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      Watchdog urged to stop Boris Johnson using honours to win back Partygate rebels

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      Boris Johnson must be barred from having a resignation honours list, to prevent him using the promise of gongs to persuade Tory MPs to back him over Partygate, honours watchdogs have been told.Liberal Democrats have written letters – seen by The Independent – to the chairs of the bodies which vet nominations for honours and peerages, urging them to declare they will reject any list put forward by Mr Johnson when he leaves office.Without this assurance, a “desperate” prime minister can be expected to take advantage of the system in his bid to cling to power, said the party’s chief whip Wendy Chamberlain.Ms Chamberlain wrote to the chairs of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and the Cabinet Office Honours Committee following unconfirmed reports that the PM had offered knighthoods and peerages to Tory MPs who hold back from submitting letters of no confidence in his leadership.Premiers are traditionally permitted to issue resignation honours lists on departure from office, though not all have done so.The Honours Committee and Appointments Commission are able to block nominations deemed to be inappropriate, and are believed to have struck several names from the list submitted by David Cameron in 2016.In letters to committee chair Sir Tom Scholar and commission chief Lord Bew, Ms Chamberlain said that any list from Mr Johnson should be blocked in its entirety in order to avoid rewarding him for his behaviour if he is forced from office.“For a prime minister to leave office because they have been found to have broken the law and the ministerial code would be an unprecedented event in modern British political history,” she wrote.“We must make sure that such an occasion is treated as what it is – a stain on our democracy and a matter of shame for our country. His behaviour must not be rewarded in any way.“This means that Boris Johnson must not be allowed to give out any resignation honours. I urge you to make it clear that you and your fellow committee members would not sign off on any such honours.”Ms Chamberlain told The Independent: “Boris Johnson should have already left No 10. Instead he’s promising people knighthoods and honours in a desperate attempt to cling on to power.“A prime minister forced from office by his own lies and law-breaking shouldn’t be allowed to hand out honours to his friends on the way out. Allowing him to get away with this would make a mockery of parliament and continue to sow distrust in our political system.“There should be no resignation honours list for Johnson and he should be barred from ever getting a seat in the House of Lords. Anything less is an insult to all those who followed the rules whilst No 10 partied.” More

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      Mayor Sadiq Khan will oppose Met chief who can’t tackle ‘cultural problems’ within force

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      Sadiq Khan has pledged to oppose the appointment of a new Met Police chief unless they have a “robust plan” to deal with the “cultural problems” that have led to a series of scandals at the force.Writing in The Observer, the London Mayor said he was “deeply concerned” that public trust and confidence in the country’s biggest police force “has been shattered so badly”, which he concluded could only be rebuilt with new leadership at the top of the Met.Dame Cressida Dick dramatically announced she was standing down as Metropolitan Police Commissioner on Thursday evening after Mr Khan made clear he had no confidence in her plans to reform the service.

      It has become crystal-clear that there are deep cultural issues within the MetLondon Mayor Sadiq KhanMr Khan wrote that he will “work closely” with Priti Patel on the selection of Dame Cressida’s successor.While the Conservative Home Secretary holds the power over the appointment, she must take the Labour Mayor’s preference into account.Mr Khan wrote: “I will not support the appointment of a new commissioner unless they can clearly demonstrate that they understand the scale of the cultural problems within the Met and the urgency with which they must be addressed.“In short, they need to get it, and they need to have a proper and robust plan to deal with it.”The comments could foment tensions that arose between the Mayor and Ms Patel over the manner of Dame Cressida’s departure, just months after the Home Secretary agreed a two-year extension to her contract.Home Office sources said Ms Patel was angered by Mr Khan’s failure to inform her that he had called Dame Cressida to a meeting on Thursday afternoon, which she considered “rude and unprofessional”. More

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      ‘Whiff of Munich’ over Western response to Ukraine crisis, says defence secretary Ben Wallace

