Pro-Brexit views not protected from workplace discrimination, tribunal rules

Supporting Brexit is not a belief that is protected from workplace discrimination, an employment tribunal has ruled, as a former Ukip councillor lost her claim that she was bullied and harassed by her charity employer because she supported the UK’s departure from the EU.Colette Fairbanks was sacked from her job at the drug and alcohol rehabilitation charity Change Grow Live after sharing “offensive” posts about immigrants on social media, a tribunal hearing was told.Fairbanks argued that her political views were philosophical beliefs protected by the Equality Act. These included a belief the UK should be outside of the EU, an opposition to illegal migration and being happy to leave the European convention on human rights.However the tribunal found that these were not beliefs protected by the Equality Act

‘He was for us’: everyone has anecdotes about John Prescott in his village

In the village of Sutton, which John Prescott called home, everybody has their own anecdote about the Labour heavyweight.For some, it was simply that they had seen him walking his dog, or out and about in his slippers, but others had more colourful stories to tell.At Dresu, a women’s clothes shop, the co-owner Michelle Auker remembers police swarming the village when Greenpeace protesters scaled the roof of Prescott’s family home; her colleague Sam Waud recalls his wife, Pauline, ordering him “naughty” birthday cakes – in the shape of “boobs and stuff” – from Skelton’s cake shop in Hull.Many here will tell you his favourite restaurant was Mr Chu’s on St Andrew’s Quay in Hull, or that he was never absent from the remembrance service in the village.Colin Foulston, 87, enjoying a pint with a friend in the Duke of York pub, said that despite his larger-than-life character, Prescott was quite a private man, and wasn’t often seen out drinking in the village

Growing up with Nigel Farage: inside Reform UK’s push for the next election

It was the grand finale of Reform UK’s September conference and Nigel Farage had a serious message to deliver: it was time for Reform to “grow up” and professionalise.He couldn’t do it alone, he told 4,000 hyped-up members who had paid £50 each to bask in his presence.“We will not realise our dream unless the people’s army of supporters are organised, unless the people’s army of supporters are helped to professionalise, unless that people’s army fight elections,” he said. “What we have to do is to be credible. What we have to do is to be on the ground everywhere

UK imposes asset freezes and travel bans on three ‘kleptocrats’

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, claimed he was bringing the “golden age of money laundering” to an end as he announced UK financial sanctions against three high-profile alleged kleptocrats and their key enablers.On Thursday, the Foreign Office (FCDO) announced sanctions including asset freezes and travel bans on Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian billionaire, Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former president, and Aivars Lembergs, a Latvian oligarch.The UK has long faced criticism from anti-corruption campaigners for an unquestioning attitude towards foreign investors. That approach came under particular scrutiny after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when the UK government under the Conservatives belatedly sought to freeze assets belonging to alleged allies of Vladimir Putin.Lammy said the tide was turning on corruption after a long period when the previous government allowed the role of London as a money laundering capital to continue

John Prescott, British former deputy prime minister, dies aged 86

Politicians of all stripes have lined up to pay tribute to John Prescott, the former British deputy prime minister and stalwart of the New Labour movement, who has died aged 86.Prescott, who had Alzheimer’s, died peacefully in a care home on Thursday morning, according to a statement from his family. He served as deputy prime minister for more than a decade under Tony Blair and played a pivotal role in his government.Blair said Prescott had been “one of the most talented people I ever encountered in politics, one of the most committed and loyal, and definitely the most unusual … There were no rules he really abided by”.During his time in office, Prescott was seen as a custodian of traditional Labour values in the face of a modernising leadership

It was a time for niceties in the Commons. Kemi doesn’t do niceties | John Crace

It had been shaping up to be another sleepy Thursday in Westminster. A day when hostilities were put on hold after the exertions earlier in the week. A time for MPs to be a little more playful with one another. To even, occasionally, agree with one another.And that’s very much how proceedings began