Markus Andrews

A disgraced MP who was suspended from parliament for sexual misconduct breaches will have his Conservative membership restored — a decision labelled by Labour as “scandalous”.The MP for Delyn, Rob Roberts, was found by an independent panel to have made “repeated unwanted sexual advances” towards a member of staff, was forced to leave the Commons in May for six weeks.He was also subsequently suspended from the Conservative Party for 12 weeks in August, but will have his membership reinstated on Monday, the BBC reported.Confirming the move, a CCHQ spokesperson said: “Rob Roberts’ membership suspension concludes on Monday 1 November after serving a 12-week suspension.”However, the spokesperson also stressed that the Conservative whip will remain suspended, meaning Mr Roberts will have to continue sitting as an independent in the Commons.Chair of the Labour Party Anneliese Dodds described the move as “scandalous”, saying Mr Roberts “should have resigned as an MP the moment he was suspended”.“That he is now set to return to the Conservative party shows they’ve let him off the hook,” she added. “Yet again, there’s one rule for Tory MPs and another for everyone else.”In May, the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) said Mr Roberts had “made repeated unwanted sexual advances” towards one of his employees and used “his position as his employer to place him under pressure to accede”.“The misconduct demonstrated here was significant,” said the the chair of the IEP watchdog Stephen Irwin at the time.“It is evident that Mr Roberts MP was in a very powerful position as an employer in relation to the reporter. Our conclusion is that the determination of six weeks suspension from the service of the House was proper and proportionate.”Earlier this year, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, said it would have been “honourable” for Mr Roberts to have stood down after the party withdrew the whip – due to the “severity” of the case.He argued it was “frankly ridiculous” that there are more serious sanctions for “somebody who uses a few envelopes incorrectly than for somebody who is involved in sexual misconduct”.Labour has previously called for Mr Roberts, who returned to Parliament in the summer after his six-week suspension expired, has refused to stand down as an MP.Following the IEP report in May, Mr Roberts said he recognised he breached the “MP-staff relationship” which was “completely improper and should not have happened”.“I apologised at this time and do so again to the complainant but also to my colleagues, family and most importantly my constituents,” he added.Mr Roberts has been contacted for comment. More

The UK is ready to trigger a legal battle with France in the clash over Channel fishing rights as early as next week, Boris Johnson has warned.Speaking at the G20 summit in Rome, the prime minister ramped up tensions between the two countries by hinting at sending the dispute to independent arbitration.The post-Brexit trade deal includes a dispute resolution mechanism that allows controversies to be referred to an independent body, if they cannot be resolved in direct talks.Asked if he is “not ruling out that you might trigger the mechanism next week”, Mr Johnson told Sky News: “No of course not. I don’t rule that out.”The warning came as Emmanuel Macron turned his fire on the UK’s actions, ahead of meeting the prime minister in Rome on Sunday, supposedly about aims for the Cop26 climate summit.He called the fishing row a test of the UK’s credibility in the eyes of the world, telling The Financial Times: “Make no mistake, it is not just for the Europeans but all of their partners.“Because, when you spend years negotiating a treaty and then a few months later you do the opposite of what was decided, on the aspects that suit you the least, it is not a big sign of your credibility.”Both sides are accusing the other of failing to abide by the terms of the trade and cooperation agreement, over access for French fishing vessels to UK and Jersey waters.Mr Johnson added: “If another European country wants to break the TCA – the Trade and Cooperation agreement – then obviously we will have to take steps to protect UK interests.”Asked if he believed France had committed a breach, he said: “I am worried that there might be. I am looking at what is going on at the moment and I think that we need to sort it out.”In a round of interviews, Mr Johnson also:Criticised China for its disappointing pre-Cop offer on cutting carbon emissions, saying: “What China needs to do is find ways of making a more ambitious, nationally determined contribution.”Said the chances of success at the Glasgow summit are “about the same” as his estimate in September – when he put them at 6 out of 10.Defended making internal flights cheaper, by slashing air taxes just days before Cop26, saying: “We increased air passenger duty for long haul flights, 96 per cent of CO2 emissions come from long haul flights. “What we will do is ensuring we have proper connectivity in the islands of the United Kingdom, which is an entirely sensible thing to do.Said he had spoken with the Queen, after she was told to rest for two weeks, and described her as “on very good form”. “She’s just got to follow the advice of her doctors,” the prime minister said.In the increasingly angry row over fishing rights, France has threatened to stop UK boats landing in its ports if the dispute over licences is not resolved.And French prime minister Jean Castex has appealed to the EU for backing, to demonstrate there is “more damage to leaving the EU than to remaining there”. More

