UK Politics

Boris Johnson did not compare the Ukraine war to Brexit, a senior cabinet minister has said – claiming that “normal people” would choose to interpret his controversial comments differently.Health secretary Sajid Javid said criticism of the prime minister’s remarks was “spurious”, arguing that his Conservative spring conference speech had been taken out of context.Mr Johnson said it was the “instinct of the people of this country, like the people of Ukraine, to choose freedom every time” – before saying people voted for Brexit so the UK could “run itself”.But Mr Javid claimed the PM had been talking about universal “self-determination” but had not made a comparison between the Brexit vote and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.The minister told Sky News: “I think it’s spurious to say he was connecting, somehow, UK and Ukraine in that way – most normal people wouldn’t have drawn that conclusion.”Mr Javid added: “What I heard from the prime minister was the … basically the desire for self-determination in everyone, no matter what country they’re in, no matter what their circumstance, is strong. I don’t think, in any way, he was connecting the situations in Ukraine and the UK.”The health secretary also defended Mr Johnson’s comments on BBC Breakfast, insisting it was “not the case” that the PM had not compared Ukraine’s fight against Russia to Brexiteers’ struggle against the EU.Mr Javid added: “When it comes to Boris Johnson and Ukraine, it’s hard to find any world leader that’s done more to support Ukraine at this time.”Mr Johnson’s comments in a speech to the Tory spring conference has sparked fury, with one European statesman branding it “disgraceful”.Former European Council president Donald Tusk said: “I can still remember the enthusiasm of Putin and Trump after the referendum. Boris, your words offend Ukrainians, the British and common sense.”Labour has called on Mr Johnson to apologise for his “crass” remarks at the Tory spring conference in Blackpool.Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chancellor, told Sky News: “It is utterly distasteful and insulting to compare the fight for freedom against the aggression of the Russian state to the decision to leave the EU.”Mr Johnson is said to regret his remarks about Brexit and “freedom” at the Tory conference. One source close to him told The Times: “It sounded better written down than it did when spoken.”In an awkward exchange on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday, chancellor Rishi Sunak distanced himself from the remarks and declined to repeat the parallel made by the prime minister.“I don’t think those two situations are directly analogous,” said Mr Sunak. “Clearly they are not directly analogous and I don’t think the prime minister was saying they are directly analogous.” More

Foreign secretary Liz Truss has condemned the “abduction and deportation” of Ukrainians from the besieged city of Mariupol, following reports of a move that has been likened to Nazi Germany.An MP from Ukraine claimed that her countrymen and women were being forced to relocate to “distant parts of Russia” to work in conditions akin to slave labour.Ms Truss said she was “appalled” by the reports and vowed for Russian president Vladimir Putin to be “held to account” for his treatment of civilians during the invasion.Mariupol is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency after being encircled by Russian troops, cut off from energy, food and water supplies and facing a relentless bombardment.According to reports, the south-east coastal city is under fierce fighting and could potentially fall into Russian hands, with the Kremlin issuing an ultimatum for Ukrainian soldiers to put down their weapons by the early hours of Monday.Russian news agency Tass cited a statement from Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian national defence control centre, stating that Moscow forces would allow residents to escape their battered dwellings if the request to lay down arms was complied with.Tass said Mariupol had been given until 5am to respond, but Ukraine rejected the offer.The port’s capture would mark a rare advance in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance that has dashed Russia’s hopes for a quick victory, with fighting having lasted more than three weeks.On Sunday, city authorities said a bomb destroyed an art school where 400 people had taken shelter, with rescuers searching for people possibly trapped under the rubble.Only days before the shelling, there was a separate attack on a theatre in the city where more than 1,000 people were said to have been bunkered.Ms Truss tweeted: “I am appalled by Russian atrocities in Mariupol, including attacks on schools sheltering civilians and the abduction and deportation of Ukrainians.”She added: “Putin is resorting to desperate measures as he is not achieving his objectives. Putin and his regime will be held to account.”The reports that thousands of Mariupol’s residents have been abducted remains unverified. But Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun said that, according to information being shared by the port’s mayor, citizens were effectively being “relocated” by Moscow.Speaking to Times Radio, she said Russia was following “the logic of Nazi Germany”, adding: “From what we know from the city mayor and the city council, is they are taking Ukrainian citizens.”