Markus Andrews

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will lead a special session of tributes in the House of Commons on Monday to David Amess a Conservative lawmaker stabbed to death as he met constituents in a church hall.A 25-year-old British man with Somali heritage, Ali Harbi Ali is being held under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of murder.The death of Amess, a popular legislator who had served in Parliament for almost 40 years, has shocked British politicians. It came five years after Labour Party lawmaker Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death by a far-right extremist.The House of Commons returns Monday from a three-week break, and most of the scheduled business has been replaced by tributes to Amess. That will be followed by a service at the medieval St. Margaret’s Church in the shadow of Parliament.The government has ordered a review of lawmakers’ security following the attack on Friday. British politicians are protected by armed police when they are in Parliament but generally are not given police protection when they meet with constituents in the districts they represent.Nick Thomas-Symonds, crime and policing spokesman for the main opposition Labour Party, said he and many other politicians received “intimidation while out on the streets, death threats, terrible letters, awful emails.”“I don’t know a member of Parliament who has not suffered in that way,” he told the BBC. “It’s clear that something now has to change.” The killing has also renewed debate about the threat from individuals radicalized by Islamic extremist or far-right ideology. Police say the suspect appears to have acted alone and may have had a “motivation linked to Islamist extremism.”The suspect had been referred several years go to a government-sponsored program designed to steer people away from extremism, but was not considered a current subject of interest by the security services.Police have been given until Friday to question the suspect, and are working to determine what, if any, connection he had to Amess and why he targeted the lawmaker. The politician’s meeting with voters in the seaside town of Leigh-on-Sea was public and open to all.Amess’ family said in a statement that they were struggling to comprehend what had happened.“We ask people to set aside their differences and show kindness and love to all,” said the politician’s wife and five children. “This is the only way forward. Set aside hatred and work towards togetherness.” More

MPs are set to be offered more private security guards for when meeting their constituents at surgery events following the murder of Sir David Amess, the justice secretary has signalled.Dominic Raab said an increase in private security is the most “likely” option to boost safety, rather than putting more police officers outside MPs’ surgeries.Home secretary Priti Patel said on Sunday that MPs could be given police protection while they carry out constituency meetings as part of a “range of measures” under consideration.But the justice secretary raised concerns that having police officers could have a “chilling effect”, as constituents look to engage with their elected representative.Asked if he would welcome officers at his surgeries, Raab told Sky News: “I probably wouldn’t choose to have them outside a surgery that I had. I would worry about the chilling effect, I’m not sure it’s necessary to have that.”The cabinet minister added: “I think we’re more likely to look at things like private security guards – there’s already I believe money available for that.”Raab said he would not stand in the way of colleagues who wished to have a police presence while meeting the public. “It depends on the individual,” he said.But the minister added: “We don’t let the terrorists win by creating wedges or walls between us and those who vote us in … You do not want to add to that sense of foreboding as they’re waiting for a constituency surgery.”Warning against a blanket approach to security measures, Raab later told LBC: “I don’t want to overreact … I personally feel pretty secure, but others will feel differently in their circumstances. One thing we’ll want to do is take a proportionate approach.” Patel has ordered a police review of MPs’ security following the killing at a constituency surgery in Sir David’s Southend West seat, and is expected to address the House of Commons on Monday.The home secretary said on Sunday that police protection was part of a “spectrum” of options – saying the government was looking “when you hold your surgeries could you have officers or some kind of protection while you’re holding your surgery”.She also said there was a need to “close any gaps” on security – citing measures like “booking appointments in advance, checking the details of the individuals that you are seeing, checking the locations in advance that you are going to”.The government has ruled out armed police officers at constituency surgeries and is set to offer more private security guards instead, according to The Times.Stephen Roberts, former deputy assistant commissioner to the Met Police, said each MPs’ security protection would need to be “tailored” to what they were comfortable with.“I heard Dominic Raab say he would be very unhappy having police outside a surgery he was running … so there’s going to be proportionate protection for each MPs’ circumstances,” Roberts told Sky News.Tory MP Tobias Ellwood has argued that MPs should hold surgeries by Zoom instead of holding face-to-face meetings, while Labour MP Diane Abbott has suggested they take place behind screens.Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds told BBC Breakfast the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP “speaks from experience”.The Labour frontbencher, who said he had received death threats as an MP, added: “I think we need to look at a range of different options here. I think there’s the screen option made by Diane. I know that others are talking about police presence at surgeries.”Raab revealed on Monday that he has had three threats to “life and limb” over the past two years – saying the incidents “resulted in an intervention” without giving further details.He told BBC Breakfast: “There will be people who have worse abuse than me – and I particularly feel for the female MPs, and I know colleagues of mine who have come off, for example, Twitter because it’s just so vile.”Raab signalled he could support closing anonymous social media accounts to tackle online hatred – but also warned of the potential impact on freedom of speech.He raised concerns that he did not want to “send a message to tyrants all over the world that they can expose” campaigners who need anonymity.But he added: “On balance I think there is a case for really looking very carefully at this … I don’t see why people should be able to abuse the position on social media from a veil of anonymity.”Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has said the UK must avoid a “knee-jerk reaction” to the problem of keeping MPs safe in the wake of Sir David Amess’s murder.He added that he does not want to end up in a situation where MPs have the level of security that surrounds US politicians, such as Democrat Nancy Pelosi.He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “Do I want to be like Speaker Pelosi, who can’t go anywhere without armed police? Is that a life I want? No.” More

Southeastern’s train service has become the latest rail franchise to be taken over by the UK government after being brought back under direct public control following an investigation into the franchise holder’s finances.Govia – a joint venture between Go-Ahead Group and Keolis which had owned the line since 2006 – was stripped of the service last month after it failed to declare more than £25m of taxpayer funding.The Department for Transport (DfT) will now run the Southeastern network under the Operator of Last Resort (OLR) scheme.The network, which is one of the busiest in the UK, stretches across southeast England and includes London, Kent, East Sussex and the High Speed 1 line.However, the change is unlikely to lead to any immediate changes for passengers as the trains, timetables and fares will remain the same and staff will stay in place.“Whoever runs Southeastern, passengers will want a reliable service which delivers on their key priorities: a punctual, reliable, clean train, with enough room to sit and stand, and value for money fares,” Anthony Smith, chief executive of passenger watchdog Transport Focus, said.The OLR scheme has previously been used to take over two other franchises, with the London North Eastern Railway launching in 2018 and Northern Trains launching in March 2020.Cat Hobbs, director of the public ownership campaign group We Own It, said that the takeover of Southeastern showed that it was “time to bring the whole rail network into public hands”.“Again and again, privatisation is failing our railway and franchises are being brought into public ownership one by one,” Ms Hobbs said.“Profit-driven companies won’t put passengers or the public first – especially as the railway is a natural monopoly where we don’t have a choice between companies.”Earlier this year, transport secretary Grant Shapps said that an investigation by DfT had found that Govia failed to declare more than £25m of historic taxpayer funding that should have been returned.Mr Shapps warned that the government would not accept “anything less” than “absolute transparency with taxpayer support” for rail franchises.Go-Ahead Group’s chief financial officer Elodie Brian also resigned following the announcement that Southeastern was to be taken over.Further investigations are being conducted and the government is considering options for more action, including financial penalties. More

The family of Sir David Amess praised the murdered MP as a “wonderful and inspiring man” on Sunday as they issued a powerful plea: “Please let some good come from this tragedy.”“As a family, we are trying to understand why this awful thing has occurred,” they said in a statement. “Nobody should die in that way. Nobody.”It came as dozens of mourners attended a special service in memory of the Southend West MP, who was stabbed to death at a constituency surgery on Friday. “The support shown by friends, constituents and the general public alike has been so overwhelming,” the statement said. “As a family it has given us strength.”Residents gathered at St Michael’s and All Angels church on Sunday afternoon to pay their respects and share their memories of Sir David, a devout Catholic.Reverend Tom Loh said many passers-by had come into the church to “shed tears and light a candle”.Several mourners were invited to step to the front of the church, where a photo of Sir David was placed, throughout the service to share stories about him.In their statement, the family thanked the public “for the wonderful, wonderful tributes paid” to the backbench Conservative