Category Archives: Nick Thomas-Symonds

Labour’s shared values with Democrats will aid UK-US trade deals, says shadow minister

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If both parties win election in 2024, their ideological closeness would make them strong allies, says Nick Thomas-Symonds

Labour’s ideological closeness to the Democrats puts the party in an ideal position to sign trade deals with the US should both parties win their elections next year, the shadow trade secretary has said.

Nick Thomas-Symonds told the Guardian he thought Labour’s shared economic values with the Biden administration meant his party would have more success than the Conservative government has had in making trade agreements across a range of sectors.

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Syrian teenage refugee homeless on Lesbos – despite having right to live in UK

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Labour urges Home Office to ‘right this wrong’ as Syrian teenager remains stranded in Greece despite legal right to join family

“When I saw the smoke coming I didn’t have the chance to get my backpack, I just ran. The fire was very close, I couldn’t save anything, I lost all my documents. I just escaped through the forest.”

Ahmed looks nervously around as he talks about the catastrophe he has just lived through: the fire that destroyed the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos. Around him people are going about their daily lives in the island capital Mytilene, drinking coffee and chatting in the sunshine. But today the Syrian teenager is focused on the basics of survival. “Do you know where I can buy clothes?” he asks. It has been a week since the fire and he only has what he is wearing.

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Labour’s left uneasy with leader’s view on tearing down Colston statue

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Keir Starmer condemns ‘criminal damage’ but says we can’t have ‘a slaver on a statue’

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, sparked unease among some on the left of his party on Monday, as he condemned as “completely wrong” the tearing down of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol at the weekend.

Starmer and the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, said they shared the sense of injustice that had brought more than 100,000 people out on to the streets of the UK to join Black Lives Matter protests in recent days.

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