Category Archives: Liz Truss

Liz Truss to hold Brexit talks with EU over NI protocol

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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.

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Liz Truss to take on Brexit brief after David Frost resignation

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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.

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G7 leaders warn Russia all sanctions on table over Ukraine border buildup

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Kremlin would ‘face massive consequences’ in event of invasion, says UK foreign secretary at Liverpool talks

All forms of economic sanctions against Russia are on the table if it makes an incursion into Ukraine, the British foreign secretary has said, as she hinted she may be prepared to look again at the UK’s anti-money-laundering laws that are seen by some as a way for Russian elites to stash their cash.

Speaking on the final day of a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Liverpool, Liz Truss said that if Russia were to invade, it “would face massive consequences for which there would be severe cost”, amid fears over a Russian troop buildup.

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Liz Truss plays stateswoman as Tory leadership contenders line up for battle

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The foreign secretary was doubtless happy to project an image of authority at a G7 meeting as chaos reigned in Downing Street

While Downing Street spent a disastrous week attempting to deal with scandals over parties and wallpaper – and the prime minister was juggling the crises with the birth of a daughter – things were somewhat more serene for another member of his top team.

Rather than dealing with resignations among staff or the latest revelations about Whitehall Christmas parties, foreign secretary Liz Truss has spent the weekend boosting her credentials as a stateswoman, using a meeting of her international counterparts in Liverpool to pitch herself as one of those protecting “the frontiers of freedom” around the world.

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Britain and Israel to sign trade and defence deal

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Pact covers Iran as well as cybersecurity, despite controversy over use of Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in UK

Britain and Israel will sign a 10-year trade and defence pact in London on Monday, promising cooperation on issues such as cybersecurity and a joint commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The agreement was announced by Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid, despite evidence that spyware made by Israeli company NSO Group had probably been used to spy on two British lawyers advising the ex-wife of the ruler of Dubai, Princess Haya.

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‘Little Britain’: Chinese media weigh in on reports of spat between Liz Truss and UK envoy

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Official newspaper calls Truss ‘radical populist’ after her alleged row with Caroline Wilson over UK’s hard line

An official Chinese newspaper has weighed in on an alleged spat between the British foreign secretary and the UK’s ambassador to China, suggesting Liz Truss was “a radical populist” and quoting Chinese internet users calling the UK “Little Britain”.

The alleged row between Truss and Caroline Wilson, the British ambassador to China, was first reported by the Times early this month.

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Jersey issues 49 more fishing licences to French boats amid row

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Officials from France and UK to meet in Brussels after threats from both sides in post-Brexit dispute

Jersey has issued another 49 licences to French boats in an apparent attempt to de-escalate a post-Brexit row over fishing rights in which the UK and France have issued tit-for-tat threats.

The Jersey government said it was allowing another round of temporary licences until the end of January to allow time for new arrangements to be put in place, as the two sides prepared to meet to try to resolve the row.

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Conversion therapy to be restricted but not banned in proposed bill

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Equalities minister Liz Truss will consult on plans to allow counselling for non-vulnerable adults

Consenting adults should be able to undergo so-called conversion therapy, the government has recommended.

Setting out proposals for how they plan to crack down on “coercive and abhorrent” practices that seek to change sexual orientation or gender identity, the Government Equalities Office said: “We recognise there is a plurality of experience in this area and that there are adults who seek counselling to help them live a life that they feel is more in line with their personal beliefs.”

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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband on second hunger strike in effort to free her

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Richard Ratcliffe seeks to persuade Foreign Office to do more to secure wife’s release from prison in Iran

The husband of the jailed British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has gone on hunger strike for a second time in an attempt to persuade the UK foreign secretary to do more to bring his wife back from detention in Iran. His hunger strike is to take place outside the Foreign Office in London.

Richard Ratcliffe took the radical step in desperation after the Iranian authorities said earlier this month that Nazanin had lost her appeal against a second prison sentence. She will return to jail for another year, and then subject to a travel ban for a further year after that.

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Britain must repay £400m debt and lift sanctions, Tehran tells Liz Truss

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UK meeting with Iranian foreign secretary coincides with 2,000th day of detention for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Britain should repay its four decade-old £400m debt to Iran and take serious steps to lift sanctions, Iran has told the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, in the first meeting between the two countries at foreign secretary level since 2018.

Truss’s meeting with Hossein Amir-Abdollahian came in the week that the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe marked her 2,000th day in detention in Iran. She is now staying with her mother in Iran, pending an appeal on her additional sentence of one year.

