‘Open season’ for small boats after Rwanda killed, warns former immigration chief

Today’s live coverage has ended. Here’s a roundup of the day’s events: 

• Sir Keir Starmer said the Government needed to be “bold” in pushing power out of Westminster as he announced meetings with regional metro mayors. 
• Nigel Farage said he would provide the “real” opposition in the country.
• Sir Keir Starmer said that the Rwanda plan was “dead and buried”.
• The Labour leader gave his first press conference as Prime Minister.
• The new Cabinet held its first meeting.

The Liberal Democrats have won the final seat in the general election, taking Inverness Skye and West Ross-shire from the SNP. 

The outcome had been expected early on Friday morning before candidates were told votes would need to be counted again on Saturday.

A discrepancy between the verified votes total and the provisional number of counted votes was the cause of the delay, Derek Brown, the returning officer, said. 

Stuart Andrew, the former sports minister, has been appointed as the interim Tory chief whip. 

The Conservatives said the move would allow them to hold the Labour Government to account immediately. 

Mr Andrew said: “I am delighted to have been appointed as Opposition chief whip.

“I know there will be much frustration within the party about the disappointing election results we saw this week. Our focus now more than ever must be to come together as a united party.

“We will be ready and willing to provide the strong and effective Opposition to the Government that the British public deserves.”

Shabana Mahmood, the new Justice Secretary, has described her appointment as “the greatest honour of my life” in a post on social media. 

Akshata Murty, the wife of Rishi Sunak, earlier posted an image of her two children and their dog on a walk in the North Yorkshire countryside. Ms Murty captioned the image with the words “My home” alongside a heart-shaped emoji. 

David Lammy is heading to Germany on his first official visit as foreign secretary, a day after being appointed by Sir Keir Starmer. 

According to the BBC, Mr Lammy will meet his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock in Berlin on Saturday evening before travelling to Poland and Sweden on Sunday. 

It is understood that the Foreign Secretary will discuss Nato cooperation and the war in Ukraine. 

Wes Streeting, the new Health Secretary, has said he will work closely with the devolved administrations.

In a post on X, Mr Streeting said: “Following this morning’s Cabinet meeting, I held calls with Health Ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and @jackiebmsp [Scottish Labour’s health spokesperson Jackie Baillie].

“A Labour government in Westminster will be a rising tide that lifts all ships and we’ll work constructively with devolved administrations.”

At his first press conference as Prime Minister earlier, Sir Keir Starmer said the Government needed to be “bold” about giving Whitehall powers to metro mayors. 

Sir Keir said: “The principle I operate to is those with skin in the game know what’s best for their communities.

“And that does require us to be bold about pushing power and resource out of Whitehall.

“And therefore when I return from the four nations, I will hold a meeting of the metro mayors to discuss with them their part in delivering the growth that we need across the United Kingdom.”

He said this would include non-Labour mayors because “regardless of the colour of their rosette, my door is open and my Government will work with them”.

Only one of the UK’s metro mayors is not a Labour politician: Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor. 

Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, has said that he will provide “real” opposition to the Labour Government, both in and outside of Parliament. 

Mr Farage said that Reform would “do what we can with five [MPs] in Parliament”, but added that “what I will do for certain is provide real opposition in the country”. 

The MP for Clacton also hit out at Britain’s ‘first past the post’ voting system. 

“Well, the fact that for every Reform MP there are 800,000 voters, and for every Labour MP there are 30,000 voters suggests something is very badly, fundamentally wrong,” he said. 

He added: “We have five MPs, PR would have given us 97 MPs, but we are where we are.”

Gillian Keegan, the former education secretary, posted an image on social media of herself in sports gear. The caption read: “The fight back to fitness begins.”

Ms Keegan lost her seat in Chichester on July 4 to the Liberal Democrats’ Jess Brown-Fuller. 

Ms Brown-Fuller won with 25,540 votes compared to Ms Keegan’s 13,368.

Nigel Farage has said that Sir Keir Starmer does not have a plan to deal with migrants crossing the English Channel. 

Speaking from Wyldecrest Sports Country Club in Essex, Mr Farage said: “At the minute it’s wild and windy, but we do have some pretty strong first hand accounts that as soon as we get a calm spell, they’ll be crossing the English Channel in their thousands, and let’s face it, Keir Starmer does not have a plan to deal with it.”

Asked for his thoughts on the Prime Minister’s new Cabinet, the Reform UK leader said: “With a couple of exceptions, they are I think the most inexperienced people ever to have got into a British cabinet.”

Nigel Farage has said he aims to “build a mass movement for real change leading up to the next sets of elections”.

The Reform UK leader said: “We will do what we can with five in Parliament, what I will do for certain is provide real opposition in the country.

“And my aim and ambition is to build a mass movement for real change, leading up to the next sets of elections.”

Asked if he had a preference for Conservative Party leader, Mr Farage said: “Honestly, I don’t think it matters who they pick as leader. 

“This party is split down the middle, they call it a broad church, well, it’s a broad church with no common shared religion.”

