UK seeks EU deals on steel and EVs in push for closer economic ties

Downing Street hopes to secure deals on steel and electric cars with the EU as it seeks to upgrade the post-Brexit economic relationship.Amid economic uncertainty caused by the conflict in the Middle East and strains in relations with the US, Keir Starmer is seeking closer economic ties with the EU.The UK wants agreements on steel and electric vehicles to avoid British industry being disadvantaged by scheduled changes to trade rules.The EU this week agreed trade restrictions on steel imports in response to a glut of artificially cheap Chinese imports that have depressed global prices. The UK, which is one of the EU’s biggest markets, is not the target, but will be hurt by the higher tariffs, which come into force on 1 July

Starmer would have blocked Mandelson appointment if he had known about failed vetting, ministers say – as it happened

Keir Starmer would have withdrawn Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US if he had known he had not passed security vetting, Liz Kendall said, even if it was close to Donald Trump’s inauguration.Kendall told Laura Kuenssberg on BBC One that Starmer would have rescinded the job offer if he had been told – regardless of the timing ahead of Trump taking up the presidency.She said: “If the prime minister had known that UK security vetting had not cleared him, the appointment would have been withdrawn.“It would’t have mattered how close that was to the president’s inauguration or any of that, I believe that because there is no way that the prime minister would have continued with it, had he known the facts that he now knows.”That’s all for today, as the saga from Peter Mandelson’s appointment continues and piles more pressure on Keir Starmer

How Reform is exposing the reality of Scotland’s views on immigration and identity

It’s Monday evening in Aberdeen, and George Preston is wearing his union flag suit to the Reform UK rally. He joined the party in 2024 as it gained ground in the north-east of Scotland with its first councillor defections from the Scottish Conservatives.Now Preston is out leafleting for the party that polls suggest is vying with Scottish Labour to become the official opposition to the Scottish National party in the Holyrood elections on 7 May.“Very, very few have said: ‘Have this back,’” he says. “Far more are supportive

MoD has lost track of veterans on recall list, says defence adviser

The Ministry of Defence has lost track of military veterans they intend to recall at a time of national danger, according to a key government adviser.About 95,000 former soldiers and officers are in the strategic reserve but it is claimed that officials have failed to maintain a full record of their contact details.George Robertson, a former defence secretary and head of Nato who co-authored last year’s strategic defence review (SDR), made the claim at an event in Salisbury, Wiltshire.“What the review talks about is having the strategic reserve, that is, all of the people in this room who’ve been in the forces who have got a continuing obligation,” the Labour peer said. “But the Ministry of Defence at the present moment doesn’t even know where most of them are

‘Things could go backwards’: Kezia Dugdale on safety, LGBTQ+ rights and the future of Stonewall

Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour, says she is now “quite scared” as a lesbian in Britain and has started to feel nervous holding her wife’s hand in public.Speaking to the Guardian in Edinburgh on the announcement of her appointment as the chair of Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, she said it was “completely possible” gay rights in the UK could be eroded with the rise of rightwing populism.Equal marriage could not be taken for granted, she cautioned. “I don’t think it is an implausible argument now in the way that it maybe was five years ago. My rationale for that is: look at Italy, for example, where you see a rollback of rights for LGBT people

Two more Reform local election candidates accused of offensive posts

Reform UK’s checks on candidates are “clearly not fit for purpose”, Labour has said after two more candidates in May’s local elections were accused of making offensive or potentially racist social media posts.Meanwhile, it emerged that Restore Britain, the party set up by the MP Rupert Lowe after he left Reform, appeared to have accepted a donation from someone who has called publicly on social media for “another Hitler” to come to power.Reform has faced a series of controversies about some of its candidates in the local elections in England on 7 May, as well as some people standing for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, despite Nigel Farage saying the party had greatly improved its vetting.Images of Facebook posts by Alan Stay, a candidate for Reform in the Isle of Wight, show he shared racist and sexist messages, including one that repeatedly used an explicitly racist epithet, arguing that it was not a harmful word. The post was made in response to a news story about a DJ losing their job for playing a record that featured the word

Mandelson scandal is biggest crisis for diplomatic service in decades, says ex-Foreign Office chief

The Peter Mandelson security vetting scandal is the biggest crisis for the diplomatic service in decades, a former Foreign Office chief has said.Simon McDonald, who was the permanent under-secretary of the government department until 2020, has spoken out in defence of Oliver Robbins, saying the civil servant was “thrown under a bus” by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, when he was dismissed from his role on Thursday.Robbins was sacked as permanent secretary of the Foreign Office hours after the Guardian revealed that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting in January 2025, during the process to appoint him as ambassador to the US.It is said that Robbins knew about Mandelson’s failure to pass the UK Security Vetting (UKSV) assessment but did not forward that information to ministers. Starmer claims he was not made aware of the outcome of the vetting process until this week

‘Pure shock’: how ministers reacted to revelation of Mandelson vetting failure

When the Guardian revealed that Peter Mandelson had failed his vetting checks before being appointed as British ambassador to Washington, members of Keir Starmer’s cabinet, who were scattered around the world on government business, were caught by the same element of surprise.In Washington for the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had just come out of a meeting with the Ukrainian finance minister when she was told the breaking news.“I didn’t know anything about the vetting process,” she told reporters. “I’m the chancellor, I’m not the foreign secretary and I’m not 10 Downing Street, so I can’t give you any more information on that.”David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, was on a military flight back from the Middle East when he was summoned to the cockpit by the captain who told him that No 10 needed to speak to him over the radio

Green MP: Labour caricatures working-class people over greyhound racing

Labour is “offensively caricaturing” working-class people by saying they do not want a greyhound racing ban in England, the Green party MP Hannah Spencer has said.The sport has traditionally been associated with working-class culture and has historically been popular in so-called red wall areas, which Labour insiders suggest is part of the reason why there are no plans for England to follow bans announced last month in Scotland and Wales.The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said in parliament on Thursday that the gambling industry “brings joy to a lot of people”. She said: “The industry as a whole brings positive benefits to the United Kingdom.”Spencer, who won the Gorton and Denton byelection in February and has four rescue greyhounds, said: “Lisa Nandy just continuously offends people by saying that working-class people don’t care about dogs or each other