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Hundreds of jobs to be created by £50m defence sector deal, officials say
As part of the launch on Wednesday, Defence Minister Luke Pollard will visit Belfast.
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A former Labour general secretary has defected to the Green party, in the latest sign that allies of Jeremy Corbyn are moving in large numbers to Zack Polanski’s party.
Jennie Formby, who managed the Labour party from 2018 to 2020, told the Guardian she had signed up as a Green party member and intended to campaign for it before May’s local elections.
Formby is the latest senior ally of Corbyn to defect to the Greens, even as the former Labour leader tries to establish Your Party, his own leftwing alternative to Labour.
The defection of figures such as Formby, the former Labour adviser James Meadway and the former North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll offers the Greens a policy and organisational heft they previously lacked, but also threatens to distance the party from its environmental roots.
Formby said: “Zack and the Greens are not scared to talk about economic justice and tax increases. I am increasingly concerned by seeing the extent to which Labour is in hock to corporate sponsors.”
She added: “The Greens also have some important policies on workers’ rights, which is important to me – all these things made me want to join the Green party and I want to do everything I can to support them.”
She said had voted Green since 2022 but had joined the party as a member four months ago and intended to campaign for her local council candidate.
Formby, a former political director of the Unite union, took over as Labour’s general secretary in 2018, having secured the support of Corbyn and the then shadow chancellor, John McDonnell.
She quit that post in 2020, shortly after Keir Starmer became leader, saying that the change in leadership meant it was the right time to step down. She is now highly critical of Starmer’s leadership, saying he started to break his promises almost as soon as he became leader.
“Keir was elected on a bunch of things he immediately reneged on,” she said. “He does not have a set of principles which he is willing to stick to.”
She added that she had quit Labour in part over its treatment of MPs who signed a letter criticising the war in Ukraine and calling for a peace deal which recognised Ukrainian self-determination but also “addresses Russia’s security concerns”.
A Labour source said: “The Green party has the wrong answers for Britain. Whether it’s opposing housing and clean energy schemes across the country, or their lack of serious and credible proposals on the challenges facing working people, Zack Polanski’s party are not the answer.”
Polanski has reshaped the Greens since he became leader, focusing less on environmental issues and talking more about the economy, including taxes and the cost of living.
He recently announced his party would no longer focus on GDP as a measure of economic success but instead on people’s mental health, social cohesion and community welfare. He has campaigned in recent weeks for ministers to set aside billions of pounds to support households if energy bills rise due to the Iran war.
His strategy has seen the party jump in the polls from 10% to 16% and take the former Labour stronghold of Gorton and Denton. Meanwhile Green party membership has more than tripled, from 68,500 last September to 220,000 this month. The focus on economic policy has also brought over many of those who worked with Corbyn at the top of the Labour party.
As well as Formby, Meadway and Driscoll, others have joined in recent months, including Michael Chessum and Joe Todd, who worked for the leftwing organisation Momentum and the former Corbyn adviser David Prescott.
Chessum recently told the Financial Times: “[The Green party] is in the process of being re-founded. That doesn’t mean moving away from its environmental principles. It’s about becoming a mass party of the left.”
Formby denied that the Corbyn supporters who had left the Labour party were re-forming their movement in a new party. “I think this movement is new, and has a lot of energy,” she said. “I was very supportive of Jeremy, of course. But there is clearly an appetite for it – it’s something people are very excited about.”
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Starmer and Badenoch clash over Olly Robbins’ Mandelson evidence – UK politics live | Politics
Starmer claims Robbins’s evidence confirmed he personally was not under any pressure to approve Mandelson’s vetting
Badenoch says Starmer is relying on advice he got after Mandelson was sacked, not before.
She says the appointment was a done deal. Robbins said the PM’s team showed a dismissive approach to vetting. This was not proper process. She asks why due process was not followed.
Starmer says Robbins was clear that he was not under pressure personally in terms of his judgment.
He says Robbins also said that the decisions he took were independent of any pressure.
And Robbins said no one told him that vetting could be ignored.
Starmer claims Robbins said “no pressure” whatsoever was placed on him in this case.
Key events
Sarah Pochin (Reform UK) says Pakistani grooming gangs are still attacking girls. She says Starmer should be focusing on this instead of giving jobs to the friends of paedophiles.
Starmer says he spent many years prosecuting paedophiles, and that he does not need lectures from Pochin on this.
Rachael Maskell (Lab) asks about a York hospital that was closed in 2015. She says the site was given to the city in the 18th century, but that it is now being sold for luxury housing. She says it should be used for the benefit of the city.
Starmer says ministers will work with the council on a solution that will benefit the city.
Tessa Munt (Lib Dem) asks about the chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994. Relatives of those killed were told they would get an explanation. The MoD is failing to give them that, she says. She says they are not asking for an inquiry – just an explanation as to why their loved ones were placed on a helicotper that was not fit to fly.
Starmer says he will ensure that the MoD look at this again, and that a proper meeting with families take place.
Carla Lockhart (DUP) asks about a boy in her constituency who died from MLD. She says this is a terrible condition. But it can be treated, and it can be picked up by screening. She says MLD has been excluded from the pin-prick screening for children. She asks for this to change.
Starmer says he will ensure this matter gets looked at again.
Lincoln Jopp (Con) says last week a man was approach in his constituency after approaching children from a primary school. He was subsequently detained under the Mental Health Act. He says the man was living in Home Office accommodation near the school. Who put him there?
Starmer says this is a live case. But he says councils are given the chance to object to decisions about where people in Home Office accommodation go.
Richard Foord (Lib Dem) says Lord Carrington resigned as foreign secretary over the Falkland Islands, even though he was not personally to blame. He accepted ministerial responsibility. Does Starmer also believe in that?
Starmer repeats the point about how he should have been told about the UKSV Mandelson recommendation.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Con) asks when Jonathan Powell was appointed envoy for the Chagos Islands, and what security clearance he got.
Starmer does not answer the question, but says Powell is doing an excellent job and is respected around the world.
Ellie Chowns (Green) accuses Starmer of throwing Olly Robbins under a bus to save his skin. She says he should resign.
Starmer says he should have been told the UK Security Vetting said Mandelson’s clearance should be denied.
Starmer calls Lib Dem claim about Treasury getting windfall from higher oil prices ‘politically misleading and economically illiterate’
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says, when he was asked on Monday if he had considered other political diplomatic appointments, he did not answer. He says the last 24 hours have jogged his memory. He asks if Starmer knew personally about the proposed appointment of Matthew Doyle.
Starmer says nothing came of that.
Davey asks if the government will cut rail and bus fares, and slash petrol prices, to help people with higher energy prices, using the windfall the Treasury has had from higher fuel prices. (Because prices are up, VAT revenue is up too.)
Starmer says the idea that the Treasury is getting a windfall from the Iran war is “politically misleading and economically illiterate”.
Badenoch says due process was not followed. She says Starmer misled MPs when he claimed it had been. She says he should go.
Starmer says he should have been told that the vetting process said Mandleson’s clearance should be denied. He goes on:
[Badenoch] claimed on Friday that Mandelson could not have been cleared against security advice. She was wrong about that.
She said that ministers must have been told. She was wrong about that.
She claimed there was deliberate dishonesty. She was wrong about that.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. She rushed to judgment, as she always did.
And he compares that to Badenoch’s stance on the Iran war.
A BBC investigation in 2023 heard from more than 100 McDonald’s workers in the UK claiming they faced sexual assault, harassment, racism, and bullying
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