UK Politics

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMore than £100 million will be used to protect Muslim schools, community centres and mosques from a rising number of hate attacks, the home secretary has announced. The money will be spent on security measures which include alarms, fences and CCTV cameras, James Cleverly said. It follows a similar package of £70 million for Jewish groups, as rising tensions over the war in Gaza fuel divisions in the UK. In a statement, Mr Cleverly said that anti-Muslim hatred “has absolutely no place in our society”.”We will not let events in the Middle East be used as an excuse to justify abuse against British Muslims,” he said.The new money would give “reassurance and confidence to UK Muslims at a time when it is crucially needed”.Ministers have recently condemned an increase in reported anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish hatred. The government was recently accused of stoking tensions after Lee Anderson claimed the London mayor was controlled by “Islamists”.The former deputy chair of the Conservatives was suspended by the party over the remarks, but only after a delay of almost a day.And ministers have still continued to refuse to say his comments were Islamophobic, stating only that they were wrong.Ministers have also suffered a blow after the frontrunner to become a new adviser on the issue pulled out saying he “couldn’t take” the amount of abuse he had received. Fiyaz Mughal, who founded the organisation Tell MAMA, which looks at anti-Muslim hate, said the abuse he had suffered for more than 10 years escalated after his name was linked to the role. In all the government will give £117 million over the next four years. The announcement, which comes at the start of Ramadan, will cover sites across the UK.Security minister Tom Tugendhat said: “This funding demonstrates that this government stands firmly against hate crimes, abuse, threats or harassment against British Muslims.”We continue to work closely with policing and community partners to ensure the safety and security of British Muslims.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe Home Office is “dysfunctional” and in desperate need of reform, the sacked borders watchdog David Neal has said in his latest broadside against the government.Mr Neal was fired from his role as chief inspector of borders and immigration last month after claiming that Border Force had allowed “high-risk” aircraft to land in the UK without security checks, which the Home Office denied.He continues to be an outspoken critic of the department and says he “paid the price” for voicing his concerns and that his conscience remains “absolutely clear”.James Cleverly, the home secretary, said Mr Neal had breached the terms of his appointment and he had lost confidence in him.In a BBC interview, Mr Neal said failings in the immigration system go “right to the top” of the Home Office. He told The Today Podcast: “The Home Office is dysfunctional, the Home Office needs reform.”After his dismissal, the Home Office published 13 of Mr Neal’s reports on the same day as damning findings from an inquiry into Sarah Everard’s murder by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, leading to claims the government was trying to bury bad news.Mr Neal appeared before the Home Affair Committee In one of the reports, Mr Neal said protections at UK airports were neither “effective nor efficient” because ePassport gates were sometimes left unmanned.Roving officers were sometimes distracted by having to manage queues and deal with passenger queries, and that “basic stuff is not being done well”, he said.“Inspectors saw border posts left unmanned while officers signalled for attention from their managers. This is unacceptable and needs to be addressed urgently,” the report said.Mr Neal suggested that his sacking and the lack of a replacement meant there would be less scrutiny of border-related issues, including the Rwanda asylum scheme.“I’ve been sacked. So there will be no scrutiny of small boats, there will be no scrutiny of adults at risk in detention which is a controversial area, there will be no publishing of the Rwanda material.”A Home Office spokesman said: “It is the job of the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration to identify challenges in our system, including those proposed by Border Force, so we can take action to address them.“But by their nature, each of the ICIBI reports will only be a snapshot of what is going on and will not reflect the changes we make as a result of their findings.Protections at UK airports were neither ‘effective nor efficient’ because ePassport gates were sometimes left unmanned, Mr Neal says “A programme of work is already well under way to reform and strengthen Border Force’s capabilities. This is delivering on the prime minister’s pledge to make our structures and resources as strong as possible.