Markus Andrews

The push against a Russian invasion of Ukraine is being led by “Brexit Britain” while EU nations “drag their feet”, one of Boris Johnson’s ministers has claimed.Treasury minister Simon Clarke singled out Germany for criticism, as the UK government prepares to set out new sanctions against Moscow in the event of an invasion.“Brexit Britain is one of the foremost opponents of the actions of the [Vladimir] Putin regime,” he said. “If you look at the EU, it is countries like Germany that are dragging their feet in the response to this crisis.”Mr Clarke told Sky News: “We are the ones tightening this sanctions regime, making sure we support our Nato allies and standing up to Putin in a way that is, frankly, leading the continent rather than following it.The Treasury minister also denied the idea that the UK was compromised by the flow of suspected dirty Russian money into London, claiming British politics was “fundamentally clean”.Asked by host Kay Burley about donations to the Conservative Party from Lubov Chernukhin – a former banker who holds both Russian and British citizenship – and others donors originally from Russia, Mr Clarke said: “No-one has taken money from the Russians.”The minister added: “Let’s be very clear about this. One needs to be a UK national to make a donation. Any such donations are declared and properly scrutinised.”Mr Clarke said there was “nothing wrong with any person in business having a link with any country, as long as it is legally-acquired wealth”, adding: “How they choose to spend it at that point is a matter for them.”The Treasury minister said: “I think it’s important we don’t muddy the waters on this issue. To do so is to undermine a wider faith in politics. I believe British politics to be fundamentally clean.”Mr Clarke said he did not believe Mr Johnson had lied about parties at No 10 during the pandemic and described the PM as “a good man” ahead of the imminent release of a redacted version of the Sue Gray report.He also told LBC that Brexit has “allowed us to get rid of a load of red tape – it has been a big success already”, as the government prepares to release a booklet to celebrate “the benefits of Brexit”. It comes as the Foreign Office is expected to set out plans to toughen the UK’s sanctions regime on Monday in a bid to target Russia’s financial interests.Mr Clarke said that if Russia were to take “further action” against Ukraine, sanctions would be tightened, targeting businesses and individuals “with the closest links to the Kremlin”.However, officials in Washington are said to fear that suspected dirty money flowing into London will undermine efforts to sanction Russia in the weeks ahead.US State Department officials have expressed “dismay and frustration” at the British government’s failure to tackle the flow of Russian funds into the city, according to The Times.A report from the Centre for American Progress, a think-tank close to Joe Biden’s administration, has warned the US will have to take the lead in countering “Russian kleptocrats” – because the UK has become “a major hub for Russian oligarchs and their wealth”.Tory peer Lord Agnew – who dramatically quit as Whitehall efficiency tsar earlier this week – claimed the government had rejected the chance to put forward anti-fraud legislation in the next parliamentary year, attacking the decision as “foolish”.Tory MP John Penrose, Mr Johnson’s anti-corruption chief, warned the government against delaying an economic crime bill that would expose the kleptocrats’ use of shell companies to buy British property.Mr Penrose said the “well of excuses” has “run dry” after years of promising legislation on tackling the problem – warning that it would be “about as popular as a cup of cold sick” if the proposed bill is ditched or kicked into the long grass. More

The center-left Socialist Party won a landslide victory in Portugal’s general election, removing a political roadblock that had halted its plans to spend billions of euros (dollars) of European Union aid for the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic.The Socialists collected 41.7% of the vote and 117 seats in the 230-seat parliament in Sunday’s ballot. That majority will allow the Socialists over their four-year term to enact legislation without the support of other parties.The center-right Social Democratic Party came second with 27.8% and 76 seats, with four seats still to be allocated Monday.The snap election was called after parliament last November rejected Socialist Prime Minister António Costa’s state budget proposal for 2022. It contained his plans to begin deploying 45 billion euros ($50 billion) of EU aid for the economy over the next seven years. Portugal’s economy needs a shot in the arm, which the EU funds may bring. The country of 10.3 million people is western Europe’s poorest.“The Portuguese have shown a red card to any type of political crisis,” Costa said in his victory speech, referring to the fall of his minority government two months ago.“The Portuguese showed that in coming years they want stability, certainty and security, with our country on a sure path,” he told flag-waving — and mask-wearing — supporters at a hotel in the capital, Lisbon The ballot took place amid a surge of coronavirus cases blamed on the omicron variant. Around 1 million infected voters were allowed to leave home to cast their ballots.Two-thirds of the EU funds are intended for public projects, such as major infrastructure, giving the government a financial bonanza. The other third is to be awarded to private companies. A parliamentary majority smooths the government’s path in allocating those funds in a country whose economy has struggled to gain traction since the turn of the century.The country has been falling behind the rest of the 27-nation EU since 2000, when its real annual gross domestic product per capita was 16,230 euros ($18,300) compared with an EU average of 22,460 ($25,330). By 2020, Portugal had edged higher to 17,070 euros ($19,250) while the bloc’s average surged to 26,380 euros ($29,750).The Socialists promised to increase the minimum monthly wage, earned by more than 800,000 people, to 900 euros ($1,020) by 2026. It is currently 705 euros ($800). The Socialists also want to “start a national conversation” about working four days a week instead of five.Some 10.8 million voters — 1.5 million of them living abroad — were eligible to choose lawmakers in the Republican Assembly, Portugal’s parliament, where political parties then decide who forms a government. More