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      Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has likened some Western diplomatic efforts to ease the Ukraine crisis to appeasement, saying there is a “whiff of Munich in the air”.In an interview with the Sunday Times, he said a Russian invasion of Ukraine is now “highly likely” and that the size of its military presence on the border was such that Moscow could “launch an offensive at any time”.“The worrying thing is that, despite the massive amount of increased diplomacy, that military build-up has continued,” he said. “It has not paused, it has continued.”He added that Putin could back down “but there is a whiff of Munich in the air from some in the West.”He did not refer to any country by name, but his comments came as officials in the French presidency said Vladimir Putin had given no indication he was planning to invade Ukraine during a phone call on Saturday with Emmanuel Macron.”We see no indication in what President Putin says that he is going to go on the offensive,” the French official told reporters.Macron visited Moscow during the week, when the pair discussed ways to move forward on the implementation of the Minsk Agreements on achieving peace in eastern Ukraine.Scholz is due to visit Kiev on Monday followed by Moscow on Tuesday, and the Elysee said the French and German positions were “perfectly aligned”.The Ministry of Defence has ruled out an evacuation of Kiev similar to the one carried out in Afghanistan last August after the fall of Kabul.Mr Wallace said: “Russia has a formidable armed forces that would have an air defence and [anti-aircraft] capability. The Taliban had lots of things but it didn’t have that.”Last week Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, announced plans for the “toughest sanctions regime against Russia” as she warned that any further invasion would incur “severe costs”. She will be in eastern European capitals over the next month spearheading the diplomatic campaign. Her message will be that a Russian invasion would backfire on the Kremlin and result in a drawn-out conflict.Reuters contributed to this report. More

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      Biden holds hour-long call with Putin to warn of ‘swift and severe costs’ if Russia invades Ukraine

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      President Joe Biden called Vladimir Putin on Saturday to warn him of “swift and severe costs” if Russia invades Ukraine, in an apparent last-ditch attempt to avoid military conflict in eastern Europe.The leaders spoke for just over an hour as several more countries urged their citizens to leave Ukraine following western intelligence reports that fighting could begin as soon as next week.The United States “remains prepared to engage in diplomacy”, Mr Biden told Mr Putin, but warned him that invading Ukraine “would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing”.Kremlin officials said the phone call took place against a backdrop of “hysteria” in the west and that the US had not addressed Russia’s main security concerns.Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops near the Ukraine border and has sent troops to exercises in neighbouring Belarus, but has repeatedly denied that it intends to launch an offensive against Ukraine. It is demanding that the west keep Ukraine and other former Soviet countries out of Nato and to refrain from deploying weapons near its border.Britain on Saturday announced it was withdrawing its remaining troops from Ukraine. Small numbers of British personnel have undertaken Operation Orbital training missions since Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 , including around 30 deployed recently to train the Ukrainian military on the use of anti-tank missiles.Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said she agreed with Washington that “Russia will face massive consequences for any invasion, including severe sanctions”. “Russia must deescalate and engage with Nato proposals,” she said.Ukraine’s foreign ministry called for calm and urged all sides to “avoid actions that undermine stability and sow panic”.In Kiev, several thousand people rallied to show unity over fears of a Russian invasion. They chanted “Glory to Ukraine” and carried Ukrainian flags and banners that said “Ukrainians will resist” and “invaders must die”.Among the crowd were British nationals vowing to stay and defend Ukraine, but others are scrambling to leave over fears commercial flights could soon be suspended.The Biden-Putin phone call was the first direct conversation between the two leaders since December.The White House said: “President Biden was clear that, if Russia undertakes a further invasion of Ukraine, the United States together with our allies and partners will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia.“President Biden reiterated that a further Russian invasion of Ukraine would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing. President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios.”A senior administration official described the call as “professional and substantive”, but added there was “no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks”.The United States has moved its remaining troops out of Ukraine and ordered the evacuation of most of its embassy staff from Kiev. The Pentagon pulled out nearly 160 members of the Florida National Guard who had been in the country since November.Adding to the sense of crisis, the Pentagon ordered an additional 3,000 troops to Poland to reassure allies.It comes after a hectic week of diplomatic negotiations designed to remove the risk of war.Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Ms Truss were among those to visit Moscow this past week as well as four-way talks taking place in Berlin between Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France, but with no breakthrough. More

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      Boris Johnson turning UK into a laughing stock on world stage, says shadow foreign secretary

