Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Image source, PA

Arron Banks, UKIP's biggest donor, has told the BBC the party needs to get its "mojo back" adding it needs to be "neither right nor left, it's got to be radical and it's got to be anti-establishment." 

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was "struggling with the candidates on offer" in its leadership contest. 

The problem with them all was that they seem to all want to push UKIP to the centre, he said, adding that this seemed "a ludicrous place for it to be".

Mr Banks said losing the former leader, Nigel Farage, "has caused the pressure cooker to explode." 

But he said he thought at some point Mr Farage may come back, adding: "I think he's gone on record saying if Mrs May doesn't deliver on Brexit he'll be back." 

He said the party’s only MP Douglas Carswell “has been the biggest pain in the back side” and that he wished “he would go back” to the Conservative Party. 

Mr Banks said he thought the party had a "marvellous opportunity" with the Labour Party split almost in two. 

Asked if he'd be giving it anymore money, he said he wanted to wait and see if the party "stabilises itself and elect a credible leader."

Tom Moseley
online political reporter

Anyone following the Brexit debate might think lawyers are the big winners from the UK's vote to leave the EU.

Their clients are desperate for advice as the UK attempts to disentangle itself from EU legislation, while the profession's leading lights clash in a historic legal challenge over Parliament's role in Brexit.

But is the profession really rubbing its hands in glee?

Robert Bourns, the president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said that while there is likely to be a short-term surge in demand, the long-term picture could be less rosy.

Companies are worried about whether their skilled workers will be able to stay in the UK post Brexit and how much regulation they will be subject to, he said.

Shane Harrison
BBC NI Dublin correspondent

Image source, AFP

Politicians from Northern Ireland and the Republic will meet in Dublin later to discuss the implications of Brexit for the island.

Representatives from business and farming organisations, as well as civic society, will also attend the talks.

However, neither the DUP nor the Ulster Unionist Party will be at the conference.

The All Island Civic Dialogue on Brexit is taking place at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham.

Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny wants to hear from those affected by the UK's decision to leave the European Union and to map out the challenges posed and their potential impact on different parts of society.

Although unionist parties will not be present, Alliance leader Naomi Long and party colleague Stephen Farry will be there.

Read more

Tom Moseley
online political reporter

Introducing the first official hustings of UKIP's leadership contest, chairman Paul Oakden reflected that it had been a "challenging few weeks" for his party.

In the past month, it has lost its new leader after 18 days and seen an MEP resign after a much-publicised fracas in Strasbourg.

• UKIP leadership runners and riders

This came after months of infighting and tussles between rival factions within the party.

So rather than basking in EU referendum glory, the question of reuniting UKIP was high on the agenda in front of about 200 party activists in central London.

Former deputy leader - and now leadership candidate - Paul Nuttall said he would "let bygones be bygones", and that the party had to "forgive but not forget".

"Let's stop knocking lumps out of each other," he urged, vowing to publish proposals for constitutional reform of the party to "tighten everything up".

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Laura Kuenssberg
BBC political editor

Image source, PA

The referendum campaigns were lots of things - noisy, passionate, dispiriting, vicious, inspiring, predictable, and totally unpredictable.

One side relied on the conventional wisdom, coined by Bill Clinton's campaign brain, James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid."

But as one of Vote Leave's brains has revealed at length this week, they had something else - a new and powerful way of using technology to find and mobilise their support that helped them overturn the traditional political rules.

In 2016, maybe it's the data, stupid.

In the early days of the campaign, members of the Vote Leave team told me they hoped to find a way of mashing the mountain of data that we generate in daily life online with more normal ways of measuring political support.

Their dream was of a system that could put information from Twitter, canvassing, polls, websites, apps, into one giant IT programme that would then churn out extremely sophisticated models that would reveal the areas most likely to vote Leave, down to the street.

Read more

• The government said a consultation would take place on whether the second part of the Leveson Inquiry into phone hacking should go ahead. 
• Lord Heseltine said claims he had killed his mother's Alsatian, Kim, were a "terrible misinterpretation."
• Orgreave campaigners said they were considering a judicial review into the decision not to hold an inquiry into the incident. 
• Chancellor Philip Hammond pledged £1.9bn towards cybersecurity, saying "foreign actors" were developing techniques that threaten the country's electrical grid and airports.
• UKIP candidates promised to reunite the party in the first of its leadership hustings.

