Markus Andrews

Boris Johnson’s government has been warned against a post-Brexit free trade deal with a group Gulf states over the “appalling” record on human rights.Union chiefs and campaigners urged ministers to rethink its approach as talks on a deal between the UK and six Gulf nations kick off on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia.International trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan will meet representatives of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) in Riyadh to begin negotiations with the bloc.But Paul Nowak, deputy general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said the government should not “entertain” a deal without addressing reform.“The Gulf states’ appalling record on human rights and workers’ rights is no secret, and yet the government is rushing into trade talks, no questions asked,” he said.Accusing the government of “turning a blind eye to fundamental rights abuses”, the TUC chief said the government should use its leverage “to ensure respect for fundamental workers’ and human rights”Mr Nowak added: “Banning trade unions, forced labour, severe exploitation of migrant workers and other labour rights abuses are all widespread – as are attacks on women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and the oppression of marginalised communities.”Unlike recent trade deals with New Zealand and Australia, the UK is not expected to pursue agreements on advancing gender equality as part of its negotiation with the GCC – instead raising human rights issues through other avenues.Amnesty International UK’s head of policy Allan Hogarth said women faced “deep-rooted discrimination” and bans on trade unions “are common” in the Gulf.“A UK-Gulf trade deal which remained silent on these issues would be wilfully ignoring serious human rights violations,” he said.The government said a comprehensive post-Brexit free trade deal could boost the UK economy by up to £1.6bn a year.Trade between the UK and the GCC – which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – is already worth £33.1bn, making it the UK’s seventh largest trading partner.The bloc’s demand for international goods and services is expected to increase 35% in the next 13 years.Ms Trevelyan said: “This trade deal has the potential to support jobs from Dover to Doha, growing our economy at home, building vital green industries and supplying innovative services to the growth.”The UK is expected to pursue cuts to tariffs on British exports to the Gulf, particularly in the food and drink sector. UK food and drink exports to GCC countries were worth £625m in 2021.The government will also seek to improve access for hi-tech industries including green technology to help the GCC transition away from reliance on fossil fuels.This could include reducing the 15 per cent tariff on UK wind turbine parts in order to help the UAE reach its target of generating 50 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050.Stephen Phipson, chief executive of manufacturers’ organisation Make UK, welcomed the launch of free trade negotiations with the Gulf Co-operation Council.He said a partnership on green innovation would bring “significant opportunities for Britain’s innovative renewable energy companies which are already leading the way in this area of global concern”.Negotiations will also look to increase investment opportunities between the UK and the Gulf, with GCC investments in the UK supporting more than 25,000 jobs in 2019 and the new deal expected to boost local economies in the North and the Midlands. More

The country’s biggest education union will consult members on industrial action this autumn if the government fails to make an “inflation-plus” pay increase for teachers.In a letter to Nadhim Zahawi – seen by The Independent – the joint general secretaries of the National Education Union (NEU), warn they will not stand by “while you run both education and educators into the ground”.It comes amid the biggest industrial strike on the rail network for decades and figures showing UK inflation hitting a fresh 40 year high, climbing 9.1 per cent in the 12 months to May — up from 9 per cent in April.In their correspondence with the education secretary on Wednesday, NEU general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted claimed that teachers’ pay has fallen by a fifth in real terms since 2010.As the union awaits a report from the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), which makes recommendations on pay, they said: “We call on you to commit to an inflation-plus increase for all teachers.“A clear and unambiguous signal that educators are valued, with undifferentiated inflation-plus pay increase for all teachers, is urgently needed. And you must fund schools accordingly”.In a clear warning, they continued: “The current inaction from the government on these questions is causing real damage to education and to our members’ livelihoods.”“We have to tell you that failing sufficient action by you, in the autumn term, we will consult our members on their willingness to take industrial action.