Braverman denies she will defect to Reform as IT outage forces Labour Cobra meeting – live

Tory party leadership hopeful Suella Braverman has denied she will defect to Reform UK if she loses the contest.

“There’s now so much antagonism towards Suella Braverman among MPs that there is now a generally held view that she will defect,” a senior Tory source told the i newspaper.

But a spokesperson for the ex-home secretary denied this, saying: “Suella has only recently been elected as a Conservative MP and has been a Conservative Party member for three decades.”

However, a Reform source said they expected her to defect after losing the Tory leadership race, perhaps in the autumn, around conference time.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer ’s Labour government is set to resume funding to UN Palestine relief agency UNRWA for Palestinians escaping the war in Gaza .

The Conservative government stopped the money alongside the US in January following accusations from Israel that staff members were involved in the 7 October attacks.

Following the major IT outage hitting airlines, train companies and banks , government officials held a Cobra emergency meeting to address the chaos for train and GP services and television channels.