UK Politics

A Conservative MP has been branded “disgraceful” after coming to the defence of a colleague thrown out of the party after his conviction for a child sex offence.Former minister Crispin Blunt, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on global LGBT+ rights, denounced the conviction of Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan as “an international scandal” which would have “dreadful” consquences for gay Muslims worldwide.But he was condemned by Labour party chair Anneliese Dodds, who called on Boris Johnson and Tory chair Oliver Dowden to distance their party from his remarks.And he faced a revolt from members of hthe APPG, with SNP MPs Martin Docherty-Hughes and Stewart McDonald quitting their positions as vice-chairs and calling on him to stand down. The SNP’s Joanna Cherry and Kirsten Oswald and Labour MP Chris Bryant left the group over the “completely inappropriate” remarks.Khan, who is gay and a Muslim, is awaiting sentence after a jury at Southwark Crown Court found him guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy more than a decade before he entered parliament.The court heard how Khan forced the teenager to drink gin and tonic, dragged him upstairs, pushed him on to a bed and asked him to watch pornography before the attack at a house in Staffordshire in 2008.The victim made a complaint to police days after Khan helped Boris Johnson win a large Commons majority in 2019 by taking the West Yorkshire seat of Wakefield.Khan, 48, had been suspended from the Conservative Party following the allegation, and a Tory spokesman for the Tories said he was expelled “with immediate effect” following the decision.But former justice minister Mr Blunt, who attended parts of the trial, denounced the conviction as “an international scandal”.In a statement on his website, the Reigate MP said: “I am utterly appalled and distraught at the dreadful miscarriage of justice that has befallen my friend and colleague Imran Ahmad Khan.“His conviction today is nothing short of an international scandal, with dreadful wider implications for millions of LGBT+ Muslims around the world.”Mr Blunt said the trial relied on “lazy tropes about LGBT+ people that we might have thought we had put behind us decades ago”.He said that he hoped for Khan’s return to public service, adding: “Any other outcome will be a stain on our reputation for justice, and an appalling own goal by Britain as we try to take a lead in reversing the Victorian-era prejudice that still disfigures too much of the global statute book.”Ms Dodds branded his comments “disgraceful”.She said that Mr Johnson and Tory chair Oliver Dowden “must take action against this Tory MP and distance their party from his comments”.Mr McDonald said: “Parliament needs a respected and robust LGBT group and Crispin can no longer provide that leadership. He should stand down.”And Mr Docherty-Hughes said the intervention was “utterly inappropriate”, adding: “It’s time for the chair to go.”Former Tory MP Louise Mensch said: “He needs to be expelled from the Conservative Party for that statement. He’s just defended the convicted abuser of a 15-year-old boy, and he is thereby attacking the minor victim.”If Khan is sentenced to a year or more in prison, he will face automatic removal as an MP, triggering a by-election which would give Labour the opportunity to win back one of the so-called “red wall” seats in its Midlands and northern England strongholds seized by the Conservatives in 2019. A shorter jail term would expose him to a recall petition by constituents.His legal team has vowed to appeal against the conviction, a move that could delay a potential by-election.The victim, now 29, told a jury he was left feeling “scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked and surprised” after Khan touched his feet and legs, coming within “a hair’s breadth” of his genitals, as he went to sleep in a top bunkbed.He ran to his parents and a police report was made at the time, but no further action was taken because the youngster did not want to make a formal complaint.But he told jurors “it all came flooding back” when he learned Khan was standing in the December 2019 general election.Days ahead of the poll, the victim said he contacted the Conservative Party press office, to tell them what Khan had done to him, but added: “I wasn’t taken very seriously.”Khan denied sexual assault, saying he only touched the Catholic teenager’s elbow when he “became extremely upset” after a conversation about his confused sexuality.Khan said he was trying to be “kind” and “helpful”, but the teenager became upset and “bolted” when the topic of pornography was raised.The judge released Khan on bail, telling him: “I make it clear that all sentencing options, including immediate custody, are being considered by the court.”Khan made no comment as he left court, but his lawyers said he maintains his innocence and will appeal.Labour has called for his immediate resignation from parliament.Mr Blunt and Sir Peter Bottomley, the father of the House of Commons, attended court on Monday, while a third Conservative MP, Adam Holloway, earlier provided a character statement used as part of Khan’s defence case.A Conservative spokesperson said: “A jury of Mr Khan’s peers has found him guilty of a criminal offence. We completely reject any allegations of impropriety against our independent judiciary, the jury or Mr Khan’s victim.” More

