News
Good morning, and welcome to the start of what looks to be an eventful and impactful week. Top items on the agenda for this morning:
- Speech on Monday 11th from Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer
- Upcoming King's Speech on 13th May
- No Majority in Scotland for the SNP
- Local Elections, and What it Says About Brexit Support
Prime Minister's Speech
Monday will see the first speech from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, since the outcome of the local and devolved government elections on Thursday 7th May. The content of the speech is unknown at the time of writing this briefing, but an excerpt has been published which promises to define this Labour government by rebuilding the relationship with the EU to "put Britain at the heart of Europe". The Britain Unbound team will be watching the speech carefully, and publishing their thoughts on the content later on Monday.
- Read the full excerpt unedited, as provided by 10 Downing Street, on this post from Politics UK here
King's Speech on 13th May
The speech from the Prime Minister on Monday morning, is expected to give a preview of some of the over 30 bills to be including in the King's Speech on Wednesday, setting the tone for the next Parliamentary session. The released excerpt states that the King's Speech will demonstrate a core Labour value of "strength through fairness". According to the House of Commons library, comments and updates from Government ministers have suggested that Bills on the following topics have at least been suggested in the past as being likely to be included:
- Veterinary and animal welfare reform
- Reforms to the asylum system
- Reforms to financial services and business-to-business payments
- Digital ID
- Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) reform in England
- Energy independence
- Reform of the water sector
- The abolition of NHS England and other reforms in the 10 Year Health Plan
- Reforms to the criminal justice and national security systems
- Creating a legal duty to remediate defective cladding
- UK-EU agreements, including a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement
- Local government standards and scrutiny of mayoral strategic authorities
- A new power for mayors to charge a visitor levy
- Public procurement reform
- A process for removing peerages
- Road safety
The Britain Unbound team will be reviewing and commenting on each of the Bills announced in the King's Speech, and the potential implications of those Bills as regards the key areas of interest for Britain Unbound.
- See the summary of the King's Speech from the House of Commons library, at the following link here
Devolved Government Election in Scotland
The results of the devolved government elections in Scotland are in, and the SNP won the largest amount of seats, but where short of securing a majority - having lost both voter share and total seats. This inability to form a majority government without a coalition will likely damper talks of an additional Scottish independence referendum, and also give strength to Westminster denying any request should one be made.
English Local Election Results, Analysed
With all the local election results now in, some interesting analysis is now possible, with that analysis starting to filter through into the news agenda continuing into this week. Our contributor and expert number-cruncher, Julian Jessop, made the observation that the national equivalent vote shares - when allocated for the major parties on their Leave/Remain position - returned an entertaining and ever-present 52/48 vote split for staying out of the EU.
- Read Julian's post on X regarding the calculations that give this 52/48 split, right here
