UK Politics

The government will vote against making misogyny a hate crime after a new law was backed by the House of Lords, Dominic Raab has suggested.An amendment to the policing bill, brought by the Tory peer and former victims commissioner Baroness Newlove, was voted through by 242 votes to 185 on Monday night.Former Conservative Party chair Baroness Warsi was among the peers supporting the change, which would require police to record crimes motivated by hostility towards the sex or gender of the victims, and make judges take it into account when sentencing offenders.MPs will vote on the amendment when the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill returns to the House of Commons, but Mr Raab suggested the government would oppose it on Tuesday.The justice secretary told BBC Breakfast that ministers had already put the “right measures” in place and considered making misogyny a hate crime.“We looked at it very seriously, the Law Commission went and looked at it for quite some time and came to the view it would be counter-productive and not effective as a measure, so we want to take the most effective measures,” Mr Raab added.“We take this very seriously, we need to deal with this in a whole range of ways.”He said the government was taking other measures to “make women feel more supported”, including extending time limits for reporting domestic assaults, and criminalising “breastfeeding voyeurism”.Mr Raab was ridiculed for previous remarks on misogyny in October, when he said it was “absolutely wrong, whether it’s a man against a woman or a woman against a man”.Addressing the House of Lords on Monday, Baroness Newlove said much of the violence towards women in British society was caused by the “misogyny that some hold in their hearts”.“If we want to restore confidence for women that the police and the criminal justice system want to keep them safe from those who would do them harm, we need to start by naming it and then doing something about it,” she added.“It is perverse that, despite 3 million crimes being committed against women in just three years, our legal and policing systems do not routinely recognise what we all know is blindingly obvious: the deep-rooted hostility towards women that motivates many of these crimes. Dominic Raab claims men can be victims of misogyny in BBC interview“As a society we have rightly taken steps to acknowledge the severity of racist or homophobic crimes, but have not yet acted on crimes driven by hatred of women.”Baroness Newlove said the amendment was a chance “to ensure that the law is on the side of women, rather than on that of those who seek to abuse and harass them”, adding: “It is time for deeds, not words.”An official review stopped short of calling for misogyny to be made a hate crime last month, despite mounting calls for change following the murder of Sarah Everard.The Law Commission said sex or gender should not be made a “protected characteristic” that can be used to record incidents and increase sentences alongside race, religion and other factors.Following a review commissioned by the government in 2018, the independent body said the move would be “ineffective at protecting women and girls and in some cases, counterproductive”.A group of women’s rights and hate crime organisations, including the Fawcett Society and Citizens UK, said the review was too narrow and had offered no alternatives to “help address widespread concerns about the lack of action by the criminal justice system”.The Law Commission’s position was also at odds with senior police officers who publicly backed making misogyny a hate crime last year.The national police lead for hate crime, Mark Hamilton, said he personally supported adding sex or gender to the current list of protected characteristics.He told a conference in November it would not cause officers to be “inundated with bureaucracy” and added: “I think it’s a good way of understanding offender behaviour and preventing things escalating from the more minor offences up to sexually motivated crime and murder.” More

Senior Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt has said his ambition to lead the Tories has not “completely vanished” as Boris Johnson faces the threat of a challenge.But Mr Hunt, who has served as both foreign and health secretary, insisted in an interview “it would take a lot to persuade me to put my hat into the ring”.The comments were interpreted as a sign that a challenge to the prime minister could be coming as he battles to maintain authority over allegations of rule-breaking parties in No 10.Six Tory MPs have so far publicly called for Mr Johnson to resign over the affair, while many more are believed to have sent in letters in an attempt to prompt a no confidence vote.The House magazine said Mr Hunt denied actively considering a run, before adding: “I won’t say my ambition has completely vanished, but it would take a lot to persuade me to put my hat into the ring.”Chancellor Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss are seen as the two frontrunners for any challenge to the prime minister.But Mr Hunt was the strongest opponent against Mr Johnson when he won the leadership in 2019, coming second before being comfortably beaten.Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s former chief adviser who has accused the prime minister of lying to Parliament over parties, said Mr Hunt’s remarks were a sign of a challenge.“The is SW1 code for: leadership contest is imminent, sign up early if you want a seat in Cabinet, am on phone to donors and getting office set up, there has to be one non-brexit nutter in last 2,” Mr Cummings tweeted. More

First minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced that all Covid restrictions brought in to deal with the Omicron wave in Scotland will be lifted from next Monday – including an end to nightclub closures.The temporary limits on attendance at indoor events, enforced table service in pubs and restaurants, and the closure of nightclubs will all be scrapped from 24 January.“I can confirm that all of these measures will be lifted from next Monday,” said Ms Sturgeon.She also announced that the guidance asking people to stick to a three-household limit on indoor social gatherings would end on Monday.The first minister said she was “confident we have turned a corner on the Omicron wave” in Scotland. “We are now on the downward slope of cases,” the SNP leader told the Scottish parliament.However, Ms Sturgeon said that “throwing all caution to the wind at this stage would be a mistake”, warning that Scotland could still see an uptick in case in the next few weeks.She asked employers to make sure people could continue to work from home wherever possible – saying the Scottish government would work with businesses about a “hybrid” return to offices and other workplaces from February.Her comments came as the Scottish Tories called for the scrapping of almost all coronavirus restrictions from the end of January.The Scottish Tory party called for mask-wearing in schools to be dropped and work-from-home guidance to be dropped. Douglas Ross’s party also said self-isolation rules should be “gradually phased out” over a period of months.Ms Sturgeon also announced the Scottish government would not be expanding controversial vaccine certification scheme into new venues. The SNP chief said “extending certification would not be proportionate at this stage”. Adults in Scotland currently need to show that they have had both doses of the vaccine before they are allowed entry to certain large events like nightclubs.Some of the Scottish government recently-imposed rules have already changed, with the limit on crowds at football matches and other large outdoor events lifted on Monday. More

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday denied misleading Parliament about lockdown-breaching parties, as senior government ministers said he would have to resign if he was proven to have lied.Former Johnson aide Dominic Cummings has said he is willing to swear under oath that the prime minister was warned in advance that a May 2020 garden party for Downing Street staff would break coronavirus restrictions. Johnson denies he was warned. He told Parliament last week that he had attended the party, but considered it a work gathering that fell within the rules.“Nobody told me that what we were doing was … against the rules,” Johnson told broadcasters on Tuesday. “When I went out into that garden I thought that I was attending a work event.”The garden party is one of a string of alleged rule-flouting government parties being investigated by senior civil servant Sue Gray.Gray is due to report by the end of the month on claims government staff held late-night soirees, “bring your own booze” parties and “wine time Fridays” while Britain was under coronavirus restrictions in 2020 and 2021. The allegations have spawned public anger, incredulity and mockery, and prompted some in the governing Conservative Party to call for Johnson’s resignation.Treasury chief Rishi Sunak — often cited as a potential successor to Johnson as prime minister — said he believed Johnson’s explanation. But he said that “the Ministerial Code is clear” about the consequences of misleading Parliament. Ministers who do that are expected to resign.Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab agreed that deliberately lying to Parliament was “normally … a resigning matter.” But he dismissed Cummings’ claim Johnson was warned about the party as “nonsense.”Cummings, an architect of the victorious 2016 referendum campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, left Downing Street in late 2020 and has become a vociferous critic of the prime minister he helped put in office. Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said “the ministerial code is very clear on this point when it comes to knowingly misleading the House and the prime minister abides by that, and we fully support it.”Johnson has urged his opponents to wait for Gray’s verdict, though experts say there is a good chance it will neither exonerate him nor conclude he broke the law.Meanwhile, Conservatives are watching nervously as the “partygate” revelations hit their popularity, with recent opinion polls giving the main opposition Labour Party a double-digit lead.Under Conservative rules, a no-confidence vote in the leader can be triggered if 54 party lawmakers write letters demanding it. It’s unclear how many have already been submitted, and so far only a handful of Conservative members of Parliament have openly called for Johnson to quit. More

