UK Politics

Starmer criticises Johnson’s ‘lack of influence’ over NatoBoris Johnson showed “bad judgement” in appointing Chris Pincher to the whips’ office despite knowing of sexual misconduct allegations against him, Sir Keir Starmer said.Downing Street today admitted the prime minister was aware of claims against the now-suspended MP when he made him deputy chief whip in February.Asked about Mr Johnson’s position, Sir Keir told Sky News: “I have got no sympathy with a prime minister who repeatedly makes bad judgment calls.“We have been living with a version of this story for month after month after month. Bad judgment by a man who puts himself above everything. I don’t have any sympathy for him.”Mr Pincher, who was hit with a string of other misconduct claims over the weekend, previously resigned from the whips’ office in 2017 amid claims he made an appropriate pass at a Conservative Party candidate.The scandal has once again brought Mr Johnson’s leadership into question, with senior Tory MP Sir Roger Gale warning his party “cannot go on like this”.Show latest update

1656969379That will be all for The Independent’s live coverage of politics for this evening. Make sure to check back tomorrow for updates.Liam James4 July 2022 22:161656967234Boris Johnson claims Scottish independence could be ‘utterly tragic for the whole world’Boris Johnson has claimed Scottish independence would be “utterly tragic for the whole world” if it caused the UK’s armed forces to be divided.Speaking in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith claimed Scottish nationalists would cut defence spending and “unilaterally disarm” if they achieved independence.Mr Johnson replied: “The Scottish contribution to our armed services is immense, everybody knows it, it’s a fantastic thing, it helps to make the UK what it is.“It would be utterly tragic for the whole world if the UK armed services were to face a division of that kind or a loss of that kind.”Defence is an issue that Scots have said is a key benefit of being part of the UK.Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has outlined plans to hold a second vote on Scottish independence on 19 October next year. Mr Johnson said a referendum was not a priority for the government.Liam James4 July 2022 21:401656965749Porn Tory says wife ‘chases him with scissors’The former Tory MP who resigned for watching porn in the House of Commons said his wife chases him around the kitchen with scissors aiming for “part of my anatomy” (Matt Mathers writes).Neil Parish was forced to quit in May after it emerged that he twice watched adult content in parliament in view of female colleagues.Speaking to ITV’s Lorraine today, he revealed his wife’s reaction to the incident: “She knows I’m no angel,” he said. “In fact she chases me around the kitchen with the scissors going, ‘snipper-snap’ knowing full well which part of my anatomy she’s after.”A shocked looking Ms Kelly replied by saying, “OK,” before Mr Parish added: “She knows what I’m like.”Ms Kelly then suggested that he must have had some “very awkward conversations” with his wife after the reports first came to light.“You’ve said she knows what you’re like, she accepts that I guess, but that conversation must have been very difficult,” she said.Mr Parish said that his wife has supported him throughout his career in Westminster and “she’s done so much with me.”Liam James4 July 2022 21:151656964234Jacob Rees-Mogg defends Boris Johnson for promoting grope claim MPJacob Rees-Mogg has defended Boris Johnson’s decision to appoint Chris Pincher to the whips’ office in knowledge of sexual misconduct claims against him.The Brexit opportunities minister told LBC’s Tonight With Andrew Marr: “There were rumours. I think prime ministers have to be just, they can’t just say, ‘I’ve heard a bit of gossip and I think you’ve done something that I wouldn’t approve of’.“You can’t judge people on rumours, that’s fundamentally unjust. There are rumours about all sorts of people that turn out never to come to anything.”Before the latest round of allegations against him, Mr Pincher had resigned in 2017 over claims he groped a Tory activist in 2001. He denied the allegations and a party investigation ruled in his favour.Liam James4 July 2022 20:501656963034Give MPs vote on assisted dying, says Matt HancockMPs should have the opportunity to debate assisted dying in the House of Commons, Matt Hancock said in a Westminster Hall debate on the healthcare question.The Conservative former health secretary said it had been seven years since the last Commons vote on assisted dying.He went on: “I can speak as a former health secretary to say that the medical movement as a whole is changing its view and I think it is appropriate that we raise this question in a voteable manner on the floor of the House of Commons once again.“I can’t see how the minister can argue other than that we need an informed, compassionate debate on the floor of the House of Commons. For 50 years we have had a legal choice over who to love, for a decade we have had a legal choice over who we can marry.