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      Britain’s foreign policy must be reshaped around fundamental values to save the country from being viewed as a “figure of fun” on the international stage, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy has told The Independent.Mr Lammy and Sir Keir Starmer have been pointedly supportive of Boris Johnson’s government over the current crisis in Ukraine – vociferously declaring themselves a “party of Nato” in a move at least partly intended to distance Labour from the era of Jeremy Corbyn.But the shadow foreign secretary said Johnson’s efforts to mount a firm stand against Vladimir Putin’s aggression were being undermined, not only by his domestic embarrassment over Downing Street parties, but also by his unreliability towards allies and his unwillingness to tackle the influence of Russian money in the UK.“Part of my job in this role is to keep a close eye on what our allies and partner countries and others are saying about us,” said the shadow foreign secretary in an exclusive interview with The Independent.“And it’s very clear that our enemies are laughing at Boris Johnson, our allies are despairing of Boris Johnson, and our population is largely ashamed of Boris Johnson.”Mr Lammy cited Mr Johnson’s threats to “blow up” his Northern Ireland protocol, and to abolish the Human Rights Act; his slashing of the UK aid budget; and his undermining of institutions such as the BBC and the British Council, which are vital to the UK’s “soft power” overseas.And he said the PM’s “deeply inappropriate” use of populist tropes about Europe, and his spats with Emmanuel Macron over fish, had contributed to a situation wherein the UK is no longer taken seriously internationally.“It’s that rhetoric that leads us to a place where we become a figure of fun,” he said. “You just have to read the way that Boris Johnson is described in international media to be very concerned that such a serious country as ours should become a figure of fun because of who we’re led by.”Mr Lammy revealed that he and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves had received no answer to a letter sent to their government counterparts Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak earlier this month demanding action to stop Russia using London as a launderette for dirty money.US State Department officials have privately said Joe Biden fears that the leverage of sanctions on Putin risks being undermined by the entrenchment of Russian finance in the city some have nicknamed “Londongrad”.In their letter, Mr Lammy and Ms Reeves urged the Johnson administration to tighten up business rules, implement the recommendations of the 2020 Russia report by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, and return an estimated £5m received by the Conservative Party from Russian donors in recent years.“We are supportive of severe sanctions on Russia in the event of them invading,” said Mr Lammy. “But we in the opposition have been asking these questions now for well over 18 months, and the lethargic attitude that the government has shown towards our own security is unfathomable.”Asked if his failure to act on concerns over the influence of Russian money in the UK had destroyed the PM’s credibility on Ukraine, Mr Lammy replied: “It doesn’t have to, if the government acts with pace and speed and severity, but clearly in the absence of that it sends the wrong messages.”He said: “I don’t want to play party politics at this time. It’s hugely important, against Russian aggression, that Europe is united – across the European continent, but also in our democracies. It’s important that we are as united as we can be about the sovereignty of Ukraine and its territorial integrity, and about standing up to what is an aggressive posture from Russia.”But he added: “We have got the wrong prime minister at a very, very serious time.“It’s hugely important that the government plays a full and appropriate role at this time, and I’m worried that Boris Johnson is having to spend so much of his time dealing with the drip, drip, drip of constant revelations that are emerging from 10 Downing Street about partying.“I don’t think any of us would ever have thought that we would have a situation where the prime minister was unable to make a call to Vladimir Putin because he was dealing with these issues. I think that’s unprecedented, given the seriousness of the times.”Restoring Britain’s reputation internationally will require moving from the current administration’s “transactional” foreign policy to one that is founded in values, said Mr Lammy.“I think this government – and this has been amplified since Liz Truss became foreign secretary – sees our relationship with the world in transactional terms,” he said.“That is a huge departure for this great country. And I think it undermines our position with our allies, with our partners, because it’s so self-serving, venal and transparent in its nature.”He stopped short of repeating his predecessor Robin Cook’s promise of a “foreign policy with an ethical dimension”.But he said: “The consistency, the reliability, the integrity of Britain and its foreign policy is hugely important. And here what’s essential are values that I think are Labour values – values of internationalism, values of multilateralism, values of support for the rule of law and democracy.“In this populist age of Trumpian politics, of the politics of division – not just autocrats pushing that division, but elected politicians pushing that division for their own elected gain – we have to [have] a values-based approach to our relationships.“The only way to deal with China, for example, is through multilateralism, where you can cooperate on issues like climate change, but you have to challenge very hard the genocide that we’re seeing with the Uighurs. You have to do that collectively.”The fervent pro-European’s appointment by Sir Keir to the foreign policy brief in November gave rise to some speculation that the party could be preparing to shift on the agnostic stance it has taken towards Brexit since the last election.But Mr Lammy poured cold water on any talk of a return to the 27-nation bloc, despite polls showing growing public enthusiasm for rejoining.“I want to see Labour in power, able to affect change for the lives of the British people. Twenty-one years in public life has taught me that to get into power, you have to be looking forward, not backwards,” he said.While acknowledging the “pain” he and others feel at losing Britain’s EU membership, he said: “There are stages in grief. And the Labour Party has got to be at the end stage of that grief, looking forward and understanding that we have to move forward for a new day.“That means, of course, that you’ve still got to be at the centre of Europe. You still have to have diplomatic, political, and social relations, even if you’ve stepped away from the economic relationship that we had in the past.” More

