It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, June 14, 2024
Will Nigel Farage's Reform UK 'beat' the Tories in the election?
With some polling figures putting the Tories and Reform UK nearly neck and neck, could Farage's party really end up with nearly as many MPs as Sunak's?
James Cheng-Morris and Ellen Manning Updated Fri, 14 June 2024 at 4:33 am GMT-6·7-min read Nigel Farage's Reform UK has been steadily closing the gap on the Conservatives in the polls. (Alamy)
Leading pollster John Curtice has poured cold water on suggestions that Reform UK is now beating the Conservative Party in the general election polls.
As representatives from seven parties took prepared to take part in a TV debate on Thursday, a YouGov survey for The Times newspaper said Reform’s support had increased by two points to 19%, putting them ahead of the Tories for the first time.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage took the the opportunity to hail the poll results in the debate, declaring: “We are now the opposition to Labour.”
But Curtice urged caution, insisting that single polls should not be relied on. He told Radio 4's Today programme: "This is one poll - we’ve actually, I think, had four other polls published in the last 24 hours - none of which have had Reform ahead, not even all of which have had Reform gaining ground, but quite a couple of them certainly suggesting it’s also got very close."
He said it may not be the case that Reform are ahead - and could be on average four or five points behind. But he said: "This is still bad news for the Conservatives. The only way Rishi Sunak can hope to get even to base camp in narrowing the lead that Labour have started off with this campaign was to squeeze the Reform vote."
He added: "Rather than making progress, things are actually going backwards, not least of course because of Nigel Farage’s decision to fight this campaign."
With many speculating that Reform UK with Farage at the helm could "beat" the Tories, Yahoo News UK takes a look. What do the latest polls say?
With Labour well ahead on 38%, the Tories are trailing on 18% – compared to a high of 53% under Boris Johnson in 2020 – with Reform UK just behind on 17% and the Liberal Democrats on 15%.
However, there are multiple polls taking place at any one time by a number of different companies.
According to the PA news agency, an average of all polls that were carried out wholly or partly during the seven days to June 13 puts Labour on 43%, 21 points ahead of the Conservatives on 22%, followed by Reform on 14%, the Lib Dems on 10% and the Greens on 6%.
And while Reform’s average is up one percentage point on the figure for the previous week and the Tories are down one point, there is still an eight-point gap, on average, between the two. Could Reform UK get more MPs than the Tories?
Unless something remarkable happens, in short: 'No' - and that's because of the first past the post (FPTP) voting system in which the candidate with the largest number of votes in their constituency is elected.
According to the Electoral Reform Society, which is against FPTP, this system leads to a situation where “even if millions of voters support the same party, if they are thinly spread out across the UK they may only get the largest number of votes in a couple of these contests – so only win a few MPs".
“Tens of thousands of voters supporting a different party, but who live near each other, could end up with more MPs. This means the number of MPs a party has in parliament rarely matches their popularity with the public.” Rishi Sunak on the campaign trail on Wednesday. (AFP via Getty Images)
Farage knows this well. As the leader of UKIP in the 2015 election, he saw his party win 12.6% of the nationwide vote and one seat. The Liberal Democrats won 7.9% of the vote... and eight seats.
Indeed, YouGov last week released a poll – put together using the multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) surveying technique, from a sample size of nearly 60,000 respondents – which suggested the Tories would win just 140 seats, having won 365 in 2019. But this is still 140 more than the zero it projected Reform UK to win, in spite of its strong polling figures.
The model had Reform UK "performing strongly in a number of seats but still a long way off winning in any", with projected second-placed finishes in 27 constituencies.
YouGov's MRP projection. (YouGov)
Granted, this model was formed between 24 May and 1 June, before Farage's headline-grabbing intervention on Monday last week in which he announced he would be standing as an MP.
But, even as Reform UK polls closer than ever to the Tories, it's difficult to imagine the party winning more than a handful of seats.
Chris Hopkins, director at polling firm Savanta, told Yahoo News UK that in one respect, Reform UK is at an advantage compared to Ukip in 2015 because "Ukip took votes from both Labour and the Conservatives, and we are not seeing that with Reform UK – they are all coming from the Conservatives.
"That is the consequence of Rishi Sunak making immigration a centrepiece of the campaign and failing to deliver on it. Even if you have voters that are neutral on immigration, they would say the small boats policy has been a disaster."
But even so, Hopkins said, Reform UK is still "at a huge electoral disadvantage" in that its votes are not very concentrated, they are very evenly spread.
"There are going to be some races where Reform UK is strong - the Nigel Farage factor in Clacton is really interesting - but realistically its ceiling is five seats: and that’s a high ceiling." Could the Lib Dems be the official opposition party?
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey on a campaign visit in Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, on Wednesday. (PA)
Like Reform UK, Sir Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrats are performing well in the polls.
In a sign of how defensive the Tory campaign is becoming, one online party advert claims voting for Reform UK or the Lib Dems could give Labour 100 extra seats, resulting in the biggest majority in its history.
It depicts a scenario where the Conservatives are beaten into third place behind the Lib Dems, with just 57 seats, despite getting 19% of the vote and without Reform winning a single seat.
However, it remains unlikely the Lib Dems will finish second. YouGov’s MRP poll projected the party performing strongly, winning 48 seats. This would be up 37 from 2019, but still nowhere near the Tories’ projected 140.
However, amid all this talk about projections, it’s worth remembering they are still only polls and not a definite indicator of how people will vote on 4 July. The 1992 and 2015 elections are notable examples of how polling didn’t match the end results of Tory wins. What is proportional representation?
Proportional representation, as defined by the UK parliament, is an electoral system "in which the distribution of seats corresponds closely with the proportion of the total votes cast for each party. For example, if a party gained 40% of the total votes, a perfectly proportional system would allow them to gain 40% of the seats."
This differs from the first past the post system, as set out above, in that a relatively high vote share rarely corresponds with increased seats for the smaller parties. In 2019, for example, the Lib Dems won 11.5% of the vote but only 1.7% – 11 – of the 650 seats.
Unsurprisingly, both Reform UK and the Lib Dems support proportional representation.
The Lib Dems this week made it part of their manifesto, with the party saying it would introduce the single transferrable vote method, a form of proportional representation which allows electors to rank their preference of candidates on the ballot.
