UK Politics

The UK’s prospective post-Brexit trade deal with India could boost the British economy by as little as 0.12 per cent, the government has estimated.International trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan welcomed the “golden opportunity” of a free trade agreement as she launched negotiations with her Indian counterpart in New Delhi on Thursday.A deal could increase Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP) “between 0.12 per cent and 0.22 per cent in the long run”, according to a strategy document published by the Department for International Trade (DIT).It is hoped that any new agreement would include cutting tariffs on exports of British-made cars and Scotch whisky, with UK negotiators angling for a deal that slashes barriers to trading.Ms Trevelyan said she would like for a deal to be clinched by early 2023, with the first round of formal negotiations expected to start next week.“This is the first of my important agreements this year as Britain sets out on her independent journey post-Brexit,” she told reporters on Thursday.Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is believed to have made easier immigration to the UK a key demand for a new trade agreement.But Boris Johnson last week denied there was any plan to ease visa requirements, telling Brexiteer MP Sir Edward Leigh in the Commons: “We don’t do free trade deals on that basis.”However, in an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday, Ms Trevelyan said “everything is on the table to discuss” – including broadening visa access for Indian students and skilled workers. She said: “At the end of the day, I will take back to cabinet a deal which I think is great for UK businesses and provides opportunities for them to see trade and investment growth going forward.”Speaking at the launch of negotiations, Piyush Goyal, India’s minister of commerce and industry, said “the Indian diaspora in Britain is a bridge between the two countries and can add a lot of dynamism to their relationship”.The DIT said deal had the “potential” to almost double UK exports to India and boost two-way trade by £28bn a year by 2035.The department’s strategy document also said that estimates point to a long-run increase in UK GDP equivalent to £3.3bn in 2035, up to £6.2bn in 2035, depending on the depth of the agreement.The US has shelved talks on free trade agreement with the UK, despite a recent visit to Washington by Ms Trevelyan.Farming bodies and environmentalists have attacked the recent trade deal struck with Australia, accusing the government of damaging British agricultural exports and lowering standards. More

Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested the Covid public inquiry must examine whether lockdown rules, including restrictions on funerals, were “too hard” on individuals or “proportionate”.His comments came as Boris Johnson faces mounting anger after admitting he attended a No 10 party event on 20 May, 2020 when the country was still subject to strict measures on gatherings.He has also faced fury from members of the public who were obeying Covid restrictions and unable to visit dying relatives and faced legal limits on the number of mourners unable to attend funerals.Tackled on the Downing Street rose garden gathering, where over 100 No 10 staff were invited, Mr Rees-Mogg told MPs on Thursday that the matter was being investigated by the senior civil servant, Sue Gray,However, he went on: “I think everybody understands that people were obeying the rules and these rules were very hard for people to obey.“I received a message last night from a friend of mine who was unable to go to the funeral of his two-year-old granddaughter — one cannot hear these stories without grieving for those who suffered.”Questioning the measures his own government introduced at the height of lockdown restrictions, the cabinet minister added: “Decisions were taken at the beginning of the pandemic that affected people up and down the country and we must consider as this goes to an inquiry that we look into what happened with Covid, whether all those regulations were proportionate, or whether it was too hard on people”.“I think as we hear these stories, we inevitably grieve for those who suffered, those who could not visit people they loved, their families and could not attend funerals.“I think the key is this is being looked into, that Sue Gray will report and the prime minister has made his apology clear and understands the rage people feel when they were making these terrible sacrifices”.Asked about the remarks from Mr Rees-Mogg, the prime minister’s official spokesperson later said the government had “sought throughout to strike the right balance when introducing regulations and guidance”.“Clearly this was a unique situation in which we were required to move at speed and oftentimes whilst the evidence base was continuing to grow,” they insisted.They added: “I think prime minister has absolutely acknowledged that these restrictions do not…there is no cost-free option, both in allowing the virus to continue unimpeded and indeed introducing restrictions on people’s way of lives and their livelihood.”As Mr Johnson faced calls to resign from MPs in his own party over his involvement in the No 10 garden party, Mr Rees-Mogg also attempted to claim the prime minister had “again and again” got key decisions “right” during the course of the pandemic.Responding to a question from the SNP MP, Pete Wishart, the cabinet minister said: “He could have called for the prime minister to resign at every business questions where we have exchanged pleasantries since I became leader of the House“So I think that his call for the prime minister to resign is one that will be not be taken any notice of.”He added: “The prime minister won an election, that is the basis on which the democracy in our country works. He won a majority of 80 and has done so much to the benefit of this country in the last two years.” More