“So let’s have an informed debate over when the end is inevitable and when the pain is insufferable, how we die.”In Westminster Hall this evening MPs are debating a petition, which has received more than 155,000 signatures, calling for assisted dying to be legalised for “terminally ill, mentally competent adults”. Liam James4 July 2022 20:301656961834Labour peer reveals nightmare 999 call as wife lay dying in his armsA leading scientist has revealed how he faced a “litany of questions” after calling for an ambulance as his wife lay dying in his arms.The renowned broadcaster and fertility expert Robert Winston said such a “waste of time” was critical when seconds count in dealing with a cardiac arrest.The Labour peer spoke of the deeply traumatic experience as the House of Lords heard that “thousands” of people were dying because of delays to the arrival of paramedics.This has been blamed on hold-ups in being able to hand patients over and getting ambulances back on the road to answer new calls – meaning people calling 999 wait longer than they should.Speaking in the chamber, Lord Winston said: “Some months ago, as my wife lay dying in my arms, I phoned the 999 service. The man answering the call asked me a litany of questions and asked me to count her number of heartbeats per minute. That waste of time is critical. With a cardiac arrest you have only a few seconds … When eventually the man backed down, it was obvious that he had not been trained to ask the right questions.”He added: “Can the minister assure the House that there is proper training for people who answer these calls at these critical times, when they are dealing with someone who may recognise that their close relative is dying, and that the latter can hear what they are saying on the telephone?Thanking the peer for sharing his “very personal story”, health minister Lord Kamall said “clearly, there are too many incidents of this kind,” and promised to take the question to his department.Liam James4 July 2022 20:101656960574Jacob Rees-Mogg says Starmer has copied Tories on BrexitJacob Rees-Mogg accused Sir Keir Starmer of pitching a “half-cock” copy of the Conservatives’ post-Brexit plans for Britain.Speaking ahead of the Labour leader’s speech in which he laid-out the plans for dealing with the EU in future, the Brexit opportunities minister told LBC’s Tonight With Andrew Marr: “I’m fascinated by what he’s got to say, or reports of it … and what he wants to do, by and large, is things either that the Conservatives are doing [because] they want to change the Northern Ireland Protocol, so I hope he’ll support us on our bill.“And he wants recognition of qualifications, which we’ve already legislated for. So you do wonder if he was half asleep last year.“I think all that Sir Keir is going to be saying later on today is that he wants to do what the Conservatives are doing but half-cock, so it’s not much of an announcement by him today.”Liam James4 July 2022 19:491656959447Starmer pitches five-point plan to ‘make Brexit work’Sir Keir Starmer has laid out a five-point plan to “make Brexit work” in a speech to the Centre for European Reform on how a Labour government would chart Britain’s future course in the world.The Labour leader said his party was “claiming the centre ground of British politics once again”, not from a “mushy place of compromise”, but driven by “purpose” and “optimism”.He said he would say more about how it intends to get the country’s economy growing again “in the weeks and months to come”, but the first step is to make a success of leaving the EU.Speaking at the Irish Embassy in London, he said: “There are some who say, ‘We don’t need to make Brexit work – we need to reverse it’. I couldn’t disagree more.“Because you cannot move forward or grow the country or deliver change or win back the trust of those who have lost faith in politics if you’re constantly focused on the arguments of the past.“We cannot afford to look back over our shoulder because all the time we are doing that we are missing what is ahead of us.“So let me be very clear. Under Labour, Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union.” More

Investigations by parliament’s misconduct watchdog are taking up to two years to reach their conclusions, prompting fears victims may be deterred from making complaints.The Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) was set up in the wake of the Pestminster scandal to deal with complaints relating to bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct by MPs, peers and parliamentary staff.But figures show that the average length of investigation closed in 2020/21 lasted 196 working days, while the longest inquiry took 572 working days to conclude – representing more than two years.It comes as Chris Pincher – the MP who quit as the Conservatives’ deputy chief whip and was suspended by the party following allegations he groped two men in Westminster – faces six further sexual misconduct claims.One Tory MP told The Independent that he was groped on two occasions by Mr Pincher, while the Mail on Sunday carried claims that he made unwanted advances against an individual a decade ago.The Sunday Times reported allegations that Mr Pincher had groped a male Tory MP in 2017, made unwanted advances towards a different Tory MP in 2018, and did the same towards a Tory activist in Tamworth in 2019. Mr Pincher denies all allegations of sexual harassment.Boris Johnson is also under growing pressure over the decision to give Mr Pincher his role in the whips’ office, amid claims he referred to the MP as “Pincher by name, pincher by nature”.Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey defended the PM on Sunday, but conceded that she had only been told by the No 10 press office that Mr Johnson had been unaware of any “specific claims” against Mr Pincher. It follows bruising defeats for the Tories in two by-elections last month, each triggered by the resignation of a disgraced MP. Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan, who represented Wakefield, formally quit the Commons in early May after being convicted in April of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. On 23 May, Khan was jailed for 18 months.Neil Parish, the former Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton in Devon, stood down after admitting watching pornography in the Commons.One union, Prospect, which represents hundreds of parliamentary staff, described a two-year time frame to conclude a case as “beyond the pale”, adding that “taking a long time adds hugely and unnecessarily to the stress suffered by the complainant”.The ICGS’s annual report – which included the figures showing the average length of investigation closed in 2020/21, as well as that of the longest – noted: “Of the 48 investigations completed this year, 37 were cases carried over from preceding years (some of which were complex, non-recent cases).“Every effort is being taken to reduce the length of time of investigations – through greater efficiencies, extra resources in the team, streamlining the processes, better training and guidance for investigators – while not compromising the rigour and robustness of investigations.“However, the complexity of some ICGS cases inevitably means that such cases will take a great deal of time to investigate.”The body upheld 46 per cent of investigations completed in 2020/21, the report noted. The longest time taken by an investigation that was closed in 2019/20 was 244 working days, with the figure standing at 198 in 2018/19.The average length of investigation increased from 121 working days in 2018/19 to 127 in 2019/20, before hitting 196 in 2020/21. More

Germany and Ireland have condemned the U.K government’s move towards unilaterally rewriting parts of the post-Brexit deal with the European Union.German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Irish counterpart Simon Coveney said there was “no legal or political justification” for overriding the agreed trade rules in Northern Ireland.Writing in British newspaper The Observer on Sunday, the ministers say Britain will be breaking an international agreement just two years old which it hadn’t engaged in with “good faith.”The so-called Northern Ireland Protocol within the deal maintains an open border with EU member Ireland and free of customs posts.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration wants to remove the checks on goods such as meat and eggs arriving in Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K., which protect the European Union’s single market.Lawmakers in London passed legislation which permits the move last week. Johnson’s critics, opponents and some members of his own party, along with European observers, have said the plan breaks international law. The government argues it is justified because of the “genuinely exceptional situation.”Baerbock and Coveney said the bill wouldn’t fix the “challenges” around the protocol.“Instead, it will create a new set of uncertainties and make it more challenging to find durable solutions,” they wrote.The foreign ministers also argued the move jeopardizes peace in Northern Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement, which helped end decades of sectarian violence and has stood since 1998.Johnson’s government has hoped to pass the legislation, which will be debated again in Parliament on July 13 by the time its summer break begins later in the month. This could see it become law by the end of 2022.The EU has threatened to retaliate against the U.K. if it goes ahead, raising the prospect of a trade war between the two major economic partners.Separately, Irish Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar told the BBC on Sunday it wasn’t “appropriate or right” time for a poll on Irish reunification.Varadkar said such a referendum, permitted under the Good Friday Agreement when a majority in Northern Ireland in favor of a united Ireland is considered “likely,” would be “divisive and defeated” at the moment.The Northern Ireland Assembly, its devolved legislature, has been paralyzed for months over the implementation of the protocol, leaving it without a regional government. More

