Markus Andrews

Conservative MP Mims Davies has revealed how her drink was spiked during a night out, causing her to black out in a bar in her constituency.The MP for Mid Sussex, the government’s employment minister, called on home secretary Priti Patel to bring in tougher enforcement measures to protect women.Ms Davies said she found an unidentifiable black substance in her glass while out drinking with friends at a bar in Haywards Heath.“I found something black in the bottom of my drink,” the Tory MP told BBC Radio Sussex. “I pulled it out and didn’t really think anything of it, and threw it on the floor.”Explaining that she blacked out from the effects of the substance, she added: “It was absolutely awful. I had to be carried home … It was only later on I thought, ‘Blimey, what was that?’”It comes as concern grows about a so-called “spiking epidemic” – with drugs charities warning that victims have been given amphetamines, tranquilizers such as Rohypnol and GHB, also known as liquid ecstasy, without their knowledge.Home Office minister Rachel Maclean told MPs on Wednesday that the government was planning to “ramp up” its response to the “horrific and frightening offence”.As well as sharing her own experience, Ms Davies said she has written to fellow minister Ms Patel to ask what new measures can be taken to tackle drink-spiking.“We should be restricting who on earth can get hold of these products, as we would in any other sphere,” said the employment minister.The MP added: “What on earth is in those products? Who’s buying them and who’s sourcing them? There’s more to this than meets the eye.”There has been little national data on drink-spiking since the reopening of pubs and clubs earlier this year – but the post-lockdown period has been accompanied by a rise in reports of drugs being added to someone’s drink without their knowledge.Young women have been reporting an alarming number of spiking by injection incidents –when an unsuspecting person is injected with drugs using a needle – while in nightclubs and other venues in recent months.Last week the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said police forces have received a total of 274 reports of people being “spiked by injection” over the last two months.A spokesperson for the Home Office said: “We remain in close contact with the police on this issue and the home secretary is receiving regular updates.“We must now give the police the space to conduct their enquiries, and we would urge anyone with information on these incidents to contact their local force.” More

UK authorities should make greater efforts to arrest the heads of human trafficking networks living in London, a leading French politician has said.Boris Johnson has called on France to allow joint patrols along the French coast to crack down on boat crossings following the tragedy which saw a dinghy capsize in the Channel, causing the loss of 27 lives.But French politicians have pointed the finger at British officials for failing to tackle the “mafia chiefs” behind people-smuggling operations – suggesting tax authorities could do more.Franck Dhersin, the vice president of transport for the northern Hauts-de-France region, told French TV station BFMTV: “In France what do we do? We arrest the smugglers.“To fight them, there’s only one way – we need to stop the organisations, you need to arrest the mafia chiefs. And the mafia chiefs live in London.”He added: “They live in London peacefully, in beautiful villas, they earn hundreds of millions of euros every year, and they reinvest that money in the City. And so it’s very easy for the tax authorities to find them.”French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said the loss of 27 lives was an “absolute tragedy” – blaming human trafficking gangs who promised people the “El Dorado of England” for a large fee.“It’s an international problem … We tell our Belgian, German and British friends they should help us fight traffickers that work at an international level,” Mr Darmanin told French radio station RTL.Home secretary Priti Patel will speak to Mr Darmanin on Thursday morning following Mr Johnson’s call with president Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday evening.Mr Johnson said it was clear that French operations to stop the migrant boats leaving “haven’t been enough” despite £54m of UK support, adding that the people traffickers were “literally getting away with murder”.Pierre-Henri Dumont, the MP for Calais, said he did not think that more patrols around the French border was the solution to the Channel migrant crisis.“I’m not sure that having more police officers or more materials on the French shore will help to stop these crossings because we have 200 or 300 kilometres of shore to monitor 24/7,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.Conservative MP Kevin Foster, immigration minister, rejected the idea that UK officials could process asylum claims in France.“I don’t think it would be effective because, let’s be upfront, actually to get that type of centre, you’d have to already get yourself trafficked across the Mediterranean, where literally thousands of people have lost their lives coming across,” the minister told LBC.Zoe Gardner from the Joint Council of Welfare for Immigrants told BBC Breakfast that the French were “patrolling their own borders insufficiently” – pointing to a photograph which appeared to show a French patrol vehicle allowing migrants to launch a dinghy.“It’s absolutely horrendous, those images of the French police standing by while children got onto one of those unsafe vessels are shocking to me,” she said. More

