Nigel Farage latest: Britons back Count Binface in new Clacton by-election poll amid Reform donations row

A cap on private political donations would rebuild trust in British politics, a new report has suggested.

The landmark report, published by think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), suggests that in response to the country’s crisis of pride and growing disillusionment with the current political system, UK democracy will undergo a “radical overhaul” through a new model of “democratic citizenship”.

He proposed various reforms that he believed would rebuild confidence in the UK’s political institutions and strengthen national unity.

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73 per cent of Britons think the leader of Reform UK is of poor quality, while 69 per cent of people say the same of his party, according to a new YouGov poll.

Around 56 per cent classify Mr Farage as “very sleazy”, while a further 17 per cent describe him as “fairly sleazy”, while 40 per cent of those who voted Reform at the last election today view him as sleazy.

The poll reveals a clear gulf between the public’s perception of Mr Farage and other party leaders; 51 per cent of Britons view Sir Keir Starmer as at least fairly unqualified, while 42 per cent said the same of Green leader Zack Polanski.

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Here we are, in a place where no one outside the EU votes. It’s time for a reality check. Ten years ago the United Kingdom voted by a slim majority to leave the EU. But this vote was meaningless. No one knew what it would mean outside the EU, and without such information a legitimate election could never be held.

Some inferred that the result was a vote to go anywhere outside the EU, but this ignored the distinct possibility that the country might choose to stay in once it sees what Brexit looks like.

Keir Starmer saw the point. As shadow Brexit secretary, he argued that the public should have the “final say” on the terms of the deal once it is negotiated. But the truth is that we never had the first say.

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Lisa Nandy, an ally of the prime ministerial candidate, said Andy Burnham’s Labor Party would “carry more of our hearts” in an apparent swipe at Sir Keir Starmer, who has been criticized for failing to connect with voters.

Ms Nandy, the culture minister, said the Burnham government would also be “faster and bolder” because she was “willing to think very differently about how we deliver change”.

“I think people will see that we are tackling any system that stands in the way of them living better lives,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Sir Keir Starmer has left the door open to introducing the resignation honor roll, despite previously ruling out such a move.

Sir Keir, whose term as Prime Minister is almost at its end, refused to rule out being handed a resignation honors note, telling reporters: “We’ll look at it in the ordinary course of things.”

His statement was a marked departure from his stance on the issue when he was leader of the opposition in 2023, amid controversy over Boris Johnson’s own resignation honor roll.

At the time, Sir Keir criticized Rishi Sunak’s decision to approve Mr Johnson’s honors list before MPs decide whether he lied to Parliament about the Partygate scandal.

Sir Keir, who has been critical of Mr Sunak’s approval of the list, has refused to introduce a similar list if he resigns after serving in No 10.

He told the BBC it was “very difficult to justify” the honor of resigning, adding: “There are other ways to do it and I think it’s easier to be clean about it and say no, I wouldn’t do that.”

“Tony Blair didn’t do it and neither would I.”

Andy Burnham has faced backlash from Jewish leaders who say they have “significant concerns” about his indication that he will pursue a tougher policy against Israel in support of Gaza.

The future prime minister posted a video on social media on Thursday in which he apologized for Labor’s previous response to the violence in Gaza and admitted the government had been too slow to call for a ceasefire.

He said in the video: “I know many people think that my party did not get it right at the beginning of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, and I am sorry about that. The response was often not good enough. We need to do better.”

While the statement was welcomed by many in the Labor Party, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council expressed concern about the comments on Friday.

“We have contacted Andy Burnham’s team directly to raise our significant concerns about his comments yesterday,” the groups said in a statement.

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With this result, he overtook incumbent Conservative MP Giles Watling, who received 27.9 percent of the vote, while Labor came in third place with 16.2 percent.

The Liberal Democrats and the Greens fell well behind their main rivals, receiving 4.4 percent and 4.2 percent of the votes respectively.

The coastal Essex constituency of Clacton, established in 2010, has a colorful political history.

The party’s first MP, Conservative Douglas Carswell, left the Conservatives in 2014 to join the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip), then led by Mr Farage.

Mr Carswell then resigned his seat, triggering a by-election which he won for Ukip and increased its majority.

He retained the seat in the 2015 general election, the only constituency in the country where Ukip won, but left the party two years later after disagreements with colleagues and became an independent MP.

At the next general election in 2017 Douglas Carswell did not stand as a candidate in Clacton and Giles Watling won the seat for the Conservatives with 61.2 per cent of the vote, while the new Ukip candidate received only 7.6 per cent of the vote.

Nigel Farage later announced that he planned to return to his role as Reform leader early in the 2024 campaign and would be the party’s candidate in Clacton.

Lisa Nandy, an ally of the prime ministerial candidate, said Andy Burnham’s Labor Party would “carry more of our hearts” in an apparent swipe at Sir Keir Starmer, who has been criticized for failing to connect with voters.

Ms Nandy, the culture minister, said the Burnham government would also be “faster and bolder” because she was “willing to think very differently about how we deliver change”.

“I think people will see that we are tackling any system that stands in the way of them living better lives,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Read the full article here:

Here we are, in a place where no one outside the EU votes. It’s time for a reality check. Ten years ago the UK voted by a slim majority to leave the EU. But this vote was meaningless. No one knew what it would mean outside the EU, and without such information a legitimate election could never be held.

Some inferred that the result was a vote to go anywhere outside the EU, but this ignored the distinct possibility that the country might choose to stay in once it sees what Brexit looks like.

Keir Starmer saw the point. As shadow Brexit secretary, he argued that the public should have the “final say” on the terms of the deal once it is negotiated. But the truth is that we never had the first say.

Read the full opinion piece here: