British foreign secretary says Russia amplified an illicitly acquired NHS dossier on social media
Russian actors “sought to interfere” in last winter’s general election by amplifying an illicitly acquired NHS dossier that was seized upon by Labour during the campaign, the foreign secretary has said.
Related: Russian state-sponsored hackers target Covid-19 vaccine researchers
Continue reading...Priti Patel says she is looking at giving people aged 18-23 a new right to come to Britain
The UK home secretary, Priti Patel, has said she is looking at giving young Hongkongers a new right to come to the UK.
Britain has made an offer of citizenship to 2.9 million people in Hong Kong eligible for a British national overseas (BNO) passport, but this excludes anyone born after 1997.
Continue reading...Global Times mouthpiece says Beijing must respond or be seen as ‘easy to bully’
Chinese state media has foreshadowed “public and painful” retaliation against the UK over its ban of Huawei from the country’s 5G networks.
Following Britain’s announcement that Huawei would be stripped out of the country’s phone networks by 2027, the state-run Global Times said in an editorial that China could not “remain passive”.
Continue reading...Senior officer says powers less effective if UK forces are denied access to criminal databases
The ability of UK police forces to detain criminal suspects from the EU will become slower and less effective if the government fails to seal a Brexit security deal, a senior officer has told MPs.
Richard Martin, a deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police and the lead for Brexit and international criminality, said forces would lose the “instant, at your fingertips” access to EU-wide databases on criminals and criminal activity that could be the difference between catching a criminal and losing them.
Continue reading...New border checks in Kent and elsewhere reverse 47 years of removal of trade barriers
The UK government is to build “10 to 12” new Brexit border customs and controls sites across the country in a move that Michael Gove has said cements the mission to “take back control” from the EU.
In the biggest shake-up to trading with the EU for 50 years, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced the £470m programme for facilities to process freight going to and from the EU, along with a 206-page document detailing new border controls.
Continue reading...Campaign group One, founded by U2 frontman, is calling for a reorganisation of aid spending
A development campaign group founded by Bono has accused the UK government of wasting a large chunk of its international aid budget and called for spending on overseas assistance to be cut by £1.6bn.
In a report that echoes criticisms by some Conservative MPs, the U2 singer’s One campaign said there was too much spending on projects that failed to reduce poverty.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson’s chief adviser declines to explain reason for payments to Faculty
A private company owned and controlled by Dominic Cummings paid more than a quarter of a million pounds to the artificial intelligence firm that worked on the Vote Leave campaign.
The prime minister’s chief adviser is declining to explain the reason for the payments to Faculty, which were made in instalments over two years. Faculty also declined to say what they were for.
Continue reading...Exclusive: council given only hours’ notice of emergency purchase of 1.2m sq ft ‘Mojo’ site
The government has secretly purchased 11 hectares (27 acres) of land 20 miles from Dover to site a vast new Brexit customs clearance centre for the 10,000 lorries that come through the Kent port from Calais every day.
It will be the first customs post erected in the UK to deal with goods coming from the EU for 27 years.
Continue reading...Sanctions target mid- or low-level officials and will have little impact on the wealthiest
He is known as Vladimir Putin’s enforcer. Almost every criminal case in Russia – from Pussy Riot to anti-government street protests – passes his desk. But as of last week Moscow’s top law officer, Alexander Bastrykin, is no longer welcome in Britain. He is banned from owning property, opening a bank account or popping over from Moscow for a weekend jaunt.
Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s powerful investigative committee, was one of 25 Russians sanctioned by the UK. All were allegedly involved in human rights abuses – specifically in the mistreatment of Sergei Magnitsky, who was beaten to death in 2009 in a Moscow jail. Bastrykin covered up the case, No 10 says. Others named and shamed include judges, interior ministry officials and prison staff.
Continue reading...Calls intensify for withdrawal from security arrangement with kingdom over human rights
The British government has been accused of “empty talk” over human rights as two pro-democracy campaigners in Bahrain face the death penalty.
The UK has provided security advice to the island nation in the Persian Gulf for five years and funds a body that examines allegations of police mistreatment.
Continue reading...Number of nurses coming from EU fell again and coronavirus prevented further arrivals
Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt after the number coming from the EU fell again and coronavirus prevented thousands of arrivals from the rest of the world.