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      Boris Johnson ‘should recuse himself from choice of new police chief’

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      Boris Johnson should recuse himself from involvement in picking the next head of the Metropolitan Police while he is under investigation by the force, a former police chief has said.The hunt for a new commissioner was triggered by the shock resignation of Dame Cressida Dick on Thursday after London Mayor Sadiq Khan told her she had lost his confidence due to her failure to deal with misogyny and racism in the force.It came as the Met investigates 12 alleged breaches of coronavirus restrictions in parties and social gatherings at 10 Downing Street and Whitehall departments in 2020 and 2021.Mr Johnson is among around 50 individuals who have been sent questionnaires by the Scotland Yard team working on Operation Hillman, giving them seven days to provide credible explanations for their involvement in the events or face fines.There was fury yesterday over comments attributed to an ally of the PM which appeared to suggest that pressure was being put on police to treat Mr Johnson differently from other people accused of breaching Covid rules.With a poll in The Independent showing that 75 per cent of voters think the PM should step down if issued with a fine, the ally reportedly told The Times: “Do you want the Metropolitan Police deciding who the prime minister is? They have to be very certain.”Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair said that any involvement by the PM in choosing Dame Cressida’s successor would give rise to a “very difficult issue”.“I think Boris Johnson should recuse himself from being involved,” Lord Blair, who led the force from 2005-08, told the BBC.“But it’s an enormously important choice and presumably it will take some time to get to being to who the commissioner is, and by that stage presumably he will have filled in his questionnaire and the matter will be over.”A Downing Street source said: “The appointment of the commissioner is done via fair and open competition and approved by the home secretary. The prime minister has no role in it.”Mr Johnson is alleged to have attended six events which could potentially have breached social distancing rules, including a “bring your own booze” party in the garden of Downing Street. He faces a fixed penalty of at least £100 if found to have failed to abide by regulations which he introduced.It is understood that he intends to defend his position vigorously, with reports that he will say he was working in the flat at 11 Downing Street on the evening of 13 November 2020, when wife Carrie is alleged to have hosted an Abba party to celebrate the resignation of aide Dominic Cummings.In response to Downing Street’s confirmation that Mr Johnson had received a police questionnaire, Mr Cummings tweeted: “Great work Tory MPs leaving this crippled joke of a PM spending next seven days bunkered down with lawyers trying to remember all his different lies while another major global crisis unfolds.”Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives have confirmed that Mr Johnson will address their annual conference in March, despite their leader Douglas Ross having called on him to resign over Partygate.It is understood he may speak to the Aberdeen gathering by video link.A Scottish Conservatives spokesperson said: “The Prime Minister will be invited to address party conference, just as has been the case in any other year.”SNP MP Pete Wishart described the announcement as a “humiliating climbdown for Douglas Ross” which “demonstrates that the Scottish Tory party is nothing more than a branch office under the control of Tory HQ in Westminster”.Mr Ross was among the Tory MPs who have called on Mr Johnson to resign, with the backing of his parties’ MSPs at Holyrood.The move prompted Johnson ally Jacob Rees-Mogg to called the head of the Scottish Conservatives a “lightweight”However, Scottish secretary Alister Jack said Mr Ross had his “full backing”. More

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      Boris Johnson news – live: PM told to quit if fined by police and keep out of Cressida Dick successor search

