General Election LIVE: Reform UK takes lead in first 'TikTok election'
NIGEL FARAGE
GB News will be providing the latest updates from the 2024 General Election campaign trail
Additional reporting by Jack Walters
Reform UK has defied the age odds to come out on top in the so-called "TikTok election".
Reform UK, whose voters tend to be older, has the most followers on the social media platform.
With 125,500 followers, the populist party is marginally ahead of Labour's 108,500.
Nigel Farage appeared buoyant at a campaign event in Ashfield where Lee Anderson is hoping to win re-election after defecting to Reform UK from the Tories.
“We just need a couple more percentage point,” he said. “If we could get to that, then we could win a good number of seats. I feel there’s some momentum with us.”
A Labour Party office in North East London has been vadalised with anti-Israel graffiti after fomer candidate Faiza Shaheen was blocked from standing on July 4.
Photos taken from Chingford & Woodford Green's Labour HQ was sprayed with a numebr of messages, including "Israel lobby out" and "UK MPs for UK not Israel".
Activists have arrived at the scene to remove the graffiti.
However, Shaheen was preparing to take on former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith before being removed in favour of Shama Tatler.
Shaheen lost to Duncan Smith by just 1,262 votes in 2019, cutting the ex-Work & Pensions Secretary's majority in half.
She is preparing to launch legal action against Labour following her exclusion by the National Executive Committee on Wednesday.
A Brexiteer has warned Labour could "dance to Brussels' tune" if Sir Keir Starmer wins the keys to Downing Street after voters go to the polls on July 4.
Bob Lyddon, founder of Lyddon Consulting Services Limited, outlined his concerns in a paper published at the weekend.
He told The Daily Express: “Even if Labour promises not to rejoin the EU, it will ape it and, when opportune whistle up a case to re-enter the Customs Union and Single Market – after adopting 'dynamic alignment', a phrase that might better be rendered as ‘dancing to Brussels’ tune’ or ‘when Brussels says jump, Labour says 'how high?'"
He added: “The paper’s contents have been confirmed by Labour’s publications and utterances since the election was announced.”
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose seat voted to leave the European Union, pledged to seek "practical changes" to the UK's deal with the Brussels bloc.
However, similarly to Starmer, Reeves was keen to stress Labour would not alter the UK's position outside the Single Market and Customs Union.
Conservative Minister Kevin Hollinrake says there will be ‘no exemptions’ from mandatory National Service in the UK.
Last week, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced plans for 18-year-olds to take part in a National Service scheme should he remain in power.
Details remain relatively vague at this early stage but the Tories confirmed it would come in two avenues; Community volunteering and military training.
The former would see teenagers have to participate in a volunteering course within their local community one weekend a month for a whole year.
Minister Kevin Hollinrake said: "No one will be exempt from it when it's in place it will be introduced flexibly.
"It's subject to a royal commission who are going to put the details, are going to inform us about what the right way to do it is. But the intention is that every 18-year-old will do it.
"They will work flexibly so that people can do it around other commitments they have, such as some work commitments where it's required.
"I distinctly remember Elvis Presley doing his service as a GI. I don't know if you remember that, but it's fantastic that we all play our part and we contribute towards society and that thing that builds pride in the country. I think the people I speak to on the doorstep feel the same."
Labour has hit out at Rishi Sunak’s pledge to give cash to towns as part of its plans to level up the country.
The Tories will seek to paint a positive picture of their record on levelling-up, after announcing a pledge to give 30 towns £20million.
However, Labour branded the plans as “another reckless, unfunded spending commitment”.
As part of the scheme, the Tories pledge that local people, not those in Westminster, will decide how the money will be spent.
Some of the towns proposed to be added include: Tamworth, Preston, Corby, Halifax, Bognor Regis, Newtown, Flint, Perth and Newry.
A number of the towns standing to benefit from the £20million are in Labour-held constituencies, but 17 were represented by Tory MPs in the last parliament.
Science minister Andrew Griffith acknowledged the policy would take time to take effect.
He told the BBC’s Today programme on Saturday: “This is good news that a further 30 towns spread across the whole United Kingdom will benefit from an endowment-style funding that’s their money to spend on things like safety and security, improving regenerating the high street.
“Of course, the nature of having a local initiative like that is not every single one of them is going to work at exactly the same speed.”
Labour has been labelled "out of touch" by the minor Social Democratic Party over its recent Pride Month post.
