NatCon conference continues in Brussels after police leave without enforcing closure – UK politics live | Politics

Rishi Sunak is still seeking to speak to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to urge him to show restraint in response to Iran’s missile and drone attack, PA Media reports. PA says:

The PM had expected to speak to his counterpart yesterday, but Israeli media reported that Netanyahu was refusing to take calls from world leaders seeking to influence the response to Saturday night’s attack.

Downing Street denied the UK – which supplied RAF jets to help thwart Iran’s barrage – was being “taken for granted” by Israel and suggested Mr Netanyahu’s other commitments meant a call had not been possible.

The PM’s spokesperson told journalists at the lobby briefing said: “He has obviously been in discussions with his war cabinet.

The foreign secretary and defence secretary have been speaking to their counterparts.”

The spokesman added: “Our position has been made very clearly. We are now working with allies in the region, including Israel, to de-escalate the situation.”

Sunak told MPs on Monday he would speak to Netanyahu “shortly” to express solidarity with Israel “and to discuss how we can prevent further escalation”.

Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, has called for transgender athletes to be banned from competing in female-only events as she urged sporting officials to draw up fresh guidelines to clarify the rules governing gender identity. Kiran Stacey has the story.

My colleague in Brussels, Lisa O’Carroll, says the police have not been able to shut down the NatCon event in Brussels where Nigel Farage was speaking – because they don’t have the authority to do so.

Police enter venue of Nat Con conference in Brussels to serve a request to close down event. Farage on stage

Police enter venue of Nat Con conference in Brussels to serve a request to close down event. Farage on stage. Police return with slip of paper unsigned. They confirm organisers under no obligation to sign paper.

Police confirm the organisers are under no obligation to sign paper they bring to venue + organisers point out they cannot stop conference in private venue. Not clear who has objected

And this is from Darren McCaffrey from Sky News.

Several police officers, maybe 5 went inside the venue but stopped short of the stage. They then left. Still claiming they are legally going to enforce the judgement to shut the venue down – stalemate at the moment

Humza Yousaf’s claim that voting Green in Scotland could undermine the independence cause (see 10.38am) came in a wide-ranging a wide-ranging interview on BBC Radio Scotland that followed a bruising recess which saw his new hate crime law descend into chaos with thousands of vexatious complaints to the police. Here are some of the other points he made.

It is morally unjustifiable to send weapons to a government that has not only killed innocent civilians, has bombed hospitals, UN facilities, refugee camps, and …almost 200 humanitarian workers.

Yousaf also revealed he had yet to be briefed by the UK government on their reasons for intervention.

• He said that he had read the Cass Review and that Scottish health boards would take time to “explore it in detail” and continue to liaise with Cass herself. On whether puberty blockers should be prescribed to under-18s, which is no longer allowed in England, he said “clinicians are best placed, not politicians” to decide.

Let me say very clearly that when it comes to the prescribing of medicine, clinicians are best placed not politicians, government ministers or myself as first minister.

• He said that he didn’t believe there was a case to close the Sandyford clinic, which provides gender services for young people in Scotland and has been compared to the controversial Tavistock by critics.

I don’t believe that there’s a case to close the Sandyford. The Sandyford provides some exceptional health care to some of those who are the most marginalised and vulnerable not just young people, but right across the spectrum.

• And he said that the proposed misogyny bill, which has been proposed to protect women from hate crime but also covers street and online harassment, would include transgender women. He noted that a man threatening a woman on the street may well not know whether that individual was transgender or cisgender.

Suella Braverman may not be addressing the NatCon conference in Brussels after all. (See 11.28am.) The mayor of Brussels has reportedly told the police to close it down. They seem to have arrived as Nigel Farage, the Reform UK honorary president, was speaking.

Lisa O’Carroll, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, has this

These are from Darren McCaffrey from Sky News.

NEW: Now appears the Mayor of Brussels is trying to shut down the NatCon Conference for the THIRD time just before @Nigel_Farage and @SuellaBraverman take to the stage

Claiming “the far right is not welcome here”

LATEST: The Police have indeed turned up

UPDATE: Police normally formally warning the venue has 15 mins to close down. Farage is still on stage

And this is from Emir Kir, the mayor of Saint-Josse-Ten-Noode, a district in the Brussels region.

I issued an order from the council to ban the “National Conservatism Conference” event to guarantee public safety.

In Etterbeek, Brussels City and Saint-Josse, the far-right is not welcome.

Last year the National Conservatism movement held a conference in London. It was not shut down, although some of the views expressed were widely described as eccentric or extreme. This is what Peter Walker wrote about it at the time.

Penny Mordaunt reportedly considering not voting for bill to gradually ban smoking

Ben Quinn

Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons and a potential alternative Tory leader, is among cabinet ministers wavering over whether to support the prime minster’s generational smoking ban.

Mordaunt is known have reservations about Sunak’s tobacco and vapes bill and the precedent it sets for banning unhealthy things.

That position mirrors criticism from outspoken opponents of the bill including Liz Truss and Sir Simon Clarke who have suggested the ban could be a “slippery slope” towards banning fast food or other things.

However, it is not clear yet whether Mordaunt has decided to vote against the bill, which is particularly important to Sunak as a legacy achievement of his time in Downing Street. At the same time, opposition by Mordaunt, who is regarded as a leadership candidate of the centre, could boost her standing as a more traditional Conservative among Tory grassroots and MPs from the party’s libertarian wing.

Before she became an MP in 2010, Mordaunt was a director at Media Intelligence Partners (MIP), a communications company. After she resigned from the firm, it was involved in working for the tobacco giant Phillip Morris International as it campaigned against the coalition government’s plain packaging plans for cigarettes.

At least three cabinet minister are thought to be considering voting against the bill, which has its second reading in parliament today. (See 9.38am.)