EU chief negotiator had told British counterpart he could not see any point in coming to London
Michel Barnier has backed down from his threat to pull out of planned Brexit negotiations in London, telling EU ambassadors that he will persist despite a lack of progress over the last week.
The bloc’s chief negotiator told representatives for member states that he would travel on Friday evening to try to break the logjam over the most contentious issues.
Continue reading...Allies say he aims to prove there was a deal with Keir Starmer’s office to readmit him to party
Jeremy Corbyn is to start a formal legal claim against the Labour party for suspending the whip, in a case which allies of the former Labour leader say is intended to prove there was a deal with Keir Starmer’s office to readmit him to the party.
The Guardian has seen evidence of exchanges between key members of Starmer’s office and Corbyn’s representatives, suggesting there were private meetings in the run-up to the party’s decision to lift his suspension from the party.
Continue reading...Analysis: the two regions have emerged with contrasting fortunes from their dealings with Westminster
As Matt Hancock put the final touches to England’s new lockdown regime on Wednesday night, the mood of leaders in Manchester and Liverpool could not have been more different.
On Merseyside the leaders felt they had done all they could to have become the first English region to leave the strictest coronavirus measures introduced six weeks ago. The Liverpool city region has now been moved down to tier 2.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary says it is not known when 0.7% target, set in law, will be restored
The foreign secretary has decided legislation is required to cut the aid budget since the current fiscal uncertainty means the government may feel obliged to miss the commitment to spend 0.7% on gross national income on overseas aid for longer than a year.
Legislation would be laid, Dominic Raab told MPs in an oral statement, but he did not give a date for doing so. The Foreign Office has indicated it is unlikely to be introduced until the second half of next year.
Continue reading...Cuts announced by Rishi Sunak will hit girls and women in poorest countries hardest, with charities predicting huge numbers of deaths
The UK aid cuts announced by chancellor Rishi Sunak could see a million girls lose out on schooling, nearly three million women and children go without life-saving nutrition and 5.6 million children left unvaccinated, causing up to 100,000 deaths, charities, aid experts and MPs have said.
They described the slash in funding to overseas aid, from 0.7% to 0.5% of Britain’s gross national income, as “unprincipled, unjustified and harmful” just as a global health crisis is throwing decades of progress on poverty, healthcare and education into reverse.
Continue reading...Signs of growing parliamentary rebellion amid fears measures could stay in place until spring
The majority of England will enter the two toughest tiers of Covid restrictions from next week, ministers are set to announce, amid signs of a growing parliamentary rebellion and fears that the measures could remain unchanged until spring.
On Thursday Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is expected to say that most of the country will be placed into tiers 2 or 3, which imply significant restrictions on hospitality, after the national lockdown ends on 2 December.
Continue reading...Letter to home secretary raises concerns about sites holding 600 men in Kent and Pembrokeshire
Healthcare professionals have called for former army barracks being used to house asylum seekers to be closed over concerns about the residents’ wellbeing.
Medical staff have written to the home secretary, Priti Patel, with a damning assessment, to raise concerns about the sites at Napier barracks in Kent and Penally barracks in Pembrokeshire, which between them are holding more than 600 men.
Continue reading...Economic distress caused by pandemic is the first in a very long time to have been brought about by the natural world
The chancellor has said the government will borrow a peacetime record of almost £400bn this year in the face of the worst recession the UK has experienced in more than 300 years. But how many of us know what happened at the time of that distant milestone?
Three centuries ago, Britain looked very different. The country was still largely agricultural and as such was completely at the mercy of nature – though 2020 has shown that perhaps, in a way, it still is. Nonetheless, in the early 18th century it was the success or failure of the harvest, which depended on the weather, that had a profound impact on the rate of economic growth.
Continue reading...David Cameron’s commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income to help world’s poorest in tatters
The former prime minister David Cameron’s political legacy will be permanently dominated by Brexit, an event he misjudged and abhorred. But until now he could at least comfort himself with one positive foreign policy achievement to his name. He was prime minister when the UK for the first time met its goal of spending 0.7% of its gross national income on overseas aid, and also enshrined it in law in 2015, so apparently entrenching Britain’s commitment to the world’s poorest.
Related: David Cameron and Tony Blair warn against cutting foreign aid
Continue reading...Michel Barnier says further negotiations would be pointless if UK does not change stance
The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned David Frost that without a major negotiating shift by Downing Street within the next 48 hours he will pull out of the Brexit negotiations in London this weekend, pushing the talks into a fresh crisis.
In talks via videoconference on Tuesday, Barnier told his British counterpart that further negotiations would be pointless if the UK was not willing to compromise on the outstanding issues.
Continue reading...Chancellor announces £4bn cut in spending, breaking Tory pledge to keep to 0.7% target
Britain’s overseas aid budget is to be cut from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%, slicing more than £4bn from the annual package and breaking a Tory manifesto commitment made only a year ago.