“They are sending them through what are called the ‘filtration camps’ and then they are being relocated to very distant parts of Russia, where they are being forced to sign papers (saying) that they will stay in that area for two or three years and they will work for free in those areas.”Ms Sovsun agreed when it was put to her that what she was describing was “effectively slave labour”.City officials said nearly 40,000 people have fled over the past week, almost 10 per cent of its 430,000 population.Cabinet minister Sajid Javid told LBC that the strikes on Ukrainian civilians were “the acts of a war criminal”, adding: “How he’s held to account for that, that will be a really, really important job for the international criminal court.”But he stopped short of agreeing with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky that Russian actions amounts to “genocide”.Mr Javid told Sky News: “We of course will listen to him carefully … We will help the Ukrainians gather all the evidence they need to get successful prosecutions.”The health secretary also told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the West has “to be realistic about where things are heading at this point in time” – noting Russia’s military strength.Mr Javid said: “I just really fear that without finding some way to constrain Russia and Putin at this point that things are gonna get a lot uglier.” Boris Johnson used a Sunday afternoon call with president Zelensky to condemn the “abhorrent attacks on innocent civilians” seen in Mariupol.The prime minister told the Ukrainian leader the UK was “committed to stepping up military, economic and diplomatic support” in a bid to bring about an end to the war.The British leader asked Mr Zelensky what the Ukrainian military required in the struggle against Russia’s incursion before vowing to “advance” Kyiv’s interests at Nato and G7 meetings planned for this week.Mr Johnson is expected to travel to Brussels, where he will hold talks on Thursday with US President Joe Biden and other allies about the Ukraine crisis.White House press secretary Jen Psaki said early on Monday that Mr Biden will also travel to Warsaw, Poland on Friday for a meeting with president Andrzej Duda. More

Anti-poverty campaigners have warned that war in Ukraine is stretching the UK’s overseas aid budget “to breaking point”.Researchers from the ONE Campaign said the Russian invasion has destroyed the government’s rationale for cutting aid spending from the level of 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of gross national income in 2020.The non-profit group has called on chancellor Rishi Sunak to bring forward the planned restoration of the 0.7 per cent figure, warning that failure to do so will mean life-saving programmes will be withdrawn from some of the world’s poorest nations.The Ukrainian war means that the UK will no longer be able to meet its strategic priorities and international obligations within the reduced budget, it added. Some £220m of UK aid money has been diverted so far to meet immediate humanitarian needs in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the disruption to Ukrainian wheat exports, which make up 10 per cent of global supply, has sent food prices soaring around the world, including in developing countries.ONE UK director Romilly Greenhill said it was “absolutely the case” that refugees fleeing Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine need to be supported as much as people facing famine in east Africa do.But she said “by keeping our aid budget unnecessarily reduced, the UK is not in a position to do both; it’s forcing itself into a situation where it has to choose between people in crisis,” adding that “we’re seeing a convergence of crises that mean you can’t just pick and choose which problem to deal with in a vacuum”.The aid cut – equivalent to £4.5bn a year – was described as a “temporary” measure. Mr Sunak has said he hopes to restore spending to its previous level in 2024-25, but Ms Greenhill said this timetable needs to be accelerated.A report by ONE found that a series of humanitarian disasters, including the Ukraine refugee crisis and the controversial decision to include Covid vaccines in the aid budget, had made the argument for the cut increasingly “out of date”.The group’s report comes days before Mr Sunak’s mini-budget statement on Wednesday and ahead of the expected publication of the Foreign Office’s international development strategy.”We’re in a different place to when the aid budget was first cut,” said Ms Greenhill. “Since the chancellor announced the cut in 2020, circumstances have changed, and the justification that was used then no longer holds.