Reform UK Mayor Andrea Jenkyns has said that former Conservatives in her party must put their differences aside, but played down reports of deep divisions in the senior ranks.
In an interview with The i Paper, the Greater Lincolnshire Mayor, an ex-Conservative MP herself, also said it was right that Nigel Farage would not admit any more Tories into Reform.
Jenkyns backed Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesman, whose combative style has sparked tensions, saying his prominent role at Reform’s conference in Birmingham in the coming days was proof he remained firmly at the heart of the party.
Disgraced comedy actor Chris Langham dies, aged 77
The former The Thick of It star has died from cancer at the age of 77. His high-flying career came to an end in 2007 when he was convicted of viewing child sexual abuse images.
What you need to know
- Langham’s death was announced via an obituary in which said he had died from pancreatic cancer on 24 June this year.
- He was for many years a leading comedy actor and writer, starring in the BBC’s Whitehall satire The Thick of It. He was also a writer for and appeared in sketch show Not The Nine O’Clock News.
- But his career came to an end when he was charged with 15 counts of downloading indecent images, including clips that showed the rape of a teenager and sexual abuse of an eight-year-old.
‘I did something terribly wrong’
Langham’s fall from grace was precipitous. Days after winning a Bafta he was charged with sex offences and subsequently sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment. The actor claimed he had viewed the material for research purposes.
The actor denied he had a sexual interest in children but he was placed on the sex offenders’ register. In a 2015 interview, the actor said: “I did something terribly wrong… I was punished, quite correctly, for being as stupid and arrogant as the judge described me to be.”
The plan to tackle ‘mega dinghies’ crossing the Channel
A new “surge team” of French police officers is to be deployed on beaches in the Channel region to tackle new “mega dinghies” being deployed by people smuggling gangs.
The rise in mega dinghies
Traffickers have responded to a security crackdown in northern France by turning to to ferry migrants. Last month, one of these vessels carried 230 people across the Channel.
Everything you need to know
- The UK and French governments have announced a team of 45 additional police will be deployed to beaches to prevent crossings.
- The unit will focus on areas further along the coast from Calais where smugglers are launching to try to avoid detection. A separate French intelligence unit targeting smugglers has also been boosted to 30 officers.
- The total number of officers involved in efforts to stop crossings in France now stands at nearly 1,050. The UK is paying France £660m to fund the operation.
Small boat crossings in numbers
Arrivals fall to six-year low but gangs switching tactics
- Between June and August, 102 migrant boats were detected crossing the Channel – the lowest summer total since 2019.
- Home Office figures show there were 7,371 arrivals in the same three-month period, the lowest since 2020, when 3,307 arrived.
- Since July 2024, the Government says 48,000 crossing attempts have been stopped and 1,100 boats and engines seized.
- The average number of people per boat has risen from seven in 2018 to 65 in the year to this June.
Burnham: ‘We cannot be complacent’
Andy Burnham is meeting French President Emmanuel Macron at No 10 to discuss issues including small boat crossings. The two leaders insist the beefed-up security operation in northern France is delivering results.
But the Prime Minister knows he will have to show a sustained fall in the number of crossings to prove to the electorate that the decades-old issue of illegal migration from France is being tackled.
What time are you on till? Uber launches UK’s first robotaxis
Londoners are able to hail autonomous vehicles for the first time after Uber launched a “small fleet” of robotaxis to operate in the capital.
Robotaxis on the streets of London
The vehicles are equipped with AI driving technology made by British firm Wayve. But while the cars are designed to drive themselves, safety regulations mean they will still have a human driver to intervene if needed.
What you need to know
- Transport for London issued the first minicab licences for self-driving vehicles last month.
- Uber insists there are at least 140,000 Londoners who would be willing to use a self-driving vehicle. The AI cars are ordered in the same way as the company’s other cabs through its ride-hailing app.
- The Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles are charged at the same rate as other Uber vehicles. London is the first city to use Wayve technology for commercial journeys.
The robotaxi revolution rolls on
While Londoners will be starting to get used to autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars are already common in other parts of the world. In the Chinese city of Wuhan, more than 1,000 robotaxis are in operation, while fleets also operate in locations including Beijing, San Francisco and Dubai.
In several locations, including Wuhan, operators have already dispensed with the human safety driver required in London.
