UK Politics

The Conservative MP who organised the campaign that toppled Theresa May is running in party elections to prepare for a fresh push to bring down Boris Johnson.Steve Baker hopes a seat on the executive of the powerful 1922 Committee of backbenchers will allow him to change the rules to allow another no-confidence vote – if necessary.The serial rebel described the prime minister’s position as “intolerable” if he is found to have lied to parliament over the scandal of the No 10 parties, many of which he attended.He said: “If he were not to resign in those circumstances, it may prove necessary to take action to remove him. It is one thing to make an inadvertent error, but intolerable to deliberately mislead.”Mr Baker added: “We should not change the rules and vote again lightly. However, there are foreseeable circumstances in which the 1922 may need to act.”The former head of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit MPs also warned Mr Johnson against calling a snap general election to avoid a resignation – an idea floated by No 10.“If the prime minister were to attempt to avoid publication of the report of the privileges committee by calling a general election, that might require action,” he told The Times.The Independent revealed that the new 18-strong executive is set to be chosen on 13 July – sparking a battle between supporters and opponents of the prime minister.Party rules currently prevent a second no-confidence vote within 12 months – which would mean until next June, after a badly-bruised Mr Johnson won a vote earlier this month – but they could be changed.Mr Baker played a key role in the events that forced Mrs May’s resignation in 2019, by rallying hardline Tory MPs to continue to oppose her Brexit deal in the final meaningful vote.He told them he was “consumed by a ferocious rage after that pantomime of sycophancy and bullying”, describing attempts to force backbenchers into line.The pressure on Mr Johnson is very different – chiefly focusing on his character failings and honesty, rather than a specific policy clash – but is still very real.He has fuelled Tory anger rejecting calls to change style and insisting much of the criticism of him “doesn’t matter”, while floating the idea of staying in power until 2030.Senior MPs spoke out after the prime minister mocked the idea of him undergoing a “psychological transformation” to recover from disastrous by-election defeats, saying: “That’s not going to happen.”Only backbenchers can serve on the 1922 Committee executive – and ministers and whips are not allowed to vote in the elections.Mr Baker said it should be “slow to change well-established rules which promote political stability, but quick and resolute to act if it proves essential”, telling fellow Tories: “That is what I hope to provide.” More

Defence secretary Ben Wallace is set to issue a call for a significant hike in government spending on the UK’s armed forces in the face of Russian aggression.The senior cabinet minister has reportedly asked Boris Johnson to increase the country’s military spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP – an additional 20 per cent a year.In a letter, Mr Wallace urged him to call on fellow Nato leaders to raise their own spending from the current minimum target of 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent of national income, according to Talk TV.The defence secretary is expected to issue his call for a boost in spending following Vladimir Putin’s brutual invasion of Ukraine at the Royal United Services Institute think tank on Tuesday.His call comes as Mr Johnson prepares to join other Nato leaders in Madrid on Tuesday for a summit at which they are expected to agree the biggest overhaul of the Western alliance since the end of the Cold War.A defence source did not deny reports of Mr Wallace’s letter to No 10, saying the defence secretary and the PM “have always said that the government will respond to any changes in threat which is why in 2020 the Ministry of Defence received a record defence settlement”.Nato will hugely increase the number of troops placed on “high readiness” in its rapid response force from 40,000 to over 300,000, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg announced on Monday.The Independent understands that the UK will boost the number of troops committed to Nato’s response force, though British units will be part of a “high alert” standby force rather than deployed immediately to eastern Europe.Meanwhile, Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chair of the defence select committee, called for an even higher defence spending increase to 3 per cent.The senior Tory MP tweeted: “Increasing NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force from 40k to 300k is the right call.”He added: “But if the UK’s to play it’s part (as Europe’s security declines) we must finally: increase defence spend to 3 per cent, reverse troop number cuts, purchase all 138 F35s, upgrade our land warfare assets”.Mr Wallace reportedly highlighted deficiencies in the UK’s military capabilities which have been laid bare by the war in Ukraine in his letter to No 10 and subsequent conversations.They include shortfalls of deep-strike weapons, artillery