The civil service is still failing on diversity from top to bottom of the organisation, new figures reveal.Just 6.2 per cent of Ministry of Defence (MoD) staff are black, Asian or minority ethnic, according to statistics published by the Institute for Government (IfG) think-tank in its annual Whitehall Monitor. While the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has the highest proportion of both female civil servants (65 per cent) and disabled civil servants (18.2 per cent) across all departments, it has one of the lowest proportions of civil servants from an ethnic minority background.In 2021, the civil service became more diverse with some 14 per cent of civil servants identifying as coming from an ethnic minority background, including 11 per cent of senior civil servants, compared with 13 per cent of the economically active population.The Department for International Trade (DIT) is by far the most ethnically diverse department, figures reveal, with more than a quarter of civil servants coming from an ethnic minority background. However, it is one of the few departments where less than half of civil servants are female.  More

A bonfire of EU laws on everything from data privacy to road standards will be forced through behind parliament’s back under new plans to seize “Brexit freedoms”, it is feared.The alarm has been raised over the announcement of a single Bill to remove all unwanted “retained law” – using backstage regulations, instead of allowing full scrutiny and votes.The move marks the two-year anniversary of the UK leaving the EU, to cut “red tape”, Boris Johnson claimed – provoking ridicule, as truckers queue for many miles to get through Brexit checks at the Channel ports.A booklet will be issued to celebrate “the benefits of Brexit”, although many of the “benefits” – the Covid vaccine rollout and stronger animal welfare rules – were possible without withdrawal.A ban on pavement parking is believed to have been dropped when it was pointed out that London cracked down on the practice in 1974 and the Scottish Parliament in 2019.The booklet is being seen as an attempt by No 10 to calm Brexit-backing Tory MPs who resent the snail’s pace progress in striking out EU regulations since departure day in 2020.Ministers have been forced to boast about the possible return of pounds and ounces, the adding of the Crown mark to pint glasses and selling “pints of champagne”.But most concern centres on the use of a single Bill to delete retained law, to prevent the need for different legislation that “would take years”, No 10 admits.Catherine Barnard, professor of EU law at Trinity College Cambridge, has warned: “This raises issues about the quality of parliamentary scrutiny of any changes, especially if, as proposed, an ‘accelerated process’ is involved.”Sarah Olney MP, Liberal Democrat business spokesperson, said: “This is sneaking through a bonfire of retained law without proper scrutiny. This is likely to end badly for farmers and businesses already shafted by this government.”And Naomi Smith, head of the campaign group Best for Britain, said: “In a barely concealed attempt to save his own skin, the prime minister is proposing scrapping standards in the UK with minimal scrutiny and no consideration of the consequences.”Before he suddenly quit last year, the former Brexit minister David Frost pointed to data rights, genetically modified crops, medical trials and “outdated EU vehicle standards” as likely targets.To ensure continuity of the legal system, amid the turmoil of Brexit, all EU law was converted into UK law and given supremacy over pre-withdrawal UK law.Tearing that up could come at a price, if divergence triggers disputes under the Brexit trade deal, potentially allowing Brussels to curb access to EU markets for British firms.But the prime minister said: “The plans we have set out today will further unleash the benefits of Brexit and ensure that businesses can spend more of their money investing, innovating and creating jobs.“Our new Brexit Freedoms Bill will end the special status of EU law in our legal framework and ensure that we can more easily amend or remove outdated EU law in future.”Asked if the “Brexit benefits” booklet – to be published online only – will stretch to a rumoured 100 pages, a government source said only “it’s a big document”. More

