Category Archives: Foreign policy

Baptism of fire as Liz Truss heads to US amid submarine row

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As France accuses the US and Australia of ‘lies and duplicity’, new UK foreign secretary faces major diplomatic incident on her first official overseas trip

Liz Truss is heading for a furious diplomatic confrontation with France on her first trip abroad as foreign secretary, as anger mounts in Paris over the cancellation of a £48bn nuclear submarine contract.

Truss, whose appointment was one of the biggest surprises of Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle last Wednesday, will arrive in the US on Sunday before a four-day visit to New York and Washington during which she is aiming to promote the prime minister’s vision of “global Britain” to international leaders.

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Half-term holiday bookings expected to surge after England scraps amber list

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Traffic-light system replaced, with foreign countries now listed as either ‘red’ or OK for travel

Half-term holiday bookings are expected to surge after ministers unveiled a simplification of Covid foreign travel rules, replacing the traffic-light system with a single red list and bringing in a laxer regime for tests.

But while MPs and some travel groups welcomed the new system, airlines voiced anger that fully vaccinated travellers returning to England will still have to take a test after they return, even if this will be changed to a cheaper lateral flow version.

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Boris Johnson flies to New York to tighten transatlantic ties after strained summer

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PM will hope signing of this week’s Aukus deal will help the allies move on from the chaos of Kabul

Boris Johnson will fly to New York this weekend for his first foreign trip since the Covid pandemic, hoping to cement his relationship with the US president, Joe Biden, after a rocky summer marred by the chaotic Kabul airlift.

Two years ago, when Johnson made his first foreign trip as prime minister to the Biarritz G7 summit, the hope was that Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for the man he called “Britain Trump” would help smooth the way for a rapid post-Brexit trade deal with the US.

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The Aukus pact is a sign of a new global order | Rana Mitter

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The deal has upset China, but it also binds the US into European security, in a world where Nato may be less relevant

France is furious. Theresa May is worried. The announcement of the new Australia-UK-US alliance (Aukus) and the ditching of a previous French-Australian submarine deal has led France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to term the pact “a stab in the back”, while the former British prime minister is concerned about Britain being dragged into a war over the future of Taiwan.

Oddly enough, Beijing’s reaction has been rather muted. Yes, it has accused the west of a “cold war mentality”, and Xi Jinping has warned foreigners not to interfere in the region, but its warning that China would “closely monitor the situation” was close to a “cut and paste” outrage.

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‘They left us to die’: UK’s Afghan aid staff in hiding from Taliban

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Evacuation of employees, not contractors, ‘splitting hairs’, says HRW, warning of days left to save lives

Afghan employees who worked as contractors on UK aid projects fear for their lives after not being granted resettlement in Britain.

The Guardian has been in contact with four families who said they had been targeted by the Taliban because they worked for the UK government, and have now been forced into hiding.

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Aukus deal showing France and EU that Biden not all he seems

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Analysis: the western alliance is the main victim – and China will win out unless US can soothe Paris’s anger

Fury in Paris at Australia’s decision to tear up plans to buy a French-built fleet of submarines is not only a row about a defence contract, cost overruns and technical specifications. It throws into question the transatlantic alliance to confront China.

The Aukus deal has left the French political class seething at Joe Biden’s Trumpian unilateralism, Australian two-facedness and the usual British perfidy. “Nothing was done by sneaking behind anyone’s back,” assured the British defence minister, Ben Wallace, in an attempt to soothe the row. But that is not the view in Paris. “This is an enormous disappointment,” said Florence Parly, the French defence minister.

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UK aid cuts make it vital to address anti-black bias in funding | Kennedy Odede

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Covid-19 has shown the effectiveness of local partners. If the sector is to respond and rebuild, it must redistribute power

The UK’s cut to its aid budget comes to about £4bn a year. Such a dramatic reduction is a blow to many, but most of all to the local organisations who perpetually find themselves last in line for funding.

New research by the Vodafone Foundation reveals that, too often, only a small proportion of philanthropic funding earmarked for African development reaches local, African-led civil society organisations. Instead, most development funding favours intermediaries in the global north and international organisations.

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Afghanistan: former Chevening scholars accuse UK of abandoning them

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Government has prioritised rescue of current scholars but estimated 70 alumni are still in country

A group of former Chevening scholars have accused the British government of abandoning them in Afghanistan, where they say their lives are at grave risk from the Taliban.

The UK government has prioritised the rescue of 35 current Chevening scholars who were due to embark on their studies in the UK before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, but an estimated 70 former scholars are also thought to still be in the country.

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Chinese ambassador to UK barred from British parliament

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Move agreed by Speakers of Commons and Lords follows imposition of sanctions on British MPs by Beijing

The new Chinese ambassador to the UK has been barred from parliament by the Speakers in the Commons and Lords after the imposition of sanctions on British MPs by Beijing.