Boris Johnson is trying to “move the goalposts” on climate change in order to be able to present an underwhelming outcome at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow as a triumph, Ed Miliband has warned.Speaking to The Independent on the eve of the crucial United Nations conference, Labour’s Cop26 spokesperson said the prime minister had failed to hold fellow leaders’ feet to the fire to secure the swift action needed if the world is to have any hope of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.As summit host, Mr Johnson must not be allowed to offer polluting countries a “get out of jail free card” by presenting net-zero pledges for 2050 or later as a victory, when the world needs action now to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, he said.While countries like Australia and China have grabbed headlines by promising net zero carbon emissions in several decades’ time, actual pledges of cuts so far amount to just 4bn tonnes by 2030, far short of the 28bn required to keep 1.5C alive as a goal, said Mr Miliband.“That is miles from where we need to be,” said the shadow business secretary, who represented the UK as climate change secretary at the 2009 Cop summit in Copenhagen.“What would success at Glasgow look like? Success would look like getting halfway to the 28bn figure. That wouldn’t be enough, but it would at least be substantial progress. If we don’t make substantial progress, the chances of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees have diminished.”And he added: “I want this summit to succeed, but I’m not going to allow Boris Johnson to move the goalposts.“You can hear the sound of the goalposts being moved right now, and the biggest goalpost-moving attempt going on is to make the summit about targets for 2050, not targets for 2030.“It’s good if countries set net-zero targets for 2050. That is welcome.“But it is not a substitute in any way, shape or form for targets for 2030. It’s in this decisive decade, that the fate of the coming decades and coming generations will be determined. If we carry on as we are up to 2030 and then say we’re going to start taking action up to 2050, it’ll be too late.”Mr Miliband said the prime minister had undermined the UK’s own negotiating position in the run-up to the Cop26 summit by slashing the UK’s aid budget, removing climate provisions from a trade deal with Australia, attempting to open a new coal mine in Cumbria and allowing chancellor Rishi Sunak to freeze petrol taxes and cut duties on domestic air travel, in a move expected to generate 400,000 additional flights.“It’s almost like sticking up two fingers to the COP,” he said of Wednesday’s “shocking” Budget announcements. “I don’t know how Johnson has allowed this to happen.“Anyone who was serious about the climate crisis would not have allowed this to happen – frankly, anyone who’s serious about the climate crisis wouldn’t have gone on holiday two weeks before the summit was due to start.”Mr Miliband said he was concerned that Mr Johnson will use the world leaders’ summit which will bring more than 120 prime ministers and presidents – including Joe Biden and India’s Narendra Modi, but not China’s Xi Jinping or Russia’s Vladimir Putin – to Glasgow on Monday and Tuesday as a glorified photo-call and an opportunity for “vacuous backslapping”.Instead, his role as host gives the prime minister a responsibility to use the occasion as a “global embarrassment mechanism”, holding to account leaders who have failed to deliver on commitments from the 2015 Paris summit to raise their game on climate change.“He should be calling out our friends and our allies as well as countries that aren’t necessarily our friends and allies,” said Mr Miliband.“The Chinese target is nowhere near good enough. We should be saying that. That is part of the role of being the host.“The point of these summits is to put world leaders on the spot. It’s a global embarrassment mechanism to say to world leaders ‘This is what the science says. What are you going to do and is what you do consistent with the science?’ Our role is to be the holders of the science and the integrity of these negotiations, not to pretend countries are doing enough when they’re not.”Mr Miliband said he feared that Mr Johnson had underestimated the difficulty of his role as summit host.“This has got to be a serious negotiation where Boris Johnson says to countries: ‘It’s not enough. You’ve got to do more’,” he said.“He’s got to say to countries like Australia: ‘2050 is all very well, but you’ve got to deliver for 2030. What are you going to deliver?’“It’s about tough negotiations. It’s about it’s about hard conversations. It’s not about vacuous back-slapping. I worry that he’s in the vacuous back-slapping mentality.”The former Labour leader said that the lack of seriousness with which Mr Johnson is approaching the summit was reflected in Downing Street’s failure to confirm that he will attend sessions following the opening leaders’ days, or even travel to Glasgow for the conclusion of talks expected on 12 November.He said Mr Johnson must be judged not only on whether he secures substantial additional pledges for 2030, but also on whether he accelerates the “ratchet” mechanism agreed at Paris under which countries’ promises are reassessed every five years.After Glasgow’s postponement from 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, there was no doubt that the next major summit cannot wait until 2025, he said.