Markus Andrews

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been granted planning permission for a gym, tennis court and swimming pool at his Grade II-listed home in North Yorkshire.Mr Sunak also plans to create a wildlife area in the paddock at Kirby Sigston Manor, near Northallerton, which is in his Richmond constituency.The proposal was approved by Hambleton District Council’s planning committee on Thursday, despite some concerns it was too large and would have a negative impact on the setting of the manor house.John Noone described the development as looking like a “large bungalow”, as reported by Teesside Live.He added: “It does actually have an impact on the setting of the grade II manor house. When we went on the site visit you could clearly see the manor house from where we were stood.”Council officers said the scheme would have “minimal” impact on the setting and other councillors were not as moved by the design concerns.None of Mr Sunak’s neighbours objected to the plans, which involve building a new L-shaped stone building that will house the gym, swimming poll and shower facilities.Mr Sunak purchased the property with his wife Akshata Murthy for £1.5m in 2015.The lavish new development comes amid fury from Labour and some Tory backbench MPs in “red-wall” areas over plans to cut universal credit (UC) payments by £20 from October.Mr Sunak previously stated that the £20 uplift to benefit – that was put in place during the Covid crisis – “was always intended to be a temporary measure”.Labour’s this week said it would “maintain the uplift” if the party was in Government and replace UC with a “fairer” system. More

Dominic Raab has “repeatedly refused to meet” with the family of Jagtar Singh Johal, a Scottish man who has been held in an Indian prison for almost four years without trial and claims to have been tortured, his brother has said.The foreign secretary did not acknowledge Nicola Sturgeon’s request to meet with Mr Johal’s family after she wrote to him earlier this month, urging him to “hear their requests” and assure them that he was raising the allegations of torture and concerns he will not receive a fair trial. Mr Raab failed to respond to the request for meeting in his response to Ms Sturgeon. In his letter he wrote that he shared the first minister’s concerns “regarding the frequent delays in legal proceedings” and Indian government’s “failure to investigate his allegations of torture”. He said that Mr Johal’s case is being handled by Lord Ahmad, the minister for south Asia.Mr Johal, from Dumbarton, has been held in an Indian prison for almost four years, with authorities claiming he is linked to the killing of Hindu leaders in Punjab. In November 2017, weeks after his wedding in India, he was arrested by plain clothes police officers who put a sack over his head and forced him into a van while out shopping in Punjab, according to the Sikh Federation UK. Mr Johal claims he was tortured into confessing.The Indian authorities deny the allegations of torture, and have said “there is no evidence of mistreatment or torture as alleged”.In his letter to Ms Sturgeon, Mr Raab conceded that the prime minister had not raised the case with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi during an online meeting in May. He said Mr Johnson “did secure agreement to a 2030 road map for India-UK future relations, which includes an objective to promote closer co-operation in consular matters and to resolve long running or complex consular cases, of which we would consider Mr Johal one”.Mr Johal’s brother, Gurpreet Singh Johal, told The Independent that he was disappointed with the foreign secretary’s response. “They claim to have done a lot, but they’re not doing what they should be doing – calling for his release”, adding that the letter would lead to “nothing meaningful”.Gurpreet Singh Johal, who has written to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on numerous occasions, said Mr Raab has “repeatedly refused to meet” and has instead “passed the buck onto Lord Ahmad”. He added that it is “quite concerning that the foreign secretary doesn’t have the decency to meet”, adding that his predecessor, Jeremy Hunt, spoke with him.“I want to speak to Dominic Raab, to find out exactly what has been done, what is he doing to get my brother back home, and what further steps he will take,” he said. “I want to look him in the eye and obtain those answers.”“If the UK government called for my brother’s release, the Indian government would have to reply,” the 35-year-old said. “The foreign secretary has done it in other cases – what makes my brother’s case different?”An FCDO spokesperson said: “We have consistently raised our concerns about Mr Johal’s case with the Government of India, including his allegations of torture and mistreatment and his right to a fair trial.”They added that though in-person consular visits are suspended due to the pandemic, staff have regular calls with Mr Johal and have “attended relevant court hearings in an observer capacity”.Reprieve, a non-governmental organisation investigating human rights abuses, is supporting the Johals. The group’s deputy director Harriet McCulloch told The Independent: “Jagtar has been locked up for four years now without trial, based on a confession he made after days of being electrocuted and beaten by police. “Dominic Raab should know Jagtar is arbitrarily detained – he has been repeatedly told by lawyers and MPs – but he still refuses to even take a phone call from the family. It looks awfully like political considerations are trumping the life of a young British man facing a death sentence.“We’ve seen in the past that decisive intervention from the Foreign Office can make all the difference in these cases. For four years, the government declined to seek Andy Tsege’s release from Ethiopia, and once they finally did, it wasn’t long before he was home with his family. It’s time to act to bring Jagtar home.”Mr Tsege, a British national, spent four years on death row after the Ethiopian authorities accused him of being a terrorist. Mr Tsege, who was apprehended in Yemen in 2014 and taken to Ethiopia, was released and returned to the UK in 2018 following pressure by the UK government. More

