Whitehall sources say it could take more than a year for any treaty to be passed, with next election looming
Rishi Sunak is attempting to finalise a new pact with Rwanda after a central plank of the British government’s immigration plans was ripped up by the supreme court.
A treaty, which would have to be ratified by the UK parliament, was being drawn up with the government in Kigali, the prime minister said.
Continue reading...Critics raise concerns that PM during ‘golden era’ of UK-China relations has maintained ties with Beijing
Chinese state media have welcomed the appointment of the former prime minister David Cameron as the UK’s foreign secretary, as opponents of Beijing raised concerns about the return of a figure closely associated with the “golden era” of UK-China relations.
In an editorial published on Tuesday, the Chinese state tabloid the Global Times said Cameron “could potentially play a constructive role, both in mending the UK’s relations with China and in rebuilding and advancing the UK’s post-Brexit diplomatic landscape”.
Continue reading...Former environment secretary says government work stresses left her hospitalised for a month nearly five years ago
Thérèse Coffey said she “nearly died” due to the stress of being a government minister.
Speaking to BBC Radio Suffolk, the former environment secretary said she was admitted to hospital after “working [herself] into the ground”.
Continue reading...Former home secretary tells PM he broke promises he made to gain her support during party leadership contest
Rishi Sunak took something of a risk when he decided to sack Suella Braverman. Her hardline, anti-immigration rhetoric was popular, not just with rightwing MPs, but with most of the Tory press (particularly the Daily Mail), and this morning those papers might have come out in her defence.
But, judging by their editorials, they are broadly supportive of Sunak. They have not turned on him – at least today.
Moving the impressive James Cleverly to Home Secretary is smart, as is appointing Esther McVey as ‘Common Sense Tsar’ to oversee the anti-woke agenda.
Will this be enough to placate the Tory Right? Only time will tell, but any MP who thinks salvation lies in yet more no- confidence letters – and trying to unseat another leader – needs their head testing.
The seeds of his downfall were planted that year when his promise of an EU referendum was included in the Tory manifesto, not least to see off a populist threat from Ukip. Mr Sunak is facing something similar in that the country is increasingly alarmed by high levels of immigration, both legal and illegal, and extremism. The recent pro-Palestinian marches and the rise of anti-Semitic hatred have brought much of this to a head.
Mrs Braverman articulated many of these concerns, and those who agree with her will be angry that she has been dropped, seeing it as appeasing the Left and deepening Tory divisions.
[Cameron’s] central achievement in 11 years as party leader, often overlooked after the Brexit debacle, was to give the Conservative party a much broader base. In his time, great strides were made in making sure a fiscally conservative party was also socially liberal and internationalist: advancing the careers of women in politics, championing same-sex marriage, expanding development aid and becoming the natural home of ethnically diverse British leadership, of whom Rishi Sunak himself is the outstanding embodiment.
Cameron’s renewed prominence is a reminder that the cabinet in which he will be sitting is mainstream and centre-right, looking to reduce taxation but only in a financially responsible way, controlling migration effectively but without divisive language, improving the UK’s relations with Europe while eschewing nationalistic rhetoric. That is what Sunak has been doing but against the backdrop of mixed messages from former PMs and some of his own cabinet. The Conservatives after this reshuffle are more unmistakably the party that some of its disenchanted former voters will recognise as their own.
Continue reading...Downing Street says it is not focused on ‘tick-box diversity’ and women get senior jobs elsewhere
After Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle, men hold the top four positions in government for the first time since 2010.
Liz Truss’s ministry was notable for initially having no white men serving in the great offices of state for the first time in British political history, with Kwasi Kwarteng becoming the first black chancellor.
Three of the four top cabinet ministers – Sunak, Hunt and Cameron – graduated with first class honours in philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) from Oxford.
The last time all four top ministerial positions were held by men was at the end of Gordon Brown’s Labour government, with Brown in No 10, Alistair Darling as chancellor, Alan Johnson as home secretary and David Miliband as foreign secretary.
The number of female cabinet ministers has dropped by 5%. Some of those in post include Victoria Atkins, the health and social care secretary; Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary; and Claire Coutinho, the energy and net zero secretary.
The number of minority ethnic ministers has dropped from five to four. Those ministers are Sunak, Britain’s first Asian prime minister, Cleverly, Badenoch and Coutinho.
According to the Sutton Trust, 63% of the new cabinet were privately educated, which compared with 71% in John Major’s 1992 cabinet and 91% in Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 cabinet.
Of the 32 ministers around Sunak’s cabinet table, 21 went to private school, five went to grammar schools and six attended comprehensive schools.
Of those who were privately educated, 41% went on to attend Oxford or Cambridge university.
