Exclusive: Request to postpone Tsai Ing-wen’s trip came before ‘goodwill visit’ to China by David Lammy next week
The UK Foreign Office (FCDO) asked for a visit by the former Taiwanese president to be postponed so as not to anger China ahead of a trip by David Lammy, the Guardian has learned.
Lammy is due to travel to China next week for high-level meetings in his first trip to the country as foreign secretary.
Continue reading...Many who last week couldn’t have got within 500 miles of Mauritius on a map now can’t bear it taking the archipelago
What a difference a week makes. Just last Wednesday, you could have put money on most MPs being totally clueless about the exact location of the Chagos Islands. Give them a map and many would have better luck being blindfolded.
Even a hint wouldn’t have made much difference. Are they east, west, south or north of Mauritius? To be in with a shout, you have to know where Mauritius is. And most MPs wouldn’t get within 500 miles. The Indian Ocean is bigger than you think. And don’t get them started on Diego Garcia. Surely he’s the younger brother of the titular character in the 1974 Sam Peckinpah film Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary says status quo not sustainable as Tory MPs accuse Labour of giving away key asset
David Lammy has hailed the decision to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius as a deal to save a strategically important UK-US military base, after accusations from opposition MPs that a key asset was being given away.
The government announced last week that it was going to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending years of bitter dispute over Britain’s last African colony, but the military base on Diego Garcia will remain under UK control.
Continue reading...Revelations about gifts of clothes and tickets to sporting events have put MPs’ declarations in the spotlight
Revelations that Keir Starmer and his team have accepted donations of clothes, accommodation and sports tickets have focused attention on the official register of MPs’ interests, usually published every couple of weeks.
Here are some highlights from the latest version, published on Wednesday.
Continue reading...First charter flight has left Beirut, says David Lammy, with officials planning ‘sea and air’ rescues if situation worsens
The UK has laid on a charter flight to evacuate Britons from Lebanon and said it is ready to commission more for the 5,000 nationals and their dependants remaining in the country.
Beirut’s international airport remains open but ministers and officials are preparing contingency plans for sea and air rescues via Cyprus should the security situation in Lebanon deteriorate to the point at which commercial flights are stopped.
Continue reading...UK arranges flight from Beirut while Germany evacuates embassy staff and others urge citizens to leave as Israel launches limited ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon
The UK has chartered a flight out of Lebanon for Britons to leave the country amid the escalating violence in the region, as governments around the world begin making contingency plans to evacuate their citizens. amid the escalating violence in the region.
The UK arranged a flight that was due to leave Beirut-Rafic Hariri international airport on Wednesday. David Lammy, the foreign secretary, described the situation in Lebanon as “volatile” and with the “potential to deteriorate quickly”.
Continue reading...Officials trying to avoid repeat of Afghan chaos as Israel strikes and foreign secretary tells UK nationals to leave
David Lammy chaired a Cobra meeting to discuss preparations to evacuate remaining Britons from Lebanon, having already urged UK nationals to leave the country amid hostilities with Israel.
The foreign secretary led meetings in Whitehall on Friday as officials try to avoid a repeat of the chaos in which British people scrambled to leave Afghanistan when the Taliban took over in 2021.
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...Backbenchers and NGOs criticise decision to explore how country has cut migrant numbers at Rome talks
Keir Starmer is under pressure from Labour backbenchers and NGOs to distance his government from Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right immigration policies on the eve of bilateral talks in Rome.
After the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said the UK would consider copying Italy’s plans to process asylum applicants in a third country such as Albania, one backbencher questioned why a Labour administration was “seeking to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government”.
Continue reading...Investigation opens in France into deaths as David Lammy says UK could process asylum claimants in third country
Eight people died overnight trying to cross the Channel from France to England, French regional authorities have said, as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said the government could follow Italy’s lead and process asylum claimants in a third country.
The French maritime prefecture said 59 people were onboard the boat, which got into difficulty off the coast of France, and 51 of them were rescued. An investigation has been opened by the Boulogne-sur-Mer public prosecutor’s office.
Continue reading...US president Joe Biden and British PM Keir Starmer fear secret arms link-up amid talks in Washington over Ukraine
Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.
During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.
Continue reading...US and UK leaders’ talks dominated by row with Russia over use of Storm Shadow missiles
Joe Biden dismissed sabre-rattling threats made by Vladimir Putin as the US president met with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House on Friday.
Biden said he did not accept that Ukraine using western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow.
Continue reading...Decision understood to have already been made in private as secretary of state says in Kyiv that US will continue to adapt policy
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia, with a decision understood to have already been made in private.
Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had “from day one” been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. “We will continue to do this,” he emphasised.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. For more on this story, you can read our full report:
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Moscow will destroy any new deliveries of long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine by the United States, Reuters reported citing the state TASS news agency.
The State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said “the U.S. and UK stand united with Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and freedom.”
Continue reading...Antony Blinken to meet David Lammy in precursor to Joe Biden’s talks with Keir Starmer in Washington
Moscow’s use of a shadow fleet transporting western-sanctioned oil, Ukraine’s call to fire to fire UK-supplied missiles into Russia, and the value of publishing a new version of the US ceasefire plan for Gaza will top US-UK talks in London being attended by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state.
His meeting this week with the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, will make him the most senior US official to visit the UK since Labour’s general election victory in July. It is also a precursor to talks in Washington between Joe Biden and Keir Starmer at the end of the week.
Continue reading...PM says he will not take lectures from previous government as Kemi Badenoch launches Tory leadership campaign
Kemi Badenoch is speaking now. She says she wants to talk about the future.
She was born in the UK, but “grew up under socialism”, she says (referring to her childhood in Nigeria).
Labour have no ideas. At best, they are announcing things we have already done, and at their worst, they are clueless, irresponsible and dishonest.
They are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public about the state of Britain’s finances, placing political donors into civil service jobs, pretending that they have no plans to cut pensioner benefits before the election and then doing exactly that to cover the cost of pay rises for the unions with no promise of reform, But their model of spend, spend, spend is broken, and they don’t know what to do, and this will only lead to even more cynicism in politics.
Continue reading...The UK foreign secretary and his French counterpart write in the Observer about their fears over Israel’s escalating tensions with Iran
• It’s never too late for peace in the Middle East – we must break the cycle of violence
There is a rising risk of “full-scale regional war” in the Middle East, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, has warned, amid frantic international efforts to calm tensions with Iran and reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
With the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flying into Israel this weekend to push for a deal, Lammy has joined forces with his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, to warn that now is a “perilous moment” for the region in the midst of widespread fears of escalation involving Tehran and allied militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary says settlers must be ‘brought to justice’ after violence in Palestinian village leaves one dead
The UK foreign secretary has condemned the “widespread rampage” in a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank after an attack by dozens of Israeli settlers left at least one person dead.
The Palestinian health ministry said a man was killed and another left critically injured by the settlers who opened fire on Thursday night in the village of Jit.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary will reportedly meet Benjamin Netanyahu amid increasing tensions with Iran
David Lammy is reportedly planning an imminent trip to Israel amid high tensions with Iran, in an attempt to help avert an escalation of war in the Middle East.
The foreign secretary will meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Israel Katz, the foreign minister, along with Stéphane Séjourné, the French foreign minister, Sky News reported.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Move highlights ambition to reconnect with Beijing but minister will face pressure over human rights
David Lammy is planning a visit to China in September that would fall within the first 100 days of him taking office.
The foreign secretary is in talks over a trip to Beijing next month that would signal the UK wants to resume high-level engagement with the country.
Continue reading...