Vladimir Putin is planning to double or even treble his military forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine for a renewed assault, Western officials believe.But the “massive” losses suffered by Russian forces in their failed attempt to take capital Kyiv, and their apparent inability to adapt tactically to the stiff Ukrainian resistance mean it may be a month or more before Moscow can claim any sort of progress in the area, where pro-Russia separatists have been fighting since 2014.The Russian president wants to be able to declare a victory of some sort by the time of the 9 May parade in Red Square to mark the anniversary of Nazi surrender in the Second World War.But Western officials said it was “questionable” whether he will be in a position to do so. It was “difficult to see” how he could attain even his reduced set of objectives without a radical improvement in the operational effectiveness of Russian forces.Some 38 battalion tactical groups of the Russian army deployed to Ukraine – each made up of around 600-900 personnel – are now believed to be out of action after taking significant losses in men and materiel, up from 29 last week.This leaves Putin with around 90 BTGs which could potentially be deployed in the Donbas, but many of these are currently being moved from positions in the north of the country and will require “quite some time” before they are able to take part in fighting, said one official. Units transferred from the failed assault on Kyiv have shown themselves to be poorly-led and tactically ineffective, and their morale can be expected to be low if they are sent straight back into the fray.The annual round of conscription has recently delivered an additional 130,000 young Russian men into the armed forces, but these will need considerable training before being deployed, and Putin has instead been turning to veterans and reservists to bolster his army’s depleted ranks.One Western official said the Russians were currently “looking to double or perhaps even treble the amount of force that they bring into that Donbas area”.But it would take “some considerable time” to reach that number, and even the there was “a question over how effectively they can bring those forces into the battle”.It would be “simplistic” to assume that Putin could double or treble his strength in the region by increasing numbers of personnel by that proportion, said the official.“Actually, it’s about how you can bring the force to bear at the point of decision, which is which is really important. And the Russians have shown themselves to be not very effective in this invasion as to being able to use their numerical advantage effectively, to actually bring about a decisive engagement.”Western officials said the pullback from Kyiv was “symptomatic of a poorly-led, ill-disciplined and frustrated set of Russian forces who have sustained extremely high casualties and are becoming increasingly difficult to lead and ineffective”. Russian troops also appeared to be becoming “desensitised” in the course of the conflict, and more willing to commit “revolting and barbaric” atrocities against civilians, as well as to deploy white phosphorus weapons. It was “absolutely critical” that the Ukrainian government receives economic and military assistance from the free world during the window of opportunity created as Putin reconfigures his forces.Units pulled out of the Kyiv region will need to be re-equiped and some will have to be merged with other groups or take in fresh personnel to maintain fighting strength, something which will pose a “challenge” to Moscow.Having gone into Ukraine with the expectation of swift and overwhelming victory, the Russian forces had shown themselves unable to adjust to the fierce resistance they encountered. And they are now committing the same tactical errors in eastern Ukraine as they did in their drive towards the capital, advancing in single-line formations which are vulnerable to attack and difficult to manoeuvre.”Regardless of the reinforcing of their forces into the Donbas, it is still unclear how they’re going to overcome some of the morale issues that they will have with their troops,” said one Western official.“We’ve seen numbers of troops being unwilling to fight and refusing to engage in operations. We know they’ve got problems with the command and control which they are trying to sort out by generating some unity of command.“When they do start the scale of operations we anticipate in the Donbas they’ll also have large logistic lines open up which will be vulnerable potentially to attack by Ukrainian forces.”Western officials said it was “difficult to understand” and “incredible to watch” how the Russian troops have failed to adapt their tactics in the face of successful resistance from Ukrainian forces.Russian units coming under fire while in columns of vehicles appeared “unable to respond to the nature of that attack”, they said. There was video footage of them firing “wildly”, apparently incapable of locating the point from which they are coming under attack by relatively small groups of Ukrainians.“This is a force which really did not train in the way that we might have thought for this operation,” said one official. “Even if we go back to annual training exercises, they are far more limited in their scope and scale. And you’ve got forces here which are not used to operating perhaps in this way, and they always believed that they will operate under the blanket of air superiority. And of course they haven’t got that for this operation.” More

