UK Politics

Boris Johnson has committed to impose the “maximum economic cost” on Russia as the Foreign Secretary is expected to say aggression like Vladimir Putin’s must “never again” be allowed to “grow unchecked”.In a call on Wednesday evening, the Prime Minister joined Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in condemning a reported Russian strike on a maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol.He noted that this, together with reports Russian forces had failed to respect ceasefire agreements, was “yet further evidence that Putin was acting with careless disregard for international humanitarian law”, Downing Street said.Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss prepared to call for a “paradigm shift” in the wake of Russia’s assault on Ukraine.In a speech in the US on Thursday, Ms Truss will make comparisons between the Russian president’s actions and the World Trade Centre terror attack in 2001, and will urge the international community to change its approach to dealing with antagonistic world leaders.One of the three areas where she will say the UK wants to see stronger action is on forging stronger global alliances, including with countries not historically aligned to Britain, according to Foreign Office officials.Giving the Makins Lecture at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, the Cabinet minister will say it is time to end “strategic dependence” on hostile and authoritarian states, including a departure from using Russian energy.It comes after the UK and the US on Tuesday announced they will phase out imports of Russian oil by the end of the year as part of increased sanctions on Moscow.During their call on Wednesday evening, Mr Johnson was said to have praised Mr Zelensky for his “deeply moving address to the House of Commons” on Tuesday, saying the Ukrainian president had “earned the admiration and love of the British people”.He also “committed to further tighten… sanctions in order to impose the maximum economic cost on Russia”, a Downing Street spokesperson said.“Both leaders condemned the horrifying attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol and the failure by Russian forces to respect ceasefire agreements in humanitarian corridors,” the spokesperson added.“The Prime Minister noted that this was yet further evidence that Putin was acting with careless disregard for international humanitarian law.“The PM ended by reaffirming the UK’s unwavering support for the people of Ukraine and said that President Zelensky had earned the admiration and love of the British people.”Meanwhile, the Ukrainian ambassador called for an end to “bureaucratic red tape” blocking some refugees from seeking sanctuary in Britain, as the Education Secretary said plans were in place to take 100,000 children into UK schools.Vadym Prystaiko said “we will deal… later with any issues” with documentation, saying some people “fleeing under bombardment” in Ukraine have not been able to get their passports. More

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shattered the world’s assumptions about threats to peace on a scale not seen since the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks, Liz Truss will warn.On a visit to the US, the foreign secretary will call Vladimir Putin’s attack “a paradigm shift” – calling on leaders to pledge they will “never again allow such aggression to grow unchecked”.Describing it as the end of “the era of complacency”, Ms Truss will argue the world’s response will “set the pattern” for a new age, determining whether other threats will materialise.“If we let Putin’s expansionism go unchallenged, it would send a dangerous message to would-be aggressors and authoritarians around the world. We can’t allow that to happen,” she will say.The speech will come after Ms Truss argued ordinary Russians are now feeling the day-to-day consequences of the invasion as McDonald’s and Starbucks shut their shops.Speaking in Washington, the foreign secretary hailed the “huge action from the private sector” – which, unlike his censorship of the media, Putin is unable to hide from his citizens.“We’ve seen huge action from the private sector, whether it’s McDonald’s or other companies,” the foreign secretary told a press conference.The Russian people “will be seeing now – by the fact that shops are closing, they’re not able to get the goods that they were able to get – exactly the implications that Putin’s aggression in Ukraine is having for Russia,” she said.Delivering a lecture at the Atlantic Council think tank, in Washington DC, Ms Truss will set out a three-point plan to:* End strategic dependence on hostile and authoritarian states, including on Russian energy.* Strengthen deterrence by spending more on defence and by strengthening the Nato alliance.* Build stronger alliances with both allies and with countries not historically aligned to the UK, focusing on trade, investment and security.She will say: “We must rise to this moment. We must pledge that never again will we allow such aggression to grow unchecked.“That means acting now. It means being tough – because we know that the costs will only rise if we don’t. The public understand the gravity of this moment.”The foreign secretary will argue Putin’s invasion is an assault on “the very foundation of our societies and the rules by which we coexist – sovereignty, democracy, the UN Charter”.“He has shattered the architecture of global security. The invasion of Ukraine is a paradigm shift on the scale of 9/11,” Ms Truss will say.She will also repeat Boris Johnson’s call for the world to “go further on sanctions to keep tightening the vice” on the Russian president. That should include “a full ban” from the Swift international payments system and “freezing all Russian banking assets”.“We want a situation where they can’t access their funds, they can’t clear their payments, their trade can’t flow, their ships can’t dock and their planes can’t land,” Ms Truss will say.Ms Truss, who on Wednesday met US secretary of state Antony Blinken, is scheduled to argue that Mr Putin has “launched a full-frontal assault” not just on Ukraine but “on the very foundation of our societies and the rules by which we co-exist”.“The reality is that setting up a no-fly zone would lead to a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia, and that is not what we’re looking at,” she told a joint news conference with Mr Blinken. “What we’re looking at is making sure that the Ukrainians are able to defend their open country with the best possible selection of anti-tank weapons and anti-air defence systems.”Mr Blinken said US involvement in a no-fly zone could “prolong” the conflict, making it “even deadlier”. “Our goal is to end the war, not to expand it, including potentially expanding it to Nato territory,” he said.“We want to make sure it is not prolonged, to the best of our ability. Otherwise, it is going to turn even deadlier, involve more people and I think potentially even make things harder to resolve in Ukraine itself.” More

