Markus Andrews

Unite has decided to slash its funding for the Labour Party as a union official says the party needs to “talk about” and “defend workers”.Currently Labour’s biggest union donor, Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham, told the Guardian that they would continue to £1 million in affiliation fees to the party.In an interview with the publication, Ms Graham said that “there’s a lot of other money that we use from our political fund where, actually, I’m not sure we’re getting the best value for it”.When she took on the role after replacing Len McCluskey in August, Ms Graham promised to “completely refocus” the union.“I will be a general secretary for the workers, for my members,” she said at the time.It comes after she refused to attend Labour’s annual conference in Brighton this year as she said current industrial disputes would have to take priority.The latest move threatens to deepen the divide between Unite and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, despite a Labour source saying “Relationships with the unions are good.”They added: “Unions have always funded campaigns and causes for their memberships.”Ms Graham told the Guardian: “The fact that I am being quite robust is because Labour needs to talk about workers, needs to defend workers and needs to defend communities.”She told the newspaper that money would instead be funnelled into projects which would “set the pace” for Labour to follow.She did not reveal how much funding would be cut by. More

Veteran Labour MP Margaret Hodge has announced she will not stand at the next general election, calling the decision a “tough” one to make. In a video message, sent to her local Labour Party in Barking, the former cabinet minister said she had “loved the job” but that after 27 years, she will be “standing down from Parliament”.Giving a nod to her colleagues, she continued: “I wanted to thank you all for the warmth, the friendship, the support and the love you have shown me down the years.“We have done fantastic things together.”The 77-year-old was elected as Barking and Dagenham’s MP in 1994, and went on to serve in several ministerial posts. She also enjoyed a stint as chair of the Public Accounts Committee.Dame Margaret said her proudest moment was beating then-British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin in the 2010 election, describing it as the “biggest, biggest success and the biggest moment in my life”.She said she would always remember a speech when she “told them to pack their bags and go”, adding it was “still absolutely stamped on my heart as a massive moment”.The mother-of-four was elected to parliament in a 1994 by-election, when John Major was prime minister, before being appointed as junior minister for disabled people four years later. She was then promoted to be minister for universities in 2001, and subsequently became the first children’s minister in 2003. From there, she held a series of ministerial positions including her role as minister of state for culture and tourism, which she stayed in from 2007 until Labour left government following the result of the 2010 election.Dame Margaret, who had been a notable critic of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in recent years, said in her video message that the party was now very different to when she became an MP.She became embroiled in a public spat with Mr Corbyn in 2018, over allegations and her own experience of antisemitism in the party and Labour’s response to complaints about this.An investigation was launched, and then dropped, when Dame Margaret – who is herself Jewish and lost family members in the Holocaust – accused Mr Corbyn of being a “racist and an anti-Semite” over his handling of the controversy. After the probe was abandoned, she said “going after me instead of addressing the issue was wrong”.Fellow Labour MPs were quick to send their well-wishes to Dame Margaret, after the video message in which she made her departure announcement was shared on social media this evening. “Courageous, driven, and full of love and laughter – Margaret Hodge is a brilliant friend and it tugs at my heartstrings that she’s standing down,” Peter Kyle, Labour’s shadow Northern Ireland secretary, tweeted. “But if anyone’s earned a change of pace it’s her!” More

