UK Politics

The Home Office has been accused of trying to “santise” lessons to staff on colonialism that have been promised in the wake of the Windrush scandal.The government “wanted certain bits” of the teaching module “omitted”, an academic involved in setting it up has reportedly said. A staff training programme on UK history was one of the recommendations in the independent review into the Windrush scandal, which saw British residents wrongly detained, denied legal rights or deported to the Caribbean.In response, the Home Office promised to work with academics to develop a programme that would include content on British colonial history and the history of black Britons. It aimed to have this ready to go by last summer, but the process has been hit by delays.Civil servants are reportedly nervous some of the content is “too controversial” and have asked academics to tone it down, according to The Guardian. Professor Jason Arday, a sociologist at the University of Glasgow, told the newspaper he had shared concerns over edits.“There seemed to be a reluctance to fully engage with how bad Britain has been in terms of its role in upholding empire and its subsequent hangover,” he told The Guardian.“It felt as though the material had been sanitised by civil servants and parliamentarians who did not want to engage with the crux of racism. I felt like we were being asked to engage in historical amnesia.”The sociologist is reported as saying: “I was told that the Home Office wanted certain bits of information omitted because there was a feeling that this might leave people feeling browbeaten.”A Home Office spokesperson said: “This is a unique programme of training, which we are committed to getting right.“We have already made good progress against Wendy Williams recommendations. She highlighted many achievements, including the work we have put into becoming a more compassionate and open organisation.“We know there is more to do. Many people suffered terrible injustices at the hands of successive Governments and we will continue working hard to deliver a Home Office worthy of every community we serve.” More

Parliamentary authorities have refused to reveal how much porn MPs and their staff are trying to look at on work computers, citing “national security”. The refusal to disclose the information under the freedom of information act comes after Tory MP Neil Parish quit as an MP after he was caught looking at pornography at work in a “moment of madness”.But ahead of the by-election to replace Mr Parish later this month authorities rejected a freedom of information request by The Independent, citing Section 24(1) of Act.Section 24 says says information does not have to be disclosed if secrecy is “required for the purpose of safeguarding national security”.The refusal is a change in policy for the Commons, which has previously disclosed how many porn sites were blocked on work computers on at least three separate occasions.In 2013 parliament disclosed under FOI that computers on the parliamentary network had been blocked trying to access explicit content 309,316 times in the previous year.In 2015 a similar disclosure revealed nearly 250,000 requests, and in 2018 the figure had fallen around 24,000. But the Commons authorities told The Independent that it had not only blocked the latest FOI request, but retroactively deleted the previous disclosures from its website. As well as the national security exemption authorities cited Section 31(1)(a) and (b), which says information can be exempted if required for “the prevention or detection of crime” and “the apprehension or prosecution of offenders”.In its FOI response letter authorities accepted that there was “a legitimate public interest in the House of Commons being open and transparent” but that “disclosure of this information would cause substantial risks to the parliamentary network as it would aid malicious groups in their efforts to target the network” as “both the disclosure of either specific web addresses, categories that are blocked, or totals relating to attempts or access, could provide valuable information to those wishing to bypass our security systems”.This is because releasing the data “would make the extent of the Parliamentary Network’s blocking and filtering policies public knowledge”.Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, told The Independent that the block appeared to be part of wider pattern.”It seems that guidance has been issued to public authorities advising them not to release details of their monitoring of internet usage for fear of helping criminal, malicious or hostile users target these systems,” he said.”Given past disclosures that hundreds of thousands of attempts to access pornographic websites have been made annually from Parliament its impossible to believe that hostile users don’t know this, particularly after an MP was found accessing pornography while actually in the Commons chamber.”He added: “They will also know that the Parliamentary authorities must be taking steps to block such access. Revealing the number of attempts to view explicit material each year tells us something significant about Parliament but little about its internet security vulnerabilities, particularly as the number of failures to block access and the sites which have not been effectively blocked have not been requested.”A spokesperson for the Commons authorities said: “The House of Commons did