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Brazilian minister tests positive for Covid after meeting maskless Johnson

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Marcelo Queiroga sat close to Boris Johnson and Liz Truss at New York meeting

Brazil’s health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, has tested positive for Covid and gone into isolation, 24 hours after meeting a maskless Boris Johnson and other British officials in New York.

Queiroga, who sat close to Johnson and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, on Monday during their meeting with Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, announced his positive test on Twitter on Tuesday night.

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Baptism of fire as Liz Truss heads to US amid submarine row

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As France accuses the US and Australia of ‘lies and duplicity’, new UK foreign secretary faces major diplomatic incident on her first official overseas trip

Liz Truss is heading for a furious diplomatic confrontation with France on her first trip abroad as foreign secretary, as anger mounts in Paris over the cancellation of a £48bn nuclear submarine contract.

Truss, whose appointment was one of the biggest surprises of Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle last Wednesday, will arrive in the US on Sunday before a four-day visit to New York and Washington during which she is aiming to promote the prime minister’s vision of “global Britain” to international leaders.

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‘A perfect storm’: UK beet growers fear Brexit threatens their future

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They produce half the country’s sugar needs, but expect new trade deals to make their tough situation worse

In a field in Norfolk, the sight of lush green leaves sprouting from the soil are giving farmer Ed Lankfer cause for optimism. “I think this is one of the best crops we have ever grown,” he says, surveying one of his fields of sugar beet.

The signs are promising so far for this year’s harvest – known in the trade as a campaign – which takes place later than for other crops, during the autumn and winter. It would mark quite the turnaround from 2020’s terrible harvest, when bad weather and pests caused yields of the white sugar-yielding root to plummet by as much as 60%, leaving Lankfer with a £12,000 loss.

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UK expected to offer post-Brexit trade deal to Australia

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Gradual tariff-free deal will be victory for free-trade Brexiters but will likely alarm UK farmers

UK ministers are expected to offer Australia a trade deal which will gradually eliminate all tariffs and quotas, one seen as a victory for free-trade Brexiters in the cabinet but likely to prompt alarm among UK farmers.

Downing Street did not deny reports on Friday that the likely offer to Australia would be a transition to zero quotas and tariffs over 15 years, although insisted discussions were still taking place.

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UK may help EU before domestic vaccination programme complete, says Liz Truss

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Trade secretary had previously hinted supplies may not be diverted until UK population was vaccinated

The UK could help the EU and other nations with coronavirus vaccine supplies even before the domestic vaccination programme has been completed, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said.

As ministers sought to smooth relations with Brussels after the EU’s much-criticised and swiftly rescinded decision to impose a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Truss sought to stress the need for international cooperation.

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Liz Truss: we will vaccinate people in UK before helping other countries – video

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The UK can help EU nations with coronavirus vaccine supplies, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has said, but only if it does not affect the government’s timetable for vaccinating its own population. She told Sky News's Sophy Ridge: 'We first need to make sure that our population is vaccinated ... It’s a bit too early to say how we would deploy vaccines but we certainly want to work with friends and neighbours, we want to work with developing countries'

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UK to apply to join free trade pact with nations on other side of world

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Liz Truss to seek to join 11-nation trans-Pacific partnership, whose nearest member is 3,000 miles away

The British government is to formally apply to join a mammoth free-trade pact that includes Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand now that it has left the EU.

Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, will ask to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) when she speaks to ministers in Japan and New Zealand on Monday.

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UK and Canada to trade on EU terms after Brexit transition

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Conservative government says agreement paves the way for new bespoke deal with Canada

The UK and Canada have agreed to continue trading under the same terms as the current EU agreement after the Brexit transition period ends.

The Conservative government said the agreement paved the way for negotiations to begin next year on a new comprehensive deal with Canada, which has long been trumpeted as one of the benefits of the UK leaving the EU.

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UK trade department faces race to get £80bn of trade agreements ratified

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Deals to ensure UK can go on trading with non-EU countries after Brexit transition must be laid before MPs by Wednesday

Liz Truss’s Department for International Trade (DIT) is scrambling to meet a Wednesday deadline for tabling £80bn of trade agreements before parliament, in time for them to come into force in January under standard procedures.

Truss’s department has signed a string of “continuity agreements” to ensure the UK can go on trading with non-EU countries on similar terms, when the Brexit transition period comes to an end on 31 December.

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