MP “following his cruel and violent death”.The family also asked people to back Sir David’s long-running campaign to gain Southend city status.Home secretary Priti Patel said bestowing the title of city on the seaside town would be a “wonderful tribute” to the MP’s 38 years of service, with Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle also rallying behind the idea.Southend is one of several towns competing for city status as part of the Queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations in 2022, with Sir David a driving force behind the local campaign, having pushed for the recognition for at least two decades.In an interview with BBC Essex the day before he died, Sir David said: “If the House of Commons wants to shut me up from being the city bore, then they are going to have to grant it to us. I’ve spent all my time mentioning it at every conceivable opportunity. It is a no brainer. The benefits are enormous frankly.”The statement continued:We have realised from tributes paid that there was far, far more to David than even we, those closest to him, knew.We are enormously proud of him. Our hearts are shattered. However, there was still so much David wanted to do – this we know from the events of the last few days. So, this is not the end of Sir David Amess MP. It is the next chapter and as a family we ask everyone to support the many charities he worked with. There are so many to mention, so find one close to your hearts and help.David had recently joined a campaign to help raise funds for a memorial to Dame Vera Lynn. To him she epitomised the strength and courage of our nation. We would ask as many people as possible to support this and meet the target to complete the project.Closer to home, David was working hard for Southend to gain city status. In his memory, please show your support for this campaign.Strong and courageous is an appropriate way to describe David. He was a patriot and a man of peace. So, we ask people to set aside their differences and show kindness and love to all. This is the only way forward. Set aside hatred and work towards togetherness.Whatever one’s race, religious or political beliefs, be tolerant and try to understand.As a family, we are trying to understand why this awful thing has occurred. Nobody should die in that way. Nobody.Please let some good come from this tragedy.We are absolutely broken, but we will survive and carry on for the sake of a wonderful and inspiring man.We ask at this time that the family’s privacy be respected so that we can grieve in private. More

French trawlers are threatening to create a blockade in the Channel after the EU refused to back the French prime minister’s demand for tough action against the UK over post-Brexit rights.Emmanuel Macron’s plea followed Jersey granting licences to only 12 small French boats out of 47 who applied in summer.The EU declined to act on the bid from Paris, instead announcing they would engage in more ‘technical’ work – provoking French fisherman to take matters into their own hands.Pierre-Yves Dachicourt, a fisherman from the northern Channel town of Boulogne, told the MailOnline there was potential for be blockades to be created in ports like Calais and Boulogne.“We were promised to be able to go fishing in English waters, but after 1 January, it’s forbidden to us. We’re losing 50 per cent of our income,” he said.“We’re going to consider direct action, because this has to end. We can’t live like that.”Maritime minister, Annick Girardin, said France and the EU would work on a response over the next fortnight unless the UK was able to resolve the dispute quickly.She called on other European countries to rally their supporting, saying: “what France is going through today, some others will also go through it”.French government spokesman, Gabriel Attal, said the moves by the UK and Jersey authorities were “totally unacceptable and inadmissible” and “contravene the agreement that was signed in the framework of Brexit”.He said: “We are going to continue and step up our work with the [European] Commission to move forward on this issue, and also to study possible retaliation measures that could be taken if the agreement is not respected.”A further 75 vessels were reportedly denied access because they failed to provide evidence that they had fished in the six-to-12-mile nautical zone in advance of UK’s exit from the EU, according to the MailOnline.According to Jersey external relations minister Ian Gorst, the island’s government had taken “a pragmatic, reasonable and evidence-based approach’ to the problem.”The matter of fishing rights was a sore point of contention between the UK and France during Brexit negotiations.The relationship between the two countries has been fraught in recent months. Last month, Boris Johnson told Emmanuel Macron to “get a grip” and “donnez-moi un break” after France’s furious reaction to the UK’s defence pact with the US and Australia.His confrontational language came as Paris and Washington made efforts to mend relations, with Macron agreeing to return France’s ambassador to the US following a phone call with president Joe Biden. More

