Category Archives: Politics

Boris Johnson visits Rwanda as voting gets under way in crucial byelections – UK politics live

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Latest updates: PM in Kigali amid heavy criticism of deportation policy to east African country; ballots open in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton

Boris Johnson visited the Rwandan president this morning while voting got under way in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton where the Conservatives face two vital byelections.

The prime minister is in Kigali where he visited Paul Kagame at his office following heavy criticism about his deportation policy to the east African country.

They then went next door to the president’s meeting room where they sat in white armchairs in front of a Union flag and a Rwandan flag.

Mr Johnson said: “How are you? Very good to see you. What an exciting time to be here in Rwanda. Congratulations on taking over as chair of office. This will be absolutely superb.”

The byelections were called after the respective MPs resigned in disgrace. Imran Ahmad Khan stepped down in Wakefield having been convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy, while Neil Parish quit in Tiverton and Honiton after watching pornography in the Commons.

The West Yorkshire seat had been safely Labour before Khan took it for the Conservatives in 2019, and Labour is the clear favourite to win on Thursday. The Devon constituency, in contrast, is seen as neck-and-neck between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, despite the seat in its various forms having been strongly Tory for more than a century.

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Soaring inflation pushes UK borrowing to £14bn in May

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Interest on debt payment leaps 70% on a year ago to £7.6bn, a monthly record

Government borrowing was higher than expected in May at £14bn as soaring inflation sent interest payments on the UK’s debt to a monthly record.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said debt interest payments leapt 70% on a year ago to £7.6bn, the third highest debt interest payment made by central government in any single month and the highest payment in May on record.

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Brexit remains ‘open wound’ for EU citizens living in UK

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Survey of EU nationals shows ‘profound and lasting’ impact of Brexit on sense of identity

A study of EU citizens living in the UK has revealed the “open wound” left by Brexit, with respondents saying the decision to leave the bloc had left them feeling betrayed, insecure and distrustful towards the country that most nonetheless still call home.

The survey of EU nationals from 22 countries, who had mostly been in Britain for more than five years and stayed since Brexit, showed “a profound and lasting impact on the lives and sense of identity and belonging of EU citizens in the UK”, the authors said.

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Boris Johnson and Prince Charles to hold Rwanda talks

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Pair are visiting for Commonwealth meeting, after Charles criticised government’s asylum policy

Boris Johnson will have a potentially awkward meeting with the Prince of Wales in Rwanda after the heir to the throne criticised the government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to the east African state.

The talks will take place at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Kigali this week. Prince Charles reportedly described the government’s plan to fly people 4,000 miles on a one-way ticket as “appalling”.

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Increasing public sector pay in line with inflation would be ‘reckless’, says No 10 – UK politics live

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PM’s spokesperson says workers should not be ‘chasing inflation with wages’ as that would increase inflation

Moderna has announced that it will open a vaccine research and manufacturing centre in the UK. In a visit to mark the announcement, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said:

We all saw during the pandemic the differences that cutting edge vaccines and treatments can make and we all particularly saw that the mRNA technology has been very transformational. It has literally saved millions of lives over the last couple of years.

And that’s why I’m thrilled to announce this new partnership between the UK government and Moderna, where Moderna will established here in the UK, a global R&D facility with over £1bn for investment in this cutting edge technology, and also a huge manufacturing centre, their largest outside of the US, and so this is a great investment in the UK, and gives huge confidence to our life sciences sector already leading in Europe.

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UK rail strike: second day of action to go ahead after talks fail again

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RMT accuses government of ‘wrecking negotiations’ as operators and passengers prepare to face further disruption on Thursday

Train operators and passengers face more disruption on Thursday after talks between rail industry bosses and the RMT union failed to head off a second national 24-hour strike.

The RMT said talks had broken down on Wednesday without a settlement, and hit out at the government for “wrecking negotiations” in the dispute over pay, working conditions and proposed “modernisation” plans to cut costs after the pandemic.

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Brexit: unilateral action on NI protocol ‘not conducive’ to trade deal, warns US

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Exclusive: officials’ comments put paid to idea displeasure with UK is limited to Irish caucus on Capitol Hill

The US government has warned that Boris Johnson’s move to unilaterally axe some of the Northern Ireland Brexit arrangements protocol was a matter of continuing concern and “not conducive” to a trade deal.