Shell has scrapped its plans to develop the Cambo North Sea oilfield, throwing the future of the controversial project firmly opposed by climate activists into doubt.The oil giant said it had concluded the economic case for investment in the project off the Shetland Isles is “not strong enough” and also cited the potential for delays in a surprise statement on Thursday.Private equity-backed energy firm Siccar Point – which owns a majority stake in the field – confirmed that Shell had “taken the decision to not progress its investment at this stage”.The Cambo project has been at the centre of political debate on whether the UK should develop new fossil fuel resources, as Boris Johnson’s government seeks to cut carbon emissions to meet net zero targets in the decades ahead.While Shell’s move to pull out does not necessarily mean the end of oil development in the field off the coat of Shetland, Greenpeace hailed the news as a potential “deathblow” for the project.Philip Evans, oil campaigner at the environmental campaign group, said: “This really should be the deathblow for Cambo. With yet another key player turning its back on the scheme the government is cutting an increasingly lonely figure with their continued support for the oil field.”Calling on the UK government to reject the drilling license, the Greenpeace campaigner added: “Anything else would be a disaster for our climate and would leave the UK consumer vulnerable to volatile fossil fuel markets.”Shell has owned 30 per cent in the Cambo project, while Siccar Point, which operates it, holds the remaining 70 per cent. “Cambo remains critical to the UK’s energy security and economy,” Siccar Point’s chief executive, Jonathan Roger, said in a statement.“While we are disappointed at Shell’s change of position … we will continue to engage with the UK government and wider stakeholders on the future development of Cambo,” he added.Despite Siccar Point’s insistence that the project could still go ahead, Labour said it was a “significant moment in the fight against the Cambo oil field”.Ed Miliband, shadow secretary for climate change, said: “It makes no environmental sense and now Shell are accepting it doesn’t make economic sense.”Urging the government to reject drilling license, the Labour frontbencher said: “Shell have woken up to the fact that Cambo is the wrong choice. It’s long past time for the government to do so.”Mr Miliband added: “Ploughing on with business as usual on fossil fuels will kill off our chances of keeping 1.5 degrees alive and carries huge risks for investors as it is simply an unsustainable choice.”Mr Johnson and his ministers have faced intense pressure to rule out support for the planned Cambo development. If approved, the project would produce up to 170 million barrels of oil between 2025 and 2050.If the Cambo license is approved by the UK’s Oil and Gas Authority, drilling could start as early as next year. Mr Johnson’s Scottish secretary Alister Jack recently told the BBC we should “100 per cent we should open the Cambo oil field”.Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has also come under to pressure to oppose the fossil fuel project, although she has pointed out that the decision on licenses sits with UK authorities.Having previously only called for the drilling application to be “reassessed”, the SNP leader made clear last month that she believed the proposed oil field off Shetland “should not get the green light”. More

Conservative backbencher Stephen McPartland has registered new advisory work worth £60,000 a year, despite a series of scandals over MPs’ financial interests.Several MPs have stepped down from outside roles following the Owen Paterson debacle and increased scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest from consultancy work.However, Mr McPartland’s consultancy business – McPartland Consulting Ltd – has recently begun receiving £5,000 a month from MBU Capital Group, according to the latest entry on the register of members’ interests.The Tory MP updated his interests on 26 November after his company began providing “strategic advice” to the investment firm on 1 November.The MP for Stevenage, who is listed as the unpaid director of McPartland Consulting Ltd, already earns £4,000 a month as a non-executive director for retailer Furniture Village.Three other Conservative MPs have ditched advisory positions in the wake of last month’s furore over second jobs, the latest register has revealed.Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith gave up a £20,000 post with a health group, while Julian Smith dropped energy sector roles worth £144,000 a year and former health minister Steve Brine quit work worth £20,000 a year with a pharmaceutical firm.All of the roles came to an end within days of Boris Johnson’s own 16 November call for a ban on consultancy and advisory work after his botched attempt to save ex-Tory MP Owen Paterson from punishment for paid lobbying.There is no suggestion that any of the MPs doing advisory work had breached rules in the way that Mr Paterson was found to have done by parliament’s sleaze watchdog.The Committee on Standards recommended a series of reforms to clean up standards earlier this week – including an outright ban on MP providing paid parliamentary advice, consultancy or strategy services.Under the reforms proposed, MPs could face investigation for launching “excessive” personal attacks online and the rules around ministers’ gifts and hospitality could also be tightened.On Thursday Labour MP Chris Bryant, chair of the committee, said the proposals must be considered all at once and not “piecemeal”.His committee will consult before putting a final report to the Commons for a decision early next year.The Independent has approached Mr McPartland for comment. More