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      Boris Johnson receives legal questionnaire over partygate from policeTory MPs are warning that Boris Johnson must not fight to stay on as prime minister if he is fined by police over Downing Street parties.The news comes after exclusive polling for The Independent showed the Conservatives face a brutal backlash from voters – a record 75 per cent think Johnson should go if he is found guilty of breaking Covid rules.Veteran Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale said there would be “public outcry” if the prime minister gets fined and tries to keep his job.“We are not talking about a parking ticket or something like that,” he told The Independent. “His position, if it is not already untenable, will become completely untenable if he faces any kind of police sanction.”Meanwhile former leader of the Metropolitan Police Lord Blair has called for the PM to recuse himself from involvement in picking Cressida Dick’s successor while under investigation for possible Covid rule breaches.The beleaguered boss of the Met resigned on Thursday after losing the backing of London Mayor Sadiq Khan.Show latest update

      1644677198Tory voters favour Rishi Sunak as Johnson replacement Chancellor Rishi Sunak is the favoured candidate to replace Boris Johnson among voters, according to The Independent’s exclusive polling.The chancellor is the top choice among Tory supporters and the electorate at large, with 29 per cent of voters and 43 per cent of Conservatives saying they would be more likely to back the party with him at the helm.Some distance behind the chancellor were health secretary Sajid Javid, followed by former leadership contender Jeremy Hunt and foreign secretary Liz Truss, according to the Savanta ComRes survey.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 14:461644675638Voters say levelling up will make no difference to their livesAlmost half (46 per cent) of voters said it will make no difference to their living standards, while 23 per cent said it will worsen them.Just 23 per cent of the 2,232 voters taking part in the Savanta ComRes survey think it will make things better.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 14:201644673538Voters cite Partygate and ‘dishonesty’ as reasons Boris Johnson should quitAmong those who want the PM to resign in The Independent’s exclusive polling, Partygate was the most-cited reason.This reason was followed by the PM’s perceived dishonesty (79 per cent) and his personal behaviour (77 per cent).For Conservative supporters who want him out, Mr Johnson’s lies were seen as a stronger justification for his removal than the lockdown breaches.You can read Andrew Woodcock’s full story here.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 13:451644672398Will the prime minister listen to his new spin doctor?“The opening banter between Boris Johnson and his new press secretary, Guto Harri, was of such quality it might have been scripted by Armando Iannucci or Ricky Gervais,” writes Sean O’Grady.He says the PM’s new spin doctor knows Johnson well enough to tell him some home truths. But will the prime minister listen?You can read the full story below.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 13:261644670718Almost a third of Conservative voters want PM to quit nowAlmost a third of Conservative voters want Boris Johnson to quit now, according to exclusive polling for The Independent.But 30 per cent of Conservative supporters want him to go only if he is found to have broken Covid rules – while 31 per cent are happy for him to remain in office even if he is fined.This means a majority of Tory voters are willing to see the PM stay on if he is cleared of breaking the rules.You can read Andrew Woodcock’s full story here.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 12:581644669638Polling: 75 per cent of voters think PM should go if found guilty of Covid rule-breaking Exclusive polling for The Independent shows 75 per cent of voters think Boris Johnson should go if he is found guilty of breaking Covid rules.The Savanta ComRes survey showed just 16 per cent think the MP should stay if he is found guilty of breaches in investigations by the Metropolitan Police and civil servant Sue Gray.Today’s poll of 2,232 voters also found 49 per cent believe Mr Johnson should resign no matter what the result.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 12:401644668243Tory MP: ‘Public outcry’ if PM stays on after getting finedVeteran Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale has said there would be “public outcry” if the prime minister gets fined over Covid lockdown breaches and tries to keep his job.“We are not talking about a parking ticket or something like that,” he told The Independent.“His position, if it is not already untenable, will become completely untenable if he faces any kind of police sanction.”You can read Andrew Woodcock’s full story here. Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 12:171644666818Tory MPs warn Boris Johnson must not fight to keep job if fined by policeTory MPs are warning that Boris Johnson must not fight to stay prime minister if he is fined by police over Downing Street parties.The news comes after exclusive polling for The Independent showed the party risks a brutal backlash from voters, with a record 75 per cent thinking Johnson should go if he is found guilty of breaking the rules.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 11:531644666186ICYMI: Tory MP Andrew Bridgen under investigation over alleged paid lobbyingConservative MP Andrew Bridgen is being investigated by parliament’s standards watchdog over claims of paid lobbying and failing to properly declare interests.The investigation into the backbencher comes after a report in The Times alleged he lobbied government minister Andrew Stephenson to help with a timber firm’s tax affairs.Mere Plantations donated £5,000 to the North West Leicestershire MP’s local Tory association following a call to the then-Foreign Office minister in 2019.Here’s the full story.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 11:431644664844Little chance of progress over protocol before elections, DUP leader warnsThe chances of problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol being resolved before Stormont Assembly elections in May are “quite small”, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said.Sir Jeffrey said there was “very little progress” in ongoing discussions between the UK Government and the EU.European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss met in London on Friday as part of their attempt to break the deadlock over the protocol and committed to intensive discussions.But the DUP leader told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is very little progress in the talks, as we saw yesterday.“That was confirmed to me by the Prime Minister.“He doesn’t expect, unless something changes dramatically, that agreement will be reached this side of an election to remove the Irish Sea border.”You can read the full story below.Laurie Churchman12 February 2022 11:20 More