stocks and in the UK’s anti-air and anti-drone capabilities, too few pilots to fly new F35 strike jets and too few crew for ships and submarines.Asked in May if he thought more spending on defence was justified as the cost-of-living crisis hit, Mr Wallace said an extra £24bn announced for the MoD in 2020 had been “very important” to “make sure that we modernise the Army”.The defence secretary added: “I mean, the Army’s land fleet is woefully behind its peers”.Mr Wallace also wrote to chancellor Rishi Sunak in March warning that Britain risked missing the Nato commitment to spend 2 per cent of national income on security by 2025.The letter highlighted the cost of arming Ukraine and rising inflation as the primary reasons Britain was facing a real-terms cut in defence spending.The former Commander Joint Forces Command General Sir Richard Barrons said that he supported Mr Wallace’s latest demands. “I back him 100%, as will all the service chiefs and every serving officer … we have to raise our game,” he told TalkTV.Meanwhile, the new head of the Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, will use a speech on Tuesday that Britain must be prepared to “fight and win” to prevent the spread of war in Europe.The Chief of the General Staff will tell the RUSI conference that he had never seen such a clear threat to peace and democracy as the “brutal aggression” of Russian president Vladimir Putin.Sir Patrick will warn that British forces must “act rapidly” to boost its preparedness to ensure it is not drawn into a full-scale conflict. It comes after he wrote to all the troops under his command telling them they must prepare “to fight in Europe once again”. Mr Johnson and other G7 leaders condemned the “appalling” Russian missile attack on a shopping centre in Ukraine feared to have left scores of civilians dead or wounded.Two Russian missiles struck the shopping complex in the city of Kremenchuk, southeast of Kyiv, on Monday killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens, senior Ukrainian officials said.President Volodymyr Zelensky told G7 leaders on Monday that he wants the war with Vladimir Putin’s forces over by the end of 2022, telling allies not to let the conflict “drag on” through the winter.But in a sign that he was not willing to accept a peace deal that gave up swathes of Ukraine, the president said he would “only negotiate from a position of strength” as he urged allies to provide more military support. More

Theresa May has called Boris Johnson’s patriotism into question as she declared she will not support his bid to override the Northern Ireland protocol which he agreed with the EU as part of his Brexit withdrawal deal in 2019.In a scathing intervention in the House of Commons, the former prime minister said that legislation put forward unilaterally by the government would breach international law, and would lose the UK the respect of countries elsewhere in the world.And she told MPs she did not believe Mr Johnson’s controversial plan would solve the problems created by his decision to draw a customs border down the Irish Sea with his Brexit deal – something which she previously said “no UK prime minister could ever agree to”.Speaking to MPs, Ms May said “as a patriot” she could not back a course of action which would diminish the UK’s standing in the world – and then accused the PM’s plan of doing exactly that.And she questioned whether the EU would in any case take his threats seriously after he narrowly survived a confidence vote among his own MPs, saying that European leaders will now be asking themselves, “Is it really worth negotiating with these people in government, because will they actually be there for any period of time?”Her comments mark the highest-profile assault from within his own party on Mr Johnson’s plan, which would effectively tear up his Brexit agreement with Brussels and risk a trade war with the EU.MPs voted 295 to 221, majority 74, to give the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill a second reading on Monday evening, clearing the way for it to undergo detailed scrutiny in the coming weeks.Speaking in the Commons ahead of the vote, Ms May told MPs: “The UK’s standing in the world – our ability to convene and encourage others in the defence of our shared values – depends on the respect others have for us as a country, a country that keeps its word and displays those shared values in its actions.“As a patriot, I would not want to do anything that would diminish this country in the eyes of the world.