The six who went to comprehensive school equate to 19%, much lower than the 27% in Boris Johnson’s cabinet.
The Sutton Trust says the proportion of Sunak’s top team who went to an independent school is nine times the rate in the general population, which is roughly 7%.
Continue reading...Government appears to withdraw from past assertion by Boris Johnson amid shift to more pointed criticism of Israeli campaign in Gaza
The British government appears to have withdrawn an assertion made by the former prime minister, Boris Johnson, that the international criminal court has no jurisdiction in Israel, amid a wider western shift to more pointed criticism of the way Israel is conducting its campaign to remove Hamas from Gaza.
In a statement to MPs on Tuesday, the Foreign Office minister, Andrew Mitchell, said: “It is not for ministers to seek to state where the ICC has jurisdiction; that is for the chief prosecutor. The chief prosecutor has not been silent on this matter, and I am sure he will continue to express his views.”
Continue reading...The barrister has been welcomed as a competent and intelligent choice by centrist Tories
Victoria Atkins might not have the public profile of cabinet peers, but her appointment as health secretary caps several years of steady, if unshowy, handling of briefs in junior ministerial roles.
An MP since 2015 and a backer of Rishi Sunak in the 2022 Conservative leadership contest, her elevation has been warmly welcomed by colleagues in the centrist wing of the Conservative party, who also emphasised what they regarded as her competence.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Why the former prime minister has returned to frontline politics as Rishi Sunak’s foreign secretary
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Good morning. David Cameron really is the new foreign secretary. In a way, Rishi Sunak warned us: just over a year ago, he told Tory party conference that his mission was to break with a failed 30-year political consensus and usher in something genuinely different. All the same, I don’t know if anyone could have predicted that he was planning to go back to a 60-year-old idea, instead. Even Cameron, truly the grown-up’s grown-up, was barely out of nappies when Alec Douglas-Home, the last former prime minister to take over at the foreign office, got the job in 1970.
On the other hand, it seems … quite hard to break with a 30-year consensus by appointing one of its architects, even if doing so successfully drives the firing of home secretary Suella Braverman – who lost her job via an unceremonious phone call - from the front pages. “He was the future once,” the new cabinet minister once teased Tony Blair at prime minister’s questions. We can now say that Cameron was the past once, a significantly more mind-bending proposition. The weirdest fact of the day: seven years after his resignation as prime minister, he’s still four years younger than Keir Starmer.
Israel-Hamas war | Israeli forces have reached the gates of Gaza’s largest hospital as hundreds of patients, including dozens of babies, remained trapped inside. Thousands of people have fled al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, but health officials said the remaining patients were dying due to energy shortages amid intense fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants. For the latest, head to the live blog.
Iceland volcano | Iceland’s prime minister has sought to reassure the nation as it braces for a volcanic eruption. Between midnight and early afternoon on Monday, the Icelandic meteorological office detected about 900 earthquakes amid warnings of the significant likelihood of the Fagradalsfjall volcano erupting within days.
Fertility | People who donate sperm, eggs and embryos to help others have children will lose the right to anonymity from the moment the child is born, under proposed changes to UK fertility law. The proposal, prompted by the ease with which people can sidestep formal routes to trace donors via private DNA testing and social media, is one of several proposals published by the regulator today.
Environment | BP and Spotify were among companies who bought carbon credits at risk of being implicated in potential Uyghur forced labour, an investigation has found. A Guardian investigation found that provider South Pole was aware of the risk of forced labour linked to the scheme in 2021.
Counter-terrorism | Downing Street’s plan to ban the glorifying of terrorism risks criminalising “supporters of the suffragettes, Nelson Mandela, or even the crowd at Murrayfield belting out Flower of Scotland”, a former independent reviewer of terror legislation has warned.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak’s decision to bring a more moderate figure to his cabinet and oust Suella Braverman is viewed as likely to set up a clash with the Tory right
The return of former PM David Cameron to government as foreign secretary has evoked surprise for many, shock for some, and anger among MPs on the right of the Tory party. The British papers reflect the full spectrum of reactions.
The Guardian says: “Cameron’s shock return in high-stakes reshuffle”, noting that the political comeback for the now Lord Cameron marks a return to a more centrist team for Rishi Sunak, particularly given the sacking of Suella Braverman as home secretary.
Continue reading...Former PM will take seat in House of Lords; former Treasury minister moves to health; Braverman replaced as home secretary by James Cleverly
ITV’s Paul Brand says he has had a text with the word “Rejoice” from a Tory MP celebrating the sacking of Suella Braverman.
James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, has been seen going into No 10, PA Media reports.
Continue reading...Inquiry found ex-PM had sent dozens of messages to former colleagues asking them to help his then employer
David Cameron’s surprise return to the cabinet as foreign secretary comes just two years after a parliamentary inquiry found he had shown a “significant lack of judgment” over a lobbying campaign for a bank in which he held a personal economic interest.