A group of families who lost loved ones in the Birmingham pub bombings has called on Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis to drop an “obscene” bill aimed at ending Troubles prosecutions.The cabinet minister has been trying to win support for legislation offering the promise of conditional immunity for perpetrators – including former British soldiers and ex-paramilitaries – who agree to give information to a new truth and reconciliation body.But the Justice for the 21 group – campaigning to get to the truth about the 1974 bombings which claimed the lives of 21 people – has written to Mr Lewis to say: “Please drop this obscene bill.”In a letter shared with The Independent, Julie Hambleton, said: “I cannot sit back and do nothing or stay quiet … I beseech you to please in conscience drop this bill in its entirety.”The campaigner, who lost her sister Maxine in the atrocity, added: “Our families and 1,000s of others do not have any wish to be ‘reconciled’ with the murderers who killed our loved ones in cold blood. To support this bill is tantamount to condoning murder.”Calling it “perhaps the most shameful bill to be put before parliament”, the Justice for the 21 group said providing immunity from prosecution was “simply a way of denying victims access to justice”.Ms Hambleton – who met the Northern Ireland secretary last month to hear him out on the legislation – also told the minister she had written to all Conservative MPs urging them to vote against the bill.In a letter to Tory MPs, the campaigner wrote: “Enabling this bill will give any terrorist in the future to come to any of our cities or towns and kill with impunity … Is this the legacy you wish to be party too?”The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill would set up a new information retrieval body aimed at offering conditional amnesties to those who come forward with their testimony.The draft legislation set out by Boris Johnson’s government in May states that immunity from prosecution should be granted if an individual gives an account deemed “true to the best of (their) knowledge and belief”.Responding to the Justice for the 21 group’s letter, Labour said the government “just isn’t listening” to concerns of families and victims’ groups.Peter Kyle MP, shadow Northern Ireland secretary, said: “Victims and their families have raised their profound concerns with Tories’ legacy proposals time and again, but the government just isn’t listening.”The Labour frontbencher added: “As a result, the bill fails to pass one simple but essential test: to provide greater benefit to victims of the Troubles than terrorists.”All the main parties – including the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Alliance – have arguing against the bill, calling it a “corruption of justice” and “slap in the face” of victims’ families.Innocent Victims United and other groups are also opposed. Family members of two Troubles victims, Patricia Burns and Daniel McCready, launched a petition with the Supreme Court last month seeking a decision on the legality of the government’s legislation.However, a former police chief tasked with investigating Troubles crimes recently expressed hope that controversial legislation can still be amended to gain support from families.Under the government’s plans, unsolved cases would be subject to reviews undertaken by a new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).Jon Boutcher told MPs on the Northern Ireland affairs committee last month that victims were concerned that a review of unsolved crimes in the planned legislation would be “superficial” and not proactively seek fresh information.The ex-police chief families had to be assured that “every possible line of inquiry has been explored for them to understand what happened to their loved ones”. More

Civil servants are blocking the government’s efforts to cut EU legislation after Brexit because they hold a “Remain bias”, attorney general Suella Braverman has claimed.The cabinet minister said she had battled with officials who are unable “to conceive of the possibility of life outside of the EU”.“Some of the biggest battles you face as a minister are, in the nicest possible way, with Whitehall and internally with civil servants, as opposed to your political battles in the chamber,” Ms Braverman told the Sunday Telegraph.The government’s chief law officer – who campaigned for the Leave vote during the Brexit referendum – said the resistance to post-Brexit reforms was “something I didn’t expect”.The attorney general said: “Don’t take this as an opportunity to bash the civil service. But what I have seen, time and time again, [is] that there is a Remain bias.”Ms Braverman added: “I’ll say it. I have seen resistance to some of the measures that ministers have wanted to bring forward. Because there’s an inability to conceive of the possibility of life outside of the EU.”The minister said the government’s Brexit Opportunities Bill would be “absolutely critical” to making it easier for ministers to rip up retained EU rules as part of deregulation push.While the government has struggled to explain the benefits of getting rid of obscure rules and regulations, Ms Braverman hailed “our new freedom after Brexit to ensure that British rules work for British companies”.The attorney general is believed to have approved the scrapping of swathes of the Northern Ireland protocol – giving Boris Johnson the legal cover to make his radical move to unilaterally replace a key part of his Brexit deal.Her latest comments on Brexit come as German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock and her Irish counterpart Simon Coveney made a rare joint statement condemning Mr Johnson’s protocol bill.