UK Politics

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has told G7 leaders that he wants the war with Russia over by the end of 2022.Mr Zelensky addressed the leaders of the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan by video link on Monday, urging them to give him more weapons for the struggle against Vladimir Putin’s forces.The Ukraine leader also said he was keen to see the war to end this year – telling G7 allies not to let the conflict “drag on” through the winter, The Independent understands.But in a sign that he was not willing to back down and accept a peace deal that gave up swathes of Ukraine to Russia, the president said: “We will only negotiate from a position of strength.”Mr Zelensky told the G7 he was focused on securing an “advantageous position” in a matter of months rather than years, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said after the session.The G7 released a statement after discussions with Mr Zelensky saying it would continue to provide financial, military and political support for Ukraine “for as long as it takes”.It comes as NATO will increase the number of its forces at high readiness massively – from around 40,000 to over 300,000 troops, secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg announced on Monday.“We will transform the NATO response force and increase the number of our high readiness forces to well over 300,000,” he said ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid later this week.The G7 statement on Ukraine said it was up to Ukraine to decide on a possible future peace deal. It said Kyiv must decide on any settlement “free from external pressure or influence”.Boris Johnson’s team had been keen to see language about a long-term commitment to Ukraine amid fears France and some other countries were suffering from “fatigue”.French president Macron was criticised for negotiating with Mr Putin at the start of the invasion and saying Russia must not be “humiliated”, raising fears Ukraine could be pushed into giving up territory.But a French official told AP that Mr Zelensky had indicated he wanted to negotiate an end to the war – so long as he can gain a stronger military position.“His goal is to end the war as quickly as possible and to get out of it in the best possible position, so that he can negotiate from a position of strength,” the diplomat said. “He will negotiate when he will be in a position to do so.” More

A former Tory cabinet minister has said that high taxes are preventing hard-pressed families paying their bills, as he warned voters consider Boris Johnson’s government unConservative. David Davis also called for tax cuts to stimulate the economy and prevent the UK sinking into ‘stagflation’. Mr Johnson is under increasing pressure from his own backbenchers to bring forward promised tax cuts to save his premiership. But the chancellor Rishi Sunak, who today released a video designed to publicise the help that is already available for those struggling with the cost of living crisis, has warned these cannot happen immediately. More

The government’s failure to impose full import controls on food coming from the EU since Brexit has exposed the UK to increased risk of sub-standard products reaching the shelves, a new report has warned.The report by the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland said the implementation of full checks by the end of 2023 at the latest should be a “priority” for ministers.Prior to Brexit, food imported from the EU was certified for safety by European authorities, but thanks to EU withdrawal the job now falls on the UK.Britain was not ready to carry out checks at the border when post-Brexit rules came into force in January 2021, and implementation was put off to July this year.But Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg announced in April that he was postponing the “complex and costly” move again, putting off the introduction of checks to the end of next year as af cost-cutting measure. The imposition of controls resulting from the Brexit deal would have been “an act of self-harm”, costing UK businesses £1bn annually, he said.FSA chair Professor Susan Jebb today cautioned that the delay had reduced her watchdog’s ability to prevent the entry of unsafe products into the UK market.Although the FSA and FSS report found no evidence of “meaningful change” in the standard of imported food from the EU since Brexit, it warned that the lack of import controls means “we are not receiving official assurance from the exporting country that imports meet the UK’s high food and feed safety standards”. Uncertainty would increase as EU and UK standards diverge as a result of Brexit.The failure to impose controls “could also affect how we identify and respond to safety risks in future, with additional resource required by the UK to maintain levels of food safety assurance for these imports”, the report added.Prof Jebb said ministers should ensure full checks are in place by the end of 2023, when Mr Rees-Mogg has promised a “controls regime which will deliver on our promise to create the world’s best border on our shores”.She said: “The longer the UK operates without assurance that products from the EU meet our high food and feed safety standards, the less confident we can be that we can effectively identify potential safety incidents.”The report identified the impostion of post-Brexit controls as one of two “significant” risks to food standards, alongside a fall in the number of inspections of food businesses resulting from budget pressures on local councils.Nearly half of the UK’s food – 40 million tonnes annually – comes from abroad, and two-thirds of that has in recent years come from the EUThe EU remains by far the biggest supplier, accounting for over 90 per cent of all beef, dairy, eggs and pork products imported into the UK and nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of all food and feed not of animal origin. More

