Markus Andrews

A member of parliament threatened her partner’s former lover with acid after launching a campaign of harassment against her because she was jealous of their relationship, a court has heard.Claudia Webbe, who was suspended from the Labour Party last September over the allegations, is accused of making a string of phone calls to Michelle Merritt between September 2018 and April 2020.During the series of calls, the MP for Leicester East – now sitting as an independent – allegedly threatened to send naked pictures and videos she supposedly had of executive assistant Ms Merritt to her children, Westminster Magistrates Court heard.“The reason for the harassment would appear to be the fact that Michelle Merritt was friends with Lester Thomas and this was an issue for the defendant Claudia Webbe,” said prosecutor Susannah Stevens.Ms Webbe denies a single count of harassment, and her lawyer in turn accused Ms Merritt of “conducting a little campaign against” the MP, “because for whatever reason you didn’t like the fact she was in a relationship with Lester Thomas”.Ms Merritt told the court she had known Mr Thomas for more than 15 years and they were “good friends”, having previously dated.Ms Webbe allegedly made a series of silent phone calls from a withheld number to Ms Merritt, who told the court: “There was a pattern that whenever I had even met with Lester Thomas, if we had gone out for a drink or something, there would be a phone call.“When you are being called and no one answers, it’s unnerving, especially as a woman who lives alone.”Prosecutors said the “harassment escalated in form” on Mother’s Day, in March 2019, when Ms Webbe spoke to the alleged victim and asked about her relationship with Mr Thomas.“This appears to be the defendant’s obsession – the fact Ms Merritt would not stop seeing her partner,” said Ms Stevens.Ms Merritt alleged that Ms Webbe – formerly a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee – told her she was “Lester’s girlfriend” and then “really started shouting: ‘Why are you contacting Lester?’”“She was very, very angry at me. It was loud,” said Ms Merritt. “She then started calling me a s**g and saying friends don’t send pictures of their t*** and p**** to other friends, and it culminated in: ‘You’re a s**g and you should be acid’.“She confirmed she knew where I lived and would send pictures and videos to my daughters.”Ms Webbe denies making any such threats.Ms Merritt wept as she described how she was left “very shocked and very fearful” and called police, saying: “I have been threatened by a public figure with acid over the phone.”But despite being warned by officers in the weeks that followed, Ms Webbe allegedly continued to make further calls to the complainant, who recorded one of them in April 2020, after calling the MP back.In the call, played in court, Ms Webbe is heard repeatedly telling Ms Merritt to “get out of my relationship”. “I have seen all of your naked pictures,” she could be heard saying, adding: “I will show them all of your pictures.”Ms Merritt, who told Ms Webbe during the call that she would contact the press, said she was left feeling “scared, fearful, afraid and nervous”.The MP later accepted to police that she had spoken to Ms Merritt but claimed she had said those words to Mr Thomas during the course of an argument in which officers were called, the court heard.Paul Hynes QC, representing Ms Webbe, suggested his client contacted Ms Merritt to tell her she and Mr Thomas should not be breaking coronavirus lockdown regulations together.“I’m going to suggest you were obviously and knowingly breaking lockdown regulations with Lester Thomas from the end of March to the end of April and Ms Webbe complained about that and asked you to stop,” he said.The complainant replied that “Ms Webbe did not ask me this question”, and described as “incorrect” the lawyer’s suggestion that she had conducted her own campaign against Ms Webbe because she didn’t like the MP’s relationship with Mr Thomas.Ms Merritt also denied Mr Hynes’s claim that she knew the MP was “vulnerable because she is a public figure and that is why you said you were going to go to the press”.Ms Webbe, from Islington in north London, stood in the dock wearing a black suit, speaking to confirm her name, date of birth and address.Having served as chair of Metropolitan Police’s Operation Trident, a team set up in the 1990s to tackle gun crime within black communities, Ms Webbe also worked as a political adviser to Ken Livingstone during his tenure as London mayor and sat as a councillor in Islington for eight years until 2018.Ms Webbe entered the Commons in December 2019, winning the seat formerly held by Keith Vaz, the Labour veteran who retired from parliament in the wake of a scandal.Additional reporting by PA More

