UK Politics

Boris Johnson’s former Brexit minister David Frost has said there will be “no way back” for the prime minister if he is found to misled parliament about Downing Street parties.The PM’s former ally – who dramatically quit as Brexit negotiator at the end of last year – suggested Conservative MPs should decide Mr Johnson’s future on the basis of the Sue Gray report.Writing before the Metropolitan Police’s bombshell statement requesting that Ms Gray make “minimal reference” to gatherings which officers are already investigating, Lord Frost said “matters need to be brought to a head”.“Sue Gray’s report must be published and judgments must be made,” the Tory peer wrote in his latest column for The Sun. “Her report may provide evidence to condemn the prime minister.”Asking MPs to weigh up the report “seriously”, the Tory peer added: “If they conclude the PM has misled parliament, then I am afraid there will be no way back.”Lord Frost also said there had been “too much chaos”, adding: “The future of Boris Johnson’s government needs to be settled in the next few days.”The former cabinet minister remarks go further than his tweets on Thursday, in which he called for a clear-out of staff and a complete change in direction at No 10.Highlighting a column in The Telegraph, Lord Frost said he agreed “the neo-socialists, green fanatics and pro-woke crowd” should be “exiting immediately”.The Tory peer also suggested that the government should “get back” on the track of delivering post-Brexit changes, whoever is prime minister.“Some say: ‘If Boris goes, Brexit goes.” I strongly disagree. We are not going back into the EU. But it is true that some still want us to run the country just as if we were a member of the EU,” he wrote in his latest column.“Whatever the future holds, we must resist that. If we go down that road, we will not get the benefits of doing things differently and Brexit will fail. Brexit was about change … We need to get back on that track.”Scotland Yard has asked for the Whitehall inquiry into allegations of lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street to make only “minimal reference” to the events being investigated by police.The Liberal Democrats have warned that any appearance of an “establishment stitch-up” between government and police to cover up wrong-doing would be “profoundly damaging”.And Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for the Gray report to be published in full as soon as possible, warning the government had been thrown into “paralysis” by continuing uncertainty.Downing Street has denied any role in the Met police’s dramatic decision. More

Downing Street today insisted that the 2.5 per cent hike in National Insurance will go ahead in April “no ifs, no buts”, despite a government minister admitting that “everybody” is opposed to it.Boris Johnson’s repeated refusal to commit himself publicly to the tax rise has sparked concern in Whitehall that the prime minister may be wobbling over the plan to raise £12bn a year for the NHS and social care.Today’s comments represent a hardening of Downing Street’s position and appear designed to dispel speculation that the prime minister may cave in to pressure from Tory MPs to drop the levy in the hope of saving his own skin in the partygate row.Many backbenchers oppose the National Insurance hike – costing £455 a year to the average worker and imposing costs on employers too – with some making it a condition of support in any confidence vote on the PM’s future.Speaking on BBC1’s Question Time, defence minister James Heappey defended the NI rise, but acknowledged that all of the audience were opposed to it.”I don’t think it’s a majority. I think it’s absolute,” he told host Fiona Bruce.”Everybody in the room is against it. Everybody in the room is feeling the squeeze.”The tax hike will hit workers in April at the same time as a forecast rise of £600-700 in energy bills, adding to a cost-of-living crisis hitting millions of Britons.Mr Heappey indicated that ministers are ready to take action to soften the blow, saying that the government is “in listening mode”.”You’ll have noticed the top of the government is in listening mode at the moment,” he said.”There are plenty of people that are on good salaries that are starting to worry about how they’re going to make ends meet and the government is seeking to address that. We’re going to need to do a lot over the next few years to help people with this.”In two TV interviews this week, Mr Johnson has dodged repeated calls to guarantee that the 2.5 per cent hike – split equally between employees and employers – will go ahead as planned.But a Downing Street spokesperson today insisted that it will do.Asked at a regular Westminster media briefing if rise will come into force in April “no ifs, no buts”, he replied: “Yes.”He added: “The prime minister and chancellor are fully committed to introducing the health and social care levy in April. “We’ve spoken before about why we are doing that, in order to give the NHS the funds it needs to tackle the backlog that has built up, as well tackling the long-term issue of social care.”We are committed to introducing that in April.”The NI hike will add £130 a year to the tax bill of workers on a £20,000 salary, and £255 for those who earn £30,000.People on £50,000 will pay an additional £505 a year, those on £80,000 will lose £880 and those earning £100,000 face a £1,130 bill.