Justin Welby to join peers condemning measures that seek to criminalise people seeking refuge in UK
The archbishop of Canterbury will make a rare intervention in the House of Lords to join dozens of peers condemning the government’s flagship asylum bill.
Justin Welby will argue against measures championed by Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman that seek to criminalise people seeking refuge in the UK if they arrive on small boats.
Continue reading...Ex-PM, who is trying to revive career, says she will ‘show solidarity’ with Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi visit sparked furore
Liz Truss is to visit Taiwan next week, where she will deliver a speech likely to anger Beijing and potentially upset the UK government’s careful approach to China relations.
The former prime minister said on Tuesday: “Taiwan is a beacon of freedom and democracy. I’m looking forward to showing solidarity with the Taiwanese people in person in the face of increasingly aggressive behaviour and rhetoric from the regime in Beijing.”
Continue reading...Zhao Wei is accused of gathering information on Conservative MP Michael Chong in retaliation for criticism of China’s Uyghur policy
Canada has expelled a Chinese diplomat after an intelligence report accused him of trying to intimidate a Canadian lawmaker critical of China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority.
“Canada has decided to declare persona non grata Mr Zhao Wei,” the Canadian foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, said in a statement on Monday. “The decision has been taken after careful consideration of all factors at play.”
Continue reading...Representatives of 27 member states mark Europe Day by calling for further strengthening of trust rebuilt by Windsor framework
EU leaders have signalled their desire to reset relations with the UK, seven turbulent years on from the seismic Brexit vote.
Representatives from all 27 member states said on Monday that they wanted to “develop further ties between the EU and the UK” after a deal sealed on Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...Consul general calls for ‘constructive engagement’ with territory as Chinese vice-president says he will attend king’s coronation
Britain’s most senior diplomat for Hong Kong has called for an end to “megaphone diplomacy” between the UK and the Chinese territory, saying British and Hong Kong diplomats would make more progress with closed-door discussions.
Brian Davidson, the consul general to Hong Kong and Macau, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post that the UK-Hong Kong relationship had weathered “some difficult headwinds” over the past four or five years, but that “we are looking to lean back into a constructive engagement to see where we can collaborate”.
Continue reading...Camped outside Foreign Office, Beheshti is demanding Iran’s Revolutionary Guards be proscribed
Vahid Beheshti’s hunger strike outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office took a surreal turn on Wednesday – its 70th day – when he attended a royal coronation tea party at Buckingham Palace, arriving by wheelchair and wearing a suit and red tie.
He has lost more than 17kg (37lb), or a quarter of his body weight, and he told the Guardian that “my body and joints are now racked in intense pain”. As he left his tent, draped in the Iranian flag and surrounded by flowers, he clutched an envelope containing a letter for the king. After carefully smartening himself up, he was wheeled to a taxi by his wife, Mattie Heaven, a Conservative councillor.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary says there will be no further British evacuation flights from wartorn Port Sudan
The final UK rescue flight from Sudan is expected to take off on Wednesday, the government has said.
The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said British nationals who wanted to leave the country need to make their way to the Coral hotel in Port Sudan by 10am local time (9am BST), adding that there would be no further British evacuation flights from the city.
Continue reading...Sir Charles Trevelyan was Treasury official during great famine in 19th century when potato crops failed
The former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan has said her family would consider paying compensation to Ireland because of an ancestor’s role in the Great Famine of the 19th century.
Her great-great-great-grandfather Sir Charles Trevelyan, a senior British government official, was among those who “failed their people” during the humanitarian catastrophe in the 1840s, she said.
Continue reading...Unclear whether all British evacuees will be able to reach Port Sudan, more than 500 miles from Khartoum
British forces will oversee an additional evacuation flight out of Sudan as fighting continues to rage in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
British passport holders, as well as doctors with leave to remain in the UK and their dependents, were told to arrive at Port Sudan international airport on the Red Sea coast before midday local time (11am BST).
Continue reading...FCDO asks any British nationals hoping to leave war-torn country to reach airport in Port Sudan by noon local time on Monday
The UK government has announced plans to carry out an additional evacuation flight from Sudan on Monday, after previously suggesting that efforts to bring British nationals out of the war-torn country had concluded.
In a statement on Sunday, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) urged any UK nationals still hoping to leave Sudan to make their way to the airport in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast, by noon local time (11am BST) on 1 May.
Continue reading...Hundreds of people were told to make own way through ongoing fighting to airbase north of Khartoum
NHS doctors and British nationals faced a treacherous route to reach an airbase north of Khartoum before a deadline for evacuations, amid ongoing airstrikes and artillery fire in the Sudanese capital.