The cut was announced in the spending review by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, which also saw a large three-year increase for the defence budget. Sunak clearly decided to brush aside warnings from across the political spectrum that Britain’s commitment to foreign aid symbolised an outward looking and generous UK.
Continue reading...Fears easing restrictions over festive period will lead to rise in cases and overwhelm NHS
Government scientists have warned the relaxation of coronavirus restrictions over Christmas could lead to a third wave of the pandemic, with increased transmission and unnecessary deaths.
Families across the UK will be able to gather in three-household groups of any size over Christmas, the government has announced, prompting warnings from scientists that the plan will almost inevitably result in a rise in the number of coronavirus cases.
Continue reading...Four UK governments agree relaxed rules, and scientists expect rise in cases to follow
Families across the UK will be able to gather in three-household groups of any size over Christmas, the government has announced, bringing warnings from scientists that the plan will almost inevitably see a rise in the number of coronavirus cases.
The long-planned idea of “Christmas bubbles” – which ministers said would require people to make a “personal judgment” over risk for older relatives and others – was thrashed out in a meeting involving the four UK governments.
Continue reading...Latest breakthrough comes as PM says he hopes most at-risk could be immunised by Easter
The world is moving a step closer to ending the coronavirus pandemic, the scientist behind Britain’s first vaccine has declared, as Boris Johnson said he hoped the majority of those most at-risk could be immunised by Easter.
Successful trial results for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine, suggesting it could protect up to 90% of people, are the third set of promising findings in as many weeks. Before this year, there had never been a vaccine for a coronavirus.
Continue reading...Andrew Bailey said failure to agree to deal would cause long-term damage to UK economy
The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has warned that the economic cost of a no-deal Brexit would be bigger in the long term than the damage caused by Covid-19.
Bailey said failure to agree to a deal before the Brexit transition expires at the end of December would cause disruption to cross-border trade and damage the goodwill between London and Brussels needed to build a future economic partnership.
Continue reading...Foreign ministers hope US will lift sanctions in effort to revive 2015 agreement with Tehran
European foreign ministers from Germany, France and the UK have met to discuss a joint approach with the incoming Joe Biden administration on reviving the Iranian nuclear deal.
The three nations, whose ministers met in Berlin, are hoping Tehran can reach an agreement under which the US would lift its crippling sanctions in return for Iran ending its non-compliance with the 2015 agreement constraining its nuclear activities.
Continue reading...NatWest denies accusation made by Bill Browder in thinktank report into practice of ruining reputations
A longstanding critic of Kremlin corruption has accused NatWest of closing his bank account in the UK because it had been influenced by an intense and pervasive “black PR” campaign mounted against him by Russian actors in their home country.
“Black PR” is a term referring to a series of connected practices used by Russian state and non-state actors seeking to discredit individuals as part of political or business disputes, and can involve trying to create or obtain kompromat (compromising material) or generating fake media reports.
Continue reading...Proposals include plans to limit self-isolation and to allow household mixing at Christmas
A programme of mass, instant coronavirus testing is to be rolled out to areas of England with the highest infection rates after lockdown is lifted next month, the prime minister has announced, as the government faces an unprecedented internal rebellion over Covid measures.
Among the plans, which will rely on the ability to massively expand rapid testing systems across the country, is a scheme to stop people who have come into close contact with someone who has coronavirus from having to isolate for 14 days, if tests show they have not contracted it.
Continue reading...Letter to PM says move would send a terrible signal as UK prepares to host G7 and COP26
MPs from seven parties have urged the government not to cut the overseas aid budget, saying it had made the difference between life and death for countless people.
The intervention by MPs, including the Tory “father of the house”, Peter Bottomley, comes after it emerged that the Treasury was considering cutting more than £4bn from the aid budget and breaching a commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on overseas assistance each year.
Continue reading...There are no grounds for breaking legal commitments or for turning our backs on countries and people at a time of great need, write Sam Hickey, Uma Kambhampati and others
News that the UK government is set to renege on its commitment to spending 0.7% of gross national income on foreign aid could not come at a worse time for the world’s poorest countries and people and for international cooperation more broadly (UK aid budget facing billions in cuts, 17 November). The World Bank estimates that the Covid-19 pandemic will push an extra 88-115 million people into extreme poverty this year alone, rolling back years of progress that UK aid has helped contribute to. While there is room for debate about the best way to set aid budgets, there are no grounds for breaking legal commitments or for turning our backs on countries and people at a time of great need.
Taken together with the parallel proposals to boost spending on national defence and to restrict employment within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to British nationals – which will greatly limit the talent pool from which to recruit and undermine FCDO’s ability to operate effectively in different contexts – this latest move suggests Britain is rapidly becoming a parochial rather than progressive presence in the world. The UK, with its reputation as a global leader on foreign aid and for scientific excellence in vaccine development and beyond, remains well placed to play a leading role in both responding to the pandemic and helping to build a more equal, safer and sustainable global order.
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