previously release information on web access requests. “However, after reassessing cyber-risk in 2017, it was determined that it presented a security risk and exposed the parliamentary network to an unacceptable amount of risk, and future requests were subsequently exempted under grounds of national security (s.24 FOIA) and law enforcement (s.31 FOIA). Mr Parish said he originally accessed pornography by accident while searching for information about tractors, but that on a second occasion he had done so deliberately. On another occasion in 2017 another Tory MP, Damian Green was sacked as first secretary of state after admitting he had lied about the presence of pornographic images on his House of Commons computer. He maintained that he did not “download or view” the pornography, but accepted that that he “should have been clear in my press statements” about the presence of the images on his computer. More

Ministers have demanded the release of two Britons sentenced to death on Thursday by pro-Russia separatists in what has been condemned as a “Soviet-era show trial”.Moscow was accused of breaching the Geneva Convention over the treatment of Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, who were captured while fighting with Ukrainian forces.They will reportedly face a firing squad after being convicted of terrorism in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic – but Britain says the pair should be treated as prisoners of war.Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, condemned the court ruling, saying: “This is a sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy” and promising to “do everything we can” to support the pair’s families.There were suggestions the men’s fate could be used by Moscow as a bargaining chip to force Britain to scale back the delivery of weapons to Ukraine.Robert Jenrick, a former Conservative cabinet minister, who represents the Newark constituency where Mr Aslin lived, urged Ms Truss not to let Russia “get away with it”.He called for the Russian ambassador to be “summoned to the Foreign Office to account for this most egregious breach of the Geneva Convention”.“This disgusting Soviet-era style show trial is the latest reminder of the depravity of Putin’s regime,” Mr Jenrick said.“Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Aiden Aslin is not a mercenary. He has been living in Ukraine and serving in its armed forces before Russia’s illegal invasion and as a prisoner of war is entitled to protection under the Geneva Convention.”Appearing in court behind bars, Mr Aslin said: “I was hoping the sentence would be a lot fairer judging the circumstances in which I helped the investigation and also because I surrendered to the Donetsk People’s Republic.“I wish it could be different, but God will be the one that will judge me when the time comes.”A third man, Moroccan national Saaudun Brahim, was convicted alongside Mr Aslin and Mr Pinner, in a closed process with only small parts made public through pro-Kremlin media. No comment was immediately available from the Moroccan foreign ministry on his case.Three days before Russia launched its invasion on 24 February, Vladimir Putin recognised the two entities in Donbas as states independent from Ukraine – and said the conflict was to “liberate” the region.The British soldiers were both members of regular Ukrainian military units fighting in Mariupol, the southern port city all but destroyed by Vladimir Putin’s assault on the country.State-run news agency RIA Novosti broadcast footage of the men pleading “guilty” to charges including terrorism, committing a crime as part of a criminal group and forcible seizure of power.Pro-Russian officials claimed the men’s actions had “led to the deaths and injury of civilians, as well as damage to civilian and social infrastructure”.The men had one month to appeal against their sentence and, if an appeal was accepted, could receive a life or 25-year prison sentence instead of the death penalty, one said.Howard Morrison, the UK’s independent war crimes advisor to Ukraine, told the broadcaster the sentence had likely been employed for “negotiation purposes”.He told the BBC: “It’s very unlikely that it’s straightforward. There’s almost certainly going to be a subtext in there somewhere and the likelihood is that it is for negotiation purposes.”In a sense, I hope so, because these men are under the death penalty, and the last thing you want is for that to be implemented.”But if it is for negotiation, it’s difficult to see exactly what the subtext is – because the British government isn’t holding any prisoners, it’s the Ukrainians who are holding the prisoners.”A No 10 spokesman said: “We are obviously deeply concerned by this. We have said continually that prisoners of war shouldn’t be exploited for political purposes.“Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are entitled to combatant immunity and they should not be prosecuted for participation in hostilities.“So we will continue to work with the Ukrainian authorities to try to secure the release of any British nationals who were serving in the Ukrainian armed forces and who are being held as prisoners of war.”Stephen Doughty, Labour’s Europe spokesperson, said: “It is an outrageous and shameful breach of international law for the Russian regime or its puppets to use an illegitimate court to prosecute legitimate prisoners of war who are entitled to combatant immunity.”There is a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia, but not in the territory it occupies illegally in eastern Ukraine. More

