UK Politics

A future Labour government would repeal any legislation passed by Boris Johnson’s legislation to unilaterally ditch Northern Ireland Protocol checks, Sir Keir Starmer has pledged.It comes as senior Conservative MPs told The Independent there was a lot of “unease” about the idea of breaking an international treaty, while Tory peers vowed to dilute and delay the bill in the Lords. The Labour leader said his party would oppose the plan to override parts of Brexit deal agreed with the EU – set to be published in parliament on Monday – and promised to “scrap” the legislation if the bill becomes law.“We would scrap the legislation,” Sir Keir announced on a visit in Belfast – who said the UK-EU row over protocol checks “can be overcome around the negotiating table with statecraft, with high levels of trust”.The Labour leader added: “I think there has been an impasse in the negotiations because we haven’t seen the high levels of trust that we need for negotiations like this, not least from our prime minister.”A senior Conservative MP said many in the “one nation” caucus of party moderates were opposed to the government’s “unilateral law-busting approach”.“We may not see a huge rebellion in the Commons,” the senior figure said. “But I’ve spoken to a few Brexiteers who are also concerned, who say taking back control was not about becoming an international law breaker.”Another senior Tory backbencher said there was “unease” about the plan among many MPs, outside of the hardline Brexiteers in the European Research Group (ERG). “There is concern that it could break the law. Colleagues will be looking for assurance on the legal position next week,” the MP said.No 10 confirmed on Friday that the legislation led by Ms Truss – and a summary of the government’s legal position – will be released on Monday. But the full legal advice given to ministers will not be disclosed.Mr Johnson and foreign secretary Liz Truss have come under pressure by Tory MPs in the ERG and the DUP to make the bill as bold as possible in removing checks and customs controls on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.The PM and Ms Truss met the ERG’s Bill Cash earlier this week to discuss their legislative plans – said to involve a “dual regulatory regime” allowing goods produced in GB to move into NI, and vice versa, without checks.Conservative party grandee Ken Clarke said the “vast majority” of peers will back attempts to block and amend the bill, telling the Daily Mail that the upper chamber will “hold it up for a considerable time”.Fellow Tory peer Michael Howard – the former party leader who has previously rebelled against Brexit legislation – also said the bill would “encounter a rocky road” in the Lords.In November 2020, peers handed the government a significant defeat over Internal Market Bill, its previous bid to override parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, voted 433 to 165 to remove key clauses.Mujtaba Rahman, analyst at the Eurasia Group consultancy, said the EU would “not overreact” to the bill next week. He said Brussels chiefs are aware it could take six to 12 months for the legislation to move through parliament.But the Brexit expert told The Independent that he expected the European Commission to start “preparatory work” on possible retaliatory moves – including tariffs – as a bill moves through parliament.Meanwhile, Sir Keir has said that Labour will also oppose controversial government legislation to end the prosecution of veterans address the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill is aimed at offering immunity to people who are deemed to have co-operated with an information retrieval body.“You don’t proceed in Westminster with controversial legislation when it doesn’t have the backing of the political parties, victims’ groups here in Northern Ireland and the Irish government,” Sir Keir said. More

Brexit is “largely to blame” for billions being lost in trade and tax revenues in recent years, according to a new study by top economists.The Centre for European Reform (CEF) said that by the end of last year, Britain’s economy was 5.2 per cent – or £31bn – smaller than it would have been without Brexit and the Covid pandemic.“We can’t blame Brexit for all of the 5.2 per cent GDP shortfall …. but it’s apparent that Brexit is largely to blame,” said John Springford, author of the CEF study.The CER modelled the performance of a “doppelganger” UK – if the nation had remained inside the EU’s single market – using data from other advanced economies similar to the UK.Mr Springford said “disentangling” the economic effects of Brexit and Covid in recent years was “difficult” – but said it was clear that the bigger negative impact had come from Brexit.The economist argues that a huge gap between the current UK and his “doppelganger” economy had opened up before the pandemic struck in the spring of 2020.Mr Springford said the sluggish economic performance after the end of lockdowns in 2021 also showed that the “sizeable” shortfall was “mostly Brexit and not Covid”.