An ex-Tory cabinet minister has apologised after getting the death toll for the Grenfell Tower fire wrong while giving evidence to a public inquiry.Eric Pickles was communities secretary in the run-up to the fire and last week faced questioning over whether he had cut regulations in the construction industry.After a heated evidence session Lord Pickles, now a Conservative peer, was criticised by campaigners as “heartless” for suggesting the inquiry might be wasting his time.He caused further anger at the end of his appearance when he got the death toll wrong, referring to the “the nameless 96 people who were killed”. 72 people died at Grenfell and none were “nameless”. In an email to the inquiry Lord Pickles said he “mis-spoke” and had confused the death toll of the 2017 tower block fire with the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster – where 96 people were killed.”In my final remarks I misspoke and referenced the 96 people that died in and immediately after Hillsborough,” he said. “I apologise to the family and friends of the 72 people who died at Grenfell for this unintended mistake, which was unscripted.”The dead are remembered not as a statistic but with dignity by their families, survivors and all of us.”A 97th name was officially added to the death toll of the Hillsborough disaster last year, in light of the coroners ruling.Lord Pickles caused outrage when he told the inquiry’s chief counsel Richard Millett QC: “By all means sir, feel free to ask me as many questions as you like – but could I respectfully remind you that you did promise that we would be away this morning and I have changed my schedules to fit this in. I do have an extremely busy day.”After a break Lord Pickles apologised for being “discourteous” with regards to the use of his time. He said he had decided to cancel his meetings because “this is more important than anything I’m doing”.On the day Emma Dent Coad, a local councillor who was previously the Labour MP for Kensington at the time of the fire and who had been attending hearings, told The Independent “Pickles’ attitude was frankly jaw-dropping”. More

Keir Starmer has demanded that Boris Johnson confirm whether any government ministers have used measures to reduce their tax payments in the UK.The call came after the prime minister ordered an inquiry into chancellor Rishi Sunak’s financial interests, following the revelation in The Independent of his wife Akshata Murty’s non-dom status.The Labour leader accused Mr Sunak of “hypocrisy” at a time when he has raised taxes to their highest levels for 70 years. And he said it was “sloppy” of Mr Johnson to appoint two chancellors with what he termed “suspect” tax affairs, after Sajid Javid revealed that he held non-dom status when a banker.Downing Street said that the PM still has “full confidence” in Mr Sunak, who was also revealed to have held a US green card – indicating that he intends to make his permanent home in America – while serving as a UK government minister.But Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner raised questions about the inquiry, pointing out that an official government statement released on Saturday said that the PM’s independent ethics adviser Lord Geidt had already looked into Mr Sunak’s affairs and concluded that the chancellor had followed the ministerial code of conduct ‘to the letter.Downing Street confirmed this morning that Mr Johnson had asked Lord Geidt, at Mr Sunak’s request, to conduct an inquiry into whether the chancellor’s interests had been correctly declared.Sir Keir called on the PM to “bring this saga to a close” by being open about any minister who have taken measures to minimise their own tax burden at a time when Britons are facing the worst cost-of-living crunch in decades.“While he insists on making working people pay more taxes, the prime minister owes it to the public to confirm his cabinet are not finding ways to pay less,” said the Labour leader.“The scale of the chancellor’s hypocrisy is difficult to swallow against the backdrop of a cost of living crisis. We now know that the health secretary – the former chancellor – also knows his way around a tax reduction scheme.“To appoint one chancellor with suspect tax affairs is sloppy, to appoint two is a habit. It really is one rule for them, and another for everyone else.“For every day this chaos continues, energy bills are going up, prices are going up, and this government isn’t doing anything to help people paralysed by the cost of living crisis.“Boris Johnson needs to bring this saga to a close and confirm that no other sitting Conservative minister is doing or has done anything to reduce their own personal tax bill, while they preside over the biggest tax hike in 70 years.”Labour has demanded to be told within 24 hours whether any serving minister has ever used non-dom status to reduce the tax they pay in the UK; been listed beneficiaries on offshore trusts; held assets in tax havens; or been the subject of an HM Revenue and Customs inquiry. More