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it would be “the wrong thing to do” to raise national insurance in April.Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to Glasgow, Sir Keir said: “The prime minister needs to act on this. “We’ve got a very serious issue here with everybody facing prices going up – whether that’s fuel, energy bills at home, inflation going up to something like 6 per cent, the worst it’s been since the John Major years.”And at that very moment, Boris Johnson and his government want to impose a tax hike on people in April.“It was the wrong thing to do and we argued strongly it shouldn’t have happened. So I’m glad if anybody is reconsidering this, but it should never have happened in the first place.” More

Theresa May has broken her silence over Downing Street lockdown parties and said she is “angry” at the revelations.In a letter shared with her local constituency newspaper Boris Johnson’s predecessor declared that “nobody is above the law”.The comments mark her first intervention over the so-called “Partygate” scandal, which she had notably avoided commenting on so far.”I have said previously that it is vital that those who set the rules, follow the rules. Nobody is above the law,” the Maidenhead Advertiser reported Ms May as having written.”This is important for ensuring the necessary degree of trust between the public and Government.”Like so many, I was angry to hear stories of those in Number 10, who are responsible for setting the coronavirus rules, not properly following the rules.”The letter was sent before the Metropolitan Police launched its own inquiry into the alleged parties, referred to the investigation by top civil servant Sue Gray.The former prime minister said that “if there is evidence of deliberate or premeditated wrongdoing, I expect full accountability to follow”.She added: “All those working at the heart of Government should conduct themselves with the highest of standards which befits the work they do, and this applies as much to those working in Number 10 as to other parts of Government.”The ex-prime minister has been a persistent critic of Mr Johnson’s government on issues including planning reform and cuts to international aid.During Ms May’s tenure as prime minister Mr Johnson served as foreign secretary.But he resigned from her Cabinet over over what he said was her policy of enacting a “semi-Brexit” that would leave the UK with the “status of a colony”. More

Foreign secretary Liz Truss has said the UK government would not intervene to prevent DUP ministers in North Ireland halting checks required under the Brexit deal.Ms Truss said it would be up to the Northern Ireland Executive to decide if officials in the province should stop inspections on goods if ordered to do so by DUP agricultural minister Edwin Poots.First minister Paul Givan said on Thursday that his DUP colleague Mr Poots would order a stop to the checks – a move branded a stunt by Sinn Fein and other parties on the executive at Stormont.Sinn Fein deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill claimed the proposal would expose the DUP to “public ridicule” – and said civil servants would be obliged to defy any order from Mr Poots as such a direction would be unlawful.Asked if Boris Johnson’s government would intervene, Ms Truss told the Belfast Telegraph it was a “matter for the [Northern Ireland] executive” to decide upon.The dispute centres on whether Mr Poots requires the authority of the wider executive to conduct the checks and inspections on goods arriving from Great Britain necessitated by Northern Ireland Protocol agreed between the UK and the EU.Claiming that recent court rulings have clarified that such authority is required, Mr Poots tried to secure the approval of the executive by asking for it to be voted on at a meeting on Thursday.However, Sinn Fein used its own veto to prevent the issue from even getting on the agenda in the first place.Mr Poots now claims that – in the absence of wider executive backing – he does not have the legal authority to continue the Brexit checks. It is unclear when he will formally announce that he has directed a halt to them.But Mr Givan made clear the DUP intend to stop inspections. “Edwin Poots is going to act … That is something that the DUP have said that we were going to do, and we are going to do that.”If protocol checks were to stop, it would put the UK government at odds with its obligations under the terms of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.In such circumstances, the government could use its authority to direct that