“And we will be strongly encouraging them to vote yes. We can no longer stand by while you run both education and educators into the ground.It is understood any action would first involve an indicative ballot in the autumn term – and could lead to a formal ballot on strike action among teachers across the country.In response, Mr Zahawi said: “We have proposed the highest pay awards in a generation for new teachers – 16.7% over the next two years – alongside further pay awards for more experienced teachers and leaders.“Young people have suffered more disruption to their education than any generation that’s gone before, and it’s the vital work of teachers that is helping them get back on track.”The cabinet minister added: “The last thing I – or any parent – want to see is anything that would risk undoing that progress. We will be considering the pay recommendations from the independent pay review body in due course.”The letter comes after Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, insisted the government must take a “firm line” and “win” the argument against unions, or risk a “vicious cycle” of rising wages pushing inflation even higher.“We really do understand the pressure that those on low incomes are facing at the moment, they are struggling to make ends meet.”Setting out why public sector pay could not keep pace with inflation, he added: “If we don’t have those restraints, inflation will go higher for longer. And that will only undermine the pay packages of workers, particularly the most vulnerable workers, for a longer period of time.“We’re taking the action, we’re taking a firm line with, for example, the RMT union, precisely because we want to protect this erosion of pay packets by inflation.” More

Retirees are set to see pensions rise by 10 per cent next year – despite the government insisting public sector workers receive below-inflation pay rises.The government confirmed the state pension triple lock will return next year, meaning it will rise by inflation, average earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest.Pensioners will see double-digit payments increases in April next year as the state pension will be determined based on September’s CPI inflation – which is expected to be 10 per cent.This could bring a boost of almost £1,000 a year to retirees.The triple lock was introduced by the coalition government in 2010 help give pensioners a decent minimum level of income which would keep pace with growth in workers’ earnings.The wages measure within the triple lock was temporarily suspended for a year during the Covid-19 pandemic but it is now being reinstated.Downing Street has defended restoring the pensions triple lock, which will see the benefit rise in line with inflation, at a time when the government is arguing against wages keeping pace with rising prices.Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab on Wednesday told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “They (pensioners) are particularly vulnerable and they are disproportionately affected by the increase in energy costs which we know everyone is facing.”The government had committed £37bn to help people cope with rising costs, he said, but “at the same time we have got to stop making the problem worse by fuelling pay demands that will only see inflation stay higher for longer and that only hurts the poorest the worst”.Asked why state pensions will rise with inflation but not public sector pay, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Pensioners, particularly those who receive state pensions, are disproportionately impacted by high energy costs.“They can’t always increase their incomes through work and they are more vulnerable to cost-of-living pressures”. More

The Ministry of Defence is spending an “astounding” £300,000 a year on opinion polling and “focus groups”, it has been revealed.The spending, which comes as the government cuts over 5,000 soldiers from the army on cost grounds, is being criticised by opposition MPs as a waste of taxpayers’ money.The Independent asked the MoD what exactly it was polling people about or what it was asking people in focus groups, but the department would not say.A spokesperson would only say the ministry was measuring public opinion so it could “continue to communicate clearly and effectively”.Government departments increasingly spend significant amounts of taxpayer cash measuring opinion and testing out different communications strategies on the public.Polling purports to give a snapshot of public opinion on a particular issue, but the responses often depend on how the question is asked, with results open to a range of interpretations.Focus groups involve interviewing a small number of people in an attempt to gauge wider public opinion or reactions. The approach originated in retail marketing, and its use in political communication is more controversial.The MoD’s communications team spend £199,730 on polling in financial year 2021-22, and £108,600 on focus groups during the same period – a total of £308,330.The figure across the department could be even higher because ministers say they do