Senior officials have hit back at suggestions that the lack of public commentary by the Biden administration meant it was not troubled by the move to bring in new laws to ditch part of the Brexit deal signed in 2020.

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Brexit is making cost of living crisis worse, new study claims

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EU withdrawal fuelling higher import costs and costing British workers nearly £500 a year, says Resolution Foundation

Britain’s cost of living crisis is being made worse by Brexit dragging down the country’s growth potential and costing workers hundreds of pounds a year in lost pay, new research claims.

The Resolution Foundation thinktank and academics from the London School of Economics said the average worker in Britain was now on course to suffer more than £470 in lost pay each year by 2030 after rising living costs are taken into account, compared with a remain vote in 2016.

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No 10 to set out sweeping plans to override power of Europe’s human rights court

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Proposal to replace Human Rights Act with bill of rights is effort to make government ‘untouchable’, say critics

Downing Street will tomorrow set out sweeping plans to override the power of Europe’s human rights court just days after a judge in Strasbourg blocked the deportation of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda.

The abolition of the Human Rights Act (HRA), including reducing the influence of the European court of human rights (ECHR), will be introduced before parliament in what the government described as a restatement of Britain’s sovereignty.

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SNP orders sexual harassment complaints review after ‘falling short’

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Party’s Westminster leader faced calls to resign after leak of comments supporting suspended former chief whip Patrick Grady

The SNP has launched an external review into the support available to staff after an MP accused her party of “clearly falling short” of supporting sexual harassment complainants.

It follows the party’s former Westminster chief whip Patrick Grady being suspended from the SNP’s Westminster group for a week, as well as being suspended from parliament for two days, over a sexual advance towards a teenage staff member in 2016.

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Evidence exists that PM tried to get top job for Carrie Johnson, says source

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Growing call for inquiry over claims that Boris Johnson tried to secure Foreign Office role for then girlfriend

Correspondence exists confirming that Boris Johnson attempted in 2019 to secure a senior role for his then girlfriend, Carrie Johnson, at the Foreign Office, a source has said, amid growing calls for an inquiry.

The source, who worked with Johnson at the time, said Carrie Johnson – now the prime minister’s wife – had never progressed as far as formally applying for the role.

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Labour frontbenchers likely to be disciplined for joining rail pickets

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At least five MPs defy Keir Starmer’s orders and tweet pictures of themselves with RMT strikers

Keir Starmer is expected to discipline at least five Labour frontbenchers who defied his orders and appeared on RMT picket lines on Tuesday in solidarity with striking railworkers.

On the first of three days of industrial action, the Labour leader had instructed his team not to appear alongside striking workers, in order to show “leadership”, amid fears of Labour being portrayed by the Tories as responsible for the RMT’s walkout.

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Boris Johnson suggests he is digging in on rail strikes, telling cabinet they must ‘stay the course’ – live

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Prime minister signals he will not give in to RMT demands and says rail reforms must be pushed through to cut costs for commuters

In interviews this morning Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, reaffirmed the government’s intention to change the legislation to allow firms to use agency workers to fill in for staff who are on strike. (See 11.14am.) As we report in our overnight lead on the strike, Whitehall sources say No 10 and the Cabinet Office are pushing for this, rather than the business department.

Yesterday the TUC and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) put out a joint statement opposing the idea “in the strongest possible terms”. They said it was unworkable.

I don’t know how bringing in untrained, non-safety critical, inexperienced workers into a dangerous environment like the railway - with high speed trains, there are high voltage distribution systems, there are rules and regulations that have the power of statute - how that will help anyone, whether they are a passenger or a worker or manager or whatever?

I don’t see how the use, the deployment of students or people who have got no work experience that are working for an agency will help anyone to resolve this situation, so as usual [Grant Shapps is] just spouting nonsense given to him from some policy unit which doesn’t help to resolve the situations which are in front of us.