“The UK ended Covid restrictions sooner than many of its peers, thanks in part to starting its vaccination campaign early in 2021,” he said. “That should have made its recovery from Covid faster than other countries, not slower.”The CER study said it was “hard to avoid the conclusion that Brexit has severely curtailed GDP, investment and goods trade”.The report added: “British politicians may find it difficult to ignore the central role of Brexit in the UK’s economic problems for much longer.”It comes as British firms point the post-Brexit red tape which is continuing to create costly hold-ups in trade with the EU.One seafood firm in Northumberland spoke out about the “ridiculous” paperwork which almost caused a £50,000 delivery to be destroyed, since a form signed 43 times did not include a printed name.The Coquet Island Shellfish Company told the BBC the issue cost the firm up to £15,000 to sort out after several delays. “There have been no discernible benefits of Brexit. Everything takes longer and costs more,” said sales director Jane Pedersen.An influential committee of MPs recently warned that it was uncertain whether the post-Brexit free trade agreements negotiated by Boris Johnson’s government will provide any “actual economic benefits”.Meanwhile, No 10 confirmed on Friday that controversial new Brexit legislation – designed to take unilateral action to stop checks agreed with the EU as part of the withdrawal deal – will be published in the Commons on Monday.Conservative party grandee Ken Clarke “vast majority” of peers will back attempts to block the bill and “hold it up for a considerable time”. More

“And the Lord said unto Miliband, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tablets of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.” (Ed-xodus 24:12).And so it came to pass that, five days before the May 2015 general election, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband did stand in a car park in the marginal constituency of Hastings and Rye and unveil a towering monument bearing forth The Word.Which is to say, a handful of vague manifesto pledges.Resembling one of the eerie monoliths from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as much as the Decalogue brandished by Moses on Mount Sinai, Mr Miliand’s prop was a two-tonne slab of Portuguese moleanos limestone looming eight feet tall.Its lettering was engraved by Baskingstoke firm stoneCIRCLE at a cost of £7,1614, considerably less than the £30,000 reported at the time, and promised: “A Better Plan. A Better Future.”Beneath that legend, the values the monolith bore – reportedly approved by no fewer than 10 planning meetings attended by swathes of expensive public relations professionals who, quite frankly, should have known better – were as follows:A strong economic foundationHigher living standards for working familiesAn NHS with the time to careControls on immigrationA country where the next generation can do better than the lastHomes to buy and action on rent“They’re carved in stone because they won’t be abandoned after the general election,” the future shadow secretary of state for climate change explained.“I want the British people to remember these pledges, to remind us of these pledges, to insist on these pledges.”Oh, they remembered all right.Quickly dubbed the “Ed Stone” by media wags, the prop was met with immediate and widespread ridicule. Blustering Telegraph columnist and sometime London mayor Boris Johnson called it a “weird commie slab” and proclaimed: “Let us consign Milibandias and his tombstone to the bafflement of future archaeologists. Let it go down as the last act of a desperate candidate, and the heaviest suicide note in history.”Even The Independent’s own John Rentoul told ITV News in exasperation that the idea was “incredibly stupid”.”Serious grown adults sat in meetings and approved this,” he fumed. “The thinking behind it was ‘people don’t believe us, so we’re going to carve them on a stone and then people will believe us’.”Making matters worse, Lucy Powell, the vice-chair of Labour’s campaign gave an interview to BBC Radio 5 Live in which she dismissed the stunt outright by saying, “I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the fact that he’s carved them in stone means he’s absolutely not going to break them or anything like that”, therein fatally undermining the whole point of the venture.On 7 May, David Cameron’s austerity-minded Conservatives duly swept to victory, winning 331 seats to Labour’s 232 and drawing a line under their interesting experiment in coalition government with the Liberal Democrats to go solo, opening the door to Brexit and all the howling horrors that have ensued ever since.The opposition did not even win Hastings, site of the miraculous unveiling, where incumbent MP Amber Rudd not only beat challenger Sarah Owen but actually increased her majority.Tabloid glee at Mr Miliband’s ungainly assault on a bacon sandwich might also have played a hand in his defeat, as might his occasionally robotic speechmaking but, for some, it was the “Ed Stone” that was his undoing, a monument to cluelessness and ineptitude from a party whose judgement, on this evidence, could clearly not be trusted with administering the public purse.Had Mr Miliband won, the monolith would reportedly have stood in Downing Street’s Rose Garden, Westminster Council permitting, as a daily reminder to the new prime minister of his promises to the electorate.Now that he had lost, the folly was an embarrassment that needed to be disposed of as quickly and quietly as possible.Among gloating Tories, it found itself a highly-prized holy relic, with Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft reportedly having a £100,000 bid for it spurned by the party while The Telegraph, The Sun and The Daily Mail all worked hard to track it down, the red-top opening a hotline to tipsters and The Mail promising a case of champagne to anyone who could provide relevant information leading to its capture.The People’s History Museum in Manchester also made inquiries with a view to presenting it a cherished exhibit, only to be likewise rebuffed.Curator Chris Burgess told ITV: “This was a moment when the Labour Party wanted to appear solid, grounded, that they were serious and clearly they hadn’t quite projected that to the public widely and the stone was a symbol of perhaps that failure to project that message.”It was The Guardian that eventually located it in a warehouse in Woolwich, South London, owned by one Paye Stonework & Masonry Ltd. More