House of Commons
Parliament

Transport Minister Paul Maynard finishes his reply to tonight's adjournment debate and that's it for the day in the Commons.

MPs return tomorrow at 11:30am for Cabinet Office questions followed, of course, by Prime Minister's Questions at midday.

The main business of the day is two opposition debates picked by the Labour Party, the first on community pharmacies, the second on police officer safety.

Select Committee
Parliament

"There is discrimination going on and there needs to be change," says Khola Hasan from the Islamic Sharia Council.

Sharia council panellist Amra Bone agrees that "there needs to be improvement". She claims there has not been discrimination at her council but women have come to them from other councils and complained of it.

Ahmad Al Dubayan, chairman of the UK Board of Sharia Councils, says he has seen cases in which the councils "were unfair about their decision" but that is out of many decisions made.

Later, vice chairman Mizan Abdulrouf says that, in Islam, "divorce is the most hated of the permissible", so Sharia councils need to verify that a marriage has broken down.

However, he adds, if a woman tells them "I don't want to go back to that pillock, end of story, that is end of story".

House of Commons
Parliament

The Commons has sent the now re-amended Investigatory Powers Bill back to the Lords, who will have to agree to the bill in its current form - or send it back to the Commons, in the process known as "ping pong". 

But we're very close to the end of the day's sitting in the Commons, as Cannock Chase MP Amanda Milling is introducing today's adjournment debate, on the Chase railway line in the West Midlands.

The Chase line connects Rugeley in Amanda Milling's constituency to Walsall. She says trains at peak times are delayed, overcrowded, and many passengers dodge their fares due to a shortage of ticket inspectors.

She says: "Chase line passengers deserve better."

Image source, PA

Select Committee
Parliament

Conservative MP David Burrowes says there is "a concern about the rise of polygamy".

Mizan Abdulrouf says: "Does Islamic law allow polygamy? Yes it does. I'm not going to shy away from that."

But he adds: "People have to understand the law where they live. The law of the land takes precedence over your own religious laws."

Another Conservative, Nusrat Ghani, asks Amra Bone from Birmingham Central Mosque if she thinks a woman can have more than one husband in some interpretations of Islam.

"That's totally up to a woman," Ms Bone replies. "If she wants to, it's up to her."

House of Lords
Parliament

Former pensions minister Baroness Altmann tells the House that when she joined the government she was "taken aback" to discover that protection for master trusts had not been put in place before auto-enrollment was rolled out.

She says that members of such schemes could lose their entire pensions if their scheme winds up.

She therefore welcomes the bill but says peers must undertake detailed scrutiny to ensure that regulations will work in practice. 

Select Committee
Parliament

Khola Hasan from the Islamic Sharia Council says she deals with "much more than divorce" such as other forms of advocacy services and assistance.

When women wanting a divorce appear before them, she says, the procedure is not about "scaring them to bits" and they can present their case in an "informal" setting.

"I'm not an Islamist. I'm not a violent extremist," she adds, describing claims made by some previous witnesses as "absolutely disgraceful".

She tells the committee: "We are not there to destroy women and to treat women badly."

Select Committee
Parliament

Amra Bone is a Sharia council panellist at Birmingham Central Mosque.

She says Sharia councils plan an important role helping people "to live in this world according to how God wants them to live".

Addressing accusations of discrimination, she says: "I'm a woman. Why would I want to discriminate against any woman?"

Select Committee
Parliament

The final set of witnesses includes Mizan Abdulrouf, vice chairman of the UK Board of Sharia Councils.

He says his organisation was formed to see if it was possible to "standardise" practices in Sharia councils in England and Wales.

He argues that if Sharia councils were not permitted, there would be "backstreet Sharia councils", whereas the board can offer "transparency" and training.

He insists that "it would be un-Islamic" to discriminate against women.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, AP

The bill overhauls and updates the laws on how the police and security services are allowed to access communications data. 

It's aimed at curbing terrorist activity but measures in the bill would also have applications in fighting crime in general.

The headline measure in the bill is a requirement on internet service providers to hold a year's worth of the internet connection records of all their customers. The authorities can already ask ISPs to start collecting this data, but this measure enables them to have access to a year's worth of data as soon as someone becomes of interest. 

Communications data must also be collected in the same manner.

The bill also creates a new statutory framework around "equipment interference" (ie hacking) by the authorities and creates a new oversight regime.