UK Politics

MPs should block the Australia trade deal because the government has broken a promise to allow it to be scrutinised properly, a damning report says.Ministers are condemned for trying “to rush it through” – despite evidence that farmers will suffer and the climate crisis has been sacrificed – even as Canberra pauses on ratifying the agreement.MPs are supposed to be given time to consider if any new trade deal protects human health, animal welfare and the environment before the ratification process begins.But the Commons international trade committee says it was denied full information until 6 June – yet ratification of the Australia deal has already begun and will conclude on 20 July.Angus MacNeil warned damage from the deal might not be “fully uncovered” – pointing out how ministers praised the Northern Ireland Protocol, but are now tearing it up.“This could have damaging effects for businesses and communities across the UK,” he warned, calling the lack of scrutiny “beyond belief”.Calling for ratification to be delayed, Mr MacNeill added: “The government rushed the scrutiny of the Northern Ireland Protocol, and we can all see the consequences of that now.”The committee will demand answers from Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the international trade secretary, when she gives evidence on the Australia trade deal on Wednesday.She is accused of dodging scrutiny until after kickstarting ratification under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (CRaG) – the MPs noting her appearance “follows eight requests”.The deal has huge political significance for the government – as the first post-Brexit agreement with a new partner – but is forecast to add just 0.08 per cent to the economy and not until 2035.Ministers say it will allow young backpackers to visit Australia for longer and give greater certainty to scientists, lawyers and other professionals seeking visas.But tariffs will be scrapped immediately on imported beef and lamb, up to a “cap” on sales expected many times the current level of Australian meat sold in this country, alarming farmers.The government’s own impact assessment revealed the deal will cost farmers and food producers almost £300m – despite Boris Johnson’s vow to “protect’ them.There is also anger over the UK secretly dropping a pledge to bind Australia to the 1.5C global temperature rise target at the heart of the last year’s Cop26 climate negotiations.A Lords committee raised fears that “deforested land” in Australia will be used to produce beef and cereal for the UK and “pesticides banned in the UK”.Ministers say the deal will boost trade by £10.4bn by 2035 – a 53 per cent increase – of which £6.2bn will be UK exports to Australia, such as cars, Scotch whisky and UK fashion. More

Labour’s Lisa Nandy will accuse levelling up secretary Michael Gove of behaving like “a Grant Shapps tribute act” as she warns the government is putting its head in the sand over the crisis facing essential public services.Ms Nandy will on Wednesday warn that there is “a perfect storm looming on the horizon” as local councils struggle to cope with the cost pressures imposed by high inflation.Her comments come after the Local Government Association warned of cuts to services such as bin collections, pothole repairs and adult care as soaring energy prices and inflation drain £3.6bn from annual budgets over the next few years.Labour has accused transport secretary Mr Shapps of acting as a spectator in the recent rail strikes, after he refused to get involved in negotiations between employers and unions.Now Ms Nandy is urging Mr Gove to “get a grip” on inflation pressures by holding urgent talks with councils to head off disruption to crucial services.Speaking to the LGA conference in Harrogate on Wednesday, the shadow levelling up secretary will say: “We need an active government that doesn’t sit on its hands but seeks out unions and employers to square this circle together. We have just seen our railways grind to a halt while the transport secretary refused to lift a finger.“So I say to Michael Gove – the country doesn’t need a Grant Shapps tribute act.“Convene a meeting, without delay, with the explicit aim of reducing pressure on councils so they can maintain services and support the staff who are the beating heart that sustains them.”Ms Nandy will warn that all councils and their workers face a “new crisis” which threatens services communities rely upon.She will call for support for “the local government cleaners, home care workers, refuse collectors and teaching assistants, the people who kept this country going during the pandemic at great personal cost and who now can’t feed their own families on the money they earn even as they care for ours”.And she will urge Whitehall to “ease the pressure” on town halls by acting as a partner to local authorities.Labour said Ms Nandy will lay out plans to give more powers to communities in order to “smash up a century of centralisation” and “restore power to people who will use it to rebuild from the ground up”. More