The party previously sought to change the UK’s voting system while in the coalition government under then-leader Nick Clegg, but voters rejected the plan in a 2011 referendum.
'You're lying, Nigel': Oldham street cleaner grills Farage over claim there are 'streets in town where nobody speaks English'
Charlotte Hall Thu, 13 June 2024 -Credit: (Image: PA)
A street cleaner from Oldham challenged Nigel Farage following comments he made about streets in Oldham where he claimed 'no one speaks English'. The man, named only as Mike, called Nick Ferrari's LBC show this morning (Thursday) and accused the Reform UK leader of lying.
It comes after Oldhamers defended their hometown and dubbed Mr Farage's comments 'stupid and inaccurate' following his appearance on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on June 4.
Mike said: "I think you're talking a pack of lies, Nigel. You made a statement, you [could] name a street that can't speak English. The last 10 years of my working life, I've worked for Oldham street cleaning. And the biggest Asian area is Glodwick.
"Now I don't know a street in Glodwick where the whole population couldn't speak English. Many people couldn't, but not the whole street."
Mr Farage claimed he was 'very clear' people in the healthcare industry had told him 'the numbers not even bothering to learn English were alarming'. Mr Ferrari challenged the politician, saying: "But this gentleman works in Oldham, surely he knows better than you."
Oldham streets (stock image) -Credit:Sean Hansford | Manchester Evening News
Mahbub Alom, 33, laughed at Mr Farage's comments and said: "It's a joke... a bad joke. As a local shopkeeper, I know better than anyone else. I serve the Pakistani, Bengali and even Jamaican. For anybody who believes Farage, tell them to come and visit, see for yourself."
Teacher Adila Rafa, 25, said MR Farage's comment was 'just bullsh**'. "There are schools on every corner, and surely we get educated and learn the language," she said. "We need people to stop believing stupidity."
Samir Reman, 47, felt the town said: "We're three to four generations in now, though. Everyone has been born, raised and educated in this country. If you spoke to me over the phone, you wouldn't even think I was Asian."
UK
Labour consider biggest Whitehall shake-up in decades as Keir Starmer strives to deliver key manifesto pledges
Kate Devlin Fri, 14 June 2024 at 7:10 am GMT-6·3-min read
The move could see the Labour leader heading up new groups designed to cut through civil service silos and delays.
Under the plans Labour could force departments to work together under ‘boards’ designed to pursue its “missions” for government, the Financial Times reports.
These missions include creating economic growth, rebuilding the NHS, investment in green energy and tackling crime.
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer launches his party’s manifesto at Co-op HQ in Manchester (PA Wire)
The boards would make use of private sector expertise, in what could be seen as a controversial move, under plans reportedly being overseen by Sue Gray, the former senior Whitehall official who carried out the Partygate report into Boris Johnson.
Sir Keir has already signalled that his promises to change the country will not happen overnight. The Labour leader has consistently warned that the UK needs a decade of national renewal, as he argued his party would be the best to lead that.
And more than halfway through the campaign, Labour appears on course for a comfortable trek to Downing Street. The party remains more than 20 points ahead of the Tories in many opinion polls, after a disastrous few weeks for Rishi Sunak.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff was a top civil servant who wrote the Partygate report into Boris Johnson (Liam McBurney/PA) (PA Wire)
Tom Baldwin, a former Labour communications director and Starmer’s biographer, told the FT he expected a piecemeal approach to any changes, adding: “Keir Starmer and Sue Gray tend to feel their way towards solutions. If one thing doesn’t work, they try something else and become progressively more radical, but always for pragmatic reasons.”
Alex Thomas, programme director at the Institute for Government think-tank, said: “If they went for a full-fat version, which gave missions their own budgets with a named responsible official, that would be radical — the biggest change to how the civil service and government have been organised for several decades.”
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow paymaster general, has been working for months to test the party’s policies and assess any potential pitfalls.
The Conservatives have vowed to axe 72,000 civil service jobs, but Labour has declined to match this. Rishi Sunak has had a disastrous election campaign (Christopher Furlong/PA Wire)
Mr Sunak has had a difficult start to the election campaign.
At the weekend he faced claims he had gone into hiding after he was forced to make a grovelling apology for leaving the D-Day commemorations early to take part in a TV interview.
The Tory leader was also ridiculed for claiming his family had had to go without Sky TV when he was a child.
Labour Party Manifesto Key Points: Keir Starmer Promises To 'Stop The Chaos' Of Tory Rule
Ned Simons Thu, 13 June 2024 OLI SCARFF via Getty Images
Keir Starmer launched Labour’s general election manifesto on Thursday as he pledge to “change” the country if he becomes prime minister.
In keeping with Labour’s cautious approach to the campaign, there are no big headline grabbing surprises in the 133-page document.
But Starmer defended the manifesto from suggestions it was too boring to capture the imagination of voters.
“I’m running as a candidate to be prime minister, not a candidate to run a circus,” he said. Here are some of the key points: Anthony Devlin via Getty Images
At the core of Labour’s plan sits its “fiscal rules”. These are (1) to move the current budget into balance so day-to-day costs are met by revenues and (2) that debt must be falling as a share of the economy by the fifth year of the forecast.
A promise to cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more appointments each week, during evenings and weekends, paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes.
There will be 8,500 additional mental health staff recruited.
A total of 6,500 new teachers will be recruited in “key subjects” to set children up for life, work and the future, paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools.
There will be 3,000 new primary school-based nurseries.
Free breakfast clubs in every primary school.
Planning reform to build 1.5 million new homes and no fault evictions will banned.
The minimum wage age bands will be scrapped so all adults are entitled to the same pay.
More neighbourhood police paid for by “ending wasteful contracts” will be hired to tackle antisocial behaviour.
Launch a new Border Security Command with hundreds of new specialist investigators and use counter-terror powers.
A publicly-owned clean power company, Great British Energy, will be created with the aim of cutting bills and boosting energy security, paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants.
Railways will be brought into public ownership when the existing private contracts expire.
The voting age will be lowered to 16.
Members of the House of Lords will be forced to retire at 80.
Efforts will be made to “rebuild” the UK’s relationship with the EU but there is no mention of any attempt to backtrack on Brexit.
Labour will “set out the path” to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence.
A Labour government will recognise a Palestinian state as “a contribution to a renewed peace process”.
