The Conservative party is using a debate this afternoon to argue that the government should not be seeking closer links with the EU. It claims that a youth mobility scheme would amount to “reintroducing free movement”, and it says that dynamic alignment of regulations would be unacceptable. (See 4.10pm.)

But Best for Britain, which campaigns for closer links with the EU, has released some polling today showing that voters are overwhelmingly in favour of a youth mobility scheme. It also suggests that more than half of the would back the UK aligning with the EU on all rules.

In its summary of the polling, Best for Britain says:

[The poll] reveals public backing for things which are reportedly on the table for negotiations [at next week’s summit] including; aligning with EU animal and plant standards (53% in favour vs 21% opposed), agreeing a new defence pact with the EU (69% vs 13%), a youth mobility scheme (63% vs 17%) and sharing access to fishing waters (43% vs 33%).

However, the data shows that the public are happy for the government to go even further in pursuit of a better trading relationship with our closest neighbours. Remarkably, a majority of voters (52%) would be open to aligning with all EU rules on goods and products with only a quarter opposed (25%) while seven in ten (71%) are open to the idea of an EU-UK common approach to customs regulation compared to one in ten (11%) who are not.

Commenting on the findings, Naomi Smith, Best for Britain’s chief executive, said:

Trade is about trade offs and this polling shows the British people understand that. They support the government being more ambitious in securing a common sense deal with the EU that removes technical barriers to trade which can bring down prices and boost growth across the UK.

The Green party has tabled an amendment to the Tory motion on next week’s UK-EU summit (see 4.10pm) saying the government should rejoin the EU customs union and use next week’s summit to “start discussions with the EU on what the process of rejoining would involve”.

The motion, which is not likely to be put to a vote, also highlights some of the reported costs from leaving the EU, including “the £100bn annual cost of lost output arising from Brexit”, the “14% of UK businesses … forced to stop trading with the EU”, reduced food and agricultural exports worth £2.8bn a year “with no signs of recovery”, and food inflation being 8% higher than it would have been if the UK had stayed in the EU.

The Green MP Ellie Chowns said:

Brexiteers promised freedom but delivered decline. Five years on, British families, farmers and firms are paying the price of isolation. At the summit next week, ministers must choose progress over pride: we must work to re-join the customs union, restore the right to live, work and study across Europe, and rebuild the networks that keep Britain secure and prosperous.

Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, was laughed at by Labour MPs when he told the Commons this afternoon that the Tories would reverse any concessions to the EU made by Labour at a summit next week.

He was repeating a pledge made by Kemi Badenoch in an open letter she released last Friday addressed to Pedro Serrano, the EU’s ambassador to the UK.

On Monday next week Keir Starmer will hold a summit with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, and Antonia Costa, the European Council president. Starmer has said he would like a “reset” of post-Brexit relations, and the two sides are expected to deepen ties in a range of area, particularly on defence and security.

Keir Starmer spoke about the summit in a call with Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM), this morning and, according to the No 10 readout, “both leaders agreed that there was an ambitious package on the table that would serve to benefit hard-working people and businesses across Europe”.

Opening a Tory debate on the summit, Burghart claimed the government was on the verge of handing over more power to Brussels. He said:

We on this side of the house are clear, following the referendum this country turned a page and it’s very important that [Labour] does not turn it back. The fact is that we are on the brink of witnessing yet another disastrous Labour deal, because we know that when Labour negotiates, Britain loses.

According to PA Media, Labour MPs laughed as Burghart continued:

To leave the house in no doubt, if and when my party is back in power, we will reverse any handover of power, any imposition of EU law, any new rights for the ECJ [European Court of Justice], and any new budgetary commitments. It’s my party that took the country out of the EU, and it’s my party that will keep it out.

In her letter to Serrano, Badenoch said her party would apply five tests to the deal announced next week. She said:

The tests are: 1. No backsliding on free movement or compulsory asylum transfers; 2. No new money paid to the EU; 3. No reduction in our fishing rights; 4. No rule taking, dynamic alignment or European Court jurisdiction; and 5. No compromise on the primacy of Nato as the cornerstone of European security.

She went on:

It is important that I stress that the next Conservative government under my leadership would not remain bound by terms that failed the five tests set out above, and damaged the interests of the United Kingdom and its people. We would take back any legislative or judicial powers handed over to the EU by the present government.

In the Commons, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minster, was responding to Burghart. He accused the Tories of wanting to “go back to re-hash the arguments of the past”.

He went on:

They simply don’t believe in Britain’s ability to win. Perhaps that’s no surprise given the 14 years of failure they delivered for our country.”

Is there any country they actually want a British business to trade with? Now in government, they promised an India trade deal by Diwali – to be fair, they didn’t say which Diwali, but they did deliver absolutely nothing for the British people. We secure an India trade deal, they’re complaining about that.

