Suella speaks — Backseat drivers — Votes for EU and you and you – POLITICO

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: Turkey appears to be heading for a runoff election after neither President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu cleared the required 50 percent hurdle for victory. Erdoğan performed stronger than expected in early results, but with both sides accusing each other of election malpractice, his two-decade rule remains in the balance. The runoff will be held on May 28. Full details here from POLITICO’s Christian Oliver and Elçin Poyrazlar, who are on the ground in Turkey.

Good Monday morning. This is Rosa Prince — I’ll be back Tuesday as well.

DRIVING THE DAY

THE RIGHT VS. RISHI: The Tory right gathers for its second conference in three days, as the fallout from this month’s disastrous local elections proves long of tail. Downing Street’s hopes of moving on with the prime minister’s agenda while he prepares to fly off for talks with world leaders seem futile, with Rishi Sunak’s leadership coming under greater criticism than at any time since the very beginning of his six months in office. Home Secretary Suella Braverman is the star attraction at today’s National Conservative Conference, where a succession of leading right-wingers will urge the government not to tack to the center following its electoral drubbing.

Suella speaks: After the weekend’s love-in for for ex-PM Boris Johnson in Bournemouth, where the Conservative Democratic Organization held its gathering, it’s the turn of the National Conservative Conference to get under Sunak’s skin. The three-day festival of fun organized by the Edmund Bourke Foundation and held at Westminster’s Emmanuel Center kicks off with a stirring address from Jacob Rees-Mogg at 10 a.m. (of which more later) before Braverman takes to the ice at 2 p.m. The Telegraph, Times, Guardian and i all lead on the pre-briefing of her remarks.

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Not racist or hypocritical: The home secretary’s words are remarkable in themselves, as she calls for Brits to be trained to be “HGV drivers, butchers or fruit pickers” and not “forget how to do things ourselves,” and particularly in her insistence that it’s not racist or hypocritical for her, the child of migrants, to seek to control migration. But it is perhaps the fact Braverman almost seems to be lobbying from within government that is the most startling aspect of her speech. Amid rumors of a cabinet split, the home secretary is clearly determined to pressure Rishi Sunak not to relax visa rules and to remain staunch on migration, legal or otherwise. The i has more.

On the policy: In the Guardian, Madeleine Sumption of the Oxford Migration Observatory takes umbrage with Braverman’s argument, saying more than half of skilled worker visas last year went to care staff, in posts which could be filled by Brits if the government improved pay. The NFU added that the government’s Pick for Britain campaign had failed to attract sufficient agricultural workers. Braverman will insist, however: “Brexit enables us to build a high-skilled, high wage economy that is less dependent on low-skilled foreign labor.”

Back story: Braverman will also use her speech to set out her back story, describing her upbringing as the child of migrants from Kenya and Mauritius, and rejecting suggestions that it’s “bigoted” or hypocritical for someone with her antecedents to get tough on illegal migration. By highlighting her family story and Conservative journey, she will inevitably invite suggestions that she is shoring up her position ahead of the next leadership election, particularly following fellow front-runner Kemi Badenoch’s stumble over the EU Retained Law Bill.

JRM SPEAKS: While Braverman’s words may lead those inside No. 10 to raise an eyebrow, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s will have them spluttering over their morning flat whites. JRM is not happy at all about Badenoch’s move, and will use his opening keynote speech to directly accuse Rishi Sunak of breaking a campaign promise (Sunak pledged to review or repeal EU laws within 100 days, but ministers say more laws than anticipated were discovered). Calling on the government to be more “ambitious,” he will declare that most of last month’s budget could have been delivered by Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, saying the expansion of child care was “fundamentally anti-Conservative.” The Telegraph has more.

That’s not all: Among the other speakers, emerging stars on the right Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates are both due up today. The Times hears Kruger, a former political secretary to Boris Johnson, will urge Sunak to focus on maintaining the support of working-class northerners and not “retreat to the southeast, to the managerial class, to the affluent.”

SCOOPLET: Fresh from confirming the worst kept secret in town — that he’s prepared to ditch his peerage if he is successful in scoring a seat and becoming an MP — former Brexit negotiator David Frost will speak at the third and final day of the conference on Wednesday. And Playbook has had a sneak peek at what is effectively a rallying cry to Sunak’s government not to give up on the policies of the Liz Truss era, including seeking out radical means to boost growth.

