UK Politics

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to back British businesses “to the hilt” amid the growing fallout from Donald Trump’s damaging global trade war. Days after Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) was forced to suspend shipments to the US, the prime minister visited the carmaker’s largest production plant to outline the government’s plans to support UK industry. With British and international markets suffering historic falls, the PM acknowledged Britain was facing “challenging times”. Keir Starmer vowed to back British business ‘to the hilt’ More

The prime minister has doubled down on David Lammy’s criticism of Kemi Badenoch after she defended Israel’s right to deny entry to two Labour MPs. Downing Street backed the foreign secretary’s criticism of the Tory leader, after he accused Mrs Badenoch of “cheerleading another country for detaining and deporting two British MPs”.The deepening row began after Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed were denied entry to the country, which Israel justified by claiming they planned to spread “anti-Israel hatred”.The deepening row began after Mrs Badenoch defended Israel’s decision to deny entry to two MPs More

Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to slash the number of days it takes to set up a clinical trial from “over 250” to 150, in a bid to strengthen the UK’s medical sciences industry.The Prime Minister also announced new investment of “up to £600 million” by both the Government and the Wellcome Trust, a health research charity, in a new health data research service.Sir Keir’s announcement came as he eased targets on some electric vehicles and after Donald Trump’s tariffs began hitting the car UK industry.Britain’s life sciences sector is a “shining example of British brilliance, absolutely pivotal part of our export economy”, Sir Keir said as he visited Jaguar Land Rover’s West Midlands plant.The Prime Minister said: “We’re going to rip up the red tape, cut the stifling bureaucracy that slows down clinical trials. Now, Britain used to be so much better than this, but we’ve taken our foot off the pedal.”Plans to standardise the contracts used to set up clinical trials are among the steps the Government will take, which it says will eliminate the need to negotiate a new agreement each time a trial is begun.In a bid to improve transparency across the NHS, trust-level data on clinical trials will be published for the first time.Sir Keir said: “The latest data says it takes over 250 days to set up a clinical trial, but I’m going to slash that to 150, and on top of that, I can announce a new investment: up to £600 million in new health data research service, a welcome partnership with Wellcome Trust, strengthen the genome cluster in Cambridge, making sure that patient data in our NHS is unlocked for the public good, an opportunity for growth, but more importantly, to save lives with cutting-edge medicine – and Britain is so good for this.”He added: “We saw that in the pandemic and now we need to pick up the pace again; this country has never waited around for history to shape us. We’ve shaped history, and we will do so again.”The new health data research service announced by Sir Keir will be based at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridgeshire.It will bring together access to different medical research data in one secure location, allowing researchers to study it without having to make several applications.The Government believes this could speed up research into diseases such as cancer, dementia and arthritis, but insists patient confidentiality will continue to be held to a gold standard of security.John-Arne Rottingen, chief executive of Wellcome, said: “There is so much more we could learn from health data in this country by joining it up better.“The new service will give researchers a way to easily harness the data held across different parts of the NHS.“The simpler it is to analyse data or identify patients to join clinical trials, the more quickly we can improve our understanding of illness and develop new treatments.“Providing a single, secure service for approved researchers will take away the significant overhead associated with locating, accessing and comparing disparate datasets.“It will create opportunities for patients to access new treatments through trials that would otherwise have been hard to arrange or conduct.”The announcement was welcomed by medical research charities, with Cancer Research UK describing it as a “much-needed investment from the Government”.The charity’s executive director of policy, Dr Ian Walker, added: “The information held within NHS data could help to improve our understanding of diseases like cancer and contribute to the creation of effective new treatments.“Despite its huge potential, access to this data has long been a significant challenge for the research sector, and anything that unleashes the power of NHS data, whilst protecting the security and anonymity of patients, will help enormously.“The UK can lead the world in data science for the benefits of patients both at home and abroad. It will be essential to consult with patients every step of the way.”Kieran Winterburn, Alzheimer’s Society’s head of national influencing, said: “Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer. Research will beat dementia, but we need to make it a reality sooner – through more funding, more partnership-working, better access to data and more people taking part in dementia research.“That’s why Alzheimer’s Society welcomes the Prime Minister’s announcement today that red tape will be slashed for researchers, with a new secure, single access point to NHS data.“Dementia researchers can face gridlock with a lengthy and complex process to access NHS data, navigating through various systems to gather the information they need for vital population and clinical studies.” More

