Newslinks for Wednesday 3rd December 2025

Farage tells Reform donors he expects tie-up with Tories before next election – and Labour looks to Brexit to tackle threat

“Nigel Farage has told donors he expects a deal or merger between his Reform UK party and the Conservatives ahead of the next general election, suggesting he does not believe he can sweep to power alone. One donor said that Farage had told them he expected to do a deal with the Tories, whether it is a merger or an agreement on co-operation between the two parties, to ease Reform’s route to election victory. The person added the Reform leader had said such a deal could only be done on his terms, in part because Farage felt betrayed after the pact he made with the Tories at the 2019 election. Another associate who met with Farage in recent months said that the Reform leader described a pact or merger as inevitable but added it may take some time. The person added that Farage had said that Reform held more power so any agreement would be made on his rightwing populist party’s terms.” – Financial Times

• Farage denies plotting election pact deal with Tories – Daily Telegraph
• Inside Nigel Farage’s bombshell ‘plan’ for a Reform-Tory pact as route to power – Daily Express
• Reform and Tories insist there is no plan for merger before next election – The Standard
• Who is behind Farage-Tory pact plot? – Sky News
• ‘There’ll be no pact’: Robert Jenrick rejects rumours of Tory-Reform alliance as he backs Kemi Badenoch – LBC News
• Reform won’t let ‘washed-up’ Tory defectors become MPs – Daily Telegraph
• Keir Starmer ramps up attacks on Brexit to tackle Reform UK threat – The Times

Comment:

• Logical step for Labour is to reverse Brexit – Daniel Finkelstein, The Times
• No10 is secretly plotting to rejoin the EU… if they think that’s the answer to their problems they’ve lost their minds – Lord Austin, The Sun

> Today:

Warnings of low growth and higher bills as Treasury mandarin dragged into Reeves’ OBR row

“Rachel Reeves’s decision to raise taxes to the highest level on record will constrain economic growth for years and deter people from saving, earning more money and taking the risk of becoming entrepreneurs, leading economists have warned. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said the chancellor’s decision to raise £26 billion in taxes would “act as a headwind to the economy” until 2029. It also said the UK would have the highest level of inflation in the G7 group of developed nations this year and that unemployment would continue to rise, hitting 5 per cent in 2027. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said Reeves’s decision to raise taxes would hit “incentives to save, to work, to invest, to become an entrepreneur, to stay in the UK”. It added: “It’s very difficult to increase the tax take without having an effect on incentives.” David Miles, a member of the OBR’s budget responsibility committee, told MPs on the Treasury committee on Tuesday that Reeves’s higher taxes would hit living standards, which will rise by just 0.3 per cent a year. “Now, in the longer-term history of the UK, certainly in the last 100 years, that’s a very low number,” he said.” – The Times

• Top Treasury civil servant dragged into Budget fiasco – Daily Telegraph
• Reeves hit with Labour revolt on farms tax raid as backlash mounts against Budget – Daily Mail
• Budget 2025: Over a third of Britons think Rachel Reeves exaggerated bad news – SkyNews
• Now watchdog bites back at Chancellor: Day after its chairman was forced to quit over Budget shambles, OBR turn screw on Reeves to ‘set the record straight’ – Daily Mail
• Rachel Reeves slammed as extra benefits dished out to second wives in polygamous marriages – Daily Express
• The £16bn lie at the heart of Starmer’s Budget defence – Daily Telegraph
• Rachel Reeves accused of overstating junior chess title – The Times

Comment:

• Reeves and Starmer are a two-for-one deal – if she goes, he goes. What a cheering thought – Marina Hyde, The Guardian
• Reeves’ lies are rooted in the truest doctrine of the Left: Tell people what YOU think it’s good for them to hear – Frank Furedi, Daily Mail
• Politicians are now programmed to lie – that’s what Rachel Reeves proves – Rob Burley, Daily Telegraph
• Reeves is the best Labour has got – Annabel Denham, Daily Telegraph
• Reeves may have survived disaster Budget but it has destroyed public’s faith in Labour – The Sun Says
• We need a serious investigation into what looks like the political arrest of farmers – to spare Reeves’ blushes – Robert Hardman, Daily Mail

> Today:

> Yesterday:

Jury’s out with Lammy’s plans

“Robert Jenrick attacked David Lammy for backtracking on his previous support for jury trials. The Tory shadow justice secretary said the Deputy Prime Minister was the “best opponent” of his own reforms, which will scrap thousands of jury trials. The Justice Secretary has scaled back proposals under which defendants likely to get prison sentences of up to five years would have been denied the right to be tried by a jury. Instead, it will be limited to jail terms of up to three years. Magistrates’ powers will be extended from dealing with maximum sentences of one year to at least 18 months. A new tier of judge-only courts will be created to hear cases without a jury, similar to the Canadian justice system. Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Jenrick said: “His past is catching up with him, because the best opponent of the Justice Secretary’s plans to curb jury trials is the Justice Secretary himself. In 2020 he said, ‘Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea. You do not fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair’. In 2017, in his report into prejudice in the criminal justice system, he found juries, and I quote, ‘act as a filter for prejudice’. But now he’s become Justice Secretary, he’s scrapping the very institution he once lauded. Which is it? Will the real David Lammy please stand up?”” – Daily Telegraph

• Jury trials will be scrapped for defendants facing sentences of three years or less, David Lammy announces – SkyNews
• Lammy to scrap half of all jury trials – Daily Telegraph
• Lammy’s jury trial plans are ‘massive mistake’, say Labour MPs and peers – The Guardian
• David Lammy faces Labour rebellion despite juries U-turn as criticism mounts over plan – Daily Express
• David Lammy says 12 prisoners released by mistake in past three weeks – The Times

Comment:

• A jury took 17 minutes to find Jamie ‘not guilty’. I hate to think what a Left-wing judge would’ve done – Allison Pearson, Daily Telegraph
• Labour’s plan to cut jury trials: it’s wrong to remove a pillar of British justice – Guardian Editorial
• Lammy’s legal shake-up is a trial for the ears – Ed Cumming, Daily Telegraph
• Trial by jury is an ancient British right – Telegraph View

News in brief:

• Limiting jury trials is a political choice – Rachel Cunliffe, The New Statesman
• The scandal of the Maccabi ban must not be allowed to fade – Brendan O’Neill, The Spectator
• Are we heading for net zero migration? – Freddie Sayers, UnHerd
• Politicians are football’s fair-weather friends – John MacLeod – The Critic
• Don’t write off Your Party just yet – Eliot Wilson, CapX