“That’s got to be one of the key demands and key outcomes that this summit produces,” said Mr Miliband. “We cannot say, ‘Job done, let’s come back in four years’ time’. That would be wholly wrong. We absolutely cannot leave this till 2025.”And he said he feared the Conservative government’s commitment to climate action will evaporate once the Cop spotlight is taken off the UK.“I think there is a danger that the government thinks that once the Cop is out of the way, they can move things on elsewhere,” he said. “We can’t let that happen. The climate crisis isn’t going away after Glasgow.” Mr Miliband added: “Whatever the outcome of Glasgow, I would urge your readers, we should not despair. Because whatever happens at Glasgow, we’ve got to wake up the next morning, and keep going further, faster, with more of a sense of urgency.“You know, we know, we’ve got the task for this decade. And we’ve got to keep going. That is so important.” More

The EU must show that Brexit has been“damaging” to the UK, the French prime minister has told Brussels in a letter calling for support for tougher actions over the Channel fishing dispute.Jean Castex wrote a letter to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday setting out reasons why the EU should act against Britain over the limited granting of licences for French fishermen to operate in British waters post-Brexit.He wrote that the EU had to make clear that “leaving the union is more damaging than remaining in it”.Paris is threatening to increase checks on British boats, stop them landing in French ports, slow customs arrangements in Calais and increase tariffs on energy bills in Jersey from Tuesday unless French fishermen are granted more licences to British waters around Jersey and Guernsey.A translation of Mr Castex’s letter says: “The uncooperative attitude of the United Kingdom today risks not only causing great harm to fishermen, mainly French, but also for the [European] union, in that it sets a precedent for the future and challenges our credibility and our ability to assert our rights with regard to international commitments signed by the union.“It therefore seems necessary for the European Union to show its total determination to obtain full respect for the agreement by the United Kingdom and to assert its rights by using the levers at its disposal in a firm, united and proportionate manner. “It is essential to clearly show to European public opinion that respect for subscribed engagement is non-negotiable and that there is more damage in leaving the union than in remaining there.”Mr Castex continued in his letter: “If no satisfactory solution is found in this context, the European Union will have to apply Article 506 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and take corrective measures, in a manner proportionate to the economic and social damage resulting from the breaches.”He suggested to Ms Von der Leyen that they could impose “customs duties on certain fishery products” as punishment.The “restoration of trust” lies upon the UK granting French fishermen more fishing licences, his letter also says.Boris Johnson has said that he would “do whatever is necessary to ensure UK interests” if France carries out its threats over the licences.He said that the Anglo-French relationship was undergoing “turbulence” and that the French authorities’ decision to impound a British fishing vessel may have broken international law.Mr Johnson will meet with French president Emmanuel Macron over the weekend at the G20 summit in Rome for their first face-to-face encounter in four months – after both sides have been accusing each other of breaching the Brexit agreement.The PM, who arrived in Rome last night, responded to the French threats by saying: “We fear that there may be a breach in terms of the Trade Co-operation Agreement implicit in what’s happening. We will standby to take the appropriate action.”In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Macron suggested that the UK’s “credibility” was at stake over the dispute.He told the newspaper: “When you spend years negotiating a treaty and then a few months later you do the opposite of what was decided on the aspects that suit you the least, it is not a big sign of your credibility.” More

Boris Johnson says Cop26 will have failed unless the world has committed to “halve emissions by the end of this decade”, toughening his aims for the crucial climate summit.Ahead of leaders gathering in Glasgow in Sunday, a Downing Street spokesman said: “This is the decade action needs to be taken – it’s no longer something that can be talked about in broad terms.”In recent days, Mr Johnson has spoken about net zero targets for 2050 – rather than to slash carbon emissions by 2030 – prompting suggestions he was laying the ground for effective failure.But the spokesman, asked what “success” would look like, said it must be 2030 commitments to “keep alive” the aim of preventing global temperature rises of more than 1.5C since industrialisation.Currently, the planet is “way off track”, the United Nations has warned, on a path to 2.7C – and, experts say, 2.1C even if existing CO2-cutting commitments are kept.Just 7.5 per cent would be chopped off predicted annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 – far from the 47 per cent reduction that is needed.“We must halve emissions by the end of this decade,” the spokesman said, ahead of Mr Johnson putting G20 summit leaders in Rome, to pile on more pressure for deeper CO2 cuts.