Boris Johnson has condemned the “sham” trial of two Britons sentenced to death by the Russian authorities for fighting in Ukraine, as the government comes under pressure to ensure their release.Downing Street said the prime minister was “appalled” at the sentencing of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and vowed that the government would do “everything in its power” to reunite them with families.“We completely condemn the sham sentencing of these men to death. There’s no justification at all for this breach of the protection they’re entitled to,” said Mr Johnson’s official spokesman.They added: “[Mr Johnson] has been following the case closely and has asked ministers to do everything in their power to try and reunite them with their families as soon as we can.”Foreign secretary Liz Truss discussed the verdict issued by a proxy court in Russian-controlled east Ukraine during a phone call with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba on Friday.After the call, she posted on social media: “The judgement against them is an egregious breach of the Geneva convention. The UK continues to back Ukraine against Putin’s barbaric invasion.”However, No 10 declined to say whether the Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, would be summoned to the Foreign Office over the issue, or whether representations would be made to the Kremlin.“We don’t have regular interaction with the Russians,” they added, stressing the government’s priority is working with Ukrainian counterparts to “ensure their release as quickly as possible”.“They’re afforded protection under the Geneva Convention as members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which is why we want to continue working with them closely to try and get them freed as quickly as we can.”There are concerns in the Foreign Office that making their case a bilateral issue between the UK and Russia would assist Moscow in its narrative that the men are “mercenaries” and therefore not entitled to protection under international law.Britain argues that Mr Aslin (28), from Nottinghamshire, and Mr Pinner (48), from Bedfordshire, are members of the Ukrainian army and should therefore be treated as prisoners of war.Speaking on Friday, the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov declined to comment on the case, saying: “Currently they are guided by the laws of the Donetsk People’s Republic”. More

The “vast majority” of peers will back attempts to block a bill by Boris Johnson’s government aimed at overriding parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol, according to Conservative party grandee Ken Clarke.The controversial legislation – designed to take unilateral action to stop checks on goods agreed with the EU as part of the Brexit deal – will be published in the Commons on Monday.But the former Tory chancellor said the radical plan will be “seriously challenged” in the upper chamber. “I expect to find a very large majority of the House of Lords will hold it up for a considerable time,” Lord Clarke told the Daily Mail.“I personally, I am afraid, usually vote against the government when they are trying to break the rule of law,” he said – adding that Britain should abide by a “rules-based international order in which countries reach agreements and then stick to them”.The Tory peer added: “I do not think the government should be allowed to negotiate a treaty, tell the public that it is a fine treaty, get it ratified by parliament, and then almost immediately start trying to break it.”Fellow Tory grandee Lord Michael Howard – the former party leader who has previously voted against the government on Brexit legislation – also said the bill would “undoubtedly encounter a rocky road” in the Lords.Senior Labour and Liberal Democrats peers have also vowed to oppose the move, arguing that it violates an international treaty. Some observers predict that the Lords could help dilute the bill and delay it for up to a year.In November 2020, peers handed the government a significant defeat over Internal Market Bill – its previous bid to override parts of the withdrawal agreement – voted 433 to 165 to remove key clauses.Meanwhile, Tory MP Sir Bernard Jenkin warned the government it could face a rebellion of Brexiteer backbenchers in the Commons if the legislation if not offer the “serious prospect” of the DUP going back into government at Stormont.Mr Johnson and foreign secretary Liz Truss are under pressure by Tory MPs in the European Research Group (ERG) MPs and the DUP to make the bill as tough as possible in taking control of the movement