“The government cannot deliver on its own agenda at the current budget, and with more and more spend being added, UK aid is being stretched to breaking point. It’s pushing existing anti-poverty work out.”ONE’s analysis, carried out before the invasion of Ukraine, found that the decision to cut UK aid meant 4 million fewer girls will have access to a decent education and that 1 million women and children under five will be at risk of malnutrition.It also found that aid to low-income countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen had been slashed, while some middle-income countries like China and Brazil saw a rise in funds received.UK overseas development aid to Ethiopia fell by 55 per cent from £240.5m in 2020-21 to £107.5m in 2021-22, while China’s funding rose from £2.2m to £13.7m in the same period, the report found.The Independent has approached the Foreign Office for comment. More

Labour is to force a vote in the Commons on Monday to demand that ferry company P&O reinstate 800 workers sacked with no notice on Thursday.The TUC called on MPs of all parties to back the emergency motion, which would also ban the controversial practice of “fire and rehire”.Chancellor Rishi Sunak has confirmed that a review is under way into all government contracts with the company, whose decision to replace long-serving personnel with cheaper agency staff he described as “appalling”.Unions, who will stage a protest outside parliament on Monday, said that new crew on board ships are likely to end up on “poverty pay” well below the minimum wage.Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said the incident should be “a line in the sand” for workers’ rights.Her motion calls on the government to:Outlaw fire and rehire and bring forward an urgent bill to strengthen workers rightsSuspend the contracts of P&O owners DP World until the current row is resolvedRemove DP World from the government’s Transport Advisory GroupMs Haigh said: “This scandalous action must be a line in the sand. If P&O Ferries can get away with this, it will give the green light to other exploitative employers.“It is the consequence of the Tory assault on workers’ rights. A Labour government will strengthen employee protections and ban fire and rehire to give people the security they deserve for an honest day’s work.“No more excuses, on Monday Tory MPs must join with Labour and vote to ban cruel fire and rehire for good. They must decide which side they are on – loyal workers in Britain or billionaires riding roughshod over rights.”TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “No matter where their party loyalties lie, MPs should do the right thing and back Labour’s motion to end fire and rehire and demand the immediate reinstatement of all sacked staff.“Ministers have spent the last few days condemning P&O’s actions – now they have a chance to prove they mean it.”The RMT transport union said P&O ships on the Liverpool-Dublin route have now been crewed with Filipino ratings on contracts which pay below the minimum wage.Shipping companies which are registered in other countries and operating routes from UK ports to Europe can pay below the minimum wage because they are exempt from legislation.RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “P&O may pay more than the minimum wage at first to agency staff but they will eventually move to rates below this simply because there is nothing to stop them from doing so.“We fear poverty pay will be accompanied by seafarers being chained to 12-hour-day, seven-day-week contracts that operate continuously for six months, with no pension.”A spokesperson for P&O Ferries said: “We know that for our staff this redundancy came without warning or prior consultation, and we fully understand that this has caused distress for them and their families.“We took this difficult decision as a last resort and only after full consideration of all other options, but, ultimately, we concluded that the business wouldn’t survive without fundamentally changed crewing arrangements, which in turn would inevitably result in redundancies.” More

Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch has suggested the British Empire brought “good things” to communities as she urged telling “both sides” of history.Having gone to school in Lagos, Nigeria, she said she was taught about Britain’s past with a nuanced description that has influenced her view on the former empire.“There were terrible things that happened during the British Empire, there were other good things that happened, and we need to tell both sides of the story,” she told Times Radio.“I think my upbringing and schooling in another country has really influenced the way that I look at these things.