Two in three voters believe Boris Johnson’s government is failing in its aim to “take back control” of Britain’s borders after Brexit, a new poll shows.The prime minister claimed the government had fulfilled the Leave campaign slogan and “taken back control” of the UK’s borders after he forged an exit deal with the EU at the end of 2020.But amid the ongoing surge in small boats crossings in the Channel, only 27 per cent of voters say the government have done “well” to take control of the borders, according to a Savanta ComRes survey.Some 64 per cent of adults told the pollster the government had done “badly” on the issue, with similar proportions of Conservative voters (63 per cent) and Leave voters (65 per cent) saying the same.Just one in five voters say home secretary Priti Patel has handled the Channel crossings issue well (21 per cent). And only 24 per cent of voters thought Mr Johnson had responded well to the crisis.However, some of the prime minister’s proposals to tackled the small boat crossings – outlined in his controversial letter to French president Emmanuel Macron – are popular with a majority of voters.Six in ten UK adults overall (58 per cent), and seven in ten Conservative voters (69 per cent) say that joint patrols of French beaches would be an “effective” way to stop migrants attempting the crossing in small boats.But another of Downing Street’s requests from France – a bilateral agreement to return migrants to France – is viewed as the most ineffective method to deal with the issue (36 per cent say it would ineffective) amongst voters.Paris has rejected the idea of a bilateral deal on returns, insisting that any agreement would have to be forged between the UK and the EU as a bloc. The French have also thus far dismissed the idea of joint patrols as a matter of “sovereignty”.Chris Hopkins, political research director at Savanta ComRes, said it was “fair to wonder” if the borders issue could develop into an electoral problem for the Tory party.“With the government seen to be performing badly on something as dyed in the wool as ‘taking back control’, things must be pretty dire,” said the pollster.Mr Hopkins added that the Channel crisis creates political difficulties “particularly among voters who, in voting for Brexit and trusting Boris Johnson to get Brexit done, would have expected the UK to unilaterally be able to prevent such a crisis”.The findings come as a separate Ipsos Mori survey found a majority of MPs think Brexit will have a bigger long-term impact on the economy than Covid.Some 60 per cent of MPs said effect of the UK’s exit from the EU will have more effect that coronavirus over the next five years, according to the survey carried out for UK in a Changing Europe.The poll for the think tank’s What Do MPs Think? report found 87 per cent of Labour MPs think Brexit will have the greater long-term consequences on the economy. Some 38 per cent of Tory MPs agree, and only 28 per cent said Covid would have more of an impact More

No 10 has warned the White House not to shelve a deal to remove tariffs on UK steel and aluminium because of anger over threats to the Northern Ireland Protocol.It is wrong to “conflate” the two issues, Boris Johnson’s spokesman said – after a US official said tariff talks were on hold because of British threats to suspend Article 16 of the Brexit deal.A former British ambassador to Washington warned the row showed UK trade will be held back until the government stops “threatening to walk away from an international agreement they negotiated”.The “troubled” relationship with the US confirmed long-held suspicions that the US will take actions necessary to “protect a peace they helped broker”, said Kim Darroch, now chair of the Best for Britain campaign group. Labour, meanwhile, said it was unacceptable for vital jobs and businesses to become “a pawn in anyone’s political games”.A communication sent by a US commerce official, seen by the Financial Times, says talks on easing the Donald Trump-era tariffs cannot go ahead because of fears about the protocol.The UK insists that triggering Article 16 is still “on the table”, after it rejected an EU compromise offer to cut checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea from Britain.In response, the prime minister’s spokesman said: “It is important not to conflate those two issues. They are two separate points.”In the Commons, trade minister Penny Mordaunt underlined the stance, telling MPs: “These are two entirely separate issues. We don’t do ourselves any favours if we perpetuate these false narratives.”The 25 per cent tariff on steel and 10 per cent tariff on aluminium were imposed by the Trump administration in a dispute with the EU.To ministers’ embarrassment, while Brussels and Washington reached an agreement in October to suspend the tariffs, British exporters are still forced to pay the levies.In retaliation, UK duties on US bourbon whiskey and other products also remain in place.Joe Biden, who has Irish heritage, has made clear his determination to protect the Good Friday Agreement – the purpose of the protocol, in avoiding a hard land border – in the Brexit fallout.Mr Johnson’s spokesman added: “On the steel tariffs, we are working quite closely with the Biden administration.“It is encouraging that they are taking steps to de-escalate the issue and we are very focused on a agreeing a resolution that removes damaging tariffs, which will benefit businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.“On the protocol, the US shares our deep commitment to the Belfast agreement and the peace process.”Nick Thomas-Symonds, Labour’s shadow trade secretary,  said: “It’s been more than a month since the US agreed to lift punitive tariffs on steel and aluminium exports from the EU, but left the same tariffs in place for the UK.“The UK steel and aluminium industries should not be a pawn in anyone’s political games, when there are jobs and businesses at stake in communities across our country.” More