of goods between GB and NI.The PM and Ms Truss met the ERG’s Bill Cash earlier this week to discuss their legislative plans – said to involve a “dual regulatory regime” allowing goods produced in GB to move into NI, and vice versa, without checks.Mujtaba Rahman, analyst at the Eurasia Group consultancy, said the EU would “not overreact” to the bill next week. He said Brussels chiefs are aware it could take six to 12 months for the legislation to move through parliament.But the Brexit expert told The Independent that he expected the European Commission to start “preparatory work” on possible retaliatory moves – including tariffs – as a bill moves through parliament.It comes as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer warned that the PM was taking a “wrecking ball” to relations with the Republic of Ireland and the EU.The Labour leader met some of Northern Ireland’s political leaders on Friday amid the deepening row over post-Brexit trading arrangements for the region and the impasse at Stormont.Starmer held meetings with DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson – refusing the re-join the power-sharing executive until the protocol checks are ditched – and UUP head Doug Beattie in London earlier this week.No 10 confirmed on Friday that the legislation led by Ms Truss – and a summary of the government’s legal position – will be released on Monday. But the full legal advice given to ministers will not be disclosed.Downing Street has rejected the claim that Sir James Eadie, the government’s independent barrister on legal issues, had not been asked to give a view on whether the bill would breach international law.Foreign Office minister James Cleverly refused to directly say whether he was consulted on the plans – but insisted that the government remained “confident” that its proposals are legal.Meanwhile, Tory peer David Frost, the former Brexit negotiator, has said he is “thinking” about standing as an MP. “We’ll see if the opportunity arises and it might and it might not, we’ll see … I am thinking about it.” More

Boris Johnson is not a good role model for children, according to the government’s own social mobility tsar.Katharine Birbalsingh, the chair of the Social Mobility Commission since 2021, suggested the prime minister’s personal life made her “raise an eyebrow” and also questioned whether he looked “professional” enough.While Ms Birbalsingh said she did not know the full details of the Partygate scandal that has destabilised Mr Johnson’s premiership, she added: “It does sort of make you pause and go, hmm, hmm.“I certainly would never be able to put him up and say: ‘Be like him’. I couldn’t do that,” she told Sky News.Her remarks come after Mr Johnson narrowly survived a vote of no confidence, as 41 per cent of his own MPs voted against him amid deep anger over his handling of No 10 party allegations during Covid restrictions.Asked directly whether Mr Johnson is a good role model for children, Ms Birbalsingh, the headteacher and co-founder of Michaela community school in Wembley, London, replied: “No, I do not think so. “I don’t. I wish he could be, but he isn’t,” she said. “And that is a bit sad. “But I can’t get into the ins and outs because I don’t know enough. People say: ‘Should he be there? Should he not be there?’ I don’t know.“I like Boris, I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I don’t know enough about what he’s got up to, but I do not think he is a good role model for children.”Pressed to elaborate, Ms Birbalsingh said: “Well, his personal life — for instance. That does make me raise an eyebrow.“His hair. When I say his hair we’ve got strict rules at school. The other day I saw a picture of him in the Metro and I looked at his hair and I thought: ‘Oh, my goodness’. We expect our children to have professional looking hair”.“You might think that’s a bit pedantic and that’s a bit silly, but it isn’t actually. I think for our children it’s important to look professional.”The Social Mobility Commission led by Ms Birbalsingh is an independent statutory body and is responsible for publishing annual reports on the progress the country is making on improving social mobility.Attempting defending the prime minister on Sky News, the schools minister Robin Walker said Ms Birbalsingh is “entitled to her opinion”, but suggested any person that leads the country is a role model “children can look up to”.“The prime minister has shown phenomenal resilience through the Covid pandemic and leadership and I think that’s something the children should learn about, and understand at schools,” he added. “He’s also a great communicator and one of the things we seem to teach in all our schools is communication and literacy through speech and language.Asked whether the prime minister believed he was a good role model for children, a No 10 spokesperson later said: “I’m obviously not going to get into individual comments.“The prime minister is focused on what you heard in his speech yesterday. He’s set the government priorities in growing the economy, tackling the cost-of-living which is putting pressure on households across the country, funding the NHS the clear the backlog, to making our streets safer.“Yesterday you saw the prime minister make announcements to make it easier for people to get on the housing ladder.”“The public can see where the prime minister’s focus lies,” they added. More