Category Archives: Foreign policy

Macron says ‘welcome back’ to Burnham suggestion UK could rejoin EU

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French president, speaking alongside Spanish counterpart Pedro Sánchez, says EU bid would be good news for UK and Europeans

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has reacted warmly to Andy Burnham’s suggestion that the UK could rejoin the EU.

“Welcome back,” the French leader said in English with a smile at a news conference in Madrid on Wednesday. Macron continued in French: “If the British want to come back and if the prime minister is moving in that direction, I think that is very good news, both for his country and for the Europeans.”

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Voters back Burnham’s plan to cut back triple lock to fund social care reform by 48% to 28%, poll suggests – UK politics live

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The data suggest Burnham may be able to win the argument with the public amid lobbying efforts

Andy Burnham has suggested that it would not be legitimate for a party to form a majority government with less than 30% of the vote.

In his Today interview, asked why he wanted electoral reform and a move towards proportional representation, Burnham replied:

I found it better being elected under a different system as mayor of Greater Manchester, where people had one or two, they could put that on the ballot paper.

Because you had a reason to stop on every doorstep and chat to people who might not always support your party and try and get their second preference.

No, it could happen with any political party. It’s whether that would be a legitimate government.

I think you’ve got it completely wrong really, if you don’t mind me saying, to put it like that, because I have put out … a vision for a national care service.

There are pensioners out there who watch your programme who are paying for care costs from their basic state pension. Now, is that right or fair?

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Andy Burnham: UK could ‘go all the way’ by rejoining EU

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PM says he is looking at all options and ministers will examine ‘what is doable’ and the ‘pros and cons’

Andy Burnham has opened the door to the UK rejoining the EU, saying Britain could “go all the way”, as he prepares to reconsider Labour’s post-Brexit red lines.

The prime minister used a series of interviews after his emotional Labour conference speech to spell out how wide-ranging his consideration of Britain’s future with Brussels could be because Brexit had caused “more harm than good”.

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‘You were right’: Ed Miliband tells critics Labour was wrong on Gaza

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Foreign secretary will tell party’s conference ‘we are not here to accept the status quo but to change it’

Ed Miliband will tell campaigners and party members who raised the plight of Palestinians they were right that Labour’s approach had not been enough, saying he was heeding the calls of millions of people by imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements.

The foreign secretary will tell the Labour party conference that the government will take more explicitly progressive foreign policy positions under Andy Burnham, and that the UK will be a leader among like-minded countries in a new age of diplomacy.

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Iran awaiting response from Trump on proposal to open strait of Hormuz in six days

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Country says US must lift sanctions on its oil exports and end the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon

Iran said it has told Donald Trump it is willing to open the strait of Hormuz in six days, and to start talks on its nuclear program the day after, so long as the US lifts sanctions on Iran’s oil exports in return, ends the war on all fronts – including in Lebanon – and releases some of Iran’s frozen assets.

The proposal is designed to accelerate the steps first laid down in the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran in June, particularly by helping the talks on Iran’s nuclear program start much more quickly than previously agreed.

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UK losing up to £6.5bn a year in EU trade due to mismatched product rules

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IPPR finds failure to align testing standards has forced companies to abandon exporting to EU and is costing costing 0.18% of national income

The UK is losing out on annual exports to the EU that could be worth as much as £6.5bn without a deal with Brussels that allows manufacturers to jettison duplicate product testing.

In the latest attempt to calculate the loss of trade with the EU after Brexit, the IPPR thinktank said many companies have given up selling goods to the EU or set up subsidiaries inside the trade bloc after successive governments failed to secure a mutual recognition agreement that would avoid the extra administration costs.

Motor vehicle and part exports would have been between £2.48bn and £3.42bn higher each year.

Electronic exports could have been between £1.17bn and £1.67bn higher.

Pharmaceutical exports would have had an estimated annual uplift of between £740m and £820m.

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Milei threatens at UN that Argentina will take ‘matters into our own hands’ on Falklands

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Argentinian president accuses United Nations of being filled with ‘parasites’ in bellicose general assembly speech

Javier Milei has condemned the UN as he warned that Argentina would take “matters into our own hands” in its dispute with Britain over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands.

In a caustic speech at the general assembly in New York, the Argentinian president criticised the UN for being ineffective when it came to the long-running tensions over the British overseas territory in the south Atlantic known in Argentina as the Malvinas.

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UK shares findings of damning climate crisis national security report suppressed under Starmer

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El Niño poses critical threat to nations’ defences, says Ed Miliband in presentation to global foreign ministers

The UK has warned countries around the world that the climate and nature crises and the coming El Niño threaten their national security and defence, presenting foreign ministries with the findings of an explosive report suppressed under Keir Starmer.

Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, made a presentation to the foreign ministers of the EU as well as Kenya and other countries on Wednesday night at a private meeting during the UN general assembly in New York, based on the report by the UK’s spy chiefs that found the collapse of natural systems around the world would lead to conflict, migration and food shortages.

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No signs Chagos deal can be adapted to suit Trump, say UK officials

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Agreement with Mauritius over Diego Garcia unlikely to be revived unless president changes his mind, insiders believe

The Chagos Islands deal is on hold for as long as Donald Trump objects to it, UK officials believe, with no immediate signs it can be adapted to suit the US president.

After Trump savaged the three-way plan as “a terrible deal” during a meeting with Andy Burnham at the UN general assembly, the prime minister said he was “confident” the UK would be able to find a solution to revive the idea.

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UK to join EU ocean science scheme to better predict extreme weather events

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Cooperation on OceanEye, which aims to create ‘real-time’ model of world’s oceans, comes amid efforts to boost EU ties

Britain is to join a major new ocean science programme, led by the EU, to better forecast extreme weather and climate events, the environment secretary is to announce in New York.

