Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The woman who travelled to Syria as a teenager was born and radicalised in this country, writes Anish Kapoor, and the decision to strip her of her citizenship is shameful
I am saddened and appalled to hear of the British government’s refusal to allow Shamima Begum the right to return to Britain, the country of her birth. This decision is shameful and politically motivated (Begum loses first stage of fight to be British citizen, 8 February). The home secretary, Priti Patel, declared in advance of the recent Special Immigration Appeals Commission judgment that Shamima would never be allowed back into the UK.
The land where she was born and bred radicalised her and ultimately failed her. Lest we forget, Shamima left the UK when she was 15, after she had been extensively groomed under the noses of the very authorities tasked to protect her.
Brussels is clamping down on 82 free ports or free zones after identifying that their special tariff and duty status has aided the financing of terrorism, money laundering and organised crime.
A set of new rules was introduced by the European commission just weeks before the launch on Monday of a UK government consultation on the creation of up to 10 free ports in post-Brexit Britain.
A flood of senior German politicians visiting the UK this week have been left confused and unnerved by the hardline rhetoric set out by Boris Johnson on trade talks, prompting warnings that the risk of a breakdown, or a no-deal Brexit, is as high as it has ever been.
Germany takes on the EU presidency in the second half of this year, and will have a crucial role in helping the European commission to steer the talks on a future UK-EU trading relationship to a successful conclusion by the end of the transition period in December.
Emily Thornberry accuses Boris Johnson’s administration of ‘shameful betrayal’
Labour has condemned the government for praising Donald Trump’s vision for Middle East peace, with the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, calling it a “shameful betrayal” of previous UK support for a viable two-state solution.
In an urgent Commons question on the plan, which has been condemned for granting Israel the bulk of its wishes but only offering a Palestinian state under severe restrictions, Thornberry called it “a monstrosity” and a guarantee of future violence.
Exclusive: Report on Russian interference depends on prime minister appointing committee
The SNP’s leader at Westminster has written to Boris Johnson demanding that he take immediate steps to allow the suppressed report into Russia’s interference in the British political system to be published.
Ian Blackford, the leader of the third-largest party in the Commons, called on the prime minister to begin appointing members of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, necessary to allow the controversial document to be released.
Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenković, hinted at move to ensure level playing field
The EU will be unashamedly “political” and block the City of London’s access to European markets if Boris Johnson tries to exempt the UK from its laws.
Croatia’s prime minister, Andrej Plenković, whose country is taking over the presidency of the EU, made the bloc’s intentions clear after the prime minister insisted the UK would not be aligned to the bloc’s regulations.
Boris Johnson’s chief adviser touts for ‘unusual’ applicants outside of the Oxbridge set
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, has written a rambling blog calling for “weirdos and misfits with odd skills” to apply for new jobs within No 10.
In a move way outside the usual recruitment procedures of Whitehall, the key architect of Johnson’s election victory has outlined a set of “unusual” qualities he wishes to see in applicants in the blog post which runs to nearly 3,000 words.
PM talks up Britain’s future as he attempts to reach out to those who did not vote Tory
Boris Johnson has pledged to represent remainers and work with them as “friends and equals”, in a New Year’s Day message in which he sounded upbeat about the UK’s fortunes in the 2020s.
The prime minister, who is seeing in the new year on the private Caribbean island of Mustique, said he was “acutely aware” that millions of people did not vote for him despite the Tories’ landslide election victory.
Boris Johnson has set out his vision for the Tories to govern for the next decade as he published a Queen’s speech that points the way towards a harder Brexit and sweeping constitutional reforms.
The prime minister claimed that he wanted his programme for government to last for more than one parliament, describing it as a “blueprint for the future of Britain”.
Rishi Sunak highlights £34bn health spending, but appears to water down social care pledge
Boris Johnson will try to use the Queen’s speech to refocus attention away from Brexit and on to the NHS, the government has confirmed.
The prime minister intends to put the health service at the centre of the legislative programme, according to the chief secretary to the Treasury, Rishi Sunak.
Here’s a host more middle and junior-ranking ministerial appointments just announced by No 10:
A mooted plan to merge the department for international development (DfID) and the foreign office (FCO) risks allowing British aid money to be spent on “UK foreign policy, commercial and political objectives”, rather than on helping the world’s poorest people, more than 100 charities warn.