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Shadow ministers urge Starmer to start picking new candidate for Corbyn’s seat

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At least two frontbenchers have said Labour should not support former leader’s candidacy at next election

Shadow cabinet ministers have privately urged Keir Starmer to draw a line under Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension from Labour and allow the party to begin the process of selecting a new candidate in Islington North.

The Guardian has learned of at least two Labour frontbenchers who say they have counselled for the party to inform Corbyn the party would no longer be prepared to support his candidacy at the next election.

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MP whose murder sparked Irish civil war to get Commons plaque

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Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson was assassinated by IRA gunmen 100 years ago and then all but forgotten

On 22 June 1922 Sir Henry Wilson, an army field marshal turned MP, unveiled a plaque to railway employees who had died in the first world war before returning to his stately home in Belgravia, central London.

He was a distinctive figure – tall, in uniform, with a facial scar that had earned him a nickname as the “ugliest man in the British army”.

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Visa delays leave UK families with adopted babies stranded in Pakistan

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Home Office accused of leaving mothers and traumatised children stranded for months while priority is given to Ukraine refugees

British couples who travelled to Pakistan to adopt children have been left stranded after the Home Office told them to expect months of delays in processing visas because of the Ukraine refugee crisis.

The delays are part of wider failings in visa processing that have left families around the world stuck waiting to return to the UK.

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Lindsay Hoyle introduces new Westminster cat named after Clement Attlee

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Attlee follows in the steps of other parliamentary moggies such as Palmerston, Gladstone and Larry

For the past few months, Westminster has been abuzz with little else other than Boris Johnson and his nine lives. Now, however, he may have a rival in that particular field: Lindsay Hoyle’s new cat, Attlee.

The feline will follow in the steps of other parliamentary moggies including the Foreign Office’s Palmerston, Treasury’s Gladstone and Downing Street’s Larry.

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Boris Johnson plans to break rail strikes by allowing use of agency workers

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Unions condemn measure as potentially against international law as 40,000 staff prepare for first day of industrial action

Boris Johnson has responded to the biggest rail strikes in a generation with plans to break the industrial action by allowing firms to bring in agency staff, a move unions have decried as unworkable, unsafe and potentially breaking international law.

As 40,000 workers prepared for Tuesday’s strike, the most wide-reaching on the railways in 30 years, Downing Street brought forward changes to enable employers to replace employees with temporary staff.

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Keir Starmer tells Labour frontbench they should not join rail strike pickets

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Unions critical of leader’s instruction to senior MPs to ‘show leadership’ by not publicly siding with workers

Labour’s frontbenchers have been warned to stay away from picket lines on the eve of the biggest rail strike since 1989.

As staff get ready to take part in the RMT strike on Tuesday, Keir Starmer’s office told shadow cabinet members that to “show leadership” frontbenchers “should not be on picket lines”.

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Rail strikes will go ahead as RMT leader says government ‘actively prevented settlement to dispute’ – as it happened

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General secretary Mick Lynch confirms strike action will proceed, as transport secretary Grant Shapps says rail unions to blame

Tim Shoveller, the chief negotiator for Network Rail, told the Today programme this morning that he did not think the government needed to get involved in the talks on the rail dispute. He said this was an issue for the industry to resolve with trade unions.

He said managers wanted to make the rail industry “more efficient to generate the funds so that we can make the pay awards that our colleagues want”.

I think it would be a disaster for the country. It would be a disaster for our passengers and, look, really bad for our employees, who would lose loads of money by having a long, drawn-out strike – that really is the worst place we can get to.

At the end of the day, the facts about the support the government’s provided in terms of the £16bn through Covid, etc – all of those are well-known and documented.

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA), which represents barristers in England and Wales, said several days of court walkouts will begin from next week.

The promised industrial action, announced on Monday following a ballot of members, comes at a time of significant backlogs across the court system.

This extraordinary commitment to the democratic process reflects a recognition amongst criminal barristers at all levels of call and across all circuits that what is at stake is the survival of a profession of specialist criminal advocates and of the criminal justice system which depends so critically upon their labour.

Without immediate action to halt the exodus of criminal barristers from our ranks, the record backlog that has crippled our courts will continue to inflict misery upon victims and defendants alike, and the public will be betrayed.

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