NatCon conference continues in Brussels after police leave without enforcing closure – UK politics live

Key events

Lisa O’Carroll in Brussels says the NatCon conference – a two-day event, starting today - is being closed down gradually.

Breaking: NatCon conference is being closed down in Brussels as it is causing disturbance. Organisers just told delegates it would be “gradual”... and they would try and find venue for tomorrow

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK honorary president, has been telling journalists in Brussels that the police attempt to close down the NatCon conference there this morning has convinced him that he was right to campaign to leave the EU, Freddie Hayward from the New Statesman reports.

Some of us who covered Farage during Brexit, and in the many years before, had the distinct impression he was 100% convinced about leaving the EU quite some time ago.

Nigel Farage speaking to the media outside the NatCon conference in Brussels. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

Liz Truss is still giving interviews today promoting her new book. As Sam Blewett from Politico reports, the Labour party has been distributing its own version to journalists in the press gallery at Westminster.

Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, has been speaking at the NatCon conference in Brussels within the past few minutes, Lisa O’Carroll reports.

NatCon conference continues in Brussels, after police leave without enforcing its closure

My colleague in Brussels, Lisa O’Carroll, says the police have not been able to shut down the NatCon event in Brussels where Nigel Farage was speaking – because they don’t have the authority to do so.

Police enter venue of Nat Con conference in Brussels to serve a request to close down event. Farage on stage

Police enter venue of Nat Con conference in Brussels to serve a request to close down event. Farage on stage. Police return with slip of paper unsigned. They confirm organisers under no obligation to sign paper.

Police confirm the organisers are under no obligation to sign paper they bring to venue + organisers point out they cannot stop conference in private venue. Not clear who has objected

And this is from Darren McCaffrey from Sky News.

Several police officers, maybe 5 went inside the venue but stopped short of the stage. They then left. Still claiming they are legally going to enforce the judgement to shut the venue down - stalemate at the moment

Yousaf says clinicians, not politicians, are best placed to decide if under-18s should get puberty blockers

Humza Yousaf’s claim that voting Green in Scotland could undermine the independence cause (see 10.38am) came in a wide-ranging a wide-ranging interview on BBC Radio Scotland that followed a bruising recess which saw his new hate crime law descend into chaos with thousands of vexatious complaints to the police. Here are some of the other points he made.

Yousaf called for “cool heads” in the Middle East and called for an end to arms sales to Israel. He said:

It is morally unjustifiable to send weapons to a government that has not only killed innocent civilians, has bombed hospitals, UN facilities, refugee camps, and …almost 200 humanitarian workers.

Yousaf also revealed he had yet to be briefed by the UK government on their reasons for intervention.

He said that he had read the Cass Review and that Scottish health boards would take time to “explore it in detail” and continue to liaise with Cass herself. On whether puberty blockers should be prescribed to under-18s, which is no longer allowed in England, he said “clinicians are best placed, not politicians” to decide.

Let me say very clearly that when it comes to the prescribing of medicine, clinicians are best placed not politicians, government ministers or myself as first minister.

He said that he didn’t believe there was a case to close the Sandyford clinic, which provides gender services for young people in Scotland and has been compared to the controversial Tavistock by critics.

I don’t believe that there’s a case to close the Sandyford. The Sandyford provides some exceptional health care to some of those who are the most marginalised and vulnerable not just young people, but right across the spectrum.

Yousaf accused “bad faith actors” of putting in thousands of vexatious complaints to discredit the new hate crime law. He defended the legislation, saying it safeguarded vulnerable communities.

And he said that the proposed misogyny bill, which has been proposed to protect women from hate crime but also covers street and online harassment, would include transgender women. He noted that a man threatening a woman on the street may well not know whether that individual was transgender or cisgender.

Humza Yousaf. Photograph: Lesley Martin/PA

Police arrive to shut down rightwing conference in Brussels as Nigel Farage speaking

Suella Braverman may not be addressing the NatCon conference in Brussels after all. (See 11.28am.) The mayor of Brussels has reportedly told the police to close it down. They seem to have arrived as Nigel Farage, the Reform UK honorary president, was speaking.

Lisa O’Carroll, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, has this

These are from Darren McCaffrey from Sky News.

LATEST: The Police have indeed turned up

UPDATE: Police normally formally warning the venue has 15 mins to close down. Farage is still on stage

And this is from Emir Kir, the mayor of Saint-Josse-Ten-Noode, a district in the Brussels region.

I issued an order from the council to ban the “National Conservatism Conference” event to guarantee public safety.

