Starmer condemns Farage for failing to take action over Sarah Pochin’s ‘racism’
Keir Starmer has also said that the Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin was being “racist” when she said “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”.
In an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg yesterday, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, repeatedly refused to describe Pochin’s comments as racist – although he did do so in an interview later in the day.
Asked if Pochin was being racist in what she said, Starmer told broadcasters:
Yes, she was.
It’s shocking racism and it’s the sort of thing that will tear our country apart, and it tells you everything about Reform.
Nigel Farage has got some questions to answer, because either he doesn’t consider it racist, which in my view is shocking in itself, or he does think it’s racist and he’s shown absolutely no leadership.
I’m the prime minister of the whole of our country, our reasonable, tolerant, diverse country, and I want to serve the whole country.
He can’t even call out racism.
Asked whether she should have the whip removed, he said:
[Farage] needs to take action, it’s not a question of just the whip, this is shocking racism, it has to be dealt with and it should be rooted out of his party.
And the question for Nigel Farage is, why has he shown absolutely no leadership on this?
Keir Starmer being greeted on his arrival in Ankara, Turkey, today. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesShare
Key events
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16m ago
Judge would have thrown out China spy case before it even went to jury, DPP claims, given lack of key security evidence
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37m ago
Stephen Parkinson, DPP, tells MPs that ‘nothing reached’ him to suggest government wanted China spy case to fail
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43m ago
Lammy says he was ‘livid’ about accidental release of Epping sex offender
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53m ago
MPs to question DPP, deputy national security adviser and cabinet secretary on collapse of China spy case
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55m ago
Reeves suggests that spending cuts, as well as tax rises, could be needed to ensure budget sums add up
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1h ago
Meta and X won’t deal with abuse problem on their platforms unless they are forced to do so by law, say MPs
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2h ago
Farage claims ‘DEI industry has gone crackers’ – as he ducks question about whether he wants fewer black actors in TV ads
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2h ago
Farage suggests he is not in favour of parlimaent ‘hounding’ Prince Andrew
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2h ago
Farage claims people overstating extent to which Caerphilly byelection result showed tactical voting against Reform
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3h ago
Farage suggests he would have suspended whip from Pochin if he thought she was intentionally racist
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3h ago
Farage says Pochin’s comment was ‘ugly’, and he’s not happy about it, but he does not think her intention was racist
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3h ago
Farage says grooming gangs inquiry should be carried out quickly by parliamentary committee or commission
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3h ago
Farage says grooming gangs scandal driven by racism, and establishment has responded with ‘cowardice and neglect’
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3h ago
Farage holds press conference
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3h ago
Starmer condemns Farage for failing to take action over Sarah Pochin’s ‘racism’
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4h ago
Starmer says he’s ‘frustrated and angry’ by asylum hotel ‘mess’ left by Tories
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4h ago
Two Reform UK councillors in Kent expelled from party after suspension
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4h ago
No 10 says accidental release of Epping sex offender another sign of ‘justice system crisis inherited by this government’
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5h ago
Labour challenges Farage to withdraw whip from Sarah Pochin over ‘racist’ comment about black and Asian people in TV ads
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5h ago
Labour’s decision to cut time refugees get to find alternative housing ‘extremely disappointing’, committee says
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6h ago
What Commons home affairs committee said about Home Office’s ‘chaotic’ asylum hotels policy under Tories
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7h ago
Social landlords in England now forced to fix emergencies within 24 hours
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7h ago
Green party calls for Home Office to be broken up, saying seperate department should handle migration
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Paul Boateng, the Labour peer and former cabinet minister, goes next.
Q: Was anything said by “senior people” led you to reconsider the evidence?
Parkinson said it was just counsel and colleagues in the CPS who took this decision.
The attorney general was informed of the decision to drop the case. He was not consulted.
Parkinson said they told the AG that the CPS could not satisfy the “enemy” requirement under the law.
Boateng says China was deemed a threat to the integrity of the UK’s democratic institutions. He asks how that meant it would not be a threat.
Parkinson says that is a question they should ask the DNSA, who is giving evidence later.
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Q: Why did you not put this to a judge anyway?
Little says it would not be proper to refer the case to a judge if the CPS did not believe it had the right evidence.
Tom Little at JCNSS Photograph: HoCShare
Judge would have thrown out China spy case before it even went to jury, DPP claims, given lack of key security evidence
Emily Thornberry, a barrister and chair of the foreign affairs committee, is asking the questions now.
She suggests that the evidence should have persuaded a jury that China was an enemy.
