Key events
Opening summary
Good morning, and welcome to our continued coverage of the 2024 general election campaign. It is the final weekend before voters go to the polls on Thursday 4 July.
Security minister Tom Tugendhat has said there is a “pattern of racist and misogynistic views” within Reform UK.
He told Times Radio:
There’s many decent people vote for every political party and there’s many decent people who will vote for Reform.
But what we’re trying to do is to remind people, to try to make clear to people, what it is that Reform really is.”
He said Nigel Farage has “clearly done almost no due diligence on who he’s asking to carry his message”.
“There is a real pattern of racist and misogynistic views in the party. I think it’s absolutely right to call it out,” he added.
Farage, meanwhile, has claimed that an activist in question, Andrew Parker, is an actor and that the clip was a fabrication. The Reform UK leader repeated his assertion that Channel 4’s footage was a “set up” during last night’s BBC Question Time. Earlier on Friday, he’d appeared on ITV’s Loose Women and said that the Parker incident was orchestrated to discredit his party.
In other news, here are some of the events we can expect politicians to be attending today, according to the PA news agency:
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Rishi Sunak will be campaigning with an Armed Forces Day visit near Catterick in his Richmond and Northallerton constituency at 11am. This evening he’ll be at a community visit in Neasden, north west London.
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Labour leader Keir Starmer and shadow defence secretary John Healey will join veterans in the Aldershot, Hampshire, at a coffee morning to mark Armed Forces Day at 9am. In the evening, Starmer will speak at a major event in London after speeches from deputy leader Angela Rayner.
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Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey will be out campaigning in Scotland, with a tour that’ll take in Fife, Edinburgh and East Dunbartonshire.
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Northern Ireland secretary of state Chris Heaton-Harris will address the Tory manifesto launch event in Belfast.
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