Nigel Farage demands spot on BBC's Question Time live election debate
Farage was speaking after a youGov poll put Reform ahead of the Tories for the first time.
Stuart Henderson Updated Fri, 14 June 2024 Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at The Wellington, in central London, on Friday. (PA)
Nigel Farage has demanded a slot on the BBC's Question Time election debate next week.
The Reform UK leader told a press conference on Friday that one recent poll - which put his party just ahead of the Conservatives for the first time - meant he should share a platform on the BBC's four-way leaders' special on 20 June.
“I think we can demand of right now that the BBC put us into that debate,” he said. "I would also very much like to do a debate head-to-head with Keir Starmer and the reason’s very simple – we think this should be the immigration election.”
Farage also labelled himself “leader of the opposition” during the press conference, held in central London. He also predicted his party would get six million votes. That total would be significantly more than the 3.9 million votes his former party, Ukip, received under his leadership in 2015 when it secured 12.6% of the vote.
The debate next week, hosted by Fiona Bruce, is currently scheduled to include representatives of the UK’s four largest parties: the Conservatives, Labour Party, SNP and Liberal Democrats.
The shock YouGov poll released on Thursday night showed support for Reform at 19%, just ahead of the Tories on 18%.
And while the results of the poll were certainly newsworthy, it is the only poll to date to have Reform ahead of Rishi Sunak's party.
According to the PA news agency, an average of all polls carried out wholly or partly during the seven days to 13 June puts Labour on 43%, 21 points ahead of the Conservatives on 22%, followed by Reform on 14%, the Lib Dems on 10% and the Greens on 6%. (PA)
That means Reform’s average is up one percentage point on the previous week while the Tories are down one point.
And while Reform may be polling higher numbers than the Lib Dems, the UK's first-past-the-post voting system means it is highly unlikely Farage's party will get anywhere near the number of seats being targetted by Ed Davey. The latest prediction based on opinion polls from 05 Jun 2024 to 13 Jun 2024, sampling 19,426 people. (Electoral Calculus)
According to polling experts Electoral Calculus, The Conservatives are projected to win between 42 and 236 seats, the Lib Dems between 34-77 seats, the SNP between 20-38 and Reform way back, with an expected one seat and a possible high of seven.
However, it is clear that Reform UK has continued the renewed momentum sparked when Farage announced he was taking over as leader and would stand for election in the Essex seat of Clacton on 4 June.
An 'utter disaster' for the Tories
The continued rise of the Reform UK is also marked it could potentially spell election disaster for the Conservatives, one of the UK's leading election experts warned in the wake of the YouGov poll.
Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice said Reform's growing support was a "real, real problem for the Conservatives" because nearly all the voters shifting their support were switching from those who had previously backed the Tories in 2019.
“Any chance the Conservatives ever had when they fired the starting gun on May 22 that they might be able to narrow Labour’s lead was predicated on them being able to win back those Reform voters.
“Their failure already to squeeze the Reform vote before Farage entered was itself bad news, and then Farage has boosted it further and made things even worse.
Prof Curtice said the average of recent polls shows backing for Reform at about 15% or 16%, was an “utter disaster for the Conservatives”.
Sunak insisted that voting for Reform UK would be “handing Labour a blank cheque” as he played down the YouGov survey.
But in Friday's press conference, Farage claimed his party was "well ahead" of the Conservatives in several regions including the North East, the North West, the East Midlands, in the West Midlands, as well as in the so-called red wall. Adding to this he said: "The inflection point means that, actually, if you vote Conservative in the red wall, you will almost certainly get Labour. A Conservative vote in the red wall is now a wasted vote." Why Reform will struggle to win any seats – despite beating the Tories in the polls
Ollie Corfe
THE TELEGRAPH Fri, 14 June 2024
One week ago, Nigel Farage voiced his goal for Reform to overtake the Conservatives in the polls.
The poll has Reform on a national vote share of 19 points, with the Conservatives trailing on 18. Labour continues to be way ahead on 37 points.
It is important to note this is just one poll: across 12 pollsters’ latest polls, Reform are averaging on 14 per cent, compared to the Conservatives on 22 per cent.
Reform has seen a jump in support – around 3 to 4 per cent since the election was called.
Despite this, very few experts, including the party itself, predict it will secure more than a handful of seats.
This is because, unlike a party like the Liberal Democrats, support for Reform is spread evenly across the country rather than being concentrated in a small number of seats. So while it can score high in nationwide polls, it may not be able to secure enough support in individual seats to claim success – especially given the UK’s first past the post electoral system. Are Reform on course to win seats in Parliament?
Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Friday, Mr Farage said: “Whatever we do, we may not get the number of seats we deserve, but are we going to win seats in Parliament? Yes.”
The latest YouGov MRP – which polls voting intention in each constituency, surveying some 50,000 people in total – conducted just before Mr Farage took control of the party, had the party on no seats whatsoever.
However, Mr Farage is clearly optimistic that the recent surge in the polls since his return to the helm of Reform will result in the party sending MPs to Westminster.
Hypothetically, Reform will need a much larger percentage of the vote than has been seen so far for his party to secure more than a couple of seats. What constituency swing is needed?
This latest MRP, which uses modelling and constituency-level polling to predict individual seat outcomes, had Labour on 422 MPs to the Conservatives 140 MPs.
On average, across all the seats, Reform secured 10.2 per cent of the vote share in the survey. This left it in second place in 27 seats, but the winner in none.
In a situation where, uniformly across all seats, each vote gained by Reform was stolen solely from the Conservatives, the party would need to see its share increase by 12 points before it started picking up seats.
This is because in the seats where Reform comes second, it is Labour that stands in the way, not the Conservatives and, even where it is in second, it is substantially behind the projected winner.
For example, YouGov’s MRP has support for Reform at its strongest in Barnsley North, at 23 per cent to the Tories’ 7 per cent. If every Conservative voter abandoned the party and threw their weight behind Reform, its share would rise to 30 per cent. It would still lose to Labour, polling there at 48 per cent.
If there was a uniform 12-point swing to Reform in every seat from current polling levels, Reform would return three MPs: Mr Farage in Clacton, Richard Tice in Boston and Skegness and a third in New Forest East.
It would not be until a 15-point swing from the Tories to Reform that it would secure over 10 seats. And a massive 19-point swing would be needed to get them above the Lib Dems, in which case the Conservative party would be left without a single seat.