A year after suffering a huge election loss, New Zealand’s conservative opposition leader Judith Collins was ousted Thursday by her caucus.Collins was in the role for a tumultuous 16 months. She never polled well as leader of the National Party, even after liberal Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern s popularity began to fade somewhat in recent months as a coronavirus outbreak took hold in Auckland Rumors about a possible move against Collins had been circulating for weeks. But she ended up making the first move on Wednesday night by stripping former leader and potential rival Simon Bridges of his portfolios.Collins said she made the move because she had found out for the first time that Bridges made inappropriate comments to female colleague Jacqui Dean about five years ago at a function.But other National Party lawmakers weren’t impressed with the move by Collins, pointing out that Bridges had apologized at the time.The new National Party leader will be chosen next week. Possible contenders include Bridges, former Air New Zealand chief executive Christopher Luxon and former police officer Mark Mitchell. Collins plans to stay on in Parliament as a lawmaker representing the Auckland district of Papakura.Collins said it had required stamina and resolve to take on the leadership during “the worst of times.”“I knew when I was confided in by a female colleague regarding her allegation of serious misconduct against a senior colleague, that I would likely lose the leadership by taking the matter so seriously,” Collins wrote on Twitter. “If I hadn’t, then I felt that I wouldn’t deserve the role.”Dean said that Bridges apologized at the time but the incident “continued to play on my mind.”Ardern last year won a second term in a landslide of historic proportions. The popularity of her Labour Party has slipped since then, but most of the gains have gone to the libertarian ACT Party, while Collins and the National Party have continued to languish in opinion polls. More

Climate agreements reached in Glasgow this month could come under legal attack from polluting multinationals unless the UK takes urgent action to reform global trade rules at an upcoming summit, ministers have been warned.A coalition of environmental campaign groups, development charities and unions are urging the government to use its clout as host of the Cop26 climate change summit to drive through change at next week’s crucial World Trade Organisation meeting.The UK must use its “unique opportunity” to take bold action to align world trade rules with the internationally-agreed imperative to keep global warming beneath 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the group said.In a letter to Cop26 president Alok Sharma and international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, seen by The Independent, they called on the UK to put pressure on the WTO to agree a “climate waiver” which would prohibit countries from using the global body to challenge one another’s climate policies.Rules should be changed to ensure they do not “slow down, constrict, raise the cost of or otherwise interfere with climate action”, the letter said.Current WTO rules can deter countries from introducing measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because of fear of costly arbitration of cases brought by companies which lose out from the change.The letter highlighted the case of the Netherlands being sued by energy company RWE over efforts to phase out coal-fired power stations.And it warned that the UK could face similar action from investors with a stake in around £120bn worth of fossil fuel infrastructure.The EU has previously been challenged at the WTO on competition ground by China over its renewable energy schemes.And Indonesia and Malaysia recently launched a challenge to EU policy on limiting the proportion of palm oil – seen as a major cause of deforestation – in biofuels.Malaysia – a leading voice in the CPTPP Pacific trade partnership which Britain is seeking to join – has said that the UK would have to revise its approach to palm oil to get a trade deal.Meanwhile, a possible ministerial statement on trade and the environment expected to be agreed at the WTO’s MC12 summit in Geneva is thought unlikely to commit members to any binding action. And a UK-backed fossil fuel subsidy statement appears to be limited to an agreement on “capacity-building and exchange of information and experience”.And WTO rules can hamper the transfer of climate change technology to developing countries while fostering increases in unsustainable production and deforestation.