the checks resume.However, that could place it in an uncomfortable position politically, given Ms Truss is currently involved in intensive negotiations with Brussels in a bid to significantly reduce the number of checks required under the protocol.The DUP has targeted 21 February as a fresh deadline for Ms Truss to deliver a solution to protocol problems.The foreign secretary told the Belfast Telegraph she was hopeful both sides would find a “sweet spot” in negotiations next month.The prime minister risked heightening the row once more on Wednesday when he accused the bloc of implement the protocol in an “insane” and petty way.EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has said Mr Johnson and his team “know exactly what they signed up for … they are the ones who negotiated”.Mr Barnier told Politico that Mr Johnson must stop the theatrics over to reach a deal on the protocol. “The British government must adopt a pragmatic attitude, without ideology” in order to “de-dramatize” the current tension. More

The Metropolitan Police has told Sue Gray to make “minimal reference” to potentially lawbreaking No 10 parties in her report, the force has confirmed.In a statement released on Friday morning the Met said that “for the events the Met is investigating, we asked for minimal reference to be made in the Cabinet Office report”.It comes after an unexpected delay to the release of the much-awaited internal probe into events at Downing Street, reportedly due to a “legal scrubbing” process.Scotland Yard, which is running a parallel criminal investigation into some of the more potentially egregious events, added that it “did not ask for limitation on other events in the report, or for the report to be delayed, but we have had ongoing contact with the Cabinet Office, including on the content of the report”.The statement said the requests for some details to be left out had been “to avoid prejudice to our investigation”. Boris Johnson continues to anxiously await Ms Gray’s report, which could trigger a vote of no confidence in his leadership by Conservative MPs angered over alleged breaches of lockdown rules.But MPs waiting for the report’s publication before launching a bid to remove the PM may have their plan derailed if it emerges with its most potentially damaging findings removed.Downing Street confirmed on Friday morning that it had not yet received the report, which may not be released until next week.Sources close to the Sue Gray inquiry have previously indicated that the civil service investigator was concerned about the prospect of releasing a report that did not include all of its key findings.Cabinet Office sources on Frida morning pointed to the inquiry’s terms of reference, which require it to establish the nature of the gatherings, including attendance and adherence to the guidance in place at the time. The department says that the findings will be made public, and that what the Metropolitan Police investigate is for Scotland Yard to decide.Met Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick announced that a criminal investigation had been launched on Tuesday, after weeks of calls for one.Officers have not confirmed how many events they are investigating, but reports have suggested the number could be as high as eight.Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said the proceedings risked giving the “appearance of an establishment stitch-up”.”So first the police were waiting for Sue Gray, now Sue Gray has to wait for the police?” he said.”Any appearance of an establishment stitch-up between the Met Commissioner and the Government is profoundly damaging. Police officers need the trust and confidence of the public to do their jobs and keep our communities safe.”That’s why we called for the police to investigate Number 10 weeks ago and put this whole sorry business behind us, instead of waiting for Sue Gray.”The Sue Gray report must be published in full, including all photos, text messages and other evidence. If it is redacted now, a full, unredacted version must be published as soon as the police investigation is complete.” More

The Foreign Office’s top civil servant has apologised to a parliamentary committee for misleading evidence over memos linking Boris Johnson to the evacuation of dogs and cats belonging to ex-Marine Pen Farthing from Afghanistan.And a senior member of the committee said it was now “difficult to have confidence that MPs are getting full answers from the department about the controversial airlift.Foreign Office permanent secretary Sir Philip Barton and the PM’s Afghan envoy Nigel Casey insisted in a hearing on 7 December that they were not aware of a message attributing the decision to Mr Johnson.They were told about a message from the PM’s parliamentary private secretary Trudy Harrison to Mr Farthing telling that staff from his Nowzad charity had been cleared to leave via Kabul’s airport. Sir Philip said at the time he was “not aware” of the message and Ms Harrison has since insisted it was