Category Archives: UK news

Race to replace Boris Johnson slow to take shape amid resignation chaos

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Analysis: Suella Braverman is lone frontbencher to voice leadership plan as Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid and others hang back

Even before Boris Johnson delivered his ill-tempered exit speech, Conservative MPs’ focus had already switched to who might succeed him – and unlike in 2019, when he had been the prince across the water for months, this time there is no obvious successor.

Rishi Sunak, who walked out of the Treasury on Tuesday within minutes of Sajid Javid quitting, had been widely seen as the frontrunner until a series of missteps, including the botched spring statement.

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No new policies under my leadership, Boris Johnson confirms

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Outgoing PM confirms no big changes of direction, including about taxation, during race to succeed him

Boris Johnson’s government will not try to implement new policies while the Conservatives choose a new leader, the prime minister has told his cabinet, deepening concerns over paralysis in the aftermath of his resignation announcement.

The prime minister, who has pledged to step aside, said he will not introduce “major changes of direction” including tax decisions over the coming weeks as Tory MPs and party members run an election for his replacement.

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Cancer spending threatened if NHS staff given 3% pay rise without extra funds

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NHS England says Treasury must cover cost as health service faces first real-terms cut in funding ‘since possibly the mid-1950s’

The NHS will have to cut investment in cancer care if ministers award frontline staff a pay rise above 3% but refuse to provide extra money to cover it, health service bosses have warned.

The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, and Julian Kelly, its chief financial officer, made clear their belief that soaring inflation means the service’s 1.3 million staff deserve a pay award of more than the 3% the government has already given the organisation funding to cover.

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Glee in Russia and sadness in Ukraine as Boris Johnson quits

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Kremlin gloats as oligarch Oleg Deripaska welcomes end of ‘stupid clown’ but Zelenskiy pays tribute to ‘true friend’

Boris Johnson’s downfall has been met with delight and ridicule in Moscow, while in Kyiv Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed sadness at the resignation of his key ally.

Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine in the early stages of the war and was the first leader of a G7 country to visit Kyiv in April, has emerged as a much-loved figure in Ukraine. “We all heard this news [of Johnson’s resignation] with sadness,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by phone. “Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you.

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MP asks if ex-KGB agent tried to arrange private Johnson and Lavrov call

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Yvette Cooper requests more details about Boris Johnson’s meeting with Alexander Lebedev in Italy in 2018

Yvette Cooper has used an urgent question in the Commons to ask if Alexander Lebedev sought to arrange a private phone call between Boris Johnson and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during a weekend party in April 2018.

A day after Johnson admitted for the first time that when foreign secretary he had met former KGB agent Lebedev without officials present, the shadow home secretary told the Commons there were further questions raised by the trip to the party at an Italian palazzo owned by Lebedev’s son.

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‘Get exit done’: UK front pages mix incredulity with PM’s message of defiance

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Word from No 10 bunker goes out to the Tory trenches but even the diehards know that the party’s one-time hero has to go

A blood-curdling vow to fight to the death, despair among Tory grandees at the impending loss of their champion, and incredulity that Boris Johnson is still hanging on – it is all part of the mix as the UK newspapers feast on another day of high drama at Westminster.

In what it calls an “exclusive” on “Defiant Boris’s message to Tory rebels”, the Sun splashes with the headline “You’ll have to dip your hands in blood to get rid of me”. A “key ally” of the prime minister repeats the No 10 briefing line that the rebels will have to overturn the “will of the people” if they want to oust Johnson.

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Three Wimbledon security guards arrested after alleged fight on grounds

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Fight in front of fans was reportedly broken up by police with the men taken into custody and later bailed

Three of Wimbledon’s security guards have been arrested after an alleged fight between them within the grounds of the grand slam tennis tournament.

The altercation on Friday took place between guards working for Knights Group Security, the company contracted to provide security services to Wimbledon.

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FBI and MI5 leaders give unprecedented joint warning on Chinese spying

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Christopher Wray joins Ken McCallum in London, calling Beijing the ‘biggest long-term threat to economic security’

The head of the FBI and the leader of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency have delivered an unprecedented joint address raising fresh alarm about the Chinese government, warning business leaders that Beijing is determined to steal their technology for competitive gain.

In a speech at MI5’s London headquarters intended as a show of western solidarity, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, stood alongside the MI5 director general, Ken McCallum. Wray reaffirmed longstanding concerns about economic espionage and hacking operations by China, as well as the Chinese government’s efforts to stifle dissent abroad.

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How much longer can Boris Johnson refuse to budge?

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A defiant prime minister may try to hold a general election to buy himself more time

Boris Johnson already knew more of his cabinet ministers wanted him gone before he went to face his MPs at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday. Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, and Simon Hart, the Welsh secretary, had told him to quit.

But the prime minister was immovable. He pressed on with the day, determined to answer questions three hours later from select committee chairs on the price of grain in the Bosphorus and the merits of road pricing at the liaison committee.

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Michael Gove sacked ‘for disloyalty’: allies reveal how it happened

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Levelling up secretary fired several hours after urging Boris Johnson to vacate No 10

Michael Gove was sacked by Boris Johnson on Wednesday evening after telling the prime minister to quit earlier in the day.