Parkinson says that may have been the case when they charged. But the case law changed as a result of the Roussev case (a Bulgarian/Russian spy trial).
He says Roussev meant the CPS had to show that the totality of the threats meant China was a threat to national security.
So the CPS asked for more. They asked for a statement from the DNSA.
But it turned out this was not just “a sticking point”, but a “critical difference”.
Q: But the court of appeal said they were not redefining the word enemy, and they were going to apply the word enemy in “a common sense way”. That means leaving it up to the jury, doesn’t it? The Roussev judgment was not imposing a restrictive definition.
Parkinson disputes this. The CPS felt it had to act within the ambit of the court of appeal ruling.
Thornberry repeats her point – that the CPS should have put this to a jury.
Parkinson says the CPS’s assessment was that this would never get to a jury.
He says their only witness was not willing to say China was an active threat.
Stephen Parkinson at JCNSS Photograph: HoCShare
Tom Little KC, first senior Treasury counsel and the barrister instructed to prosecute the case, said he realised they have to drop the case when the deputy national security adviser told them that he was not willing to say in evidence that China posed a risk to national security at the relevant time.
Parkinson said, on the basis of that, the CPS concluded that the judge would not have allowed the case to go before the jury.
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Parkinson says the prosecution failed because the CPS did not have the evidence it needed.
He said, as a result of changes to the case law after the two accused were charged, the CPS had to prove that China posed an active threat to national security.
He sets out this case in more detail in his letter to the committee.
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Stephen Parkinson, DPP, tells MPs that ‘nothing reached’ him to suggest government wanted China spy case to fail
At the joint committe, Stephen Parkinson, the DPP, is now giving evidence.
Matt Western, the chair, is asking questions.
Q: Who do you think is to blame for this prosecution failing?
Parkinson started by saying how “disappointed” he was that this case failed.
He goes on:
If I may say so, I don’t think it is a question of blame. The responsibility of prosecutors is to place cases before the court on the basis of sufficient evidence to secure conviction.
And ultimately, the issue in this case is that we were not able to provide the evidence to sustain the case in respect of one essential element, which is the evidence that China was an enemy, as was required, by the statute.
Q: Did you ever get the feeling that the government wanted this case to fail?
Parkinson replied: “Nothing reached me [to that effect].”
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Lammy says he was ‘livid’ about accidental release of Epping sex offender
Lammy told MPs that he was “livid” on behalf of Hadush Kebatu’s vicitms about his accidental release.
He went on:
This was a mistake that should not have happened. But victims expect better. The public expects better at this. Government expects better from [this] critical public service.
He said Kebatu would be deported imminently.
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David Lammy, the justice secretary and deputy PM, is making a Commons statement about the mistaken release of the Epping sex offender Hadush Kebatu. There is a live feed here.
UK Justice Minister Lammy makes statement on wrongly-released asylum seeker – watch liveShare
MPs to question DPP, deputy national security adviser and cabinet secretary on collapse of China spy case
The joint committee on the national security strategy is about to start a hearing on the collapse of the China spy case.
The Conservatives have been attacking the govenrment over this for weeks now, at first implying the government deliberately lent on the Crown Prosecution Service to get the prosecution dropped, before settling on the claim that the government sabotaged the prosecution by instead withholding the evidence that the CPS needed.
Ministers have strongly denied this. But, until now, we have not heard much from the key decision makers.
There are four witnesses being questioned today.
From 4.30pm: Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions, and Tom Little KC, lead counsel in the case.
From 5.30pm: Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser (DNSA), and Sir Chris Wormald, the cabinet secretary.
The government has published three witness statements submitted by the DNSA: the first from December 2023, the second from February 2025 (but dated 2024 by mistake) and the third from August 2025.
Parkinson and Wormald have both sent letters to the committee responding to their questions. Those letters, and others submitted as part of this inquiry, are here.
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Reeves suggests that spending cuts, as well as tax rises, could be needed to ensure budget sums add up
Rachel Reeves will reportedly have to find at least £20bn to make her sums add up in the budget next month. Much of the coverage about her budget options has assumed that she will use tax rises to fill the gap. But she has at least once suggested the spending cuts could play a part and, in an interview with the BBC today, she has again suggested that spending cuts could be part of the mix. She said:
We are looking, of course, at tax and spending to ensure that we both have resilience against future shocks by ensuring we’ve got sufficient headroom, and also just ensuring that those fiscal rules are adhered to.
