General Election live: Rishi Sunak plays down highest day of small boat crossings

Former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik has praised Reform UK and Nigel Farage for having “plausible charisma”.

Mr Opik told The Telegraph: “I think by far the best campaign has been run by Reform. Compared to the other parties, Reform looks like an adult in a kindergarten.“

Farage has plausible charisma, he looks present, whereas the other ones look vacant. Farage is saying things which are really specific, for example junking net zero, which I find very attractive. There are really clear things that nobody else is saying.

“They are Premier League material in a third division election. I think Nigel has got the best natural leadership, from a theoretical point of view. It’s not going to happen this time, but it could happen in 2029 and as long as he had a good team, at least it would be a change.”

“I rather admire the way Starmer has struck a deal with the devil of media intrusion on his own terms,” says Rentoul.

“He will use his wife’s work as an occupational therapist to buttress his pro-NHS credentials, and he will talk about his son and daughter enough to prove that he is a centrist dad; but he has not (yet) asked Victoria to introduce him at Labour Party conference, and he never uses his children’s names in public or allows photographs of them.”

Rishi Sunak has played down the Home Office figures that revealed 882 people crossed the Channel in small boats yesterday – the highest total since late 2022.

The PM said there would always be some days “worse than others”.

He reiterated that the election was a choice between him and Labour and advocated for the Rwanda plan.

A community leader has said comments made by the Reform UK leader about Muslims are “worrying” and urged other parties to “step up” to address divisions.

Iman Atta, of the Tell Mama organisation which monitors Islamophobia in the UK, accused Mr Farage of “attacking and undermining Muslim communities” in an effort to get votes at the General Election on July 4.

Last month, Mr Farage said there are “a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values, in fact loathe much of what we stand for”, when asked about Conservative plans to bring in national service for 18-year-olds.

Asked during that interview on Sky News if he was referring to Muslims, Mr Farage said: “We are.”

Ms Atta said that, while his comments were “disgraceful”, they are “nothing new”, referring to other remarks he has made within the past decade.

She added that now is the time for “leadership that is calling out hatred and division, that is promoting integrity, that is addressing really what brings our communities together in a challenging time across the world.”

The prime minister has described the spraying of orange paint on Stonehenge by Just Stop Oil activists as “a disgraceful act of vandalism” as two people were arrested on suspicion of damaging the monument.

Video footage posted on social media showed two people wearing white shirts with the slogan Just Stop Oil, approaching the monoliths with canisters spraying orange powder paint.

Mr Sunak said: “This is a disgraceful act of vandalism to one of the UK’s and the world’s oldest and most important monuments.

“Just Stop Oil should be ashamed of their activists, and they and anyone associated with them, including a certain Labour Party donor, should issue a condemnation of this shameful act immediately.”

The deadline to register to vote passed yesterday (18 June), and over 630,000 people applied to register on the final day. This marks 2.9m voter registrations since the election was called on 22 May, Alicja Hagopian reports.

This figure is down by 1 million from the same period before the 2019 general election (29 October-26 November), when 3.85m people registered to vote.

Though 18-34 year olds had the highest proportion of registrations overall, the Gen-Z population may not be showing up to the ballot in high numbers.

The under-25 age group has sent in just 746,000 applications to vote ahead of the registration deadline — compared to double that (1.4m) before the 2019 general election.

Rishi Sunak has warned Sir Keir Starmer would send “exactly the wrong message” on degence to Russia and North Korea if Labour wins on July 4.

The prime minister said the Labour leader’s decision not to match the Tories’ commitment 2.5 per cent defence spending increase is “deeply” concerning.

The Prime Minister said: “In fact if Keir Starmer is elected, one of the first things he will do is head off to a Nato summit having cut British defence spending from the planned increases that I’ve announced.

“I think that sends exactly the wrong message, both to our allies, where we want to lead so that they invest more in their defence as well, but also to our adversaries, like Putin, and like the North Koreans, and actually we need to deter them with strength.”