Category Archives: Foreign policy

Foreign Office admits multiple errors in UK’s exit from Afghanistan

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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.

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Morad Tahbaz has been freed from jail in Iran on electronic tag, UK says

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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.

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Beijing urges British politicians not to ‘hype the China threat’

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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.

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EU launches four more legal cases against UK over Northern Ireland protocol

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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.

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MPs claim Foreign Office ‘inaction’ on sanctioning Iranians for hostage-taking

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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.

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Blair urged Kuwait to buy UK artillery as Gulf war payback, papers show

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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.

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Sydney teen Yusuf Zahab believed to have died in IS attack on Syrian jail after begging Australia for help

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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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‘Travelling circus’: Starmer says Tory hopefuls have lost economic credibility

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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.

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Glee in Russia and sadness in Ukraine as Boris Johnson quits

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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.

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MP asks if ex-KGB agent tried to arrange private Johnson and Lavrov call

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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.

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Starmer ends Labour silence on Brexit as he rules out rejoining single market

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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.

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Fears for British Council staff trapped in Afghanistan despite breakthrough

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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.

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Two more British men captured in Ukraine could face death penalty

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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.

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UK calls for extra vigilance on China ahead of Nato summit

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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.

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Boris Johnson warns of risk of fatigue in west’s support for Ukraine

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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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Labour unveils plans to seek limited changes to Brexit deal

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David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, confirms party won’t seek to rejoin single market or EU bloc

Labour has broken its long silence on Brexit, laying out detailed plans to improve, not scrap, the deal Boris Johnson struck with the EU, in a move it concedes will enrage remain supporters.

On the sixth anniversary of the Brexit referendum, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, confirmed the party would seek only limited changes and would not seek to rejoin the single market which would bring the return of free trade and free movement of people.

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Brexit remains ‘open wound’ for EU citizens living in UK

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Survey of EU nationals shows ‘profound and lasting’ impact of Brexit on sense of identity

A study of EU citizens living in the UK has revealed the “open wound” left by Brexit, with respondents saying the decision to leave the bloc had left them feeling betrayed, insecure and distrustful towards the country that most nonetheless still call home.

The survey of EU nationals from 22 countries, who had mostly been in Britain for more than five years and stayed since Brexit, showed “a profound and lasting impact on the lives and sense of identity and belonging of EU citizens in the UK”, the authors said.

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Brexit: unilateral action on NI protocol ‘not conducive’ to trade deal, warns US

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Exclusive: officials’ comments put paid to idea displeasure with UK is limited to Irish caucus on Capitol Hill

The US government has warned that Boris Johnson’s move to unilaterally axe some of the Northern Ireland Brexit arrangements protocol was a matter of continuing concern and “not conducive” to a trade deal.

Senior officials have hit back at suggestions that the lack of public commentary by the Biden administration meant it was not troubled by the move to bring in new laws to ditch part of the Brexit deal signed in 2020.

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Brexit is making cost of living crisis worse, new study claims

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EU withdrawal fuelling higher import costs and costing British workers nearly £500 a year, says Resolution Foundation

Britain’s cost of living crisis is being made worse by Brexit dragging down the country’s growth potential and costing workers hundreds of pounds a year in lost pay, new research claims.

The Resolution Foundation thinktank and academics from the London School of Economics said the average worker in Britain was now on course to suffer more than £470 in lost pay each year by 2030 after rising living costs are taken into account, compared with a remain vote in 2016.

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Taliban release five British nationals held for six months

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Foreign Office diplomats secured their freedom but sources say nothing was given in return except an apology

Five British nationals held by the Taliban since last December including the former BBC cameraman and Afghanistan expert Peter Jouvenal were released on Monday after backroom diplomacy by the British Foreign Office (FCDO).

It is understood that the five had been seized separately, and British sources said nothing was given in return for their release except an apology by them. However, the British government on Sunday had released a statement renouncing violence in Afghanistan and saying there was no alternative to pragmatic engagement with the current administration.

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