Keir Starmer to announce expansion in region that will also include business club to increase economic ties
The UK will increase its military and economic presence in the Indo-Pacific to support regional stability, Keir Starmer will announce on Saturday.
In an effort to counter China’s influence, ministers will expand the Royal Navy’s presence in the region and carry out more joint patrols with Pacific island nations.
Continue reading...Rachel Reeves to encourage import of raw materials from Commonwealth countries to counter China’s grip on market
Businesses that import critical minerals to the UK will be given access to state-backed loans in a move to counter China’s dominance in the market.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is expected to announce extra government support to encourage the import of critical minerals such as lithium, graphite and cobalt in her budget next week. Companies that bring supplies of critical minerals into the UK will be able to access state-backed loans under the UK export finance mechanism.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary discussed China’s treatment of Uyghurs and support of Russia as well as ‘areas of cooperation’
David Lammy pressed his Chinese counterpart on human rights concerns and China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during talks in Beijing, the Foreign Office has said.
The foreign secretary had been under pressure to take a tough line on a range of human rights issues with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, when the pair met on Friday during Lammy’s first visit to China since taking office.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Party drops plan for formal recognition laid out last year by David Lammy, who will visit Beijing on Friday
Labour has backtracked on plans to push for formal recognition of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide in the run-up to David Lammy’s trip to the country this weekend.
The foreign secretary is expected to arrive in Beijing on Friday for high-level meetings before travelling to Shanghai on Saturday.
Continue reading...Labour peer says in meantime it is essential to try to reduce damage of Brexit deal struck by Boris Johnson
Peter Mandelson has suggested the UK could start talks on rejoining the EU in 10 years’ time, much earlier than Keir Starmer believes.
Lord Mandelson told an audience in Edinburgh the “truth is that [reversing Brexit] could be a conversation which starts in 10 years’ time”, but only if EU member states were willing to consider it.
Continue reading...Trading relationships at ‘breaking point’ because of delays and costs, garden centres and nurseries warn
Exporters of plants and flowers from mainland Europe are turning their backs on supplying Britain as “painful” new Brexit border checks are putting some trading relationships at “breaking point”, garden centres and nurseries have warned.
The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), which represents garden retailers and growers, said long-held links between British nurseries and EU suppliers were now being put under strain because of the delays and costs associated with the new border processes.
Continue reading...Angela Eagle, border security minister, says prime minister has to answer why he has accepted £76,000 worth of gifts since 2019 election
The number of migrants who have crossed the English Channel since Labour won the general election has passed 10,000, according to provisional figures from the Home Office. As PA Media reports, some 65 migrants were detected crossing the Channel on Monday, taking the cumulative number of arrivals since July 4 to 10,024. PA says:
The cumulative total for the year so far now stands at 23,598.
This is 1% lower than the equivalent figure at this point last year, which was 23,940, and 21% lower than the total at this stage in 2022, which was 29,783.
The home secretary announced the package of up to £75m, which redirects funds originally allocated to the previous government’s Illegal Migration Act. It will unlock sophisticated new technology and extra capabilities for the NCA to bolster UK border security and disrupt the criminal people smuggling gangs. The investment is designed to build on a pattern of successful upstream disruptions announced at an operational summit, attended by the prime minister, at the NCA headquarters last week.
They became climate dinosaurs, crashing offshore wind, blocking onshore wind, moving the goalposts on electric vehicle targets, doubling down on oil and gas, leaving British wildlife in crisis.
Our biodiversity declining at an unprecedented rate, our precious national parks in decline, our rivers, lakes and seas awash with toxic sewage, blind to the opportunities of the energy transition – a fossil fuel government in a renewable age.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Michelin, Dunlop, Goodyear and Bridgestone products have found way to Russia via intermediaries
More than $30m (£23m) worth of aircraft tyres made by western manufacturers including the French firm Michelin and Britain’s Dunlop were imported into Russia last year via intermediaries despite attempts to ban the trade, according to a Ukrainian government agency.
Russian aviation is critically dependent on foreign-made tyres and, according to the available customs records, the vast majority imported into the country in 2023 were produced by companies headquartered in France, Britain, the US and Japan.
Continue reading...Owner of Ormiston Wire in London urges Keir Starmer not to forget small manufacturers in his dealings with EU
The head of a family-owned company that has made specialist wires and cables for six generations for clients ranging from naval vessels to film sets has blamed Brexit for shredding its business.
Mark Ormiston, the owner of Ormiston Wire, said small businesses such as his had been flushed “down the toilet” by the masterminds of Brexit who gave little thought to the real-life consequences for UK manufacturing.