Boris Johnson denies feeling any ‘personal shame’ for lack of trust among voters
Yet more Tory rebels have urged ministers to resign in a bid to force Boris Johnson from office, piling further pressure on the prime minister after his dual by-election defeats last week.Urging ambitious ministers to “show a little backbone and indeed leadership”, 1922 Committee vice-chair William Wragg joined a growing chorus of former Tory Party leaders, erstwhile ministers and peers demanding that senior members of Mr Johnson’s government consider their positions.But, speaking at the G7 summit, Mr Johnson insisted he was unperturbed by potential plots to oust him and insisted questions over his leadership had been “settled” in the recent confidence vote.Despite his claims to be preparing for his leadership to hit a third term stretching into the 2030s reportedly sparking a fresh flurry of no confidence letters over the weekend, Mr Johnson insisted he had a mandate to drive a “massive, massive agenda”, adding: “Nobody abandons a privilege like that.”As MPs prepare to debate his plans to rip up the Northern Ireland Protocol, Mr Johnson claimed the controversial legislation could be implemented in 2022.Show latest update

1656341501DUP warns House of Lords blocking Brexit bill akin to ‘wrecking’ Belfast AgreementThe House of Lords will be “wrecking the Good Friday Agreement” if peers block the passage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has claimed.In a warning to peers ahead of MPs’ first debate on the bill – due to start shortly – the DUP leader said: “If the House of Lords seeks to wreck the Bill, then they need to understand they are wrecking the Good Friday Agreement as well.”He also warned that Conservative MPs hostile to Boris Johnson should not use Northern Ireland as a “political football”, telling reporters outside parliament: “We know there will be some opposition from some Conservative MPs who have always opposed Brexit.“But I think that for the vast majority of Conservative MPs the idea of playing political football with Northern Ireland, with such a sensitive issue as this, I think they recognise is not the way to deal with the internal problems in the Conservative Party.“The prime minister is the prime minister at the moment, he continues in office, he is taking this Bill forward, we support the Bill and we want to see it going through Parliament.“The message we will be giving today to all MPs is if they want to see political institutions restored, if they truly want to protect the Belfast or Good Friday Agreement, then this Bill is the way to achieve that. I don’t see any alternative on the table at the moment.”Andy Gregory27 June 2022 15:511656340601EU ‘showing no inclination of taking realistic approach’ to NI Protocol, DUP leader claimsDUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said his party would look at any solution to the protocol row offered by the EU, but added the bloc would need to show “more realism”.“If an agreement with the EU deals with the problems that the protocol has created in Northern Ireland, then of course we will look at that, but certainly the EU shows no inclination at the moment to take a realistic approach to dealing with the protocol issues,” he said.“What they have proposed falls way, way short and indeed, as the prime minister has said, could actually make the situation even worse than it is at the moment.”The DUP leader added: “We certainly need to hear more pragmatism and more realism from the EU, but in the absence of that I think the Bill is the way forward.”Andy Gregory27 June 2022 15:361656339724Irish premier rejects PM’s claims over Northern Ireland ProtocolIrish premier Micheal Martin has rejected Boris Johnson’s assertion that he does not see a major diplomatic row erupting over the Northern Ireland Protocol – warning London’s shift towards unilateralism “is not a good move”.Speaking in Dublin on Monday, Mr Martin said: “That, in my view, doesn’t stack up in the sense that any unilateral decision to breach international law is a major serious development. There can be no getting out of that. One cannot trivialise the breaching of an international agreement between the UK government and the EU.“My concern is a trend towards unilateralism that is emanating from the UK government. We had it on the protocol, we had it on legacy issues, we have it now in terms of the application of the decision of European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in terms of domestic British law.“We know that the Good Friday Agreement incorporates protections under the human rights convention and that is something we will keep a close eye on. I have been in touch with the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council, and they are concerned about this.“They are conscious that similar efforts were made last year but this is not a good move by the British government and it has to accept that unilateralism does not work in the context of the Good Friday Agreement, or in the context of good relationships with your neighbours and the EU.”Andy Gregory27 June 2022 15:221656338861UK aid pledge ‘nowhere near enough’ to address hunger crisis, say charitiesBoris 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 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 fertilizer shortages.Bond – an umbrella group representing 70 UK-based 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”.Our political correspondent Adam Forrest has the full report here:Andy Gregory27 June 2022 15:071656338001Opinion | We’ll never be able to stamp out sleaze at Westminster – isn’t that depressing?In her latest Independent Voices column, Marie Le Conte looks at the responses last week to various sleaze rows in UK politics. She writes:“Ultimately, politics is about parties – it is about teams that win and lose, and that stick together even when they shouldn’t. Until we make enough people understand that their party does not matter as much as doing the right thing, nothing will change. “Until we make enough of them realise that winning cannot be the only prism through which to view every event, nothing will change.”Andy Gregory27 June 2022 14:531656336281Another Tory peers calls on ministers to revolt against PMAnother Tory peer has joined the chorus of Conservatives calling for ministerial resignations in order to topple Boris Johnson’s leadership.In a letter to The Times editor, Lord Garnier – a former solicitor general for England and Wales – wrote: “[Former Tory leader William Hague has understandably called for cabinet ministers to resign in the aftermath of the two by-election defeats.”He added: “Of course they will not do that as most of them cannot realistically expect to be in the next prime minister’s cabinet. It therefore needs ministers of state and parliamentary under-secretaries to do what the cabinet cannot or will not do in order to bring about change at the top. “They and several coming along behind them are the future of the Conservative Party in government and parliament. The future needs to be grasped.”Our political editor Andrew Woodcock has more on Mr Wragg’s warning for ambitious ministers to “show a bit of backbone and indeed leadership” here:Andy Gregory27 June 2022 14:241656335143PM denies feeling any ‘personal shame’ for voters’ loss of trustBoris Johnson has denied feeling any “personal shame” for voters’ loss of trust in him.Asked whether this was a source of shame, Mr Johnson said: “No. Because I think actually when you look at what this government has done, it is quite exceptional.“And I understand that people are going to want to criticise me, attack me, for all sorts of reasons, some of them good, some of them less good.”Boris Johnson denies feeling any ‘personal shame’ for lack of trust among votersAndy Gregory27 June 2022 14:051656334421Irish foreign minister ‘hugely disappointed’ with UK’s ‘unlawful’ protocol plansIreland’s minister for foreign affairs said he is “hugely disappointed” that the British government is continuing to pursue its “unlawful” unilateral approach on the Northern Ireland Protocol.Simon Coveney said: “This is not the way to find sustainable solutions to the genuine concerns of people and business in Northern Ireland and only adds to uncertainty.“I continue to urge the British Government to return to constructive dialogue with the EU in pursuit of jointly agreed, long-lasting solutions.”Andy Gregory27 June 2022 13:531656333641Jeremy Corbyn ‘set to give evidence’ at High Court trial after libel claimFormer Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is due to give evidence at a three-week High Court trial after being accused of libel by a political blogger, a judge has been told.Richard Millett has sued Mr Corbyn over remarks he made during an interview on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show in 2018, when he was leader of the opposition.Mr Justice Nicklin considered pre-trial issues at a High Court hearing in London on Monday. Lawyers representing Mr Corbyn, who is fighting the claim, said 41 people, including Mr Corbyn and Mr Millett, could give evidence.William McCormick QC, who is leading Mr Corbyn’s legal team, said Mr Corbyn was relying on 32 witnesses, plus himself, and Mr Millett on seven, plus himself. In a written case outline, he said Mr Corbyn was mounting a “truth defence” against allegations made by Mr Millett.PA27 June 2022 13:401656332441Watch: Boris Johnson compares Russia to Nazi GermanyHere is a clip of Boris Johnson’s comments on the sidelines of the G7 summit, in which he made a comparison between the situation facing western leaders over Russia’s war in Ukraine and decisions taken to “resist tyranny and aggression” and defeat Nazi Germany.Boris Johnson compares Russia to Nazi Germany at G7 summitYou can read more of his comments on the matter below.Andy Gregory27 June 2022 13:20 More

