Green party membership in UK passes 200,000 after byelection victory

The Green party said its membership had passed 200,000 this weekend in the wake of its victory in the Gorton and Denton byelection, in which it overturned a huge Labour majority.The party’s membership has tripled since September last year, when it was about 68,000, after the announcement of Zack Polanski as its leader.The Green victory in Gorton and Denton is its first in a national byelection, forcing Labour into third place with Reform in second.The Greens now have five MPs and are regularly matching the Lib Dems in the polls while snapping at the heels of Labour and the Conservatives.Labour is under pressure from some of its MPs to steer more to the left to win back progressive voters from the Greens after the byelection result, where 34-year-old plumber Hannah Spencer was elected

Keir Starmer was advised to ditch net zero. He needs to re-embrace it

Less than a year ago, Keir Starmer stood in front of an audience of senior officials and business leaders from 60 countries in London to declare climate action was “in the DNA of my government”.Vowing to go “all out” for net zero and to “accelerate” while others were slowing down, the Lancaster House speech was his strongest intervention yet on the issue. “We’re paying the price for our overexposure to the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets,” he said. “Homegrown clean energy is the only way to take back control of our energy system.”For many who know Starmer, that speech reflected his genuine and rationally thought-out view

Few will mourn leader of ‘evil’ regime Ali Khamenei, says UK defence secretary

The UK defence secretary has said few will mourn Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, whose death was announced after US and Israeli airstrikes.John Healey, a senior cabinet minister, described the Iranian regime as “evil” and said it had menaced the west by sponsoring at least 20 terrorist plots to attack the UK as well as involvement in proxy wars.He did not criticise the US and Israeli strikes, saying it was “for the US to set out and explain” whether its action was legal. But he also refused to be drawn on the UK having declined use of its military bases for the attacks.While distancing the UK from the strikes, Healey said the government’s role was now to act defensively

Ex-minister adds to UK calls for ban on political donations in cryptocurrency

A former Labour minister has added her voice to those of a growing list of experts and senior MPs calling for a ban on political donations in cryptocurrency as concerns grow over foreign interference in British elections.Rushanara Ali, the Labour MP who helped draft the elections bill when she was a minister in the communities department, called for the government to strengthen the legislation with an outright ban on donations in digital currencies.Ali is planning to intervene when the bill comes back in front of MPs on Monday, as ministers admit they will need to go further to prevent foreign interference in a number of ways.“The enemies of democracy are constantly looking at new ways to undermine our system,” Ali said. “I urge ministers to go further to block the use of cryptocurrencies to funnel money into British politics

Shabana Mahmood’s double down on immigration ‘disappointing’, says Alf Dubs

The home secretary’s decision to double down on hardline immigration reforms in light of Labour’s byelection defeat to the Green party is “disappointing”, according to the Labour peer Alf Dubs.Lord Dubs, a child refugee who fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the Kindertransport in 1939, had previously accused Shabana Mahmood of “pulling up the drawbridge” on child migrants.Hannah Spencer, a plumber and Green councillor, won the previously safe Labour seat of Gorton and Denton in east Manchester on Thursday, overturning a majority of 13,000. The Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia, came third, behind Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin.Labour has been accused of alienating voters on its left flank by trying to combat the rise of Reform, particularly on the issue of immigration

Labour must cease taking progressive voters for granted, says Sadiq Khan

The mayor of London has said the Gorton and Denton byelection has exposed a “far-reaching change and fracturing” in UK politics and Labour must ditch its “flawed strategy” of taking liberal progressives for granted.In what appears to be an attack on Keir Starmer, Sadiq Khan challenged the prime minister’s branding of the Green party and its policies as “extreme”, saying many of its supporters shared Labour’s values but were disappointed in the government.Plumber Hannah Spencer overturned a Labour majority of more than 13,000 to become the Green party’s fifth MP. Her party has enjoyed a rise in popularity under its new leader, Zack Polanski, attracting many disaffected former Labour supporters.The Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia, came third, just behind Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin, in one of the most humiliating byelection results in Labour’s history