Afternoon summary: Reform UK denies wrongdoing, and says it will cooperate fully with police inquiry

 

16.13 CEST

Reform UK denies wrongdoing, and says it will cooperate fully with police inquiry

Reform UK has said it will cooperate fully with the Metropolitan police investigation, the Press Association reports.

A Reform UK spokesperson said:

Reform UK denies any wrongdoing and will fully cooperate with the investigation.

We won’t be commenting further while a live investigation is under way.

 

18h ago18.49 CEST

Afternoon summary

• The Met police will investigate allegations that Reform UK broke electoral law relating to overseas donations as part of a wider inquiry. Commenting on the news, Bridget Phillipson, the Labour chair, said:

Nigel Farage and Reform must stop the desperate deflection tactics and come clean with the police and the British public about their dodgy finances. No stone can be left unturned in getting to the truth over these incredibly serious allegations.

• The leaders of the Progressive Judaism movement in the UK have stressed that Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi, did not speak for all British Jews when he condemned the sanctions against Israeli settlements announced by the government yesterday. In a statement, Rabbi Josh Levy and Rabbi Charley Baginsky, co-leaders of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, declined to condemn the government’s move. They said:

Holding an Israeli government accountable for its actions does not cause antisemitism. Antisemites cause antisemitism. They may seize upon Israel, Zionism or the actions of an Israeli government as an excuse, but responsibility for their hatred remains theirs. Palestinian rights and international accountability cannot be made contingent upon the good behaviour of antisemites.

The vulnerability of British Jews must not be ignored. Antisemitism is real, dangerous and sometimes deadly. Jewish schools require guards, synagogues are attacked and Jewish people are frightened to identify themselves in public. Policies directed at Israel can affect Jews far beyond it, whatever their stated intention, and language about Israel can carry antisemitic assumptions. We must confront that without equivocation.

But measures directed at Israeli settlements are not the same as an attack on Jews. We should take care not to collapse the distinction between them.

Ed Miliband also said he did not agree with Mirvis’s comments yesterday. (See 8.55am.)

• Zack Polanski has challenged Andy Burnham’s government to publish an unredacted version of an explosive report by the UK’s spy chiefs that found the collapse of overseas ecosystems would have catastrophic consequences for the UK’s national security.

• Reform UK has insisted its deal with France’s far-right National Rally to return migrants back across the Channel was fully approved by the party and signed off by its president, Jordan Bardella, amid a furious backlash in France.

• The government is putting class at the heart of its equalities agenda by creating a new unit that will make tackling white working-class inequality a priority.