Nigel Farage has been branded a “clown” and a “pathetic little man” by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who challenged the Reform UK leader to a head-to-head debate.
Sarwar accused the Clacton MP of putting out a "racist" advert ahead of next Thursday's Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse by-election.
Farage, who yesterday accused Sarwar of introducing "sectarianism" into Scottish politics, is hoping to secure a debate against Sir Keir Starmer at a working men's club in the Red Wall.
Despite the Prime Minister reportedly wanting to go head-to-head with Farage ahead of the next General Election, Sarwar is the leading Labour figure to demand an immediate debate.
Sarwar said: “Come up here. I’ll challenge him anytime, any place, in Hamilton, any town hall, and he can challenge me on my views, I’ll challenge him on his views, and you can see that the people of Scotland will utterly reject him, because he can’t win there and he can’t win in Scotland.
"This man wants to pretend he’s a great champion of working people across our country. While I was working in Scotland’s NHS in one of the most deprived communities in the country, he was on the Brussels gravy train.
"While I’m campaigning to defend our NHS and save our NHS, this man wants to privatise our NHS. He’s got no interest in Scotland. He probably couldn’t even tell you where Hamilton was on the map.”
However, Sarwar's demand for a face-off comes after Labour's Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse candidate Davy Russell was accused of dodging public hustings, a TV debate and media interviews.
The Scottish Labour leader said: "That's a matter for the campaign team and the campaign."
The Reform ad, which both Labour and the SNP have demanded be removed from Facebook, has clips of Sarwar speaking about persuading more Pakistani people to go in to politics.
It also accuses Sarwar of “prioritising” Pakistani people over the people of Glasgow.
Speaking at a press conference in London yesterday, Farage said: “All we’ve done is to put out the exact words spoken by him without any comment. We’ve said nothing, just that we will represent the people of that constituency."
The Reform UK leader added: "The fact that they, having chosen to go down the sectarian route, choose to throw accusations back at us says to me that we are winning.”
Former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has refused to rule out a possible move to the Conservatives after being "politically assassinated" by his former party.
Speaking to GB News, Lowe admitted there are "some very able Tories", and that "all options are open" when it comes to where he will go next.
Lowe sparked speculation as to whether he would team up with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch after being spotted going for lunch with Shadow Justice Minister Robert Jenrick.
He added: "I've always said, since my political assassination, which was very clumsy and arguably somewhat un-Christian, I have all options open."
Sir Keir Starmer visited Liverpool today following a car ramming incident
GETTY
Sir Keir Starmer visited Liverpool today following a car ramming incident which the Labour leader described as "appalling".
Starmer visited Merseyside Police's Headquarters on Cazneau Street for an operational briefing with Deputy Chief Constable Chris Green, Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims, Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram and Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell.
In a message delivered following the incident, he thanked the police and emergency services for their "swift and ongoing response to this shocking incident."
Merseyside Police has confirmed a 53-year-old man was arrested after a car collided with pedestrians, leaving almost 80 people injured in Liverpool city centre during Liverpool FC's victory parade on Monday.
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf has taken a North Korea-inspired swipe at Labour following Angela Rayner's claim that his party "voted against workers" by not voting for her Employment Rights Bill.
"Labour’s Employment Rights Bill was in employees’ interests in the same way the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic," Yusuf jabbed.
"Thankfully, people see through it."
Angela Rayner has lashed out at Reform UK after Nigel Farage laid out plans to restore the winter fuel allowance
POOL
Angela Rayner has lashed out at Reform UK after Nigel Farage laid out plans to restore the winter fuel allowance and lift the two-child benefit cap in a barnstorming address on Tuesday.
Speaking in Oxford today as she outlined Labour's plans to slash red tape for smaller house-builders, Rayner was probed on whether her party had conceded ground to Farage's.
But she said in response: "Reform says everything on the back of a postage stamp, but really have not proven themselves to govern - and certainly have not said where the finances are coming from.
"We have been really clear. We've got a child poverty task force.
"Housing is a big problem for families these days, not just benefit caps, but we want people in work...That's why I introduced the Employment Rights Bill.
"And guess what? Reform voted against workers by not voting for those reforms in workers' rights."
Independent MP Rupert Lowe has laid down the gauntlet to "animal rights activists" on the left ahead of a debate to ban halal slaughter in Britain.