Rishi Sunak is a ‘remarkable force for good’ in British politics, says ministerAn ethics probe into Rishi Sunak’s financial affairs will be like the Sue Gray investigation ‘without the rigour’, Labour says.The embattled multimillionaire chancellor is facing questions over his family’s tax arrangements, and Boris Johnson has told his ethics adviser Lord Geidt to conduct an inquiry.Mr Sunak wrote to the PM seeking an investigation just days after The Independent revealed his wife’s “non-dom“ tax status.There has been mounting pressure over the chancellor’s tax affairs. Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner claims Rishi Sunak has made a “catalogue of potential breaches of the ministerial code”.She pointed out that the matter has been referred back to Lord Geidt, who confirmed last week he was “completely satisfied” with the steps the chancellor has taken to meet the requirements of the code. Ms Rayner said: “All this has shades of the Sue Gray report but without the rigour. Will we ever see Lord Geidt’s report at all?”In a statement on Twitter, Mr Sunak said: “I have always followed the rules and I hope such a review will provide further clarity.”Show latest update

1649688721What is non-dom status?Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 15:521649687260David Amess was ‘original Essex cheeky chappy’ and ‘the living embodiment of Parliament’s strengths’Dubbed the “original Essex cheeky chappy”, Sir David Amess was the archetypal constituency MP, Emily Pennink reports.The married father-of-five was first elected an MP in 1983 for the Essex town of Basildon.You can read more about his life below.Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 15:271649685862Sir David Amess: Ali Harbi Ali convicted of murder and planning terror attacks on other MPsThe Isis-supporting terrorist who killed Sir David Amess has been convicted of murdering the MP and plotting attacks on other politicians.Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 15:041649684732Rayner says Sunak investigation will be seen as ‘attempted whitewash’Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner says Rishi Sunak’s referral to the government’s ethics adviser will be seen as “yet another attempted whitewash”.The chancellor is facing questions about his family’s financial affairs.The independent adviser on ministers’ interests was initially “completely satisfied” with the steps the chancellor has taken to meet the requirements of the ministerial code.Mr Sunak has now been referred back.“The public will see this as yet another attempted whitewash. They’re being taken for fools by this prime minister yet again,” Ms Rayner tweeted.“What little ethical credibility and integrity there was left in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street [is] hanging by a thread.”Mr Sunak insists he has “always followed the rules” and said he hopes the review “will provide further clarity.”Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 14:451649683540Starmer calls for answers on Sunak tax affairsLabour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the issues around the Chancellor’s family tax affairs were a “matter of real fairness”.He said: “What we can’t have is a Chancellor who is telling millions of people that they have to pay more tax, there is no alternative, whilst at the same his own family appear to have been using a scheme to keep their own tax down.”“I don’t have any non-doms in the shadow cabinet because I understand the fairness of the issue,” he added.He called for the prime minister to provide an assurance over whether “other members of the Cabinet have been using these schemes to reduce their tax”.“I think on behalf of everybody who is now paying more tax we are entitled to an answer to that question,” he said.Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 14:251649682400Starmer: ‘Chancellor’s hypocrisy is difficult to swallow’Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has questioned Boris Johnson’s judgement as Rishi Sunak faces pressure over his finances, saying: “to appoint one chancellor with suspect tax affairs is sloppy, to appoint two is a habit”.He added: “While he insists on making working people pay more taxes, the prime minister owes it to the public to confirm his Cabinet are not finding ways to pay less.“The scale of the chancellor’s hypocrisy is difficult to swallow against the backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis. We now know that the health secretary – the former chancellor – also knows his way around a tax-reduction scheme.“To appoint one chancellor with suspect tax affairs is sloppy, to appoint two is a habit. It really is one rule for them, and another for everyone else.“For every day this chaos continues, energy bills are going up, prices are going up, and this government isn’t doing anything to help people paralysed by the cost of living crisis.