“Countries around the world, particularly developing countries, are already seeing the real world impacts of this. They know what limiting 1.5 means in the real world, because they are seeing the impact of temperature rise – flooding, or droughts – already.”However, the spokesman said Cop26 would not attempt to agree a specific figure for reducing expected gigatonnes of carbon dioxide emitted by 2030, insisting that was not its role.And he declined to say whether a tougher “rachet” mechanism – to force countries to prove progress towards announced goals every two years, instead of five – would be set down.But No 10 insisted the UK, as the Cop26 host, would not be “marking its own homework” on success or failure, when the summit concludes in two weeks’ time.It would be up to the UN and others to judge whether the agreements reached are “sufficient that we remain on track” to a temperature rise of 1.5C.What No 10 is calling an “extremely ambitious goal” for Glasgow comes despite gloom that China has failed to shift in its long-awaited “nationally determined contribution” (NDC).Emissions by the world’s biggest current contributor to the climate emergency would still only peak by 2030 and be reduced to net zero only three decades later.Mr Johnson will badger other G20 leaders to go faster and further despite the failure to boost spending on the UK’s – largely unfunded – net zero plan, in Wednesday’s Budget.Instead, the chancellor Rishi Sunak was sharply criticised for making flying and driving cheaper, widening the divide with sky-high train fares.Nevertheless, the spokesman said: “The success of Cop26 still hangs in the balance. Too many countries are still doing too little. It’s going to be challenging.”Speaking on the flight to Rome, Mr Johnson called Cop26 “the last opportunity for the planet“, but also struck a more cautious note.“We are not going to stop global warming in Rome or in this meeting in Cop” he said.“The most we can hope to do is slow the increase. What we need to do is to take steps now that give us the ability in future to come back and make further commitments.”In Rome – as well as meeting Emmanuel Macron, to try to calm the fierce post-Brexit fishing dispute – Mr Johnson will come under pressure to go further on vaccine donations to poor nations.No 10 says it is on course to have handed over 30 million “surplus” doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab by the end of the year – with a total of 100 million pledged by the middle of 2022.But Gordon Brown has organised a letter, signed by 160 former world leaders and global figures, demanding an emergency military airlift of far more.Ahead of the G20, Mr Johnson also announced £160m to build floating offshore wind ports and factories around the UK, to help hit a target of providing 1GW of energy by 2030 – nearly 9 times the current volume worldwide. More

The UK’s Brexit bust-up with Brussels over the Irish border came a step closer to boiling over today, as the European Commission told EU member states that the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was “not up for discussion”.Removing the Luxembourg court from any role in adjudicating disputes over the border is a key demand of London in talks currently taking place on the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol that was negotiated and agreed by Boris Johnson in 2019.The UK has threatened to suspend the protocol by invoking Article 16 as early as mid-November unless it gets its way, in a move that would almost inevitably trigger retaliatory measures, including tariffs on trade with the EU.Mr Johnson’s Brexit minister David Frost today accused Brussels of failing to “engage” with the UK’s demands relating to the ECJ as well as with calls for change to the protocol’s provisions relating to subsidy policy and VAT.And the prime minister himself raised the issue in phone talks on Friday with Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is himself embroiled in a row with Brussels over the ECJ’s role in his own country.Talks in London between Lord Frost and commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic broke up today without a breakthrough on the future of the protocol, though the pair are due to meet again in Brussels on 5 November. The UK said that differences between the sides remain “substantial”.The commission has put forward an offer of significant relaxations in the operation of customs checks on goods travelling between Northern Ireland and the British mainland.The checks have caused considerable disruption and shortages of goods since their introduction at the start of this year as a result of Mr Johnson’s decision to create a customs border in the Irish Sea as part of his Brexit deal.But Brussels has always insisted it will not renegotiate the protocol, or accept the removal of the ECJ from oversight of the EU’s single market, which continues to operate in Northern Ireland.Today’s note said that the role of the ECJ had not been raised with Brussels by Northern Irish businesses, who in fact saw continued participation in the single market as one of their “key interests”.“Being part of the single market means applying EU law,” the paper stated. “And the application of EU law implies a role for the [ECJ], as foreseen by the protocol.”It added: “The EU was always clear in its intentions – it will not renegotiate the protocol, and the role of the [European] Court of Justice is not up for discussion.”A UK government spokesperson said Lord Frost’s talks with Mr Sefcovic were “conducted in a constructive spirit”.But the spokesperson added: “While there is some overlap between our positions on a subset of the issues, the gaps between us remain substantial.“As we have noted before, the EU’s proposals represent a welcome step forward but do not free up goods movements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the extent necessary for a durable solution.“Nor do they yet engage with the changes needed in other areas, such as subsidy policy, VAT, and governance of the protocol, including the role of the Court of Justice.“Our position remains that substantial changes to the protocol will be needed if we are to find a sustainable solution that works in the best interests of Northern Ireland and supports the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.” More