Frost will say: “We must not fall into the trap of advocating policies which won’t actually solve the country’s problems just because they’re said to be the only ones politically possible … I can’t agree that the only way forward is through the state, public spending, and industrial policy. It slows growth and prosperity, it reduces incomes, so it weakens cohesion, increases social conflict, and makes finding resources to solve all our other problems even more difficult. It’s a blind alley and for Conservatives a distraction from the harder task of getting tax, spend, and regulation down.”

NB: Guido reckons Frost could fight Andrew Bridgen in North West Leicestershire.

LET THEM EAT PIE: Sunak isn’t letting all this bellyaching about his leadership get to him. Oh no. Instead he’s inviting all his party’s MP, including his rudest critics, to a reception in the garden of 10 Downing Street tonight, to celebrate the coronation of King Charles. Under not so balmy skies, they will be served giant pork pies from his local butcher in his Yorkshire constituency. At least it’s not forecast to rain.

Not bovvered: Asked about the general sense of unrest in the party following the local election results, including Priti Patel’s lament for Boris Johnson at the CDO conference, a Downing Street official pointed to Grant Shapps’ bullish appearance on the Sunday broadcast round, in which he insisted the government was still “buzzing with ideas.”

Poll alert: A Savanta poll commissioned by the Liberal Democrats in the wake of the Tories’ local election drubbing found 22 percent of voters thought Sunak would step down before the next general election.

Heading off: On Tuesday, Sunak heads off to Iceland for a meeting of the Council of Europe, before going on to Tokyo for the G7. No one remind him about the old adage that PMs are at their most vulnerable when they’re abroad.

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BACK SEAT DRIVERS

TRUSS TRAVELS: As the Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman pointed out in an entertaining article, both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are plagued by a plethora of youngish, energetic predecessors who are proving irritatingly (for the current leaders) willing and able to drag the political spotlight back on to themselves. Today, Liz Truss pops up at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, where she will be interviewed by POLITICO Europe’s own Editor in Chief Jamil Anderlini. You can watch the livestream from 1.50 p.m. U.K. time here.

What she’ll say: Truss is expected to expand on her idea of creating an “economic NATO” of like-minded, freedom-loving nations, which could agree to join forces in how they trade and invest, and what technology they export.

Talking Taiwan: The session is titled “countering China’s coercion” and Jamil will certainly question Truss about her plans to visit Taiwan Tuesday, where she is expected to call for greater military cooperation to deter China from starting a war in the South Pacific.

ICYMI: Interviewed by the New Statesman’s Harry Lambert, former Foreign Office chief Simon McDonald took aim at Truss, Johnson, the last Labour government and, well, pretty much every politician since Douglas Hurd. Funnily enough he’s getting quite a bit of heat in the Twittosphere.

MORE IN EX-PM DRAMA: Boris Johnson planned to give Michael Gove a knighthood in his resignation honors list but withdrew it in October after blaming him for orchestrating Sunak’s effective coronation by persuading Kemi Badenoch to pull out of the race. Matt Dathan has the tale.

We’re honored: Dathan also reports that Guto Harri, whose podcast about the last days of Rome that were the denouement of the Johnson years, has had his own knighthood downgraded to a CBE as punishment, which is the Westminster equivalent of being sent to your room with no iPad.

Agents of chaos: With the CDO making clear his fans have yet to relinquish their dreams of a comeback, it’s hard to know whether Johnson’s ambitions or Truss’ quest to unleash war with China pose the greatest existential threat to Sunak.

LABOUR LAND

VOTES FOR ALL? Keir Starmer takes part in a “Call Keir” LBC phone-in with Nick Ferrari from 9 a.m.; expect him to be grilled about the suggestion, first trailed in the Sunday Telegraph and confirmed by Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, that the party is considering giving both EU nationals living in the U.K. and 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in general elections. The Mail and Express both give the idea a good old kicking on their front pages, echoing Tory Party Chairman Greg Hands’ claim this would amount to “rig[ging]” the election.

Scores on the doors: As Twitter pointed out to an outraged Lee Anderson, Irish citizens can already vote in U.K. general elections, as can some Commonwealth citizens. Moreover, EU citizens can vote in local elections. In Scotland and Wales, 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in devolved assembly elections. It’s all here, from the House of Commons library. Brits living in EU nations may not, however, vote in any elections there as a result of Brexit, the top EU court ruled last year.

Preaching to the converted: Starmer has given an interview to today’s Mirror in which he tells pol ed John Stevens of his ambition to cut taxes for the lowest paid, and says he is considering bringing back maintenance grants for less well-off students. He also calls for an immediate general election, saying of the Conservatives: “The longer they’re in office, the worse damage they will do.”