In a second scenario, where for every two votes Reform steals from the Conservatives, it takes one from Labour, Reform getting an MP elected is more within reach.
In this scenario, Reform gets its first and only seat with an 11-point swing. Interestingly, its first winner isn’t the party leader, but Garry Sutherland in Exmouth and Exeter East.
Lee Anderson would join the Reform victors with a 12-point swing, Mr Farage and Mr Tice after a 14-point swing, and a 17-point swing would see them become the second party on 81 seats. Why is it so difficult?
The bar for becoming a major political party is incredibly high.
This is almost entirely explained by the first-past-the-post system, where parties are punished if their support is distributed widely instead of focused in a small number of seats.
For Reform voters, one point of contention will likely be that the Liberal Democrats, currently trailing them nationwide on 10 per cent of voting intention, are predicted by the YouGov MRP to secure 48 seats.
Crucially, this Liberal Democrat vote share is extremely focused in some areas.
The Liberal Democrats are projected to gain less than 10 per cent of the total vote share in around three quarters of seats across the country. Reform on the other hand is predicted to experience vote share this low in fewer than half of seats.
However, the Lib Dems could see shares of over 30 per cent in around 11 per cent of all seats. Reform is not expected to see this anywhere.
Effectively, this means that while Reform has a more uniform level of middling vote share across seats, the Liberal Democrats experience very high support and very low support.
This feeling is not unique to Reform.
The Greens could have its vote share triple this year and even become the second party with younger parties, but are still only projected to pick up Brighton Pavillion and – maybe – Bristol Central.
Reform UK: Where did party come from and what are its policies?
Sophie Wingate and Ian Jones, PA Fri, 14 June 2024
With a major poll showing Reform UK edging past the Conservatives for the first time, Nigel Farage’s party has the potential to blow up the General Election.
Here the PA news agency answers some key questions on the party.
– Where did Reform UK come from?
It was formed in 2021 as a relaunch of Mr Farage’s previous project, the Brexit Party, which had in turn been founded from the remnants of Ukip.
Mr Farage helped found Ukip in the 1990s, which in later decades ate away at Tory support and proved instrumental in paving the way for the in-out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.
In the aftermath of Brexit, Mr Farage announced he was quitting for a third time as Ukip leader. As the party descended into infighting, amid claims of a sharp turn to the right, he dramatically announced he was returning to the political front line with the formation of the new Brexit Party.
Mr Farage and Richard Tice in 2020 announced the Brexit Party would be renamed Reform as they railed against Covid-19 lockdowns. Unusually, it was set up as an “entrepreneurial political start-up”, with Mr Farage the company’s majority shareholder and honorary president.
Reform remained relatively unknown until recently, despite a major boost with the defection of Tory party deputy chairman Lee Anderson earlier this year.
Lee Anderson defected to Reform while he was the MP for Ashfield (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
Mr Anderson became the party’s first MP following his suspension from the Conservative Party over comments he made about London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
– What happened when the General Election was called?
After Rishi Sunak called the General Election, Mr Farage at first announced he would not stand as a Reform UK candidate, saying he would support his party from the sidelines while focusing on getting Donald Trump re-elected as US president.
But less than two weeks later, he performed a screeching U-turn. Not only would he seek to become the MP for Clacton, but he would do so as leader of Reform UK, replacing former businessman and MEP Mr Tice in the role.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage holding a McDonald’s banana milkshake after one was thrown at him in Essex (James Manning/PA)
Mr Farage, who has failed in his previous seven attempts to be elected to the Commons, said his decision was motivated by a “terrible sense of guilt” towards his supporters as he vowed to lead a “political revolt”.
His takeover came as a huge blow to Mr Sunak’s already faltering campaign, heightening Tory fears that Reform could snatch voters from the right.
Following the veteran Eurosceptic’s decision to stand, celebrated with great fanfare by party backers in the Essex seat he is hoping to win, Reform began to climb in the polls.
– What are Reform’s policies?
The party will fight the election on immigration, pledging an “employer immigration tax” on companies that choose to employ overseas workers instead of British citizens.
This would see businesses paying a national insurance “premium” of 20% of an employee’s salary, as opposed to 13.8%, if the worker is from overseas.
The party has vowed to freeze lawful immigration with the exception of healthcare and leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
On the economy, Reform has set out an ambition to slash £91 billion off public spending by stopping the Bank of England paying interest on quantitative easing reserves and finding £50 billion of wasteful spending in Whitehall.
It has promised there would be no tax on earnings under £20,000 a year.
Reform has also said it would abolish the Government’s net zero targets and “stand up for British culture, identity and values”.
The party is set to unveil its full manifesto on Monday June 17.
– How have Reform’s poll ratings changed since the campaign began?
On the day Mr Sunak called the election, Reform was averaging 11% in the opinion polls.
The party remained around this level until the first week of June, when – a few days after Mr Farage announced he was standing as a candidate – its average poll rating began to climb and currently stands at 15%, six points behind the Conservatives’ average of 21%.
While most polls published in the past two weeks show a clear rise in support for Reform, there is no agreement among them over how the party is faring in relation to the Conservatives.
Only one poll so far has put Reform ahead of the Tories. The YouGov poll put Reform at 19% to the Tories’ 18% in voting intention, although pollsters caveated that Reform’s lead is within the margin of error.
Five other polls have been published in the past 24 hours, all of which show Reform trailing the Conservatives between one percentage point (Redfield & Wilton) and 12 points (More in Common).
– So what are Reform’s chances in the election?
Mr Farage has been bullish about Reform’s chances, expressing hope the party can “get through the electoral threshold” while declining to put a target on the number of seats he believes it could win.
But the first-past-the-post electoral system means the party could gain millions of votes without taking a single constituency. Nigel Farage and Richard Tice announcing their party’s economic policy (James Manning/PA)
Nonetheless, Reform could have a big impact on the result by taking votes away from the Conservatives and costing Tory candidates closely contested seats.
Mr Farage’s stated ambition is to engineer a reverse takeover of the Conservative Party to form a new centre-right grouping.
He has hinted at the possibility of striking an election deal with the Tories, although Mr Tice dismissed the comments as “banter”.
In 2019, the then-Brexit Party withdrew candidates in seats across the country in a bid to help then-Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson win.
