UK ‘used to be a leader on climate’, lament European lawmakers

MEPs react to ‘tragic’ findings revealing UK falling behind EU in key environmental policies since Brexit

European lawmakers have lamented the UK’s decision to weaken environmental rules since leaving the EU, after the Guardian revealed it is falling behind in almost every policy area.

One Green group MEP said the findings were “tragic” while a centre-right MEP said the divergences were “particularly bad” for companies that want to do business on both sides of the Channel.

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Fujitsu government contracts under scrutiny in light of Horizon scandal

Treasury committee writes to 21 bodies including Bank of England and HMRC to demand details of post-2019 deals

Fujitsu’s receipt of lucrative government contracts despite its role in the Post Office Horizon scandal has come under greater scrutiny after the Treasury committee wrote to organisations including the Bank of England and HM Revenue and Customs to demand details of their contracts with the tech company.

The influential group of MPs told 21 public bodies, including the Treasury itself, to provide information on work given to the Japanese-owned company since 2019, when the high court ruled there had been dozens of bugs and errors in its Horizon IT system.

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Keir Starmer says Netanyahu ‘wrong’ to reject Palestinian state

Labour leader says Israeli PM’s comments are unacceptable and Palestinian statehood not in his gift

Keir Starmer has criticised Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he is “wrong” to reject moves to establish a Palestinian state.

The Labour leader stepped up criticism of Israel’s government, after Netanyahu told the White House that he rejects any moves to establish a Palestinian state when Israel ends its offensive in Gaza, and that all territory west of the Jordan River would be under Israeli security control.

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Foreign Office lawyers ‘unable to conclude if Israeli bombing was lawful’

Documents reveal humanitarian law investigation was far more intensive than David Cameron suggested

UK Foreign Office legal advisers were unable to conclude that Israel was in compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) in its bombardment of Gaza, court documents reveal.

After reviewing specific potential breaches of IHL cited in a report by Amnesty International, the Foreign Office initially concluded it had “serious concerns” about breaches.

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Brexit divergence from EU destroying UK’s vital environmental protections

Exclusive: Britain is falling behind the bloc on almost every area of green regulation, analysis reveals

Vital legal protections for the environment and human health are being destroyed in post-Brexit departures from European legislation, a detailed analysis by the Guardian reveals.

The UK is falling behind the EU on almost every area of environmental regulation, as the bloc strengthens its legislation while the UK weakens it. In some cases, ministers are removing EU-derived environmental protections from the statute book entirely.

Water in the UK will be dirtier than in the EU.

There will be more pesticides in Britain’s soil.

Companies will be allowed to produce products containing chemicals that the EU has restricted for being dangerous.

EU-derived air pollution laws that will be removed under the retained EU law bill.

Dozens of chemicals banned in the EU are still available for use in the UK.

Thirty-six pesticides banned in the EU have not been outlawed in the UK.

The UK is falling behind on reducing carbon emissions as the EU implements carbon pricing.

The EU is compensating those who are struggling to afford the costs of the green transition, while the UK is not.

The EU is implementing stricter regulations on battery recycling, while the UK is not.

Deforestation is being removed from the EU supply chain, while the UK’s proposed scheme is more lax and does not come in until a year later.

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Home Office hires hangar for staff to practise Rwanda deportations

Officials will be taught how to carry out deportations, including how to handle people who physically resist

The Home Office has hired an aircraft hangar and aeroplane body to train security staff on how to deport people, as the UK government increases the number of people it forcibly removes each year.

Officials confirmed on Friday the department had increased its capacity to train officials to carry out deportations, including how to handle people who physically resist. Details of the expansion of the programme were first reported by the Times.

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Rishi Sunak faces more questions over Rwanda plan amid reports Home Office prepared protest scenarios – UK politics live

Home Office reportedly hired hangar and aircraft fuselage to rehearse forcing people onto flights as Ruth Davidson says they are ‘probably never going to happen’

The European court of human rights (ECHR) has issued a press release stating that Ireland has lodged an inter-state application against the UK over the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

In its release, it says:

The Irish Government argue that certain provisions of the act are not compatible with the European Convention. The Irish Government allege, in particular, that sections 19, 39, 40 and 41 of the act guarantee immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences, provided that certain conditions are met, contrary to [articles of the convention]

The Northern Ireland Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) bill was introduced by Boris Johnson’s administration in 2021 and became law in September. The government said it would draw a line under a conflict that killed more than 3,600 people from 1969 to 1998 and left thousands of cases unresolved. The legislation offers immunity to security force veterans and former paramilitaries who cooperate with a new commission for reconciliation and information recovery.