“Boris Johnson needs to bring this saga to a close and confirm that no other sitting Conservative minister is doing or has done anything to reduce their own personal tax bill, while they preside over the biggest tax hike in 70 years.”Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 14:061649681273Johnson has full confidence in Sunak as probe into Chancellor’s finances beginsBoris Johnson continues to support Rishi Sunak, Downing Street said, as an investigation into the Chancellor’s ministerial interests begins.The Prime Minister agreed to a request from the Chancellor to launch the investigation, which comes after intense pressure on Mr Sunak over his family’s financial interests.Asked if Mr Johnson continues to have full confidence in the Chancellor, a No 10 spokeswoman said: “He does.”You can read the full story below.Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 13:471649680133How did Boris Johnson get to Kyiv? PM took secret train trip into UkraineVideo and photos have emerged showing Mr Johnson travelling on a train from Poland into Ukraine ahead of Saturday’s meeting.Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 13:281649678993Boris Johnson heads to country retreat for ‘a bit of a break’Boris Johnson is at Chequers this week for “a bit of a break”, Downing Street said.A No 10 spokeswoman said the prime minister intends to “get some rest and spend some time with family” for a few days at his country manor house.He will continue to receive updates, particularly on Ukraine, and will be participating in meetings, she said.Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 13:091649677853Food banks ‘deeply concerned about scale of suffering’ across UKFood bank organisers are “deeply concerned about the scale of suffering” across the UK, warning they are finding it difficult to keep up with “relentless” demand.Many are reaching breaking point as families struggle through the cost-of-living crisis, according to the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN).The group of more than 550 independent food banks has called on the Prime Minister and Chancellor to act urgently to combat “rapidly rising levels of poverty, destitution and hunger”.You can read the full story below.Laurie Churchman11 April 2022 12:50 More

Britain’s Treasury chief, once seen as a potential candidate for prime minister, is fighting to save his reputation by requesting an investigation of his own conduct after a series of news reports on his family’s finances raised questions about his judgment.Rishi Sunak, a 41-year-old former hedge fund manager, asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson to direct his adviser on ministerial standards to review all of the disclosures Sunak has made — such as his wife’s tax exemption status and her connection to a company that received government contracts — since he became a government minister. Sunak said he was confident all “relevant information” was appropriately declared, but he wanted an investigation to reassure the public.“My overriding concern is that the public retain confidence in the answers they are given, and I believe the best way of achieving this is to ensure those answers are entirely independent, without bias or favor,” Sunak wrote in a letter to Johnson dated Sunday.Sunak’s standing has been damaged by revelations that his Indian-born wife took advantage of rules that allow many foreigners to escape U.K. taxes on their overseas income. It came at the same time he was raising income taxes for most residents already facing a cost-of-living crisis tied to soaring energy prices. Sunak defended his wife after the first reports that she had opted for “non-domiciled” tax status, saying she is a private citizen with her own career and independent investments and shouldn’t be subject to the same level of scrutiny as a politician. But by Friday, his wife, Akshata Murty, a fashion designer and the daughter of an Indian billionaire, said she didn’t want the issue to become a “distraction” for her husband so she had decided to pay U.K. taxes on her worldwide income.Married people in the U.K. file separate tax returns, unlike in the U.S. where many file joint returns.But the brouhaha hasn’t ended. Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the opposition Labour Party, wrote to Johnson on Sunday asking that his ethics adviser investigate six issues relating to Sunak’s disclosures. These include allegations that he failed to reveal his wife’s stake in Infosys, an information technology company that has won several contracts from the government, and concerns about the so-called blind trust Sunak established to allow him to maintain his holdings in an investment fund while giving up any role in their day-to-day management.Steve Reed, Labour’s spokesman on justice issues, said Monday that he believes Sunak has violated government rules on ministerial conduct. Ministers sometimes resign if they break these rules. “If the chancellor’s household is benefiting from contracts of that kind, that should have been something that he declared in the register of interests, but he didn’t,” Reed told the BBC. “There’s a whole list of areas where the chancellor appears to have failed to declare things he should have declared.”Sunak’s Cabinet colleagues have defended him.Environment Minister George Eustice rejected suggestions that Sunak was “too rich” to be chancellor of the exchequer or even potentially prime minister.“I don’t think it’s right that we should have a rule that says you’re too wealthy to be able to do a role,” he told the BBC. “What matters is the knowledge, the technical expertise, that you have.” More