The announcement on Wednesday will come as Andy Burnham’s government aims to rebuild the UK’s relationship with Europe, and follows warnings this year’s “supersized” El Niño, tracked in the Pacific Ocean, will fuel more extreme weather globally.

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Davey says far right in Britain now better funded and supported than in the past – UK politics live

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Lib Dem leader tells party conference that ‘something big and dangerous is happening in our country’

If Andy Burnham wanted to inject some edge into his meeting with Donald Trump later (which he doesn’t), he could bring along a copy of today’s Financial Times. This front page headline speaks for itself.

Mortgages ‘on the front line’ as Iran war deals £840 blow to homeowners

British homeowners are paying an average of £840 a year more when they refinance their mortgages, as the rising borrowing costs triggered by the Iran war start to impact consumers’ spending power.

Approximately 1m households have rolled off fixed-rate mortgage deals since February, according to Bank of England data.

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British banks warned not to invest in planned Israeli settlement before UK trade ban begins

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MPs send out letter as Israeli government seeks bids for construction of large E1 settlement in West Bank

British banks and financial institutions are receiving written warnings from MPs that they should not invest in Israel’s E1 settlement project even though new UK laws banning trade with illegal settlements are unlikely to be in place for months.

A letter was sent to banks on Tuesday by the all-party Britain-Palestine group of MPs saying the onus was now on banks to review their obligations not to cooperate with new settlements.

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Andy Burnham does not rule out Brexit reversal being in next Labour manifesto

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PM says immediate focus is on rebuilding bridges with EU as he prepares for first meeting with Ursula von der Leyen

Andy Burnham has opened the door to fighting the next election on the UK rejoining the EU, but said his immediate priority was continuing to rebuild bridges with European allies.

The prime minister, who will hold his first meeting with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Tuesday, did not rule out including reversing Brexit in Labour’s next manifesto – but suggested the country should focus on securing closer trading ties first.

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UK to give support to Saudi jets in attempt to counter Houthi fighters

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Andy Burnham seeks stability in Middle East to bring down prices at home as first meeting with Trump looms

The UK has agreed to provide defensive air support to Saudi Arabia to help counter Houthi fighters and restore stability in the Middle East while driving down the cost of living at home, Andy Burnham has said, ahead of his first meeting with Donald Trump.

The prime minister said he had agreed to a request for air-to-air refuelling of Saudi jets to defend energy infrastructure against the Iran-backed rebels and help keep oil flowing from the Gulf to ease global economic turmoil.

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George Osborne calls for UK to rejoin EU customs union and boost trade

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Ex-Tory chancellor says economy has ‘fallen off a cliff’ since Brexit but rejoining union could be ‘quite simple’

The former chancellor George Osborne said Britain’s economy had “fallen off a cliff” since Brexit and that rejoining the European Union’s customs union would be the fastest route to recovery.

Osborne, who was sacked as chancellor by Theresa May after being part of David Cameron’s cabinet at the time of the referendum, said it was important to rebuild links with the EU.

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Senior UK rabbis come out in support of sanctions on Israeli settlements

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Spiritual leaders stress diversity of views within Jewish community and warn against inaction on settler violence

Prominent British rabbis have backed Ed Miliband’s sanctions on Israeli settlements, warning that the time for inaction on settler violence must come to an end.

The intervention comes after the UK’s chief rabbi, the spiritual leader of mainstream Orthodox Jews in the UK, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, described UK sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as a “dark day for British Jews” and warned they could embolden people who “use hatred as a weapon against Jews”.

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‘It’s a good start’: prominent Israelis welcome UK sanctions on illegal settlements

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Ed Miliband’s intervention was ‘inevitable’ after Israeli government and security failures, say former ministers and diplomats

Prominent Israelis have welcomed new UK sanctions as a necessary response to settlement expansion and spiralling violence in the occupied West Bank.

The intervention was described – by the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a former prime minister, an ex-head of the army and former ministers and diplomats – as an “inevitable consequence” of Israeli government and security failures.

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Israel sanctions will not hurt intelligence sharing between spy agencies, says Miliband

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UK foreign secretary says international community including US shares ‘frustration’ at Israel’s failure to constrain illegal settlers

British intelligence has been given assurances by its Israeli counterpart that information sharing with the UK will continue as before, Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, has said.

The disclosure counters predictions that his decision to impose a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements would lead to a collapse in cooperation between the agencies.

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Miliband defends sanctions on Israeli settlements and pushes back against chief rabbi’s criticism – UK politics live

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UK foreign secretary ‘regrets’ Israel’s response to ban on trade with illegal settlements but ‘proud’ of his actions

Alex Burghart, the deputy Tory leader, was giving interviews this morning. On Israel, he opened up a new line of attack against the government, accusing it of hypocrisy. This is what he told GB News.

At the same time that Labour were saying all these things about Israel in the House of Commons, they put out a communique.

They put out an account of a conversation that Andy Burnham has had with the Chinese president, and it said how constructive they wanted to be with China, how they wanted to work with China, and what a great relationship we have.

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Miliband rejects chief rabbi’s claim that West Bank sanctions put UK Jews at risk

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Foreign secretary says Sir Ephraim Mirvis wrong to suggest measures against Israeli settlements will make British Jews less safe

Ed Miliband has rejected warnings from the UK’s chief rabbi that the government’s sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements will make British Jews less safe, as he stressed ministers can confront the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government while also fighting antisemitism.

The foreign secretary announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday, with the government taking the position that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory was unlawful.

An import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories and a new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

A comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements and a ban on advertising them in the UK.

Personal sanctions against key individuals accused of promoting settler violence.

A new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

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