Labour frontbencher David Lammy has said the Conservative Party has “serious questions” to answer following the disclosure that a man convicted of making a racist death threat against him is a former Tory candidate.The Yorkshire Post reported that Glenn Broadbent had stood for election to Leeds Council on 12 occasions over the past 40 years.Last month Broadbent, 62, was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, and fined £2,000 after he admitted at Leeds Magistrates Court posting a “menacing” and “grossly offensive” message on social media.The Twitter message to Mr Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, said: “Are you hanging off a tree monkey boy? You will hang from a lamppost if you’re not careful.”The Tottenham MP said it was “truly despicable” that a Tory candidate had made such comments, and that the disclosure of Broadbent’s association raised wider questions for the party.“It’s truly despicable that a 12-time Conservative candidate sent me a racist death threat,” the MP said in a statement posted on Twitter.“I will never be silenced by abuse, but this raises serious questions for the Conservatives about the prevalence of anti-Black racism in their party.”In response, a Conservative Party spokesman said: “Mr Broadbent is no longer a member of the Conservative Party. We utterly deplore these comments.”In a statement to The Yorkshire Post, Broadbent, of Greenside Road, Leeds, said he had resigned from the party last month in advance of the court case.He said he was “deeply ashamed” of his behaviour and the distress he had caused Mr Lammy.The newspaper said public records show Broadbent stood for election on 12 occasions between 1983 and 2008, but was never successful. More

Experts have dismissed Boris Johnson’s plans to boost home ownership as doomed to fail and likely to fuel the housing crisis, in a blow to his hopes of rescuing his troubled premiership.The beleaguered prime minister promised a “revolution” to complete Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy shake-up and get low earners on the property ladder through a “benefits for bricks” scheme.But he was hit by a wall of criticism that the ideas betrayed a lack of understanding of how the mortgage market works, as well as being hugely expensive – threatening promised tax cuts.Mr Johnson admitted the extension of Right to Buy to housing association tenants would be “capped” amid fears of a £3bn annual bill, with only a few further pilot schemes expected.No 10 also acknowledged the “benefits for bricks” scheme – offering government help to allow Universal Credit claimants save for a deposit – would not work in property hotspots.A third strand of the package floated cutting the required deposit to buy a home from 10 to 5 per cent of a home’s value, but is merely a review at this stage.The prime minister also cast doubt on his own flagship pledge to build 300,000 new homes a year by 2025 – admitting there was no “guarantee” it will be hit.And Therese Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, asked how many people would be able to divert housing benefit into buying a home, replied: “Our initial thoughts are that it will be quite modest; several thousand.”Housing groups argued few benefit claimants would be helped and raised fears of a repeat of previous broken promises to replace homes sold under Right to Buy “like for like”.Polly Neate, head of the charity Shelter, called the ideas “baffling, unworkable and a dangerous gimmick”, warning they would “put our rapidly shrinking supply of social homes at even greater risk”.Miatta Fahnbulleh, of the New Economics Foundation think-tank, said the policy was “totally detached from reality”, warning that people on benefits are already struggling with soaring living costs.“Social security has been cut so much that those receiving benefits can barely feed their kids, let alone save for a deposit or afford a mortgage when house prices are sky high,” she said.Jonathan Rolande, of the National Association of Property Buyers, said of Right to Buy for housing association tenants: “This policy will do nothing to help anybody affected by the housing crisis.”And Dan Wilson Craw, deputy director of Generation Rent, said: “Neither the review of low-deposit mortgages, nor extending right to buy to housing associations will address the shortage of homes we need.”Property finance specialists warned the package would “go against all sensible lending practices” and attacked a “headline grabbing announcement with no detail”.Mr Johnson also issued a stark warning that workers will have to settle for real-terms pay cuts if Britain is to avoid 1970s-style “stagflation” and soaring interest rates.“We cannot fix the increase in the cost of living just by increasing wages to match the surge in prices,” he said, in the speech billed as the latest reset of his leadership.“If wages continually chase the increase in prices, then we risk a wage-price spiral such as this country experienced in the 1970s. Stagflation – that is inflation combined with stagnant economic growth.“When a wage-price spiral begins, there is only one cure and that is to slam the brakes on rising prices with higher interest rates.“That has an immediate impact on mortgages and rents. It puts up the cost of borrowing for business, it is bad for investment and growth, it is bad for jobs – it is bad for everyone.” More