In Etterbeek, Brussels City and Saint-Josse, the far-right is not welcome.

Last year the National Conservatism movement held a conference in London. It was not shut down, although some of the views expressed were widely described as eccentric or extreme. This is what Peter Walker wrote about it at the time.

Laura Farris, the victims minister, was doing a media round this morning to promote plans being announced by the Ministry of Justice to make creating sexually explicit “deepfake” images a criminal offence. The MoJ’s news release is here, and here is a story.

Farris said:

The creation of deepfake sexual images is despicable and completely unacceptable irrespective of whether the image is shared.

It is another example of ways in which certain people seek to degrade and dehumanise others - especially women. And it has the capacity to cause catastrophic consequences if the material is shared more widely. This government will not tolerate it.

This new offence sends a crystal clear message that making this material is immoral, often misogynistic, and a crime.

Penny Mordaunt reportedly considering not voting for bill to gradually ban smoking

Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons and a potential alternative Tory leader, is among cabinet ministers wavering over whether to support the prime minster’s generational smoking ban.

Mordaunt is known have reservations about Sunak’s tobacco and vapes bill and the precedent it sets for banning unhealthy things.

That position mirrors criticism from outspoken opponents of the bill including Liz Truss and Sir Simon Clarke who have suggested the ban could be a “slippery slope” towards banning fast food or other things.

However, it is not clear yet whether Mordaunt has decided to vote against the bill, which is particularly important to Sunak as a legacy achievement of his time in Downing Street. At the same time, opposition by Mordaunt, who is regarded as a leadership candidate of the centre, could boost her standing as a more traditional Conservative among Tory grassroots and MPs from the party’s libertarian wing.

Before she became an MP in 2010, Mordaunt was a director at Media Intelligence Partners (MIP), a communications company. After she resigned from the firm, it was involved in working for the tobacco giant Phillip Morris International as it campaigned against the coalition government’s plain packaging plans for cigarettes.

At least three cabinet minister are thought to be considering voting against the bill, which has its second reading in parliament today. (See 9.38am.)

At 12.30pm a transport minister will respond to an urgent question in the Commons tabled by Labour on job losses in the rail industry. That means the debate on the smoking ban will will not start until about 1.15pm.

Braverman tells Tories that, if they want ECHR withdrawal, including it in 'losing' manifesto would be big mistake

Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, is one of the Britons speaking at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels starting today. The conference, which features hardline rightwingers from around the world committed to the NatCons’ ‘faith, flag and family’ brand of conservatism, is going ahead despite two venues refusing to host them at relatively short notice.

According to extracts from her speech released in advance to favourable papers, Braverman will argue that hints from Rishi Sunak that he might leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR) are phoney. In what seems to be a reference to what Sunak told the Sun about this recently, she will say:

The current UK government doesn’t have the political will to take on the ECHR and hasn’t laid the ground work for doing so.

And so it’s no surprise that recent noises in this direction are easily dismissed as inauthentic.

But, more interestingly, Braverman is also arguing that the Conservatives should not commit to leaving the ECHR in their manifesto. As the Mail reports, she will say:

Any attempt to include a plan for ECHR withdrawal in a losing Conservative election manifesto risks setting the cause back a generation.

Presumably Braverman is saying this because, like everyone, she assumes the Conservatives will lose the next election badly, and she is calculating that a defeat like that with ECHR withdrawal in the manifesto will result in generation of Tories concluding it’s a vote-loser. (My colleague Rafael Behr was making exactly this argument on X earlier this month.)

But, from the briefings in today’s papers, it is not clear what Braverman does want the party to do to enable ECHR withdrawal to happen.

One option would be to withdraw before a general election. But that would require a new leader (Braverman may have a candidate in mind), and, almost certainly, legislation which would never pass before polling day.

Another option would be just to commit to a referendum on ECHR withdrawal in the manifesto. But Labour won’t match this, and so this would also result in a heavy Tory election defeat being associated with a withdrawalist policy.

The third option would be to park the issue of now, and resurrect it when the Tories are in opposition, under a new leader. For Tories passionate about wanting to implement this policy, this approach might make some sense. But it does not exude confidence.

Instead, Braverman seems to be implying that ECHR withdrawal has to be in a “winning” Conservative election manifesto. But quite where and how the party is going to conjure such a thing up is not at all clear.