Dominic Cummings says Boris Johnson is obsessed with monuments in his memory “like the Roman emperors” – as he describes how it is his “duty” to get rid of him.In his latest attack on the prime minister, the former chief aide said he only got excited about “Big Ben’s bongs” and “looking at maps” to find places to build things in his honour.Mr Cummings called his campaign to topple Mr Johnson “an unpleasant but necessary job” like “fixing the drains”, calling him “a complete ****wit”.The pair’s bitter fallout has seen the exiled aide first reveal the lockdown-busting No 10 garden party, in May 2020, that has plunged the prime minister into his biggest crisis.Speaking to New York magazine, Mr Cummings described his former boss’s focus on the next day’s papers, saying: “In January 2020, I was sitting in No 10 with Boris and the complete ****wit is just babbling on about: ‘Will Big Ben bong for Brexit on 31 January?’”Another time, he alleged, Mr Johnson told him: “I’m the ****ing king around here and I’m going to do what I want.’“That’s not OK. He’s not the king. He can’t do what he wants,” Mr Cummings said, adding: “Once you realise someone is operating like that, then your duty is to get rid of them, not to just prop them up.”The prime minister muses on “what would a Roman emperor do?” with the power he had, he told the magazine.“So, the only thing he was really interested in – genuinely excited about – was, like, looking at maps. Where could he order the building of things?” Mr Cummings said.He fantasised about “monuments to him in an Augustine fashion, ‘I will provide the money. I will be a river to my people. I will provide the money that builds the train station in Birmingham.’ Or whatever.“And it will have statues to me, and people will remember me after I am dead like they did the Roman emperors.’”The warning comes amid fears – even among senior Conservative MPs – of a Partygate “cover-up”, amid a growing belief that crucial parts of Sue Gray’s inquiry will never be revealed.A heavily-redacted draft of the civil servant’s report will be released, probably on Monday, but with references to parties that the police are investigating stripped out after the police demanded it.By the time the Met investigation is over, the Gray report will be “out of date”, as one government insider put it – and it will be in Mr Johnson’s power to decide not to hold a further investigation.Tory MPs who are wavering over whether to submit demands for a no-confidence vote in his leadership, while they “waited for Sue Gray”, are likely to continue to sit on their hands. More

MI5 should investigate Boris Johnson as “a security risk” following the leaks of TV footage and emails about the No 10 parties, David Blunkett says.The emergence of the evidence suggests the prime minister’s staff do not have “the first idea about the potential of cyber-attack”, the former Labour cabinet minister warned.“The counterterrorism division of the Met, together with MI5, should take a very urgent look. I would be very surprised if they’re not,” Lord Blunkett said.The call comes amid an allegation that Mr Johnson left top-secret documents lying around when visitors came to his Downing Street flat – prompting his aides to ban him from taking the files upstairs.Martin Reynolds, the prime minister’s private secretary, insisted he approve secret intelligence requests in his No 10 office, after complaints about security in the home he shares with his wife Carrie, The Sunday Times reported.Dominic Cummings became alarmed over the “frat house” atmosphere in the flat and in the couple’s private rooms at Chequers, the prime minister’s country retreat, the paper claimed.Lord Blunkett seized on the evidence of parties that has come to light, ahead of the release of Sue Gray’s – heavily censored – report, as early as Monday.“There’s a real problem, I think, at Downing Street in terms of understanding the genuine security that they should have in place,” he told LBC Radio.Asked if he considers Mr Johnson “a security risk”, Lord Blunkett replied: “I think so, yes.“The way that this has emerged – and it’s in the public interest that it has – but the way it’s emerged asks me to ask the question, ‘what if it was a foreign power with malign interests that had actually infiltrated the systems at Downing Street, including CCTV and the like?’.“It clearly wasn’t, but at one stage, I was thinking, ‘who knows, who’s behind this, as well as Dominic Cummings’.Lord Blunkett added: “Whilst we must clear up, who did what and why – and whether they let us down very badly, in terms of the breach of rules that they were making – in the long term, we’ve got to get these other issues sorted.”Theresa May reportedly ordered some intelligence to be withheld from Mr Johnson when he was her foreign secretary, after he earned a reputation for lax security.Documents are taken home in red boxes by ministers to read overnight, including some at the highly classified “strap” level.The Sunday Times reported that Mr Cummings found Carrie Johnson and her friends relaxing while the prime minister’s red box sat open and “strap” documents were left lying around.It also claimed that Ms Gray uncovered evidence that “several” of Ms Johnson’s friends were given the access code to go in and out of the Downing Street flat. More