Nigel met James McMurdock, the MP for South Basildon and Thurrock, at the Wyldecrest Sports Country Club in Essex. 

Mr McMurdock was confirmed as Reform’s fifth MP on Friday evening following a recount in the constituency. 

Sir Keir Starmer has said that he cannot make a commitment on the two child benefit cap. 

He said: “I said some tough things in the campaign because I meant them. And I wasn’t going to do what others had done, which is to say sweet things on the way in only to do a press conference like this and say we can’t do any of that.”

Asked whether he was happy with Amanda Pritchard, the NHS chief executive, the Prime Minister said: “This is not aimed at the chief executive of the NHS. It is a reflection on the failure of leadership of the last government. 

“But it is a raw honesty about the state of the NHS because we will not fix it if we are not honest.

He says it will be tough to hear if you work in the NHS, because they have put a “huge amount in, in difficult circumstances”.

“Our job now is not just to say who broke it - the last government - but to get on and start to fix it.”

More from the Prime Minister on prisons: 

Sir Keir said: “We’ve got too many prisoners, not enough prisons.

“That’s a monumental failure of the last government on any basic view of government to get to a situation where you haven’t got enough prison places for prisoners, doesn’t matter what your political stripe, that is a failure of government.

“It’s a failure of government to instruct the police not to arrest. This has not had enough attention, in my view, but it’s what happened.

“We will fix that, but we can’t fix it overnight and therefore it is impossible to simply say we will stop the early release of prisoners and you wouldn’t believe me if I did say it.”

The Prime Minister said earlier in the press briefing that prisons were “broken”. 

The Prime Minister was asked if he agreed with the James Timpson, the Prisons Minister, who has said that “only a third of inmates should actually be in jail”. 

He replied: “The Prisons Minister has huge experience here and has invested a huge amount over many years in relation to prisons. 

“We need to get away from the fact that for so many people who come out of prison they’re back in prison relatively quickly afterwords. That is a massive problem that we have in this country.”

The Prime Minister has commented on the appointment of Sir Patrick Vallance as a minister for science in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Sir Keir said: “Anybody who knows him, knows his commitment to delivery.”

Sir Keir Starmer has said that he and his family have not yet moved into Number 10 Downing Street, saying they will “soon”.

The Prime Minister was asked during his first press conference if he had yet unpacked his things at the official residence.

“We’re not unpacked quite yet,” the prime minister said. “But we will be soon and we’ll be moving in soon.”

Sir Keir said there was a “bit of work to do before then” citing his trip to Washington for the NATO summit on Tuesday.

“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” the Prime Minister said when asked about the plan. 

“It’s never been a deterrent,” he added. 

More answers from Starmer now in response to reporters’ questions: 

The Government will commit to compensating the victims of the infected blood scandal, Sir Keir said. 

The Prime Minister however declined to set a concrete date for achieving the 2.5% defence spending target. 

The Prime Minister is now taking questions from reporters. 

When asked to name one concrete change that would happen within the first 100 days of his government, Sir Keir Starmer said that the Labour Party will govern according to the principle of “country first, party second”. 

“This is a change that has already happened,” he added. 

“We’re a government of service for people that voted for us or not.”

Sir Keir Starmer has said he will travel to all four nations of the United Kingdom tomorrow to meet first ministers to establish a “different and better” way of working with the devolved administrations. 

More from Sir Keir Starmer at his first press conference as PM:

“We will have mission delivery boards to drive through the changes that we need. 

“We will be judged on actions, not on words. 

“We clearly on Thursday got a mandate from all four nations.”

Sir Keir Starmer has begun his first press conference as Prime Minister. 

“We’re a changed Labour Party, and yesterday we started the work of changing the country,” he began. 

“It’s a mandate not just to govern, although it is certainly that, but it is a mandate that has put trust in us,” he added. 

Steve Reed, the new Secretary of State For Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has said tackling sewage and nature crises “will take years”. 

“There is no sugar-coating it: we face a crisis point,” Mr Reed said. 

“Record levels of sewage in our rivers, lakes and seas. Nature is dying. Confidence amongst farmers at the lowest on record,” he added. 

Ben Butcher, our Data Editor, has crunched the numbers and identified the electoral fault lines that the new Labour Government will have to reckon with. 

These are the seats that tell the story of Labour’s successes, the potential legitimacy crisis facing the party and how the Tories just held off total humiliation. 

You can read the full story here. 

Speaking to his ministers around the Cabinet table, Sir Keir Starmer said: “Look colleagues, it is absolutely fantastic to welcome you to the Cabinet, our first meeting.

“And it was the honour and privilege of my life to be invited by the King, His Majesty the King yesterday to form a government and to form the Labour Government of 2024.

“And now we hold our first Cabinet meeting. So I welcome you to it.

“We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work.”

His introduction was met with applause. 

Suella Braverman is expected to run for leadership of the Conservative Party and was asked about a potential bid by reporters outside her home on Saturday. 

Rishi Sunak has said he would quit as Tory leader once formal arrangements were in place to select his successor.

Sir Keir Starmer has begun his first Cabinet meeting. 

