5 things you need to know as Keir Starmer U-turns on cancelled local elections | Politics | News
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (Image: Getty)
5 things you need to know as Keir Starmer U-turns on cancelled local elections
- Sir Keir Starmer performed his latest U-turn today over controversial plans to postpone local elections. The Government abandoned proposals to delay ballots across 30 councils this May after receiving advice from lawyers over the legal challenge from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
- Local Government Secretary Steve Reed said in a letter to council leaders that he had written to the High Court confirming he was withdrawing the decision “in light of recent legal advice”. He had previously approved plans to push back the polls as part of a major reorganisation of local authorities by Labour.
- Mr Farage called for Mr Reed to resign over the row as he hailed a victory for “democracy in this country”. The Reform leader said: “What I do think now is the minister, Steve Reed, has clearly acted illegally, and given that the Government’s now given in, knew they’d lose to us in court, I think Steve Reed’s position as a minister should now be debated,” the party leader told journalists on a visit to Romford. It seems to me that if a Government minister does something illegal, they really ought to resign.”
- Tory leader Kemi Badenoch also hit out at the Prime Minister over the U-turn. She branded it “predictable chaos from a useless government that cannot make basic decisions”, adding: “This is a zombie government. U-turn after U-turn after U-turn.”
- It is the latest in more than a dozen humiliating climbdowns by the Prime Minister, including on scrapping winter fuel payments for pensioners and the inheritance tax raid on farmers.
