Category Archives: Foreign policy

Boris Johnson promises Ukraine UK-led troop training scheme on Kyiv visit

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PM announces programme including battle skills and counter-explosive tactics that will take place outside Ukraine

Boris Johnson has announced that the UK will oversee a new three-week training programme for Ukrainian soldiers, as he visited Kyiv for the third time this year for talks with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The prime minister had been expected to address Conservative MPs at the Northern Research Group conference in Doncaster on Friday, but pulled out at the last minute.

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‘Frankly insulting’: Rwanda resents its portrayal in UK asylum row

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Kigali government seeks to shift narrative with managed tours of processing facilities and accommodation for deportees

Rwanda has been caught in the eye of a British political storm this week, and its officials are not happy with how the country has been portrayed.

It was preparing to welcome asylum seekers on Tuesday until a dramatic 11th-hour ruling by the European court of human rights.

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Raab says court was wrong to block Rwanda deportation flight

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Decision by European court of human rights strengthens case for overhaul of UK laws, says deputy PM

A last-minute court ruling that prevented the first asylum seekers being forcibly removed to Rwanda was wrong and has strengthened the case for overhauling Britain’s human rights laws, Dominic Raab has said.

The deputy prime minister urged the European court of human rights (ECHR) to “respect the limits of its mandate”, though rejected calls from some Conservative MPs to cut ties with the Strasbourg-based body.

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UK food price rises could hit 15% over summer, report says

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Ukraine war, China lockdowns and Brexit help push up inflation, with products that rely on wheat worst hit

Food price rises in the UK could hit 15% this summer – the highest level in more than 20 years – with inflation lasting into the middle of next year, according to a report.

Meat, cereals, dairy, fruit and vegetables are likely to be the worst affected as the war in Ukraine combines with production lockdowns in China and export bans on key food stuffs such as palm oil from Indonesia and wheat from India, the grocery trade body IGD warns.

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Bulk of Tory MPs stand firm behind Northern Ireland protocol bill

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Feared backlash fails to emerge despite leading Conservative warning of international law breach

Ministers believe they have largely muted Conservative opposition to the Northern Ireland protocol bill, even though one leading Conservative critic has said no MP should be voting for a breach of international law.

Leading opponents of Boris Johnson held off from publicly rejecting the legislation after it was published, despite the government’s fears beforehand that it would provoke a backlash.

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UN refugee chief accuses Truss of ‘untrue’ statements on Rwanda policy

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Filippo Grandi says foreign secretary is wrong to claim critics had not offered alternatives

Liz Truss has been accused by the UN’s refugee chief of making “untrue” statements after claiming that critics of the UK government’s Rwandan removals policy have failed to come up with alternative policies.

Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said the foreign secretary was wrong because the UN had offered “many, many suggestions” instead of sending people to the east African state, which he said “violates the fundamental principles of refugees”.

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Northern Ireland protocol: what is the ‘doctrine of necessity’?

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The UK government hopes a little-known legal principle will overturn parts of the post-Brexit agreement

In justifying its attempt to unilaterally overturn parts of the post-Brexit agreement with the EU, the UK government has invoked a little-known legal principle known as the “doctrine of necessity”. The loophole is allowed by the UN’s International Law Commission to be used by a state facing “grave and imminent peril”.

But the government’s ex-legal adviser Jonathan Jones said the EU would find the use of the doctrine “completely unpersuasive”.

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Fury as government waters down post-Brexit food standards

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Strategy described as ‘missed opportunity’ as final wording merely commits to ‘considering’ animal welfare

Animal welfare campaigners, food policy experts and farmers have reacted with fury after the government watered down post-Brexit trade deal standards in its food strategy, released on Monday.

In a version of the strategy leaked to the Guardian on Friday, the government committed to making it easier for countries to import goods if they have high animal welfare standards.

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Liz Truss accused of ignoring evidence of rendition of UK citizen to Nigeria

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Family of Nnamdi Kanu, a separatist leader, say he was seized and tortured in Kenya and then flown to Nigeria

The family of a British citizen have accused the foreign secretary of ignoring “overwhelming evidence” he was taken to Nigeria in an act of extraordinary rendition and failing to end his “unlawful” imprisonment there.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, has been held there since June last year.

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Draft legislation on overriding Northern Ireland protocol to be published next week

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Draft legislation to be issued Monday, as Keir Starmer promises a Labour government would repeal law if it passes

Legislation to disapply parts of the Northern Ireland protocol will be published next week, but senior government sources acknowledge it is going to be a “difficult” process to get it through parliament.

The new laws are aimed at unilaterally changing parts of the protocol to make trade easier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but critics say overriding the post-Brexit treaty could contravene international law.

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David Lammy visits Afghanistan to highlight humanitarian crisis

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Shadow foreign secretary says UK government ignoring catastrophe as millions of Afghans go hungry

The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has flown to Kabul to see at first-hand the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.