Watch more from The i Paper
Dozens feared dead after boat found adrift off Canary Islands
More than 80 migrants are feared to have perished after a boat was found drifting off the Canary Islands.
Everything you need to know
- The canoe-like vessel was discovered south of the holiday islands on Thursday morning. It is thought it had been at sea for 26 days.
- The boat left Gambia in West Africa with about 128 occupants last month. Those on board are thought to be mostly from Gambia and Mali.
- Rescuers found only 44 survivors, along with five bodies. Aid workers said survivors reported that 83 people, including a baby, had died during the crossing.
Migrant route to Canary Islands one of the world’s deadliest
The Atlantic crossing from West Africa to the Spanish Canary Islands is attempted by thousands of migrants each year despite the risks posed by rough seas and long distances. According to one estimate, 1,300 migrants died in the first five months of 2026 trying to reach the Spanish coast.
Canary Islands regional leader Fernando Clavijo said on X: “It is intolerable that lives continue to be lost. The Canaries cannot get used to or accept as normal the fact that the Atlantic continues to be a death trap.”
Gloria Steinem, groundbreaking feminist campaigner, dies aged 92
An icon for many
Steinem was known for radically changing the rights of many women in the US so that they could eventually apply for credit cards without a man’s signature, legally get an abortion and be admitted to Ivy League universities.
4 min read
Changing lives
“Gloria’s near century on Earth were years well lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end.”
A post on her official instagram account said
A campaigner who radically changed rights for women
From legal clerk to bunny girl to activist
- Steinem was born in Ohio in 1934 and grew up in a trailer home. She attended a liberal arts college and travelling to India, where she worked as a legal clerk in the country’s supreme court.
- She subsequently spent decades as an activist, championing causes from abortion rights to the banning of genital mutilation.
“‘s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard. Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor.”
STatement on gloria’s foundation
Zack Polanski launches bid to run for Starmer’s seat in by-election
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, will stand to become an MP when a by-election is held in Sir Keir Starmer’s seat in the coming months.
Everything you need to know
- Polanski has confirmed he wants to be the Green Party candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election caused by Starmer’s decision to leave frontline politics.
- The leader of the Greens insisted the seat was winnable, accusing Labour of standing up for “corporations and big money”. He added: “I will stand up for people struggling to pay their bills.”
- Polanski is currently a member of the London Assembly but is unusual as a national party leader in not being an MP.
Polanski gambles on by-election battle
The Green leader’s decision to stand in Holborn and St Pancras represents a gamble as he seeks to maintain his party’s momentum in challenging Labour on the left. The party’s in recent months and a victory for Polanski would represent a valuable political prize.
Until now, Sir Keir’s central London seat has been a Labour stronghold but the Greens came second in the area in local elections earlier this year.
Protests erupt in Spain over Ceuta migrant crisis
Thousands have attended protests across Spain against the government’s handling of the arrival of thousands of migrants in the exclave of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast.
Everything you need to know
- The rallies on Wednesday were called by city councils controlled by opposition parties. They accuse Spain’s left-wing government of abandoning Ceuta’s residents.
- There have been near-daily protests in the North African city calling for remaining migrants to be returned or distributed across mainland Spain.
- Demonstrators have called for prime minister Pedro Sánchez to resign but the government accuses right-wing parties of exploiting the crisis.
Why did these protests happen?
Some 72,000 people crossed illegally from Morocco into Ceuta in July. While most have returned, as many as 5,000 remain. The Spanish government has blamed for the influx but critics claim the Moroccan authorities were complicit.
Did Morocco orchestrate the mass crossing?
A police report this week said Moroccan security forces had shown “total permissiveness” during the huge influx into the exclave on 30 and 31 July. Sánchez has insisted Morocco was not responsible but the report said the Moroccan police presence was “clearly smaller” than usual.
The police report nonetheless stopped short of directly accusing Morocco of being behind the mass influx.
The protests in pictures
Watch more from The i Paper
What to know as toxic haze spreads across South East Asia
Indonesia is battling , some of which have been burning for weeks and resulted in a toxic haze affecting millions.
What you need to know
Multiple locations
The fires are burning on several of Indonesia’s biggest islands, in particular on Borneo.