The former prime minister launched the intensive round of text messages to ministers and high-ranking civil servants at the height of the Covid pandemic on behalf of Greensill Capital, which collapsed the following year.
Nine WhatsApp messages to the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak.
Two WhatsApp messages to Richard Sharp, then adviser to Sunak.
Twelve texts to Sir Tom Scholar, the then permanent secretary to the Treasury.
A dozen texts, emails, phone calls and other messages to the ministers Michael Gove, Matt Hancock, Nadhim Zahawi, John Glen and Jesse Norman.
Continue reading...PM clearly hopes to rewrite the narrative with shock appointment, but will it shift the dial with voters?
Just five weeks ago, Rishi Sunak pledged to be the candidate of change, telling activists at the Conservative party conference that he would shake up three decades of political consensus.
Instead, he has brought back David Cameron, the former prime minister who was in charge for six of those 30 years and who, through Brexit, ushered in the biggest schism in British politics for a generation.
Continue reading...Four ministers with more than 30 years of frontbench time between them resign as PM reshuffles cabinet
Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle has brought the resignation of four notably experienced junior ministers with more than three decades of frontbench time between them, while another departure left the government looking for its 16th housing minister since 2010.
Those who stepped down were Nick Gibb, the veteran schools minister; Jesse Norman, who was at the Department for Transport; Jeremy Quin, the paymaster general; and Will Quince, a junior health minister.
Continue reading...As former UK PM makes a return to cabinet, we look at his somewhat chequered record on global stage
David Cameron has made a shock return to the UK government as foreign secretary.
A profile on the government’s website credits him with developing “a foreign policy that responded to the new challenges of the Arab spring and also evolving challenges from various state and non-state actors”.
Continue reading...Justin Welby’s call came as British Palestinians with relatives in Gaza demanded a meeting with the prime minister
The archbishop of Canterbury has called for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, saying the scale of civilian deaths and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza could not be “morally justified”.
“The killing must stop,” Justin Welby said, adding that the call for a ceasefire was a “moral cry”.
Continue reading...A victory for the immigration and asylum policy on Wednesday will come with headaches, but a defeat could split the Conservative party
Wednesday marks a potentially pivotal moment in the government’s fortunes when the supreme court rules whether its plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful.
The decision could have significant implications not just for immigration and asylum policy, but also for the future direction of Rishi Sunak’s government, and the Conservative party more widely. Here is what could follow from a government win or loss.
Continue reading...Officers believe claims made before Saturday’s pro-Palestinian march stoked far-right violence
Suella Braverman’s claims of police bias in the days leading up to Saturday’s pro-Palestinian march were a significant factor in “sustained” far-right attacks on members of the force, officers believe.
One police source with close knowledge of the weekend’s events said the intensity of attacks by far-right supporters on police officers in central London was “unprecedented”. Police believe some were in possession of and high on cocaine.
Continue reading...Tories reject international criminal court’s right to investigate war with Hamas but Labour wants an inquiry into potential war crimes
The UK government is being challenged over whether it will join Labour in supporting an international criminal court inquiry into potential war crimes committed by Israel, with the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, calling for all parties to uphold international law.
The ICC prosecutor, Gen Karim Khan, has insisted he has jurisdiction, but under the premiership of Boris Johnson the government said the court had no legal right to interfere.
Continue reading...Home secretary’s rhetoric is dividing Conservative MPs, who are frustrated that Rishi Sunak has not sacked her
Suella Braverman has demanded “further action” against pro-Palestine marches, as centrist Conservative MPs expressed despair at Rishi Sunak’s delay in sacking his rogue home secretary.
One senior backbencher predicted “a lot of noise” from angry colleagues when they return to parliament on Monday, with no signs of imminent action from Sunak after a series of controversies involving Braverman.
Continue reading...Party loyalty would force Conservatives to vote against plan for fiscal responsibility
Read more: ‘I challenge Rishi Sunak: vote with Labour to stop a Truss-style disaster happening again,’ writes Rachel Reeves
Labour will force a Commons vote this week aimed at creating new legal safeguards against fiscal disasters such as Liz Truss’s catastrophic mini-budget, which sent the financial markets into meltdown and drove up mortgage rates.
The party’s plan for a “fiscal lock” to protect personal, family and the national finances from reckless politicians will be contained in an amendment to the king’s speech that will be voted on by MPs on Tuesday. The manoeuvre will present Conservative backbenchers with a dilemma over whether to back a Labour amendment, or vote against what is a plan designed to embed fiscal responsibility into the budgetary process, and protect it from wild or accidental political misjudgments.
Continue reading...