“There wasn’t any sort of attempt to describe the British Empire as this awful, terrible thing that oppressed and victimised us.”Whilst admitting colonialism is not right, Badenoch argued that “every country, one way or another, did so”, and pointing fingers was not going to change the past.She added she refrained from “making herself the victim” as it wasn’t at all helpful, and teaching young people to see themselves as such was counterproductive.The minister last year came under fire after leaked messages revealed she claimed not to “care about colonialism” because it “just made a different bunch of winners and losers”.She has since launched the government’s Inclusive Britain report in response to the Sewell Review of racial disparities in the UK, promising a range of action in a number of areas ranging from education to police.Yet she has argued looking at everything through the prism of race will not bring about change.“A society that looks at everything through race and ethnicity is never going to be at ease with itself,” she insisted.Badenoch has faced criticism for being one of the few black ministers among a white Conservative establishment, comments which she said came from people on the left side of politics.“[They] will say this because they cannot escape that narrative that if you are black, you must be oppressed and a victim. That is not my reality at all,” she argued.It was undoubtedly true that race is exploited for political reasons, on both sides of the house she added.The minister disputed the use of the term ‘white privilege’ –  the acknowledgment of societal advantage and benefits white people have – as she claimed it not be helpful.“In any minority – whether racial or sexua or whatever -, there will always be differences you have because you’re not like everyone else. I don’t think you should then describe the majority as privileged.” More

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has ordered last-minute changes to Wednesday’s mini-budget after being warned he faces a “moment of truth” this week on the cost-of-living crisis.The Independent has learnt that the Office for Budget Responsibility has been told to recalculate fiscal forecasts to take into account amended Treasury plans, a highly unusual move.The chancellor signalled on Sunday that he is preparing to offer relief to families and businesses faced with soaring prices, declaring: “Where we can make a difference, of course we will.” There was speculation that help may come in the form of cuts in fuel duties, after he said he did not want prices at the pump to be “prohibitively expensive”.But there are fears among businesses and unions, and on the Conservative backbenches, that any package will fail to match the urgency of the crisis, with the chancellor suspected to be holding back big measures for the autumn Budget or squirrelling away cash for pre-election tax cuts.Mr Sunak himself appeared to concede in advance that his intervention will fall short of what is needed, saying that he “can’t solve every problem” and that surging inflation was “out of my control”.British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) director general Shevaun Haviland told The Independent that the next few weeks are “crunch time” for businesses and that Wednesday’s announcements will make the difference for some between thriving and going under.The gas and electricity price spike is now a threat to all small businesses, not just those with energy-intensive activities, she said, pointing to one Cambridgeshire company which received a rise in its annual bill from £14,000 to £46,000. Many are being moved off fixed tariffs onto variable rates, making it impossible for them to plan for the future, she said.For the first time since its inception in 1989, she said that small businesses interviewed for the BCC’s quarterly economic survey have named inflation as their biggest concern for three quarters in succession.The BCC is calling for next month’s 1.25 per cent hike in National Insurance on employers and employees to be delayed for at least a year, as well as the imposition of an energy price cap for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).“We have told the chancellor that this isn’t business as usual any more,” said Ms Haviland. “This isn’t just a cost-of-living crisis, it’s a cost of doing business crisis.“It is essential to delay the National Insurance increase. It’s not too late. The autumn is absolutely too late. We need action now.”TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said that Wednesday’s spring statement was a “moment of truth” when the credibility of government claims to be levelling up and delivering a high-wage economy was at stake.Calling on the chancellor to use a windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas companies to fund a generous package of support for families and businesses, Ms O’Grady told The Independent: “We have got a government that’s in danger of being accused of being all mouth and no trousers.“It promised a high-wage economy and what we have got is working families under intolerable pressure after years of pay stagnation and cuts to social security. Half-measures aren’t going to cut it.