With the normally brisk Easter season around the corner, the mood in Switzerland’s chocolate business is bittersweet, thanks to high cacao prices and — now — the newly added U.S. tariffs on imports.Many Swiss, from the government to chocolatiers to watchmakers and other businesses, are sensing “shock” over the tougher American position on trade, but many are also taking a wait-and-see stance.At the Festichoc chocolate festival in Geneva over the weekend, the Trump administration tariffs announced last week were on many minds, though they seemed to do little to sour the mood on Switzerland’s most famous sweets.Julie Jammes, marketing manager for Canonica, a Geneva chocolatier with three stores in San Francisco, said her company hasn’t yet made any decision on what actions might be taken. “We’re waiting a little longer, but it’s clearly a shock for us,” Jammes said.That meshes with Switzerland’s overall approach: Despite hefty 31% U.S. tariffs slapped on Swiss goods — well more than the 20% faced by exports from European Union – the government in Bern is taking a cautious approach for now. But it has warned of the impact on crucial Swiss industries like watches, coffee capsules, cheese and chocolate.“An increase in trade tensions is not in Switzerland’s interests. Countermeasures against US tariff increases would entail costs for the Swiss economy, in particular by making imports from the USA more expensive,” the government said last week, adding that the executive branch “is therefore not planning to impose any countermeasures at the present time.”The government said Swiss exports to the United States on Saturday were subject to an additional 10% tariff, and another another 21% beginning Wednesday. The United States is Switzerland’s second-biggest trading partner after the EU – a 27-member-country bloc that nearly surrounds the wealthy Alpine country of more than 9 million – and U.S.-Swiss trade in goods and services has quadrupled over the last two decades, the government said.The Swiss government said Switzerland abolished all industrial tariffs on Jan. 1 last year, meaning that 99% of all goods from the United States can be imported into Switzerland duty-free.The atmosphere remained bubbly at Festichoc, where eager shoppers nibbled chocolate squares and ogled at chocolate Easter bunny and egg sculptures at the annual gathering in the Geneva town of Versoix.Jammes, of Canonica, expressed hope that the “loyal clientele” in the United States would remain faithful, but she said “I put myself in the consumer’s shoes” and realized a pocketbook pinch might dissuade many shoppers.“I don’t see why I would pay $45 tomorrow for a box (of chocolates) that I’d pay $30 for today,” she said Saturday. “It’s still a very complicated issue.”The Swiss chocolate industry association Chocosuisse has expressed its disappointment over the Trump tariffs, even though it can still count on the domestic market: The Swiss are among the world’s top consumers of chocolate, scarfing down more than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) per year.“It is completely incomprehensible that Switzerland is targeted by these tariffs,” Chocosuisse said, adding that it was taking the situation “very seriously” and decried how the U.S measure “hits our businesses hard and represents a heavy burden that will weigh on exports to the United States.” Philippe Pascoet, a chocolatier from Geneva, lamented a sharp increase in cocoa prices over the last six months, and said the U.S. market has always been tricky for smaller producers. “Trump now has wanted to impose taxes on imported products. But it has always been complicated to send chocolate to the United States, just for sanitary reasons,” he said. “They want to control what is imported into their country. So even people who used to order chocolate from us online often found it blocked at customs.”___Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report. More

The UK should “notch up” its threats of retaliation towards Donald Trump after he imposed 10 per cent tariffs on UK exports, a former ambassador to the US has said. It comes as the government scrambles to boost support for British businesses and negotiate a trade deal with the US that would give Britain a carve-out to avoid the sweeping tariffs, which have been slapped on all major economies. While the UK has said nothing is off the table when it comes to responding to the tariffs, Sir Nigel Sheinwald said the UK should have gone further, earlier with its threats. “I think it’s right that we should say we’re going to think about retaliation. We might indeed have said that a little bit earlier on”, Sir Nigel told Sky News. “I think it’s always wrong to take that off the table or sound as if you don’t mean it, because in the world of trade policy and trade negotiators, this is a tough world where you’ve got to brandish those weapons and seem as though you’re prepared to use them.”Sir Nigel Sheinwald said the UK should have made threats of retaliation ‘a little bit earlier on’ More

A former National Farmers’ Union (NFU) chief who previously warned the so-called ‘tractor tax’ would “wipe out the family farm” has been hired by the government to lead a review into British farming. As part of the government’s latest attempt to show they are listening to farmers and rebuild trust within the community, environment secretary Steve Reed has now hired Baroness Minette Batters, who has previously voiced opposition to the extension of inheritance tax to family farms, to lead a review of farm profitability.The review, which will see the cross-bench peer provide recommendations to the department, is aimed at helping to ensure the farming sector is “more viable, self-sustaining and competitive in the long-term”. National Farmers’ Union (NFU) President Minette Batters speaking during the National Farmers’ Union annual conference (Jacob King/PA) More

Sir Keir Starmer has pledged “bold changes” to the rules around electric and new petrol and diesel cars in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs.The prime minister will announce Labour’s plan to reinstate the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales on Monday, in a move expected to pile pressure on Britain’s beleaguered motor industry.Businesses are currently grappling with the new rules from the White House, which mean a 25 per cent tariff is now applied to foreign cars imported into the US, while other products face a 10 per cent levy.The prime minister’s announcement follows Jaguar Land Rover’s decision to suspended shipments to the US over the weekend, as they look to “address the new trading terms”.Labour pledged in its election manifesto to restore the 2030 date, after it had been rolled back to 2035 by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government.Sir Keir Starmer will vow to support British carmakers amid Donald Trump’s tariff war More

Britain expressed outrage after Israeli authorities prevented two lawmakers from entering the country in order to visit the occupied West Bank. Israel accused the members of parliament of supporting boycotts against it.Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said late Saturday that it was “unacceptable, counterproductive and deeply concerning” that two British members of parliament were detained and refused entry to Israel. “I have made clear to my counterparts in the Israeli government that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians,” he said.Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang said they were “astounded at the unprecedented step taken by the Israeli authorities to refuse British MPs entry on our trip to visit the occupied West Bank.”“It is vital that parliamentarians are able to witness firsthand the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory,” they said, adding that they had planned to visit humanitarian aid projects and local communities.Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity that helped organize the visit, said the two were questioned upon arrival at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport before being denied entry and deported.A statement from Israeli authorities accused the two lawmakers of having called for boycotts of Israel and said they were not visiting as part of an official delegation.Israeli law prohibits the entry of non-citizens and non-residents who support the Palestinian-led international boycott movement, known as Boycott, Divest and Sanctions, or BDS.Supporters portray BDS as nonviolent activism based on a similar campaign against apartheid South Africa. Israel views the movement as an attack on its very legitimacy and accuses some organizers of antisemitism, allegations they deny.In February, Israel denied entry to two European Union lawmakers, accusing one of promoting boycotts of the country.___Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war More