UK Politics

Sunak accuses Truss of putting national debt on ‘credit card’ for future generations to payRishi Sunak and Liz Truss are taking part in their first head-to-head televised debate tonight after a senior MP made cutting remarks about the “puerile” Conservative Party leadership race.The pair are in Stoke-on-Trent to take part in the BBC One debate. The broadcaster’s journalists said that “stakes are high” as Ms Truss is far ahead in opinion polls.It comes after Cabinet Office minister Johnny Mercer warned that the Tories will be out of power in two years’ time if they continue on the “current trajectory” of “embarrassing” episodes during the contest.His call for his fellow MPs to “raise the standards” came after MP Angela Richardson said that she had muted culture secretary Nadine Dorries’ on Twitter over her criticism of Mr Sunak’s expensive clothes.Ms Dorries tweeted: “Liz Truss will be travelling the country wearing her earrings which cost circa £4.50 from Claire Accessories. Meanwhile…“Rishi visits Teeside in Prada shoes worth £450 and sported £3,500 bespoke suit as he prepared for crunch leadership vote.”Next week, 160,00 Tory members will vote on whether Mr Sunak or Ms Truss will succeed Boris Johnson.RecommendedShow latest update

1658789292Thanks for following today’s live updatesAisha Rimi25 July 2022 23:481658789115Snap debate poll shows which candidate viewers think performed best in elections debateThe poll, conducted by Opinium – a strategic insight agency, indicates a close ties between the two candidates. Aisha Rimi25 July 2022 23:451658788515Voices: One thing became clear, that Sunak and Truss visibly hate each otherRishi Sunak and Liz Truss really do hate each other. It’s the reality TV hit of the summer.Does it matter, anymore, which one of them wins? Will anyone even know? The next election is only two years away, by which point anyone who watched the BBC leaderships debate will still be so haunted by the program’s first fifteen seconds that they will be incapable of any meaningful interaction with the world around them.Read the full opinion piece: More

David Trimble, a former Northern Ireland first minister who won the Nobel Peace Prize for playing a key role in helping end Northern Ireland’s decades of violence, has died, the Ulster Unionist Party said Monday. He was 77.The party said in a statement on behalf of the Trimble family that the unionist politician died earlier Monday “following a short illness.”Trimble, who led the UUP from 1995 to 2005, was a key architect of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of violent conflict in Northern Ireland known as “The Troubles.”Keir Starmer, leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, called Trimble “a towering figure of Northern Ireland and British politics” in a tweet Monday. The UUP was Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant unionist party when, led by Trimble, it agreed to the Good Friday peace accord.RecommendedHe was the party’s first leader in 30 years to meet with the Irish premier in Dublin. In 1997, Trimble became the first unionist leader to negotiate with Irish republican party Sinn Fein.Trimble shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with Catholic moderate leader John Hume, head of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, for their work. He became first minister in Northern Ireland’s first power-sharing government the same year, with the SDLP’s Seamus Mallon as deputy first minister.But both the UUP and the SDLP soon saw themselves eclipsed by more hardline parties — the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein.Trimble struggled to keep his party together as the power-sharing government was rocked by disagreements over disarming the IRA and other paramilitary groups. Senior colleagues defected to the DUP, Trimble lost his seat in Britain’s Parliament in 2005 and soon after he resigned as party leader. The following year he was appointed to the upper chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords.Northern Ireland power-sharing has gone through many crises since then — but the peace settlement has largely endured.Recommended“The Good Friday Agreement is something which everybody in Northern Ireland has been able to agree with,” Trimble said earlier this year. “It doesn’t mean they agree with everything. There are aspects which some people thought were a mistake, but the basic thing is that this was agreed.” Trimble is survived by his wife Daphne and children, Richard, Victoria, Nicholas and Sarah. More

