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

Labour minister Josh Simons resigns after falsely linking journalists to ‘pro-Kremlin’ network

The Labour minister Josh Simons has resigned from the government after the Guardian revealed that he falsely linked reporters to a “pro-Kremlin” network in emails to GCHQ despite having claimed to be “surprised” and “furious” about a PR firm’s investigation into their journalism.Simons, who had been a Cabinet Office minister, previously ran the thinktank Labour Together. He quit on Saturday, saying his position in office had become “a distraction from this government’s important work.”The Makerfield MP had faced mounting pressure over his role in Labour Together’s commissioning of the lobbying and public affairs agency APCO to investigate journalists reporting on the thinktank’s failure to disclose political donations.Simons faced a formal investigation by the prime minister’s independent adviser on ministerial standards, Sir Laurie Magnus

Burnham would ‘probably’ have won byelection, says Labour deputy leader

Andy Burnham would have won the Gorton and Denton byelection, Labour’s deputy leader said as she called for the party to make more use of the Greater Manchester mayor.Overturning a 13,000 Labour majority from the general election, Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, became the party’s fifth MP on Friday in an area that had returned Labour MPs for nearly a century.Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin was second, just ahead of the Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia.The result has prompted renewed questioning of the party’s decision to block Burnham from contesting the seat last month.Speaking to the BBC’s Newscast podcast, Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, said Burnham “probably would have” held the seat

Rhun ap Iorwerth: Plaid Cymru is ready to ‘lead the charge’ in Wales

The leader of Plaid Cymru has described the prospect of leading the next government in Wales as “a heck of a task” but that he senses voters are increasingly driven by their Welsh identity and may be ready for Britain to be “redesigned”.Speaking to the Guardian as he published a glossy 60-page “roadmap” for his party’s first 100 days in government, if it takes power in May, Rhun ap Iorwerth said he was ready to lead the devolved administration in Cardiff but would work with other parties if he did not win a majority.Ap Iorwerth said publishing the document at his party’s spring conference in Newport, south-east Wales, did not show he was complacent about this spring’s Senedd (Welsh parliament) elections, but that he was ready for power.“We want to persuade people of the seriousness with which we’re approaching the business of preparing for government,” he said. “It most certainly isn’t complacency

RAF jets flying defensive missions after US-Israeli attack on Iran, Starmer says

Keir Starmer has said RAF fighter jets are flying “in the sky today” to defend allies in the Middle East against Iranian retaliation after the US and Israel launched a bombing campaign aimed at regime change in Tehran.The UK did not participate in the first waves of strikes against Iran on Saturday morning and has no immediate intention of doing so, but fighter jets were running defensive operations from Qatar and Cyprus to shoot down any incoming drones and missiles.Iran launched an immediate counterattack, including strikes on Israel and Jordan as well as on US bases in Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. British forces are located at the bases in small numbers.Details of the operations were scant, and the Ministry of Defence would not specify which countries and bases were being defended, though the UK recently boosted deployments in case there was an escalation of hostilities