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said he believed Boris Johnson’s explanation over a drinks event in the Downing Street garden – but abruptly ended an interview when repeatedly asked about the partygate scandal.The prime minister last week apologised to parliament for attending a “bring your own booze” gathering during the first lockdown on 20 May 2020, saying he “implicitly” thought it was a work event.Asked if he believed Mr Johnson’s account to parliament, Mr Sunak told reporters: “Of course I do – the prime minister set out his understanding of this matter in parliament last week.”It follows allegations by former adviser Dominic Cummings that he had warned Mr Johnson against a drinks party in advance, claiming that email and witness evidence would show the PM had lied.Asked whether Johnson would have to resign if it was proven he had lied to parliament, Mr Sunak said: “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals. The ministerial code is clear on these matters.”The chancellor added: “As you know, Sue Gray is conducting an inquiry into the situation. I think it’s right that we allow her to conclude that job.”Asked again if he supported the prime minister unequivocally, Mr Sunak stood up and walked out, saying “thanks very much”.Labour accused Mr Sunak of “running scared once again”. Responding to his abruptly-ended interview, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Instead of setting out a plan to tackle the Conservatives’ cost of living crisis, he dodges scrutiny and defends the bungling prime minister.”On Monday Mr Cummings claimed that email and witness evidence will show that Mr Johnson “lied to parliament” when he denied knowing he was attending a party on 20 May 2020.Mr Cummings claimed in his latest blog post that Mr Johnson’s principal private secretary (PPS) Martin Reynolds told him he would “check with the PM if he’s happy for it to go ahead”.The former No 10 strategist also claimed he then personally challenged Mr Johnson himself about the ‘bring your own booze’ event, saying: “The PM waved it aside.”No 10 has said it was “untrue” to claim that Mr Johnson had been warned about the event. The PM’s official spokesman said: “As he said earlier this week, he believed implicitly that this was a work event.”Speaking to broadcasters on Tuesday, Mr Johnson “categorically” denied anyone warned him that a No 10 drinks gathering he attended in May 2020 could be in breach of lockdown rules.Asked if he had lied in parliament, Mr Johnson: “No,” adding: “Nobody told me the event was, as you say, against the rules … that we were going to do something that wasn’t a work event.” Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab defended Mr Johnson on Tuesday morning, but also said that a prime minister would “normally” be expected to quit if he intentionally misled parliament.Asked about Mr Raab’s comments, Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson said: “The ministerial code is very clear on this point, when it comes to knowingly misleading the House, and the prime minister abides by that and we fully support it.” More

Boris Johnson has said he “categorically” was not warned that a garden party in No 10 at the height of lockdown would breach the Covid rules.Fighting for his political life, the prime minister was asked whether he could resign over the scandal, and replied: “We’ll have to see what [the internal inquiry] says.”The PM’s former chief of staff Dominic Cummings has said Mr Johnson dismissed his warnings that the “bring your own booze” event was against the law – a claim apparently corroborated by other sources.Six Tory MPs have already called for Mr Johnson to step down, with the governing party tanking in the polls and now at least 10 points behind Labour.Asked if he had lied to the House of Commons over the parties, the prime minister said: “No. I want to begin by repeating my apologies to everybody for the misjudgments that I’ve made, that we may have made in No 10 and beyond, whether in Downing Street or throughout the pandemic.”Nobody told me that what we were doing was against the rules, that the event in question was something that … was not a work event, and as I said in the House of Commons when I went out into that garden I thought that I was attending a work event.”Mr Johnson said he “could not imagine why on earth it would have gone ahead, or why it would’ve been allowed to go ahead” if he had been told it was not a “work event”.”I do humbly apologise to people for misjudgments that were made but that is the very, very best of my recollection about this event, that’s what I’ve said to the inquiry,” he said.”I carry full responsibility for what took place but nobody told me, I’m absolutely categorical, nobody said to me this is an event that is against the rules.”The prime minister also insisted that he only saw the “bring your own booze” invite that his principal private secretary Martin Reynolds sent to more than 100 staff “the other day… when it emerged”.”Nobody warned me that it was against the rules, I am absolutely categorical, because I would remember that,” he added.Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, reiterated her party’s call for Mr Johnson to step down. “Boris Johnson clearly knows it’s the end of the road,” she said. “He’s the Prime Minister, he set the rules, he didn’t need anyone to tell him that the party he attended broke them. If he had any respect for the British public, he would do the decent thing and resign.” More

The Health Secretary has said he is “cautiously optimistic” that Covid-19 regulations can be “substantially reduced” next week.The government is set to review its so-called Plan B measures on 26 January, next Wednesday.The rules, which apply to England, includeandatory mask wearing in schools, on public transport and at indoor events, as well as Covid passports and a direction to work from home where possible.Speaking on Tuesday Sajid Javid told the Commons: “Eight weeks ago when this House last met for Health and Social Care Questions, the world had not even heard of the Omicron variant, yet since then we have seen a third of the UK’s total number of Covid-19 cases recorded.”The action that this Government has taken in response to Omicron and the collective efforts of the British people have seen us become the most boosted country in Europe, the most tested country in Europe, and the most antivirals per head in Europe.”That is why we are the most open country in Europe. I have always said that these restrictions should not stay in place a day longer than absolutely necessary.”Due to these pharmaceutical defences and the likelihood that we have already reached the peak of the case numbers of hospitalisations, I am cautiously optimistic that we will be able to substantially reduce restrictions next week.”If it does ditch the regulations, the government is however expected to keep in place rules on self-isolation, and controls regulated to international travel.The devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland set their Covid-19 regulations independently. More