Boris Johnson is being warned that embracing a disruptive no-deal Brexit would fuel nationalism in Scotland and risk the future of the union, as both opponents and supporters predict that he will now claim a decisive victory in the Tory leadership election.
Related: Brexit must work for the whole UK to see off Scottish nationalism
Continue reading...Jeremy Hunt’s support for the Hong Kong protests has released old resentments long suppressed
Last week’s sudden outbreak of verbal hostilities with China, triggered by violent clashes in Hong Kong, provided a disturbing glimpse of post-Brexit Britain’s isolated and impotent future in a world of more muscular adversaries. It also underlined a dilemma facing all the western democracies in their dealings with Beijing: what matters most – liberal values or money-making?
Like bullies sensing weakness, Chinese officials let rip after Britain dared defend the demonstrators’ right to protest against the erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms. The row released tensions largely suppressed since the former colony was handed back in 1997. The depth of China’s pent-up fury was cautionary.
Continue reading...Tory leadership contender says English is not first language in ‘too many parts of our country’
Boris Johnson has said there are “too many parts of our country” where English is not spoken as a first language and that he would require all immigrants to Britain to learn English.
At a hustings event for the Conservative leadership race in Darlington on Friday, the former mayor of London praised the capital’s diversity but suggested some communities were not doing enough to integrate into society.
Continue reading...Follow the day’s political developments, including the latest on the Conservative leadership race as 160,000 Tory members begin voting
Boris Johnson has apologised for offending Scots, while condemning the SNP’s record in government and insisting that a no-deal Brexit is “extremely unlikely” in an interview in the Press and Journal.
Asked about a series of magazine articles in which he described being a Scottish MP as a “political disability” and said that “government by a Scot is just not conceivable”, Johnson replied:
“Of course I am sorry if people take offence at distorted quotations from old newspaper articles – but one of the things I want to make clear is that Conservatives must reach out beyond the Westminster bubble and that means not just speaking in waffle and jargon”.
Boris Johnson has been shearing sheep in North Yorkshire before the hustings in Darlington today.
Good luck @BorisJohnson #BackBoris pic.twitter.com/2dqd2FRCbK
Our house, two Tory members voted for Boris today ... #backboris pic.twitter.com/2mf5zeM0i9
Continue reading...High court judge rules that gay asylum seeker who feared persecution in Uganda should have been allowed to remain
The Home Office has been ordered to help a woman deported to Uganda six years ago to return to Britain after a high court judge ruled that the handling of her case was “procedurally unfair”.
If the judgment stands, the woman may become the first deportee whose case was processed through fast-track rules operational between 2005 and 2015 to return to the UK and appeal against the decision to deport her.
Continue reading...Widdecombe becomes first Brexit party MEP to speak in new European parliament
The former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe has likened the UK’s departure from the EU to the emancipation of slaves, as she became the first Brexit party MEP to speak in the new European parliament.
With her leader, Nigel Farage, on her right, Widdecombe said the recent negotiations among the EU’s heads of state and government over the leadership of the bloc’s institutions confirmed the need for Britain to leave.
Continue reading...Former UK chancellor’s austerity agenda will count against him, say opponents
George Osborne’s interest in running the International Monetary Fund has met immediate criticism because of the former chancellor’s austerity policies and Brexit-related question marks over the UK’s international standing.
Osborne, the editor of the Evening Standard, has signalled to friends that he views himself as a potential candidate to replace Christine Lagarde, the current head of the Washington-based fund, who was nominated to lead the European Central Bank this week.
Continue reading...As another five-year term begins, the bloc is straining for unity across a range of issues
When the German chancellor was asked this week why she would not railroad Italy and the so-called Visegrád group of countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary – into accepting the former Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans, a critic of populist governments, as European commission president, Angela Merkel’s answer was telling.
“The Brexit is looming on the horizon,” Merkel said in reference to the need to avoid tensions when appointing the next head of the commission. “Other important issues are on the table. I think we need to treat each other with care.”
Continue reading...Shadow minister says research shows even a no-deal Brexit would need Commons approval
Keir Starmer has warned Boris Johnson that MPs will “do everything to stand in his way” if he tries to force through a “bad deal or a no-deal Brexit”.
Johnson, the frontrunner in the race to be Britain’s next prime minister, has suggested he will “disaggregate” Theresa May’s “otherwise defunct” withdrawal agreement and implement its less contentious elements.
Continue reading...Prosecutors obtain warrant to arrest man over Denis Donaldson shooting in 2006
Irish authorities are preparing to charge a man for the murder of Denis Donaldson, a British spy within the IRA who was shot dead in 2006.
The news emerged on Wednesday when an Irish police officer told an inquest in Letterkenny, County Donegal, that prosecutors had obtained a warrant to arrest and charge the suspect with murder.
Continue reading...Beethoven’s Ode to Joy is a powerful symbol of love, humanitarianism and European unity. The Brexit party’s rejection of the EU anthem shuns our shared history
Yesterday, Brexit party MEPs led by Nigel Farage turned their backs while the anthem of the European Union played at a ceremony to mark the opening of the European Parliament. Their behaviour has been met with disdain by many, with #notinmyname trending on Twitter. This was an emotionally provocative act at a time of political sensitivity, and there is something about the shunning of the anthem itself, an instrumental arrangement of the Ode to Joy from the final movement of Beethoven’s iconic Ninth Symphony, that makes the demonstration particularly inflammatory.