We secure an economic deal with the United States, long promised by the last government, never delivered, and they don’t like that.

Later MPs will vote on the Conservative party motion which urges the government at the summit next week “to put the national interest first and not to row back on Brexit, for example by re-introducing free movement through a EU youth mobility scheme, accepting compulsory asylum transfers, creating dynamic alignment between the UK and the EU, by submitting the UK to further oversight from the European Court of Justice or by joining the EU’s carbon tax scheme which will lead to higher energy bills”.

A man has been arrested in connection with a series of suspected arson attacks on property linked to Keir Starmer, Scotland Yard has said. Pippa Crerar and Jamie Grierson have the story.

Patrick Spencer, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, has been charged with sexual assault over alleged incidents at London’s Groucho Club in 2023, the Crown Prosecution Service has said. Kiran Stacey has the story.

Reform UK enjoyed a 10-point “winner’s bonus” in the English local elections because of the way the first past the post (FPTP) voting system magnifies the advantage for parties in the lead, according to research published by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS).

It says Reform won just under 31% of the vote, but received over 40% of the seats – equivalent to what the ERS calls a “winner’s bonus” of 9.8 points.

By contrast, Labour got 14% of the vote, but only 5% of the seats.

This disproportionality has always been a feature of FPTP, but the ERS says it is now benefiting the challenger party. In 2013, when Nigel Farage’s previous party, Ukip, did well in local elections, it got 18% of the vote, but only 5% of the seats.

The ERS also points out that, in some councils, Reform won more than two thirds of the seats with just over a third of the vote. It cites these examples:

Staffordshire - Reform got 79.0% of councillors, from 41.3% of votes.

Kent - Reform got 70.4% of councillors, from 36.2% of votes.

Durham - Reform got 66.3% of councillors, from 37.2% of votes.

At the last election Reform was committed to replacing FPTP with proportional representation (just as Ukip was when Farage was leading it). But Farage has not said anything on this topic since the elections, and it may be that his enthusiam for PR is starting to wane in the light of how well the current system is working for his party.

Darren Hughes, chief executive of the ERS, said:

It is clear from these results that UK elections are turning into a random lottery to see which party will get the ‘winner’s bonus’ under first past the post.

At these local elections we again saw that people are voting in an increasingly multi-party way and our two-party voting system is simply unable to cope. That is why it is throwing out distorted results that don’t represent the way people voted with parties winning majorities on councils on just over a quarter of the vote.

This just underlines the need to move to a fairer, proportional electoral system for town halls, as well as Westminster, that accurately reflects the way people vote in the seats parties receive.

Over the last few months there have been reports saying the proposed UK-EU defence and security pact – which will be one of the items being discussed at the UK-EU summit on Monday next week – was being held up by a row about fish. The post-Brexit fishing deal with the EU is up for renegotiation, and EU countries which fish in British waters, particularly France, are keen to maintain the current arrangements, which were condemned at the time by the British fishing industry as a sell-out.

Last night, in an interview with BBC’s Newsnight, Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, implied that the fishing issue has now been sorted out.

Asked if fish could really hold up a security deal, she replied: “No, I think we are over the fish.”

At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked if he could confirm that a deal has been struck with the EU on fishing rights, the PM’s spokesperson said that he would not give a running commentary on the negotiations and that discussions were ongoing.

He said the last government agreed a deal with the EU that would give them access to British waters beyond 2026.

Asked if he could reassure British fishermen they would not be “sold out”, the spokesperson replied:

Absolutely, we’re looking for an overall arrangement that’s beneficial to our fishers, and we’re determined to continue to support those communities.

Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, has distanced himself from the language used by Keir Starmer yesterday to describe the impact of mass immigration in the UK.

In an interview with James O’Brien on LBC, Khan was asked how he felt when he heard Starmer say in his speech in No 10 that soaring immigration was “a squalid chapter for our politics, our economy, and our country” and that there was risk of Britain becoming “an island of strangers” as a result of it.

Khan replied: “My job is to reassure those of you listeners who may be nervous and touchy.”

When O’Brien put it to Khan, whose parents both came to the UK as immigrants, that Starmer was “talking about you”, Khan said that in fact Starmer was talking about the much more recent wave of very high immigration. But he added:

Those are those aren’t words that I’d use … I read the white paper and I understand the context of the white paper. And those aren’t words that I’d use.

Khan also said that the white paper was about “solutions” to the problems associated with very high levels of immigration.

Brian Bell, chair of the government’s migration advisory committee, has told the Daily Telegraph that the plans in the immigration white paper are unlikely to reduce net migration below 250,000 a year. It was at 728,000 in the year ending June 2024, and even higher in the year before.