Jeremy Hunt is understood to have ruled himself out of a run for leadership of the Conservative Party. 

The former chancellor has twice run for Tory leadership, firstly in 2019 and then again in 2022. 

It comes as speculation begins as to who will take over from Rishi Sunak, who has said he would step down as soon as formal arrangements to select his successor were in place. 

Earlier, Suella Braverman — who is expected to throw her hat in the ring — said there were “no announcements” to be made. 

The former home secretary is expected to throw her hat into the ring in the contest to replace Rishi Sunak, who said he would quit as leader once formal arrangements were in place to select his successor.

Asked whether she would be the next Tory leader, Ms Braverman told broadcasters outside her home on Saturday: “No announcements. We’ve just got to take our time, we’ve got to figure out what the situation is.”

She continued: “It’s been a really bad result. There’s no two ways about it. Hundreds of excellent Tory MPs have been kicked out of office.”

She went on to criticise Sir Keir Starmer for planning to axe the Rwanda deportation scheme, saying: “Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked.

“But there are big problems on the horizon which will be I’m afraid caused by Keir Starmer.” 

Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, arrives at Downing Street ahead of Sir Keir Starmer’s first Cabinet meeting — and is greeted by GB News’ Christopher Hope. 

Miriam Cates, the former Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, has said the Conservatives lost votes to Reform UK, not the Labour Party. 

She went on to say that the most obvious Conservative failure was immigration, and that that was the topic that voters mentioned most often when she was canvassing. 

“Our vote didn’t go to Labour. In fact, the vote for Labour went down since last time. There’s no great enthusiasm for Labour. But our voters were lost to Reform and then lots of Conservative voters staying at home,” Ms Cates said. 

“Despite there being a Conservative government for the last 14 years, there has still been this long march of progressive ideology through our institutions that people are just not happy with,” she added. 

Miriam Cates was seen as being on the Right of the Tory party and lost her seat, which she had held since 2019, to Labour’s Marie Tidball at the general election on July 4. 

Sir Malcolm Rifkind has said the Conservative Party’s next leader should be “centre-Right”. 

Speaking to Sky News, the former foreign secretary said the party needs to remember its heritage on the centre-Right and choose a leader who would lead from the “centre-Right” and not from either the Right or the centre. 

He went on to say that party members should have less power in choosing the leader.

Sir Malcolm said giving members more power causes issues, as MPs often then do not support the person in charge. 

Jeremy Clarkson has hit out at the new Labour government in his column for The Sun newspaper. 

On Sir Keir Starmer, the former Top Gear presenter wrote: “Yes, he will ruin this little rock in the North Atlantic and he will steal all our money and spend it stupidly.

“And he’ll do nothing to try to stop the boats and he will allow such rampant wokery in the workplace that every employer will up sticks and move to somewhere more sensible. Like North Korea. Or Rockall.

“But hey. It’s not like he’s going to be around for long. Five years? Maybe less. Which in geological time isn’t even measurable. Then we can put everything back together again and pretend he never happened.”

The Liberal Democrats have admitted that they benefitted from the public’s dissatisfaction with the Conservative Party at the general election.

Munira Wilson, the MP for Twickenham, said: “We were very clear that after the previous Conservative government, which was frankly full of chaos and incompetence and had broken the trust of the British people ... we made it very clear to voters that if they wanted to turf out the Tories they had to vote Liberal Democrat and they did.

“So obviously in every election it’s a combination of the two, but I am also confident that our messages around cost-of-living, sewage, health and care did really resonate with voters.”

The party won 71 seats at the election and hopes to increase this to 72 after the recount in the final constituency to declare - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is the second cabinet member to arrive at Downing Street this morning.

Sir Keir Starmer will hold his first press conference as Prime Minister later today.

As reported by the BBC, Sir Keir will take questions from the nation’s media on his first full day in Downing Street.

It comes as part of an attempt to signify a change of style and place an emphasis on accountability in the first part of his tenure.

Sir Keir Starmer is about to hold the first meeting of his Cabinet this morning.

The Prime Minister appointed his top team last night, with Angela Rayner becoming Deputy Prime Minister, Rachel Reeves the first female Chancellor, and David Lammy made Foreign Secretary.

Sir Keir spoke regularly about the importance of “delivery” during the election campaign and told the nation on Friday his “urgent” work to change Britain would start immediately.

Sir Keir made a raft of appointments on his first day at Number 10.

See who made the cut, and what their titles are, below: 

Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, arrives at Downing Street to attend the first cabinet meeting with Keir Starmer.

Ms Rayner carried an umbrella to keep the Saturday drizzle at bay.

Keir Starmer is expected to hold the first meeting of his new Cabinet as he looks to start working on Labour’s manifesto pledges and preparing for a Nato summit next week today.

On Friday, the Prime Minister confirmed Rachel Reeves as Britain’s first woman chancellor, Yvette Cooper as Home Secretary and David Lammy as Foreign Secretary.

Angela Rayner officially became his Deputy Prime Minister and retained the levelling up, housing and communities brief.

We’re bringing you the latest updates today from Keir Starmer’s first full day in office as prime minister.