Nigel Farage latest: By-election turns to farce with Count Binface declared as Reform leader’s main rival – UK Times

Amid a debate regarding jury trials with David Lammy, James Cleverly asks if Andy Burnham, the likely next prime minister, is in the Commons for PMQs.

It appears that the new MP for Makerfield is elsewhere.

Standing in for Starmer at PMQs, David Lammy, the justice secretary, has been challenged over Labour’s early release scheme.

He said that “every decision we have taken” has been based on public safety and he hit out at the Conservatives who he said had left the new Labour government with “just 83 empty cells” when it came to power.

David Lammy has opened PMQs by paying tribute to those killed in the 7/7 bombings, including his childhood best friend.

The deputy prime minister said: “This week we mark the awful anniversary of 7/7, a day when people travelling through London on a bright summer morning had their lives ended and changed forever, including my best friend James Adams.

“We remember all those affected by those terrible attacks and we will always stand against terrorism.”

The deputy prime minister begins by paying tribute to the victims of 7/7 in the week of the anniversary.

He also pays tribute to George Howarth, former MP for Knowsley, who has died.

In the absence of Sir Keir Starmer, who is in Turkey for a Nato summit, David Lammy is in the House of Commons and will take questions from MPs.

James Cleverly is standing in for Kemi Badenoch.

Reform UK’s Suella Braverman was heckled as she hit out at councils for failing white working-class children.

In a speech to the Local Government Association, she accused some administrations of being “more keen to support the children of Gaza than the children of Grimsby” and making youngsters “ashamed of our great country”.

Some members of the cross-party audience in Bournemouth interrupted her and others walked out as she criticised them.

Mrs Braverman, Reform’s education spokeswoman, said a “system failure and neglect of white working-class families” over decades had resulted in a situation where just 40% of children from that background get a Grade 4 – the standard definition of a pass – at GCSE maths and English.

She said they had been “betrayed by Westminster” and “not all councils, but some and too many, have failed some of their communities”.

“If local government had been more focused on supporting schools that focused on standards and rigour rather than promoting progressive causes then maybe some of these communities would be in a better position. Maybe this scandal would not have happened,” she said.

“For too long too many councils have supported damaging transgender ideology in their policies, want to support the exclusion of British culture and patriotism, are focused more on fashionable fads than actually dealing with special education needs.

“More keen to support the children of Gaza than the children of Grimsby, bearing down on our children and making them ashamed to feel British, ashamed of their great country.”

In response to the heckling, she said: “Local government plays a part. You can deny it, but the statistics show that our young people are being failed in many of our schools and I won’t stop standing up for them.”

Political editor David Maddox says Nigel Farage has failed to learn lessons from history – and it could result in career-ending embarrassment for the Reform UK leader.

Attention will soon turn to Prime Minister’s Questions, where David Lammy will stand in for the outgoing Sir Keir Starmer, who is in Turkey for a Nato summit.

We will bring you all the news from the Commons from midday.

The Reform UK leader is likely to win by a huge majority, Sir John Curtice predicted.

The Labour Party, the Tories, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Restore Britain have all said they are boycotting the by-election, leaving independent candidates, smaller parties and and Count Binface to contest it.