Trade unions have blocked Labour from campaigning for proportional representation after a tight vote at the party’s conference in Brighton.Delegates sent by members to the gathering overwhelmingly backed a motion in favour of electoral reform by 79.5 per cent to 20.49 per cent.But the vast majority of delegates sent by trade unions voted against the plan, meaning the motion was lost by a total of 42 per cent to 57 per cent.In a statement, Labour for a New Democracy, which backed the push to support PR, said they had “won the argument” if not the vote.And they blasted Keir Starmer for not engaging on the issue.”One thing is clear from today’s vote – Labour Party members are overwhelmingly in support of proportional representation,” a spokesperson for the campaign group said.”After unprecedented support from local parties in backing motions calling for reform now we see that 80 per cent of local party delegates backed reform on conference floor. This in itself is a historic victory for equal votes – and now the Labour Party leadership must listen.”The spokesperson added: “We have won the argument with the Labour membership – both the debate and the result showed almost no support for the broken status quo. “But we can also see we have not yet won the argument elsewhere in our movement. Hundreds of trade unionists play a key role in our campaign, but despite this most unions do not yet back reform. The truth is, if the Leadership had engaged with this unifying policy as intensively as they pushed their own proposed rule changes, PR would now be Labour policy.”The Labour Party membership is united behind the drive to make votes count for all. It is unsustainable for any party to have policy at odds with the values of its members. Our campaign will continue. “We are determined Labour must go forward to the next General Election with a firm promise that it will support PR, replace our rotten electoral system and mend our broken democracy.”Under proportional representation seats in parliament would be distributed in proportion to how many votes a party had won. PR systems are widely used elsewhere in Europe and around the world, with Britain’s first past the post system unusual in global terms.The Liberal Democrats and Greens have long supported changing the voting system as policy. A switch to PR would likely enfranchise voters for smaller parties, who tend not to be resented under FPTP.Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “This is deeply disappointing. We can only build a better politics and a fairer country with a fairer electoral system. We will keep working with the many in the Labour Party and across all parties who want to see a fairer electoral system.” Labour previously backed PR in the early days of the Blair government but the policy was kicked into the long grass after internal opposition. More

A new military pact involving the UK, US and Australia “undermines world peace” and should be opposed, Labour Party members have declared.Conference delegates voted overwhelming in favour of an emergency motion which condemned the deal forged by Boris Johnson’s government – dubbed Aukus – calling it a “dangerous move”.Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn claimed the pact was “starting a new nuclear arms race and cold war” and said members should “keep speaking out against it”.It marks another clash between members and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who backed the military partnership earlier this month and said “Britain must look after our most important relationships”.The motion – approved by 70 per cent to 30 per cent – at the Labour conference in Brighton stated: “Conference believes that in contradiction to Tory PM Johnson’s statement that ‘this will promote stability in the Indo-Pacific region’, in fact, this is a dangerous move which will undermine world peace.”The conference vote was immediately condemned by the GMB union, which warned opposition to the new military agreement “undermines industries where jobs are under threat”.Under the terms of the Aukus pact, the three allies have agreed to co-operate on the development for the first time of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian navy.It will also see the three countries share new military technology, including artificial intelligence and cyber defence plans.The move has been widely interpreted as an attempt to check China’s growing military assertiveness in the region, and was swiftly condemned by Beijing as a “geopolitical gaming tool”.France was also left angered by Australia’s decision to cancel a lucrative contract to provide subs – sparking a row in which Mr Johnson said the French should to “donnez-moi un break”.GMB regional secretary Hazel Nolan said the Labour conference has “proven itself to be out of touch and on the wrong side of job creation once again”.She added: “This deal could be a real opportunity for UK manufacturing. To dismiss it out of hand is nonsense.“If it ever wants to be in power, Labour needs to get back to its roots and speak up for jobs and the concerns of working people.”The internal row came after shadow defence secretary John Healey used his conference speech to attempt to burnish Labour’s defence credentials.Mr Healey said he wanted Labour to “no longer be half-hearted about essential alliances and treaties” in the UN, Nato and the International Court of Justice.“We will give the highest priority to security in Europe, North Atlantic and Arctic, pursuing new defence co-operation with European Nato neighbours,” he said. “We will insist on the UK’s say with the US as our most essential ally, stepping up Britain’s leadership in Nato.”He also promised a future Labour government would give a £35m boost for mental health care for British veterans and Afghan personnel now living in the UK. More