not have a central record of all public opinion research conducted across the department. Liberal Democrat defence Spokesperson Jamie Stone said: “This is an astounding way to be using taxpayers’ money. As our armed forces face cuts, the Conservative Government spends hundreds of thousands of pounds on MoD polls and focus groups. You could not have a clearer sign that they have not got their priorities right. “The Government should scrap these expensive focus groups, and reinvest the money into our armed forces where it’s needed.”Responding to a parliamentary question, defence and Cabinet Office minister Leo Docherty said: “Focus groups and polling services are not recorded centrally therefore, costs for the whole of the Ministry of Defence (Mod) cannot be identified. “With regards to the MOD communications function and polling, we have counted this as quantitative opinion research, most often on external audiences.”The MoD communications function (across Top Level Budgets) spent £199,730 on polling in financial year 2021-22 [and] £108,600 on focus groups in financial year 2021-22.”An MoD Spokesperson said: “Defence plays a crucial role in keeping our country safe, levelling up communities and supporting our allies around the world. “We carry out polling and focus groups so that we can continue to communicate clearly and effectively and ensure that our policies and actions are explained in a meaningful way to the public.” More

Dominic Raab has said the government cannot “relent” and allow striking rail workers to “win” the argument amid the biggest industrial action on the network in three decades.Risking a fresh clash, the deputy prime minister also described the actions of the country’s largest rail union, RMT, as “militant” — just minutes after insisting the government did not want the dispute to become “politicised”.As inflation hit a fresh 40 year high, the cabinet minister said it showed the need to take a “firm line” with the union, telling Sky News there was a risk of a “vicious cycle” of rising wages pushing inflation even higher.His comments came as talks between Network Rail and other train companies prepare to resume negotiations with RMT in attempt to break the deadlock after the first of three days of industrial action.Mr Raab said he understood unions “feel their job is to protect their workers”, before describing the strike action as “counterproductive” and claimed it was for Network Rail to deal with the union, rather than ministers.“This risks being politicised, actually, the successive approach of governments is to have Network Rail dealing with the technical aspects of that in the room and I think that would hopefully increase the chances of a depoliticised approach,” he said.But asked how long the government would let the strike go on, Mr Raab replied: “We can’t allow, I’m afraid, the unions in this very militant way they’ve proceeded, to win this argument because it will only hurt the poorest in society.”Pressed on his use of the word “militant”, Mr Raab said millions were being disrupted, with blue collar workers, including cleaners and electricians, suffering the “most”.“If we want to get inflation down quicker we cannot relent,” the justice secretary added when quizzed on warnings of a summer of discontent facing the country.RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said the turnout at picket lines on Tuesday was “fantastic” and had exceeded expectations in the union’s campaign for job security, defending conditions and a decent pay rise.“Our members will continue the campaign and have shown outstanding unity in the pursuit of a settlement to this dispute,” he said.“RMT members are leading the way for all workers in this country who are sick and tired of having their pay and conditions slashed by a mixture of big business profits and Government policy.“Now is the time to stand up and fight for every single railway worker in this dispute that we will win.”Speaking to The Independent on Tuesday, Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trade Union Congress said that the government’s approach will cause “widespread hardship” among working families and damage the economy by suppressing consumer demand.She added: “Britain is in the middle of the worst cost of living crisis in generations. The last thing working families need right now is a race to the bottom on pay.“Holding down wages in the public sector – to keep pay awards lower in the private sector – will cause widespread hardship. And it will suck demand out of our economy by depressing consumer spending.“It’s also jarring to hear the prime minister call for nurses, teachers and other public sector key workers to tighten the belts when he’s looking to tear up the limits on City bosses’ pay.” More