The SDP said: "Labour MPs and councillors didn't want to use the Union flag in campaign materials because they felt it would alienate voters.
"But they see no problem with this. The 'party of the working class' is increasingly out of touch."
Despite the criticism, Sir Keir Starmer has regularly appeared alongside two Union flags.
The Union Jack also appears on Labour's literature in a major change since Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
Labour has set out their plan to "rescue Britain" today as Liz Kendall spoke to Anne Diamond and Stephen Dixon on GB News this morning.
Kendall said: "Keir's changed the Labour Party and we've got a plan to change the country, and we want people to be better off.
"We don't want them to be poor. You know, it's the Tories that have got the biggest, highest tax person burden for 70 years.
"It's the Tories who have overseen a situation where living standards are stagnant, where bills are rising, interest rates, mortgages, rents."
WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW ABOVE
Conservative candidate Tobias Ellwood has fiercely defended the Tories after a new poll predicted a "wipe out" for the party at this July's General Election.
The polling, conducted exclusively by GB News and the Daily Mail, revealed Rishi Sunak could lose most of the seats the party won in 2019, to well below 100 MPs in the next Parliament.
Other figures suggest that Sir Keir Starmer is on course for a majority of as much as 336 for Labour.
Reacting to the polling on GB News, Tobias Ellwood reassured that the election "is not today", and we are "not at the fourth of July yet".
Defending the Conservatives to host Patrick Christys, Ellwood told GBNews: "It's interesting you didn't mention the number of people yet to make their mind up.
"There's a substantial amount of the British electorate still waiting to see. We're back showing illustrating fiscal responsibility under Rishi Sunak, but we've still got to regain that trust with the British people."
Political commentator Peter Spencer has given his thoughts on the damning result of the exclusive MCR polling conducted by GB News and the Daily Mail last night.
"I think it's pretty fair to say that a Labour Government on July 5 is a racing certainty," he told Stephen Dixon and Anne Diamond.
"However, it is worth noting that the polls do give very different pictures, and one reason for that is the way they divvy out the don't knows.
"And it would appear that 1 in 8 of us has yet to make up our minds. And that includes one-fifth of those who backed Boris last time around and are now undecided."
He added: "We await developments. But Rishi Sunak clearly is still pretty chipper and still reckons he's got something at least to play for."
WATCH THE MOMENT ABOVE
Stephen Pound opens up on secret family
GB News
The veteral former Labour MP Stephen Pound has spoken movingly about a daughter he discovered he had from a relationship when he was a teenager - and revealed that he would love to meet his granddaughters for the first time.
Speaking on GB News Stephen Pound said: “I got a letter when I was in Parliament, from a young woman who said, ‘I don’t want anything from you but I think you’re my dad.’
“And we met and it was extraordinary, because we started finishing each other’s sentences and we both wanted to eat the same food.
“It turned out when I was 17 and her mother was 17, we’d had a relationship and I was at sea immediately afterwards. I didn’t know that her mother was pregnant, I didn’t know that she’d had a baby and I didn’t know that the girl was put up for adoption the day after she was born.
“And what was delicate about it was that she didn't want her adoptive father to know about me because she would have felt that in some way denigrating that relationship.
“There is no template for that sort of relationship. We’ve had no contact since then because she’s got three young daughters, although they’re a bit older now, and it was just too painful.
“My daughter was absolutely delighted - she suddenly had three sisters. They were quite excited about it. My son thought, crikey dad, you were a bit of a lad back in the day!
“I said, look it was the 60s and all of that.
“[The mother] didn’t know where I was and, in all honesty, I think she probably didn’t want to know where I was...I was a complete waste of space in those days.
“I don’t know [if there is any chance of reconciling the relationship with his daughter]: a lot of water’s gone under the bridge.
“I would love to see her again and I’d love to actually see my granddaughters, who I’ve never met.
“It’s very, very delicate. There are no rules, there’s nothing you can apply. There’s no textbook.”
The Conservative Party could be reduced to just 66 seats at the next election, as a devastating new poll has put the party on course for an election wipeout.
With tactical voting taken into account, Labour is predicted to win by a landslide with a 302-seat majority, returning 476 seats.
The large-scale MRP polling suggests the Tories would return just seven more MPs than the Liberal Democrats who were predicted to win 59 seats.
The survey also predicts 18 Conservative Cabinet Members could lose their seats.
This Liveblog has now been closed.