Category Archives: Foreign policy

Niger coup: Britain cuts aid and neighbours ‘may use force’ to restore president

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Ecowas bloc issues one-week ultimatum, warning it will take ‘all measures necessary” to restore order

The British government has announced it will be halting “long-term development assistance” to Niger in the wake of the coup that deposed the president last week.

A powerful bloc of west African states has suspended ties with Niger after the coup and authorised the possible use of force if the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, is not released and reinstated within a week.

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Independent Scotland would base citizenship on current Irish model

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Plans, unveiled by Humza Yousaf, include significantly reducing application fees

An independent Scotland would adopt an “open and inclusive” approach to citizenship based on the current Irish model, according to proposals set out in a Scottish government paper.

The plans, unveiled by Humza Yousaf on Thursday, include ditching citizenship tests and significantly reducing application fees in contrast to Westminster’s “regressive” approach to migration.

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Home Office ordered to change rules that restrict help for trafficking victims

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Court rules all potential victims must be assessed for support, after policy disqualified people with criminal convictions

A high court judge has ordered the home secretary to change a key part of a trafficking policy introduced just months ago.

In an urgent hearing on Wednesday, lawyers representing trafficking victims said they were at risk of human rights violations such as slavery, servitude and forced labour if the policy continued.

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UK inaction let Wagner group flourish and grow, say MPs

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Foreign affairs select committee condemns government’s ‘dismal lack of understanding’ about group’s hold in Africa

A decade-long failure by the British government has allowed the Wagner network to grow, spread its tentacles deep into Africa and exploit vulnerable countries, according to a highly critical report from the UK’s foreign affairs select committee.

It called on the government to proscribe the Wagner group in the UK and to make a far more concerted effort to stop it using the City of London as a financial centre.

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Rhodes wildfires are climate wake-up call, says UK minister

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Patrick Courtown sounds warning as evacuation flights head to Greek island to rescue stranded Britons

Wildfires in Rhodes are a “wake-up call” on the effects of the climate crisis, a UK government minister has said, as empty planes were sent to the Greek island to help bring home stranded Britons.

After a mass evacuation from parts of Rhodes, members of the House of Lords were told the situation was “stabilising” and there was no immediate need for the government to advise people to stop travelling there.

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Northern Ireland could lose half its veterinary medicines in Brexit row

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Requirement for animal medicines to be batch-tested in EU could see products discontinued, BVA warns

Northern Ireland could lose half of its veterinary medicines in a new Brexit row threatening to prolong the political stalemate in the region, it has emerged.

The British Veterinary Association told the Lords committee on Northern Ireland in written evidence that it was “extremely concerned” about the issue even though the Windsor framework sealed between Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, in March was sold as a solution to the protracted saga regarding Northern Ireland.

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Rishi Sunak criticises EU for calling Falkland Islands ‘Islas Malvinas’

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Prime minister says choice of words ‘regrettable’ as Brussels insists it has not changed its stance on disputed islands

Rishi Sunak has criticised the EU for its “regrettable choice of words” after it appeared to endorse the name that Argentina uses for the Falklands.

Downing Street was reacting after EU leaders attending a summit in Brussels supported an Argentinian-backed declaration that used the name Islas Malvinas alongside Falkland Islands.

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Tory MP Tobias Ellwood apologises for video praising Taliban

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MP ‘sorry for poor communication’ after he credited group with improving safety in Afghanistan

A senior Conservative MP has apologised and deleted a video in which he praised the Taliban and credited them with improving safety in Afghanistan.

Tobias Ellwood said he was “sorry for my poor communication” after his actions outraged fellow Tory MPs and military veterans, and an attempt was launched to challenge his role as chair of the Commons defence select committee.

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UK must label Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as terror group, says thinktank

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Report from rightwing thinktank calls for tougher sanctions on Iran as October expiry of UN sanctions looms

The October expiry of UN sanctions limiting Iran’s missile programme must become a hard deadline for the UK to adopt a tougher policy that includes proscription of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a rightwing thinktank has warned.

The report from the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is the second from a right-of-centre thinktank in two days demanding tougher action on Iran, and suggests that the UK ministers’ preferred strategy of introducing an Iran-specific sanctions regime that could lead to sanctions for activities outside Iran has fallen flat with Tory hawks.

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Labour plans new taskforce to target contractors linked to hostile nations

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Exclusive: Yvette Cooper to tell RUSI thinktank that economic security and national security go hand in hand

Contractors linked to hostile foreign powers such as China will be targeted by a new security taskforce if Labour wins the next general election.

In a joint initiative from the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the new body will aim to anticipate risks to Britain’s national security.

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UK invites Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to visit

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Saudi heir’s official visit would be first since he was accused of being behind killing of Jamal Khashoggi

The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has been invited to the UK on an official visit in late autumn, the first such visit by the heir to the Saudi throne since he was accused of masterminding the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and dissident.

