Josep Borrell warns ‘severe costs’ would follow any aggression against Kyiv by Russian-backed separatists
The European Union’s top diplomat has pledged “full support” to Ukraine on a visit to the frontline of the country’s war with Moscow-backed separatists.
Josep Borrell is the first EU high representative for foreign policy to have visited the Donbass region since war broke out nearly eight years ago.
Continue reading...Loan deal could renew pressure on Britain to repatriate ancient Parthenon marbles to Athens
Italy is returning a fragment belonging to the Parthenon’s eastern frieze to Greece in a breakthrough deal that could renew pressure on Britain to repatriate the 2,500-year-old Parthenon marbles removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.
The marble fragment, which depicts the foot of a goddess, either Peitho or Artemis, peeking out from beneath an elaborate tunic, is currently held at the Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, Sicily. It was originally bought by the University of Palermo from the widow of Robert Fagan, the British consul for Sicily and Malta, after his death in 1816.
Continue reading...Senior white executives are accused of discriminating against BAME Kenyan-born staff
The British Council has launched an inquiry into allegations from black current and former staff members in Kenya who claim they were subjected to systemic racism.
Senior white executives at the organisation, which is the British government’s cultural arm abroad, have been accused of discriminating against BAME Kenyan-born staff, particularly as they were selected and assessed for redundancy.
A programme manager who worked at the British Council from August 2014 to 2019 who claimed they were put at risk of redundancy without adequate explanation.
Another complainant claimed they resigned as a senior official of the Kenyan office’s welfare association after a white executive frustrated efforts to channel staff concerns to the senior leadership team. “Staff have no confidence raising concerns through HR … for fear of being victimised,” the complainant said.
A manager for the professional skills centre in Kenya who claimed they were among a number of black employees who were unfairly targeted for redundancy.
Continue reading...Jonathan Powell says PM and Brexit ministers risking fragile peace in Northern Ireland and ‘don’t seem to care’
One of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace deal has said Boris Johnson and the former Brexit minister Lord Frost have risked “all the work” the previous generation of politicians put into the Belfast Good Friday agreement by putting their hard ideological beliefs ahead of people.
Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff and chief negotiator on Northern Ireland, said he was concerned that neither the prime minister nor the recently resigned Brexit minister seemed to understand or care about the fragility of the political settlement in Northern Ireland in 1998.
Continue reading...Ex-PM warns poverty and starvation mean country is at risk of world’s biggest humanitarian crisis
The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover.
Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: British cheesemaker says Brexit and subsequent trade deals have cost his firm £270,000
A British cheesemaker who predicted Brexit would cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds in exports has called the UK’s departure from the EU single market a disaster, after losing his entire wholesale and retail business in the bloc over the past year. Simon Spurrell, the co-founder of the Cheshire Cheese Company, said personal advice from a government minister to pursue non-EU markets to compensate for his losses had proved to be “an expensive joke”.
“It turns out our greatest competitor on the planet is the UK government because every time they do a fantastic deal, they kick us out of that market – starting with the Brexit deal,” he said.
Continue reading...Chair of National Māori Authority says country should adopt John Howard’s playbook or risk sparking local gangland wars between deported criminals
A prominent Māori leader has called for a dramatic response to what he labels Australia’s attempts to turn New Zealand into a “dumping ground” for criminals, suggesting Jacinda Ardern’s government should “turn the planes around”.
The executive chairman of the National Māori Authority, Matthew Tukaki, also raised concerns about a potential increase in gun violence in Auckland, saying the city “could see gangland wars similar to those that occurred in both Sydney and Melbourne in the early 2000s if we are not careful”.
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Continue reading...Parliamentary committee accuses ambassador of interference over tweet in support of recognising interim government
Libya’s political crisis has taken on an increasingly international dimension after the UK was accused of defending corruption and interfering in internal processes by calling for the interim government to remain in power pending the rescheduling of delayed elections.
The country’s first presidential elections, scheduled for 24 December, were indefinitely postponed at the last minute, largely because fierce disagreements over who should be allowed to stand had not been resolved.
Continue reading...Groups from the continent are going elsewhere, tour operators say, deterred more by passport and visa rules than the pandemic
Post-Brexit changes to Britain’s immigration rules have triggered an unprecedented collapse in bookings for school trips from the continent, organisers say, with countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands now more popular than the UK.
While the pandemic has depressed European school travel in general, the number of short-stay educational visits planned in 2022 to alternative EU destinations where English is widely spoken is significantly higher than inquiries for UK visits.