“I have to say to the government, this bill is not in my view legal in international law, it will not achieve its aims, and it will diminish the standing of the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world, and I cannot support it.”The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill has sparked outrage in Brussels and Dublin by threatening to set aside key features of the agreement negotiated and signed by Mr Johnson in 2019 and then presented to voters as an “oven-ready deal” in that year’s general election.It would lift customs checks on goods from mainland Britain arriving for sale in Northern Ireland, end the harmonisation of the province’s VAT with the rest of the EU single market of which it still forms part, and remove the European Court of Justice from any role in arbritrating on disputes over the border.But foreign secretary Liz Truss insisted that the government’s plans were legal, citing the internationally recognised “doctrine of necessity” which allows countries to bypass elements in treaties in cases of emergency where no other option is available to them.Citing unionist parties’ concerns that the protocol created a “democratic deficit” in Northern Ireland, she told the Commons that the government wanted a negotiated solution to resolve trade difficulties across the Irish Sea, but that the EU’s refusal to change its negotiating mandate left unilateral legislative action as its only option.But Ms May told her that the government’s ability to negotiate was undermined by its unwillingness to abide by recently signed deals.“I suspect they are saying to themselves, why should they negotiate in detail with a government that shows itself willing to sign an agreement, claim it as a victory and then try to tear part of it up in less than three years,” she said.The “peril” which the bill is intended to overcome “is a direct result of the border down the Irish Sea which was an integral and inherent part of the protocol which the government signed in the withdrawal agreement”, said Ms May, whose backstop arrangement – much derided by Mr Johnson – was designed to avoid exactly this problem.The bill also came under attack from Conservative former Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith, who described it as “a kind of displacement activity from the core task of doing whatever we can to negotiate a better protocol deal for Northern Ireland”.Former cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell told Ms Truss that it “brazenly breaks a solemn international treaty, it trashes our international reputation, it threatens a trade war at a time when our economy is flat and it puts us at odds with our most important ally”.And the Tory chair of the Commons Northern Ireland committee, Simon Hoare, denounced it as “a failure of statecraft [that] puts at risk the reputation of the United Kingdom”.“The arguments supporting it are flimsy at best, and irrational at worst,” said Mr Hoare. “It is a bill that risks economically harmful retaliation, a bill that runs the risk of shredding our reputation as a guardian of international law and the rules-based system.”DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told the Commons that the protocol has had a “devastating” impact on Northern Ireland over the past 18 months.“How can anyone in this house defend a situation where part of this United Kingdom is treated in a way where its elected representatives have no say in many of the laws that regulate our trade with the rest of the United Kingdom?” he asked.But speaking outside the chamber, Sir Jeffrey declined to say whether its passage would prompt the largest unionist party to end its boycott of power-sharing institutions, telling reporters only that they would “consider what steps we can take” once the bill passes the House of Commons. More

Nicola Sturgeon has backed establishing buffer zones around abortion clinics in Scotland so women can access services “free of harassment and intimidation”.The first minister was speaking at the abortion summit in Edinburgh which aims to ensure that women can access abortion services.Ms Sturgeon said the summit had come at a particularly important time, given the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling, thereby ending Americans’ constitutional right to an abortion, which she described as “one of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime”.Ms Sturgeon said that the proper focus for anyone protesting against abortion should be Parliament and lawmakers, not hospitals or sexual health clinics.She said: “Gatherings of this kind create additional stress for anyone using these facilities, for any purpose, and for those who work in them. But for women accessing abortion services the upset, distress and fear that they cause can be profound.“At what is already a very stressful time, women are being forced to see or make their way past these groups on the way in. And once they’re inside, on top of everything else, there’s the knowledge that they may have to see them again on the way out.“In my view, the current situation is unacceptable, and it’s one which we must address as a matter of urgency. I am determined that we do so.“There are issues that we need to solve to establish buffer zones through legislation but if we work together in a spirit of solidarity, I am confident we can find a way.”The summit brings together representatives from local government, third sector organisations, Police Scotland, the NHS and campaigners.Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay last month launched a consultation on her proposed member’s bill, which would see 150m buffer zones put in place around healthcare facilities that provide abortion services.The Scottish government said it is committed to working constructively with Ms Mackay on her bill, which she hopes can identify short-term solutions to combat unacceptable behaviour while it is passing through the parliamentary process.In March, New Zealand passed a law creating safe areas around abortion facilities. The bill allows for safe areas of no more than 150m around clinics.It also made it illegal for people to obstruct, film in an intimidating manner, advise or dissuade someone from accessing abortion services, or protest about matters relating to abortion services within these areas. More

