UK Politics

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailKemi Badenoch is the Tory grassroots’ favourite minister of 2023 – putting her in pole position to succeed Rishi Sunak.The business secretary pipped fellow right-winger Suella Braverman in the end of year ConservativeHomepoll of party supporters.Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt was in third place in the survey, as top Tories jostle for position ahead of an expected general election defeat in 2024.Ms Badenoch – who has styled herself as the “anti-woke” Tory pushing hard on culture war issues – won 174 of the 716 votes cast in the website’s survey.Despite being sacked as home secretary in a blaze of controversy, Ms Braverman remains a favourite of the Tories’ right-wing base – taking 124 votes.While Ms Badenoch has bolstered her experience in government by heralding post-Brexit trade agreements, Ms Braverman’s push for radical action on small boats remains her best hope of appealing to the grassroots.Commons leader Ms Mordaunt – also believed to be keen to stand again if Mr Sunak if forced out after election defeat – took 85 votes in the survey of the grassroots.Tory members, who veer further to the right than the party’s MPs, will likely decide the next leader in the event of a heavy election defeat in 2024.Business secretary Kemi Badenoch frontrunner to succeed Sunak It comes as a new study found that a landslide Labour victory could push the Tory party even further to the right.A further two per cent swing to Labour would leave around 40 per cent of remaining Tory MPs in right-wing groupings – compared to only 30 per cent now – according to analysis of Electoral Calculus data.There has been mounting speculation that Mr Sunak will hold an earlier-than-expected election in the spring.Labour frontbencher Emily Thornberry claimed that a May election was the “worst kept secret in parliament”.It emerged on Thursday that chancellor Jeremy Hunt will hold the Budget on 6 March – prompting Ms Thornberry to say it “seems to confirm” an early election.’Bring it on’: Emily Thornberry says UK ‘desperate for election’“The country is desperate for an election,” the shadow attorney general told Sky News. “Bring it on.”But such claims are believed to be part of election year gamesmanship by Sir Keir Starmer’s party.By building expectations of a spring contest, Labour is preparing the ground to accuse Mr Sunak of “bottling it” if he holds on until the autumn.Mr Sunak’s closest aides remain set on an autumn election, in the hope it will give him more time to let better economic news sink in with the electorate.But some Tories are talking up an earlier contest in the belief that the party’s polling fortunes could get even worse if the Rwanda deportation plan unravelsAnd some Conservatives hope Labour will spend campaign funds earlier to avoid being wrong-footed. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailOne of Hong Kong’s youngest pro-democracy activists has fled the city and formally applied for political asylum in the UK after completing his jail term.Tony Chung, 22, breached a supervision order to seek asylum due to constant scrutiny in Hong Kong, which put him under an “enormous amount of stress”.Chung was arrested under the Beijing-imposed national security law following the democracy protests in 2019 in Hong Kong. He was sentenced to 43 months in prison in November 2021 on charges of secession and money laundering.Critics of the government say the draconian law, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, has been weaponised to stifle protest and used to arrest nearly 300 people since its implementation in 2020.In a Facebook post on Thursday, Chung announced that he had arrived in the UK earlier this week seeking political refuge after being put under “stringent surveillance” following his release from prison in June.Chung was reportedly granted permission from the Correctional Services Department to travel to Japan for Christmas. He took a flight from Japan to reach the UK on Wednesday.”After making the decision ‘my heart sank’,” Chung wrote, adding: “I dedicated my life to social movements since age 14″.“We shouldn’t be the ones leaving.”He said the police were monitoring his bank account information and banned him from accepting a summer job, saying he wasn’t allowed to work in that “specific business”.”In the past six months with no income from any work, the national security police officers kept on coercing and inducing me to join them,” he wrote.”From October onwards until the present day, I have intermittently fallen ill. During this period, I sought medical consultations from both Western and Chinese doctors, all of whom diagnosed my condition as a result of significant mental stress and psychological factors, leading to a weakened immune system,” he added.Chung told the Washington Post that he was made to take part in a compulsory “deradicalisation” programme in detention where guards said to those who had been detained that they were “manipulated” by the US.He is the second pro-democracy activist to leave the Asian finance hub in December after former student leader, Agnes Chow, announced she had moved to Canada and would not return to Hong Kong to meet her bail conditions.Several other activists, including Nathan Law, Anna Kwok and Finn Lau, have fled abroad fearing arrest and now have bounties placed on them.Meanwhile, a Hong Kong court sentenced three activists to up to six years in prison for their involvement in a foiled plot to bomb public buildings.The