British nationals living in the EU have lost the automatic right to vote and stand in local elections – even if it means they cannot vote anywhere, Europe’s top court has ruled. The case decided this week was brought by a British citizen, resident in France since 1984, who was knocked off the electoral roll after Britain left the EU.Because the British national has lived outside the UK for more than 15 years she is no longer eligible to vote or stand in local elections in Britain – which imposes an absentee cut-off date on participation.She argued at the European Court of Justice that her exclusion from French local elections meant she was no longer able to vote in any local elections anywhere, breaching her rights.The national, who is married to a French citizen, had her case referred to the European Court of Justice to rule on the matter.The ECJ however dismissed the argument and said that she and other UK nationals “no longer enjoy the status of citizen of the union, nor, more specifically the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in municipal elections in their member state of residence, including where they are also deprived, by virtue of the law of the state of which they are nationals, of the right to vote in elections held by that state”.It said only citizenship of an EU member state conferred upon EU residents the right to vote or stand in an election.”This is an automatic consequence of the sole sovereign decision taken by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union,” the ECJ said in a statement issued alongside the ruling.The situation is not mirrored in Britain, where all EU citizens who have been living in the UK since before the end of the transition period will keep their local voting and candidacy rights, “provided they retain lawful immigration status”.The UK, however, says that EU citizens who arrived in the UK after the transition period ended will only be granted rights to vote mutually “through agreements with EU member states, ensuring we are protecting the rights of British citizens living in EU countries in turn”.This means individual member states will be able to grant rights to vote in local elections for British nationals if they choose, an approach the French municipality has not taken. More

Boris Johnson has announced plans designed to help lower earners buy houses as he seeks to reset his faltering premiership after Monday’s damaging confidence vote.In a speech in Lancashire, the prime minister had been expected to set out a blueprint with two main planks.The first was a pledge to extend the Right to Buy scheme for people renting from housing associations. The second was to allow people to use their housing benefits to pay for mortgages.There was no official document published by Downing Street ahead of the speech. A press release was sent out last night containing a flavour of what Mr Johnson was due to say.No 10 had, however, given briefings to the media in recent days about what the package might look like.Mr Johnson confirmed both central tenets of the plan in his speech.”They’re trapped, they can’t buy, they don’t have the security of ownership, they can’t treat their home as their own or make the improvements that they want,” he said as he confirmed the extension of the Right to Buy scheme. He said some 2.5 million tenants renting will be given the right to purchase their properties.Right to Buy was first introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s under the 1980 Housing Act.It gave tenants of council homes and some housing association properties the opportunity to buy their homes at a discounted rate, helping them onto the housing ladder for the first time when they might not have been able to otherwise afford it.Ms Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme has become a totemic Conservative policy and several of her predecessors have tried to resurrect it in varying forms, including David Cameron in 2015.But it is controversial because council housing stock sold off under the scheme has not been replaced at the same rate. Many of the homes bought by tenants have been sold on to private landlords.This has resulted in fewer homes being available for housing association tenants to live in. The UK also has not been building enough homes to keep up with demand – this lack of supply has driven up prices, which are at an all-time high due to pent up demand during the Covid pandemic and a stamp duty holiday.The average house price in London, for example, is now more than half a million pounds – well out of reach for the vast majority of first-time buyers.There are also specific global factors which affect the market in London, such as foreign investors buying up properties for investment purposes.Out on the broadcast round earlier, Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, insisted that his government’s plan would see social homes replaced “instantly”.