Andy Burnham‘s appetite for spending, the boss of a wealth management firm claims. The new Prime Minister’s pick for Britain’s top economic post came as a surprise on Monday (July 20).
Westminster watchers had speculated that it was a choice between Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood, but Mr Burnham handed Mr Healey the power to steer Britain’s economic policy. UK defence stocks rose on the announcement the former defence secretary would head up the Treasury. But the yield on 10-year Government bonds moved eight basis points higher to 5.049% at the end of London trading on Monday.
It meant the cost of UK state borrowing rose to its highest level for around two months as markets reacted to the UK’s latest shift in leader yesterday.
Nigel Green, Chief Executive of deVere Group, said Mr Healey’s appointment as Chancellor does nothing to neutralise the danger posed by Mr Burnham’s instincts on borrowing and spending.
He said: “Investors are betting on the wrong person again. Healey does not set the direction of this Government, Burnham does, and Burnham is a Prime Minister who spooked the bond market within 24 hours of taking office by promising a ‘new economic model’ and telling reporters he would use ‘any flexibility’ he could find within the fiscal rules.
“None of that changes because a more familiar face now sits in the Treasury.”
Mr Green said Mr Healey’s own record would make him an unlikely check on Mr Burnham’s appetite for spending.
He explained the new Chancellor’s defining trait in Keir Starmer‘s government was asking the Treasury for more money as defence secretary.
The CEO said: “Now the man who spent years pushing to loosen the purse strings is the one holding them. Healey might manage how the flexibility gets used. He was never appointed to prevent it, because preventing it was never the plan.”
Mr Green said: “Healey’s appointment is not evidence the pressure to spend has gone away. It is evidence Burnham knows the market needed reassurance while he works out how far he can push.”
The new Chancellor was handed some good news on borrowing on Tuesday (July 21) as the Office for National Statistics said public sector net borrowing was £16billion in June, which was 33.1% less than the same month last year.
Mr Healey responded to the data by saying “fiscal control” was his “first duty” as Chancellor and “fiscal credibility is the bedrock for economic stability and for national security”.
The new PM told reporters yesterday he would use “any flexibility” he could find within the UK’s existing fiscal rules but “none of this is about taking risks with the economy”.
Mr Burnham is bound by rules on spending and borrowing set out by former chancellor Rachel Reeves and his promise to stick to Labour’s manifesto commitment not to hike personal taxes for workers.
DeVere’s boss said until Mr Burnham rules out further borrowing dressed up as “flexibility”, no Chancellor, however experienced or well regarded, can protect this country, or investors’ portfolios, from a Prime Minister whose first instinct in office was to reach for more room to spend.