Hundreds of people were told to find their own way to an evacuation centre at the Wadi Seidna airbase, about 14 miles (20km) north of Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman. They had to navigate ongoing fighting as the Sudanese Armed Forces continued to attack positions across the two cities, while members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces hid among civilian buildings.
Continue reading...Government announces end to airlifts amid calls for NHS doctors without UK passports to be rescued
British nationals trapped in Sudan have until midday on Saturday local time to get on a flight before they stop, ministers have announced, as a doctors’ union called for NHS medics without UK passports to also be airlifted.
Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, said on Friday night more than 1,500 people had been flown out, and there had been a “significant decline in British nationals coming forward”, meaning it was time to end the operation.
Continue reading...Far-right Italian prime minister in London for ‘new beginning’ aiming at deeper and wider alliance between the countries
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has praised the work undertaken by her British counterpart, Rishi Sunak, to fight people traffickers and clandestine immigration networks, as two of the most prominent rightwing leaders in Europe met in Downing Street.
At the start of a two-day visit designed to deepen relations between the two governments, Meloni was greeted outside Downing Street by a small group of demonstrators carrying placards reading “stand up to racism” and “no to fascist Meloni”.
Continue reading...Military says emergency flights will operate as long as conditions are safe, as civilians arrive in Britain
Britain could continue running evacuation flights from Sudan once the current three-day ceasefire expires on Thursday night, the army officer in charge of the rescue said, as the first planeload of civilians rescued from the country’s civil war arrived at Stansted airport.
Brig Dan Reeve said the airlift from a base north of Khartoum would continue as long as conditions were safe, including possibly beyond the ceasefire period, if people could still travel there.
Continue reading...More than 300 British nationals have fled bombing and shelling to reach a rescue flight out of Khartoum
After embarking on a perilous escape through military checkpoints and continuing clashes, British nationals evacuated from Sudan have spoken of their nightmare ordeals.
More than 300 Britons made the dangerous journey to the Wadi Seidna airbase north of Khartoum in the hope of boarding a rescue flight out of Sudan to Cyprus.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary warns a war across Taiwan strait and likely destruction of semiconductor industry would have global effects
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would destroy world trade, and distance would offer no protection to the inevitable catastrophic blow to the global economy, the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, warned in a set piece speech on Britain’s relations with Beijing.
In remarks that differ from French president Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to distance Europe from any potential US involvement in a future conflict over Taiwan, and which firmly support continued if guarded engagement with Beijing, Cleverly said “no country could shield itself from the repercussions of a war in Taiwan”.
Continue reading...Britain criticised for prioritising embassy staff as Germany and France celebrate evacuating hundreds of citizens
By the time Britain’s first civilian evacuation flight had taken off from a rough airfield north of Khartoum on Tuesday afternoon, other European nations were highlighting their successes in evacuating hundreds of their citizens from Sudan.
Britain’s military may have been the first to use the Wadi Seidna base on Sunday afternoon, with permission of Sudan’s embattled government, to evacuate two dozen diplomatic staff, but the UK then passed on control of the airport to Germany.
Continue reading...RAF transport planes fly into country, as UK government takes advantage of ceasefire
The British government is taking advantage of a 72-hour ceasefire agreed by the warring factions in Sudan to evacuate UK nationals from the country, following intense criticism that it had missed a window of opportunity to evacuate more than British diplomats and their families on Sunday.
RAF transport planes have been flying into the Wadi Seidna airfield, north of Khartoum, from where UK nationals are due to be flown to Cyprus, which is being used as a staging post by the British military.
Continue reading...Exclusive: People who risked their lives and were evacuated to Britain were forcibly removed to Nepal days later
More than 100 Nepali guards who risked their lives to protect British embassy staff in Afghanistan before the Taliban seized back control were secretly returned to Nepal against their wishes shortly after being airlifted to safety in the UK, the Guardian can reveal.
Hundreds of Nepali nationals and a smaller number of Indian nationals who protected key institutions in Kabul were brought to the UK on an RAF flight during the chaotic evacuation of the Afghan capital by western countries in August 2021, as victorious Taliban forces closed in.
Continue reading...PM may discuss idea with European Commission chief in June, reports say, after diplomats raised it informally
Rishi Sunak is seeking to capitalise on his improved relations with the EU with hopes of an agreement to allow British passport holders to use e-gates when travelling in the bloc.
Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that British diplomats had raised the issue informally. A potential discussion was foreseen on the sidelines of a meeting in Japan the prime minister and the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, will attend in June.
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