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      Russia tensions reveal threat to UK food supplies, farming chief warns

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      Tensions in Russia and Ukraine have revealed a risk to the UK’s food supplies with soaring costs and post Brexit in-fighting helping to create a “perfect storm”, a farming chief has warned.The two sparring countries provide 30 per cent of the world’s global wheat exports and a recent temporary block on fertiliser chemicals exported by Russia saw prices more than doubling.Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), said warning about UK food security had fallen on deaf ears for years, but now had to be taken seriously by the government.“I cannot understand why you would not treat food security as importantly as defence,” she told The Independent. “The quickest way to create a serious issue [for a country] is if you have food shortages.”Russia imposed a two-month block on exports of ammonium nitrate this month, Ms Batters said, a key tool for boosting yields from crops such as wheat and cotton.The move has driven up global fertiliser costs which were already stoked by sanctions on Belaruskali, Belarus’s biggest potash supplier, imposed by the US, UK and others last year.Belarus and Russia account for 38 per cent of the global supply of potash, according to figures compiled by the Canadian government. Farmers’ profit margins have been decimated by the uptick in fertiliser prices, in addition to higher energy bills, labour costs and global supply chain disruptions.Ms Batters said: “Last year I paid under £300 a tonne for nitrogen fertilizer, this year, it’s over £700 a tonne.“[Russia and Ukraine] know exactly how much the world is reliant on them for natural gas and fertilizer.” Ms Batters’ warning came as the World Bank and other multilateral agencies warned of rising global food prices and insecurity, with inflation for agricultural products rising by 25 per cent in January 2022, compared to the same month in 2021. She said the problem were compounded by post-Brexit changes to trade and agricultural policy, which are threatening to put many farmers out of business: “Agriculture seems to be the pawn in trade deals. So I think it is a perfect storm.”She said although there were “people in government who seem to get this”, such an understanding “doesn’t come from the prime minister”.“All you hear is this rhetoric around putting land aside for nature, build back Beaver, this is a very frustrating adversarial approach between setting land aside and producing food,” she said. The result is that food production “just doesn’t seem to get cut though at the moment”. The NFU’s intervention comes after Sir Geoffrey Clifton Brown, the conservative deputy chair of the public accounts committee warned last month that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) new Environment Land Management schemes would “undermine” a “critical national sector” pushing farmers out of business. “The recent energy price crisis should be a salutary warning of the potential risks to the availability and affordability of food if the UK becomes even more reliant on food imports,” Sir Geoffrey said.The problem of food security has been laid bare during the Covid-19 pandemic. Several countries put up barriers to stop food exports as well as medical products, according to Simon Evenett, economics professor at Switzerlaversity of St Gallen, and author of the Global Trade Alert.Costs are also rising for consumers, with Tesco warning that prices would rise at a rate of around 5 per cent in the coming months.“At the moment, the consumer here is getting a better deal than anyone in the world unless you happen to be living in some states of the US or Singapore. We’ve got the most affordable food in European here right now,” she said.But that is in large part because the UK has managed to remain 60 per cent self-sufficient for food production, something that is now under threat.A Defra spokesperson said the government was taking a “test and trial” approach to new subsidies for the agricultural sector at present. They added: “We continue to champion food production, but some land use change is inevitable if we are to restore 300,000 hectares of land to nature. However, this is only a relatively small proportion of more than nine million hectares of farmland in England.” More