Merging DfID with the FCO would risk dismantling the UK’s leadership on international development and humanitarian aid. It suggests we are turning our backs on the world’s poorest people, as well as some of the greatest global challenges of our time: extreme poverty, climate change and conflict. UK aid risks becoming a vehicle for UK foreign policy, commercial and political objectives, when it first and foremost should be invested to alleviate poverty.
By far the best way to ensure that aid continues to deliver for those who need it the most is by retaining DfID as a separate Whitehall department, with a secretary of state for international development, and by pledging to keep both independent aid scrutiny bodies: the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and the International Development Select Committee.
PM intends to set plans for Brexit bill, carry out minor cabinet reshuffle and present Queen’s speech before Christmas
Boris Johnson will tell the next generation of more than 100 new Tory MPs that they have a responsibility to change the the party for good, as he sets out plans for a first vote on his Brexit bill before the festive season.
With just a week until Christmas, the UK prime minister intends to accelerate plans for his Brexit bill, carry out a minor cabinet reshuffle and present a Queen’s speech, before shifting his focus to reshaping Whitehall in the new year.
We will leave the EU in a few weeks. But it’s far from clear what kind of relationship with the bloc an emboldened PM will seek
Well it is truly remarkable. Not so much the result of the election, which is surprising enough. But, rather, the fact that following the “Brexit election”, one in which traditional party loyalties seem to have been stretched to breaking point by the leave-remain divide, we emerge not knowing what kind of Brexit the prime minister intends to deliver.
In the short term, there is now no doubt that he will be able to “get Brexit done” in the sense of taking the UK out of the EU by the end of January. And no, that does not mean that Brexit will, in fact, be done (on which more in a minute) in a practical sense. But it may – may – be possible for the government to give the impression that it is in a politically persuasive way.
The mood may be one of despair, but this election is critical to the country’s future. The best hope lies with Labour, despite its flaws
Britain has not faced a more critical election in decades than the one it faces on Thursday. The country’s future direction, its place in the world and even its territorial integrity are all at stake, primarily because this is a decisive election for Brexit. The choice is stark. The next prime minister is going to be either Boris Johnson, who is focused on “getting Brexit done” whatever the consequences, or Jeremy Corbyn, who with a Labour-led government will try to remodel society with a programme of nationalisation and public spending.
Target seats such as Grimsby have not been blue for decades. To win here will require more than giant cod and snappy slogans
Boris Johnson does not look like a prime minister who believes he is just about to lose the office he has coveted since boyhood.
Brandishing a giant cod and joking with fishmongers, he is in his campaign comfort zone. It is the mode of the Vote Leave tour bus: eye-catching photo ops, a snappy slogan and informal stump speeches that play fast and loose with the facts about Brexit.
John McDonnell to outline agenda for Labour government as general election campaign enters its final days
Good morning. We’re here, in the final stretch of the campaign. The country will go to the polls on Thursday, but before that happens, the parties are giving their pitches one final push.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will outline the party’s plan for the first 100 days of a Labour government, while the party focuses on the benefit of its policies to the bank balances of voters, promising the public that a Labour government would put “money in your pocket”.
Eleventh-hour appeal to anti-Tory voters as poll shows Conservative majority halved
A cross-party alliance of opposition politicians has launched an 11th-hour appeal to anti-Tory voters to consider switching allegiance in Thursday’s general election, amid signs that a late surge of tactical voting in a few swing seats could deprive Boris Johnson of a majority in parliament.
The calls from senior Labour, Liberal Democrat and SNP figures come as a major poll suggests Johnson’s likely majority has been cut in half in the last two weeks – from 82 a fortnight ago to just 40 with four days to polling day.
Jeremy Corbyn accused Boris Johnson of having made “racist remarks” as the pair clashed over Islamophobia and antisemitism in their parties in a crucial head-to-head debate less than a week before polling day.
Corbyn made the allegation during the BBC One leaders’ debate on Friday as he defended himself against Johnson’s charge that his handling of antisemitism complaints within Labour was a “failure of leadership”.
Boris Johnson has claimed that all-out strikes on public transport will be made illegal under a new Conservative administration following major disruption on UK train routes.
On a day when the prime minister also apologised “for any offence caused” by his comments about Muslim women and refused to concede it could take more than a year to agree a trade deal with the EU, he said it was “absurd” that rail workers could bring the system to a halt.