Net migration was already falling, and the measures announced yesterday are expected to reduce immigration by at least 100,000. Bell told the Telegraph this meant net migration would probably fall to “under 300,000 and probably closer to 250,000 in the next few years”.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked if Keir Starmer would be satisfied with net migration at 250,000, the PM’s spokesperson did not challenge the figure.

Instead, he said Starmer has ruled out having a target for net migration because in the past targets have not worked. He also said that Starmer has been clear that, if further steps are needed, the government will take them.

Downing Street has said that Keir Starmer “completely rejects” suggestions he echoed Enoch Powell in his speech on immigration yesterday. (See 9.43am.)

At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked about the criticism he has attracted for using a phrase that echoed one used by Powell in his Rivers of Blood speech, the PM’s spokesperson said: “We completely reject that comparison.”

Asked if Starmer was not worried about his language, the spokesman said:

Absolutely, the prime minister rejects those comparisons and absolutely stands behind the argument he was making that migrants make a massive contribution to our country, but migration needs to be controlled.

Asked if Starmer stood by what he said yesterday about Britain being at risk of turning into an “island of strangers”, the spokesperson replied: “Yes.”

Asked if that meant that Starmer agreed with what Powell said in 1968 when he said immigration made native Britons feel as if they had “found themselves made strangers in their own country”, the spokesperson said he did not accept the comparison.

Asked to explain the difference between the two sentiments, the spokesperson said:

The prime minister has made the argument that migrants make a massive contribution to the UK, and have done for generations.

Asked if that meant Starmer would be unwilling to use the words Powell used, the spokesperson replied:

The prime minister was using his own words to rightly recognise both the contribution that migrants have made over generations and to make the point that uncontrolled migration has been has been too high.

But look, this government is not going to shy away from this issue. The public are rightly concerned about the impact that uncontrolled migration has had on the UK.

In another version of the question, the spokesperson was asked if Starmer would condemn Powell for what he said. The spokesperson replied: ‘The prime minister would reject in its entirety previous speeches made [by Powell].”

Asked if anyone in Downing Street was aware of the similarity between Starmer’s phrase and Powell’s, the spokesperson avoided the question and just said he rejected “the premise of any comparison”.

When it was put to him that the two phrases were very, very similar, the spokesperson replied: “I can reject the comparison.”

Vladimir Putin is “prevaricating” and “obfuscating” in peace talks with Ukraine, David Lammy has told MPs.

Speaking during questions in the Commons, the foreign secretary said:

We welcome the desires to get an enduring peace, but there must be a ceasefire in order to engage in those talks it seems to me, and it is Putin that is prevaricating, it is Putin that is obfuscating and we must call that out with our long experience of scrutinising that particular individual.

Anyone who assists someone to self-harm – such as by giving them a blade or pills – could face up to five years in prison under plans for a new offence, PA Media reports. PA says:

Ministers are seeking to broaden the law to criminalise those who encourage or assist self harm online or in person, as part of the crime and policing bill.

The move would mean anyone who intend to cause serious self-harm could be prosecuted, even if that did not lead to any injuries.

Under the Online Safety Act 2023, it is already illegal to encourage or assist suicide or self-harm through content online.

But the change to the law seeks to replace the existing offence to cover all ways self-harm could be aided.

Commenting on the change, Alex Davies-Jones, the victims minister, said:

The prevalence of serious self-harm, especially in young people, is hugely concerning.

It is an awful truth that some people encourage or assist such behaviour, and one I wanted to draw attention to during Mental Health Awareness Week.

Whether encouragement is by communication, or more directly by assistance, the outcome is the same.

We are determined that anybody intending to see others harm themselves is stopped and dealt with in the strongest way.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has just started taking questions in the Commons. In response to the first question, Hamish Falconer, minister for the Middle East, said the UK has joined calls for an urgent meeting of the UN security council this afternoon to discuss the situation in Gaza.

After Foreign Office questions, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, is asking an urgent question about the Mansion House accord – a deal with pension companies intended to get them to invest more in UK firms.

The unemployment rate in the UK has risen to its highest level in almost four years, according to official figures, as the jobs market continues to slow. Heather Stewart has the story.

Chris Weston, chief executive at Thames Water, has defended his decision to accept a £195,000 bonus just three months into the job last year.

Giving evidence to the Commons environment committee, where he was asked if it was wise to accept such a big bonus so soon after her started, Weston replied:

I think in the first three months I did make a difference.

I started to put in place the new organisational structure, I started to give people confidence and reassurance about how proud they could be of the job they did and what we were setting out to do. And that helped stabilise the company and I think that was important.

Weston also said the company had “lost direction a bit” when he took over.

I was the fifth chief executive in five years … that creates a confusion for people in the company. I think it required clearer direction, which I have given … Sixteen months in I’m quite pleased with the progress we’re making.