Allies confirmed the levelling up secretary had been dismissed after a delegation of cabinet ministers told Johnson he should resign.

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Sunak and Javid in pole position if race for Johnson’s job begins

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A number of senior Tory MPs are preparing leadership bids as Johnson’s hold on power weakens

Leadership jostling kicked off among leading Conservative MPs as Boris Johnson clung to power, with departing cabinet ministers Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid the favourites, and Eurosceptic Steve Baker publicly saying he would “reflect seriously on whether to run”.

Baker, a former chair of the European Research Group who was one of the “Spartan” holdouts against Theresa May’s Brexit deal, was the second to go on the record with leadership ambitions, saying it was “accurate” that he was thinking about a bid.

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UK watchdog opens investigation into Amazon’s marketplace practices

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CMA looks into whether firm gives own sellers unfair advantage over third-party rivals

The UK competition watchdog has launched an investigation into whether Amazon has been giving its own brands and those using its logistics services unfair advantage over third-party rivals on its online marketplace.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it opened an investigation on Tuesday amid concerns the US tech corporation’s practices on its UK marketplace may be anti-competitive and could result in a worse deal for customers.

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50 Chinese students leave UK in three years after spy chiefs’ warning

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MI5 chief says Chinese communist party targeting intellectual property across west

Fifty Chinese students have left the UK in the past three years after Britain tightened its procedures to prevent the theft of sensitive academic research, the head of MI5 said in a speech about the espionage threat posed by Beijing.

Ken McCallum, the director general of the spy agency, also said that MI5 had “more than doubled” its effort against Chinese activity over the same timeframe, as part of an unprecedented joint warning with his counterpart at the FBI.

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Welsh secretary resigns after Boris Johnson sacks Michael Gove and refuses to quit – as it happened

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Levelling up secretary had told PM to step down in face-to-face meeting as Simon Hart says it is too late to ‘turn the ship around’

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Hamish Mackay.

Tory MPs critical of Boris Johnson claim that a majority of their colleagues are now in favour of replacing him.

I think there is a majority in the party that wants to see change.

I personally have lost confidence in the prime minister now and I’m very sorry to say that. I think he does need to go.

We are regarded as rebels. We’re not. Well over half the parliamentary party now now want Boris Johnson to leave office. That means we’re the mainstream …

About a month ago we had the no confidence vote. Since then there’s been a lot of buyer’s remorse from those who backed him and it’s only been one-way traffic. I haven’t heard anybody who voted no confidence in the prime minister has changed their mind since then.

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‘Charge of the lightweight brigade’: Starmer uses PMQs to mock Tories

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Labour leader says Conservative MPs backing Boris Johnson do not have ‘a shred of integrity’

Keir Starmer has accused Conservative MPs and ministers of complicity in propping up a prime minister with a history of indefensible behaviour, as he both condemned and mocked what he called the “dying spectacle” of Boris Johnson’s political career.

Focusing in particular on Johnson’s decision earlier this year to promote Chris Pincher to be deputy chief whip, despite a known history of sexually predatory behaviour, Starmer said any Tory MPs still backing Johnson did not have “a shred of integrity”.

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‘Enough is enough’: Sajid Javid lays into Boris Johnson in Commons

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Former health secretary calls on colleagues to consider following his lead after resigning from cabinet

Sajid Javid has called on cabinet ministers to consider resigning from Boris Johnson’s government to help oust him as prime minister, saying he quit as health secretary after deciding “enough is enough” over issues of truth and credibility.

Giving a damning personal statement in the Commons on Wednesday after his resignation on Tuesday evening, Javid made it plain he believed other ministers should follow suit.

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Nadhim Zahawi: is new chancellor going to change direction on economy?

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Analysis: Rishi Sunak’s successor treading tightrope between spending to keep PM in power and dealing with economic crisis

Should he remain in the job for longer than some political commentators expect, Nadhim Zahawi faces a balancing act as chancellor. He must walk the line between doing what it takes to prevent the political implosion of Boris Johnson’s government, and dealing with the worst succession of economic shocks to hit Britain since at least the 1970s.

As the fourth Conservative chancellor in as many years, parachuted in after Rishi Sunak resigned with a stinging critique of Johnson’s devil-may-care attitude towards tax and spending, Zahawi is expected to face heavy pressure from the prime minister to cut taxes to revive the economy.

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Maya Forstater was discriminated against over gender-critical beliefs, tribunal rules

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Researcher lost job at thinktank after tweeting that transgender women could not change their biological sex

A researcher who lost her job at a thinktank after tweeting that transgender women could not change their biological sex has won her claim that she was unfairly discriminated against because of her gender-critical beliefs.

Maya Forstater suffered direct discrimination when the Centre for Global Development (CGD), where she was a visiting fellow, did not renew her contract or fellowship, an employment tribunal found on Wednesday.

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Exit paths: how Boris Johnson could be forced from power

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Analysis: another confidence vote, a managed exit or a bleed-out – the next steps are hard to call

By any normal metric it is fair to say Boris Johnson is doomed, given the scale of ministerial resignations and the number of backbench MPs publicly withdrawing their support. While Johnson has often defied normal political rules, it does seem a matter of when he is ousted from No 10 rather than if. But how? Here are some scenarios.

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