As we head closer and closer towards Christmas the ongoing supply crisis affecting the festive period is becoming a very real concern among many.Whether it is Brexit or the after effect of the pandemic, the supply shortages are real and that’s across several sectors, whether that’s energy suppliers, butchers or lorry drivers.Boris Johnson’s government continues to claim the supply issues are a global problem as empty shelves in the supermarkets, disruption to fuel supply and a backlog at ports ensue.Transport secretary Grant Shapps claimed on Friday that “our supply chain is pretty robust” – but could not guarantee there would not be shortages in the run-up to Christmas.The cabinet minister also claimed the country’s problems would not be solved by returning to uncontrolled immigration – but was accused of hypocrisy by the organisation representing lorry drivers.Shapps has announced emergency plans to lift the limit on the number of deliveries foreign lorry drivers can make in the UK for up to six months. But the Road Haulage Association (RHA) complained that it would undercut British drivers.“Allowing overseas companies and drivers to come over for perhaps up to six months on a fortnightly basis to do unlimited work at low rates, undercutting UK hauliers,” said the RHA’s Rod McKenzie.The questions that many want answered are “how long will this last?”, “how much worse will it get?” and “how much will it affect the price of everyday items?”To help answer some of these questions and help put some context and figures to the ongoing scenarios the country is facing independent economist Julian Jessop will be hand on this page answering your supply crisis questions from 4pm on Monday, 18 October.Julian has more than thirty years of experience in the public sector, the City and consultancy and most recently was Chief Economist at the Institute of Economic Affairs.Sign in to submit your question in the comments box below.If you’re not already a member, click “sign up” in the comments section to leave your question.Don’t worry if you can’t see your question – they will be hidden until Julian joins the conversation to answer them.Then join us live on this page from 4pm on Monday, 18 October, as he tackles as many questions as he can within an hour. More

The “criminal” failure of rich countries like Britain to send unused coronavirus vaccines to the developing world is “the biggest public policy failure at an international level for years”, former prime minister Gordon Brown has said.Mr Brown blasted Boris Johnson for missing a crucial UN meeting called by US president Joe Biden to secure pledges of vaccine doses for poor countries.The former PM said that new figures show 240 million vaccines are lying unused in Europe and America, as many as 100m of which will eventually be discarded after passing their use-by date.And he said that over-ordering by rich countries meant that the stockpile of unused doses was rising fast and likely to hit 1 billion by January even after booster campaigns have offered third jabs to those whose protection is waning.Boris Johnson’s call at the G7 summit in Cornwall in June for the whole world to be offered a vaccine by the end of 2022 raised eyebrows because of the UK’s decision to order many times more doses than required to protect its own population, as well as its opposition to intellectual property waivers which could allow developing countries to start manufacturing their own jabs.In the event, the summit fell short of Mr Johnson’s ambitions, promising just 1 billion doses by next year – a fraction of the 11bn which the World Health Organisation (WHO) believes are needed to vaccinate 70 per cent of the world’s adults.Mr Brown told Sky News’s Sunday with Trevor Phillips: “There are 240 million vaccines that are lying in Europe and America that are unused and not likely to be used for months – many of them may go to waste and that would be criminal.“(They) could immediately be airlifted out to those countries where the level of vaccination is so low that not even the nurses and doctors are protected, and certainly not the elderly and vulnerable.“Boris Johnson promised at the G7 that he was going to vaccinate the whole world. He made this bold announcement that by next year everybody would be vaccinated who was an adult in the developing world as well as the developed world. But since then, so little has happened.”Mr Brown said that a WHO target of protecting at least 10 per cent of the population of every country in the world by September had already been missed, and that later goals to reach 40 per cent by December and 70 per cent by next year were also unlikely to be met.“We’ve got to take action immediately to use these unused vaccines to save lives,” he said. “A hundred thousand lives have been saved in Britain because of 100 million vaccines. How many more lives can be saved in the rest of the world if we get these vaccines to people who need them?”Mr Brown blamed a “lack of coordination” for the missed targets and said that only national leaders of the G7 countries, as well as European Union chiefs, were able to break the logjam.“If President Biden, Boris Johnson, Ursula von der Leyen at the European Union, Justin Trudeau, if they came together, they would find that they had these unused vaccines, that they’re not going to use them,” he said. “Even after all the boosters, they are excess vaccines that are not going to be used and they should get them out as quickly as possible.“Month by month, this number of extra vaccines will grow another 200 million next month, 200 million by the end of the year, a billion in total by January.“We’ve got to get them to the people who need them, otherwise people will say that the neglect is unacceptable.“If 100 million or so vaccines – as we predict – go to waste because they pass their use-by date, this is the biggest public policy failure at an international level for years in peacetime.“To save hundreds of thousands of lives by using the vaccine, the miracle of which is available to us, is something that needs the coordination of the leaders. Only they could release the vaccines, not the IMF or the World Health Organisation, the leaders have got to make that decision. They ordered the vaccines, they over-ordered, and they can now make them available.” More