“The work the Home Office, Border Force and the NCA is doing with international partners to stop the boats is another part of our Border Force reform, and is already having a return with small boat arrivals down by a third when Mr Neal was sacked for leaking sensitive information he was told was inaccurate.”In the incident that led to his dismissal,  Mr Neal accused the Home Office of “dangerous failings” on border security.He said that checks were not being carried out on hundreds of private jets arriving at London City Airport.He said that the lapse in security risked organised criminals being able to bring gang members and contraband into the country. Foreign nationals with no right to enter the UK may also have been smuggled in, he said.The Home Office had “categorically rejected” the claims, saying that Mr Neal “has chosen to put misleading data into the public domain”.Mr Neal appeared before Home Affairs Committee at the end of February, telling MPs that he was sacked for “speaking truth to power”.He said that he would tell the future chief inspector that they should “have the moral courage to do what’s right” and “hold on to your principles”.He told MPs: “I think I’ve been sacked for doing what the law asks of me and I’ve breached, I’ve fallen down over a clause in my employment contract, which I think is a crying shame.”A Home Office spokesperson responded to Mr Neal’s testimony saying his appointment “was terminated after he leaked confidential and misleading information, and lost the confidence of the home secretary”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailTV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has become embroiled in a public clash with the health secretary after he accused the government of doing “next to nothing” to tackle obesity.The River Cottage star warned Victoria Atkins there was a “crisis” in Britain and that ministers had ignored a “raft of policies” that could fight the problem. But Ms Atkins insisted she was working on a prevention strategy, as she said the NHS app could help people take responsibility for their own health.She told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “We make the mistake, I think, of siloing obesity by itself. We know that it can have many, many other conditions, including causing type two diabetes.”So, over the coming weeks you will see the Government set out our plans.”I want to take a strategic approach to prevention and, in fact, the biggest public health intervention we can make, we are making, which is creating the first smoke-free generation.”But Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall, a panellist on the show, responded to her interview by saying: “I didn’t hear any obesity strategy.”He told the minister: “I’ve worked with many amazing agencies, with the Food Foundation, with the Obesity Health Alliance, with Jamie Oliver and his team, with Henry Dimbleby, they have all put a raft of policies, of levers that you could be pulling to address the obesity crisis. You’re not pulling any of them. You’ve done next to nothing to help this ailing, struggling, sick citizens of the UK to find healthier food. Next to nothing about it.”Earlier, Ms Atkins had been pushed on controversial delays to measures campaigners say could trim the nation’s waistlines. These include bans on pre-watershed adverts for junk food and multi-buy deals. Ms Atkins defended the lack of action saying that ministers had to “reflect the society in which we serve, in which the NHS serves”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Portugal is holding a general election Sunday against a backdrop of corruption scandals and economic hardship that have eroded faith in moderate mainstream parties and could push a significant number of voters into the arms of a radical right populist party. A slew of recent corruption scandals has tarnished the two parties that have alternated in power for decades — the center-left Socialist Party and the center-right Social Democratic Party, which is running with two small allies in a coalition it calls Democratic Alliance. Those traditional parties are still expected to collect most of the votes.Public frustration with politics-as-usual had already been percolating before the outcries over graft. Low wages and a high cost of living — worsened last year by surges in inflation and interest rates — as well as a housing crisis and failings in public health care contributed to the disgruntlement.That discontent has been further stirred up by Chega (Enough), a populist party that potentially could gain the most from the current public mood.Chega is widely expected to be the third most-voted party in a political shift to the right that has already been seen elsewhere in Europe. Spain and France have witnessed similar trends in recent years.Chega could even end up in the role of kingmaker if a bigger party needs the support of smaller rivals to form a government.Portugal has 10.8 million registered voters, and most ballot results were expected within hours of polling stations closing at 8 p.m. (2000 GMT).The election is taking place because Socialist leader António Costa resigned in November after eight years as prime minister amid a corruption investigation involving his chief of staff. Costa hasn’t been accused of any crime.The Social Democrats, too, were embarrassed just before the campaign by a graft scandal that brought the resignation of two prominent party officials.Meanwhile, voters have expressed alarm at Portugal’s living standards as financial pressures mount.An influx of foreign real estate investors and tourists seeking short-term rentals brought a spike in house prices, especially in big cities such as the capital Lisbon where many locals are being priced out of the market.The economy feels stuck in a low gear. The Portuguese, who have long been among Western Europe’s lowest earners, received an average monthly wage before tax last year of around 1,500 euros ($1,640) — barely enough to rent a one-bedroom flat in Lisbon. Close to 3 million Portuguese workers earn less than 1,000 euros ($1,093) a month.The number of people without an assigned family doctor, meantime, rose to 1.7 million last year, the highest number ever and up from 1.4 million in 2022.The 46-year-old Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos, his party’s candidate for