Brexit will damage Britain’s competitiveness, hit productivity and dampen workers’ wages for the rest of the decade, according to a damning new study.The Resolution Foundation think tank’s report, in collaboration with the London School of Economics, said quitting the EU would make Britain “poorer” during the 2020s.The study said the immediate impact of Brexit was already clear, with a “depreciation-driven inflation spike” increasing the cost of living for households and cutting investment.The research estimated that labour productivity will be reduced by 1.3 per cent by the end of the decade through changes in trading rules, contributing to weaker wage growth.The economists said real pay was set to be £470 lower per worker each year, on average, than it would have been if Britain had opted to stay inside the EU.Output of the UK fishing industry is expected to decline by 30 per cent and some workers will face “painful adjustments” in the decade ahead, said the Resolution Foundation.The report also added that the northeast of England – part of the red wall Boris Johnson’s Conservatives were able to turn blue at the last election – is expected to be hit hardest by Brexit, since its firms are particularly reliant on exports to the EU.The UK may not have seen a large relative slump in its exports to the EU that some predicted many predicted but imports from the EU have fallen more swiftly than those from the rest of the world, the study suggested.The report said Britain had experienced a decline of 8 per cent in “trade openness” – trade as a share of economic output – since 2019, losing market share across three of its largest non-EU goods import markets in 2021, the US, Canada and Japan.The full effect of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) struck with the EU will take years to be felt, say the authors, but it is clear the nation is moving towards a more closed economy.Sophie Hale, principal economist at the Resolution Foundation, said Brexit represented “the biggest change to Britain’s economic relationship with the rest of the world in half a century”.She said: “This has led many to predict that it would cause a particularly big fall in exports to the EU, and fundamentally reshape Britain’s economy towards more manufacturing.”“The first of these has not come to pass, and the second looks unlikely to do so,” the economist added.“Instead, Brexit has had a more diffuse impact by reducing the UK’s competitiveness and openness to trade with a wider range of countries. This will ultimately reduce productivity, and workers’ real wages too.”It follows a recent study by the Centre for European Reform (CEF) which found Brexit was “largely to blame” for billions being lost in trade and tax revenues in recent years.The think tank said that by the end of last year, Britain’s economy was 5.2 per cent – or £31bn – smaller than it would have been without Brexit and the Covid pandemic.“We can’t blame Brexit for all of the 5.2 per cent GDP shortfall … but it’s apparent that Brexit is largely to blame,” said John Springford, author of the CEF study.It comes as Mr Johnson’s government was accused of hypocrisy for planning to cut controls on City bosses’ pay while calling for wage restraint in the public sector.No 10 chief of staff Steve Barclay is said to have written to chancellor Rishi Sunak with a plan for “deregulatory measures to reduce the overall burden on business” and attract companies following Brexit.Confirming the plan, Downing Street said the government was exploring how non-executive directors were paid, not how much – including removing “unnecessary restrictions on paying non-executive directors shares”.But Labour accused the government of using “two sets of rules” on wages – one for people on high incomes in the City, and another for workers elsewhere. More

Dominic Raab has hit back at criticism that replacing the Human Rights Act is “racist” and sets up a fresh Brexit clash, as he publishes the controversial legislation.A new Bill of Rights is under fire for ripping up vital protections while putting the UK on a collision course with Brussels – by neutering the influence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).But, in an interview with The Independent, the deputy prime minister accused his critics of ignoring “common sense” and of exaggerating the risk of a clash with the Strasbourg Court.Campaigners have warned that injustices such as the Hillsborough disaster and the failure to investigate ‘black cab rapist’ John Worboys would have never been exposed if the shake-up was already in place.And they said plans for past “conduct of claimants” to be taken into account when cases are brought for rights violations will hit ethnic minority groups disproportionately.But Mr Raab dismissed those fears, insisting there would be no impact on anyone just because they have been put on a police database, or been stopped and searched.