activists, aged between 20 to 23, were part of the pro-democracy “Returning Valiant” group. The trio was arrested in July 2021 and subsequently charged with “conspiracy to commit terrorism” under the security law.The court heard that Ho Yu-wang, Kwok Man-hei, and Cheung Ho-yeung had planned to make bombs using the explosives and place them in various public buildings.Ho, who was arrested at the age of 17, was “primarily responsible for making the explosives”, according to prosecutors. He was sentenced to six years in prison.Kwok was handed two-and-a-half years in prison, while Cheung received six years for being the first to raise the idea of “targeting government offices, court buildings and police quarters”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailPrime minister Tony Blair was warned that the No 10 press office had lost “all credibility” under his combative communications chief Alastair Campbell, according to newly released official files.Papers released by the National Archives show Mr Blair’s private secretary, Jeremy Heywood, advised him that his authority was being undermined because Downing Street was seen as a “politically-dominated spin machine”.The warnings followed a series of bruising rows between the Labour government and the BBC over its coverage of the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003.After Mr Campbell announced he was standing down after nine years as one of Mr Blair’s most trusted aides, Mr Heywood urged the prime minister to take the opportunity to carry out a complete overhaul of the No 10 press operation.“The No 10 press office has lost all credibility as a reliable, truthful, objective operation. Even respectable journalists treat it with caution – part of a relentless politically-dominated spin machine,” he wrote.“Although we all know this is monstrous, it has become the settled view of the entire British media and political establishment. This is disastrous for the authority of your own office.”Mr Campbell’s departure came after months of increasingly acrimonious relations between the government and sections of the media amid the failure to uncover Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which had been the justification for the invasion.On 19 March, the day the invasion began, Mr Blair sent BBC chairman Gavyn Davies a blistering letter complaining about the corporation’s coverage.“I believe, and I am not alone in believing, that you have not got the balance right between support and dissent; between news and comment; between the voices of the Iraqi regime and Iraqi dissidents; or between the diplomatic support we have, and diplomatic opposition,” he wrote.“I have never written to you or your predecessor in this way before, but I have heard and seen enough to feel I should do so now.”Anji Hunter, another of the prime minister’s close aides, suggested Mr Davies – a former Labour Party member – probably thought Mr Blair “has a point” but would feel compelled to respond with a “magisterial rebuke” because BBC director general Greg Dyke had been copied into the letter.“GD clearly feels in a difficult position viz this – think he would have preferred a quiet phone call from you,” she wrote.The papers also show Mr Campbell suggested threatening the BBC with legal action over a Radio 4 Today programme report that the government had “sexed up” an intelligence dossier on Iraqi WMD issued in the run-up to the conflict to strengthen the case for war.“If the BBC remain belligerent, I think the rhetoric has to be stepped up, up to and including the threat of putting the issue in the hands of lawyers,” he wrote. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailHousing asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm barge is discriminatory, according to the Home Office’s own review of the policy.The department’s equality impact assessment found that the policy breaks the 2010 Equality Act on the grounds of sex and age, and that changes may be needed.It said the policy is “directly discriminating in relation to age and sex” because it is only suitable for men between 18 and 65 years old.The Bibby Stockholm migrant accommodation barge at Portland Port in Dorset (James Manning/PA)But the assessment, published on Wednesday, added that the act allows discrimination “if treatment is justified as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”, arguing that this condition is met.It comes just weeks after 27-year-old Albanian Leonard Farruku was found dead onboard the vessel. There were not thought to be any suspicious circumstances, an inquest heard. His sister claimed that he had been treated like “an animal” on board and that he was heard shouting the night before he died.Around 70 asylum seekers are now living on the barge at Portland port, Dorset, after it was finally given the all clear after a series of health scares.Previously 39 migrants had to be moved off the vessel following the discovery of legionella bacteria in the water supply.The Bibby Stockholm was initially supposed to house about 500 people but the Home Office has now reduced this to a maximum of 425. Ministers hope the barge will help cut the huge bills associated with housing asylum seekers in hotels while their claims are processed.The Home Office’s impact assessment of the policy said: “As only those between the ages of 18 and 65 would be accommodated at Portland, the policy gives rise to direct discrimination on the ground of age as those under 18 and over 65 are precluded.”And it says there is “differential