Labour delegates have sparked a row with the party’s leadership by demanding sanctions against Israel for its “apartheid” policy towards Palestinians.The motion passed by the Brighton conference demands action that stops “the building of settlements, reverses any annexation, ends the occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza”.Sanctions should also be imposed to ensure Israel “brings down the Wall [in the West Bank] and respects the right of Palestinian people, enshrined in international law, to return to their homes”, it states.The motion notes the reports by human rights groups that “conclude unequivocally that Israel is practising the crime of apartheid as defined by the UN”.But Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, was quick to distance herself from the motion – insisting Labour must follow “a fair and balanced approach”.“There can only be a lasting peace through a safe and secure Israel existing alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state,” Ms Nandy said.“Therefore we cannot support this motion. It does not address the issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a comprehensive or balanced way.”Labour policy is “to condemn the unacceptable use of violence against civilians on all sides”, Ms Nandy said, in a statement.She added: “There will not be a just, lasting peace until the occupation is brought to a permanent end, and both Palestinians and Israelis enjoy security, dignity and human rights. We condemn all actions that are making that goal more difficult.”The clash came as Keir Starmer celebrated the return of Louise Ellman, a Jewish former Labour MP, who resigned in protest at the antisemitism scandal under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.Dame Louise announced: “Today I have rejoined Labour, returning to my political home” – hailed, by party aides, as a major step towards erasing the stain of antisemitism.During the debate, its chair, MP Angela Eagle, called for delegates at the party conference to “manage their passions”.Jawad Khan, of Young Labour, said: “The motion before you today will not only send our uncompromising solidarity with the Palestinian people by calling for sanctions against the state that is practising war crimes, it will bring us one step closer to finally ending the shameful century of British complicity and the denial of the right to self-determination, liberation and return.”In March, the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, also covering rocket fire by Hamas in an “impartial” approach.Boris Johnson strongly opposed the inquiry in a letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel, calling it an “attack on Israel”. More

Labour would spend £28bn a year on creating green jobs to help defeat the climate emergency, Rachel Reeves has announced, declaring: “I will be Britain’s first green Chancellor.”In her conference speech, the shadow Chancellor vowed to exceed the big-spending plans of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, to create the work “of the future”.“Giga-factories to build batteries for electric vehicles, a thriving hydrogen industry, offshore wind with turbines made in Britain, planting trees and building flood defences,” Ms Reeves pledged.“Keeping homes warm and getting energy bills down; good new jobs in communities throughout Britain. In other words: protecting and strengthening our everyday economy.”Promising her “climate investment pledge” would top up Tory capital spending plans on the transition by £28bn a year, she added: “I will be a responsible Chancellor. I will be Britain’s first green Chancellor.”In the speech, Ms Reeves also promised to row back “the Tories’ pandemic outsourcing bonanza”, if Labour wins the next general election.She condemned Covid contracts going to Tory donors, hundreds of millions of pounds being wasted on deliveries that failed to arrive and “£30m to Matt Hancock’s pub landlord”.“I say today: To those who have secured Covid contracts and have not delivered. I give you notice – we expect that money back.“We will set up a team to go through every line of every failed contract where value was not delivered, and clawback every penny of taxpayers’ money we possibly can.“Because that money belongs in our police. It belongs in our schools and it belongs in our NHS.”The climate spending pledge – £28bn a year until the end of the decade – exceeds Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell’s plans, at the last election, of £25bn-a-year.It follows a warning by the Treasury watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, that delaying the switch to the green transition would double the eventual cost.It was welcomed by Greenpeace as rightly putting tackling the climate crisis “at the heart of what the Treasury does”.