What does Reform UK stand for? Their history and vision under Nigel Farage
Dominic Penna
THE TELEGRAPH Fri, 14 June 2024 Since rebranding itself in 2020, Reform UK has become a formidable force on the political scene
Founded in 2021 as a relaunch of the Brexit Party, Reform UK stands almost neck and neck with the Conservatives in the wake of Nigel Farage shock announcement that he will stand as an MP and the party’s leader.
They are on track to cost the Conservatives a significant proportion of voters from the political Right ahead of the looming general election on July 4, edging one point ahead of the Prime Minister’s party for the first time in the latest figures from YouGov.
Already, the party has faced pivotal change throughout their campaign with co-founder Mr Farage returning to front-line politics to lead a “political revolt” aimed at toppling the Conservative Party after replacing Richard Tice, a former businessman and MEP who has led the party since 2021.
His pledge came as a surprise to most given Mr Farage had previously ruled out standing in the general election in his first campaign speech on May 23, promising to support Mr Tice from the sidelines instead.
Reform gained its first MP in March after Lee Anderson, a former deputy chairman of the Tory Party, defected following his suspension over a row about Sadiq Khan.
Mr Tice and Mr Farage announced the Brexit Party would become Reform on Nov 1 2020 in an article for The Telegraph published at the start of the second Covid lockdown.
They used the joint article to declare “lockdowns don’t work” and instead advocated a policy of “focused protection” for the most vulnerable. They also called for sweeping reform of major institutions beyond the pandemic.
Reform stood candidates at the London Assembly, Scottish Parliament and Senedd elections in 2021. Though failing to pick up any seats, the party gathered just over 42,500 supporters across all three elections.
The party’s backing in the polls remained largely static throughout 2021, averaging around three percentage points, although it had risen to an average of 6 per cent by the end of 2022 amid growing public frustration with the Conservative Party in the wake of the deposition of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
The party’s fortunes improved vastly during 2023 and the early months of 2024, with average support for Reform almost doubling from 6 per cent in January 2023 to 10.1 per cent at the start of March.
The rise of Reform can be attributed to a combination of the party’s policy offer and fortuitous circumstances. Reform UK policies
On the economic front, it has promised sweeping cuts to levies including corporation tax and inheritance tax at a time when Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are overseeing the country’s highest tax burden since the Second World War, with a further peak projected later this decade.
Despite successive Conservative governments promising to cut immigration, net migration reached record levels in 2022 and previous Reform leader Mr Tice has cited this “betrayal” by the Tory government of its past manifesto pledges as a driving force behind his party’s success.
Research from the More in Common think tank in February 2022 found that immigration was the main reason 2019 Tory voters were defecting to Reform, with around one in five of those who backed Boris Johnson and his party at the last election expected to support Mr Farage.
Reform’s promises on border control include “net zero immigration”, leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – a demand made by many Tory backbenchers, and a popular idea among the party’s grassroots – and declaring illegal immigration as a national security threat.
On May 30, the party announced plans to introduce a migrant tax that would force employers to pay a higher National Insurance (NI) rate on foreign workers.
Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Tice pledged a 20 per cent National Insurance rate for every foreign worker in comparison to the current 13.8 per cent for domestic British workers.
The party has also vowed to abolish the Government’s flagship net zero targets, claiming that the green push is doing more damage to the British economy than anything else.
There was a further bounce in support for Reform following Mr Sunak’s November reshuffle, in which Suella Braverman was sacked as Home Secretary over her criticism of pro-Palestinian protests, which she dubbed “hate marches”.
The same reshuffle took Westminster by surprise with the return of Lord Cameron as the new Foreign Secretary, a move that angered many on the Tory Right as the former prime minister is widely perceived to be on the liberal wing of the party.
Mr Tice told GB News at the time: “The truth is our server has almost exploded with fury at what’s happened today with the return of David Cameron. Let’s remember this is the gentleman who campaigned against Brexit, and almost everything he did on foreign policy was wrong.”
As a result of its outflanking of the Conservatives on the Right in many policy areas and channelling the disillusionment of traditional Tories with its rhetoric, the party may well have an even greater impact at the next general election than in 2019, when it stood aside from seats held by Mr Johnson’s Tory candidates.
Now commanding the support of around one in ten voters, the party could block Mr Sunak from winning in dozens of seats he may otherwise retain.
Hard-right Reform UK leapfrogs Tories for first time in poll
Peter HUTCHISON Fri, 14 June 2024 a Nigel Farage's Reform UK party leap-frogged Rishi Sunak's Conservatives in an opinion poll (Darren Staples)
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday played down a "seismic" poll suggesting that his Conservative party has fallen behind the hard-right anti-immigration Reform UK group for the first time.
But a senior Tory insisted that the YouGov survey was a "stark warning" that the main opposition Labour party was on track for a landslide win at next month's general election.
"The only poll that matters is the one on July 4," Sunak told British media in Italy, where he was attending the G7 leaders' meeting.
The new poll, conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, shows Brexiteer Nigel Farage's Reform with 19 percent support, compared to the Conservatives' 18 percent. Both are trailing far behind the centre-left Labour party.
"The fact that Nigel Farage's party are neck and neck with the governing Conservatives is a seismic shift in the voting landscape," YouGov said.
It cautioned, though, that the figures are "well within the margin of error of one another".
"We will not be able to tell for some time whether Reform can sustain or improve their position relative to the Conservatives," the pollsters added.
The survey indicated that Labour, led by Keir Starmer, still held a commanding lead at 37 percent, in line with other surveys that have put it some 20 points ahead for nearly two years.
That has made Starmer odds-on to become the next prime minister.
But he is still fighting to overcome persistent Conservative claims that his party will recklessly spend public finances and increase personal taxes -- a perennial jibe from right-wingers.
"The poll is a stark warning," said government minister Laura Trott.
"If a result like this is replicated on election day, Keir Starmer would have huge and unchecked power to tax your home, your job, your car, your pension however he wants."
She echoed Sunak who said the election campaign had only just passed the half-way stage and that a vote for Reform would be "handing Labour a blank cheque".
"The Conservative party are fighting for every single vote in this election," added Trott.
Farage -- who at the last general election in 2019 did a deal with the Conservatives to avoid splitting the right-wing vote -- claimed on Thursday that Reform now represents the main opposition party to Labour, not the Conservatives.
