Labour’s deputy leader has warned there will be “no magic bullet” to solve Labour’s problems – or major challenges facing the country – as its MPs grapple with how to navigate the fallout out from the local elections.

Lucy Powell told the Guardian she understood there was “huge anger and despondency” from Labour MPs in the aftermath of the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal, but said the prime minister would not make a similar mistake again.

Powell, who called for Keir Starmer to be more explicitly progressive during her deputy leadership campaign, said she would not engage in leadership speculation with the party facing a potential loss of more than 75% of the council seats it is defending, as well as losing power in Wales and failing to beat the SNP in Scotland.

But she warned restive MPs there would be “no one change” that would lead to a reverse in fortunes. “There’s no magic bullet here for us. We are in a difficult world,” she said in an interview on the campaign trail in Leeds, where the party is facing off against both Reform and the Greens in different parts of the city.

“I strongly believe that we’ve got the right agenda to start turning that around. To give people hope, an opportunity and see the change in their communities.”

Asked if Keir Starmer was the right leader to deliver it, Powell said: “I’m not going to get into that. I think there’s no one change that [will affect] all of these situations. We’ve still got to tackle these big issues, and we’ve got to do it in the right way with the right values. Having some side order conversation about personnel and people, I think misses the point.” You can read the full story here:

The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn told Sky News this morning that his party would view winning a majority of seats in next week’s Scottish parliament election as having a mandate to demand a fresh independence referendum.

Flynn, who said the UK is “broken beyond repair” and that Scotland needs to be more empowered to make decisions for itself, told Sky News:

“History is on our side in that regard so if next Thursday we break the electoral system in Scotland once again… then I would expect the people of Scotland to be given a say over their own future, as is right in any democratic society.”

“You’re telling me that Keir Starmer saying no means something – Keir Starmer is not going to be in office come the end of next week,” Flynn said.

While he acknowledged that Starmer “might survive for a few weeks” after Thursday’s elections – which also include local council elections in England – he said the prime minister “loves a u-turn if he does somehow manage to stay in office”.

“The Westminster establishment, I am afraid, aren’t quite ready or aware of what is about to happen,” he said. “Because they cannot continue to deny that democracy exists on these isles for the Scottish people and indeed potentially for the Welsh people as well.”

A second independence referendum would need to be approved by the UK government but Keir Starmer has said he cannot imagine another Scottish independence referendum taking place during his time as the UK’s prime minister.

In September 2014, Scotland voted in a referendum to reject independence by a margin of 55% to 45%. A new Norstat survey for The Sunday Times indicates that while the SNP is on course to win Thursday’s election, it will fall short of the majority the party’s leader, John Swinney, has suggested would trigger a new independence referendum.

There is increasing momentum toward the break up of the UK with Plaid Cymru in strong contention to win power in the Senedd and Sinn Féin the largest party in Belfast.

Speaking to the BBC, Zack Polanski discouraged people from using the phrase “globalise the intifada” (see this earlier post for its meaning) but added he is “not interested” in policing language.

The Green Party leader told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg:

It’s not a phrase I would use personally and that’s because I think if there’s other phrases you can use or other ways to do things then why not just do them.

I want people to be more effective so I wouldn’t encourage people to use it because actually I think you can make your point a lot more effectively and not get into this conversation about language.

Words matter, but the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been murdered, the people in Lebanon who have been killed, these people matter too, and I think if people want to protest, that it’s important we defend their right to protest.

Yes I do discourage, to give you a more direct answer, the use of the phrase but I’m not interested in trying to police people’s language.

The Met police commissioner Mark Rowley told BBC Breakfast earlier in the week that people using “globalise the intifada” are “likely to be arrested”. “We said that before Christmas and we’ve already got people arrested and charged and in court for such behaviour,” Rowley said.

Trevor Phillips has asked Green party leader Zack Polanski “what on earth was going through your head” when sharing a social media post condemning the actions of police officers who arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack.

Polanski, recognising the “bravery” of police officers who run towards dangerous incidents, said he apologised for his retweet because X was not an “appropriate forum” to make those comments (see post at 09.27 for more details). He told Sky News:

The first thing I did was recognise that this was a horrific crime and I showed solidarity to the victims and their families.

I then thanked the emergency responders for the brave work they did. I found it all very traumatic, especially as a Jewish person.

And I also found the video that was circulating online traumatic too. I accept though that conversation about that video needs to be had with the commissioner rather than on X.

In an unusually public intervention, the Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, shared a letter to Polanski on X last Thursday, criticising the post the Green party leader retweeted as “inaccurate and misinformed commentary”. He said the responding police officers were “nothing short of extraordinary” and that “without their efforts to stop him (the suspect) I dread to think what the outcome could have been.”

Rowley’s impartiality has been called into question after being accused of wading into the political arena at a particularly sensitive time ahead of elections next week, including for councils in London.

Amid growing speculation about potential Labour leadership challenges being triggered by the expected disastrous local election results, the transport secretary insisted that “the best person to lead our country” was Keir Starmer.

Those demanding a leadership battle should “give their head a gentle wobble”, Heidi Alexander told Sky News. She explained:

So I think here is the best person to lead our country through the period of extreme international volatility that we are experiencing at the moment.

I don’t think the public would thank us if the Labour Party turned into some sort of self indulgent debating society when there are pockets of the world that feel like they are going to hell in a handcart at the moment.

I think asking the prime minister to somehow reapply for his job when all of that is going on and he is entirely focused on the concerns of the British people would be the wrong thing to do…

I think those people who think that we should have a leadership election now and repeat the mistakes that the Conservative government made in churning through prime ministers probably do need to give their head a gentle wobble.

MPs have shifted discussions from speculating about whether the prime minister could be removed to how – including timelines, potential triggers and the mechanics of forcing a leadership contest, my colleagues report here.

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, has said Zack Polanski’s retweeting of a post suggesting the police used excessive force when they arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack last week was “disgusting” and “absolutely abhorrent” as she claimed he was not “fit to lead a political party”.

Polanski retweeted, without comment, a post on X alleging that officers were “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” when he was already incapacitated by a stun gun.

The Green party leader has since apologised after being publicly criticised by the head of the Metropolitan Police, who said his actions undermined the confidence of officers to deal with dangerous people.

Speaking to Sky News this morning, Alexander said:

I thought it was disgusting what he did and absolutely abhorrent. Those police officers ran towards danger, they were armed only with a Taser that they had already discharged. The guy still had a knife in his hand. They were armed with their courage and their training.

And I think for the leader of a political party to jump onto Twitter, start retweeting content criticising those policemen who responded with incredible bravery in what was a very difficult situation. I think it demonstrates that the man is not fit to lead a political party.

Essa Suleiman, 45, has been charged with attempted murder after two Jewish men were stabbed on Wednesday in Golders Green, north London. He is also charged with attempted murder over an earlier attack that day on a man during a personal dispute in south London. On Thursday, the UK’s terror threat level was raised to severe.

Following the attack, the government announced it was making more money available for protecting Jewish communities and promised to increase powers to target antisemitic preachers but the prime minister, Keir Starmer, has been accused of not doing enough following a string of antisemitic attacks.