Numerous UK ministers have been to Saudi Arabia in the interim, and senior Saudi ministers have also come to the UK, including the foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

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US and UK call for more gratitude from Kyiv after Zelenskiy’s Nato complaint

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Comments come after Ukrainian leader complained his country had not been given firm timetable for joining alliance

Britain’s defence secretary and the US national security adviser have suggested Ukraine ought to show more gratitude for the help it has received from the west, in response to Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s complaints that his country has not been issued a firm timetable or set of conditions for joining Nato.

Their unscripted remarks – at two different events on the margins of the second day of the Nato summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius – appeared to prompt a change of tack from the Ukrainian leader on Wednesday, who later said he was “grateful to all leaders of Nato countries” for their support and help.

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Zelenskiy forced to recalibrate to avert Nato summit falling-out

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Ukrainian president’s frustration threatened to overshadow meeting – and did not go unnoticed by other leaders

It was, by the standards of international summits, an undiplomatic intervention. A clearly frustrated Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted that Nato allies were showing Ukraine disrespect, that they were discussing his country’s hopes of joining the military alliance without him. “It seems there is no readiness neither to invite Ukraine to Nato nor to make it a member of the alliance,” he wrote.

The outburst was certainly last minute, coming less than an hour before Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and Nato other’s 29 leaders were due to sign off a final summit declaration on the topic. It turned out to be a communique that did not spell out a timeline by which Ukraine could join, nor a list of conditions it would have to meet, nor even extend an invitation to join at an unspecified future date once the war with Russia is over.

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Zelenskiy fails in effort to secure invitation to join Nato at Vilnius summit

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Leaders of military alliance sign off on declaration that does not give Ukraine firm membership timetable

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has failed in a last-ditch effort to secure an invitation for Ukraine to join Nato after leaders of the 31 countries signed off on a declaration that did not give a firm timetable or clear conditions for its eventual membership.

The frustrated Ukrainian president had accused Joe Biden and other leaders present at a summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, of showing disrespect and complained that there was “no readiness” to invite his country to join.

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Labour will back global anti-corruption court, David Lammy to say

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Shadow foreign secretary to accuse Conservatives of treating international law with cavalier disrespect

Labour will restore the UK’s tarnished global reputation by backing a global anti-corruption court and by reinstating a requirement to follow international law in the ministerial code, the shadow foreign secretary will say in a speech on Monday.

David Lammy says the measures will restore the country’s reputation for keeping its word, as well as going some way to undo the damage caused by Conservative party scandals in recent years.

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UK will not supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, says Sunak

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Prime minister rules out following controversial US move but says he will urge allies to increase other aid

Rishi Sunak has ruled out supplying Ukraine with cluster bombs, saying the UK will not follow the Biden administration’s controversial move and will instead press countries to boost their aid to Kyiv “in other ways”.

On Friday, Joe Biden defended what he said was a “difficult decision” to send widely banned cluster munitions to Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government. Human rights groups criticised the White House and there was unease among some Democrats, with one calling it “unnecessary and a terrible mistake”.

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British scientists can request grants if UK rejoins EU’s £85bn Horizon scheme

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‘Expected’ return could help retain scientists and researchers lost after grants were cancelled in Brexit row

British scientists and academic researchers will be able to reapply to the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) for grants if, as expected, the UK rejoins the flagship Horizon European programme, it has been confirmed.

The re-entry comes almost a year after 115 grants approved for British candidates were terminated by the council because of the delay in ratifying the UK’s associate membership of the £85bn Horizon funding scheme.

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‘A huge relief’: scientists react to hopes of UK rejoining EU Horizon scheme

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Expected return also greeted with dismay at UK’s decision to avoid being a net contributor to EU’s flagship programme

Scientists including the physicist Brian Cox have reacted with a mixture of caution, anger and relief that the UK appears set to rejoin the EU’s flagship £85bn Horizon science research programme after a protracted Brexit row.

Sources indicate that an announcement could come in days, possibly next week when Rishi Sunak is scheduled to meet the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, at a Nato summit.

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Iranian envoy tells UK to stick to terms of nuclear deal and lift missile sanctions

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Diplomat says accord could collapse if European signatories retain restrictions on weapon development

The UK, France and Germany should stick to the terms of the Iran nuclear deal and lift sanctions on Iranian missile development, Tehran’s chargé d’affaires to London has said.

Speaking on the eve of a UN security council debate on Iran, Mehdi Hosseini Matin said on Wednesday that such a breach would lead to the collapse of the deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA). It would, he added, also affect the atmosphere around recent bilateral talks in Oman between Iran and the US to secure a separate mini-agreement covering the release of US prisoners, maintaining aspects of the nuclear deal and the release of Iranian assets frozen abroad.

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MPs and peers urge UK government to do more to free jailed activist in Egypt

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More than 100 signatories express concern in letter to foreign secretary over lack of progress in case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah

More than 100 MPs and peers have written to the foreign secretary to express concern over the lack of progress to free a jailed British-Egyptian activist.

It comes seven months after the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, shook hands with Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, while Alaa Abd el-Fattah was close to death due to a hunger strike.

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