“Crucially, £28bn per year extra climate investment is the scale of funding we so desperately need,” said Rebecca Newsom, the group’s head of politics.“Rachel Reeves has laid down the has laid down the gauntlet, the question is whether the Chancellor Rishi Sunak can respond in kind.”The shadow Chancellor also lashed out at “the state of things under the Tories”, saying: “Empty shelves in our supermarkets. Snaking queues at petrol stations. Businesses waiting weeks for materials.”She continued: “The NHS forced to ration its blood tests. Government having to issue reassurances that it can even keep the lights on. Real anxiety for families and businesses – and Rishi Sunak missing in action.“This government is incompetent, in denial, careless and chaotic. They are responsible for all this mess. The Tories have lost control.” More

The European Union is likely to take legal action if the UK triggers Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol, a set of post-Brexit rules in place to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.It comes after the UK government issued a new warning to the EU that it will not shy away from triggering Article 16, with grace periods coming to a close.A command paper published by the UK in July proposed radical changes to the protocol and set out the tests the UK would apply to trigger Article 16, a part of the Protocol which allows some parts of the deal to be set aside if they are severely impacting everyday life.What is the Northern Ireland Protocol?The NI protocol was agreed as part of the Brexit deal and is designed to protect the Good Friday Agreement by avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland.To allow goods to move freely between NI and the Republic of Ireland and avoid that hard border, NI remained in the EU’s single market for goods as well as Great Britain’s market.This means goods don’t have to be checked as they cross the Irish border, but some checks and controls are required on goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.This has caused difficulties for some businesses and is opposed by unionist parties in Northern Ireland.What is Article 16?Article 16 is a technical term given to a Brexit clause that allows the UK and the EU to suspend any part of the agreement that causes “economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade”.The UK’s Brexit Minister, David Frost said the July “command paper” sets out that the tests to use Article 16 are met.He said: ”[The EU] would be making a significant mistake if they thought that we were not ready to use the Article 16 safeguards, if that were to be the only apparent way forward to deal with the situation in front of us.”Last week, Mr Frost escalated the threats on Twitter, where he wrote: “The Protocol is clearly having a continued negative effect on everyday life & business in Northern Ireland.“The outstanding issues now need to be dealt with urgently. I and my team are in contact with the EU daily, but we need a full response to our July Command Paper soon.”However, the European Commission does not believe the conditions to trigger the clause have been met, and would challenge any triggering of the article on legal grounds.What would happen if the UK triggers Article 16?If the UK triggers Article 16, it is understood that the EU would retaliate with legal action.RTE reported that European Commission is preparing a hierarchy of responses should London trigger the clause.As part of a “two-track approach,” the EU is “looking at things like further infringement [legal] proceedings, arbitration mechanisms, and cross retaliation into the [EU UK] Trade and Cooperation Agreement,” an unnamed diplomat told RTE.They added: “The commission will challenge the UK invocation of the article legally because the view would be they do not have the right to invoke it, that the conditions are not there to invoke it.”Brussels and Dublin are also expected to push back against any notion that a suspension of the goods provisions of the protocol would mean the obligation to check and control products entering the single market shifting back to the Irish land border, RTE reported. More