- Tory future? -
How the opinion poll will play out if it is replicated on election day is unclear, with Britain's winner-takes-all first-past-the-post system favouring the bigger parties.
Some commentators have suggested the Conservatives, firmly on the back foot after a torrid 14 years in power marked by Brexit, Covid and a cost-of-living crisis, have tacitly conceded the election is unwinnable.
Senior Conservatives have taken to the airwaves in recent days to warn voters about handing Labour a "supermajority" in parliament for the next five years.
There are increasing questions, too, about what will happen to the Tories after the election, which would likely see Sunak stand down if Labour wins by a landslide.
Any Tory leadership contest would likely be an ideological fight between the centre-right and vocal right-wingers who have been increasingly critical of the party's immigration stance.
That has prompted talk of Farage, who on Friday reiterated his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "political operator" and described Adolf Hitler as "hypnotic in a very dangerous way", joining the Conservatives.
But the former member of the European Parliament, who is standing to be a British MP for the eighth time after seven failed attempts, has said instead that he wants to take over the party.
The Conservatives have gone through five prime ministers since 2016, including three in just four months in 2022.
Much of that was the result of Brexit.
But there were also other self-inflicted wounds, such as the chaos of Boris Johnson's time as leader and Liz Truss's short-lived tenure, when her unfunded tax cuts spooked the markets and crashed the pound.
Labour's Starmer, who is campaigning on promises to spur growth and restore economic "stability", is keen not to squander the party's huge poll lead, running a cautious campaign to end Tory "chaos".
Sunak ‘still fighting’ after Reform overtakes Tories in polls for first time
Daniel Martin
THE TELEGRAPH Fri, 14 June 2024
Rishi Sunak was asked about the latest poll results while at the G7 summit in Puglia, southern Italy - Massimiliano De Giorgi/UPI/Shutterstock
The Prime Minister went on: “We are only halfway through this election, so I’m still fighting very hard for every vote.
“And what that poll shows is – the only poll that matters is the one on July 4 – but if that poll was replicated on July 4, it would be handing labour a blank cheque to tax everyone, tax their home their pension their car, their family, and I’ll be fighting very hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“And actually, when I’ve been out and about talking to people, they do understand that a vote for anyone who is not a Conservative candidate is just a vote to put Keir Starmer in No 10.
“So if you want action on lower taxes, lower migration, protected pensions or a sensible approach to net zero you’re only going to get that by voting Conservative.”
Mr Sunak rejected Mr Farage’s claim that the poll shows that a vote for the Tories is now a vote for Labour.
“Ultimately, if you’re not going to vote for a Conservative candidate that makes it more likely that Keir Starmer is in No 10.
“And when people are thinking about the substance of what they want to see from a future government, if you’re someone who wants to see control over borders, you’re going to get that from us.
“You’re not going to get that from Labour, they’re going to cancel the Rwanda scheme, they’re not going to put in place a legal migration cap, if you want a sensible approach to net zero.
“I’ve already announced that, Labour would reverse those reforms and put everyone’s builds up with net zero costs.
“And if you want your pension protected, we’re the only ones offering it triple lock plus, so actually, you know when people sit down especially now this week when everyone can see very clearly the difference in approach from the two parties … will crystallise people’s minds on polling day.” Nigel Farage claims the latest poll shows that a vote for the Tories is now a vote for Labour - Jonathan Hordle/ITV/via Getty Images Europe
Asked whether the poll represented an existential threat to the Conservatives, Mr Sunak said: “I think at the end of the day on July 5, one of two people’s going to be Prime Minister – Keir Starmer or me – and this week the most important thing that happened was you saw both major parties manifestos that’s their programme for government if they were elected.
“So now everyone has a very clear sense of what each of us would do and as you saw from our manifesto, as we were discussing yesterday, say what you want about it, but it’s a very clear plan, a detailed set of bold actions.
“That’s how you deliver a more secure future for people and crucially, there’s a massive difference on tax.
“We want to cut your taxes at every stage of your life in work, setting up a business, buying your first home, when you’re retired, you’re a pensioner or if you have a family cutting taxes for everybody.
“The Labour Party consistently can’t tell you which taxes they’re going to put up but they are going to put them up and as we saw yesterday, they’re gonna raise the tax burden to the highest level in this country’s history. And that’s the choice for everyone at the election.” Reform UK overtakes PM Sunak's Conservatives in opinion poll Reuters Updated Thu, 13 June 2024 at 9:56 pm GMT-6·2-min read
Reform UK general election campaign event, in London
LONDON (Reuters) - Nigel Farage's Reform UK Party overtook Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives in an opinion poll for the first time on Thursday ahead of Britain's election on July 4.
The poll by YouGov for the Times newspaper put Reform UK on 19%, up from 17% previously, and the Conservative Party unchanged on 18%. The opposition Labour Party topped the poll with 37%.
The survey of 2,211 people was carried out June 12-13, after Sunak pledged to cut 17 billion pounds ($21.70 billion) of taxes for working people in his party's election manifesto.
Reform's poll rating has risen since Farage, best known for his successful campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, said he was returning to frontline politics, taking over leadership of the party and standing for election to parliament.
"This is the inflection point. The only wasted vote now is a Conservative vote, we are the challengers to Labour and we are on our way," Farage said in a video posted on X.
A small right-wing party, founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party, Reform backs populist causes such as tougher immigration laws.
Asked if the trend would stick, a Conservative lawmaker who declined to be named said: "Yes. I think people are fed up with the Tories (Conservatives), but not with Conservatism. So they are moving to another Conservative party."
Sunak's campaign has also been hit by sharp criticism after he left D-Day memorial events in France earlier than other world leaders.
Other opinion polls show the Conservatives much further ahead of Reform.
Despite overtaking Sunak's Conservatives in Thursday's poll - which reflected the share of a nationwide vote - Reform is not forecast to win many, if any, parliamentary seats.
Its support is spread comparatively evenly across the country, whereas backing for the larger and more established parties is more concentrated by geographic areas.
Britain has a first-past-the-post electoral system, meaning Reform could pick up millions of votes across the country without winning any of parliament's 650 individual constituencies.
