UK Politics

UK travellers visiting countries such as Spain, Portugal and Italy are being urged to prepare for four-hour queues when a new EU border system comes into force on Sunday, while industry bodies have warned that delays could cost the economy £400m. The Entry Exit System (EES) means UK travellers will need to have their fingerprints registered and photograph taken to enter the Schengen area, which consists of 29 European countries, mainly in the EU.While the Home Office said the extra checks “should only take one to two minutes” for travellers to complete, they admitted they may lead to “longer waits at busy times”, with travel firms warning passengers to allow four hours for the checks to take place. Meanwhile, there are fears longer delays for hauliers could cost the UK economy millions. Ready and waiting: Entry-exit system kiosks at Palma airport More

Sir Keir Starmer is reportedly gearing up to blame Nigel Farage and Brexit for Britain’s expected downturn in productivity at the Budget, as part of a new attack on the Reform UK leader. Treasury officials are bracing for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to lower its forecasts for productivity growth – a downgrade that is likely to create an extra shortfall of around £20bn at November’s Budget. The shortfall is expected to be filled by a swathe of tax rises. But sources told The Times Sir Keir and chancellor Rachel Reeves are planning to argue that this downgrade would not have happened were it not for Brexit, pinning the blame on the Reform leader for leading the campaign to take Britain out of the EU. Sir Keir Starmer has ramped up attacks on Reform UK More

Sir Tony Blair met with Jeffrey Epstein in Downing Street while he was prime minister, after lobbying from Lord Peter Mandelson, new documents have revealed.The former prime minister was briefed by a senior civil servant about “super-rich” financial adviser Epstein ahead of a meeting scheduled on 14 May 2002 at 5pm that day, according to a memo seen by the BBC.The meeting took place six years before Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in June 2008.A spokesperson for Sir Tony said: “As far as he can remember, Mr Blair met with him for less than 30 minutes in Downing Street in 2002, and discussed US and UK politics. He never met or engaged with him subsequently. This was, of course, long before his crimes were known of and his subsequent conviction.”Lord Mandelson is said to have encouraged then prime minister Sir Tony Blair to meet Jeffrey Epstein in 2002 More

Approval for the planned Chinese “mega embassy” in London is reportedly set to be further delayed as tensions rise over Labour’s approach to Beijing.Officials in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) are reportedly preparing to announce that the deadline on 21 October, will be pushed back, according to The Telegraph.Controversy has surrounded China’s plans to build a large embassy near the Tower of London since 2018; no final decision has been made as it has been repeatedly delayed. China bought the 20,000 square metre complex in the Royal Mint Court at the time for £255 million.The potential delay follows changes in the department, responsible for the planning case, made in the new Cabinet reshuffle, which saw Steve Reed take over from Angela Rayner, who resigned from her role. Critics connected the potential delay with the collapse of the trial of alleged Chinese spies. The prosecution of former parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash, and teacher Christopher Berry, was pulled after the Crown Prosecution Service tried “over many months” to get the evidence from the government it needed to show China was a threat to national security, but witness statements did not meet the threshold to prosecute.Luke de Pulford, the co-founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, told The Telegraph: “The reason for this delay stretches credulity, to put it kindly. Planning officials in Steve Reed’s [the Communities Secretary] department have already had six weeks longer than planned, and done a very diligent job.“Everybody knows the final call on the mega-embassy will be determined by politics, not planning law. The real reason for this delay is that current scrutiny makes giving the anticipated green light inconvenient.”Sir Keir has said that responsibility lay with the previous Conservative administration which was in power at the time of the alleged offences.The prime minister maintained on Thursday that because the last Tory administration had not designated China as a threat to national security, his government could not provide evidence to that effect, which the director of public prosecutions Stephen Parkinson said was required to meet the threshold for prosecution.Planning for the embassy has faced a number of setbacks after the initial planning application was rejected by Tower Hamlets Council in December 2022 due to security concerns and opposition from local residents. Another planning application was submitted shortly after the general election and ministers called in the proposal from the council, triggering an investigation by the Planning Inspectorate and a final decision from the Department of Communities.In August, Ms Rayner asked China to explain why parts of its plans for the new embassy were redacted.The MHCLG declined to comment. More

Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders said Friday that he’s “going nowhere” until reports are investigated that he was a possible target of a suspected plot in Belgium to kill politicians using a drone carrying explosives.Three men were taken into custody on Thursday after searches of their homes in the port city of Antwerp by police using explosives sniffer dogs. A homemade bomb was found at one home, but it wasn’t operational at the time, prosecutors said.A bag of steel balls also was found there, while a 3D printer believed to be used to make parts for the planned attack was found at another residence. Prosecutors said it appeared “that the intention was to build a drone to attach a load.”Prosecutors said the police raids were part of an investigation into “attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group.” They didn’t identify the politicians who might have been targeted.But Belgian government ministers identified Prime Minister Bart De Wever as one target. On X, Wilders posted a Belgian news report that he and De Wever’s successor as Antwerp mayor, Els van Doesburg, were also on the hit list. All three are right-wing politicians.Wilders said that an investigation was underway into whether the reports are true and “until I know that, I’m going nowhere.” He canceled an appearance on Friday at an election debate with other political leaders before the Netherlands holds an early general election on Oct. 29.Flemish broadcaster VTM was the source of some of the reports, but it didn’t provide details on how it learned about the list. In an interview with VTM, Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said that both Belgian and foreign politicians were targets. He didn’t elaborate.World leaders often visit Belgium’s capital, Brussels, for European Union and NATO summits, among other events.De Wever hasn’t spoken publicly about the case, but he gave a thumbs-up to television cameras at a meeting of government ministers on Friday. The police raids were carried out close to his Antwerp home.One of the suspects was later released. The other two were due to face a judge, possibly to be formally charged.Wilders has been a target of extremists for years and lives with round-the-clock protection. His Party for Freedom is leading in polls before the election, which was called after he pulled out of the ruling four-party coalition in a dispute about a crackdown on migration.Belgian prosecutors said on Thursday that the intention of the suspects “was to carry out a jihadi-inspired terrorist attack targeting politicians.” They provided no details about how they had drawn those conclusions.___Mike Corder contributed to this report from The Hague, Netherlands. More

Nigel Farage has insisted that a former senior figure in his party convicted of taking pro-Russian bribes is a “bad apple”.Nathan Gill, who led Reform UK in Wales in 2021, admitted taking bribes to make statements in favour of Vladimir Putin’s Russia while he was a member of the European Parliament.His activities were said to include making pro-Russian statements about events in Ukraine in the European Parliament and in opinion pieces to news outlets.Speaking at a campaign visit in Caerphilly on Friday, Mr Farage said he was “shocked” by Gill’s admissions, but claimed Reform does everything it can to vet their candidates despite the party’s vetting process being beset by issues. Nigel Farage described Gill as a ‘bad apple’ More

Yvette Cooper has claimed that she wanted alleged Chinese spies prosecuted when she was home secretary in charge of MI5, but said her hands were tied.The case against 30-year-old Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and 33-year-old Christopher Berry, a teacher, collapsed last month after the government did not provide evidence that Beijing was a threat to national security.But a row has exploded after shadow home secretary Chris Philp claimed that Sir Keir Starmer’s team had access to “multiple” documents that proved China was a national security risk before the collapse of a spying trial. The shadow home secretary claimed the government could have handed these papers over to prosecutors, but they “chose not to”, accusing ministers of having “destroyed the prosecution” of two men accused of spying for Beijing. Speaking on the BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Ms Cooper, who is now foreign secretary but was in charge of MI5 at the time, said she wanted the case prosecuted and was “deeply frustrated” when it collapsed. But she added that ministers were “not involved in any of the evidence that was put to the Crown Prosecution Service … because this was a criminal case”. Yvette Cooper said she was ‘deeply frustrated’ when the case collapsed More

Yvette Cooper has defended the controversial expansion of digital ID plans to include children as young as 13, arguing that many teenagers already utilise similar forms of identification. The Foreign Secretary asserted that the “standardised” system was “the right way forward,” aiming to reassure the public amidst significant opposition to the proposals’ scope. Sir Keir Starmer is reportedly seeking to widen the technology’s application, initially intended for tackling illegal migration, to encompass the management of public services such as benefits and bill payments.In its response to a petition against the measures, which has been signed by more than 2.8 million people, the Government said the system would cover everyone aged 16 or over but “we will consider through consultation if this should be age 13 and over”.Sir Keir said the system had ‘huge benefits’ which his Government must ‘make the case for’ amid plummeting support in the polls (Leon Neal/PA)Speaking to broadcasters on Friday morning, Ms Cooper said similar forms of identification are already widely used and suggested the plans would offer consistency.“Everybody has forms of digital ID, don’t they, now?” she said on LBC.“I mean, we all have different ways of having to prove who we are.”“Lots of 13-year-olds already do (have a form of digital ID) and what the department is going to be consulting on is exactly how that should be taken forward.“I do think that this is the right way forward, to have this standardised process now, and it’s something that we had been already setting out for people who come to work from abroad.”During his trip to India this week, Sir Keir praised the country’s Aadhaar digital ID system, which is far more extensive than the plans initially announced for the UK and involves the storing of biometric data, as a “massive success”.He signalled Britain could use the technology for services like banking, pointing to New Delhi’s scheme as an example, and said ministers must “make the case” for the “huge benefits” the scheme could offer.No 10 said Britain’s system would not necessarily copy India’s biometric data usage and signalled the UK scheme would be run by the public sector. More