Applications spike ahead of deadline tonight to register to vote in local elections

Anyone not registered to vote in the local, mayoral and police commissioner elections on 2 May has only a few hours left to apply, amid signs of a late surge in interest, PA Media reports. PA says:

A range of contests are taking place across England and Wales on polling day, with every voter able to take part in at least one type of election.

Nearly 2,700 council seats in England are up for grabs across 107 local authorities, while 37 police and crime commissioners in England and Wales will also be chosen.

Polls are also taking place to elect some of the most high-profile mayors in the country, including Greater Manchester, London and the West Midlands.

People who have not yet registered to vote, or are not sure if they are eligible, have until 11.59pm on Tuesday to submit an application.

This can be done online at gov.uk/registertovote.

Around 44 million people are estimated to be eligible to vote in the elections on 2 May, but as many as seven million people are either incorrectly registered or missing from the register entirely, according to the Electoral Commission, which oversees all elections in the UK.

Some 43,037 applications were made on Monday, the highest for a single day so far this year and some way above the previous peak of 31,496 on April 2, government figures show.

Here is the clip of Liz Truss telling Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, that the legislation imposing a gradual ban on smoking is unconservative.

Humza Yousaf claims voting Green in Scotland could harm independence cause

Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, has claimed that voting Green in Scotland at the general election could harm the independence cause.

Although the Scottish Greens support independence, like the SNP, Yousaf argued that people voting for them would reduce the chances of the SNP winning seats at Westminster.

The two parties have a power-sharing agreement at Holyrood, and two Green MSPs are Scottish government ministers, but, as PA Media reports, cracks have been beginning to show in the pact in recent weeks as they gear up for the election. The Scottish Greens have said they will field at least 32 candidates north of the border at the general election – their highest number ever.

In an interview with BBC Radio Scotland, Humza Yousaf said his coalition partners – whom he has repeatedly praised, referring to the deal between the two as “worth its weight in gold” – were unlikely to win a seat in Scotland but could detract from their shared goal of separation. He said:

If you believe in independence, you want to advance the cause of independence, then I would urge people to vote for the SNP.

To be clear, though we are in government with the Greens we are – to state the obvious – different political parties that will often compete in a number of different elections.

Therefore, yes, I think there’s a real danger for those that believe in independence, believe in progressive values that if you vote for the Greens, that could end up taking votes away from the SNP.

And with the greatest of respect to my Green colleagues, they’re not going to win a Westminster seat in Scotland.

Liz Truss wrong to call for supreme court to be abolished, says minister

In another interview this morning, Laura Farris, minister for victims, told GB News that she thought Liz Truss, the former PM, was wrong to call for the supreme court to be abolished. Asked about the proposal (one of many provocative things Truss has been saying in interviews to promote her new book), Farris said:

I’ve got to say, I don’t agree actually. I think that we have a healthy democracy, a pluralistic democracy.

And I think that institutions like the supreme court are vital, actually. And it’s always been the case that … our judiciary is admired the world over.

Laura Farris, a Home Office minister, was doing the government interview round this morning. She said she supported the smoking bill because she took up smoking herself at the age of 12 and always regretted it. She told LBC:

I think this is a very, very sensible policy and I’m not particularly interested in arguments about freedom on this one.

It took me years and years and years to quit. It’s one of my biggest regrets, actually.

I’ve got two young kids now and the fact that they will never be able to walk into a shop and buy a packet of cigarettes is something I welcome.

I have never met a single smoker who’s glad they did it, wishes that their children do it, can identify a single health benefit or any other life benefit.

It gets you hooked. It’s a horrible habit. And even when you’re doing it, you know that you’re causing yourself irreparable harm. And it’s incredibly difficult to get off.

Laura Farris in Westminster this morning, ahead of her morning interview round. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Public support for gradual ban on smoking does not mean it's good policy, says Truss ally Simon Clarke

Opinion polls rarely offer Rishi Sunak any comfort these days but, on the proposed gradual ban on smoking, they provide welcome reading for No 10, because they have consistently shown high levels of public support for what the government is doing.

Here are figures from a YouGov poll last October, showing that 62% of people support either the proposed gradual ban on smoking or something even stronger (an immediate ban).

Polling on smoking ban Photograph: YouGov

And this chart, from a More in Common report, suggests that a gradual ban on smoking is a policy that voters from all the main UK parties are more likely to support than oppose. Even Reform UK supporters, who you might assume would be ideologically aligned with the Liz Truss position (see 9.38am and 9.43am) on balance like it.