($1 = 0.7835 pounds)
(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and William James; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Daniel Wallis)
Italy's PM Seems To Ask Sunak The Only Diplomatic Question Possible Amid Brutal Election Campaign
Kate Nicholson
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak greets Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Antonio Masiello via Getty Images
Giorgia Meloni appeared to ask Rishi Sunak the only diplomatic question she possibly could when the two leaders met today at the start of the G7 summit.
As they greeted each other with an embrace in front of the cameras, the Italian PM leaned towards her beleaguered British counterpart and appeared to say: “Are you OK?”
A seemingly innocent question, but accompanied with quite the worried expression.
It’s not clear how Sunak answered – Meloni just smiled in response and leant away from him as he continued to grip her hands tightly, while the conversation seemed to move onto casual niceities.
Watch their strange encounter here:
This exchange came hours after the prime minister faced a brutal grilling from both Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby and a live audience.
Viewers also decided that Keir Starmer outperformed the PM last night, with almost two-thirds of the public thinking Sunak had not come across as well, according to YouGov.
But, the debate was just the latest catastrophe of the last three weeks of Sunak’s disastrous campaign.
From calling a snap election while standing in the pouring rain and facing awkward encounters with furious members of the public to leaving D-Day commemorations early only to be ridiculed for saying he had to go without Sky TV growing up, Sunak has lurched from PR crisis to PR crisis.
Meloni, on the other hand, has had an excellent week.
Her far-right party, the Brothers of Italy, experience a stomping victory in the European parliament elections, making her the only Western European leader to be strengthened by the controversial vote.
Reform overtakes Tories in poll as Sunak continues campaign absence for G7 summit
David Lynch, PA Political Staff Fri, 14 June 2024
Reform UK has overtaken the Conservatives in a major opinion poll, as Rishi Sunak continues his absence from the General Election campaign trail to meet world leaders in Italy.
A YouGov survey commissioned by the Times newspaper had Nigel Farage’s party at 19% to the Conservatives 18% in voting intention, in a crossover moment which is the latest blow to Tory hopes of returning to government.
Mr Farage hailed the poll, claiming his party were now the “opposition to Labour”, while in Italy the Prime Minister said he was not feeling dejected about his prospects in the election and would be “back on the campaign trail” as soon as he returned from the G7 summit.
Mr Sunak told reporters in Puglia he was “definitely not” down in the dumps after Wednesday night’s televised leaders’ event, in which a snap poll found Sir Keir Starmer came out on top.
The Prime Minister said there was a “clear” choice between his offer and that of Labour, which launched its manifesto on Thursday.
Mr Sunak added: “I’m energised to make that argument to the country with you here today.
“And then as soon as I’m back… you’re back on the campaign trail as soon as you’re back.”
Asked if he was missing campaigning amid the summit alongside the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, he said: “You have to be able to do both things in this job.”
In the YouGov poll which revealed the Tory-Reform reversal, Labour remains in the lead at 37% of voting intention, with the Liberal Democrats at 14%, the Greens at 7%, the SNP at 3%, Plaid Cymru at 1% and others at 2%.
It was conducted on a sample size of 2,211 adults in Britain between June 12 and 13. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (PA)
During ITV’s seven-way election debate on Thursday night, Mr Farage took aim at Conservative frontbencher Penny Mordaunt, and pointed to rising net migration despite Tory promises to control it.
“Why on earth should anybody believe the fifth manifesto that promises cuts to net migration?” he asked.
Ms Mordaunt was laughed at by the audience as she replied: “Because of the record of this Prime Minister.”
She warned: “Nigel is a Labour enabler. He is enabling no cap, no target, and no plan.”
But Mr Farage flipped the Conservative campaign rhetoric, which has also been used by Mr Sunak while canvassing for votes.
“As for being a Labour enabler, we are now ahead of you in the national polls. A vote for you is actually now a vote for Labour,” the Reform leader said.
“We are now the opposition to Labour,” he told the audience as the programme began, not long after the poll was published. Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer arrives on board his election battle bus at a campaign event in Halesowen (PA)
The Tory and Labour election battle buses are not expected to take to the road on Friday but campaigning will continue.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting will promote Labour’s mental health offer, after warning there is a crisis in mental illness that is keeping people out of the jobs market and costing the country billions.
He will visit a men’s mental health facility as he seeks to showcase the proposal.
Elsewhere Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper will visit the east of England, as her party promotes its plans for a national food strategy aimed at curtailing household shopping costs.
The proposed strategy, revealed in the Lib Dem manifesto, would be backed up by a plan to boost the farming budget by £1 billion a year and is also aimed at supporting British farmers.
Ukraine's strikes on Crimean air defenses could end its role as a Russian military staging ground: experts
Thibault Spirlet Fri, 14 June 2024 Ukraine's strikes on Crimean air defenses could end its role as a Russian military staging ground: experts
Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russia's air defenses in Crimea, per reports.
The attacks could make Crimea untenable as a military staging ground, one US think tank said.
But they're not a silver bullet to end Russia's occupation of the region, experts said.
Ukraine's sustained attacks against Russia's air defenses could make occupied Crimea untenable as a military staging ground, war analysts said.
In an assessment on Thursday, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said that Ukraine's repeated strikes on military targets in the region were forcing Russia to commit new air defenses.
But further strikes, it said, could make it impossible for Russia to prepare or launch attacks from the annexed peninsula.
Ukraine hasrepeatedlyhit Russia's air defenses in Crimea over the last few months, with attacks intensifying this week.
According to reports, one Russian S-400 "Triumf" and two S-300 air-defense missile systems were targeted overnight on Sunday into Monday, with suggestions that Ukraine used US-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS.
Two days later, Ukraine launched another missile strike, hitting an S-300 missile system and two S-400 missile systems in Crimea, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
It declined to say what type of missiles were used, but the Institute for the Study of War said they were "likely" ATACMS.
The strikes seemed to show that Ukraine's older, Western-supplied missiles can get around even Russia's most sophisticated air defense systems, experts told BI this week.
Forbes reached a similar conclusion on Wednesday, saying Russia's S-400 missile systems can't defend nearby Russian troops or even themselves.
The development could be a major problem for Russia, which has used Crimea as a supply route for bringing troops and gear to the front lines in Ukraine.
There are already signs that the country is looking to other routes.
Russia has also placed an S-500 missile system in Crimea to protect its air defenses, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's defense intelligence directorate, said this week, per a translation by the ISW.