Boris Johnson has told his independent ethics adviser Lord Geidt to conduct an inquiry into Rishi Sunak.But Downing Street said the prime minister continues to have “full confidence” in the chancellor, following revelations in The Independent about his wife’s “non-dom” tax status and the fact Mr Sunak held a US green card while a minister. No 10 had no timeframe for completion of the inquiry, which will look at whether the chancellor’s outside interests had been properly declared. A spokesperson said that the outcome of the investigation will be published “in a timely manner”, but did not commit to the inquiry being published in full.Mr Johnson’s decision to ask Christopher Geidt to carry out an investigation came after the chancellor last night requested a review of all declarations of interest since he first became a minister in 2018 to ensure they had been properly stated.While he said he was confident he had acted appropriately at all times, Mr Sunak said his “overriding concern” was that the public should have confidence in the answers.Asked on Monday if Lord Geidt had begun his investigation into the chancellor, the No 10 spokesperson said: “I’m not aware of whether Lord Geidt himself has begun his work.“But I can confirm that the prime minister has agreed to the request from the chancellor for Lord Geidt to undertake this work.”Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said that the announcement of Lord Geidt’s inquiry “just doesn’t add up”.“Late last week the prime minister claimed to have been unaware of bombshell revelations about Rishi Sunak’s finances,” said Ms Rayner.“But by Saturday afternoon, No 10 was saying an investigation had already taken place and that his so-called ‘independent’ standards adviser Lord Geidt had concluded that the chancellor had followed the code ‘to the letter’. “They announced Lord Geidt was ‘completely satisfied with the steps the chancellor has taken to meet the requirements of the code’. “On Sunday afternoon, I wrote to the prime minister setting out a catalogue of potential breaches of the code by the chancellor. Just hours later the chancellor wrote to the prime minister offering himself up to be investigated. This afternoon No 10 has confirmed that the chancellor has now been referred to Lord Geidt for an investigation.“With good reason, the public will see this as yet another attempted whitewash. They’re being taken for fools by this prime minister yet again. All this has shades of the Sue Gray report but without the rigour. Will we ever see Lord Geidt’s report at all? “leaves what little ethical credibility and integrity there was left in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street hanging by a thread. “ More

Foreign minister Zac Goldsmith has broken with government practice by speaking out in support of Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan amid turmoil in the country ahead of an expected election.Downing Street today stopped short of rebuking the Tory peer for his comments, but confirmed that it was normally the case that the UK government “would not get involved in the domestic political affairs” of another country.Mr Khan – who was previously married to Lord Goldsmith’s sister Jemima – was removed from office by a no-confidence vote on Saturday.The former cricketer was today replaced as PM by opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif in a parliamentary vote which saw a walkout by MPs from Khan’s party.But Mr Khan is calling for elections to be brought forward from their scheduled date next year, and Lord Goldsmith said he had “no doubt” he will be returned to office when Pakistanis go to the polls.Posting on his official Twitter feed early on Sunday, Lord Goldsmith said: “Sad to see last night’s events in Pakistan.“Imran Khan is a good and decent man, one of the least corruptible politicians on the world stage.“I have no doubt he will be returned with a big majority in the upcoming elections.”Downing Street was asked whether Lord Goldsmith, who is Foreign Office minister for the Pacific and the international environment, was speaking on behalf of the government.A spokesperson responded: “With regard to Pakistan, we respect Pakistan’s democratic system and we would not get into its domestic political affairs.“We have longstanding ties with Pakistan and are monitoring developments.”The spokesperson was unable to say whether Lord Goldsmith would be told to take down his tweet or make clear it was issued in a personal capacity.It is not the first time that the peer has used Twitter to send out messages at variance with the government’s position. Last year, he hastily deleted a tweet supporting Israel and its military at a time when Boris Johnson was calling on both sides in the Middle East conflict to step back from violence. More