Boris Johnson has issued an apocalyptic warning that civilisation could collapse “like the Roman Empire” unless runaway climate change is stopped.En route to the G20 summit in Rome, the prime minister said the world could “go backwards” – as it did after its famous empire fell – unless a deal to halt the climate emergency is struck at the Cop26 summit.“Humanity, civilisation and society can go backwards as well as forwards and when they start to go wrong, they can go wrong at extraordinary speed,” Mr Johnson said.“You saw that with the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.”And he added: “It’s true today that, unless we get this right in tackling climate change, we could see our civilisation, our world, also go backwards.”“We could consign future generations to a life far less agreeable than our own,” he said – pointing to shortages of food and shortages of water and conflict caused by climate change.“There is absolutely no question that this is a reality we must face.”Pointing again to the example of the end of the Romans, the prime minister said: “People lost the ability to read and write and the ability to draw properly. They lost the way to build in the way that the Romans did.”He also compared the situation to a football match, saying: “If this was half time, I would say we were about 5-1 down. We have a long way to go, but we can do it.”Ahead of urging other G20 leaders to beef up their CO2-cutting commitments, Mr Johnson told reporters: “We need to spit out our oranges and get back on the pitch.”Admitting his own “road to Damascus” conversion – after a journalism career in which he scoffed at climate change – Mr Johnson said the key moment had only come after he became prime minister.He said he was briefed by government scientists soon after arriving in Downing Street, in 2019.“I got them to run through it all and, if you look at the almost vertical kink upward in the temperature graph, the anthropogenic climate change, it’s very hard to dispute,” he said.“That was a very important moment for me. That’s why I say what I say.”Asked if he was eating less meat as a way to cut his carbon footprint, Mr Johnson replied: “I’m eating a bit less of everything, which may be an environmentally friendly thing to do.” More

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday renewed Britain’s threat to break from part of the Brexit divorce deal that he signed with the European Union unless a dispute over Northern Ireland trade is resolved.The U.K. has threatened to trigger an emergency break clause in the deal that lets either side suspend the agreement in extreme circumstances if there is no solution soon. That would bring legal action from the EU, and potentially economic sanctions that could spiral into a trade war.Johnson said that answers to the problems of trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. “should be simple.”“I think we need to fix it. I’m not convinced that the solutions we’re seeing do fix it,” he told reporters as he travelled to Rome for a Group of 20 summit. “We will have to take the steps that are necessary to protect the territorial integrity of the U.K. and the U.K.’s internal market.″Northern Ireland is part of the U.K. and shares a border with EU member Ireland. It remains inside the EU’s tariff-free single market for goods, even though the U.K. left the 27-nation bloc at the end of 2020. That special status ensures there is an open border on the island of Ireland — a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process since the 1998 Good Friday accord. But it means a new customs border in the Irish Sea for goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K., even though they are part of the same country.That has brought red tape for businesses, and caused problems with some goods reaching Northern Ireland. The new arrangements have also angered Northern Ireland’s British Unionists, who say the checks undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the U.K. and destabilize the delicate political balance on which peace rests.The EU accuses Britain of trying to renegotiate a legally binding agreement that it signed less than a year ago; some EU officials say it shows the U.K. government can’t be trusted. The bloc has, however, agreed to make changes to the deal, offering to reduce checks on food, plants and animals entering Northern Ireland by as much as 80% and to cut paperwork for transport companies in half.Britain has welcomed those proposals, but also is demanding that the EU’s top court be stripped of its role in resolving any disputes over the agreement and be replaced with independent arbitration — an idea the bloc flatly rejects.The two sides are holding talks, but the U.K. says substantial differences remain.Discussions are due to continue next week. The EU urged Britain on Friday to “engage constructively” with the bloc’s proposals.___Follow all AP stories on post-Brexit developments at https://apnews.com/hub/Brexit. More