The truck driver shortage hitting the UK is a consequence of Brexit and low wages, the man set to replace Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor has said.In a press conference on the morning of his election victory Olaf Scholz was asked by a British reporter about the chaos disrupting British supply chains.“The free movement of labor is part of the European Union,” the SPD leader, the likely head of whatever government emerges from coalition talks, answered.“We worked very hard to convince the British not to leave the union. Now they decided different and I hope they will manage the problems coming from that.”Following up with some advice for the British government, Mr Scholz, a moderate whose social democrats narrowly became the largest party in Sunday’s poll, said: “It might have something to do with the question of wages. “If you understand that being a trucker is really something that many people like to be and you find not enough, this has something to do with working conditions and this is something that has to be thought about.”A lack of drivers has compounded other Brexit issues and Covid effects and has led to empty shelves and missing products in some shops in the UK. The government over the weekend announced it would issue temporary three month visas for lorry drivers in a bid to fill gaps.Mr Scholz is expected to seek a three way coalition, with options for a majority including a pact with the greens and pro-business liberals, or with the Christian Democrats and Greens. Previous suggestions that Mr Scholz could lead a left wing coalition consisting of his party, the greens, and leftist outfit Die Linke appear to have faded as the three parties would not have a majority under the final result.Minority governments are extremely rare in Germany, partly because to become chancellor a person must either have an absolute majority in the Bundestag, or a relative majority because a party has decided to proactively abstain. More

The army will not be called in to ease the petrol crisis, a cabinet minister has said, as the government staged an emergency meeting to discuss the option.Ministers were considering triggering ‘Operation Escalin’, which could have seen hundreds of soldiers ordered to take over tankers, because of the shortage of drivers.But George Eustice, the environment secretary, said: “We don’t judge that is necessary at the moment.”The government had stoked expectations that the move was imminent, with the prime minister thought to be “preparing” to deploy troops, after at least half of local filling stations ran dry.The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) reported the alarming survey of its independent members – with up to 90 per cent out of fuel in some areas – as oil giant BP said one third of its sites had no supplies.But the PRA questioned whether the army could end the crisis, pointing out that drivers also had to load up their tanks at a gantry at the terminal, which was a skilled job. Government pleas for drivers to stop filling their cars “when they don’t need it” have fallen on deaf ears so far, as long queues formed at forecourts, forcing operators to ration supplies.But Mr Eustice told broadcasters: “We always have a civil contingencies section within the army, they’re always on standby should they be needed. We don’t judge that is necessary at the moment.”The minister continued the strategy of blaming panic-buying motorists, saying: “The most important thing is that people buy petrol as they normally would.“There isn’t a shortage. There have been some shortages of HGV drivers getting petrol to forecourts but actually that is quite limited.“The cause of these current problems is that panic-buying episode and the most important thing is for people to start buying petrol as they normally would.”A ministerial meeting to discuss the situation was being chaired by Cabinet Office minister Stephen Barclay this afternoon, while meetings were also taking place at official level. But Downing Street indicated that, while troops have been helping conduct HGV driver tests to speed new recruits into work, there were no imminent plans for soldiers to be put behind the wheel of tankers.“At the moment, the army is being brought in to ensure we can test as many HGV drivers as possible, as that is where the bottlenecks are,” said Boris Johnson’s official spokesman.“We will consider all options and we are taking all preparatory steps as necessary across government but currently the military involvement is specifically around testing. We are not currently bringing in the army to drive tankers, what we are doing as a responsible government is taking preparatory steps should further action be needed.”PRA chairman Brian Madderson said: “There has been training going on in the background for military personnel.“But that’s perhaps just confined to moving the tanker by articulated truck from point A to point B. One of the difficulties is loading,” he said, adding that was “a skilled job”.Labour is calling for looser immigration rules to ease the crisis, arguing drivers queuing for hours for petrol “couldn’t care less” if lorry drivers are foreign.Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow Chancellor, called for the independent Migration Advisory Committee to decide the issue – after a miserly 5,000 visas were issued to overseas drivers.“Most people who are queuing up this morning, whether that’s in Brighton or Leeds or wherever, to fill up their car, they couldn’t care less whether the HGV driver that’s got the petrol to the forecourt is British or foreign,” she said.“What they want to know is that they can fill up their car or their van and go about the business – so let’s plug those gaps.” More