Category Archives: UK news

UK says it wants to substantially rewrite Northern Ireland Brexit protocol

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Blueprint for alternative arrangement published as sources say protocol was flawed at conception

The UK has launched an audacious bid to rewrite a key plank of the Brexit deal, saying the Northern Ireland protocol was flawed at conception but served its purpose to get the UK out of the EU as “one country”.

The European Commission immediately ruled out a renegotiation of the deal, which was trumpeted by Boris Johnson as a solution to the Irish border impasse two years ago. The commission is understood to be open to some changes on the special arrangements for Northern Ireland, however.

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Priti Patel accused of throwing good money after bad over Channel migrants

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Tory MP criticises home secretary over £55m deal with France to double number of patrols off its coast

Handing £55m to French authorities to clamp down on migrants crossing the Channel in small boats is “throwing good money after bad”, the home secretary has been told by a Conservative colleague as she was grilled by MPs.

Priti Patel revealed late on Tuesday that she had agreed to pay the sum as part of a deal with the French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, to double the number of officers patrolling the French coast.

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Unesco strips Liverpool of its world heritage status

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UN body says years of development have caused ‘irreversible loss’ to historic value of Victorian docks

Liverpool has been stripped of its coveted world heritage status after Unesco blamed years of development for an “irreversible loss” to the historic value of its Victorian docks.

The UN’s heritage body concluded at a meeting in China on Wednesday that the “outstanding universal value” of Liverpool’s waterfront had been destroyed by new buildings, including Everton football club’s new £500m stadium.

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The UK has been linked to Congo’s ‘conflict minerals’ – where are the criminal charges? | Vava Tampa

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Swiss court ruling is not the first time plunder of DRC’s mineral wealth has been linked to the killing of Congolese people. Without accountability, it won’t be the last

According to the Swiss federal criminal court last week, the corruption destroying the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where devastating conflicts over minerals used in our electronics have killed more than six million people – is inextricably linked to the UK, Gibraltar and Switzerland.

It was a significant moment exposing corruption that has fuelled not only grinding poverty, famine and unemployment in DRC but also the impunity and violence required to sustain it. Yet, unless there is accountability, it won’t change.

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Sun, swimming, smoking and seagulls: a day in the life of beach hut Britain

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Across the UK, there are long waiting lists for a beach hut – and prices go up and up. A day on Hove promenade reveals why they are so popular and the problems that persist (mainly locks)

Everyone who meets Bonny Holland says the same thing: she really loves beach huts. “Bonny posts in our Facebook group about four times a day,” says the Hove and Portslade councillor Robert Nemeth, who founded the Hove Beach Hut Association. “I have to approve the posts.”

Inside Holland’s beach hut, the 62-year-old retired headteacher keeps a double-ring stove, a frying pan, a griddle pan, graffiti removal wipes, and, best of all, a loo. “You sit on this,” Holland says merrily, unfolding a portable toilet seat for my benefit, “and go in here.”

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Prime minister risks major rebellion over Covid jab passports, say Tory MPs

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More than 40 Conservatives said to be ready to defy government over civil liberties concerns

Conservative MPs believe Boris Johnson faces a major rebellion over Covid vaccine passports but could be supported by Labour, who were on Tuesday night wavering over whether to back them.

Tory MPs opposed to the plan for Covid passes to enter nightclubs and other crowded indoor venues said more than 40 Conservatives were prepared to defy the prime minister over civil liberties concerns, particularly as No 10 has refused to rule out extending the passes to pubs and other sectors.

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Infectious nightclubs: Covid outbreaks serve as risk alert

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Nightclubs across the world have been linked to outbreaks, leading some countries to open up to vaccinated clubbers only

They only wanted to enjoy themselves on the sunny Sardinian coast last summer after a tough two-month lockdown. But instead, young Italians, who had frequented nightclubs, returned home either with Covid-19 or laden with feelings of guilt, regret or anger at the authorities.

Nightclubs, such as those in Spain, France, the UK, Austria and Thailand, have triggered coronavirus outbreaks since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Woman ‘stole diamonds worth £4.2m by swapping them for pebbles’

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Court told Lulu Lakatos posed as gem expert to steal seven diamonds from Boodles in Mayfair, London

A woman stole diamonds worth £4.2m from a luxury London jewellers’ by posing as a gem expert and swapping them for garden pebbles in a highly sophisticated heist, a court has heard.

Lulu Lakatos allegedly posed as a gemologist and pretended to examine and value seven diamonds at the Boodles showroom on New Bond Street in Mayfair, central London.

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Boris Johnson’s aides plotted to oust him as PM, Dominic Cummings claims

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BBC interview reveals people decided Johnson was unfit to be PM within weeks of 2019 election victory

Boris Johnson’s closest aides decided he was unfit to be prime minister within weeks of his 2019 election victory and began plotting to oust him, Dominic Cummings has claimed.

In his first TV interview since quitting as one of the most senior advisers in No 10, Cummings levelled repeated criticism of his former boss, saying aides feared Johnson had no plan to run the country and was only obsessed with “stupid” infrastructure projects.

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Does warm weather mean you are less likely to catch Covid?

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According to epidemiologists, meeting outside helps minimise infection risks but heat itself has a negligible effect on the virus

With the recent rising temperatures and more people now mixing outdoors as restrictions have been lifted in England, and eased in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, experts explain how much of an effect the weather has on Covid-19.