Boris Johnson will call on Nato allies to step up their defence spending in the face of the Russia threat, despite a scathing attack from his own defence secretary Ben Wallace on the UK’s “smoke and mirrors” military budget.The prime minister said he would “leverage” Britain’s military spending to “drive greater commitments from other people” ahead of crucial talks with fellow Nato leaders at a summit in Madrid. But Mr Wallace said UK forces had for too long survived on “a diet of smoke and mirrors, hollowed-out formations and fantasy savings” – after calling for the PM to commit to a 20 per cent spending increase.It came as the new head of the British Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, warned that any further cuts to Army troops – set to shrink from a target figure of 82,00 to 72,500 – would be “perverse”.The row erupted after it emerged that Mr Wallace had written to the PM to ask him to hike military spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2028. The defence secretary fears the target will not be hit without significant new commitments.Mr Wallace told the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank on Tuesday: “If governments historically responded every time the NHS has a winter crisis so must they when the threat to the very security which underpins our way of life increases.”Labour also accused the PM of “breaking” his own 2019 manifesto promise on defence spending, after a senior government source said the pledge to hike annual military spending by 0.5 per cent above inflation may no longer be met.The government official said the country’s post-Covid finances meant there had to be “a reality check on things that were offered in a different age”.Speaking to reporters on his journey to Madrid, Mr Johnson defended his record on defence spending and dismissed the above-inflation manifesto target – saying “you don’t look at inflation as a single data point”.The PM said the UK’s own spending this year would be 2.3 per cent of output, well above Nato’s 2 per cent minimum target. On asking other countries to be more ambitious, Mr Johnson said the Ukraine invasion “requires us all to step up … the UK is doing so”. Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey said: “The prime minister keeps breaking his defence pledges to the British public. With threats increasing and rising Russian threats, ministers must reboot defence plans and halt army cuts now.” More

Stella Creasy has said she will table an amendment to the British Bill of Rights to establish women’s access to abortion as a human right.The Labour MP for Walthamstow told The Independent abortion rights in the UK are “more fragile than people realise” as she warned many Britons are unaware abortion is still criminalised in this country.Ms Creasy’s announcement comes after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade – the landmark decision that legalised abortion nationwide in 1973. Millions of women in America have subsequently lost their legal right to terminate a pregnancy, with over half of US states expected to ban abortion or heavily restrict policies in the wake of the decision. Some states are set to ban abortions even when a pregnancy is as a result of rape or incest or when the woman’s life is at risk due to pregnancy complications.Ms Creasy said her amendment to the British Bill of Rights, which will be tabled when the legislation is published at second reading, pushes the message “abortion is a human rights issue”.The politician, an outspoken campaigner for abortion rights, added: “Roe v Wade gave women in America a constitutionally protected right to an abortion. We have never had that right in the UK. “What the dismantling of Roe v Wade teaches us is we cannot wait for further attacks. Nobody thought the Supreme Court would roll back on a right it had granted.”Abortions are still deemed a criminal act in England, Scotland and Wales under the 1967 Abortion Act. If any medical professional delivers an abortion out of the terms of the act, they are at risk of facing criminal punishment.Legislation passed in 1861 means any woman who ends a pregnancy without getting legal permission from two doctors, who must agree continuing with it would be risky for the woman’s physical or mental health, can face up to life imprisonment.Ms Creasy said she has consulted lawyers who informed her establishing abortion as a human right is “within the scope” of the Bill of Rights. She said votes on abortion are not subject to the party whip as they are issues of conscience and she expects MPs to be given a free vote on the amendment.The politician noted she wrote the legislation that specifically states women in Northern Ireland have a protected right to access abortion services as a human right.“Women in England, Wales and Scotland don’t have the same protection,” Ms Creasy added.In Northern Ireland, abortion was banned in almost all circumstances, even rape and incest, with women seeking terminations facing life imprisonment, until it was legalised in October 2019. While abortion has been decriminalised there, abortions still remain hard to obtain due to services not being commissioned because of a stalemate at Stormont.Ms Creasy urged anyone concerned about abortion rights to contact their MP to ask them to pledge to back her amendment – adding it could pave the way for abortion to be decriminalised.”Bringing in a human rights framework would inevitably progress the argument that healthcare is not a criminal matter,” Ms Creasy added.The legislation, which will serve as a successor to the Human Rights Act, will be debated in the Commons at the legislation’s second reading which is expected to happen in the coming weeks.Reflecting on the dismantling of Roe v Wade in the US, Ms Creasy said: “I’ve always learned we don’t mourn, we organise. I am very clear we must stand in solidarity with sisters in America. If we get this in to the British Bill of Rights, it sends a message abortion is a human rights issue.”Ms Creasy hit out at “all those commentators who say this could never happen in the UK” – adding they don’t realise “how much pressure” MPs are under from anti-abortion activists.Ms Creasy noted the UK government initially planned to stop so-called telemedicine measures, which involve taking pills to terminate a pregnancy, as they were under pressure from people who were “behind the scenes”.Before Covid hit the UK, getting the first tablet, mifepristone, for a medical abortion required a visit to an abortion clinic. But after lockdowns were rolled out to contain the spread of the virus, the government allowed the medication to be sent by post to be taken at home after a phone consultation.At the end of March, MPs voted to make at-home early medical abortions permanent in England, with 215 politicians voting for the measure and 188 against.The politician’s comments come after Danny Kruger, the Conservative MP for Devises in Wiltshire, on Tuesday warned the UK should not be “lecturing” America about abortion rights. Mr Kruger provoked criticism for saying he does not agree with people who “think that women have an absolute right to bodily autonomy in this matter”.For years, abortion providers, charities, medical bodies, and MPs have been calling for abortion to be decriminalised in the UK. They want to see abortion law extricated from criminal law and monitored in a same way to other medical practices – with the British Medical Association in favour of the decriminalisation of abortion in the UK. More