A former defence chief says Boris Johnson is too weakened by the No 10 parties scandal to intervene in the Ukraine crisis, warning other leaders know he has “a time bomb under him”.The prime minister has put himself at the forefront of efforts to deter Russia’s expected invasion – and is expected to speak to Vladimir Putin on Monday, ahead of visiting eastern Europe.But he faces accusations that the trip is an attempt to distract from the Partygate controversy and it could yet be derailed by the publication of Sue Gray’s heavily-censored report.Now General Richard Dannatt, a former chief of the general staff, has cast doubt on a “flawed” Mr Johnson’s ability to influence events, with Europe on the brink of its worst conflict since the Second World War.“He will travel to Moscow, or wherever he’s going in eastern Europe this week, but everyone will know that he’s a man with a time bomb sitting under him,” he told Times Radio.The general said, of Liz Truss’s visit to Moscow next week: “She represents the British government, headed by Boris Johnson – and his position is insecure.”The warning comes amid fears – even among senior Conservative MPs – of a “cover-up”, amid a growing belief that crucial parts of Ms Gray’s inquiry will never be revealed.A heavily-redacted draft of the civil servant’s report will be released as early as Monday, but with references to parties that the police are investigating stripped out after the Met demanded it.Ms Truss, the foreign secretary, again urged people to move on from the scandal, claiming “that is what the public wants” and insisting Mr Johnson’s job is secure.She refused to say an “unredacted” version of the report will be released, saying only that “our intention is to publish the full report” – apparently meaning the censored version.Ms Truss said: “The prime minister has apologised for what happened. He made it clear that mistakes were made.“And we have so many other issues that are of major importance for this country to focus on. You’ve been talking about the recovery from Covid, I’ve been talking about the threat we face from Russia on the Ukrainian border.”Asked about Tory MPs’ threats to topple Mr Johnson, she told the BBC: “There is no there is no contest, there is no discussion,” adding: “The future of the prime minister is assured.”By the time the Met investigation is over, the Gray report is expected to be “out of date”, as one government insider put it – and it will be in Mr Johnson’s power to decide not to hold a further investigation.A partial report – without evidence about the most serious allegations – will give Mr Johnson crucial breathing space, in his battle for survival.Tory MPs who are wavering over whether to submit demands for a no-confidence vote in his leadership, while they “waited for Sue Gray”, are likely to continue to sit on their hands. More

Super-rich Russian oligarchs in London will be hit with tough new sanctions to deter Moscow from invading Ukraine, even if it hurts the UK economy, Liz Truss says.The foreign secretary rejected claims that the power and wealth of Russians in so-called “Londongrad” will prevent the UK – and the West as a whole – punishing Vladimir Putin’s aggression.Ms Truss said legislation for new sanctions is imminent, alongside the expected sending of 1,000 further British troops to Estonia and warships to the Black Sea.She rejected a claim that the cost to the UK would be “dramatic”, saying: “The most important thing is defending freedom and democracy and that is more important than immediate financial issues.“We cannot favour short term economic interests over the long term survival of freedom and democracy in Europe – that’s the tough decision that all of us have got to make.”The threat comes after ministers appeared to shelve long-promised ‘McMafia’ legislation, to target the unexplained wealth of kleptocrats – after many years of inaction.US experts close to the White House have warned the wealth of kleptocrats invested in London – and their “close ties” to the Tory party – will thwart the UK’s pledges to act tough against Russia.On the Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme, Ms Truss faced the accusation that “the cost of it to this country is dramatic”.“For every Russian oligarch whose accounts are frozen, that means that somebody isn’t going to get investment from that Russian money in this country – for example, to support the levelling up agenda?” she was asked.But Ms Truss said: “Currently, the economic sanctions are fairly narrowly drawn, so we could only target companies with a direct involvement in destabilising Ukraine.“What we are looking to do is widen that, so any company of interest to the Kremlin and the regime in Russia would be able to be targeted, so there will be nowhere to hide for Putin’s oligarchs, for Russian companies involved in propping up the Russian state.”On the threat of an invasion, the foreign secretary added: “We absolutely need to stop this happening. That is our number one priority.”The UK is hardening its military response to the crisis, which threatens Europe with its most serious conflict since the Second World War.Boris Johnson has offered to deploy jets to Romania and Bulgaria, warships to the Black Sea and the further 1,000 troops to Estonia, ahead of a Nato meeting on Monday.The prime minister is expected to speak to Mr Putin tomorrow and travel eastern Europe early this week, to warn that thousands of lives will be lost if Russia invades Ukraine.His plans could yet be derailed by the expected publication of Sue Gray’s heavily-censored report into the Partygate scandal – and he faces accusations that the trip is an attempt to distract from that controversy. More