WHAT LABOUR WANTS TO TALK ABOUT: The pro-Starmer Labour Together think tank has crunched the numbers with the help of YouGov and reckons around a quarter of voters who ticked the Liberal Democrat box at the local elections would switch to Labour when the general is called, handing the party an outright majority. The Times has a write-up.

KEEPING UP THE MO: Meanwhile the Guardian’s Aletha Adu hears that left-wing MPs including former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell are urging Starmer to repair links with his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn’s praetorian guard Momentum, in order to take advantage of its campaign potential and avoid a hung parliament at the next election.

FREE LUNCHES GALORE: Lobbyists for the tech and entertainment industries are ramping up efforts to woo the shadow cabinet ahead of the next election, my colleague Esther Webber reports. Keir Starmer has received football tickets worth more than £12,000 since May last year. Eight members of staff received gifts including tickets to see Harry Styles, the BRITs and Doncaster races from Google UK, YouTube, Arena Racing, the Premier League and music industry lobbying outfits.

That’s not all: Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell, Starmer’s lead on these policy areas, accepted gifts from Google UK, the Jockey Club, and Camelot, the operator of the National Lottery. Jonathan Reynolds bagged football match tickets donated by the Football Association. A Labour spokesperson said: “Everything has been declared in [the] correct way and this has absolutely no impact on our policies.”

Come on you Spurs: Perhaps most unedifying of all for avid Arsenal fan Starmer, some of the football tickets were donated by Tottenham Hotspur.

NOW READ THIS: Since shooting to political prominence as Britain’s chief finance minister in February 2020, Rishi Sunak has been labeled Britain’s first tech-bro politician. But my POLITICO colleague Annabelle Dickson reports that the PM is more financier than entrepreneur, according to those who have worked with him: “He worked for a hedge fund rather than founding a startup, and that’s all you need to know,” said one former minister, who worked directly with Sunak. “He’s always just looking at cost benefits.”

BROKEN BRITAIN

BY THE SEASIDE: The Royal College of Nursing annual congress continues in Brighton, with leader Pat Cullen coming under heat after changing her tune over the government’s 5 percent pay offer. Members will be balloted again over strike action on May 23, with the union retabling its double digit pay demand. Sky has the story.

TEACHERS BALLOT: The National Education Union and National Association of Head Teachers are due to hold strike ballots after rejecting government pay offers, with further industrial action likely in the autumn term.

ON THE RAILWAYS: A ban on overtime by drivers from the Aslef train union from today until Saturday could see last-minute cancellations.

Also on strike: Members of the PCS union based in HMRC offices in East Kilbride and Newcastle are on strike until June 2.

TODAY IN WESTMINSTER

FOR THE VICTIMS: The Victims and Prisoners Bill has its second reading later today, and Shadow Victims Minister Anna McMorrin and former Victims Commissioner Vera Baird have a joint piece in the Mirror calling for the proposed law to be beefed up. The party wants rape survivors to be provided with a legal advocate, for victims of anti-social behavior to be covered by the Victims Code, and the proposed “Hillsborough Law” for victims of major tragedies to be expanded.

Reed the room: Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed has an in-depth interview with Francis Elliot in the i, in which he says he was fully behind those pedophile ads, calls for more understanding of the neurological causes of offending, and discusses his long-standing friendship with the party’s campaign chief Morgan McSweeney.

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD: As the Retained EU Law Bill returns to the Lords today, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health has a survey of 330 professionals, showing that a majority believe the watered-down bill will still cost business and government financially, and lead to cutbacks in inward investment and opportunities. Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher, chief executive of the IOSH, said: “Even in its new form, the REUL Bill still risks negatively impacting both the U.K.’s reputation as a global leader for health and safety and its economy at what is already an incredibly uncertain time.”

Even smaller bonfire: Meanwhile, the TUC’s Paul Nowak is urging peers to prevent what he describes as a “ministerial power grab” by voting for amendments to safeguard worker rights and limit the government’s power to rewrite the law with minimal scrutiny. He said: “Tinkering with the status of EU law could unravel decades of case law — making it harder for workers to enforce their rights and for women to make equal pay claims. And ministers are handing themselves huge powers to circumvent normal parliamentary procedures and rewrite legislation.”