A prominent Black MP has described how racist threats against politicians left her scared to do her job.Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for Streatham, said that while working for Diane Abbott she received death threats for the former shadow home secretary to her personal email accountSpeaking to BBC 1Xtra podcast If You Don’t Know, she said: “I remember one time somebody actually called the office and they were just shouting the N-word down the phone,” Ms Ribeiro-Addy said.“They would send monkey cards to Diane with really horrible messages; I remember they set up an email address that looked like hers, cut out a picture of her face and they put it on top of a naked woman’s body then sent it around to every single person in parliament. “Just harassment, intimidation, violence.”Ms Ribero-Addy, 36, said although it was a difficult reality to navigate but added: “Diane’s always said ‘If you shy away you’re not gonna make it easy for the next person’.”When asked about the support that’s available to help, the MP replied: “There’s each other.“Definitely having more black female MPs means that you have more people to lean on when something like that happens.” This month Stephen Peddie, a former Brexit Party candidate, was convicted after saying a “bullet to the back of” Labour MP Dawn Butler’s head would be “justified and wholly deserved”.Ms Butler, who was once attacked on a train in a separate incident which has left her “mentally scarred”, was forced to close her office in Brent, north London, following concerns for her safety.While discussing discrimination within parliament, Ms Ribero-Addy pointed to an incident in which Black MPs were misnamed on BBC Parliament in 2020.“If you’re talking about micro aggressions. There was a time not too long ago, you know the captions that come under your name when you’re speaking?, Dawn Butler was speaking and the parliamentary team put Marsha De Cordova’s name (MP For Battersea),” she said.Ms Ribeiro-Addy became an MP in 2019. Another Labour MP elected at the last general election, Zarah Sultana, has also revealed racist emails. The Coventry South MP was sent an email telling her to “go back to your country” in November. More

Jacob Rees-Mogg was “wrong” to describe Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross as a lightweight, a former MSP has said as a split looms in the party.Mr Ross called for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to quit after he admitted attending a gathering in the Downing Street garden during lockdown in May 2020.On Wednesday, the Leader of the House of Commons hit out at the Scottish leader, describing him during an appearance on the BBC’s Newsnight programme as “quite a lightweight figure” in the party.Politics expert Professor Sir John Curtice said those comments “are going to get repeated endlessly north of the border” by the Tories’ opponents.He warned: “Given the difficulties the Conservatives are now in, they are at risk of beginning to implode themselves as a result of the internal fighting within the party.”Sir John, speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, said the upcoming council elections north of the border could help explain why Tories in Scotland are speaking out against Mr Johnson – with the overwhelming majority of MSPs having publicly backed Mr Ross and his calls for the PM to quit.The Strathclyde University elections expert said Scottish Conservative Party “knows it is on a sticky wicket” with the local elections in May.While he said the Tories will “not want to be fighting those elections against a backdrop of a party that has lost its popularity”, he added: “That at the moment is the prospect that faces it.“Which perhaps helps to explain why Tory MSPs have been the first out of the hatch to say that the Prime Minister should go.”A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives insisted the party has “nothing to say about Mr Rees-Mogg”, but former MSP Adam Tomkins insisted he was “wrong” to brand Mr Ross a “lightweight” – describing it as “very rude and dismissive”.Professor Tomkins added there is now some “serious thinking” that needs to be done in Scotland about the links between the party on either side of the border.Prof Tomkins told Good Morning Scotland: “There’s a ‘Save Boris’ operation going on at the moment, which you would expect Jacob Rees-Mogg to be… at the head of. That explains why Jacob Rees-Mogg was very rude and dismissive about Douglas yesterday.“Jacob’s got this wrong – I don’t agree with anything that Jacob said about this matter.

The Scottish Conservative Party have a range of really important, substantive ideas to bring to the table in Scotland… they are being drowned out because of the pantomime of the politics of Boris JohnsonAdam Tomkins, Scottish Conservatives“Douglas is a man of principle and a man of steel, and he will lead the Scottish Conservatives in the direction he thinks he needs to lead them in order to secure that credible fighting voice for centre-right ideas in Scottish politics.”Prof Tomkins, who quit Holyrood last year but remains a major figure in the Scottish Conservatives, hinted at a growing schism between the Tory party at Holyrood and Westminster and a possible shift in their relationship.“I think there will always be ties but I think that Douglas and his team need to do some deep and serious thinking about exactly what the nature of those ties should be,” he said.“All of the bad days the Scottish Tories have in Holyrood are not caused by the Scottish Tories in Holyrood, they are caused by events 400 miles south. And they need to reflect on that.“The Scottish Conservative Party have a range of really important, substantive ideas to bring to the table in Scotland about economic policy and about social policy, and they are being drowned out because of the pantomime of the politics of Boris Johnson.”