Scotland can have a second independence referendum if opinion polls consistently show 60 per cent of Scots want a new vote, a cabinet minister has said.Alister Jack’s comments are the first time a senior minister has put a precise threshold on the support needed to trigger a poll with the blessing of London.But they represent a high bar for first minister Nicola Sturgeon and supporters of independence to clear, with recent polls suggesting that little more than 40 per cent north of the border want an IndyRef2 within the next five years.This month’s power-sharing deal between Ms Sturgeon’s SNP and the Scottish Green has brought the prospect of a referendum closer. With the two pro-independence parties between them holding 72 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, the first minster said the deal made it “impossible on any democratic basis” for the UK government to rebuff her demands for another poll.Boris Johnson has consistently refused to grant the permission required under the Scotland Act to grant any poll legitimacy. But the cabinet minister with responsibility for Union policy, Michael Gove, this month indicated this could change if there was evidence of “a settled will in favour of a referendum”.Speaking to the Politico website, Mr Jack said that this could mean opinion polls regularly recording that six in 10 Scots want a re-run of the 2014 referendum, which rejected separation from the United Kingdom by a margin of 55-45 per cent.“If you consistently saw 60 percent of the population wanting a referendum — not wanting independence but wanting a referendum [to take place] — and that was sustained over a reasonably long period, then I would acknowledge that there was a desire for a referendum,” Jack said. “Anyone can see that.“But that’s not where we are and it’s not how I perceive things to be,” he added. “I think I’m broadly where the public are, which is that now is not the time to be having a referendum. We’ve had one, we’ve made our decision, let’s get on and rebuild the economy and rebuild people’s lives.”The most recent poll of Scots on whether there should be a referendum, conducted earlier this month, found a narrow 42-40 per cent division in favour of a second vote before the Holyrood elections in 2026, with the remainder undecided or unwilling to express an opinion.However in a separate survey in May, just 27 per cent said there should “never” be another independence referendum, with 47 per cent wanting one by 2025 and a further 16 per cent saying it should come later.After 20 polls in a row in Scotland showed narrow majorities in favour of independence between summer 2020 and spring this year, more recent surveys have shown a small lead for continued UK membership.Ms Sturgeon has said she wants to have an independence referendum within the next five years, preferably by the end of 2023. More