Boris Johnson has privately said he “does not want to resign” and “wished he could carry on” as prime minister, according to a Tory peer.Lord Cruddas, a former Conservative party treasurer, who is mounting a grassroots campaign to support the outgoing prime minister, said the remarks were made to him by Mr Johnson at Chequers on Friday.It comes as Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and former chancellor Rishi Sunak, prepare for their first head-to-head debate in the final round of the Tory leadership contest and race to replace Mr Johnson in No 10.Earlier this month, the prime minister reluctantly set out his decision to resign — once a new leader is elected in September — after facing mass resignations from the ministerial ranks, and a fatal cabinet revolt.Lord Cruddas, who has organised a petition urging the party to put Mr Johnson on the Tory leadership ballot, told The Daily Telegraph that the prime minister thanked him for the campaign during lunch at his Chequers residence.RecommendedUnder the existing Conservative Party rules, Mr Johnson is forbidden from standing in the leadership election, and MPs have already selected Ms Truss and Mr Sunak for a final vote among members this summer.The Telegraph reported Lord Cruddas as saying: “There was no ambiguity in Boris’s views. He definitely does not want to resign. He wants to carry on and he believes that, with the membership behind him, he can.”The peer added: “Boris thanked me for ‘Boris on the ballot’ campaign. He said he was enjoying following it and he wished me well.“He said he could understand the membership’s anger at what had happened. He said that he wished that he could carry on as prime minister. He said he does not want to resign”.The newspaper said Mr Johnson, when asked by the peer if he could “wipe away” his resignation immediately with a “magic wand”, reportedly replied: “I would wipe away everything that stops me being PM in a second”.RecommendedHe added that Mr Johnson — despite dire poll ratings — believed he could win a general election, saying: “He wants to carry on and finish the job. He wants to fight the next general election as leader of the Conservative party.”But after the comments emerged, Downing Street responded insisting Mr Johnson will leave the post in September when a new leader is elected.“The prime minister has resigned as party leader and set out his intention to stand down as PM when the new leader is in place,” a No 10 spokesperson said on Monday.Setting out his resignation earlier this month, Mr Johnson said he would continue to “serve” in Downing Street until a new leader is elected, insisting “no one is remotely indisepensable” in politics. “I regret not to have been successful in those arguments and of course it’s painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself,” he added. “But as we’ve seen, at Westminster the herd instinct is powerful, when the herd moves, it moves. More

Priti Patel must reconsider a deal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda because it is not safe enough and may break the law, a parliamentary committee has said.A letter to the home secretary warned that removing people against their will to “another state where they face a real risk of serious human rights abuses” is prohibited under international law.Joanna Cherry QC, chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, said: “While we have received mixed reports on the safety of Rwanda, particularly for vulnerable groups, and the adequacy of its asylum system, we are not satisfied that it is a sufficiently safe destination to be a partner in this kind of asylum agreement.”The letter, sent on 21 July, pointed to government documents disclosed as part of the ongoing High Court battle over the deal.They showed that both the Foreign Office and UK High Commissioner to Rwanda advised against the agreement, and that the country was “initially excluded from the shortlist of potential partner countries for the proposed immigration policy on human rights grounds”.RecommendedThe reasons given included that it “has been accused of recruiting refugees to conduct armed operations in neighbouring countries”, has a “poor human rights record regardless of the conventions it has signed up to” and has been criticised by the UK for extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances, torture and crackdowns on anyone critical of the regime.The High Court was also told that several asylum seekers selected for removal to Rwanda by British authorities have since been identified as potential victims of trafficking.Official government guidance, which was published after the deal was announced in April, found Rwanda to be a safe country but the claimants revealed that the Rwandan government itself had been sent a draft to review and asked for edits.Ms Cherry’s letter set out a series of concerns on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which includes MPs and peers from the Conservative Party, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party.It warned that the agreement “has been put in place without adequate assurances as to the safety of those removed to Rwanda,” adding: “It appears clear that the memorandum of understanding offers a person who has been removed to Rwanda and then treated incompatibly with their human rights no legal recourse. This is a fundamental concern for ensuring compliance with human rights standards. “The Joint Committee on Human Rights hopes that the Government will demonstrate commitment to human rights and the protection of refugees and reconsider the UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP).”Ms Cherry wrote that correspondence with the government suggested it was ministers’ intention that “once the individuals have been sent to Rwanda they are no longer the UK’s responsibility”.“We note that the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has identified the MEDP as an example of the ‘externalisation of international protection’, which is inconsistent with the Refugee Convention,” she added.Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss ‘completely agrees’ with Rwanda deportation policy“We are similarly concerned that the MEDP could be seen as an outsourcing of the UK’s own obligations.”The letter said the committee was “unconvinced” that the plans would deter refugees from crossing the English Channel on small boats, and noted that the government had not increased safe and legal alternatives.It warned that the memorandum of understanding signed with Rwanda does not exclude any vulnerable groups, “such as LGBTQ asylum seekers, victims of torture or even children”.“In the absence of established limits, there is an increased risk not only that the policy could be applied too widely but also that it could be limited to certain groups in a discriminatory manner,” Ms Cherry wrote. “Despite the significance of the decision to take an individual out of the UK asylum system and send them to a country thousands of miles away, appeal rights are limited, with costly judicial review proceedings the only effective mechanism for legal challenge … we are concerned that the lack of an effective appeal process enhances the risk that people will be removed to Rwanda without a fair hearing and in breach of their rights.”Rwandan government officials have hit back at criticism and defended the country’s human rights record.When asked about the internal government warnings revealed by the High Court case on Friday, government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said they were “based on wrong information”. “It is wrong to accuse us of that sort of thing; what we do is offer people a home and safety here, we do not get involved in recruitment for whatever armed movements,” she told the press conference. “That is incorrect information and we want to challenge that because it’s not true.” More