“International trade rules are standing in the way of action on climate change,” warned the letter, signed by 12 groups including the Trade Justice Movement, Friends of the Earth, Traidcraft, Global Justice Now and Unison.“Whilst making some important steps in the right direction, the climate conference did not live up to expectations. Extreme weather events are already devastating communities around the world, and the risk of catastrophic climate change is growing. We must use all the tools available to stand the best chance of averting this.”Calling on Ms Trevelyan and Mr Sharma publicly to confirm the UK’s commitment to ensuring trade will be aligned with climate goals, the letter said: “Your government has a unique opportunity to take bold action on trade policy.”Trade Justice Movement senior adviser Ruth Bergan told The Independent: “The problem with the environment initiatives at the WTO is that most of them are not binding, and currently appear to be mostly talks about setting up talks about cooperation and information exchange.“There is little evidence that they are looking in depth at WTO rules and considering how best they could be rewritten to be aligned with climate goals, at a pace that is commensurate to the challenge we face.”The Glasgow summit accepted the United Nations assessment that a “very rapid” phase-out of fossil fuels is needed, with emissions slashed by 45 per cent by 2030 and net zero achieved by around the middle of the century, said Ms Bergan.And she added: “The WTO needs to send a clear signal that it won’t stand in the way of measures to achieve this.“The phase-out comes hand in hand with a need to quickly build up renewable energy infrastructure, yet governments across the world have faced WTO challenges when they have tried to do this.“Technology transfer will be key to allowing countries to adopt new climate-friendly means of production but the WTO currently favours long patent terms that can prevent this from happening.“The UK is in a unique position to do something about this. The ministerial meeting starting next week will be its first as an independent member and it holds the COP presidency until the end of 2022.“We should use this moment to generate much more collaboration on and urgency regarding the need for the trade regime to properly align with climate goals. Voluntary, non-binding statements are simply not enough. At minimum, the UK should call for a moratorium on WTO challenges to climate measures.”A government spokesperson said: “The UK is a global leader in environment and climate change and was the first major economy to pass new laws for net zero emissions by 2050. Tackling climate change is the government’s top international priority, and trade is part of the solution.“Change at the multilateral level requires consensus, and that is why the UK is using our platform as president of Cop26 and voice at the WTO to push for ambitious international action at MC12 and beyond, promoting trade and investment that will help protect the planet for generations to come.” More

Boris Johnson has been warned he faces the real prospect of a leadership challenge in the new year if he fails to urgently improve his performance as prime minister.A senior backbencher told The Independent that disgruntled Tory MPs are currently holding their fire in the hope that the prime minister can shake off his recent run of disastrous miscalculations and political blunders.But the MP warned that unless matters improve by Christmas, Conservatives – especially those with narrow majorities – will turn their focus to ensuring that the right leader is in place in time to give them the best chance of holding onto their seats in a general election expected in 2023.Tory high command was on Wednesday doing its best to damp down speculation of as many as a dozen MPs writing letters of no confidence in Mr Johnson to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, with whips insisting they were not aware of any issues of that kind.And Conservative MPs made a display of support for Mr Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, cheering his arrival at the despatch box, where he was flanked by chancellor Rishi Sunak in a public show of unity between the two men following reports of a rift between No 10 and the Treasury. Alongside Mr Sunak was foreign secretary Liz Truss, also suspected by some of being on manoeuvres for a possible future leadership contest.But Mr Johnson was again forced onto the back foot, failing to deny Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s charge that he has breached his manifesto pledge that no one in England will have to sell their home to pay for care with a new policy that protects property only so long as a pensioner or their spouse is living in it.In an uncomfortable moment for Tory MPs, Sir Keir repeated the question of