Tice defends Reform MP’s question on burqa ban after Zia Yusuf resignation

Reform UK was right to start a debate on banning the burqa even though it triggered the resignation of its chair, Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, has said.Tice, who is one of five Reform MPs, said he was “enormously sad” that Zia Yusuf had quit as chair as he was partly responsible for the party’s strong performance in May’s local elections.But Tice said politics could be brutal and defended Reform’s choice to raise the issue of a burqa ban, saying the discussion must not be “forced underground” when it was a policy in a number of European countries.Tice told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think it is right that we should have a debate about whether or not the burqa is appropriate for a nation that’s founded in Christianity, where women are equal citizens and should not be viewed as second-class citizens.”Asked whether he supported a ban, he said he was “pretty concerned” about whether the burqa was a “repressive item of clothing”, adding: “Let’s ask women who wear the burqa, is that genuinely their choice?”Tice also dismissed claims that Yusuf’s departure showed Nigel Farage struggles to retain senior figures after the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, said it demonstrated that Reform was a “fanclub” not a political party

Hamilton byelection win is vindication of Scottish Labour’s doorstep strategy

Labour’s victory in Hamilton is both a surprise and a vindication – a demonstration that in a byelection, shocks can take different forms.It is a surprise to those of us in the outside world who felt certain of a Scottish National party victory, who saw Labour support plummet in the Scottish opinion polls, and the same polls showing Reform’s steeply rising.The question became: would Labour scrape home in second, behind an experienced and personable SNP candidate, or even endure the humiliation of coming third behind a resurgent Reform. After all, it seemed Scottish Labour’s candidate, Davy Russell, was ill-equipped, so much so his party refused to put him up for a live television debate.But for Scottish Labour’s strategists this is vindication

Scottish Labour wins pivotal Holyrood byelection, beating SNP and Reform UK

Scottish Labour is celebrating an “incredible” win in a pivotal Holyrood byelection, beating the incumbent Scottish National party and fighting off Reform UK’s “racist” campaigning, in a result that confounded predictions and will boost the party ahead of next year’s Scottish parliamentary elections.Voters in the central Scotland seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse rallied around the popular local candidate, Davy Russell, after a toxic campaign during which Nigel Farage launched an unprecedented series of personal attacks on the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, that were labelled racist by Sarwar and the SNP leader and first minister, John Swinney.In his acceptance speech, Russell told jubilant supporters: “This community has sent a message to Farage and his mob: the poison of Reform isn’t us, it isn’t Scotland and we don’t want your division here.”Posting on social media on Friday morning, Keir Starmer said people in Scotland “have once again voted for change”. “Next year there is a chance to turbo-charge delivery by putting Labour in power on both sides of the border

NHS England to give urgent help away from A&E to cut ‘corridor care’

Hundreds of thousands of patients needing urgent medical help will be treated in settings other than A&E as part of a drive to cut “corridor care” and avoid another NHS winter crisis.The move is a central plank of a government plan to improve urgent and emergency care in England, tackle the long delays many patients face in A&E and banish overcrowding in hospitals.Wes Streeting, the health secretary, hopes the initiative will lead to the one in five people who attend A&E despite not having a physical health emergency being treated elsewhere.Streeting said: “Far too many patients are ending up in A&E who don’t need or want to be there, because there isn’t anywhere else available. Because patients can’t get a GP appointment, which costs the NHS £40, they end up in A&E, which costs around £400 – worse for patients and more expensive for the taxpayer

Downing Street exploring options for ‘progressive’ UK digital IDs

Downing Street is exploring new proposals for a digital ID card to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work, set out in a policy paper authored by a centre-left thinktank.The paper has been handed to the No 10 policy unit to flesh out proposals for a BritCard, which would be a mandatory digital credential that Labour Together claims could help avoid another Windrush scandal.But it said it would also help reduce vast numbers of visa overstayers, saying half of those whose asylum claims were turned down over the past 14 years were likely still to be in the UK.It proposes a free, secure digital ID, stored on a person’s smartphone using ministers’ planned gov.uk Wallet app, rebranded as the BritCard app

Departure of Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf is latest in a long line of Farage fallings-out

Delivered without warning in a 54-word tweet, Zia Yusuf’s announcement that he was standing down as Reform UK’s chair has seemingly come out of the blue.For close watchers of Nigel Farage’s party in recent times, however, the departure of the man largely credited with “professionalising” its operation before last year’s general election performance and last month’s local election breakthrough is not a shock.A self-described “British Muslim patriot”, it had not been hard to find Islamophobic commentary about Yusuf among users of Reform UK Facebook groups. Others who left the party – or who have been ejected from it – were angered by his corporate approach, which they blamed for making it a cold house for grassroots veterans and mavericks.In his 11 months as Reform’s chair, Yusuf brought with him the ethos and language that might be more associated with a vibrant tech start-up than a hard-right British political party