“The chancellor is going to have to pick sides. Is he for the ordinary people or the oil and gas company profits?”Influential Tory backbencher Robert Halfon, who has gathered 50 MPs’ signatures in a letter to the chancellor demanding a cut in fuel duty rates, agreed that action was needed immediately to mitigate the impact of spiralling prices.Mr Halfon told The Independent that voters are “living in fear” as they see eye-watering rises in the cost of everything from gas and electricity to council tax, filling their cars, TV subscriptions and the weekly shop.“I always get letters and emails from people who are not happy about one issue or another,” he said. “The big difference now is that people are absolutely terrified because of the bills they are getting.“People are living in genuine fear. If we are not careful we could go back into a de facto lockdown because people won’t be able to afford to take their kids to school, they won’t be able to afford to go to work, they won’t be able to afford to go out to see friends.”War in Ukraine has fuelled an inflationary spiral already under way as a result of supply chain disruption and shortages of labour and commodities in the wake of the Covid pandemic, as well as – in the UK – the impact of Brexit red tape.An average £700 rise in domestic gas and electricity bills in April is now expected to be followed by a further hike of as much as £1,000 in the autumn, bringing typical annual charges close to £3,000.Already above 5 per cent, there were warnings this week from the Bank of England that the crucial Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation could reach double figures for the first time in 40 years, at a time when the cost of borrowing is also rising.And Ms O’Grady said that ordinary working families were bearing the brunt of the crisis.“Over the last 14 years we have had the longest squeeze on wages for 200 years,” she said. “We are now seeing energy bills rising at 14 times the pace of wages.“Working families have sacrificed through the crash, through austerity, through the pandemic. We are absolutely determined that working people are not going to pay the price yet again.”Immediate measures the chancellor could announce on Wednesday to alleviate financial woes include a £10 national minimum wage and a pay rise for public sector workers to match or beat inflation, she said. And she called on ministers to convene talks between unions and bosses in key sectors like social care to thrash out a fair reward for long-underpaid staff.“This is a really important moment, the moment of truth for this government,” said Ms O’Grady.“We’ve heard the rhetoric, let’s see what you are actually going to do. If you really believe in levelling up, if you really believe in a high-wage economy, the time for action is now.”CBI director general Tony Danker said Mr Sunak must put green energy and insulation at the heart of any support package, to drive investment and growth in the key sectors needed to end the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels.“The time for action is now to not only mitigate as best we can, but also set the UK on a higher trajectory of economic growth,” said Mr Danker.“The chancellor may have wanted to delay taking decisive moves on the economy but that no longer makes sense.“This is a chance for the Chancellor to signal that the UK can continue to grow independent of Putin’s actions.“We need to now go full throttle in pursuit of green growth. It was always good for humanity but it’s now essential for national security. It’s also the greatest economic opportunity for businesses to thrive and to level up the United Kingdom.” More

Rishi Sunak has hinted he may cut fuel duty in Wednesday’s mini-budget, declaring that he does not believe prices at the pump should be “prohibitively expensive”.Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Labour would not oppose the move, which has been demanded by a group of 50 Tory MPs to ease the cost-of-living crisis hitting millions of families.But Ms Reeves said that even a 5p-a-litre reduction in tax would not “rise to the scale of the challenge”, saving motorists just £2 each time they fill their cars at a time when domestic energy bills are set to leap £700. She called for a windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas giants to support low-income families, as well as scrapping VAT on domestic fuel bills and the reversal of Mr Sunak’s 1.25 percentage-point hike in National Insurance contributions (NICs).Meanwhile, Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis warned of “panic” as up to 10 million people are forced into fuel poverty, and said political action was needed from the chancellor to save families faced with a choice between “starving or freezing”.Days ahead of his crucial spring statement, Mr Sunak hinted he is ready to help families with soaring bills, but admitted: “I can’t solve every problem.”The chancellor urged voters not to be “scared” by the looming cost-of-living crisis, and promised: “Where we can make a difference of course we will.”But he appeared to acknowledge that whatever package he delivers will not be enough to cushion the blow of historic surges in the cost of petrol, heating and other essentials, telling voters: “It’s not going to be easy.”Mr Sunak said it was clear that the UK’s sanctions on Russia in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine were “not cost-free for us here at home”, after wholesale prices for oil and gas spiralled upwards.