a TV reporter after Mr Johnson’s shambolic speech to the CBI: “Is everything OK, prime minister?”Labour released a dossier showing that the £186,000 threshold below which homes will be at risk under the government’s plans is higher than the average property price in 107 constituencies in the north of England and 34 in the Midlands, compared with zero in London and the southeast.Constituencies where average-priced homes would be hit include Red Wall seats seized by Mr Johnson from Labour in 2019. These include Workington (average value £160,000), Barrow and Furness (£155,000), Don Valley (£155,000), Redcar (£133,000) and Bishop Auckland (£125,000).Tory nerves were unsettled further by a new Savanta ComRes poll showing Mr Johnson’s lowest ever favourability ratings (minus-14) as prime minister as well as the lowest ratings (minus-16) for the government as a whole.The survey of 2,184 UK voters gave Labour a lead over Tories for the second month in succession, with Sir Keir’s party on 38 per cent to 36 per cent for Conservatives.The social care policy, slipped out last week just days before MPs were asked to vote on it, has fuelled discontent on the Tory backbenches already angered by unforced errors, including Mr Johnson’s abortive attempt to rewrite Commons standards rules to save Owen Paterson from punishment for sleaze and the botched announcement of a £96bn investment in rail for the north of England.Some 19 MPs voted against the cap on care costs proposed by the prime minister after it emerged its design would force poorer pensioners to sacrifice up to 80 per cent of the value of their homes to care costs while wealthier people’s property will be protected.But a senior Tory told The Independent that more worrying for Mr Johnson were the 45 to 50 MPs who abstained rather than backing the prime minister in Monday’s crunch vote.The high levels of abstentions should be a “sign to No 10 that it needs to up its game”, said the MP, warning that if it doesn’t, “those people will start voting against”.The MP added: “People are not happy, but most of them are hoping things will get better in the near future. We have a couple of big announcements coming up before Christmas, and if they are handled well, the mood may change.“Once we are into 2022, then people will be thinking the election is ‘next year’, and that will focus minds, particularly in marginal seats where they don’t know if they will keep their jobs. Colleagues backed Boris as leader because he looked like a winner, and if he doesn’t look like a winner at that point, they will be thinking they need a winner in post in time to prepare for the election.“Margaret Thatcher won a thumping majority in 1987, and three years later, she was out. We Conservatives know how to change our leaders, unlike Labour who wait to lose the election before doing it.”Many of the abstainers are unhappy with the government’s recent performance but want Mr Johnson to succeed and are waiting to see whether No 10 can step up its operation for the launch in the coming weeks of high-profile white papers setting out policy on social care and the levelling up agenda.Following a series of U-turns, MPs who spoke to The Independent said they were reluctant to put their names to controversial policies in the knowledge that Mr Johnson may later reverse them.They complain that on issues like the care cap and the integrated rail plan, little effort is made by the team around Mr Johnson to brief backbench MPs on upcoming announcements – or to provide them with “lines to take” after the schemes unravel.Mr Johnson’s reluctance to own up to mistakes or apologise for breaches of promises has left some feeling they have been left “hanging in the wind” when asked by constituents or media for their views on the latest government policies. One said MPs fear being left to look like “muppets”, as business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng was when he was sent out to brief against standards commissioner Kathryn Stone just hours before the prime minister U-turned on the issue.“The deal is that MPs are supposed to pile in behind the leadership, which is a reasonable expectation,” said one senior backbencher. “But when things go wrong, we need some cover. We need ministers to clear the mess up and provide us with lines we can use. That is not happening at the moment.” More