It would be “immoral and illiterate” for Britain to take in more Ukrainian refugees, a Conservative MP has claimed.Daniel Kawczynski, the MP for Shrewsbury, said people fleeing the conflict should remain in “front line” states and not travel to the UK for their own good.It comes amid increasing pressure on Britain to fall into line with the rest of Europe and welcome more people fleeing Vladimir Putin’s invasion.EU countries have introduced an open-door policy and given all Ukrainian nationals access to housing and assistance – but Britain is requiring Ukrainians to apply for visas, with some conditions relaxed.Just 300 visas were granted by the UK as of Monday, at a time when neighbouring Ireland had already admitted 1,800 people despite being remote from the warzone.The government says it will open a new channel for people to travel to Britain in the coming days – but on Wednesday night Mr Kawczynski defended the current strict approach and claimed rejecting refugees would be better for Ukraine in the long run.”British left-wing parties demand Britain takes in more Ukrainian refugees,” he said in a message posted on social media.”This is illiterate and immoral. When war is over Ukrainians will need to return home to rebuild their country. “We should be supporting Ukrainian refugees in frontline states like Poland and Romania.”Benali Hamadache, migration spokesperson for the Green Party of England and Wales said: “The only immoral thing is this tweet”, referring to Mr Kawczynski’s comment.The Shrewsbury MP is the latest Tory to cause outrage with comments about Ukrainian refugees. Last month immigration minister Kevin Foster faced calls to quit after appearing to suggest people fleeing the conflict could come to Britain on seasonal agricultural visas to pick fruit.Mr Kawczynski last hit the headlines in January after it emerged he had spent £22,000 of public money on taxpayer-funded Polish lessons.In 2019 the Warsaw-born MP have claimed he was an “almost fluent Polish speaker”. He defended the expenditure and said MPs were encouraged to “undertake various types of training”.The month before Mr v Kawczynski had come to media attention after leaked WhatsApp messages showed him pleading for as second job with a Saudi Arabian company in order to pay private school fees.In his pitch to a fixer he described himself as the most “pro-Saudi” member of parliament and claimed “Saudi has no better friend in UK than me”.In another message he asked for “good renumeration”, adding: “I need it to pay school fees!” The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page. More