Legal experts have responded with alarm to suggestions from justice secretary Dominic Raab that he will legislate to “correct” court judgements on human rights cases that go against the government.The former head of the government legal service, Jonathan Jones, branded the deputy prime minister’s proposals “muddled”, while the Cambridge University professor of public law said they were “deeply troubling” and threatened to undermine basic standards of good governance.Mr Raab announced plans to “overhaul” the Human Rights Act to reduce the influence of the European Court of Human Rights at the Conservative party conference in Manchester earlier this month.In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he said that he is devising a mechanism to allow ministers to introduce ad hoc legislation to “correct” court judgments, whether passed by the ECHR in Strasbourg or by UK judges, which he regards as creating new law through “judicial legislation” rather than the decisions of elected politicians.“We will get into the habit of legislating on a more periodic basis and thinking about the mechanism for that,” he said. “Where there have been judgments that – albeit properly and duly delivered by the courts – we think are wrong, the right thing is for parliament to legislate to correct them.”Mr Raab said it was wrong for the European judges to “dictate” to the UK on how its armed forces, police, welfare system and health service should operate.“We want the Supreme Court to have a last word on interpreting the laws of the land, not the Strasbourg court,” he said.“We also want to protect and preserve the prerogatives of parliament from being whittled away by judicial legislation, abroad or indeed at home.”Human rights lawyer Jessica Simor QC, of Matrix Chambers, said that Mr Raab was peddling a “false narrative” that foreign judges were ruling over the UK court system, when in fact the HRA was introduced specifically to ensure that British people were able to get their rights upheld in a domestic court rather than having to go to the ECHR.Watering down its provisions would simply mean more complaints going to Strasbourg and more rulings against the UK, unless the government intended to pull Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights altogether, which would be “a step into a dark place for this country and the world”, warned Ms Simor.Mr Jones – who quit as the government’s top lawyer in 2020 in protest at Boris Johnson’s plans to breach international law in the row over the post-Brexit Irish border – said there was “lots of muddle” in Mr Raab’s proposals.As parliament is already able to legislate to correct flaws in laws, it appeared Mr Raab was trying to use a new mechanism to allow ministers to take this step without obtaining MPs’ approval, he said.“We’ve had (Brexit minister) Lord Frost proposing a ‘tailored mechanism’ for accelerating changes to retained EU law,” said Mr Jones.“Now Mr Raab suggests a mechanism for ‘correcting’ court judgments. What can such mechanisms mean other than more hasty policy, less scrutiny, a reduced role for parliament?”Cambridge professor of public law Mark Elliott pointed to a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowing a minister to overrule the decisions of the judiciary simply because he does not agree with it would cut across “principles that are fundamental components of the rule of law”.Mr Raab appeared to be suggesting changes to give the government powers to correct court decisions through secondary legislation, which does not have to be subjected to scrutiny and votes in parliament.“If that is what is in contemplation, then that is profoundly problematic,” he said. “Indeed it turns constitutional principle on its head.“Ministerial power to do this would itself be deeply troubling. It would reassign a basic judicial role – interpreting the law – to ministers.“Ultimately, this all strikes me as part of a project to enhance executive supremacy by treating courts, whether foreign or domestic, as unwelcome interlopers.“And yet all of this masquerades as an attempt to protect parliament. The reality of this executive power project, as we might call it, is that it will be the executive that is the principal beneficiary of such changes and the loser will be basic standards of good governance.”Labour’s shadow justice secretary David Lammy accused Mr Raab of reviving long-standing Tory assaults on human rights legislation as a way of diverting attention from the dire state of the criminal justice system under his watch.“Rape convictions are at historic lows and women are rapidly losing faith in the criminal justice system, while record backlogs have left the courts at breaking point,” said Mr Lammy.“And yet the priority for Dominic Raab seems to be undermining vital human rights legislation that protects us all.“Instead of trying to weaken the rule of law, the Tories need to set out how they plan to fix the chaos they have created in the justice system.” More