The new German government has fired a warning shot at Boris Johnson to expect retaliation if he breaks the Brexit deal for Northern Ireland.The warning came as Mr Johnson restated his readiness to suspend the deal by invoking Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, in a phone call with Irish counterpart Micheal Martin.A three-way German coalition agreement – installing Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats as Angela Merkel’s replacement – backs “countermeasures” if the UK fails to abide by its obligations.It commits Berlin to “a common European policy towards the United Kingdom” and to “seek close bilateral cooperation within this framework”.But it adds: “We insist on full compliance with the agreements that have been concluded, in particular with regard to the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Good Friday Agreement.“In the event of non-compliance with the agreed standards and procedures, we are committed to the consistent application of all agreed measures and countermeasures.”The strong stance comes after the UK backed away from an early suspension of Article 16 of the Protocol – apparently because a weakened Johnson is not ready for a damaging trade war with the EU.Brussels hailed a “welcome change of tone” in ongoing talks, as both sides agreed to focus on medicines and customs red tape, not the flashpoint issue of the role of the European Court of Justice.However, the Brexit minister David Frost has insisted the triggering of Article 16 remains on the table if talks run into the sand – rejecting an EU compromise move to reduce Irish Sea border checks.In a further sign of cross-Channel tensions, the French foreign minister launched a fierce attack on Mr Johnson, amid the separate clash over post-Brexit fishing rights.The prime minister is a “populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said.The comments came as Lord Frost addressed the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, repeating his threat to trigger Article 16 if necessary but saying he was “hopeful” that would not prove necessary.Berlin’s coalition government – the first ever reached between three parties – brings together the Social Democrats, the Greens and the right-wing Free Democrats.It pledged to make the climate emergency its top priority, by phasing out coal power by 2030 and expanding renewable sources to cover 80 per cent of all energy needs by the decade’s end.Mr Scholz appealed to Germans to get vaccinated, announcing a seven-point plan to tackle the “very serious” Covid situation – hinting at the introduction of vaccine passes.And Amsterdam may soon have a rival as the European capital of cannabis, with plans to legalise recreational use of the drug and sales from licensed shops.“This will control the quality, prevent the circulation of contaminated substances and ensure the protection of minors,” the coalition contract states.In a call with Mr Martin, the prime minister today said that he would be left with “no choice” but to activate Article 16 if talks between Lord Frost and European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic fail to “deliver a rebalanced and sustainable outcome soon”.A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The prime minister raised his ongoing concern about the substantial distance between the UK and EU positions when it comes to resolving the issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol. “The Protocol was rightly keeping North-South trade open but its implementation was damaging the much larger East-West dimension. We could not allow a situation to develop in which the government was unable to provide economic support to Northern Ireland in the same way it could in the rest of the UK. “Ultimately Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market was crucial to its long-term prosperity and could not be damaged.  “The implementation of the Protocol was now colliding with economic and political realities and significant change was necessary. The Court of Justice (CJEU) was part of this fundamental imbalance because disputes were decided in the court of one party.” More

The UK is in the dark about new post-Brexit biometric border checks threatening chaos for holidaymakers visiting the EU, the government has admitted.Transport chiefs have raised the alarm over long queues when the entry/exit system (EES) – requiring data to be collected at the border for all non-EU arrivals – is introduced next year.Quizzed by worried MPs, the Cabinet Office acknowledged it did not know how the checks will be implemented – as the number of cross-Channel tourists is expected to bounce back after Covid.Asked what it would mean for car or coach passengers, Emma Churchill, the director general of the border delivery group, said the French government had yet to disclose its plans.“So I can’t tell you exactly how the French intend to implement the entry and exit system,” she told the Commons public accounts committee.The hope was that the checks could be brought in “without starting to cause those queues backing up”, Ms Churchill added.Meg Hillier, the committee chair, called it “a big concern”, while a Conservative, Richard Holden, urged the government to work to avoid “disruption”.