It is a big ship to turn around. It is very difficult.

In an interview on Newsnight last night Arlene Foster, the former DUP leader, said she thought that someone in Downing Street would have known that “island of strangers” was a clear echo of what Enoch Powell said in his Rivers of Blood speech. Asked if Keir Starmer would have been aware of the similarities in the language, she replied:

Somebody did Downing Street, I’m convinced of it,

“Island of strangers” is a very particular form of words, it’s almost a term of art. So where did it come from? And who was the person that said this should go into the speech?

But Starmer’s allies are saying it was genuine mistake, and not an intentional echo of what Powell said. “It was an accident, and not designed to cause a row,” according to a source close to No 10 familiar with what happened. The source accepts that someone should have realised that the “island of strangers” phrase had Powellite connotations. But the fact that this was not picked up is attributed to an error, and not an attempt to reference the Rivers of Blood speech.

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, was also doing an interview round this morning. Asked about Keir Starmer’s warning in his speech yesterday that Britain was at risk of becoming an “island of strangers” because of the impact of mass immigration, Jenrick claimed Britain was already like this. He told Times Radio:

I think it’s true. In fact, I think in some places we already are. Aggressive levels of mass migration have made us more divided.

If you look at communities in our country, for example central Bradford, 50% of people were born outside of the United Kingdom; in central Luton, 46% of residents arrived in the past decade.

There are places like Dagenham where the white British population has fallen by almost 60% in the last 25 years.

People in many parts of our country are experiencing profound change as a result of the levels of migration that we’ve seen, and we’ve got to bring that back to the historic levels that we enjoyed as a country which enabled us to be a well-integrated and united country, rather than the one that we’re seeing today.

(A pedant might point out that, even though Enoch Powell and Keir Starmer were making a rhetorical point when they talked about “strangers”, technically we are an island of strangers anway. There are almost 70 million of us here, and most of us only personally know hundreds, or at best a few thousands, of our fellow citizens.)

Good morning. Yesterday Keir Starmer unveiled the government’s immigration white paper, a significant policy intervention on a topic that is near the top of the public’s list of concerns. Yet today the debate is dominated not by the actual policies – even though they could cause big problems in some sectors of the economy, as we explain here – but by the language Starmer used to defend them.

To recap, in one section of his speech yesterday Starmer said:

Nations depend on rules – fair rules. Sometimes they’re written down, often they’re not, but either way, they give shape to our values. They guide us towards our rights, of course, but also our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to one another. Now, in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them, we risk becoming an island of strangers, not a nation that walks forward together.

This generated huge controversy not just because of the argument (some people don’t accept the claim that high levels of immigration undermine social cohesion), but because the argument and the language echo what Enoch Powell said in his infamous Rivers of Blood speech in 1968. Powell said:

While, to the immigrant, entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country.

They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted.

Starmer was clearly echoing Powell. But what is not clear is whether, for Starmer and/or the person who write the speech, this was intentional, unconscious (people can remember phrases without recalling where they came from), or complete coincidence (politicians more than 50 years apart, making a similar argument, by deploying the same, not-particularly-unusual word).

Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech was denounced as racist as soon as he delivered it (although not so much for his comments about native Britons finding mass migration unsettling, where many people would agree he had a point, but for his suggestion that it would culminate in violence, oppression and social collapse, where he has turned out to be hopelessly wrong) and it is still widely viewed as abhorrent. Yesterday Starmer was condemned by leftwingers for saying something that sounded Powellite.

But ministers have defended him. Asked about this on Newsnight last night, Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, said comparing the Starmer speech to Powell’s was “wrong”. She went on:

Labour and Labour governments have always listened to people in terms of their concerns about their security and the opportunities that they want to have for themselves and their children. And when we see something that we understand that people believe is unfair, then we are going to take action on that. That’s what the British people expect us to do, that’s what Labour governments do.

This morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, was giving interviews, and on the Today programme she said she agreed with Smith. She went on:

I don’t think it’s right to make those comparisons [between Starmer’s speech and Powell’s]. It’s completely different. And the prime minister said yesterday, I think almost in the same breath, talked about the diverse country that we are and that being part of our strength.

Cooper said that, when Starmer talked about the rise of Britain being “an island of strangers”, he was referring to “the importance of recognising the impact … [of] this big increase in net migration, and also that we’ve got to have the support for integration, support for English language speaking, a lot of the measures that are set out as part of that white paper”.

Asked if Starmer or his speech writers knew that the “island of strangers” phrase echoed Powell, Cooper said she did not know.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

10am: Thames Water bosses give evidence to the Commons environment committee about reforming the water sector.

11.30am: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: MPs begin a debate on an assisted dying bill.

3.15pm: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, gives evidence to the Commons business committee about industrial strategy.

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