SAFE AS HOUSES: Twisting the knife in the post-local elections Conservative fissure over housing, London Mayor Sadiq Khan delivers a speech at 11 a.m. in East London in which he’ll claim to have hit his own ambitious home-building targets. Declaring “London is building again,” Khan will say work began on 25,000 affordable homes in the capital last year, three times the rate achieved by Boris Johnson when he was mayor. He will also call on the government to give him the power to freeze rents, saying: “London’s housing crisis is clearly a brake on growth and a barrier to Londoners fulfilling their potential. And fixing it is key to safeguarding the soul of our city.”

Get building: Leveling Up Secretary Michael Gove has written to the Peak District National Park Authority and nine councils threatening to strip them of planning responsibilities if they continue to fall short of targets for making decisions on planning applications, the Telegraph reports.

Diary note: London Minister Paul Scully is expected to announce this week that he’ll throw his hat into the ring to be the Conservative candidate to take on Khan for the mayoralty next year. He tells Playbook Thursday is likely to be the day.

MORAL IMPERATIVE: Writing in the Times, former Health Secretary Sajid Javid says the government must make a concerted effort to tackle dementia, and suggests hospitals could be given incentives to employ GPs to ensure more joined-up care. Criticizing the government for dropping his proposed Dementia 10-year plan, alongside similar schemes for cancer and mental health, in favor of a broader approach to treatment, he writes: “Like others, I worry that this new strategy will mean critical disease-specific action could not happen. By failing to prepare for each disease there is now a risk we fail to properly deliver.”

WHAT’S THE DIAGNOSIS? Health Secretary Steve Barclay is announcing £2.3 billion in funding for six new diagnostic centers. Scunthorpe, Pitsea, Walton and Solihull are among the areas chosen for the new sites.

NOT THE BESTIVALS: Analysis shared with the Independent shows the number of U.K. performers playing festivals in Britain is nearly a third down on the immediate years before Brexit. Elton John’s husband David Furnish told the paper: “The new generation of artists coming through unfortunately are now finding themselves, for touring Europe, with a lot of red tape, a lot of complications and a lot of additional costs.”

EVENTS DEAR BOY: Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill takes part in a live Q&A on monetary policy, 5 p.m., register here.

HOUSE OF COMMONS: Sits from 2.30 p.m. with defense questions followed by the second reading of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. Labour MP Rupa Huq has the adjournment debate on health inequalities in northwest London.

WESTMINSTER HALL: A debate at 4.30 p.m. on two e-petitions to appoint an allergy czar and force restaurants to put all allergen information on their main menu. Owen Carey, who had a dairy allergy, died after being served buttermilk chicken for his 18th birthday.

Committee corridor: Treasury Permanent Secretary James Bowler and Cabinet Office perm sec Alex Chisholm are at the Public Accounts Committee on tackling fraud and corruption (3.30 p.m.) … Tony Redmond, who wrote a 2020 review of local government financial transparency, is among those discussing the topic at the Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities Committee (4 p.m.) … and Scottish affairs hears from the chief executives of the Edinburgh Fringe and Military Tattoo on promoting Scotland internationally (3 p.m.).

HOUSE OF LORDS: Sits from 2.30 p.m. with oral questions, including from Tory peer Liz Sugg on preparations for June’s Ukraine Recovery Conference in London … followed by the first of two days’ report stage on the Retained EU Law Bill.

**Get daily updates from the highest health summit, the World Health Assembly, with POLITICO Pro’s Morning Health Care coverage. You’ll receive its flagship newsletter, your one-stop source for all the latest happenings in Geneva, from May 21 to 30. Register here. **

BEYOND THE M25

IN JERSEY: Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker is heading to Jersey to address the 64th plenary of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. The two-day gathering will also hear from Irish Junior Finance Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Jersey’s Chief Minister Kristina Moore.

IN SWITZERLAND: Bruised from the row over the Retained EU Law Bill, Kemi Badenoch is off to Switzerland for some reviving Alpine air. She’ll begin negotiations at the Federal Palace in Bern on a new U.K.-Swiss trade deal. Badenoch said: “As two of the world’s leading service economies, there’s a huge prize on offer to both the U.K. and Switzerland.”

IN THE US: Transport Secretary Mark Harper is in Detroit, where he will co-chair a gathering of the Sustainable Aviation Fuels Investment Summit along with his counterparts from the U.S., Canada and Singapore. Harper will also have a meeting with U.S. Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The event is aimed at developing means to decarbonize air travel in order to herald the arrival of “guilt free” flight. Harper said: “This trip is a crucial part of our work to reduce emissions from aviation alongside the U.S., Canada and Singapore.”