sent in her capacity as a constituency MP. But a leaked memo from the office of Foreign Office minister Zac Goldsmith, sent at the time of the airlift last August and revealed this week, said the PM had “just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated”.The BBC reported another email from the same day, which said then foreign secretary Dominic Raab was “seeking a steer from No 10″ on whether to call Nowzad staff forward.And another email from Mr Casey showed the envoy asking the national security adviser “to seek clear guidance for us from No 10 asap on what they would like us to do”.In his letter, Sir Philip said he wanted to “apologise for the inadvertently inaccurate answers” given to questions from the cross-party committee at the 7 December hearing.”On the day the email was sent, Nigel was almost entirely focused , in his role as Gold in our crisis response, on the terrorist threat to the evacuation,” he wrote.”As Nigel said the committee on 25 January, he has no recollection of having seen emails in which staff attributed this decision to the prime minister. Nor do I.”In response a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Labour MP Chris Bryant, said: “The disaster of our withdrawal from Afghanistan requires the highest level of scrutiny. Parliament can only do this if there is transparency from government.“Since we published internal Foreign Office emails earlier this week, further emails have come to light that make it difficult to have confidence that we are getting full answers from the department.”Whistle-blowers and MPs have criticised the airlift of 173 animals being looked after by Nowzad on the grounds that it drew on capacity at Kabul airport that could have been used to rescue people. More

Filipe Orfao, a 37-year-old emergency room nurse in Lisbon voices grievances that have long been heard in Portugal.The familiar gripes include a tradition of low pay, a public service career structure that thwarts ambitions to get ahead in life, the nagging enticement of going to work abroad instead of staying at home, and politicians’ broken promises of improvement, especially for health workers like Orfao who have weathered the coronavirus pandemic.Politicians “often talk about us,” Orfao says outside Lisbon’s Hospital Santa Maria, Portugal’s largest hospital. “But in practice, nothing comes of it.”Ahead of Sunday’s election for a new parliament and government, those vexations are being heard again as the European Union country’s two main parties, the center-left Socialists and the center-right Social Democrats, compete for power. Those two parties have for decades collected around 70% of the vote, alternating in government, and opinion polls suggest a close race this time.For voters like Orfao, a bigger change in the political landscape might be more welcome, because the same problems have dogged Portugal since the last century.Portugal’s economy has been falling behind the rest of the 27-nation EU since 2000, when its real annual GDP per capita was 16,230 euros ($18,300) compared with an EU average of 22,460 ($25,330).By 2020, Portugal had edged higher to 17,070 euros ($19,250) while the bloc’s average surged to 26,380 euros ($29,750).Low wages, meanwhile, have been spurring emigration since the 1960s. Orfao takes home around 1,300 euros ($1,466) a month, which the national statistics agency says is roughly the average pay in Portugal. Some of Orfao’s colleagues are earning the same they did 15 years ago. Short-term contracts that deny workers, including many nurses, job security are another point of contention.Over the past 10 years — a period that includes governments run by both the Socialists and the Social Democrats — some 20,000 Portuguese nurses have gone to work abroad, in an unprecedented drain of medical talent.The Socialist government won a 2019 general election promising better pay and conditions for nurses, but apart from some tinkering with professional categories, it did little to improve nursing jobs. That minority government collapsed last November, halfway through its four-year term, when parliament rejected its 2022 state budget.The spending plan is key. Portugal, a country of 10.3 million people, is poised to begin deploying 45 billion euros ($50.8 billion) from the EU to help fire up the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic. The new funds are seen as a new chance for Portugal to make up lost ground.But the early election, intended to clarify the country’s direction, could backfire and leave Portugal back where it started two months ago — with a vulnerable minority government.An apparent surge in support for smaller parties means the two main parties will likely have to cut a deal with one or more of them, with an extended period of political horse-trading expected.