After this month’s botched attempt to remove Boris Johnson in a confidence vote Conservative rebels will hold their fire until his position is “irrecoverable”, a former minister has said.The senior backbencher told The Independent that MPs will act “lightning fast” to oust the prime minister when a powerful Commons committee publishes its findings on whether he lied to parliament over Partygate.The prediction came as Mr Johnson insisted he will not give up the “privilege” of being PM – and claimed that the ballot in which 40 per cent of his MPs voted to remove him amounted to a “new mandate” to lead.But despite Mr Johnson’s bullishness, the ex-minister said he did not believe fellow-MPs would allow the PM to lead them into the next election – no matter how determined he is to carry on.“How deep in the gutter are we willing to dive?” he asked. “How degraded are we willing to allow the Conservative Party to become?“It’s a pretty poor state of affairs, after two elections where half of the main opposition’s candidates didn’t want their leader on their leaflets, if we go into the next election not wanting our leader’s face on ours.”Last week’s by-election defeats in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton have sparked demands for a second vote on Mr Johnson’s leadership, with some Tory MPs understood to have resubmitted letters of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee.Rebels are pushing for change to the committee’s rules to allow an early re-run by slashing the 12-month grace period granted to Mr Johnson after he secured his position by a vote of 211-148 on 6 June.But the former minister said that it would be better to finish Mr Johnson off cleanly than risk another ballot that he could once again survive.With only backbenchers allowed to vote in next month’s election to the executive of the ’22, there was no doubt that the body will soon have a majority of members keen to dispatch the PM, he said.But he cautioned: “If we did it now, who’s to say we’d even win?“When it happens, it has to be lightning-fast and it has to be at a moment when his position is irrecoverable.”He said that the moment was likely to come with the publication, expected in early autumn, of the report from the privileges committee, chaired by veteran Labour MP Harriet Harman.Despite intense pressure on the committee’s majority of Conservative MPs to clear the PM, it was difficult to see how their findings could do anything other than confirm that Mr Johnson misled parliament when he said all social distancing rules were observed at No 10, said the backbencher.If the PM tried to cling on, in defiance of convention that would suggest automatic resignation, “that is when the ‘22 will act, that’s when the rules will be changed and he will be out”.The comments came as cabinet ministers faced growing calls to follow Oliver Dowden, who quit his government post and the chairmanship of the Tory Party after the devastating byelection defeats.Senior Tory MP William Wragg, a leading critic of Mr Johnson, called on ministers to “show a bit of backbone” and take action against the PM.There was a “palpable” sense of disappointment on the backbenches at ministers’ silence, said Mr Wragg, who suggested that inaction now might damage their chances in an eventual battle for the succession.“Any of them with leadership aspirations might wish to consider this and do something about it,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour.Fellow backbench critic Damian Green said it was “no secret that many of the people in the cabinet are setting up potential leadership campaigns”.The former Tory minister told Channel 4: “If this long agony … is to be brought to a head … then maybe somebody in the cabinet might wish to take some action.”The prime minister insisted questions over his leadership had been “settled” by this month’s confidence vote.Asked at the G7 summit in Germany if he had considered walking away from No 10, Mr Johnson told the BBC: “I’m focused on what I’m doing as a leader of the country.“That is a huge, huge privilege to do, nobody abandons a privilege like that.”Challenged over whether he still had the authority to lead, an irritated Mr Johnson – who angered critics at the weekend by suggesting he would remain into the 2030s – replied: “I not only have the authority, I’ve got a new mandate from my party which I’m absolutely delighted about.”Environment secretary George Eustice insisted the rest of the cabinet continued to back their leader.“We have the support of the prime minister, the prime minister has our support, we work together and we stick together through difficult times,” he told Sky News. More