“I want to be honest with people that it’s not going to be easy,” Mr Sunak told BBC1’s Sunday Morning.“I wish government could solve absolutely every problem, that I could fully protect people against all the challenges that lie ahead.“I can’t do that, but what I would say is I will stand by them in the same way that I have done over the past couple of years. Where we can make a difference, of course we will.” Ms Reeves told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “Wednesday is an historic moment for the chancellor, for him to show whether he really understands the challenges that people are facing at the moment.”She cited parents who had told her they are skipping meals to ensure their children eat and pensioners who turn the heating off in cold weather to keep bills down.“For those people and millions of others up and down the country, we need more than warm words from the chancellor,” said Ms Reeves. “We need the chancellor to do the things that will relieve that pressure on the cost of living.”In a series of interviews ahead of his spring statement, Mr Sunak refused to reveal details of the package which he is planning to unveil.He set his face once more against scrapping or delaying the NICs increase on employees and employers, due to come into effect in April.And he poured cold water on foreign secretary Liz Truss’s plea for defence spending to be increased from 2 per cent of GDP closer to the 5 per cent levels of the Cold War era, saying that the military had already received generous increases in recent spending settlements.But he left the door open to a rise in National Insurance thresholds to take the poorest out of the tax.Defending his position as the chancellor who has increased taxes by the largest amount for at least 70 years, he said that none of his immediate predecessors had had to deal with war on the continent of Europe, a pandemic and the worst recession in centuries.“We’ve had to take some difficult decisions to restore the public finances,” said the chancellor. “Would I have preferred not to have had to do that? I would have done.“But I do believe they are the right and responsible decisions for the long-term economic security of this country and we’ve done it in a fair way.“Going forward, my priority is to cut tax and put money back in people’s pockets. You saw that in the autumn Budget. I was very clear about that. And the direction of travel over the rest of the parliament is that.”Ms Reeves said government waste and inefficiency had left a “black hole” in the state finances, pointing to the purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic, some £8.7bn-worth of which had to be written off as unusable.“You can’t help wondering whether this tax rise is to pay for a black hole because of this government’s waste and mismanagement,” said Ms Reeves.Mr Lewis said it was “untenable” to expect ordinary people to ride out the coming wave of price rises by cutting back on treats or tightening their belts.“As the Money Saving Expert who’s been known for this, I am virtually out of tools to help people now,” he told Sunday Morning.“It’s not something money management can fix. It’s not something for those on the lowest incomes telling them to (tighten) their belts will work. We need political intervention.”He asked: “Do we want to be a country – and I say it without hyperbole – where we’re going to have those on the lowest incomes in this country genuinely choosing between whether they starve or whether they freeze?” More

Money saving expert Martin Lewis has issued a plea to chancellor Rishi Sunak for action in his mini-budget on Wednesday to help families facing the worst cost-of-living crisis for at least 20 years.Lewis said the coming crisis will be worse for families’ wallets than the financial crash of 2008 or the Covid pandemic, with an additional £1,300 a year on average bills for gas and electricity and 10 million people likely to be thrust into fuel poverty.Describing the situation as “untenable”, he said it was no longer possible for people to protect themselves by tightening their belts or cutting out treats. Political intervention was needed to ensure Britons are able to pay for food and heat.“Do we want to be a country – and I say it without hyperbole – where we’re going to have those on the lowest incomes in this country genuinely choosing between whether they starve or whether they freeze?” asked Mr Lewis. “I don’t want that. I doubt you do. And I’ve spoken to the chancellor before and he doesn’t, but maybe we need to suck in what we’re doing on spending and he needs to suck in his ideology.” More