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Border officials told not to make Covid checks on green and amber list arrivals

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Exclusive: officers in England no longer have to verify whether new arrivals have received a negative Covid test

Border officials are no longer required to make basic Covid checks on arrivals in England from green and amber list countries, according to leaked instructions that prompted claims the government is turning a blind eye to the risk of importing Covid cases.

A change that came into effect on Monday means Border Force officers no longer have to verify whether new arrivals have received a negative Covid test, have booked a test within coming days or have a passenger locator form showing an address where they will isolate if necessary.

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Offering aid without development is costing lives in the global south | Letter

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The west is acting like the empires of old and failing to help poor people stand on their own two feet, says Benny Dembitzer

The debate in the Guardian (Outrage aimed at No 10 as MPs back £4bn cut to foreign aid budget, 13 July; Letters, 15 July) over the past few days has only contributed to the continuation of a fundamental error that is literally costing millions of lives in the global south. None of the politicians or correspondents who have intervened in the discussions have emphasised the profound conflict between aid and development. The two are usually presented as synonymous – they are not.

Because we have nurtured very little development to enable poor people in poor countries to stand on their own two feet, we have had to give them more aid. We have not helped them develop their own agency. We have not enabled them to develop agriculture to meet their own needs, encouraged governments to undertake land reform, educated women farmers, facilitated local seed multiplication or created local agricultural colleges.

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Israeli PM: Ben & Jerry’s sales ban will have ‘serious consequences’

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Naftali Bennett hits back at Unilever after subsidiary stops selling ice-cream in occupied territories

The decision by Ben & Jerry’s to stop selling its ice-cream products in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has been met with fierce criticism from the Israeli political establishment, including a warning from the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, that the decision will have “serious consequences” for Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company, Unilever.

The announcement from the ice-cream maker, which has also taken political stances on the climate crisis and social justice issues such as Black Lives Matter, is one of the highest-profile rebukes of Israeli settlement building to date by a well-known brand.

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John Kerry: world leaders must step up to avoid worst impacts of climate crisis

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US envoy uses landmark speech in London to make impassioned plea for unified global effort

The world still has a chance of staving off the worst impacts of climate breakdown but only if governments step up in the next few months with stronger commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the US envoy for climate change has said.

John Kerry, appointed by Joe Biden to spearhead the US’s international efforts to tackle the crisis, urged all large economies to come forward with new plans to cut emissions before the Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow this November.

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Tony Blair urged Nelson Mandela not to discuss Lockerbie trial, papers show

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Blair wrote to then South African leader in 1997 after aides said raising issue at summit in Scotland would be ‘pretty disastrous’

Tony Blair failed in urgent attempts to prevent Nelson Mandela raising the issue of the Lockerbie trial at a Commonwealth summit in Edinburgh, which aides warned would be “pretty disastrous”, previously classified documents reveal.

The Foreign Office, on discovering Mandela was visiting Libya en-route to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Edinburgh in October 1997, warned of a “sensitive situation” if the South African leader spoke out against UK government’s plans to hold the trial of two suspects in Scotland.

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Bill Clinton fancied an Indian rather than tea with the Queen

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Then US leader also turned down Chequers dinner because he wanted to ‘be a tourist’, archives show

Bill Clinton turned down tea with the Queen and dinner at Chequers because he wanted to “be a tourist” and try out an Indian restaurant during his first official visit to the UK with Tony Blair as prime minister, formerly classified documents reveal.

Downing Street wanted to pull out all the stops for a visit seen as crucial to “establishing a good working relationship” between the new prime minister and the then US president. Buckingham Palace contacted No 10 to say “HM the Queen would be very pleased” to invite the Clintons to tea at 5pm on their brief one-day detour from summits in Paris and The Hague.

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Rising Covid cases spark fears of resurgent pandemic in US

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Biden implores Americans to get vaccinated and stocks fall amid outbreaks in areas with low inoculation rates

A rapid increase in coronavirus cases in the US and abroad is fueling fears of a pandemic resurgence and on Monday sent shockwaves through the stock market as the highly contagious Delta variant takes hold – and Joe Biden urged Americans to “please, please get vaccinated”.

The number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid-19 have been rising worryingly in recent days, largely driven by outbreaks in parts of the country with low vaccination rates, as officials have been warning of a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.

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Widow denies organising murder of her British husband in Ukraine hit and run

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Julianna Moore, formerly Ganna Ziuzina, told an inquest she did not seek to profit from Barry Pring’s death, as his family alleges

The widow of a wealthy British businessman killed in a hit and run in Ukraine as he celebrated his first wedding anniversary has denied organising his murder, an inquest heard.

Barry Pring, 47, suffered fatal injuries when he was hit by a vehicle using a stolen number plate while waiting for a taxi outside a restaurant in Kiev with his wife, Ganna Ziuzina, on 16 February 2008.

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Nudge or nutcracker? Either way PM faces vaccine passport backlash

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Analysis: Latest Covid policy announced on what was supposed to be ‘freedom day’ likely to provoke huge anger

What was billed as “freedom day” has ended with accusations that the government has paved the way for exactly the opposite, as Boris Johnson braces for the backlash to his plans to introduce vaccine passports in a matter of months.

The documents have long been a fascination of the prime minister, who touted their use for pubs and theatres back at the start of 2021, but acknowledged the moral dilemma they posed in a country that has always prided itself on opposition to a European-style “papers, please” regime.

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