EU officials see little hope of escape from post-Brexit low under either Tory candidate
European officials are pessimistic about a reset in post-Brexit relations with the UK, whoever becomes Britain’s next prime minister in September.
Whether it is Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak who is handed the keys to Downing Street on 5 September, officials in Brussels have little hope of a rapprochement with the new government.
Continue reading...Pedigree livestock breeders in Britain could be forced to spend millions of pounds to build facilities in France for ‘red tape’ checks by vets so their animals are allowed to enter the single market
British farmers are trying to set up red tape and border checks in France costing millions of pounds – and may even pay for it themselves.
Breeders in Britain are unable to export their pedigree cattle, sheep and pigs to the EU because no one has built any border control posts where vets can check the animals before they enter the single market.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary calls US House speaker’s trip ‘perfectly reasonable’ and urges China to de-escalate
Liz Truss has criticised China’s “inflammatory” response to a senior US politician visiting Taiwan and called for a de-escalation ahead of military drills expected over the coming days.
Hours after the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, ended a historic trip to the island about 100 miles east of China, the UK foreign secretary said her meetings with human rights activists and others were “perfectly reasonable”.
Continue reading...Analysis: House speaker’s arrival is likely to inflame relations between the US and China without making Taiwan safer
In the era of US-China geopolitical competition, Joe Biden has been keen to ensure great power politics do not lead to uncontrollable escalation. Yet the trip to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, is threatening to break what administration officials call “guardrails”. She is the highest-ranking member of Congress to visit the island since 1997.
The move, which is a welcome and a bold assertion of democratic principle to Pelosi’s supporters, has certainly rattled Beijing in a politically sensitive year for China’s ruling Communist party. Xi Jinping is expected to be anointed for an extraordinary third term in the party’s five-yearly congress in the next few months. It also comes as the People’s Liberation Army is celebrating the 95th anniversary of its founding.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Tom Tugendhat likely to lead trip later this year as London’s relationship with Beijing deteriorates
Britain’s House of Commons foreign affairs committee is planning a visit to Taiwan later this year – probably in November or early December – despite rising tensions in the region, the Guardian has learned.
Sources say the trip – which was originally scheduled for early this year but was postponed due to one member of the delegation testing positive for Covid – was intended to show Britain’s support for the democratically run island, which China considers its own.
Continue reading...Officials say they can not provide hope of resettlement for Afghans who worked for UK civilian schemes
The UK Foreign Office has admitted a catalogue of errors over its handling of Britain’s exit from Afghanistan, but has shut the door on many Afghans who helped the UK prior to the Taliban takeover last August, saying it will not provide false hope that they will be given the chance to come to the UK.
Foreign Office officials say it is difficult to judge whether Afghans who worked on UK-funded civilian schemes, such as the British Council, are truly in danger from the Taliban, saying the evidence is that the threat primarily applies to those who provided security support to the UK.
Continue reading...Foreign Office confirms British-Iranian man is at home in Tehran and officials are working to free him permanently
Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian man held in a Tehran prison, has been released on an electronic tag, the UK Foreign Office has confirmed.
He had been due to be released on a tag at the same time as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were allowed to return to the UK in March, but he was only allowed to return to his mother’s home in Tehran for a few days before he was sent back to Evin prison.
Continue reading...Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson asks for restraint after Rishi Sunak labels country UK’s ‘biggest long-term threat’
Beijing has urged British politicians to exercise restraint in their comments on China, saying “hyping the China threat” would not help solve the UK’s own problems.
Asked about Rishi Sunak’s comments, where he labelled China as Britain’s biggest long-term threat and pledged to close all UK-based Confucius Institutes, Zhao Lijian, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, declined to offer specific comments, saying the election of the next Tory leader is the UK’s internal affair.
Continue reading...New cases come on top of three others already in motion heading to European court of justice
The EU has expressed its anger over the backing given by MPs for legislation overriding post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland by launching a further four legal cases against the UK government.
The claims concern past failures to implement the 2019 deal agreed with Boris Johnson but the EU has been spurred to act by the passage through parliament of a bill that would rip up current arrangements.
Continue reading...Officials involved in arrest and intimidation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe named in Commons
The Foreign Office has failed to sanction key Iranians responsible for the arrest and intimidation of the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe despite being passed their names in September, MPs have claimed.
Chris Bryant, a Labour member of the foreign affairs select committee, named Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour, a state TV journalist, and Hossein Taeb, the former head of intelligence in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as part of a group of 10 Iranians who he said needed to be sanctioned for state hostage-taking. It is the first time the two names have been released.