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Home Office U-turns on rights of EU citizens who were in UK pre-Brexit

‘Lack of awareness’ of EU settled status scheme restored as reasonable grounds for late applications by permanent residence card holders

The Home Office has made a significant U-turn on the rights of EU citizens who were in the UK before Brexit.

It is going to reverse a rule it made in August that barred those who mistakenly applied for permanent residency cards after the referendum to make a late application for EU settled status if they were unaware of the specially created immigration scheme.

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Tata Steel to shut down Port Talbot blast furnaces, putting 3,000 jobs at risk

Firm rejects union plan, leaving UK on course to become only major economy unable to make steel from scratch

The owners of Port Talbot steelworks have rejected a trade union plan designed to keep its blast furnaces running, putting nearly 3,000 jobs at risk and leaving the UK on course to become the only major economy unable to make steel from scratch.

In what one union said would be a “crushing blow” to workers and UK steelmaking, Port Talbot’s parent company, the Indian-owned Tata Steel, told workers’ representatives that it could no longer afford to continue production at the loss-making plant in south Wales while it completed a four-year transition plan to greener production.

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Rishi Sunak challenges House of Lords to accept ‘the will of the people’ and pass Rwanda bill – UK politics live

Prime minister says he wants first flight to leave ‘as soon as practicably possible’ but will not give date

Q: When you said you would stop the boats, people thought that meant reducing them to negligble numbers. That is not going to happen, is it?

Sunak says he is proud of the progress he has made. He always said it would be difficult.

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Middle East conflicts and the Rwanda bill – Politics Weekly UK podcast

As tensions in the Middle East continue to rise, this week John Harris speaks to Niku Jafarnia of Human Rights Watch about the regional conflicts. The Rwanda bill passed its third reading and Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, reveals what happened behind the scenes. And the former No 10 adviser Gavin Barwell talks about the increasingly vicious struggles within the Conservative party

Archive: GB News

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Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill passes third reading in Commons

Flagship policy passes committee stage after tense lead-up in which Tory divisions came to the fore

Rishi Sunak has survived a damaging row over his flagship Rwanda bill after a Conservative rebellion melted away and dozens of rightwing MPs balked at further undermining the prime minister’s authority.

After a crucial 11th hour meeting of more than 45 Tory rebels, the group’s leaders concluded that defeating the bill by voting alongside Labour during an election year could risk collapsing the government.

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Rwanda bill vote: Tory rebels have not shown amendments are legally robust, No 10 says – live

Sunak’s press secretary says Downing Street not shown legal basis for rebel amendments, despite this being offered and asked for

Rishi Sunak starts with the usual spiel about his engagements, and how he has got meetings with colleagues.

Rishi Sunak is taking PMQs in 10 minutes.

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Sexual harassment has shifted away from the office to work trips, MPs told

In wake of #MeToo, sexism in the City has become more ‘underhand and pernicious’, women tell inquiry

The social change sparked by the #MeToo movement has not translated to the UK’s financial sector, with sexual harassment merely shifting outside the office to conferences and work trips, MPs have heard.

A summary of private hearings held as part of the Treasury committee’s sexism in the City inquiry showed that, while a small number of women said workplaces had become more inclusive in recent years, the majority felt the Square Mile was still an “old boys’ club” with misconduct and misogyny widespread.

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Rwanda president: efforts to implement asylum plan cannot ‘drag on’

Paul Kagame also says he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped

Rwanda’s president has said there are limits to how long attempts to implement an asylum deal with Britain can “drag on”, indicating he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped.

Paul Kagame’s comments on Wednesday came before Rishi Sunak faced a potentially leadership-ending rebellion by Conservative MPs threatening to vote down his Rwanda deportation bill on Wednesday night.

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Wednesday briefing: The days that could decide how Rishi Sunak is remembered

In today’s newsletter: The controversial Rwanda bill is back in the Commons – what happens next could shape the party’s future

Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition

Good morning. It’s been another miserable week for Rishi Sunak, and it’s only Wednesday. The fulcrum of his despair is today’s vote on the third reading of the government’s Rwanda deportation bill, which is meant to be a populist, lawyer-thwarting solution to the nightmare of the government’s policy on Channel crossings – but has come under serious threat from exactly the hardliners it was supposed to appease.