The symphony has a long and chequered history: it has been a symbol of both dark and light. A favourite work of Hitler’s (he liked to hear it on birthdays), the Ninth was also used in Nazi propaganda films, and the closing choral section was performed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It was also chosen as the national anthem of the Republic of Rhodesia under the racist administration of Ian Smith. This darkness has been appropriated in film soundtracks: the symphony is associated with extreme violence in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, and is a recurring motif representing Alan Rickman’s cultured villain Hans Gruber in Die Hard.
Continue reading...Public accounts committee says plan at mercy of spending review delayed by Brexit
A £2bn project to open a road tunnel beneath the Stonehenge world heritage site in 2026 is being put at risk by uncertainty over how it will be financed, MPs have warned.
Ministers have claimed the scheme is affordable, deliverable and will improve Stonehenge by taking the sight and sound of lorries and cars away from the ancient monument and reducing traffic congestion.
Continue reading...Politics at home and spreading anti-China sentiment in US mean Britain has limited options in how it responds
The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, will be cursing his timing about Hong Kong. Faced with growing criticism from human rights groups over the UK’s muted response to the treatment of protesters in its former colony, he decided last Tuesday to take two decisive steps: to call for an independent inquiry into the police handling of demonstrations on 12 June and to suspend export licences for crowd control equipment that could be used in future against protesters.
A statement promising unwavering commitment was also issued by the Foreign Office on the eve of demonstrations held on Monday to coincide with the 22nd anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
Boris Johnson has been tweeting from Belfast.
Fantastic to be here in Northern Ireland speaking to our Conservative & Unionist family. I will never accept a deal that seeks to bind us in the EU’s customs union forever, or which divides our United Kingdom. In everything I do as PM, I will strengthen our union of four nations. pic.twitter.com/hI3QLkuxrw
And this is what Boris Johnson said at the Belfast hustings about a no-deal Brexit. (See 12.58pm.) He called it at one point a WTO Brexit (which is what Nigel Farage calls no-deal.) Johnson said:
I think we should be very positive about Brexit, and we should not be terrified of a no-deal Brexit. We should not be terrified of coming out on WTO terms.
We will make sure we look after the agricultural interest ... whatever is necessary to protect farmers. We will make sure that just-in-time supply chains are protected, and I think a lot of the negativity about a WTO Brexit has been wildly over-done.
Continue reading...It has become associated with online mobs and prudishness, but shame can be a powerful tool to change our culture and hold governments and corporations to account
“First holiday snap!” read the faux-cheery caption on the picture Laura Muldoon posted, featuring a bunch of young men on a plane, one flipping the V sign and another giving the finger to the camera.
Muldoon, who was flying on Ryanair with her girlfriend to Spain for a wedding, tweeted that she had just been called a “miserable bitch”, a “dyke” and a “lesbo” after complaining about rowdy behaviour from fellow passengers. The picture went viral and was picked up by newspapers. Before long, some of the alleged perpetrators had been identified publicly, their social media feeds combed for incriminating details, their mothers tracked down for comment – named and shamed, along with the airline whose staff Muldoon accused of failing to intervene sufficiently.
Continue reading...Claim that victims could return to Africa ‘wealthy and held in high regard’ sparked outrage
The Home Office is to rewrite guidance on handling asylum claims for women trafficked into the UK from Nigeria after it emerged the advice claimed victims could return to the African country “wealthy from prostitution” and “held in high regard”.
The comments were found in an official policy and information note on the trafficking of women from Nigeria, which is used by Home Office decision-makers dealing with protection and human rights claims.
Continue reading...Labour’s leader in House of Lords at head of cross-party effort to establish joint committee of MPs and peers
Labour’s leader in the House of Lords, Angela Smith, is spearheading a cross-party bid to force the government to set up a powerful new committee to report by September on the risks of a no-deal Brexit.
Both candidates in the race to be Britain’s next prime minister are saying they are prepared to take Britain out of the EU without a deal if they cannot secure concessions from Brussels.
Continue reading...PM says Britain must leave EU with ‘a good deal’ in apparent rebuke to ‘do or die’ comment
Theresa May has made a thinly veiled attack on Boris Johnson’s “do or die” approach to leaving the EU on 31 October, insisting that the right approach for Britain was to leave with a deal.
Attending her last EU summit in Brussels as prime minister on Sunday, May took aim at the approach of the Tory leadership frontrunner, who has taken an increasingly hardline approach in recent days.
Continue reading...Constitutional experts say new Tory leader could be blocked from becoming prime minister without a Commons majority
Boris Johnson could be stopped from becoming prime minister even if he is elected as the new Conservative leader, two of Britain’s leading constitutional experts have said.
With Tory MPs threatening to withdraw support for the party under his stewardship, Johnson is warned that he could be prevented from ever entering Downing Street should it become clear he cannot command a majority in the House of Commons.
Continue reading...Analysis highlights key to success of Farage party and identifies dozens of pro-Brexit bot accounts
The Brexit party used simple messaging, an active social media presence and a “overwhelmingly negative” attack to win the online battle before the European elections, according to a new analysis of the campaign.
Nigel Farage’s party accounted for 51% of all shared content on Facebook and Twitter during the campaign, despite only producing 13% of the content. The analysis, by the 89up digital agency, said the “scale of their success went beyond what we were expecting”.
Continue reading...