A petition to outlaw the practice will be debated on June 9 - with proponents of a ban arguing: "We believe non-stun slaughter is barbaric and doesn't fit in with our culture and modern-day values."
It "should be banned, as some EU nations have done", the petition adds.
In response, the Government said it "would prefer all animals to be stunned before slaughter" but respects "the rights of Jews and Muslims to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious beliefs".
And now, Lowe has prodded: "Looking forward to speaking in favour of a ban on halal slaughter in Parliament alongside animal rights activist MPs from Labour, the Greens and Lib Dems... Oh."
Sadiq Khan said: "We need fresh thinking on how to reduce the substantial harms associated with drug-related crime in our communities.
"The independent London Drugs Commission report makes a compelling, evidence-based case for the decriminalisation of possession of small quantities of natural cannabis.
"It also says that the current sentencing for those caught in possession of natural cannabis cannot be justified given its relative harm and people's experience of the justice system.
"Better education, improved healthcare and more effective, equitable policing of cannabis use are long overdue.
"This comprehensive independent report makes a number of recommendations for City Hall, the Government and others.
"We will be studying these recommendations carefully and sharing the report's findings with all the relevant parties, including the Government, local authorities, the Met Police, NHS London and other health and education partners."
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf has hailed this morning's landmark YouGov poll - which placed his party eight percentage points clear of a slumping Labour.
Yusuf said: "Reform opens up a staggering 8pt lead in the latest YouGov voting intention poll. Thank you to all of you who made this happen.
"There is much work still to do, but there is real hope for our country again."
Labour has slumped to its lowest poll rating since Jeremy Corbyn led the party
YOUGOV/PA
Labour has slumped to its lowest rating since Jeremy Corbyn led the party in a damning new poll.
Data from pollsters at YouGov has placed Sir Keir Starmer's party at just 21 percentage points among the British public - the lowest level from the firm since October 2019.
The figures also mean Reform UK has taken its largest lead over Labour to date, having remained stable at 29 per cent to lead the party of Government by eight percentage points.
Across the board, the Tories have gained three points to sit just behind Labour on 19 per cent, while the Greens have gained one to sit at 11 per cent.
The Liberal Democrats have lost two points over the same time period, with the survey carried out between May 26 and 27.
Top-ranking Tories Lord Frost and Nick Timothy have spoken out on Sadiq Khan's call to decriminalise cannabis for personal use.
Timothy, the former Theresa May-adviser-turned-firebrand MP, said: "This guy will do literally anything other than the job he is elected to do. And if it means being even softer on crime than he is, then apparently so much the better."
While ex-Brexit negotiator Frost blasted: "Time to point out the obvious, which is that in large parts of London cannabis already IS effectively decriminalised.
"Near me, and elsewhere, it is smoked and traded with apparent impunity.
"It is what contributes to the sense in many parts of London that the authorities aren't really interested in enforcing the law and indeed aren't really in charge."
Ex-Vote Leave mastermind Dominic Cummings has predicted Nigel Farage could become Prime Minister - but insists the Reform UK leader must listen to his advice if he wants to win the keys to No10.
Cummings, 53, who met with Farage to discuss the inner workings of Whitehall last year, claimed the Clacton MP needs to bring talented figures into Reform’s fold to defeat Sir Keir Starmer.
The former Boris Johnson aide was asked whether Farage could become Prime Minister.
But what did he say?
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has voiced his fury at Labour for failing to plan for the impact of letting offenders roam Britain's streets as part of the party's early release scheme.
He told the BBC: "The Government have got a difficult problem to fix - for a very long period, sentencing policy and prison building policy aren't aligned, heads overcrowded... they’ve got to fix that.
"But the solution that they've come up with involves many, many more offenders being dealt with in communities rather than being in prison.
"That's why they're spending more money on probation. They've done no analysis on the impact on policing. No analysis of that whatsoever.
"That has been settled without any analysis of the impact on policing, the effect on us."
He added that policing "hasn't been designed deliberately since the early 1960s".
"Our model is out of date, we want that change as well as the money to serve the public better," Rowley fumed.
Senior figures in MI5, the NCA, the Metropolitan Police and more have written to Labour saying that prisoners roaming Britain's streets could pose a 'net detriment to public safety'
PA
Labour's controversial early release scheme for offenders could imperil public safety in the UK, police and security agencies have warned.