“What’s really worrying me is you have got potential Covid checks and biometric passport checks will come in at some point,” he told a panel of Whitehall top civil servants.The checks are expected be particularly difficult at the “juxtaposed controls” with France – which are on the UK side of the Channel – but will be introduced across the 26-nation Schengen Area.Unlike the looming Etias visa-waiver program – similar to the ESTA required for travel to the US – they cannot be carried out in advance, at the booking stage.The entry/exit system was developed while the UK was an EU member, but will now have implications for travellers from this country because of Brexit.The inquiry – asking four government departments about the impact of Brexit border measures – saw all express confidence that the imposition of import controls, from January, will go smoothly.Jim Harra, the chief executive of Revenue and Customs, admitted the “significant costs’ businesses must pay to trade with the EU – despite the Leave campaign repeatedly insisting Brexit would cut red tape.“There’s no doubt that it’s part of the cost of leaving a customs union, that you have to bear that burden,” he said, insisting the government had been “transparent” about that.Asked about small firms, struggling to pay hefty custom agent fees, Mr Harra replied: “Can I say that, in 3 years’ time, a small business will find it easy to self-serve customs – I think that will be challenging.”Alex Chisholm, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, argued it is “too early to disentangle” the effects of Covid and Brexit on trade – despite the National Audit Office concluding leaving the EU swiped £17bn from exports in just three months. More

Boris Johnson’s recent run of form has prompted so much criticism and incredulity that Labour leader Sir Kir Starmer made a point of wryly enquiring about his health during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.“Who knows if he’ll make it to the next election but, if he does, how does he expect anyone to take him and his promises seriously?” he sneered before accusing Mr Johnson of breaking his manifesto promises to taxpayers on social care reform.That followed weeks of the prime minister being dogged by “Tory sleaze” allegations surrounding Owen Paterson and then his former attorney Sir Geoffrey Cox and uproar over his rumoured plan to scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol and his cancellation of the northern leg of HS2.This crisis period culminated in a disastrous speech to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Annual Conference on Monday, in which Mr Johnson imitated a revving car engine, waxed lyrical about a recent trip to Peppa Pig World and lost his place in his notes, spending an excruciating 21 seconds desperately rifling through loose pages and muttering apologies.The assembled executives were left perplexed, having attended in the hope of hearing something constructive about the state of Britain’s stumbling economic recovery, post-Brexit trading conditions and the ongoing disruption to the supply chain caused by Covid-19 and the HGV driver shortage.For some of the prime minister’s own Conservative MPs, enough is enough.A dozen backbenchers are said to have written to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, expressing their discontent with Mr Johnson’s recent performances, with one senior MP telling The Sun: “There is real anger. He has until Spring to get back on track or he will be in real trouble.”Tory whips have meanwhile told The Telegraph there was an “assumption” that no confidence letters had been written, while another dismissed the rebellion as just “the usual suspects” stirring up trouble.“It will not get anywhere near the 50 letters you would need, but it does cause angst,” the unnamed whip told the newspaper.Under Conservative Party rules, a leadership contest is triggered if 15 per cent of sitting Conservative MPs write to its executive committee, whose 18 members meet weekly to discuss party affairs, demanding a change at the top.Currently, that would equate to 54 letters from the party’s pool of 360 MPs, meaning the present rate of discontent is insufficient to trigger a contest, so the whip is right to be unconcerned. For now.Having said that, no confidence letters are handed in confidentially under party rules, so there is no accurate, publicly available tally of how many have been submitted.Should Sir Graham eventually receive enough to proceed, the prime minister would then need to secure 50 per cent of the vote to survive, without which he would be forced to step down.If he were to secure a majority, his prize would be the guarantee of a full-year’s immunity from further no-confidence challenges, potentially giving him time to steady the ship, rebuild alliances and strengthen his grip over the parliamentary party.Dominic Raab, the PM’s deputy, responded to Wednesday morning’s dramatic headlines by dismissing them on LBC as “Westminster tittle-tattle”, insisting that his boss is “an ebullient, bouncy, optimistic, Tiggerish character and he livens up his speeches in a way that few politicians past and present have done but actually there is a steeliness to him as a prime minister and indeed his team, and we work as a team.”Which is all very well, but being roundly mocked by Ant and Dec on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! is a blow to the hopes of any political leader expecting to be taken seriously. More