Health risk
Millions have been exposed to toxic smoke, with 50,000 being treated in hospital for respiratory infections.
Regional problem
Air pollution caused by the fires is affecting Malaysia and The Philippines.
Indonesia’s decades-old problem with wildfires
The forest and peatland fires engulfing parts of Indonesia are a familiar problem for the authorities. Their roots lie in a project by former ruler Suharto to rip up rainforest and drain peat bogs for plantations and logging.
Repeated investigations have shown that developers use fire as a cut-price means of clearing large areas for plantations and industrial sites.
Haze shrouds parts of South East Asia
Her remarks come after Tim Montgomerie, the political commentator, was suspended from Reform following public criticism of Yusuf. He had accused Yusuf of behaving “like a child” and questioned the way the party was being run.
Jenkyns dismissed the row as a “storm in a teacup” and accused the media of “trying to create a drift”.
“Zia is on the main stage speaking. He is very popular among members, and I’ve got huge respect for Zia,” she said. “I’m certainly [in] his wing of the party with a lot of my policies.”
Jenkyns acknowledged that Reform now contains politicians from a range of right-wing traditions, after the party attracted a number of former Conservatives following the 2024 general election. This includes ex-Tory cabinet ministers Nadhim Zahawi, Nadine Dorries and Robert Jenrick.
“There was a wide spectrum in the Conservative Party. They’re here now,” she said.
The priority, she argued, was for the enlarged party to remain focused on its core principles.
“And I think the most important thing is that we ensure that we are true to our Reform values, which is putting our country and our people first,” Jenkyns added.
She also backed the decision to stop recruiting further Conservative MPs and councillors. Farage introduced a moratorium on former Tories defecting to Reform after the local elections in May.
“I think that was right, absolutely,” she said.
Commenting on Kemi Badenoch’s newly reshuffled Shadow Cabinet, which was intended to put the party on an election footing and hopefully move the polls back in her direction, Jenkyns said of the Tory leader: “Kemi is a nice enough person, but do I respect her as leader? No. She’s one of the reasons I left the party. A lot of stuff is being stage managed, I understand by [Tory] headquarters, so it’s very easy to perform at your best when it’s like that.”
Jenkyns’ intervention comes after a difficult summer for Reform, with the party facing questions over internal tensions, scrutiny of Farage’s £5m gift from cryptocurrency businessman Christopher Harborne and the fallout from the leader’s decision to resign his Clacton seat and immediately fight a by-election to win it back.
Farage won the August contest with 63.3 per cent of the vote, but the move did little to end the controversy surrounding the payment. A parliamentary standards inquiry into whether the money should have been declared continues to hang over him.
He initially said the money was a personal gift and intended to pay for his security, but later described it as a reward for his campaigning for Brexit.
Jenkyns said she had known Farage since the Brexit years and believed concern for the safety and privacy of his family was a significant factor in his decision.
“He’s very protective of his family,” she said.
The latest BMG poll for The i Paper last weekend put Labour on 27 per cent, four points ahead of Reform on 23 per cent, with the Conservatives trailing on 18 per cent.
Reform had enjoyed a sustained lead over Labour for much of the previous year, but the gap has narrowed sharply since Andy Burnham became Labour leader and Prime Minister.
A More in Common poll released on Tuesday had the Conservatives on 23 per cent, one point ahead of Reform on 22 per cent, with Labour in first place on 26 per cent.
Jenkyns, however, believes the shifting polls are less a sign of a settled political realignment than voter exhaustion.
She also rejected the idea that Reform’s recent polling performance represented a permanent political shift.
“I think this is electoral fatigue, to be honest,” she said. “It’s been quite a difficult year for this country, hasn’t it?”
She argued that people struggling with the pressures of everyday life were increasingly concentrating on their families rather than politics.
“I think people are switching off to concentrate on getting through life,” she said.
For Jenkyns herself, the route back to Westminster is not part of the plan.
Having lost her Conservative seat at the 2024 general election, she was elected as Reform’s first mayor of Greater Lincolnshire in May 2025. She said she preferred the mayoralty and could not see herself “doing an Andy Burnham” and returning to Parliament.
“I can’t see myself ever going back to Westminster,” she said.
Jenkyns said Reform’s challenge was now to turn its growing coalition into a coherent political force.