Senior figures in MI5, the NCA, the Metropolitan Police and more have written to Labour saying that prisoners roaming Britain's streets could pose a "net detriment to public safety" in light of plans to release them just one third of the way into their sentences.
"We have to ensure that out of court does not mean out of justice, and that out of prison does not mean out of control," they vowed in their warning to the Ministry of Justice.
Security bosses have also demanded £300million in Rachel Reeves's looming spending review to "control the additional offending population at large" - and have called for "high-risk offenders" like child abusers to remain behind bars.
"Russian, Iranian and Chinese state-linked actors" - could also be released earlier, the figures said, adding that it is "vital we retain sentencing that provides a strong deterrent" to foreign adversaries.
The letter's signatories, The Times reports, include Met Police head Sir Mark Rowley, the MI5 deputy director-general, NCA director-general Graeme Biggar, Gavin Stephens, the chairman of the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) Gavin Stephens and more.
"On the basis of what we understand at the moment, we are concerned that the proposals could be of net detriment to public safety and certainty to public confidence in policing and the criminal justice system," they said.
"We are not arguing for the status quo. But we have to ensure that out of court does not mean out of justice, and out of prison does not mean out of control."
A Tory shadow minister has told Labour to "take responsibility" for Britain's prisons as she distanced her own party from an ongoing overcrowding crisis.
Shadow Work & Pensions Secretary Helen Whately said: "I think the Government needs to sort this out and make sure that there is the prison space for people who need to be in custodial sentences and take responsibility - they are the guys who are in Government now."
"I wasn't clearly prisons minister myself, but I know that we were working on expanding jail capacity, but the Labour Party won the General Election," she told Times Radio.
"Their job when they were in opposition was to come up with the policies of what they wanted to do when they got in charge."
Her words came just minutes after Labour's Matthew Pennycook blasted the Conservatives' record on prisons.
"They added just 500 places to the prison estate in their time in office, while at the same time, sentence lengths rose, and as a result, we got the prison population rising by approximately 3,000 people each year," he said.
A Labour minister has warned of a "breakdown of law and order" if the Government cannot build enough prisons to house Britain's offenders.
Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said this morning: "We're heading back to zero capacity. If we run out of capacity, courts will be forced to suspend trials, the police will have to halt arrests, crimes will go unpunished.
"We'll essentially be in a breakdown of law and order, so while we're trying to add prison places as fast as we can as a Government - and we've already created 2,400 since taking office, allocated an additional £4.7billion to prison building, putting us on track to hit 14,000 places by 2031 - we can’t build our way out of this particular crisis we've inherited."
Speaking to Times Radio, he added: "Sentencing reform is necessary, and we're taking steps to ensure the most dangerous offenders are kept off our streets, and that offenders who are released early are tagged and are monitored closely in the community - there's an increase of £700million in probation funding to achieve that."
Nigel Farage has jumped into a five-point lead over Sir Keir Starmer among Red Wall voters, polling exclusively shared with GB News has revealed.
The polling, conducted by Merlin Strategy, found Tory support has more than halved since Boris Johnson won his 80-seat majority in December 2019.
The polls looked at 1,000 voters in "Red Wall" Seats, defined as the 42 parliamentary constituencies the Conservative Party won in the 2019 General Election which had traditionally been held by the Labour Party.
But what did voters think?
'Killers and rapists will have their sentence slashed. It's a recipe for a crime wave,' Robert Jenrick fumed
PAShadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has branded Labour's early release scheme a "recipe for a crime wave" following the news that UK security chiefs have written to the MoJ.
"MI5, NCA and the MET Police ALL warn Labour's plan to cut sentences risks public safety. This is unprecedented," he said.
"Up to 43,000 criminals could escape a prison sentence under Starmer's plans.
"Killers and rapists will have their sentence slashed. It's a recipe for a crime wave."
The Ministry of Justice, responding to today's letter from police chiefs and MI5, said: "This Government inherited prisons in crisis, close to collapse.
"We will never put the public at risk by running out of prison places again.
"We are building new prisons, on track for 14,000 places by 2031 - the largest expansion since the Victorians.
"Our sentencing reforms will force prisoners to earn their way to release or face longer in jail for bad behaviour, while ensuring the most dangerous offenders can be kept off our streets.
"We will also increase probation funding by up to £700 million by 2028-29 to tag and monitor tens of thousands more offenders in the community."