Any hopes Sir Keir Starmer may have had of Labour’s autumn conference passing without an intervention by his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn have been dashed, after it was announced that the former leader will speak at the alternative The World Transformed festival alongside the Brighton gathering.The annual conference is being billed as a chance for Starmer to relaunch his leadership and set out a clear picture of the direction he wants to take Labour, amid growing unease over his failure to establish a lead in the polls over Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.But he is certain to face clashes with the left of the party, who are increasingly open in their dismay at what they see as his abandonment of key elements of the Corbyn programme and sidelining of figures such as Rebecca Long-Bailey, and he will be concerned that his predecessor’s presence will act as a lightning rod for protest against his leadership.Events listed for activists at The World Transformed include “Do socialists need their own party?” and “How should the left engage with the Labour leadership?”.The festival, supported by the Corbyn-backing Momentum movement, will also feature stalwarts of the party left including former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and former shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, as well as Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford and an array of union leaders and campaigners.While his suspension from the Labour Party over his response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission anti-semitism report has been lifted, Mr Corbyn has not been readmitted to the parliamentary party and it is unclear whether he will be attending the Brighton Centre between 25-28 September for Starmer’s first in-person conference since becoming leader last year.TWT was held virtually last year as Labour’s conference went online-only.Amid disgruntlement on the Labour left over Starmer’s perceived failure to live up to 10 leadership election pledges to retain policies developed by his predecessor, organisers said they hope to use this year’s event to “discuss and plan the future of the post-Corbyn left” and “channel the energy that emerged under Corbyn’s leadership”.TWT’s Amardeep Singh Dhillon said: “The British left has been facing no shortage of challenges since 2019. With Covid-19 exacerbating the very injustices we have been fighting against, we must re-emerge stronger than ever.“From Black Lives Matter to the climate crisis, there is an appetite for radical politics that is honest about the change required. This is what we’re building, while others focus on attacking the unions and activists that make up our movement”.Left-wing Labour MP Zarah Sultana said: “Whether it’s deepening inequalities, racial injustice or climate breakdown – the major issues facing our society and our world today require nothing less than bold, transformative solutions. Every year The World Transformed provides a crucial space for activists from across the UK and beyond to discuss and debate socialist ideas, learn new skills and collectively shape the future of our movement. I’m looking forward to being part of the conversation at this year’s festival.”For the first time, the festival will be formally supported by the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs.One TWT volunteer, Mark Montegriffo, said: “Many on the left voted for Starmer after the 2019 election defeat due to a narrative of electability, and his 10 pledges.“Since then, his leadership has declined in the polls, he’s reneged on the policies many elected him for, and he’s launched attacks on socialists. At Labour Party conference in September, Starmer will be in Brighton to attempt yet another ‘rebranding’. We will be in Brighton to organise the future of British politics”. More

The Kabul airport bombing which claimed more than 70 lives is “what defeat looks like“, according to a Tory MP who criticised Western forces for their chaotic Afghan withdrawal led by a US administration which had shifted from “America first to America alone”.Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, warned that the West now had no control over the future direction of Afghanistan.“This is what defeat looks like,” he told BBC Radio 4.“Defeat is when you don’t control any of the process anymore and if you are lucky you just about get out with your lives and a bit of your equipment and that’s what we are doing at the moment.“We don’t have any control, we don’t have any say. It’s a defeat.”Officials have said at least 72 people were killed when two blasts went off outside Hamid Karzai International Airport.Among the dead were 11 US Marines and one US Navy medic. More than 150 people were injured, including 15 US service personnel.The Ministry of Defence said there have been no reported UK military or UK government casualties.Mr Tugendhat, who has himself served in Afghanistan, described the situation as “the sun setting over some really pretty terrible decisions by the west over a number of years”.Commenting on the decision-making in Washington, he added: “We went in together and we should have been part of the decision making process together.“It seems like we’ve gone from ‘America first’ to ‘America alone’, it’s not really a great advert for coalition building or alliance networks.“When we heard ‘America’s back’ at the beginning of this (presidential) term, we’re now hearing ‘America’s back home and without you’.”Boris Johnson has vowed to continue the evacuation effort in Afghanistan following the “barbaric” attack.The prime minister said on Thursday the “overwhelming majority” of eligible people had already been helped to flee the Taliban by the RAF and “we are going to keep going up until the last moment” as the deadline rapidly approaches. More