prime minister, is promising change with what he vaguely calls “a fresh boost.” But he hasn’t broken with senior party members who served in previous governments.Social Democrat leader Luis Montenegro, 51, who would likely become prime minister if the Democratic Alliance wins, says he’ll draft non-party-affiliated figures – people he calls “doers” — into his government.Chega party leader Andre Ventura has cannily plugged into the dissatisfaction and has built a following among young people on social media. Just five years old, Chega collected its first seat in Portugal’s 230-seat Parliament in 2019. That jumped to 12 seats in 2022, and polls suggest it could more than double that number this time.Ventura says he is prepared to drop some of his party’s most controversial proposals — such as chemical castration for some sex offenders and the introduction of life prison sentences — if that opens the door to his inclusion in a possible governing alliance with other right-of-center parties.His insistence on national sovereignty instead of closer European Union integration and his plan to grant police the right to strike are other issues that could thwart his ambitions to enter a government coalition.Ventura has had a colorful career. He has gone from practicing lawyer and university professor specializing in tax law to boisterous TV soccer pundit, an author of low-brow books and a bombastic orator on the campaign trail. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar conceded defeat Saturday as two constitutional amendments he supported that would have broadened the definition of family and removed language about a woman’s role in the home were headed toward rejection.Varadkar, who pushed the vote to enshrine gender equality in the constitution by removing “very old-fashioned language” and tried to recognize the realities of modern family life, said that voters had delivered “two wallops” to the government. “Clearly we got it wrong,” he said. “While the old adage is that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan, I think when you lose by this kind of margin, there are a lot of people who got this wrong and I am certainly one of them.”Opponents argued that the amendments were poorly worded, and voters said they were confused with the choices that some feared would lead to unintended consequences.The referendum was viewed as part of Ireland’s evolution from a conservative, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country in which divorce and abortion were illegal, to an increasingly diverse and socially liberal society. The proportion of residents who are Catholic fell from 94.9% in 1961 to 69% in 2022, according to the Central Statistics Office.The social transformation has been reflected in a series of changes to the Irish Constitution, which dates from 1937, though the country wasn’t formally known as the Republic of Ireland until 1949. Irish voters legalized divorce in a 1995 referendum, backed same-sex marriage in a 2015 vote and repealed a ban on abortions in 2018.The first question dealt with a part of the constitution that pledges to protect the family as the primary unit of society. Voters were asked to remove a reference to marriage as the basis “on which the family is founded” and replace it with a clause that said families can be founded “on marriage or on other durable relationships.” If passed, it would have been the constitution’s 39th amendment.A proposed 40th amendment would have removed a reference that a woman’s place in the home offered a common good that couldn’t be provided by the state, and delete a statement that said mothers shouldn’t be obligated to work out of economic necessity if it would neglect their duties at home. It would have added a clause saying the state will strive to support “the provision of care by members of a family to one another.”Siobhán Mullally, a law professor and director of the Irish Center for Human Rights at the University of Galway, said that it was patronizing for Varadkar to schedule the vote on International Women’s Day thinking people would use the occasion to strike the language about women in the home. The so-called care amendment wasn’t that simple.While voters support removing the outdated notion of a woman’s place in the home, they also wanted new language recognizing state support of family care provided by those who aren’t kin, she said. Some disability rights and social justice advocates opposed the measure because it was too restrictive in that regard.”It was a hugely missed opportunity,” Mullally said. “Most people certainly want that sexist language removed from the constitution. There’s been calls for that for years and it’s taken so long to have a referendum on it. But they proposed replacing it with this very limited, weak provision on care.”Varadkar said that his camp hadn’t convinced people of the need for the vote — never mind issues over how the questions were worded. Supporters of the amendment and opponents said the government had failed to explain why change was necessary or mount a robust campaign.“The government misjudged the mood of the electorate and put before them proposals which they didn’t explain and proposals which could have serious consequences,” Sen. Michael McDowell, an independent who opposed both measures, told Irish broadcaster RTE.Labour Party Leader Ivana Bacik told RTE that she supported the measures, despite concerns over their wording, but said the government had run a lackluster campaign. The debate was less charged than the arguments over abortion and gay marriage. Ireland’s main political parties all supported the changes, including centrist government coalition partners Fianna Fail and Fine Gael and the biggest opposition party, Sinn Fein.One political party that called for “no” votes was Aontú, a traditionalist group that split from Sinn Fein over the larger party’s backing for legal abortion. Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said that the government’s wording was so vague that it will lead to legal wrangles and most people “do not know what the meaning of a durable relationship is.”Opinion polls had suggested support for the “yes” side on both votes, but many voters on Friday said they found the issue too confusing or complex to change the constitution.“It was too rushed,” said Una Ui Dhuinn, a nurse in Dublin. “We didn’t get enough time to think about it and read up on it. So I felt, to be on the safe side, ‘no, no’ — no change.”Caoimhe Doyle, a doctoral student, said that she voted yes to changing the definition of family, but no to the care amendment because “I don’t think it was explained very well.”“There’s a worry there that they’re removing the burden on the state to take care of families,” she said. ___Brian Melley reported from London. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Portugal is holding an early general election on Sunday when 10.8 million registered voters will elect 230 lawmakers to the National Assembly, the country’s parliament. The lawmakers will then choose a new government.Two moderate parties that have alternated in power for decades — the center-left Socialist Party and the center-right Social Democratic Party — are once again expected to capture most votes.But a radical right populist party is feeding off disenchantment with the mainstream parties and could help propel Europe’s tilt to the political right.These are the issues that have been at the heart of the campaign: CORRUPTION SCANDALS The election is taking place because a Socialist government collapsed in November during a corruption investigation. The scandal included a police search of Prime Minister Antonio Costa’s official residence and the arrest of his chief of staff. Costa has not been accused of any crime.Also in recent weeks, a Lisbon court decided that a former Socialist prime minister in power 2005-2011 should stand trial for allegedly pocketing some 34 million euros ($36.7 million) during his time in office.The Social Democratic Party has also been embarrassed by corruption allegations.A recent graft investigation in Portugal’s Madeira Islands triggered the resignation of two prominent Social Democrat officials. The scandal erupted on the same day the Social Democratic Party unveiled an anti-corruption billboard in Lisbon that said, “It can’t go on like this.”A 5-year-old radical right populist party called Chega, or “Enough,” has made the fight against corruption one of its political banners and could profit from the scandals. A HOUSING CRISIS House prices in Portugal jumped by around 80% and rents rose by some 30% between 2010 and the second quarter of last year, European Union statistics show. Those increases were way above wage rises.Much of the price growth came in recent years, largely fueled by the influx of foreign investors and tourists seeking short-term rentals. The shift has been felt keenly in big cities such as the capital, Lisbon, where many locals have been priced out of the housing market. The problem was made more acute by last year’s surge in mortgage rates and inflation. LOW PAY The Portuguese have long been among Western Europe’s lowest earners. That rankles, and the latest street protests over pay have come from police officers.Last year, the average monthly wage before tax was around 1,500 euros ($1,630) — barely enough to rent a one-bedroom flat in Lisbon.The minimum wage, earned by more than 800,000 people, is 820 euros ($893) a month. That’s 676 euros ($736) in take-home pay. Close to 3 million Portuguese workers earn less than 1,000 euros ($1,090) a month.Weak economic growth and productivity have kept a lid on incomes. In the first 22 years of this century, average annual GDP per capita growth was around 1%. The economy feels stuck in a low gear.Portugal’s GDP per capita has been lower than 80% of the EU average since 2011, and before that it never surpassed 83%. THE LEADING CANDIDATES Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos is a lawmaker and a former minister for housing and infrastructure. Santos, 46, quit the previous government under a cloud over his handling of bailed-out flag carrier TAP Air Portugal and an unresolved dispute over the site of a new Lisbon airport. He comes from a family in northern Portugal with successful business interests. When much younger, he once drove a Porsche but says he “didn’t feel comfortable” owning the car so he sold it.Luis Montenegro, the 51-year-old Social Democratic Party leader, is a lawyer who served as a lawmaker for 16 years after first entering Parliament at the age of 29. He heads the Democratic Alliance, a grouping of mostly small right-of-center parties formed for the election. He has never been part of the Portuguese government. Police investigated claims in 2017 that Montenegro received trips to soccer games paid for by a media company, but later dropped the case.Chega leader Andre Ventura, 41, appears to have no chance of becoming prime minister but he may end up playing a key role after the election if his party’s support jumps. Ventura has had a colorful career. He has gone from being a practicing lawyer and university professor specializing in tax law to a boisterous TV soccer pundit, an author of low-brow books and a bombastic orator on the campaign trail. More