Yesterday, two Conservative deputy chairs, Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, resigned from their jobs in order to vote for amendments to the bill alongside 58 of their peers. The government still looks likely to prevail later in the key vote today – but the row has dragged the Conservative party’s current self-loathing into the open once again. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to the Spectator’s political editor, Katy Balls, about the latest iteration of the Tory identity crisis, and what it tells us about the fight for the party’s future. Here are the headlines.

Post Office | Fujitsu, the technology company that built the flawed Horizon IT system at the heart of the Post Office scandal, has admitted for the first time that it should contribute to financial redress for victims. Fujitsu’s European boss, Paul Patterson, said there was a “moral obligation for the company to contribute”.

Iran | Iran has launched airstrikes on Pakistan territory, apparently aimed at a Sunni militant group, in the latest sign of a wave of violence rolling across the Middle East and beyond. Pakistan’s foreign ministry said two children were killed, and summoned Tehran’s senior diplomat in Islamabad to protest against the “unprovoked violation of its airspace”.

France | Emmanuel Macron wants to regulate French children’s screen time, test compulsory school uniform, and is not against all primary schoolchildren having to learn the national anthem, he has told a press conference. Macron’s promise of a “common sense” France comes as he tries to limit the potential gains of the far right in upcoming European elections.

Austria | Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who raped and incarcerated his daughter in a purpose-built prison beneath his home for 24 years, is applying for release from jail, according to his lawyer. Fritzl, 88, could be moved to a nursing home if his appeal is successful.

Guinness World Records | Bobi the Portuguese mastiff, who had comfortably clinched the title of the oldest dog ever when he died in October at the apparent age of 31, is having the distinction reviewed after doubts were raised about his lifespan. Pictures purportedly of the same dog in 1999 appear to show him with different-coloured paws.

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Top judge says it is not for government to decide if judges available for Rwanda asylum appeals – UK politics live

Lady Carr, most senior judge in England and Wales, says she will decide if judges are allocated to asylum appeals hearings in apparent rebuke to No 10

More than 60 Tory MPs have signed at least one of the various rebel amendments to the Rwanda bill tabled by hardliners. But very few of them have said publicly that, if the amendments are not passed, they will definitely vote against the bill at third reading. Suella Braverman and Miriam Cates are among the diehards in this category. But Simon Clarke, in his ConservativeHome, only says, that, if the bill is not changed, he will not vote for the bill at third reading, implying he would abstain.

In an interview with Sky News, Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who has tabled the rebel amendments attracting most support, said he was “prepared” to vote against the bill at third reading. He said:

I am prepared to vote against the bill … because this bill doesn’t work, and I do believe that a better bill is possible.

So the government has a choice. It can either accept my amendments … or it can bring back a new and improved bill, and it could do that within a matter of days because we know the shape of that bill.

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Chief justice criticises plans to recruit 150 judges to deal with asylum cases

Most senior judge in England and Wales says government plans draw ‘matters of judicial responsibility into the political arena’

The most senior judge in England and Wales has criticised plans to recruit and train 150 judges to help implement Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation policy.

The lady chief justice, Dame Sue Carr, said decisions on how judges were deployed should be “exclusively a matter for the judiciary”, adding that plans outlined by the government drew “matters of judicial responsibility into the political arena”.

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Tories on edge of precipice as Sunak grapples with Rwanda bill rebellion

PM will recall how Tory anger toppled May, Johnson and Truss as he seeks solution to party fractures

Rishi Sunak was the most junior of ministers when Theresa May faced her worst Brexit ructions, but as he battles Commons votes, endless amendments and mutinous Conservative factions, the prime minister might have some retrospective sympathy for his predecessor-but-two.

The parallels do not end there. With Brexit largely viewed as completed, Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill has become emblematic of what many Tory MPs see as the party’s main ideological battleground: migration, and most specifically, small boats.

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‘Given my life back’: Home Office restores rights to French woman after Brexit mix-up

Paula Serre lost her job after being stripped of the right to live and work in the UK after confusion over immigration process

A French woman who lost her job in the UK after a mix-up over the Brexit immigration process has had her residency and work rights restored by the Home Office after publicising her story.

Paula Serre had been waiting for two years for a final decision on her application when her life was turned upside down.

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