It is a telling insight into the arrogant and dismissive attitude that the Tory government has towards Scotland as a wholeKirsten Oswald, SNPThe SNP seized on the comments on Wednesday, claiming they show “disdain for Scotland”.Kirsten Oswald, the party’s deputy leader at Westminster, said: “Not only is it deeply humiliating for Douglas Ross but it is a telling insight into the arrogant and dismissive attitude that the Tory government has towards Scotland as a whole.“They are looking down their noses at us and making it clear just how little Scotland’s views matter to them – just like they did over Brexit and Tory austerity cuts.”She added: “As the UK government descends into another bitter Tory civil war, it’s clearer than ever that Scotland needs to become an independent country, so we can determine our own future and escape the sleazy, corrupt and broken westminster system for good.” More

David Frost has branded Covid lockdowns a “serious mistake”, stepping up his criticism of the beleaguered Boris Johnson as he fights to stay in office.The former Brexit minister – who resigned last month – said there were too few voices “challenging the epidemiologists”, calling mask-wearing and Covid passes “stuff that doesn’t work”.Lord Frost also criticised the drive to achieve ‘net zero’ carbon emissions, saying: “We are rushing at some of this stuff. We’re bringing in measures that are sort of unnecessary, too soon.”The criticisms confirm the former close Johnson ally is now firmly aligned with backbench MPs determined to end all Covid rules and who believe he is “not Tory enough”.On lockdowns, Lord Frost said: “I think, honestly, people are going to look back at the last couple of years globally and see lockdown as a pretty serious public policy mistake.“I would like to see the government ruling out lockdowns for the future, repealing the legislation, ending them. We can’t afford it, it doesn’t work,” he told a Daily Telegraph podcast.“Stop doing Covid theatre – vaccine passports, masks, stuff that doesn’t work – and focus on stuff that does work. Stuff like ventilation, antivirals, proper hospital capacity – that’s what we need to be focussing on.”On the climate emergency, Lord Frost criticised “technologies that aren’t ripe, trying to pick winners, trying to subsidise technologies that may not be the best way forward”, saying: “That is increasing costs on individuals.”Many suspected Lord Frost resigned because Mr Johnson forced him to soften his hardline stance on the Northern Ireland Protocol, in his deadlocked talks with the EU.But he insisted it was Covid policy, saying: “That was the reason I resigned, that’s what took me out of the government.“I didn’t agree with the plan B measures, masks, vaccine passports – that’s what forced me out.”The government is widely expected to lift plan B after a review in two weeks’ time, or possibly earlier, as Omicron cases peak at a level lower than feared before Christmas.The prime minister stepped back from imposing tougher restrictions after a cabinet revolt and to avoid another damaging Commons clash with his own MPs.His future hangs in the balance after his dramatic Commons confession that he did attend a No 10 garden party – while claiming he did not realise it was a party.Tory MPs say his fate is now in the hands of Sue Gray, the Cabinet Office civil servant investigating the controversy, although it is unclear whether she will judge whether rules were broken.Some senior Conservatives – Scottish leader Douglas Ross, rising star William Wragg and ex-minister Caroline Nokes – have called for him to quit immediately.Amid the crisis, Tory poll ratings continue to plunge to 28 per cent in one survey – while the chancellor Rishi Sunak has refused to back the prime minister before the inquiry has concluded. More

Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski is facing the prospect of a one-day suspension from parliament for “undermining” an apology he gave in the Commons for bullying staff.The Commons Standards Committee has recommended the MP should also make a further apology in the Commons after media interviews he gave appeared to call into doubt the sincerity of his earlier apology.In its report, the committee said Mr Kawczynski had been required to apologise “unequivocally” for the earlier breach.“Although he says he was sincere by the time he made the apology to the House, he had that morning effectively undermined the sincerity of that apology by broadcasting the fact that he was making it because he was required to do so and he disagreed with the way the case had been conducted,” the committee said.“Mr Kawczynski also broke confidentiality requirements by speaking to Radio Shropshire about the content of the report before it was published and identifying complainants’ job descriptions on nine occasions in his radio interview.”The MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham made his original apology in June last year after he was found to have breached rules on bullying and harassment following a complaint by Commons staff.However, the same day he told an interviewer from BBC Radio Shropshire: “I have no alternative but to apologise because if I don’t apologise then I risk the option of being sanctioned further.”An investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for standards Kathryn Stone found he also breached confidentiality rules by identifying the complainants through their job titles.In its report, the committee said Mr Kawczynski’s conduct was particularly serious as it risked undermining the credibility of the independent complaints and grievances scheme for Commons staff which has only recently been established.Normally it would merit a more serious sanction but the committee acknowledged the mitigating circumstances cited by the MP, including his commitment to work on his “attitude and behaviour”.It said: “We are persuaded that Mr Kawczynski has been making a sincere attempt to arrive at a better understanding of the roots of his poor behaviour and is genuinely committed to this personal ‘journey’ and to assisting others who may find themselves in the same situation as himself.“Mr Kawczynski has demonstrated to us that he is contrite. He knows that he was foolish and wrong to speak to the journalists as he did.“But his contrition does not detract from the fact that his actions caused significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole.” More

Liz Truss said the European Union had a “clear responsibility” to solve the problems caused by Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit deal as she prepared for her first face-to-face talks with Maros Sefcovic.The foreign secretary, who assumed responsibility for the negotiations following Lord Frost’s resignation, will host European Commission vice-president Mr Sefcovic at her Chevening country retreat in Kent for talks on Thursday and Friday.She said the EU must show a “pragmatic approach” to the issues created by the Northern Ireland Protocol, which effectively creates a trade barrier in the Irish Sea for goods crossing from Great Britain in order to prevent a hard border with Ireland.Mr Sefcovic will be treated to a dinner of Scottish smoked salmon, Welsh lamb and apple pie made with fruit from Kent. More

A Cabinet minister has refused to say that Boris Johnson will quit even if the inquiry into the lockdown-busting No 10 party he attended finds he broke the rules.Brandon Lewis was told that people would be “shocked” that he would not concede that no prime minister can carry on in office if they have breached their own laws.But the Northern Ireland Secretary – who also defended Mr Johnson for trying to keep secret that he joined the party, in May 2020 – called the issue of rule-breaking “hypothetical”.Pre-judging the inquiry would not be “helpful”, Mr Lewis said, adding: “It’s not accurate. I would always take a view based on the facts as we know them. We don’t know them yet.”But the interviewer, on BBC Breakfast, told the minister that “some people might be shocked” that any prime minister could “remain in place” in such circumstances.“It seems like a pretty good point of principle – which is, if the prime minister breaks the rules, then he can’t be prime minister. How about that?” Mr Lewis was told.The clash came as Mr Johnson’s future hangs in the balance after his dramatic Commons confession that he did attend the party – while claiming he did not realise it was a party.Tory MPs say his fate is now in the hands of Sue Gray, the Cabinet Office civil servant investigating all the No 10 parties, although it is unclear whether she will judge whether rules were broken.Some senior Conservatives – Scottish leader Douglas Ross, rising star William Wragg and ex-minister Caroline Nokes – have called for him to quit immediately.Amid the crisis, Tory poll ratings continue to plunge to 28 per cent in one survey – while the chancellor Rishi Sunak has refused to back the prime minister before the inquiry has concluded.All eyes are on Mr Sunak after he remained silent for eight hours after Mr Johnson’s statement, before issuing a tweet that said only that he had been “right to apologise”, pending Ms Gray’s verdict.Meanwhile, only Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, knows whether the number of letters from MPs calling for a no-confidence vote is close to the 54 needed to trigger that contest.Ms Gray’s report is expected as early as the end of next week, but is designed to set out the facts – which are now largely known – rather than assign blame for what took place.Some MPs believe she may question if Mr Johnson broke the ministerial code with his early denials about rule-breaking – which could prompt a further probe by his own ethics adviser.On BBC Breakfast, it was also put to Mr Brady that it was “absurd” that Mr Johnson will “decide what happens with that report”.He replied that “the findings of that report will be made public and he will make a statement to parliament”.Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow housing secretary, said relatives who did not get to say goodbye to loved ones who died during the first lockdown felt “appalled, horrified and re-traumatised” by Mr Johnson’s actions.And she said: “It’s strange that the police have not launched any kind of wider investigation given the number of pieces of evidence about what’s happening in Downing Street.” More