“The common law already reflects the principle that a claimant who seeks compensation must come with clean hands, so why shouldn’t we do that with human rights claims? For most people, that’s just common sense,” Mr Raab said.He also rejected the warning, by a Cambridge University professor of EU law, that ignoring ECHR rulings risks retaliation from the EU – for breaching the Brexit withdrawal agreement.Mr Raab said: “Our record of compliance with Strasbourg rulings compared to other major EU countries is very strong, so it is not a very balanced criticism, if I can put that gently.”The deputy prime minister – and justice secretary – is also under fire for failing to allow proper parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill of Rights, against the recommendation of Commons committees.Around 150 organisations, led by the campaign group Liberty, fear dramatic changes will be rammed though without “robust consideration” of the shake-up.Publishing the Bill, Mr Raab will confirm the UK will stay in the European Convention of Human Rights – after No 10 hinted it might pull out, amid the Rwanda deportations controversy.But the shake-up will prevent a repeat of the ECHR using an interim injunction to block flights, by making clear ‘rule 39’ moves are not binding on UK courts.It will make it easier to deport foreign offenders and asylum seekers, by stripping out the defence of a right to a family life in the UK for anyone convicted of an “imprisonable” offence.The crackdown will also block attempts to enforce human rights even before they reach a courtroom, by requiring early proof of suffering “a significant disadvantage”.It will make the UK Supreme Court “the ultimate judicial decision-maker” on human rights issues, removing the need to follow ECHR case law.Mr Raab will also argue he is boosting media freedom by introducing a stronger test for courts to consider before ordering journalists to disclose their sources. More

Bulgarian lawmakers on Tuesday started debating a no-confidence motion against the minority government, on the eve of the vote that could well topple centrist Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, elected just months ago on pledges to fight corruption.Parliament will vote Wednesday on the motion filed last week by the center-right opposition GERB party, over the government’s handling of the public finances and economic policy in the face of sharply rising inflation.If the motion passes, as expected, it will thrust the NATO and European Union nation of 7 million people back into political turmoil. In 2021, three separate general elections were held as Bulgaria lurched from one political crisis to another. Political instability could also boost historically strong Russian influence in the Black Sea country that has seen a spike in pro-Russian and anti-Western propaganda.Petkov’s coalition controls only 109 of parliament’s 240 seats, after his populist coalition partner, the There is Such a People party, quit this month over similar fiscal complaints and Bulgaria’s relations with neighboring North Macedonia. While five legislators from the party defected to Petkov, he will need at least another 6 votes to survive Wednesday’s ballot.Inflation in Bulgaria — the EU’s poorest member — hit 15.6% in May, which is the highest year-on-year increase in consumer prices since 2008. About a thousand pro-government protesters converged near the parliament building in the capital Sofia late Tuesday, to express their support for Petkov’s administration with chants of “we will succeed together.”Petkov, a 42-year-old Harvard-educated businessman elected in December, addressed the rally — telling supporters that “we will all change Bulgaria together.” “I believe that no matter what tomorrow’s vote will be, no one can stop us,” he said. “Sooner or later Bulgaria will be where it should be: a prosperous European (country), with working institutions, a working judiciary, good education (and) healthcare.”Several hundred anti-government protesters also gathered Tuesday evening near parliament. Petkov urged lawmakers on Tuesday to keep “the interests of the people” in mind when they vote. Ruslan Stefanov, program director at the Center for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia-based think tank, described the no-confidence motion as the result of “internal squabbling over the allocation of budgetary funds.” “This is not a good moment for Bulgaria not to have a parliament,” he told The Associated Press. “Bulgaria is about to receive about 4 billion (euros) in funds from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, but needs to adopt a package of about 20 laws before this happens — Bulgaria needs this money.”Bulgaria has been steadfast in backing the west’s sanctions against Moscow since it invaded Ukraine on 24. Feb. In late April, Russia cut off the country’s gas supplies after officials refused to pay for bills in rubles, Russia’s currency.But the current crisis, Stefanov added, especially if prolonged and leading to another election, would favor “forces that will be much closer to Russia that will win a bigger chunk of the pie,” potentially creating issues with Bulgaria’s western partners. GERB, the opposition party that triggered Wednesday’s vote, is headed by former prime minister Boyko Borissov, who governed Bulgaria for about a decade until 2021.In March, Borissov, who faced huge anti-government protests in 2020, was detained in a corruption crackdown along with other GERB party members following investigations by the EU prosecutor’s office. He was released a day later without being charged.——McGrath contributed from Sighisoara, Romania. More