But despite Ukraine's recent successes, its campaign of long-range air strikes won't be the silver bullet that ends Russia's occupation of Crimea, military experts told BI.
Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Programme, told BI that Ukraine's "slow-motion successes" with air and naval operations appear to be making the peninsula "less and less" tenable for Russian forces.
However, Giles said limited information from open sources makes it difficult to gauge Russia's air-defense capabilities and the extent to which Russian troops are exposed in the region.
"You get the impression that Russia is continuing to deliver new systems to Crimea, and they're being knocked down as swiftly as they're being set up," he said. "But it takes a much more detailed assessment of what's going on to actually establish the real picture."
Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, said that Crimea is mostly out of range of Ukrainian artillery, and even rocket artillery like HIMARS.
He said Russia may have to make some tough decisions if it needs to replace lost air defenses, which might mean thinning out defenses elsewhere, but air strikes alone won't be enough to push Russian forces out of Crimea.
"It would take a significant Ukrainian ground push," he said, "to create the kind of pressure."
And given Crimea's tactical and political significance, Russian forces "aren't going to withdraw without a major fight," he added.
"The kind of casualties they would need to suffer to consider this can only really be inflicted on their ground forces by a Ukrainian ground assault and a large volume of artillery or close-in fire," he said.
James Black, assistant director of defense research at RAND Europe, made a similar point, saying Russian troops are unlikely to withdraw from Crimea unless their position is rendered untenable.
"Crimea is clearly a major strategic and political priority for the Kremlin, and any withdrawal of Russian forces from the peninsula would be a serious embarrassment for President Putin and his military leadership, both domestically and abroad," he said.
Biden administration imposes sanctions on Israeli group blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza
Kylie Atwood, Jennifer Hansler and Hande Atay Alam, CNN Fri, 14 June 2024
The Biden administration on Friday imposed sanctions on an Israeli group for disrupting humanitarian convoys headed to Gaza.
Both the US Treasury Department and the US State Department took action against the “Tsav 9” movement for its repeated obstruction of the aid.
The sanctions against the organization are the latest punitive measure taken under an executive order targeting those perpetrating violence in the West Bank. They come as the US continues to grapple with the crisis in Gaza, where humanitarian officials say the situation has reached one of its lowest points in the entire eight-month conflict
The Tsav 9 movement, a grouping of demobilized reservists, families of hostages and settlers, has been leading protests to disrupt the critical aid convoys at Kerem Shalom, the country’s sole functioning border crossing with Gaza. Its name, meaning “Order 9,” is a reference to the emergency mobilization notices that call up reservists.
At the end of February, the area was declared a closed military zone, due to international pressure, but protesters continued to arrive and try to outmaneuver the police.
“For months, individuals from Tzav 9 have repeatedly sought to thwart the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including by blockading roads, sometimes violently, along their route from Jordan to Gaza, including in the West Bank,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Friday.
“They also have damaged aid trucks and dumped life-saving humanitarian aid onto the road. On May 13, 2024, Tzav 9 members looted and then set fire to two trucks near Hebron in the West Bank carrying humanitarian aid destined for men, women, and children in Gaza,” he said.
Miller said the Israeli government “has a responsibility to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian convoys transiting Israel and the West Bank enroute to Gaza.”
“We will not tolerate acts of sabotage and violence targeting this essential humanitarian assistance,” he said. “We will continue to use all tools at our disposal to promote accountability for those who attempt or undertake such heinous acts, and we expect and urge that Israeli authorities do the same.”
In a statement Friday, Tsav 9 described the Biden administration’s imposition of sanctions as “shocking,” adding, “It is a fatal blow to the families who aim to stop the aid to the enemy Hamas in time of war.”
The statement also accused the Biden administration of acting “against the families of hostages who fight to get their loved ones back from Hamas’s hands.”
The statement claimed without evidence that aid “falls directly into the hands of the terrorist organization Hamas.” The US and humanitarian aid organizations say they are not aware of widespread diversion of humanitarian assistance by Hamas.
Reuters first reported that the sanctions were being imposed.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order earlier this year allowing sanctions on those causing West Bank violence. The order has been used to roll out sanctions on Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in recent months.
CNN’s Clarissa Ward and Brent Swails contributed to this report.
Israeli ‘violent extremist group’ that blocked and destroyed Gaza aid sanctioned by US
Andrew Feinberg
THE INDEPENDENT Fri, 14 June 2024
Humanitarian aid being trucked into Gaza (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The United States has imposed sanctions on an Israeli extremist group that has blocked and destroyed shipments of humanitarian aid meant to alleviate conditions in Gaza.
In a statement, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US was sanctioning an organization called Tzav 9, which he described as “a violent extremist Israeli group that has been blocking, harassing, and damaging convoys carrying life-saving humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
Miller explained that members of the group have spent months seeking to stop needed aid from reaching Gaza by blocking roads between Jordan and Gaza, occasionally using violence while doing so.
He also said the group’s members have damaged aid trucks and spilled aid onto roads, including during an incident last month when group members “looted and then set fire to two trucks near Hebron in the West Bank carrying humanitarian aid destined for men, women, and children in Gaza”. Miller stressed that the Israeli government remains responsible for protecting humanitarian aid convoys as they bring “vital” assistance to Gaza during conditions that many have described as a famine.
“We will not tolerate acts of sabotage and violence targeting this essential humanitarian assistance. We will continue to use all tools at our disposal to promote accountability for those who attempt or undertake such heinous acts, and we expect and urge that Israeli authorities do the same,” he said.
The sanctions against Tzav 9 are being imposed under an executive order signed by President Joe Biden which gives the State Department the power to target entities found to be “responsible for or complicit in, or having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in actions — including directing, enacting, implementing, enforcing, or failing to enforce policies — that threaten the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank.”
Last month, the department imposed sanctions on a Palestinian group known as Lions’ Den, which is headquartered in the Old City section of Nablus. Miller noted that the group had claimed responsibility for a pair of shootings in the fall of 2022, including an October 2022 incident that saw bullets fired at a taxi driver as well as shots directed at a settlement called Har Bracha.
The US has also sanctioned two Israeli settlers — Yinon Levi and David Chai Chasdai — as well as a pair of groups that raised funds for the settlers. Levi and Chasdai have been known to engage in violence against Palestinians living in the West Bank, according to the State Department.
