Starmer resets post-Brexit relationship at European summit with focus on border security and immigration – live

The foreign secretary has refused to say whether he was wrong about Donald Trump when he called the former US president a “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath”.

He told BBC Breakfast: “Donald Trump is the biggest, in many ways, of political characters we have at this point on the planet.

“Lots of people have had things to say, but in our common interests, with security as a central challenge in the global community, war in the Middle East, war in Europe, with tremendous challenges for costs of living across the globe. 

“There is a lot of common cause, that the UK can strike with the US, and we will do that with whomever is in the White House.”

It comes after he was pressed on the same comments on Sky News this morning, claiming: “You’ll struggle to find politicians that didn’t criticise Trump”.

In it, he laid out Labour’s vision for the country and the key legislation the government will begin working on in the coming months.

The party came to power at the start of July, ending 14 years of Tory government. Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has been keen to hit the ground running, bringing a slate of new bills which seek to change the direction of the country.

Here are the key bills confirmed and what they could mean for you:

UK earnings growth has fallen back further amid mounting signs of a weakening jobs market, but wages are outstripping inflation at the fastest pace for more than two-and-a-half years, according to official figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said average regular earnings growth dropped to 5.7% in the three months to May – down from 6% in the previous three months and the lowest level since the quarter to September 2022.

With Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation taken into account, regular earnings rose by 3.2%, which is the highest since the three months to August 2021.

The ONS estimated that the rate of unemployment remained unchanged at 4.4% in the three months to May.

But it flagged further signals that the employment sector is cooling, with 30,000 fewer vacancies at 889,000 in the quarter to June.

David Lammy has been pressed on his previous comments on Donald Trump.

The foreign secretary called the Republican nominee for US president a “Neo-Nazi”, a “sociopath” and a “tyrant with a toupee”.

Responding to the comments, he said: “You are going to struggle to find any politician who didn’t have things to say about Donald Trump back in the day.

“Today, I’m standing here as the UK foreign secretary. You know that I’ve been to Washington DC eight times since becoming shadow foreign secretary, and now foreign secretary.

“I meet with Republicans and Democrats, many close to Trump, and we will work with whomever the United States choose to put in the White House and become their next president.”

The foreign secretary has declined to say what the Labour government will be looking to secure during the European Political Community later today.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to meet European leaders in an attempt to reset the UK’s relationship with the bloc.

But Mr Lammy said it would be “silly” to reveal what the prime minister will be demanding from EU countries because he would be “showing our hand”.

He told Sky News this morning: “We have said that we will have discussions with Europe on the European Union. We have not got a commission, they had elections last month, they won’t have a commission in place until December.

“So I am afraid I can’t tell you what our negotiation lines will be and it would be silly to do that because I would be showing our hand.”

He added: “I am not able to tell you what the position will be with Europe because we haven’t actually got a commission to discuss or negotiate with at this time.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said Sir Keir Starmer’s King’s Speech “could have been delivered by the Conservatives”.

The former Tory MP, who lost his seat during the general election, said the legislature announced by Labour was almost entirely the same to what Rishi Sunak pledged during the campaign.

He told GB News: “We’ve got a newly appointed Leader of the Opposition in the form of Rishi Sunak, who has virtuously declared that he will not oppose the Government’s agenda for the sake of opposing.

“But what is the point of the Opposition, particularly when the King’s Speech could have been delivered with a Conservative government?

“There are only one or two things that weren’t in the Conservative manifesto.”

Sir Jacob added people had voted for change but they are getting is “more of the same, just a little bit extra”.

The Irish prime minister and Sir Keir Starmer shared a drink during a meeting at the garden at Chequers.

Sir Keir said it was time to “move on to the next chapter, for stronger and deeper ties between both countries”.

Speaking after the meeting, Simon Harris said both leaders “want to see our teams intensively working on areas of mutual concern and benefit and being truthful that hasn’t been happening in the way, manner or frequency which it would have in the past and which it must in the future”.

The prime minister is hosting the European Political Community (EPC) summit to reset the UK’s relationship with its European neighbours after the turmoil of Brexit.

Leaders from the 47-member EPC will gather as Sir Keir Starmer attempts to push for action to secure the continent’s borders as he steps up efforts to tackle the UK’s asylum backlog.

Sir Keir is expected to use today’s European summit to call for continent-wide action to tackle the international “people-smuggling webs”.

During the summit in Oxfordshire, he will join a session on migration co-chaired by Italy’s right-wing leader Giorgia Meloni.

The PM said: “We cannot let the challenges of the recent past define our relationships of the future.

“That is why European security will be at the forefront of this Government’s foreign and defence priorities, and why I am focused on seizing this moment to renew our relationship with Europe.

“The EPC will fire the starting gun on this Government’s new approach to Europe, one that will not just benefit us now, but for generations to come, from dismantling the people-smuggling webs trafficking people across Europe, to standing up to Putin’s barbaric actions in Ukraine and destabilising activity across Europe. ”

Text describing Liz Truss’s mini-budget as a “disaster” has been removed from Government documents after the former prime minister complained that it breached civil service rules.

Ms Truss, Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, had written to the head of the civil service, Simon Case, complaining that references to her in documents released alongside the King’s Speech were “untrue political attacks”.

Briefing notes about the contents of the speech, delivered by the King on Wednesday, included references to the “mistakes” of Ms Truss’s economic policy.

In her letter, she asked Mr Case to “urgently investigate how such material came to be included in this document, ensure suitable admonishment for those responsible and the immediate removal of such political material from the version of the document on gov.uk”.

A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office said Mr Case had replied to Ms Truss and ordered that the references be removed.

In the letter after the King’s Speech, Ms Truss, who lost her Commons seat at the General Election, said: “It has been brought to my attention that the King’s Speech background briefing notes published today and available online contain repeated references personally to me and actions undertaken by my government in the context of a political attack.

“Not only is what is stated in the document untrue, making no reference to the LDI (liability-driven investment) crisis precipitated by the Bank of England’s regulatory failures, but I regard it as a flagrant breach of the civil service code, since such personal and political attacks have no place in a document prepared by civil servants – an error made all the more egregious when the attack is allowed to masquerade in the document among ‘key facts’.”