Boris Johnson has said that the UK evacuation operation at Kabul airport will continue despite today’s suicide bomb attack.Speaking in Downing Street after chairing a meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee, the prime minister denounced the double bombing as “despicable” but insisted UK forces would not cut short their operations in response.“We are able to continue with the programme in the way we have been running it, according to the timetable that we have got, and that is what we are going to do,” he said.Mr Johnson confirmed that members of the US military were among the dead in the double blast at Hamid Karzai international airport. The cause is thought to have been a suicide bomb detonated in a sewage ditch on the perimeter of the airport.The prime minister said that the 1,000-strong UK military detachment in Kabul would be working “flat out” to ensure that they process any remaining people eligible for evacuation to Britain “as fast as they can” ahead of the pullout of international troops.But he said that the “overwhelming majority” of those approved for the airlift had now left Afghanistan, with the total flown out since 13 August reaching 15,000.Mr Johnson said: “We’re going to keep going up until the last moment, but I want to repeat what I’ve been saying over the last few days: we also fully expect that those who want to leave Afghanistan after this phase one … are allowed to do that by the Taliban.“We will use all the influence that we can bring to bear – whether political or economic, [or] diplomatic, as we said at the G7 – to encourage the new authorities in Afghanistan to do that.”Mr Johnson would not be drawn on who was suspected to be behind the attack in Kabul.But he stressed that it was likely that members of the Taliban were among those killed in the blast, in an apparent message to the new regime in Kabul that it has a shared interest with the international community in seeking to prevent the country falling prey to terror groups.“There were almost certainly members of the Taliban who were themselves killed in this attack,” said Mr Johnson.“And perhaps what it proves is the difficulty that any government is going to have in running Afghanistan, and threats that any government is going to continue to face.”Mr Johnson said the UK’s priority was to “finish off this process of evacuation”.But he said he then wanted to “move into the second phase, where we want to work with other partner countries in the G7 and others in Nato, and others, to engage with the Taliban to try to get a political process going that gives a more inclusive future, an inclusive and representative government for Afghanistan, and one that commands the loyalty and support of the people of Afghanistan.“But as you can see from this attack, that is not going to be easy.”Asked whether, by continuing the evacuation process, he was encouraging desperate Afghans to make themselves “sitting ducks” for bombers by congregating in large numbers around the airport, Mr Johnson replied: “Our military have been preparing this evacuation for months and months, and what we’re now coming to is the final stages of that evacuation.“We always knew that this was a moment where, of course, there were going to be particular vulnerabilities to terrorism, to opportunistic terrorist attacks. “We condemn them. I think they are despicable. But I’m afraid that they are something that we’ve had to prepare for. “It isn’t going to interrupt our progress. We’re going to get on with this evacuation.” More

Pakistan must not be left to “bear the brunt” of any refugee exodus from neighbouring Afghanistan in the wake of the pullout of foreign troops, the country’s national security adviser has said.Moeed Yusuf warned that a failure by the international community to engage with the new Taliban regime in Kabul would risk a humanitarian crisis and a “security vacuum” to be exploited by terror groups.Turning its back on the region as it did in the 1990s would leave the West open to a repeat of the emergence of al-Qaida, which launched the 9/11 attacks on the USA from training bases in the country, he said.Addressing the London-based Policy Exchange thinktank, Dr Yusuf – who advises prime minister Imran Khan on security issues – called for urgent action to establish “internal secure zones” within Afghanistan which would allow displaced people to be offered shelter inside the country’s borders and prevent a flood of refugees into Pakistan.Pakistan has already taken in 3-4 million Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979, and has suffered tens of thousands of deaths and $150bn in economic losses as conflict spilled over its borders, said Dr Yusuf.“Pakistan can not bear the brunt of more refugees,” he said. “Pakistan has faced enough spillover in the past.”He warned: “If today the world makes the mistake of the 1990s, I want to be categorical, the results cannot be better than last time… We will have a humanitarian crisis, we will have instability and we will have a security vacuum that terrorists may fill, targeting again Pakistan first and the Western world second.“Afghans are not refugees today, so let’s please not create a narrative which says it is inevitable that Afghans will be refugees and Pakistan will take them.“These are humans, not commodities. Our job is to prevent the humanitarian crisis, not to talk about that being inevitable.”Arguing that the priority of the international community must be to prevent a mass departure from Afghanistan of people fearful for their lives under Taliban rule, Dr Yusuf proposed the establishment of secure zones to house them within the country.“Even if there is going to be a refugee issue, the international community should work together to create internal secure zones in Afghanistan, so that the Afghans don’t have to leave the country until the situation stabilises,” he said.“We need an international plan immediately. Pakistan will support wherever we can, but please don’t see us as the only country that somehow has to do this.“We don’t have the capacity. Our people cannot deal with this. We can barely deal with our own education and hospital requirements. We are willing to support, but the world has to take this responsibility.” More