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Alan Collins, a partner at the law firm Bolt Burdon Kemp dealing with abuse claims, has released a statement saying that Nigel Farage’s plan to get parliament to carry out the grooming gangs inquiry (see 2.22pm) is “interesting”, but not realistic. He explains.
Farage’s suggestion calling for the grooming gangs inquiry to be scrapped and replaced by a parliamentary inquiry is certainly an interesting idea, but one that would only work if there was political consensus and that looks doubtful at the moment.
Ultimately, survivors are not going to work with any inquiry if there is political wrangling, and survivor buy-in is essential for any inquiry to work.
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Meta and X won’t deal with abuse problem on their platforms unless they are forced to do so by law, say MPs
A report has called for stronger oversight of social media platforms under the Online Safety Act to end abuse and intimidation towards MPs, PA Media reports. PA says:
The report by a cross-party group of MPs sought to identify how “public attitudes towards politicians and inconsistencies in the criminal justice system” have contributed to the “normalisation of abuse and intimidation towards MPs”.
It calls for stronger oversight of social media platforms under the Online Safety Act 2023, including the introduction of an elections code of practice by Ofcom.
The report, compiled by the Speaker’s Conference on the security of MPs, candidates and elections, states: “Despite the steps Meta and X have taken to mitigate some of the problems with abuse on their platforms, abusive content continues to be an issue.
“Their failure to address the larger underlying issues that drive abuse demonstrates that they do not properly understand the damaging impact they are having on democracy in the UK.
“We have no faith that Meta and X will resolve these issues unless they are legally obliged to do so.”
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During his press conference Nigel Farage dismissed claims that Plaid Cyrmu’s bigger-than-expected victory over Reform UK in the Caerphilly suggested that Reform has peaked. (See 3.11pm.)
Rob Ford, a political professor, has just published a long, and excellent, analysis of the Caerphilly result in a post on his Swingometer Substack blog and he makes a similar point. He says:
Though the snap verdict is one of Welsh voters rejecting Reform, the underlying figures suggests this is another strong result for the rising force of the right. Farage’s various parties of the radical right – Ukip, the Brexit party and Reform – have stood nine times in Welsh byelections since Ukip first appeared on the ballot in the contest to replace Neil Kinnock in Islwyn in 1995. The best previous vote share is Ukip’s 15.4% in Ogmore in 2016, while the biggest rise was UKIP’s 14.3 point rise from a standing start in Ynys Mon in 2013. Reforms’s 36% vote share and 34 point rise in Caerphilly smash both these records. Reform also registered a major advance on the 20% the party won in the equivalent Westminster seat last July, and their 16 point gain last week is roughly in line with their rise in GB-wide opinion polls.
This chart illustrates this paragraph.
Ukip, Brexit party and Reform UK performances in Welsh byelections Photograph: Rob Ford’s SubstackShare
Five Reform UK councillors on Cornwall county council, including the former leader of the group, have left the party to sit as part of the independent group, CornwallLive reports. As a result, the Liberal Democrats have replaced Reform as the biggest part on the council.
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Farage claims ‘DEI industry has gone crackers’ – as he ducks question about whether he wants fewer black actors in TV ads
Q: Do you want advertising companies to use fewer black actors?
Farage replied:
I’m just not going to demean myself by answering that, other than to say the DEI industry has gone crackers – you know it, I know it, we all know it, that’s where we are.
And that was the final question.
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Updated at 11.26 EDT
Farage suggests he is not in favour of parlimaent ‘hounding’ Prince Andrew
Q: Do you think parliament should get involved in scrutinising Prince Andrew’s finances?
Farage said that Andrew had renounced his dukedom and would be looking for a new home, probably somewhere sunny.
He said that, if Andrew were to “fight back” and start reusing his title, that would be different.
But he said “hounding people” like Andrew was not a priority for him.
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Farage claims people overstating extent to which Caerphilly byelection result showed tactical voting against Reform
Q: Do you think the Caerphilly byelection result last week shows that support for Reform UK has peaked?
Farage said that Plaid Cymru did very well because their candidate was very well known, having been a councillor for decades. So he thinks people are over-stating the extent to which this was a tactical vote against Reform, he said.
He also said that, if a result like that were replicated in the Senedd elections next year (which are being held under a PR system), Plaid and Reform would both end up with three Senedd members. “So I can’t be disappointed by that in any way,” he said.
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Updated at 11.11 EDT
Q: [To Ellie-Ann Reynolds] Is there anything the government could do to get you to rejoin to the grooming gangs inquiry oversight panel?
Reynolds said, after what had happened, she would not touch it again “with a 10-foot bargepole”.
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