Families who lost loved ones during the pandemic say they are “sickened” by reports that Downing Street staff breached lockdown regulations by holding Christmas parties in No 10.It comes as the ex-head of the government’s legal service hinted the law may have been broken when Downing Street staff drank together late into the night, in defiance of Covid lockdown rules.Jonathan Jones, who was the government’s top lawyer until November last year, said he had cancelled his own leaving party around the same time to stay within the law.“About a year ago I was due to have a party to mark my departure from the civil service. This did not happen for – well – legal reasons,” he said in a post on social media. Sir Jonathan departed his role on 9 November – around the same time as the alleged Downing Street parties are said to have taken place.Events breaching household bubble rules reportedly took place on 18 December and 27 November, to celebrate Christmas and the departure of a special adviser respectively. In addition to these events, The Guardian newspaper also reported a source claiming there were “loads of leaving parties” during both the second and third lockdowns.The December event went ahead two days after the government moved London into Tier 3 restrictions, banning all indoor mixing apart from household bubbles.Attendees are said to have played party games, drank and eaten until after midnight.Covid Bereaved families spokesperson Safiah Ngah told the BBC: “My dad died in February from Covid-19, despite being in good health. The last Christmas period is sadly one I will never forget.“One in 20 people in my borough had Covid-19 and my family were desperately trying to do what we could to keep each other safe. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough.“To think that just a few miles away, No 10 was throwing a Christmas party, with no care for the rules they had set, is sickening.”A No 10 spokesperson refused to deny parties had taken place and said only that rules had been followed.“Covid rules have been followed at all times,” they said. More

Ministers have been accused of a “shocking” lack of support for unpaid carers after new analysis found that a £25m pot of money announced this week amounts to just 87p a year for each person with caring responsibilities.The social care white paper published by health secretary Sajid Javid on Wednesday said the cash would “kick-start a change” in the services provided to support unpaid carers in England, such as respite breaks and peer group and well-being support.Mr Javid was responding to the State of Caring report by charity Carers UK, which found that one in four unpaid carers do not have enough money to cover monthly expenses and more than half feel anxious and stressed about their finances, with average outgoings of £1,370 a year on services or equipment for the person they care for.Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said that the sums on offer over a three-year period were an “insulting” response to the massive sacrifices made by millions of people who have cared for disabled or ill family members and other loved ones during the pandemic and are now at “breaking point” after months without respite.Sir Ed’s party calculated that the investment promised by Mr Javid equates to 87p a year for each of the estimated 9.6m unpaid carers in England.And it falls well short of the £1.5bn requested by Carers UK to enable all carers to take a break this winter.Sir Ed said: “Millions of people across the country are making huge sacrifices to look after loved ones. For the Conservative government to offer just 87p per carer is as insulting as it is short-sighted.“Carers have been repeatedly ignored and forgotten by this Conservative government, and the lack of funding in their social care white paper is the latest shocking example.“Unpaid carers have stepped up heroically during this pandemic. Most haven’t been able to take a break since it started. Most are simply exhausted and many are at breaking point, they deserve far more support.”The State of Caring survey found that an additional 4.5m people became unpaid carers overnight at the outset of the first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, meaning that one in four of all UK adults were providing care to an older, disabled or ill relative or friend at the height of the pandemic.While numbers have fallen as restrictions have been lifted, the charity says that increased support for carers must be at the heart of the country’s approach to recovery from the pandemic.Covid-19 has had a “monumental” impact not only on the amount of unpaid work done by carers to look after their loved ones, but also on their relationships, mental and physical health, their paid work and finances and their emotional wellbeing, found the report, released in October.Carers UK has estimated that the value of unpaid care provided during the Covid crisis has equated to a saving to the state of £530m for every day of the pandemic.The charity’s chief executive Helen Walker welcomed the announcement of the £25m funding.But she said: “Many unpaid carers tell us they are at breaking point, exhausted and on their knees after more than 18 months caring with little or no outside support right now.“Seventy-two per cent have not had a break at all from caring since the start of the pandemic. We are concerned that there is no substantial funding to enable carers to take the breaks they desperately need.  “We have already called on the Government to provide £1.5 billion to enable all carers to take a break this winter.” Joe Levenson, the executive director of policy at the Carers Trust, said: “Carers Trust is pleased that the government has recognised the vital role of unpaid carers, including through the £25m set out for services that support unpaid carers.“But we are seriously concerned that the proposals for investment set out in the white paper go nowhere near far enough to delivering the sort of generational change that our broken system so desperately needs.“We simply cannot afford to let down millions of unpaid carers and the people they care for by underinvesting in social care reform. That’s why to ensure we’re supporting unpaid carers effectively, the funding needs to match the ambition and vision. Otherwise we risk repeating the mistakes of the past and storing up enormous problems for the future.”The Independent has approached Mr Javid’s Department for Health and Social Care for comment. More