Boris Johnson and other western leaders condemned the “appalling” Russian missile attack on a shopping centre in Ukraine feared to have left scores of civilians dead or wounded.Two Russian missiles struck the shopping complex in the city of Kremenchuk, southeast of Kyiv, on Monday killing at least 10 people and wounding 40, senior Ukrainian officials said.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky – who had earlier urged G7 leaders to provide more weapons to help his military pushback against Vladimir Putin’s forces – described the toll of the attack as “unimaginable” and cited reports that more than 1,000 people were inside.The UN condemned the attack as “deplorable”, while Mr Johnson said it showed “the depths of cruelty and barbarism to which the Russian leader will sink”.It comes as British troops are set to be part of a massive expansion of Nato forces aimed at boosting defences on the alliance’s flank in Eastern Europe in response to the ongoing Russian attacks.Nato will hugely increase the number of troops placed on “high readiness” in its rapid response force from 40,000 to over 300,000, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg announced on Monday.The Independent understands that the UK will boost the number of troops committed to Nato’s response force, though British units will be part of a “high alert” standby force rather than deployed immediately to eastern Europe.Mr Johnson’s spokesman said there would be further talks on British involvement at the Nato summit in Madrid on Wednesday. “Obviously we’re one of the largest contributions to [Nato] … there will be further discussions at the summit itself.”Mr Stoltenberg indicated that a radically expanded response force would see Nato partners such as the UK, UK and France pledge more troops, ships and warplanes to be ready to deploy to territories on the alliance’s eastern borders.Mr Stoltenberg said the surge to 300,000 troops would help Nato “significantly reinforce” its defences in eastern Europe, with more battlegroups set to be deployed in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.“These troops will exercise together,” Mr Stoltenberg said. “And they will become familiar with local terrain, facilities, and our new pre-positioned stocks. So that they can respond smoothly and swiftly to any emergency.”Nato battlegroups are already active in several countries on Russia’s border, including Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia. About 8,000 British troops have been taking part in exercises across Eastern European countries since April.The Nato chief said the shake-up set to be finalised this week was part of the “biggest overhaul of collective defence and deterrence since the Cold War”.Meanwhile, Mr Zelensky told G7 leaders on Monday that he wants the war with Vladimir Putin’s forces over by the end of 2022, telling allies not to let the conflict “drag on” through the winter.But in a sign that he was not willing to accept a peace deal that gave up swathes of Ukraine, the president said he would “only negotiate from a position of strength” as he urged allies to provide more military support.Mr Zelensky said he was focused on securing an “advantageous position” in a matter of months rather than years as part of pushback against Russian forces, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said after the session. More

Boris Johnson’s commitment to help developing countries facing an unprecedented hunger crisis is “nowhere near enough”, a coalition of leading aid charities has said.The UN has warned that 49 million people are now at risk of famine as a Russian blockade of grain from Ukraine pushes up prices around the globe. The prime minister, attending the G7 summit in Germany this week, announced a £372m support package to help countries hardest hit by soaring food costs and fertiliser shortages.Bond, an umbrella group representing 70 UK charities, said the pledge was not enough, highlighting recent government cuts to the aid budget.Stephanie Draper, chief executive of Bond, said it was “nowhere near what’s needed”, adding that the package “must be the seed of a bigger plan to address the causes and consequences of the global food crisis”.It comes as Oxfam called on the G7 to boost aid and deliver on its promises to tackle global hunger made at last year’s summit ahead of fresh talks on food security in Bavaria on Monday.Oxfam GB also highlighted the swingeing cuts recently made to the government’s international aid budget following Mr Johnson’s pledge.The charity said deep cuts meant that UK aid to the four African countries hit hardest by hunger – Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan – was just £288m, only around a third of the sum provided during the region’s last major hunger crisis.“The UK’s failure to step up and help people in east Africa and around the world who don’t have enough to eat is not just a broken promise, it is a dereliction of duty,” said Danny Sriskandarajah, Oxfam GB chief executive.Oxfam called on G7 leaders to provide more debt relief to developing economies and tax corporations on excess profits, amid a growing number of workers’ strikes and protests around the world.The charity said the group of wealthy must double the amount of aid they provide for agriculture, food security and nutrition, amounting to an additional £11bn per year.“This isn’t just a standalone crisis – it’s coming off the back of an appalling pandemic that fuelled increased inequality worldwide,” said Matt Grainger, head of inequality policy at Oxfam. “I think we will see more and more protests.”Aid charities have pointed to a £30bn global shortfall in the money promised for appeals with large parts of east Africa, west Africa, the Middle East and Latin America suffering rapid increases in the number of hungry people. More