Continue reading...Notes from late 1990s show UK government believed it was due contract in recognition of defence of Kuwait
Tony Blair urged Kuwait to buy the UK’s latest artillery as payback for supporting the country during the Gulf war, newly released papers reveal.
Blair lobbied Crown Prince Sheikh Sa’ad between 1998 and 1999, including calling in on him during a brief stopover on a flight home from South Africa.
Continue reading...Family say they are ‘heartbroken and angry’ and claim the previous government knew about their son’s detention for more than three years
A south-west Sydney teenager is believed to have died in a Syrian jail months after begging the Australian government for assistance.
Yusuf Zahab, 17, had been detained in Guweiran prison in Hasaka city alongside suspected members of the Islamic State for three years when it was attacked by IS in January in an attempt to free its fighters.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Labour leader, speaking after meeting German chancellor, condemns candidates’ ‘fanciful’ spending plans
Keir Starmer has dismissed the acrimonious Conservative leadership race as a “travelling circus”, in which the candidates have demolished their party’s economic credibility by promising billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts.
Speaking on a visit to Berlin where he held talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the Labour leader highlighted the “fanciful” spending pledges made by the five contenders battling it out to succeed Boris Johnson.
Continue reading...Kremlin gloats as oligarch Oleg Deripaska welcomes end of ‘stupid clown’ but Zelenskiy pays tribute to ‘true friend’
Boris Johnson’s downfall has been met with delight and ridicule in Moscow, while in Kyiv Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed sadness at the resignation of his key ally.
Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine in the early stages of the war and was the first leader of a G7 country to visit Kyiv in April, has emerged as a much-loved figure in Ukraine. “We all heard this news [of Johnson’s resignation] with sadness,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by phone. “Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you.
Continue reading...Yvette Cooper requests more details about Boris Johnson’s meeting with Alexander Lebedev in Italy in 2018
Yvette Cooper has used an urgent question in the Commons to ask if Alexander Lebedev sought to arrange a private phone call between Boris Johnson and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, during a weekend party in April 2018.
A day after Johnson admitted for the first time that when foreign secretary he had met former KGB agent Lebedev without officials present, the shadow home secretary told the Commons there were further questions raised by the trip to the party at an Italian palazzo owned by Lebedev’s son.
Continue reading...Labour leader says he will rebuild trust with EU and get ‘a better deal for the British people’
Keir Starmer has thrown Labour back into the Brexit debate by ruling out any return to the single market or customs union, but arguing he could remove trade and travel barriers as prime minister because the EU would trust him.
In a speech on Monday evening that ended Labour’s habitual silence on the subject since the referendum, Starmer pledged to tackle what he called a “fatberg of red tape and bureaucracy” caused by Johnson’s Brexit deal.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Contractors at ‘high risk’ of Taliban reprisals still have no idea how to get out of country safely
More than 180 British Council contractors left trapped in Afghanistan have been given immediate permission by the UK government to apply online to come to Britain, but no hint of how to get out of the country safely.
The partial breakthrough came after a campaign led by MPs and former colleagues of the staff that had been horrified that they had been left behind, and exposed to retribution by the Taliban for teaching values of diversity and openness.
Continue reading...Officials are understood to be actively investigating cases of two Britons detained and charged with ‘forcible seizure of power’
Two more British men who fought for the Ukrainian armed forces and who are currently being held by pro-Russian troops in eastern Ukraine could face death sentences after they were accused of being mercenaries.
Russian-backed prosecutors in the occupied territories of Ukraine have charged Andrew Hill and Dylan Healy with “forcible seizure of power”, and undergoing “terrorist” training, according to a state news agency in Russian-controlled Donetsk.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson and Liz Truss among those saying Ukraine war highlights potential Chinese threat to Taiwan
Boris Johnson and his ministers are going into the Nato summit with fresh warnings that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown the need for extra vigilance and caution over potential Chinese action against Taiwan.
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, who is joining the prime minister at the Nato gathering in Madrid, was most explicit, calling for faster action to help Taiwan with defensive weapons, a key requirement for Ukraine since the invasion.
Continue reading...At G7 summit, PM pushes for renewed sanctions and says he would welcome a visit to UK by Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Boris Johnson has warned about the likelihood of “fatigue” among western nations over continued support for Ukraine, as he began talks at the G7 summit in Germany, where he hopes to push for renewed sanctions against Russia.
Before the first day of the annual gathering of political leaders, held amid ultra-tight security in the Bavarian countryside, Johnson also hailed a new international ban on importing Russia gold.
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