“Overall, we want to be in a position where we’re increasing social homes, increasing the number of homes that are there for ownership, and ensuring that in the stock of social homes as people move from renting to ownership so that we replace those numbers as well,” he told ITV News.In his speech, Mr Johnson said it was “time for change”. “Over the coming months we will work with the sector to bring forward a new right-to-buy scheme,” he said.He added the scheme would give “millions” more people the chance to own their own home and would see “one-for-one replacement of each social housing property sold” while being affordable within existing spending plans.Mr Johnson’s extension of the plan will have to be delivered within existing government budgets. This means government will not provide any new money for the plan to be extended.The second part of the policy, allowing people to use housing benefits to pay for a mortgage, has raised eyebrows among experts.According to The Times, Mr Johnson would argue that £30 billion provided by government for housing benefits, which goes towards rent, would be better spent helping people to become first time buyers. He confirmed this in his speech.He said that he would change welfare rules so that the 1.5 million people who are in work but also on housing benefits will have the choice to use their benefits towards a mortgage, rather than automatically going directly to private landlords and housing associations.The UK government will launch a review of access to mortgage finance for first-time buyers, with the aim of making it easier to widen access to low-cost, low-deposit finance such as 5 per cent deposit mortgages, he added. It will report back in the autumn.Lenders said the plan would need to be looked at carefully.Charles Roe, director of mortgages at trade association UK Finance, said: “The mortgage industry recognises the importance of homeownership and today’s announcements by the prime minister could help more people realise their dream of owning their own home.”Firms are committed to lending responsibly, with regulatory rules in place to ensure that mortgages are affordable – it will be important to carefully consider any changes to ensure they deliver good outcomes for customers throughout the life of the mortgage.”Housing policy expert Toby Lloyd said the extension of the scheme is unlikely to have much impact for the low-earning people it intends to benefit.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme, Mr Lloyd, who was former prime minister Theresa May’s housing adviser, said: “Clearly there are imperfections in the way that the mortgage market works at the moment, but fundamentally the problem is that house prices are way too high.”That’s why there’s an affordability crisis.”When asked whether the government’s new housing plan would have much effect, he said: “I’d be very surprised if it happens in anything like the scale they expect, and if it does I don’t expect it to have that much impact.” More

Workers will have to settle for real-terms pay cuts if Britain is to avoid 1970s–style “stagflation” and soaring interest rates, Boris Johnson has warned.In a major speech, the prime minister performed a startling U-turn on a promise – made just months ago – to create a high-wage economy, instead highlighting the pain to come from rising inflation.“We cannot fix the increase in the cost of living just by increasing wages to match the surge in prices,” Mr Johnson said, in a speech billed as the latest reset of his troubled premiership.He said: “If wages continually chase the increase in prices, then we risk a wage-price spiral such as this country experienced in the 1970s. Stagflation – that is inflation combined with stagnant economic growth.“When a wage-price spiral begins, there is only one cure and that is to slam the brakes on rising prices with higher interest rates.“That has an immediate impact on mortgages and rents. It puts up the cost of borrowing for business, it is bad for investment and growth, it is bad for jobs – it is bad for everyone.”The prime minister blamed the Ukraine war for having “brutally interrupted” the bounce back from Covid, also dashing hopes of early tax cuts or higher spending to help struggling families.He pointed to “the risk of borrowing too much”, telling his audience in Blackpool: “When you face inflationary pressure, you can’t just spend your way out of it.“On the contrary, you have to be careful not to add to inflationary pressure. We are constrained in what we can do.”The deputy general secretary of the TUC angrily dismissed the call for wage cuts as “nonsense” – arguing only pay rises could provide “financial security”.“It hasn’t taken long for the prime minister to abandon his commitment to a high-wage economy,” Paul Nowak said.“British workers are suffering the longest wage squeeze in more than 200 years. They urgently need more money in their pockets.”The prime minister’s call comes just weeks after No 10 slapped down Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, for saying workers must accept pay curbs to help control inflation.Mr Johnson described the purpose of the speech as highlighting that “price pressures are going to make things tough for a while, but we will get through it”.But, beyond widely criticised ideas to boost home ownership, it contained no other new measures beyond a hint that tariffs will be removed on imported foods such as olive oil and bananas.Mr Johnson appeared to dismiss a suggestion that he is planning a 2p pre-election income tax cut – and ducked two opportunities to get tough with firms refusing to pass on fuel duty cuts at the pumps.Asked why the UK has plunged to the bottom of the world’s economic growth league table, he argued the UK ‘came out” of Covid first, which meant it is “slightly out of sync” with other economies. More