Boris Johnson has said his bill to tear up parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol could become law “very fast”, insisting his plan could be implemented by the end of 2022.The prime minister, attending the G7 in Germany alongside senior EU figures, said it had formed “little” of his conversations – indicating he is not expecting a major row over the controversial plan.MPs are set to vote later on Monday on controversial new legislation to give ministers powers to override parts of the post-Brexit deal.Mr Johnson told reporters that he expected his plan to unilaterally scrap GB-NI checks could be carried out “fairly rapidly” – despite expectations that peers will block it for up to 12 months.Asked at the summit if the protocol override measures could be in place this year, he said: “Yes, I think we could do it very fast, parliament willing.”Despite outrage from Brussels that the unilateral move, the PM told broadcasters: “All we are saying is you can get rid of those [cehcks] whilst not in any way endangering the EU single market.”Mr Johnson said it would be “even better” if we could “get some of that flexibility we need in our conversations with Maros Sefcovic”, the EU Commission vice-president. He added: “We remain optimistic.”The move has sparked a fierce backlash from the bloc, with fresh legal action launched against Britain last week.Mr Sefcovic indicated that further measures could follow if the UK presses ahead with the Bill. The dispute could ultimately lead to a trade war, with tariffs or even the suspension of the entire Brexit deal between the UK and EU.As the bill returns to Parliament for its second reading on Monday, MPs will debate its main principles and decide whether it can proceed for further consideration.Foreign secretary Liz Truss tweeted on Monday morning that the legislation will “fix the problems” with the protocol. “Our preference remains a negotiated outcome, but EU continues to rule out change to protocol.”Sir Keir Starmer has said Labour would axe the proposed laws if it was in power, and confirmed his party will vote against the legislation at Westminster.Alongside the second reading, the government is launching a series of “structured engagements” with the business community to discuss and gather views on the Bill’s implementation.The Foreign Office is hosting the first roundtable event on Monday, bringing together more than a dozen major UK businesses and representative groups – including Asda, John Lewis and the Dairy Council for Northern Ireland.The government wants to create green and red channels to differentiate between GB goods destined for use in NI – which would be freed of red tape – while checks would remain for shipments bound for onward transportation and across the Irish border into the EU.And the introduction of a dual regulatory system would allow businesses selling in Northern Ireland to choose whether they comply with EU standards, UK standards or both.Sinn Fein MP John Finucane branded the government’s plans “shameful” and said they will mean “more instability” for the region.He told BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster programme: “The British government seem to be tone deaf to the majority of the wishes of people here in continuing to push ahead with this legislation.” More