Irish prime minister Micheál Martin has confirmed that Priti Patel told Dublin she was concerned that the country’s welcoming policy towards Ukrainian refugees would allow them to reach the UK by the back door.An anonymous briefing from a UK government source on Tuesday suggested that Ukrainian criminals or drug dealers could take advantage of the Anglo-Irish common travel area to gain access to mainland Britain.The suggestion was blasted as “disgraceful” and “absolutely terrible” by members of the Irish parliament today.And Mr Martin said that justice minister Helen McEntee had pointed out to home secretary that Ireland was part of the response of the whole EU, which has waived visas for Ukrainians fleeing Vladimir Putin’s murderous assault on their homeland.“That continues to be our position in respect of prioritising the humanitarian response, above and beyond anything else,” Mr Martin said.More than 2,500 Ukrainians, including many children, had been welcomed visa-free to the Republic by Wednesday, compared to 760 who had been granted visas to enter the UK.Mr Martin told the Dáil that in the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the Second World War “some of the norms that would characterise business-as-usual would have to be put to one side”.“This crisis is going to be so big in my view, that we have to pull out all the stops as quickly as we can as a government,” he said.An anonymous government source was quoted in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday claiming Ukrainians will be able to travel on to the UK without biometric checks because of the common travel area (CTA).“Ireland has basically opened the door to everyone in Ukraine, which creates a problem due to the CTA,” the source said.“We’ve seen before with migrants from Albania that they have come through Dublin, into Belfast and across to the mainland to Liverpool. That’s created a drug cartel route.”But it was quickly pointed out that the visa-free CTA only applies to UK and Irish citizens, not to migrants from other countries.Simon Cox, a barrister at the Doughty Street Chambers firm, dismissed the claim as “dirty propaganda”, adding: “ Ireland has security checks on Ukrainians arriving without visas. Just as UK has for French people arriving without visas.”And the briefing provoked an angry response in the Dublin parliament, where Social Democrat MP Jennifer Whitmore said: “I think it’s disgraceful and there’s a responsibility to actually do a lot more and for them to welcome people into their country.”“Under the Common Travel Area arrangements, you have to be an Irish or British citizen to utilise that right of movement. So what has been said is completely wrong.“What it does is it creates this fear amongst people and creates division. It was incredibly irresponsible and they should never have made that statement.”Another MP, Richard Boyd Barrett said Britain’s attitude to Ukrainian refugees was “absolutely terrible”.“It really shows a considerable hypocrisy on the part of the British government, who are very keen to justify their own involvement in military alliances, but then don’t want us to extend the sort of humanitarian solidarity and refuge to people fleeing the conflict,” he told the Dáil.Mr Martin said the border with Northern Ireland will not be closed.“We have an open border with Northern Ireland, that is not going to change – be that for pandemic reasons or be that for refugee reasons,” he said.”We are not going to shut the border and the UK government will understand this in the same way as we understood it when it was coming the other way with the pandemic.”The best way is not to shut a border but to ensure you share information. That gives confidence that the security issue can be addressed.”The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page. More

Ordinary Russians are now experiencing the day-to-day consequences of the Ukraine invasion as McDonald’s and Starbucks shut their shops, Liz Truss has said.Speaking in Washington, the foreign secretary hailed the “huge action from the private sector” – which, unlike his censorship of the media, Vladimir Putin is unable to hide from his citizens.“We’ve seen huge action from the private sector, whether it’s McDonald’s or other companies,” the foreign secretary told a press conference.“One of the issues in Russia is, of course, the lack of free media – the fact that the Russian people aren’t being told the truth.“They will be seeing now – by the fact that shops are closing, they’re not able to get the goods that they were able to get – exactly the implications that Putin’s aggression in Ukraine is having for Russia.”The comments came as Ms Truss denied ever giving backing to ordinary Britons going to fight for Ukraine’s cause, despite saying it live on TV last month.“I have been very clear that the travel advice from the United Kingdom is not to go to Ukraine,” she claimed, adding: “What I said the other week was expressing support for the Ukrainian cause.”Ms Truss was speaking alongside Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, both facing renewed questions about Nato’s refusal to impose a no fly zone over Ukraine.In a fresh plea, following the bombing of a maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted: “How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror?”But Mr Blinken said: “Our goal is to end the war, not to expand it, including potentially expanding it to Nato territory.“Otherwise, it is going to turn even deadlier, involve more people and I think potentially even make things harder to resolve in Ukraine itself.”After Ms Truss had repeated the UK’s opposition to the no fly zone, Mr Blinken added: “As the foreign secretary said, we have exactly the same perspective on that.”Ms Truss said the invasion was proof that “since the end of the Cold War we took our eye off the ball”, arguing “we must never let down our guard again”.“We’re determined to keep strengthening Nato, and urge all allies to increase their investment,” she said.“We must accelerate Nato’s modernisation and deepen our cooperation on tech and cyber. We will end strategic dependence on authoritarian regimes for our energy and for other vital resources.”The foreign secretary also said: “The reality is, across the West, we haven’t spent enough on defence for a number of years and we’ve seen a build-up of military capability from Russia in terms of both technology and numbers.”She welcomed Germany’s increasing defence spending, but – on whether the UK will follow suit – added: “I’m not going to pre-empt any future discussions between the chancellor and the defence secretary.” More