Boris Johnson was not sent a questionnaire by the Metropolitan Police before it decided not to fine him for attending two lockdown gatherings, it has been confirmed.The capital’s police force issued fines to other attendees at the two events in November 2020 and December 2020 but not to the prime minister.The Independent and other media outlets reported in May this year that Mr Johnson had not been included in a new round of partygate fines and not sent a questionnaire.This was despite the prime minister giving speeches at both of the wine-fuelled gatherings, which saw officials handed fixed-penalty notices. The decision not to fine the outgoing PM is now subject to a legal challenge by lawyers at the Good Law Project campaign group.RecommendedIn its legal response the Met confirmed on the record that it had not issued questionnaires to Mr Johnson for the two events, which featured alcohol, photographic evidence, and speeches.”The Defendant can confirm that he did not send a questionnaire to the Prime Minister in respect of the gathering on 13 November 2020 and 17 December 2020,” the response says. The force claimed that contrary to the lawyers’ claims, questionnaires were not “the defendant’s primary method of investigation” and that it was under no duty to send them to Mr Johnson if “the answers to those questions were clear from other evidence”.In its written evidence the force defended the idea that the gatherings had “phases” some of which were reasonably necessary for work purposes and attendance of which did not count as a criminal offence – while others were not necessary and did.A spokesperson for the Good Law Project said: “Rishi Sunak’s Partygate fine suggests that passing through a gathering en route to a meeting doesn’t prevent you from being fined, so it’s far from clear how turning up to a gathering deliberately, raising a toast and encouraging the revels to continue can be compliant with the law.Recommended”We don’t think the Met’s response is consistent with their legal duty of candour. And we certainly don’t think it’s consistent with what the Met has elsewhere conceded is their public duty to maintain public confidence in policing.”Mr Johnson was not fined for attending the November or December events in question, but was issued with an FPN for attending the PM’s own birthday celebration in June 2020. More

Police are investigating after a letter was delivered to former Tory leadership candidate Penny Mordaunt threatening to “shoot her in the head”.The death threat was sent to the constituency office of the Portsmouth North MP before she was voted out of the contest to become leader of the Conservative Party.During her campaign, the trade minister had complained of her opponents carrying out a “black ops” operation to scupper her chances.The Portsmouth News reported that the letter included threats to “shoot her in the head” and “kill her family”.A Hampshire police spokeswoman said: “At 11.50am on July 22, we received a report of a letter containing threats to kill a Portsmouth woman and her family which was sent to her office in Lakeside, North Harbour.Recommended“We attended and safeguarding measures were put in place to minimise the risk to the woman and her family, employees and the wider community.“Our inquiries into this incident are ongoing and it has been referred to the Parliamentary Liaison Team.“We take the safeguarding of our MPs incredibly seriously and there are robust systems in place to ensure they can carry out their job safely.”Ms Mordaunt’s office was approached for comment.The international trade minister and former defence secretary was the subject of hostile briefings by her opponents in the race to replace Boris Johnson.Her position on trans rights came under intense media scrutiny before she was eventually knocked out of the race last week.Ms Mordaunt denied that, during her time as minister for women and equalities, she wanted to push through a policy that would end the requirement for trans people to obtain a medical diagnosis before they could legally change gender.RecommendedShe also hit out at personal “smears” against her as the Tory leadership race became increasingly toxic.The two remaining candidates – Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, and Liz Truss, the foreign secretary – will face off in a televised debate on BBC One tonight at 9pm. More

Police are investigating after a letter was delivered to the former Tory leadership candidate Penny Mordaunt threatening to “shoot her in the head”.The death threat was sent to the constituency office of the Portsmouth North MP before she was voted out of the contest to be leader of the Conservative Party.During her campaign, the trade minister had complained of opponents to her carrying out a “black ops” operation to scupper her chances.The Portsmouth News reported that the letter included threats to “shoot her in the head” and “kill her family”.A Hampshire police spokeswoman said: “At 11.50am on July 22, we received a report of a letter containing threats to kill a Portsmouth woman and her family which was sent to her office in Lakeside, North Harbour.Recommended“We attended and safeguarding measures were put in place to minimise the risk to the woman and her family, employees and the wider community.“Our inquiries into this incident are ongoing and it has been referred to the Parliamentary Liaison Team.“We take the safeguarding of our MPs incredibly seriously and there are robust systems in place to ensure they can carry out their job safely.”Ms Mordaunt’s office was approached for comment.The international trade minister and former defence secretary was the subject of hostile briefings by her opponents in the race to replace Boris Johnson.Her position on trans rights came under intense media scrutiny before she was eventually knocked out of the race last week.Ms Mordaunt denied that, during her time as minister for women and equalities, she wanted to push through a policy that would end the requirement for trans people to obtain a medical diagnosis before they could legally change gender.RecommendedShe also hit out at personal “smears” against her as the Tory leadership race became increasingly toxic.The two remaining candidates – Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor and Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, face off in a televised debate on BBC One tonight at 9pm. More