“Forming a government has become more difficult because parliament will be more fragmented,” says António Costa Pinto, a professor at Lisbon University’s Institute of Social Sciences.For Orfao, the Lisbon nurse, being saluted in politicians’ speeches and applauded by the public during the pandemic has been heartwarming. He feels, though, that he and his colleagues deserve more.He paid for his own specialist ER training, done in his spare time over two years, to work at the state-run Santa Maria hospital. But under the public health service’s restrictive rules on promotions, “I’d have to live to be 120 to reach the pinnacle of my career,” he says.After the pandemic hit, Orfao began changing his clothes twice after leaving his shift at the ER, dreading he might take the virus home and infect his wife, or his toddler son, or his father who was battling cancer.Sunday’s ballot is taking place amid a surge in new cases blamed on the highly infectious omicron variant, with hundreds of thousands of infected people confined at home. Authorities are allowing infected people to go to polling stations, with a recommendation they go during a less busy evening time slot.Orfao isn’t very comfortable with that. Last week he was still mulling whether to cast his vote, even though he thinks he should.“It makes me uneasy. I can’t deny it,” he says. “They should have taken decisions long beforehand to (hold the election) safely.” More

The DUP has targeted 21 February as a fresh deadline for foreign secretary Liz Truss to deliver a solution to Northern Ireland Protocol problems, as the post-Brexit row rumbles on.First minister Paul Givan warned that unilateral action would be need if a deal on easing controls on goods moving between Northern Ireland and Great Britain cannot be reached with the EU within weeks.After meeting Ms Truss on Thursday, the senior DUP figure said she had referred to 21 February as a “significant date” for progress in its negotiations with Brussels – the day a summit of the Joint Working Committee on the Withdrawal Agreement takes place.Mr Givan suggested a breakthrough must be achieved by then – and again raised the threat that DUP ministers at Stormont would act to halt Brexit checks at Northern Ireland ports.“I have emphasised the absolute critical nature of that progress being made, because the protocol is causing instability these institutions, it is damaging our economy and this is having a very real impact on Northern Ireland,” Mr Givan said.The first minister added: “So we need to see that progress, we need to see that imminently and we also need to see action taken by the UK government if there isn’t an agreed outcome”.Mr Givan said his party colleague Edwin Poots will order a stop to the controversial checks after a failed bid to secure the wider approval of the Stormont Executive to continue them. “That is something that the DUP have said that we were going to do, and we are going to do that.”Ms Truss shared her determination to secure a deal on the protocol that can command support in Northern Ireland after a day of meetings with business and political leaders in the region.The foreign secretary said: “What I want is a deal that works for everyone. We are making progress. I want to make significant progress by February. That’s important but it’s important that we secure the support of all of the communities in Northern Ireland, including the unionist community.”Sinn Fein has warned that any attempt by the UK government to suspend the protocol by triggering its Article 16 mechanism would cause more uncertainty in Northern Ireland.The foreign secretary recently insisted there was a “deal to be done” and agreed to enter into intensified talks with Brussels following a meeting with European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic.However, Mr Sefcovic has reportedly told member states he is “frustrated” with talks, and there is “no prospect of an imminent breakthrough”. It came despite Brussels officials referring to improved “atmospherics” since Ms Truss took charge of negotiations at the end of last year.The EU negotiator is also said to have told a private meeting of the European parliament that talks would need to conclude by the end of February before campaigning for the May elections in Northern Ireland.Despite the apparent thawing of some of the tensions between Brussels and London, however, Boris Johnson risked heightening the row once more on Wednesday when he accused the bloc of implement the protocol in an “insane” and petty way.Speaking in the Commons after being challenged by the DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, he said: “I never thought, we negotiated, that it would mean 200 businesses would stop supplying Northern Ireland, foods being blocked and Christmas cards being surcharged.”“Frankly, the EU is implementing this in an insane and pettifogging way — we need to sort it out,” the prime minister added.Asked today’s comments by Ms Truss regarding the significance of February, the prime minister’s official spokesperson told reporters: “We’ve never put a particular date on things, but as you know it’s always been our intention to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.” More