Politics

Senior Tories are predicting they will lose the Blackpool South by-election as counting gets under way. Sources told Sky News’ political correspondent Tamara Cohen they did “not expect to hold” the seat – which they won with a 3,690 majority in 2019. And they said the “stars could not be more aligned against us” following

John Swinney has announced his bid to take over from Humza Yousaf as SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister. The Perthshire North MSP has spent a year on the backbenches after he stepped down as deputy first minister when Nicola Sturgeon resigned in 2023. Announcing his intention to run for first minister during a visit

The Scottish government has survived a vote of no confidence at Holyrood. Scottish Labour pressed ahead with its motion despite Humza Yousaf announcing earlier this week his intention to stand down as SNP leader and first minister. It failed by 58 votes to 70. The Scottish Greens voted against the motion, with party co-leader Patrick

The Tory mayor of the West Midlands is sending voters an endorsement from Boris Johnson which urges people to “forget about the government”, Sky News can reveal. Andy Street’s campaign website makes no mention of Rishi Sunak on its homepage and is coloured in green rather than Conservative blue, suggesting the mayor is trying to

The UK has sent the first failed asylum seeker to Rwanda – under a voluntary scheme. The scheme is for those who have gone through the asylum process and had permission rejected, rather than for migrants who have illegally entered Britain by crossing the Channel on small boats. The migrant was sent on a commercial

Ireland’s prime minister has insisted the UK must respect an existing arrangement between the two countries to take back asylum seekers. Simon Harris told Sky News the UK must honour a deal that has been in place since 2020 as a row escalates over the Irish government’s new plans to return to the UK asylum

Humza Yousaf will no doubt be riddled with regret at the colossal miscalculation to bin the Greens last week. His options to fight on, despite the severe headwinds, eventually evaporated and, short of striking a deal with Alex Salmond, he was boxed in. Mr Yousaf inherited a lot of his problems. The Green pact was

The UK will not to take back asylum seekers who cross the border into Ireland “until the EU accepts that we can send them back to France”, according to a government source. The comment comes amid an escalating row between Dublin and Westminster over the Irish government’s plans for new legislation to enable asylum seekers

Thursday’s local elections have been pencilled in as a day of peril for Rishi Sunak for so long, it’s hard to remember when Tory turbulence – and maybe even a leadership challenge – was not expected after 2 May. Most council seats up for election were last contested in 2021, the high watermark of Boris

I’ve known Rishi Sunak slightly for almost a decade, having first met him after he penned a thoughtful, comprehensive, well-received report on Britain’s minority communities, which I’d say is still the best of its kind. Sitting down to interview him in a state-of-the-art defence facility this week, I could still see the same energetic, likeable problem

Conservative MP and former health minister Dan Poulter has defected to Labour. The MP for Suffolk Central and Ipswich North, with a majority of 23,321 at the last election, has indicated he is not planning to stand at the next general election. The defection was revealed in an article on The Observer website, in which

A defiant Humza Yousaf has told Sky News he will not resign as Scotland’s first minister. Pressure has been building on the SNP leader after he tore up the power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens – prompting a no-confidence motion in his leadership and a threatened knife-edge vote. However, Mr Yousaf, on a visit to

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf is battling to save his job as he faces a knife-edge no-confidence vote. The SNP leader triggered a crisis at Holyrood after he dramatically brought the power sharing deal with the Scottish Greens to an end. Follow live updates in the Politics Hub The backlash has plunged Mr Yousaf’s future

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf is to cancel a speech he was due to deliver on independence in Glasgow this lunchtime, Sky News undertands. Sources say Mr Yousaf will “come out fighting” after the Greens said they will join the other opposition in a vote of no confidence next week. Mr Yousaf announced his plan

Voters in Grimsby – one of Sky News’s election Target Towns – have been offering their views on politics, politicians and “broken promises”. The electoral battle in Grimsby and Cleethorpes, the Target Towns, will be fierce. Labour will need an 11.7 point swing to win this newly-merged constituency back from the Conservatives. In 2019, residents

The SNP and Scottish Greens power-sharing deal has formally ended following a row over a climbdown on climate targets, Sky News understands. It comes after First Minister Humza Yousaf summoned a meeting of his Cabinet – usually held on a Tuesday – this morning following speculation over the future of the Holyrood deal, first struck

MPs have voted in favour of the government’s Renters’ Reform Bill – despite it including an indefinite delay to the end of no-fault evictions. A debate on the legislation ran throughout Wednesday afternoon, including around a new clause from the government which would hold off outlawing Section 21s until a review of the courts system

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has said he wants the new NATO target for defence spending to increase from the current 2% of gross domestic product to 2.5%. Mr Shapps said it would make a “real difference” if the countries signed up to the military alliance met his proposed target. He told Kay Burley on Sky

Rishi Sunak is to increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 as he warns European allies that the continent is at a “turning point” in the face of the growing threats from Russia, Iran and China.  Speaking alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the UK prime minister said he planned to steadily

The government’s Rwanda bill will finally become law after the Lords decided there would be no further amendments in a late-night session. For weeks, peers have been pushing back on the scheme – which seeks to deport asylum seekers arriving in the UK via small boats to the African nation – and trying to get