The prime minister made the promise a cornerstone of his general election campaign last year and has since reiterated many times his determination to deliver the increase.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson is learning the hard way that the UK’s position on the globe is a relevant factor in its negotiations with Brussels
It is possible that Boris Johnson meant it when he said last year that Brexit would not involve checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but only if he did not understand the deal he had signed. His position made sense as dishonesty or ignorance. It was never true.
As Brexit talks continue in London this week, it turns out the government has submitted to the EU its application to put border control posts at Irish Sea ports. That is a necessary act of compliance with the Northern Ireland protocol in the withdrawal agreement.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says Moscow will respond to Britain’s human rights move
The Kremlin has said it will take countermeasures against the UK after the British government imposed sanctions on Monday against senior Russian officials including a close ally of Vladimir Putin.
Putin’s press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow would respond to the decision by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to put 25 Russians on a new sanctions list. One of them is Alexander Bastrykin, Russia’s top prosecutor and the head of the investigative committee.
Continue reading...EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier complained of lack of respect and engagement by UK
The latest negotiations in Brussels on an EU-UK trade and security deal have broken up early, with the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, complaining of a lack of respect and engagement by the British government.
The two sides ended the week’s talks – the first held in person since February – a day ahead of the jointly-agreed schedule amid evident frustration at the lack of progress in bridging what both Barnier and his UK counterpart, David Frost, described as “serious” disagreements.
Continue reading...Legislation will allow Foreign Office to confront countries over human rights, but who it will target remains to be seen
New UK human rights sanctions legislation set to be published in the next few weeks is being touted as a possible tool with which to confront Chinese officials over Hong Kong, but questions loom about whether the law’s range and impact can meet such high expectations.
The difficulties inherent in drafting watertight sanctions is reflected in the long delay prior to its publication. An act giving the government the right to introduce what is known as Magnitsky-style laws against human rights offenders was passed in May 2018, but since then Foreign Office lawyers have been working on the detailed secondary parliamentary legislation known as a statutory instrument (SI).
Continue reading...International pressure on Israel escalates as Netanyahu misses self-imposed target date
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has missed his self-imposed target date for annexation of occupied Palestinian territories, as France warned of “consequences” and Boris Johnson made an appeal to Israel to reconsider the move in an article in the Hebrew media.
Johnson, who described himself in the opinion piece as a “passionate defender of Israel”, said any annexation would be a “violation of international law”, adding the UK would not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders in the West Bank that were not agreed by both Israelis and Palestinians.
Continue reading...The ‘gobocracy’ that surrounds the PM is capable of doing Russia’s work for it
As Boris Johnson is leading Britain’s first government of pundits, “a gobocracy”, if you like, it is worth repeating Humbert Wolfe’s scathing poem on the press: “You cannot hope to bribe or twist,/ thank God! the British journalist./ But, seeing what the man will do/ unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”
In a gobocracy, there’s no need to become too conspiratorial about why a prime minister betrays his country. Put a Telegraph columnist in charge, throw in Michael Gove from the Times and Dominic Cummings from Vote Leave’s propaganda arm, and their bottomless cynicism and instinctive charlatanism will bring ruin with or without foreign assistance.
Continue reading...Bid for 20% of OneWeb to replace Galileo after Brexit ‘looks like nationalism trumping industrial policy’
The UK government’s plan to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in a satellite broadband company has been described as “nonsensical” by experts, who say the company doesn’t even make the right type of satellite the country needs after Brexit.
The investment in OneWeb, first reported on Thursday night, is intended to mitigate against the UK losing access to the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system.
Continue reading...German leader signals trade compromise less likely as she hardens tone on no-deal Brexit
The UK will have to “live with the consequences” of Boris Johnson ditching Theresa May’s plan to maintain close economic ties with the EU after Brexit, Angela Merkel has said, hardening her tone over the prospect of a no-deal scenario at the end of the year.
After more than three years in which the German chancellor repeatedly emphasised her openness to a deal that would maintain the UK’s current flows of trade with the bloc, she suggested the door leading to such a compromise had now closed.
Continue reading...$1bn gold hoard subject of dispute between Nicolás Maduro and rival Juan Guaidó
Claims that the Bank of England is unlawfully blocking the release of 31 tonnes of gold valued at nearly $1bn(£805m) and intended to combat the coronavirus in Venezuela have been heard in the high court this week.
The bars are among the 400,000 bars of gold held in the Bank’s vaults, but there is a political dispute about their rightful owner.
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