The British people are willing to suffer “hardship” in the months ahead as the UK economy takes a hit from the Ukraine crisis, a cabinet minister has said.Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the public already understood the need to endure economic sacrifices in “solidarity” with Ukrainians under attack from Vladimir Putin’s regime.It came as experts warned that the ban by Boris Johnson government on oil imports from Russia will could add to the huge hit on households struggling from a cost of living crisis.Conservative MP Desmond Swayne said the government had to be “clear” with the British people that they would have to make sacrifices while Ukrainians made “so much greater sacrifices”.Mr Kwarteng responded: “People understand. People are willing to endure hardships in solidarity with the heroic efforts that the people of Ukraine are making. People understand this in this country, because we’re a generous and giving country.”Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Johnson rejected calls to offer more help on energy cost, as Labour leader Keir Starmer warned that war in Ukraine could force a further £1,000 spike in household bills this autumn.Abby Jitendra, principle policy manager at Citizens Advice, said that British households who use oil to heat their homes will feel a pinch from oil prices, which are near historic highs.With food prices also set to soar, campaigner Jack Monroe told MPs that the impact of the cost of living crisis on the millions of children living in poverty is “going to be, in some cases, fatal”, adding: “And that’s not a term that I use lightly.”The impact of the Ukraine crisis could cut living standards in Britain by around £2,500 per household this year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.And the Resolution Foundation has said predicted that the economic fallout from Ukraine will help trigger the biggest fall in living standards for Brits since the mid-1970s – with incomes set to fall by 4 per cent in the year ahead.Petrol prices also reached record highs of over £2 per litre in London on Wednesday as sanctions against Russia and moves to divesting to other suppliers drives up fuel costs.Tory MP Bernard Jenkin challenged Mr Kwarteng on whether he understood “urgency” of the crisis and how it would impact on families and businesses. “His hope the situation will rectify itself in a few months is, I’m afraid, hopelessly naïve.”Mr Kwarteng replied: “We are facing a difficult time, and the department is fully aware of the urgency of the problem.”He told the Commons that the move to phase out Russian oil products by the end of 2022 will ensure a “smooth transition”, and pledged to establish a new taskforce to help firms find “alternative supplies”.The business secretary also said he agreed with Mr Johnson that it “didn’t necessarily make any sense” to concrete over the fracking wells in Lancashire as planned.Downing Street repeatedly declined to deny that a controversial rethink on hydraulic fracturing for shale gas in England was under way in a bid to boost energy supply.Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow minister for climate, said fracking was a “false answer to our national energy needs and there is no public support for it”, adding: “It is an outdated, dangerous and expensive and has a disastrous impact on the environment.” More

The return of fracking will be explored as part of plans to boost the UK’s energy security following the invasion of Ukraine, No 10 has said.An “energy security strategy” – to be set out by Boris Johnson next week – will consider lifting the current ban on drilling for shale gas.“It’s clear that we need to move away from reliance on Russian hydrocarbons, so everybody would expect the prime minister to look at all options,” his spokesperson said.The move – which will be popular with many Tory backbenchers – follows the announcement that the UK will ban Russian oil imports in an effort to tighten the financial screw on Moscow. The hunt is now on for alternative sources of energy that are “less vulnerable to the whims of a dictator”, as one government source has put it, in reference to Vladimir Putin.Trial fracking sites in Lancashire that are due to be concreted over in just a week’s time could now be used for further research, it has emerged. However, experts strongly dispute whether fracking can meaningfully contribute to having more diversified energy sources, given the difficulty of extracting the UK’s reserves of shale gas.Iain Conn, the former boss of the energy firm Centrica, warned it will would not be “possible to drill enough wells to be able to make a material difference to the UK’s supplies”.Ministers were forced to impose a moratorium on fracking in 2019 when experts warned that it was not possible to predict accurately the danger of earth tremors from the controversial extraction process.Drilling was blamed for minor earthquakes, including a 2.9 magnitude tremor near Blackpool in August 2019, which led to the suspension of operations.Scotland and Wales had already turned their backs on fracking, which involves releasing natural gas from deep underground by blasting a mixture of water and chemicals into shale rock deposits.Greenpeace ridiculed the idea of a U-turn, its head of energy Rosie Rogers saying: “After a decade of hype and bluster, all the fracking industry has given us are two holes in a muddy field and some minor earthquakes.“Trying to restart fracking now would only mean wasting more time when we have little. It will take many years to develop, and if it ever gets produced, it will be sold to the highest bidder on the international market, with no impact on our energy bills.”But the No 10 spokesperson, asked about the looming new strategy, said: “The moratorium on fracking remains in place. But, as I say, you would expect the prime minister to look at all options given what has happened in Ukraine, given the rising cost in oil and gas, the wholesale prices, and the effect that is having here in the UK.”The new strategy could also see the Conservatives loosen their opposition to onshore windfarms, by relaxing current restrictions. More