A cross-party group of MPs has urged the government to think again after it U-turned on human rights safeguards in a new trade deal with the Gulf states.The Independent revealed over the weekend that the government had ditched plans to make upholding human rights and the rule of law key objectives in its negotiations with the six-member bloc.MPs from the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, and Scottish National parties said the UK government risked “facilitating” human rights abuses by pushing ahead without the protections.The safeguards were consulted on in October but dropped from a final list of objectives published last week.In a letter to Anne-Marie Trevelyan the MPs said the new policy “presents a clear U-turn in UK policy” and that the launch of talk was “in direct contradiction to the former Foreign Secretary’s assertion that the UK ‘shouldn’t be engaged in free-trade negotiations with countries abusing human rights'”.The MPs noted that the government had “failed to even mention human rights in its public statements regarding” the planned free trade agreement and that meetings with top officials from the countries “were held during parliamentary recess, thus limiting their potential to be scrutinised by this House”.They added: “The lack of any demonstrable considerations of human rights or democratisation in the build up to this agreement is extremely concerning and we urge you, in the strongest of terms, to reconsider your approach and ensure that human rights are placed as an important part of any trade agreement with the GCC. “To avoid the risk of facilitating abuse, any agreement must feature clear human rights commitments and must be strictly contingent upon the Gulf states’ compliance with international human rights law and humanitarian law.”In conclusion, we request a meeting with you in order to ascertain where negotiations currently stand and discuss what plans there are to incorporate questions of human rights into the upcoming agreement.”The UK government’s trade policy with Europe has inflicted serious economic damage on British imports and exports – and ministers want to boost trade with regions such as the Gulf to close the gap.International trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan last week met representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh to begin negotiations with the six-nation bloc, which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the UAE.MPs to sign the letter include Peter Bottomley, Conservative MP and Father of the House, Caroline Lucas the former Green Party leader, Drew Hendry, SNP trade spokesperson, and Brendan O’Hara, the chair of the APPG on Human Rights in the Gulf.It was also signed by Sarah Olney, Liberal Democrat trade spokesperson, and campaigning Labour MPs Nadia Whittome, Diane Abbott, Richard Burgon, and Bell Ribeiro-Addy. In the Lords the letter was signed by Lord Scriven, the APPG’s vice chair.Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, Director of Advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), told The Independent: “That the UK government is about to strike a free trade deal with some of the most repressive dictatorial regimes on earth represents a U-turn from its commitment not to enter into trade agreements with countries abusing human rights. “This trade deal marks the government’s broken promise and sets an extremely low bar for the UK’s respect of human rights. Failure to centre human rights in this agreement will have a catastrophic impact and will be seen by Gulf regimes as a green light for continued repression.”Liberal Democrat trade spokesperson Sarah Only said: “After failing to guarantee British standards on animal welfare and environmental protection in the FTA with Australia, the Government are now sinking even lower by negotiating a trade deal with Gulf Cooperation Council countries that appears to make no reference to their abysmal record on human rights.”This Conservative Government has shown time and time again that they are not committed to upholding human rights, after announcing plans to scrap the Human Rights Act earlier last week.” She said there should be “minimum standards for benchmarking future trade agreements; to include human rights, conflict and oppression, environmental, labour and safety standards, where they can be negotiated, based on a UK Trade and Human Rights Policy”.A Department for International Trade spokesperson said: “The UK is a leading advocate for human rights around the world and the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] lead on our efforts to promote universal human rights.“It is our experience that secure and growing trade relationships can increase UK influence and help us to open conversations with partners on a range of issues, including human rights.” More