“There is no legal or political justification for unilaterally breaking an international agreement entered into only two years ago,” they said.Labour’s House of Lords leader Baroness Smith has said he expected the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill is expected to reach the Lords before October, as she said the move had “really set people off”“I’ve already had a number of phone calls last week and people queuing at my door to talk about what can we do about this Bill,” she told BBC Northern Ireland’s Sunday Politics programme Sunday Politics programme.Meanwhile, Ms Braverman also said that a “rights culture” in Britain has “spun out of control” – blaming the European Court of Human Rights, after the highly-contentious deportation flight to Rwanda was stopped following an appeal to the Strasbourg court.“The culture, the litigiousness around the rights-related culture, has turned on its head a lot of common-sense decisions, which are consistent with British values,” she stated. “The rights-based claims have stymied a lot of our immigration and asylum policy.”The minister also lashed out at “stretched and strained interpretations” of the UK Human Rights Act by lawyers and judges – particularly Article Eight, the right to a private family life, and Article Three, the prohibition against torture.The government’s plan for a replacement “bill of rights” exempts the government itself from having to comply with free speech protections, legal experts told The Independent.Clauses included in the bill specifically exempt laws created by ministers from its new free speech test – meaning it will not protect people from the “various threats to free speech posed by the government”. More

Conservative party councillors in Chris Pincher’s Midlands constituency have called on the MP to resign his seat following sexual misconduct allegations.Mr Pincher stood down as deputy chief whip and was later suspended by his party over allegations he groped two men in Westminster earlier this week.The senior figure is also facing further claims of inappropriate behaviour, with one Tory MP telling The Independent he was groped on two occasions by Mr Pincher since the end of 2021. Mr Pincher firmly denies the claims.Tory councillors in his Tamworth seat said he should step down as MP for area following the allegations. “This is a resigning matter for him. If it was any other industry, you’d immediately have to consider your position,” one told the Sunday Telegraph.Another Tory councillor in Tamworth – where Mr Pincher enjoys a majority of just under 20,000 – described allegations against Mr Pincher as “deeply disappointing”.The unnamed councillor added: “He’s already had a second chance and there shouldn’t be any way back for him this time, especially as he’s admitted behaving badly.”Mr Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip on Friday following claims that he groped two men at the Tories’ Carlton Club on Wednesday.He admitted that he had “embarrassed myself and other people” while being drunk, but denies sexual harassment allegations.One Tory MP told The Independent he was groped on two occasions by Mr Pincher. The man claims he was targeted twice by Mr Pincher, first in December 2021 and again last month. The Mail on Sunday alleged he threatened to report a parliamentary researcher to her boss after she tried to stop his “lecherous” advances to a young man at a Tory party conference. The Sunday Times alleged he made unwanted passes at two Tory MPs in 2017 and 2018. Mr Pincher denies all the allegations.The allegations follow his first resignation in 2017 as a whip over claims he made unwanted advances to Olympic rower Alex Story. After a Tory party investigation into the incident, he was cleared of any breach of its code of conduct.Boris Johnson is also under growing pressure over his decision to give Mr Pincher a senior role in February, amid claims the PM referred to him as “Pincher by name, pincher by nature”.Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey denied that male Tory MPs had a particular problem with sexual misconduct, and said she had been told that Mr Johnson did not know “specific allegations” against Mr Pincher.Asked if the PM knew about concerns over the senior MP, Ms Coffey said: “I’m not aware that [Mr Johnson] was made aware of specific claims. I don’t believe that he was aware – that’s what I’ve been told today.”Grilled on the BBC Sunday Morning programme about who told her Mr Johnson did not know any specifics, Ms Coffey replied: “Somebody from the No 10 press office. One gets briefed on a wide variety of topics.” More