Polling on policies, by party Photograph: More in Common

In his Today interview this morning the Truss ally Sir Simon Clarke was asked about polling, and figures showing that 70% of people who voted Tory in 2019 backed Sunak’s bill. Clarke fell back on the argument that, just because something is popular, that does not make it right. He told the programme:

There are some things, of course, which are not necessarily philosophically or practically right which would command support in the opinion polls.

I think probably if you were to do an opinion poll on bringing back hanging you’d find that there was a significant proportion of people who backed it, that wouldn’t necessarily mean it was the right thing to do.

Liz Truss blames ‘unelected’ health department officials for smoking ban, in apparent jibe at Chris Whitty

Liz Truss has blamed “unelected individuals” in the Department of Health and Social Care for the government’s planned smoking ban, in apparent attack on civil servants such as the chief medical officer for England, Sir Chris Whitty. Ben Quinn has the story here.

MPs’ vote on gradual smoking ban set to expose Tory splits over key Sunak policy

Good morning. When David Cameron looks back on his premiership, one of the things he did that is most likely to be regarded as a positive achievement – now and in the future – was passing equal marriage legislation. But it only went through with opposition votes, because more than half of Conservative MPs opposed it. Today Rishi Sunak is asking MPs to vote for another piece of legislation which, potentially, could have a transformative effect on life in Britain. And, like Cameron, he is legislating against the grain of opinion in his party.

As Andrew Gregory and Ben Quinn report in our preview story, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, has been wheeled out to make the case for the tobacco and vapes bill, which would prevent anyone who is turning 15 this year, or younger, from ever being able to legally buy tobacco products and which is getting its second reading today. Sunak’s government is only responsible for health policy in England, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are set to adopt the legislation too.

Labour is backing the bill, and it seems certain to pass.

But Sunak has offered Tories a free vote, on the grounds that this should be a “conscience issue” for his MPs, and dozens of Conservatives are expected to abstain or vote against. Technically this won’t count as a rebellion, because they won’t be defying the whip. But, to Sunak, it may feel like a revolt.

In his Daily Mail column last week Boris Johnson said the policy was insane. He wrote:

When the party of Winston Churchill wants to ban cigars, donnez-moi un break, as they say in Quebec - it’s just mad.

Another former PM, Liz Truss, told the BBC yesterday:

We’re a free country. We shouldn’t be telling people not to smoke and I worry about where it will lead.

And on the Today programme this morning Sir Simon Clarke, levelling up secretary in Truss’s short-lived cabinet, took the same line. He said:

There are good ways to tackle a problem like this and then there are bad ways, and I think that an outright ban risks being counterproductive, I think it actually risks making smoking cooler, it certainly risks creating a black market, and it also risks creating a unmanageable challenge for the authorities.

According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, more than 50 Conservative MPs are “preparing” to vote against the bill. And the Times says two or three cabinet ministers may refuse to support Sunak. In their story Chris Smyth and Steven Swinford write:

Two or three cabinet ministers are said to have privately signalled scepticism over the bill, with [Kemi] Badenoch among those unconvinced. She is yet to decide how to vote but has previously spoken of her discomfort with bans and wrote in The Times during her 2022 leadership campaign: “Too often people feel that whoever is elected, the answer is more government. By promising too much and trying to solve every problem, politicians don’t reassure and inspire, they disappoint and drive disillusion.”

Steve Barclay, the environment secretary who was health secretary when Sunak announced his smoking policy, is also said to have misgivings about the wisdom of a ban. He will not vote against the policy which he is on record as praising, but may opt to abstain, citing a busy diary. Alister Jack, the Scotland secretary, is not expected to oppose the ban but is considering whether to abstain.

Does it matter if a sizeable number of Tory MPs fail to support their leader on this? In legislative terms, probably not very much. But Sunak will soon be fighting an election, and this shows that on at least one key issue (and one with which he is strongly identified personally – no one else in government is pushing this), he is not fundamentally aligned with the instincts of many people in his party. That helps to explain why Tory members seem to be losing faith in him.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8.45am: Rishi Sunak chairs a political cabinet, before the regular weekly cabinet meeting.

10am: Former Post Office executives David Miller and David Mills give evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.

10.15am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK honorary president, speaks at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels. Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, is speaking at 12.45pm and Miriam Cates, the co-chair of the New Conservatives group of Tory MPs, is speaking at 2.45pm.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

11.30am: Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister, speaks to the Scottish TUC conference in Dundee.

After 12.45pm: MPs begin the debate on the second reading of the tobacco and vapes bill. The vote will be at 7pm.

3.10pm: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the House of Lords.

After 3.50pm: Peers debate amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

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