The new ambassador, Zheng Zeguang, was due to attend a meeting of the broadly pro-Chinese all-party group on China, but after a letter from MPs who were subjected to sanctions by China, including the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, the Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has said the meeting is not appropriate.

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Taliban takeover of Afghanistan will reshape Middle East, official warns

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Gulf states are having to reconsider their alliances and especially whether they can still trust the US, says senior source

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is a shattering earthquake that will shape the Middle East for many years, a senior Gulf official has said, warning that – despite the group’s promises of moderation – the militant group is “essentially the same” as last time it was in power.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official also said that the rapid and chaotic US withdrawal also raises serious questions for Gulf states about the value of US promises of security over the next 20 years.

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UK government threatens to suspend Northern Ireland protocol

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Brexit minister Lord Frost tells House of Lords that the European Commission must take renegotiation proposals seriously

The row over Brexit and Northern Ireland has escalated after the UK government issued a new warning to the EU that it will not shy away from unilaterally suspending the Northern Ireland protocol agreed by Boris Johnson last year.

Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, told the House of Lords on Monday night that the EU should take the UK’s proposals to renegotiate part of the protocol “seriously” if it wanted to avoid the protocol collapsing.

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‘My son misses his Papa’: Brexit rules force families to split

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Partners and spouses are being kept apart by Home Office delays in processing revised versions of entry permits to Britain

A British woman has told how she had to separate her six-year-old son from his French father because post-Brexit rules prohibited her spouse from returning with her to the UK for a new job without prior Home Office approval.

After 11 years in France, the couple, who work in highly skilled jobs in the defence industry, decided to move back to the UK and thought it would be as simple as getting on a Eurostar train.

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The Taliban are not the only threat to Afghanistan. Aid cuts could undo 20 years of progress

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The most vulnerable people will bear the cost of sanctions, as services and the economy collapse

Watching Afghanistan’s unfolding trauma, I’ve thought a lot about Mumtaz Ahmed, a young teacher I met a few years ago. Her family fled Kabul during Taliban rule in the late 1990s.

Raised as a refugee in Pakistan, Ahmed had defied the odds and made it to university. Now, she was back in Afghanistan teaching maths in a rural girls’ school. “I came back because I believe in education and I love my country,” she told me. “These girls have a right to learn – without education, Afghanistan has no future.”

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France accuses Patel of blackmail in row over Channel migrants

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Interior minister says UK plans to return boats of vulnerable people would not be accepted

Priti Patel has been accused by France’s interior minister of plotting “financial blackmail” and a violation of international maritime law in a deepening diplomatic row over efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel by boat.

Gérald Darmanin said that UK plans, released on Wednesday night, to send back boats of vulnerable people into French waters would not be accepted by his government.

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Brexit pre-settled status: EU nationals in UK face losing out on jobs and housing

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Some people cannot prove they are in the country legally because of glitch in digital residency permits

EU nationals living in the UK who apply to change their status risk being rejected by landlords, employers and mortgage lenders because of an anomaly on the digital residency permits issued by the government.

Before they can access public or financial services, EU nationals have to prove that they have been granted either settled or pre-settled status by the Home Office.

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US-led meeting to set out framework for Taliban cooperation

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Talks involving up to 20 nations come as militants ignore calls to form inclusive government in Afghanistan

The US is convening an expanded group of western nations to set a framework for cooperation with the new Taliban government, amid fears that isolating the militant group could backfire.

The meeting on Wednesday, chaired by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, faces an all-male, Pashtun-dominated caretaker government that has ignored calls to form an inclusive administration.

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What’s next for American foreign policy?

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Anniversary of 9/11 and fall of Kabul trigger questions over US interventionism

The 20th anniversary of 9/11 and its fallout was always going to be a moment of deep soul searching about what has been lost and learned.

But the retrospective, until a few weeks ago, risked having a historical, even sepia, quality as the attention of political leaders moved to a more contemporary set of threats – health pandemics, climate emergencies, Big Tech and great power competition, including the rise of China. The “war on terror”, after all, looked if not won, at least drawn. It was even possible Islamist terrorism was a temporary manageable phenomenon, increasingly confined to Africa and some lethal loners in European shopping centres.

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Islamism remains first-order security threat to west, says Tony Blair

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In speech marking 20 years since 9/11 attacks, former British PM warns that non-state actors may turn to bio-terrorism

The west still faces the threat of 9/11-style attacks by radical Islamist groups but this time using bio-terrorism, Tony Blair has warned.

Blair also challenges the US president, Joe Biden, by urging democratic governments not to lose confidence in using military force to defend and export their values.

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David Frost: Irish Sea row risks damaging UK-EU relations long term

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Minister says government will not ‘sweep away’ NI Brexit protocol, but renews demands for major changes

The UK will not “sweep away” the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol, despite renewed calls for its abolition by the Democratic Unionist party, the Brexit minister has said.

However, David Frost renewed his demands for fundamental changes on its implementation, warning the row could have a long-term chilling effect on wider EU-UK relations unless it was resolved.

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