Culture secretary Nadine Dorries has told British sporting bodies they must follow swimming’s lead and ensure women’s sport is reserved “for people born of the female sex”.Ms Dorries told representives from football, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics and other sports on Tuesday afternoon that it was “inherently unfair” for woman to compete against someone who was born biologically male.She urged the sporting bodies to follow to lead of Fina, who announced that athletes who had been through any part of male puberty would be barred from elite female competition.Ms Dorries said: “Sport is for everyone, no matter where you’ve come from in life. It allows people to come together and perform on a level playing field, based upon basic fairness and the integrity of competition.“The government has the utmost compassion for people born into a body they don’t recognise. But we can’t pretend that sex doesn’t have a direct impact on a person’s athletic performance. Asking women and teenage girls to compete against someone who was biologically born a male is inherently unfair.“I recognise that this is a complex and emotionally charged issue, so I welcome the support of our domestic governing bodies to protect and show compassion to all athletes. In the interests of sporting integrity, we must bring clarity to protect the future interests of sport around the world.”In a tweet following the meeting she added that the issue was one “that has been ducked for too long” and “we can’t pretend that sex doesn’t have a direct impact on a person’s athletic performance”.It comes just a day after Boris Johnson indicated he supported Fina’s bar on transgender athletes who have gone through male puberty from competing in women’s events.However, the decision has prompted anger in the LGBT community, with Olympic gold medal-winning diver Tom Daley saying he is “furious” at Fina’s decision.The 28-year-old, who came out as gay in 2013, told inews: “Like most queer people, anyone that’s told that they can’t compete or can’t do something they love just because of who they are, it’s not on.“It’s something I feel really strongly about. Giving trans people the chance to share their side.”Mermaids, a charity for transgender children, said recent changes by Fina and other sporting bodies “effectively ban trans women from competing in international elite competitions”.In an open letter on its website, the charity said: “We think a blanket exclusion is unfair, unfounded, discriminatory, and we’re calling on the UK’s four sporting bodies to oppose trans-exclusionary approaches, and support sporting bodies to start from a point of inclusion,The ruling came after Lia Thomas became the first transgender swimmer to win a major US national college title in March. She will now be ineligible to compete in elite women’s events. More

Boris Johnson is facing a renewed bid to topple his premiership after a flurry of new no confidence letters were reportedly submitted to the 1922 committee.The fresh rebellion against the prime minister was allegedly provoked by his suggestion earlier today that he is planning to be lead the country into the 2030s.Speaking ahead of today’s G7 summit, Britain’s prime minister insisted he was “thinking actively” about fighting the next two general elections to become the longest-serving post-war leader. More

Rebel Tory MPs fear defections to Labour could strengthen Boris Johnson’s hand in the battle to oust him from Downing Street.Three MPs are reported to be considering crossing the floor to Sir Keir Starmer’s party.In January red wall Tory MP Christian Wakeford defected to Labour just weeks after the partygate scandal erupted. As he did so he publicly called on the prime minister to resign and leave No 10.But the move served only to shore up Mr Johnson’s leadership as other Tory MPs turned their fire away from the prime minister and on to Labour.One rebel Tory told the Independent: “A defection would strengthen the prime minister’s position – like it did the last time”.Conservative MPs also rolled their eyes at a tweet by minister Nigel Adams in the wake of reports of possible defections.In it he can be seen pointing at arch Johnson loyalist Jacob Rees-Mogg. The caption reads: “It’s important no stone is left unturned as we aim to identify potential defectors”.Labour sources played down the idea that the party could secure another defection from the Conservatives. A source suggested the reports should be taken with a “pinch of salt”.Earlier Mr Johnson refused to comment on the possibility of three of his MPs deserting to Labour.Asked how talk of defections made him feel, the prime minister said: “I think this really falls into the category of political commentary which I leave to distinguished journalists such as yourself.”He added: “I think it is my job to talk about our policies, what we have to do, what we are doing for the country, what has been going on at the G7. There are plenty of people who can offer an opinion on that.”Sir Keir said that after last week’s result in Wakefield, when the party took back the seat won by the Tories in the 2019 general election, “if I was a Tory MP I’d be pretty worried about the next general election, because that was a fantastic result for us.”And the Labour Party is in good spirits, in high hopes and we’ve got a real belief about what we’re doing. Wakefield showed us at a general election, there may well now be a Labour government.”Political parties see defections as a very strong signal to the electorate that their party can win the next general election, but there is little incentive to make them public until the very last minute. Mr Wakeford’s decision only became known moments before he crossed the floor just before Mr Johnson faced MPs during his weekly session of Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the Commons. More