Continue reading...Events in the run-up to Christmas have conspired like twists in a novel to reveal the true character of Tory Brexiters
There was a moment last year when Boris Johnson was reported to have gone awol (absent without leave) from governing the country in order to work on a book about Shakespeare.
At the time, many commentators blamed his absence for a crucial delay in decision-making which contributed to thousands of avoidable, Covid-related deaths. Be that as it may, or was, he returned to the helm of state, brushed off many a criticism, and managed to persuade gullible members of the media and electorate that he possessed Teflon qualities and was invincible.
Continue reading...An Opinium poll also found that 42% of people who voted Leave in 2016 had a negative view of how it had turned out
More than six out of 10 voters believe Brexit has either gone badly or worse than they expected – a year after the UK left the EU, according to an anniversary poll for the Observer.
The Opinium survey – coming a week after the minister in charge of Brexit, Lord Frost, resigned from Boris Johnson’s government – also found that 42% of people who voted Leave in 2016 had a negative view of how Brexit had turned out so far.
Continue reading...Those promised rewards for Britain of leaving the EU should surely be with us by now. What have been the costs and gains of ‘taking our country back’?
• UK and the EU set to remain best of enemies as 2022 dawns
On New Year’s Day the UK will have been fully out of the European Union for a year: out of its political and legal structures, out of its single market, out of its customs union.
This was what Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – who led the Leave campaign – had wanted. No awkward halfway house like Theresa May had negotiated. No Brexit light. Out completely. Gone. Brexit well and truly done.
Continue reading...Rebrand of Foreign Office’s development arm, seen as effort to rival China’s loans, will shift aid to private sector, warn NGOs and unions
The British government has been accused by NGOs and trade unions of “chasing colonial post-Brexit fantasies” at the expense of the world’s poorest as they urge Liz Truss to keep aid focused on poverty reduction rather than geopolitical manoeuvring.
In a joint letter to the foreign secretary, the group criticises the rebranding of the UK’s development investment arm, which will see the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) become British International Investment (BII) next year.
Continue reading...The foreign secretary, now chief negotiator with the EU, wants ‘a comprehensive solution’
The UK’s newly appointed chief post-Brexit negotiator, Liz Truss, said she would speak to her EU counterpart, Maroš Šefčovič, on Tuesday amid renewed calls to rip up the controversial Northern Ireland protocol.
The cabinet minister, who is also the foreign secretary, said she wanted to negotiate “a comprehensive solution” to the agreement, which requires post-Brexit checks on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain.
Continue reading...Participants in women’s fasting relay will demand Boris Johnson repay £400m to Iran for 1970s arms deal
Women around the world will take turns to fast for 24 hours in an attempt to put pressure on the UK government to secure the freedom of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from detention in Iran.
The campaign by FiLiA, a female-led volunteer organisation working for the liberation of women, follows the 21-day hunger strike Nazanin’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, mounted outside the Foreign Office in London until mid-November.
Continue reading...The foreign secretary is assuming responsibility for the UK’s relationship with the EU, says Downing Street
The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is to take over responsibility for the UK’s relationship with the EU after the Brexit minister Lord Frost’s resignation, Downing Street has said.
She will be adding ministerial responsibility to her foreign portfolio with immediate effect.
Continue reading...EU law on medicines may be rewritten and UK has climbed down over ECJ. Here’s what we know
The UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020 and all EU rules fell away at the start of 2021. Soon after, a row broke out over the Northern Ireland protocol, the tortuously negotiated agreement to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, by keeping Northern Ireland in the EU single market and customs union.
Continue reading...Brussels remains mistrustful of British government, which objects to ECJ being final arbiter of EU law
An uneasy Christmas truce has been called over the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland, even as the EU said it would not negotiate over a key British demand in the rancorous talks.
Maroš Šefčovič, the EU Brexit commissioner, said there was “momentum” behind discussions after a major British U-turn, but refused to offer quid pro quo concessions.
Continue reading...Brexit minister David Frost is seeking agreement on customs and imports to NI and could drop insistence on total exclusion of ECJ
The UK is to change tack in negotiations over the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol and will push for an “interim” deal to avert any further deterioration of political stability in the region.
Brexit minister David Frost is set to propose a new approach based on a “staged solution” with a deal on customs declarations and physical checks on goods a priority to address the immediate impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.
Continue reading...MPs promise to raise situation of Ali Mushaima’s father, Hassan, who has been detained in Bahrain for 10 years
A Bahraini man whose father has been detained for 10 years in the Gulf country will end a 23-day hunger strike outside Bahrain’s embassy in London on Friday after MPs vowed to raise his father’s case in the Commons.
Ali Mushaima said he was suffering from back pain and had found the cold nights on a pavement outside the embassy “tough to take”.
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