treatment” between men and women because the Bibby Stockholm is only being used for single adult males.But it added: “As there are far more male asylum seekers than females and many of the female claimants have children, it has been decided that it is appropriate to use the site for male asylum seekers only.”The assessment found that the policy was not discriminatory on the basis of race, religion, disability or sexual orientation.Charity bosses have repeatedly warned against housing asylum seekers on the barge, arguing it will have a detrimental impact on asylum seekers’ wellbeing.Charlotte Khan, head of advocacy and public affairs at Care4Calais said: “Placing humans in prison-like barges and camps, held behind barbed wire fences and segregated from the rest of society, is discriminatory by its very nature and it’s telling that the Government’s own equality impact assessment accepts that’s the case for certain groups.“People on the Bibby Stockholm have consistently told us that they feel that the Government are treating them like animals by putting them on the barge. “It’s no wonder then that the Bibby Stockholm has become a symbolic illustration for this Government’s proxy-war against asylum seekers. It needs closing down before the survivors of torture and persecution are put through more suffering.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA communications firm has deployed “world-first engineering” as part of its efforts to connect residents on a remote Scottish island with “life-changing ultrafast broadband”.Fair Isle has been described as the most remote inhabited island in the UK, and is the most southerly island in Shetland.Businesses there have now been connected to full-fibre broadband almost two years ahead of schedule, with the local post office and shop  among those benefiting from the technology.The project represents the greatest distance that Openreach has transmitted a continuous full-fibre signal anywhere in the UK.And the telecoms company said it had to “get creative” to connect the island – which is home to about 60 people.A spur cable, which comes off a 68-mile-long subsea cable between Shetland and the Orkney Islands, was used to connect Fair Isle – which lies 24 miles south of the main island of Shetland and 27 miles from North Ronaldsay, the most northerly island in Orkney.The work was funded as part of the Scottish Government’s £404.1 million Reaching 100% (R100) North contract, which seeks to expand broadband connectivity to remote parts of Scotland, along with £17.4 million of funding from the UK Government.Regular fibre signals just couldn’t go the distance, so we had to get creative with some world-first engineering to transmit life-changing ultrafast broadband over 100km to islanders Fraser Rowberry, OpenreachIn what is believed to be a world first, Openreach deployed innovative engineering to boost the signal strength – using a super-powered adaption of the technology currently used in many homes – because of the distance between the islands.With Fair Isle, which has been owned by the National Trust for Scotland for almost 70 years, an important breeding ground for rare birds, work to connect the island also had to be planned around nesting seasons.Openreach chief engineer for Scotland Fraser Rowberry said: “Regular fibre signals just couldn’t go the distance, so we had to get creative with some world-first engineering to transmit life-changing ultrafast broadband over 100km to islanders.“We had to do everything differently on Fair Isle, from planning around bird-nesting seasons to setting up flat-packed cabins for our crew.”Mr Rowberry praised the islanders for “being so welcoming to our team”, adding: “They’ve been amazing. Now they’re connected to the world in a whole new way.“This will make Fair Isle an even better place to be – for residents, visitors and future generations – and we’d encourage people on the island to upgrade to full fibre.”Stackhoull Stores and Post Office was connected to full fibre before Christmas, with postmistress Fiona Mitchell saying she hoped having broadband would encourage more people to live on Fair Isle.She said: “We are a small population and want to grow and encourage people to be a part of our community.“Getting a full-fibre connection so that people can more easily work and live here is a major part of that. We need all hands on deck to make the island run.”Through our R100 commitment to tackle some of the hardest-to-access terrain in the country, we are improving the educational and life opportunities available to young people across ScotlandWellbeing Economy Secretary Neil GrayNeil Gray, the Wellbeing Economy Secretary in the Scottish Government, said: “I am delighted that we have achieved digital connectivity for Fair Isle almost two years earlier than planned.“Through our R100 commitment to tackle some of the hardest-to-access terrain in the country, we are improving the educational and life opportunities available to young people across Scotland.“This innovative step forward for engineering ensures children on Fair Isle are not left behind.“Internet speeds rivalling the best in the country are helping create a more attractive place for families and young people to live.”Mr Gray continued: “We committed to invest further in our digital connectivity, despite powers being reserved to Westminster, because we know that by supporting remote working and rural businesses – from Fair Isle jumpers to tourism – we can help to build an island economy which is fair, green and prosperous.” More