CYCLONE MOCHA: A powerful cyclone has hit the coasts of Bangladesh and Myanmar, leaving extensive damage in its wake. Cyclone Mocha is reported to have damaged 1,300 bamboo shelters in Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee camp, with five people reported dead so far in Myanmar.

LEVELING-UPDATE: Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham and Labour MP Debbie Abrahams discuss what next for the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto pledge from 12.45 p.m. — register to watch online.

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MEDIA ROUND

Trade Minister Nigel Huddleston broadcast round: Times Radio (7.20 a.m.) … LBC (7.50 a.m.).

London Mayor Sadiq Khan broadcast round: Sky News Breakfast (7.30 a.m.) … Times Radio Breakfast (8.45 a.m.).

Sky News Breakfast: Stephen Dorrell, former health secretary (7.20 a.m.) … David Logan, former British ambassador to Turkey (7.45 a.m.) … Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury James Murray (8.05 a.m.).

TalkTV: Ben Habib, former Brexit Party MEP (7.30 a.m.) … John McTernan, former adviser to Tony Blair (7.45 a.m.) … Bob Seely, member of the foreign affairs committee (8 a.m.) … Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defense committee (9 a.m.).

Times Radio: President of the NFU Minette Batters (8.05 a.m.) … Richard Dannatt, former head of the army (8.30 a.m.) … Allergy campaigner Tanya Ednan-Laperouse (9.35 a.m.).

LBC’s Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: Former Australian High Commissioner to the U.K. Alexander Downer (7.05 a.m.) … James Robinson, former director of communications to then-deputy Labour leader Tom Watson (7.10 a.m.) … Labour leader Keir Starmer (9 a.m.).

GB News: Alex Crowley, former political director to Boris Johnson (6 a.m and 7 a.m) … Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury James Murray (9 a.m.).

TODAY’S FRONT PAGES

POLITICO UK: Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu square up for likely 2nd-round clash in Turkey.

Daily Express: Outrage over Labour plot to ‘reopen Brexit.’

Daily Mail: Starmer to use EU citizens to ‘rig’ polls.

Daily Mirror: Brothers in arms.

The Sun: Furious Phil calls in lawyer.

Daily Star: Summer on hold.

Financial Times: G7 and EU heap pressure on Russia with ban on reopening of gas pipelines.

i: Sunak under pressure to get ‘tougher’ on migrants.

Metro: Nurses give Sunak the double digit.

The Daily Telegraph: Braverman pushes PM to deliver on migrants.

The Guardian: Braverman rejects Tory calls to east visa rules.

The Independent: Tesco boss: Reboot apprenticeships to kickstart economy.

The Times: Britons will forget how to work, says Braverman.

LONDON CALLING

WESTMINSTER WEATHER: Cloudy changing to sunny intervals by late morning. High of 16C.

MULLIN IT OVER: Former Labour Minister Chris Mullin discusses the latest edition of his diaries, at 7 p.m., at the Durning Library, Kennington.

CONGRATS: To the team from Channel 4 News who scooped a Bafta for best news coverage for their reporting from Ukraine. The tweet is here. The station also won best current affairs program for Children of the Taliban. Full list of winners here.

SPIN DOCTOR TALKS: Alastair Campbell is interviewed by Beth Rigby about his new book, “But What Can I Do?” at 6.30 at Conway Hall.

OAKESHOTT VS. HANCOCK ROUND 768: There’s a lot going on in Isabelle Oakeshott’s Telegraph account of how she had to move venue after Matt Hancock complained about her Lockdown Files show based on her expose of his WhatsApp messages. A friend of Hancock’s told Playbook: “Instead of people desperately trying to profit from stolen materials, it’s for the [COVID] inquiry to look at everything objectively.”

WHO NEEDS UQs? The National Gallery is hosting a five-week online course on impressionism, starting today at 3.30 p.m.

NEW THEATER: My colleague Dan Bloom bagged tickets to the press night at the Operation Mincemeat musical — a very silly caper about the snooty MI5 boys who used a corpse to fool Hitler about the invasion of Sicily. It’s at the Fortune Theatre at 7.30 p.m. and until August.

BIRTHDAYS: Defense Secretary Ben Wallace … Former No. 10 spinner Craig Oliver … BBC newsreader Sophie Raworth … Former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander … Former King’s Fund chief exec Chris Ham.

PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editor Zoya Sheftalovich, reporter Dan Bloom and producer Grace Stranger.