Boris Johnson has said he will not give up the “privilege” of being prime minister, insisting that the Conservatives had given him a “new mandate” to lead.The prime minister said questions over his leadership have been “settled” despite fresh calls from Tory rebels for cabinet ministers to move against him.Asked at the G7 summit if he had considering walking away from No 10, Mr Johnson told the BBC: “You’re asking me to talk about me and my career. I’m focused on what I’m doing as a leader of the country.”The PM added: “That is a huge, huge privilege to do, nobody abandons a privilege like that.”Challenged if he still had the authority to lead, an irritated Mr Johnson said: “I not only have the authority, I’ve got a new mandate from my party which I’m absolutely delighted about.”He insisted that leadership questions had been dealt with in the confidence vote earlier this month which he won, despite 40 per cent of his MPs voting to get rid of him. “We settled that a couple of weeks ago,” he said.Mr Johnson however fuelled anger among his critics on the backbenches with his suggestion over the weekend that far from considering standing aside he was hoping for a third term, carrying on into the 2030s.The PM said he still had a mandate “that the electorate gave us in 2019, there hasn’t been a mandate like it for the Conservative Party for 40 years, it’s a mandate to change the country, to unite and to level up, and that’s what we’re going to do”.Mr Johnson repeated his claim that he was comfortable with attacks from the Tory backbenches – contrasting Westminster politics with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.“We have a system that I think is, it has its downsides, of course, for those of us who act to soak up the criticism – but the criticism is vital,” he said.Despite the resignation of Tory Party co-chairman Oliver Dowden in the wake of the by-election losses in Wakefield and in Tiverton, cabinet minister 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.Senior Tory MP William Wragg, a leading critic of Mr Johnson, called on cabinet ministers to “show a bit of backbone” and take action against the PM.“Any of them with leadership aspirations might wish to consider this and do something about it,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.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: “I think if this long agony for everyone concerned, from the PM down, is to be brought to a head… then maybe somebody in the Cabinet might wish to take some action.” More

The idea of Prince Charles receiving millions of donations in a suitcase from a former Qatari prime minister is “a bit unusual”, cabinet minister George Eustice.The Prince of Wales personally received around three lots of cash, totalling €3m, from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, according to the Sunday Times.“My understanding is this was immediately passed on to the charity, declared and checked in the usual way,” said Mr Eustice. “On one level of course it’s a bit unusual to have such a large amount of cash.”Asked by LBC what his reaction if he was offered large amount of money in bags, the environment secretary said: “Of course it’s unusual, but if it’s a permitted donation that’s been checked, it’s still a permitted donation.”Clarence House has maintained that the “correct processes” were followed in handing the money over to the prince’s charities, and there is no suggestion the donations were illegal.However, the Charity Commission is now looking into the donations from Sheikh Hamad, who was prime minister of Qatar between 2007 and 2013.A spokesperson for the Charity Commission said: “We are aware of reports about donations received by The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund. We will review the information to determine whether there is any role for the commission in this matter.”Fellow cabinet minister Brandon Lewis said on Sunday that it was “fine” for the prince to have accepted a suitcase of money from the Qatari politician.Mr Lewis said he was “confident” from his dealings with the palace that the matter will have been dealt with properly.Clarence House said the money was “passed immediately to one of the prince’s charities”, who “carried out the appropriate governance and assured us that all the correct processes were followed”.Last week Boris Johnson said he had a “good old chinwag” with the prince in Rwanda during their first talks since Charles reportedly criticised his asylum deportation policy as “appalling”.Asked whether they discussed his stalled flights to Rwanda, Mr Johnson said: “I’m not going to go into what happened, the conversation that took place.“I don’t discuss conversations either with Her Majesty the Queen or with the heir to the throne.” More