Continue reading...Finding new trade arrangements to boost growth will be hard given party has ruled out rejoining single market and customs union
Before a whistlestop European tour to Berlin and Paris, Keir Starmer promised to mend “the broken relationships left behind by the previous government” and drive forward UK economic growth.
Changing the tone with European leaders is the easy bit. Changing the substance – especially finding new arrangements to boost growth – is a much taller order.
Continue reading...Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds says joining Asia-Pacific CPTPP bloc is a ‘real win’ for exporters, even though it will preclude the UK from EU membership
The business and trade secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has signalled a new twin-track approach to UK trade policy, in which the Labour government will pursue closer ties with the European Union while at the same time seeking new global partnerships further afield.
Writing for the Observer online, Reynolds welcomes the UK’s imminent entry into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) as a “real win” for British exporters.
Continue reading...New business secretary set to tell international counterparts at G7 meeting ‘Britain is back on world stage’
Britain is taking its first steps towards forging closer trading links with the EU in meetings between the new business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, and international counterparts in Italy.
In his first overseas visit since Labour’s election landslide, Reynolds will tell a G7 meeting of trade ministers in the Italian city of Reggio Calabria that the new UK government wants to foster a “closer, more mature relationship with our friends in the EU”.
Continue reading...Nursery and garden centre trade bodies write open letter saying problems at border need to be urgently fixed
Nurseries and garden centres across Britain and Europe have warned that new post-Brexit border posts are not working properly and are leading to delays, damage and significant extra costs for importers bringing plants into Britain.
The Horticultural Trade Association, which represents 1,400 garden retailers and growers in the UK, has joined forces with several European trade bodies to write an open letter to call for urgent solutions, warning the new system was adding more than 25% to import costs.
Continue reading...Business community decries ‘act of arson’ as one-seventh of trade posts within British consulates in the US are scrapped
America was meant to be Britain’s route to the sunlit uplands of Brexit. Then, after hopes of a free trade deal evaporated, successive Conservative governments have set their sights lower, by trying to forge closer ties with individual US states.
Now the civil servants responsible for delivering those state-level deals have been let go, in what a furious British businessman described as “an act of arson”.
Continue reading...Shadow business secretary says trying to rejoin single market or customs union would cause ‘more difficulties’
Labour would rather have stability in the UK’s relationship with Europe than try to seek accelerated economic growth by rejoining the EU’s single market or customs union, the shadow business secretary has said.
Addressing the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) conference on Thursday, Jonathan Reynolds acknowledged that Brexit had been “very difficult for businesses” because it had erected trade barriers, but said reopening the debate would be worse.
Continue reading...Decision could result in retailers being prosecuted if they import goods made through forced labour, campaigners say
The UK National Crime Agency’s decision not to launch an investigation into the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced labour in China’s Xinjiang province was unlawful, the court of appeal has found.
Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which brought the action, said Thursday’s decision was a landmark win that could lead to high street retailers being prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) if they import goods made through forced labour.
Continue reading...British Chambers of Commerce director general calls on politicians to improve ties with EU and strike better deal
The UK’s current trade deal with the EU is not working and the country must stop “walking on eggshells” around the issue of building closer ties with its biggest trading partner, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is expected to say.
At the annual BCC global conference in London on Thursday, Shevaun Haviland will say that the UK must forge closer ties with the EU and the next government should focus on improving trading relations to grow the economy.
Continue reading...Shadow chancellor’s remarks mark shift in tone for party, which has preferred to not talk about Brexit so far
Labour would try to improve elements of the UK’s trade deal with the EU, Rachel Reeves has indicated, saying also that most financial services companies have “not regarded Brexit as being a great opportunity for their businesses”.
While Labour remains committed to not making any major changes to Brexit, the shadow chancellor’s comments show that the party could nonetheless make more policy moves on EU trade links than previously believed.
Continue reading...Due to new import controls, a judging session for the Great Taste awards is being held outside the UK for the first time in 30 years
The Great Taste awards are a British success story – the world’s largest food awards, celebrating the best products on the planet. But new post-Brexit import controls have forced the organisers to hold a judging panel outside the UK for the first time in the awards’ 30-year history.
On Sunday, judges from the Guild of Fine Foods panel will travel to County Tipperary in Ireland to spend three days tasting products that have become much harder to bring to the UK.
Continue reading...Lib Dems says Conservatives have ‘serious questions to answer’ about what appears to be clear conflict of interest
A UK government trade summit in Saudi Arabia has been criticised for helping to promote businesses linked to a string of senior Conservatives, including peers and the former chair of the party, Ben Elliot.
Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, has been in Riyadh this week launching the government-backed Great Futures campaign to promote British trade with Saudi Arabia, despite the Gulf country’s controversial record on the repression of women and LGBT people.
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