Lammy is the first senior British politician to visit the country since the west’s chaotic pullout last August. He is being accompanied on his visit by Preet Gill, the shadow minister for international development.

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‘Weakness’ of UK position shaped Northern Ireland protocol negotiations, David Frost says

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Former Brexit negotiator criticises Irish government’s focus on ‘all-island’ economy

Boris Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator David Frost has said the “weakness” of the UK’s position shaped the negotiations for the Northern Ireland protocol but blamed a lack of pragmatism in the EU’s approach for the current difficulties.

Frost said the deal he negotiated while in Johnson’s government would have run smoothly only if it had never been fully applied by the EU.

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Antony Gormley to become German citizen due to ‘tragedy’ of Brexit

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Acclaimed sculptor calls leaving the EU ‘a practical disaster’ and a ‘betrayal’ as major retrospective opens

The acclaimed British sculptor Antony Gormley is to become a German citizen because of the “tragedy” of Brexit.

Speaking at a major retrospective of his work at the Museum Voorlinden near The Hague, Gormley, who is half-German, said his strong feelings about Britain’s departure from Europe had prompted him to apply for German nationality.

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Starmer urges PM to request India release UK citizen Jagtar Singh Johal

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Labour leader writes to Boris Johnson after UN working group declared Johal’s five-year detention arbitrary

Keir Starmer has asked Boris Johnson to intervene and request that the Indian government release a British citizen after a UN working group declared his five-year detention arbitrary and without any legal basis.

In a letter, the Labour leader asks why Johnson has not acted to ask for the release of Jagtar Singh Johal given the findings of the UN report on arbitrary detention last month.

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Tory MP sparks Brexiter backlash with call to rejoin EU single market

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Boris Johnson allies seize on Tobias Ellwood’s comments to say Brexit would not be safe with rebel Tories

A Tory MP and arch critic of Boris Johnson has sparked a backlash from Brexiters after suggesting Britain rejoin the EU’s single market to help ease the cost of living crisis.

Tobias Ellwood’s comments were seized upon by allies of the prime minister as evidence that deposing Johnson would threaten the country’s more distant relationship with Brussels.

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Visa scheme for graduates from top 50 non-UK universities is launched

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‘High potential individual’ route will allow eligible individuals to come to Britain without a prior job offer

Graduates from the world’s top 50 non-UK universities can apply to come to Britain through a new visa scheme.

Ministers hope the “high potential individual” route, which launches on Monday, will attract the “brightest and best” at the beginning of their careers to work in the UK.

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‘Same nightmare week after week’: UK firms fed up with post-Brexit EU trade

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Exporters fear Northern Ireland protocol row will spur trade war with Brussels, making an already difficult job even harder

Mark Brearley is still frustrated by Brexit. More than a year from Britain’s formal withdrawal from the EU, on terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, exporting the goods his company produces hasn’t got any easier for the London-based manufacturer.

Describing it as “the same nightmare week after week”, he says: “A lot more time is spent with things going wrong. The EU really feels like the hardest place in the world to ship things to sometimes.”

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Ukrainian MP urges west to supply long-range rockets or risk Russian victory

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Kira Rudik says on visit to UK that without further military help Ukraine will fail to push back invaders

A Ukrainian MP visiting Britain has urged the west to supply long-range rockets to her country – and warned without further military help her country risked deadlock or defeat in its war against Russia.

Kira Rudik, the leader of the opposition liberal Golos party, said she was afraid of the three-month long war “becoming the new normal” and that the west would not supply the Nato-standard weapons Ukraine needed to push back the invaders.

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Don’t make Partygate official Martin Reynolds our man in Riyadh, urge Tories

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Senior figure warns that man mentioned 24 times in Sue Gray report would be ‘representing the Queen’ as ambassador to Saudi Arabia

Senior Tories are warning Boris Johnson against appointing an official at the heart of the Partygate scandal to a top diplomatic job after it emerged that the man was being lined up to be Britain’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Martin Reynolds quit as Johnson’s principal private secretary in February following outrage about Partygate. He left after an email emerged in which he had invited hundreds of Whitehall staff to a “bring your own booze” party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020.

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Loss of EU funding clips wings of vital crow study in Cambridge

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Laboratory chief blames Brexit for closure as money for corvid brain power research dries up

One of Britain’s most important, and unusual, centres for studying cognition is facing imminent closure as a result of Brexit. Set up 22 years ago to study the minds of crows, rooks and other birds noted for their intelligence, the Cambridge Comparative Cognition Laboratory is set to cease operations in July.

Its director, Professor Nicola Clayton, told the Observer she was devastated by the prospect of ending her research there. Nor was she in any doubt about the prime reason for the centre’s closure.

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