Andrew Mitchell, the deputy foreign secretary says in light of concern about Israeli arms export process he will “look to see what more detail we can offer in writing about IHL assessment both in terms of process and substance” Says he will come come back to parliament, and the business committee. Appears to be offering a version or summary of the advice, something ministers have hitherto opposed.
report today on political extremism, has issued a statement saying it’s the government and its supporters who are the “real criminals”.
Referring to Woodcock’s role with an organisation run by a firm with oil company and arms firm clients, a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil said Woodcock was “entirely compromised” because of the conflict of interest. The spokesperson went on:
As such, Just Stop Oil does not recognise the legitimacy of this report.
The governments’ climate strategy has been declared unlawful for the second time and their response has been to licence yet more oil, as our climate spins out of control. Who are we going to sue for the inconvenience of flooded fields, crop failure, spiralling food costs and empty shelves?
Just this morning, the high court has ruled that Suella Braverman acted unlawfully in making it easier for the police to criminalise peaceful direct action. [See 11.18am.] History will come to regard the acts of this government and its cronies as the real criminals, which is why they will stop at nothing to silence those telling the truth and acting like we are in the emergency that we are in.
Woodcock has rejected claims that he was biased and insisted that he applied an “objective standard” when writing his report.
12.30pm.)
It is great to see that @AngelaRayner‘s housing announcement focuses so much on beauty/quality of buildings. An agenda pushed and made cross-party by many, but particular credit to comrades Alex Morton, @boys_nicholas & @SCP_Hughes
Israel, a union has claimed.
The head of PCS union says that members in the Department for Business and Trade are concerned that they may be culpable in acts of genocide in Gaza if they assist in issuing arms licenses.
The clamour for legal action has increased since the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes, a spokesperson for the union said.
“Given the ICC’s pursuit of Israel’s leaders, dozens of staff are now concerned that they are being asked to break international law,” the spokesperson said.
Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the PCS union, is saying in a speech to members this afternoon:
Our members in BEIS London South branch and the newly formed DBT department, that are responsible for arms licensing, brought this issue to the union’s attention and raised concerns that the British government may be culpable in acts of genocide.
We are currently in talks with our lawyers to explore a potential judicial review to halt this work in its tracks.
The union has been asking ministers for its legal advice on arming Israel since January, when a preliminary ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Israel’s acts in Gaza could amount to genocide.
A government spokesperson said:
As part of the government’s robust arms export control regime we regularly review advice on Israel’s commitment to international humanitarian law, and ministers act in accordance with that advice. At no point have any civil servants been asked to do anything in breach of the civil service code.
10.33am.)
In response, Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the groups organising the marches, claimed it was Gove who was the extremist.
Nobody truly committed to anti-racism and to suppressing hatred is going to take any lessons from Michael Gove … That he should choose to issue his speech at a moment when Israel is on trial in the world’s highest court for the crime of genocide and the day after its leader has been threatened with arrest warrants for war crimes from the ICC, is grotesque, but given his track record, unsurprising.
He should be devoting his energies at the moment to ensuring his government upholds its responsibilities under international law rather than trying to smear those who are protesting against the current genocide.
Furthermore, his attempts to use his speech to once again push the arguments for the pernicious anti-boycott bill to become law, reveals his agenda. This bill contains a clause that seeks to uniquely protect Israel above all other states in the world from the peaceful, ethical tactic of divestment and boycott, even whilst it commits genocide. Mr Gove discredits himself, not the Palestinian solidarity movement.
after an uncontested election following Yousaf’s resignation, his name was left off the first list of special advisers published by the Scottish government.
It is unclear why Pringle was not reappointed but the possibility he is seen as too close to Salmond, now a bitter opponent of the SNP, or too willing to brief unofficially, may have been the cause.
Pringle offered a brief statement about his departure.
Working in government is a privilege, and one I greatly enjoyed, during both the last year and the years after the SNP was first elected in 2007.
I wish the Scottish government, and indeed MSPs of all parties, well in making the most of the new opportunities that lie ahead. Regarding my own professional future, I want to take a little time to explore options for fulfilling challenges outside the world of government and politics.
the full text of John Glen’s statement to MPs about compensation for victims of the infected blood scandal.
Here is a paper with further details of the new £210,000 interim payments announced by Glen.
And here is the news release about the appointment of Sir Robert Francis as interim chair of the new Infected Blood Compensation Authority.
a surprise admission reported in the Guardian by the deputy foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell that nearly 40% of money laundering in the world is being committed by the City of London and the UK overseas territories.
Mitchell also admitted that the overseas territories had failed to meet repeated UK government requests to set up public registers of beneficial share ownership, a means whereby law enforcement agencies and the public can find the ultimate owners of wealth hidden in overseas territories such as the Cayman Islands and the British Virgins Islands.
The foreign secretary, David Cameron, and Mitchell have both campaigned on the issue since 2014, but the Conservative government, following Cameron’s resignation as prime minister in 2016, effectively dropped the issue leaving London, in Lammy words, as a kleptocrat’s monopoly board.
In a speech signalling that he is determined to fill the vacuum left by the Conservatives, Lammy will say that fighting corruption will become one of the core themes of his foreign secretaryship.
He will reiterate his support for an international anti-corruption court, and vow to hold an anti-corruption summit to start to integrate the issues, including incentives for whistleblowers.
Addressing the IPPR, a left-of-centre thinktank, he will say he “passionately believes, specially as a son of the Caribbean, that our overseas territories contribute hugely not only in people to people ties when it comes to our economy and by making critical contributions to our global role in oceanic and environmental protection.”
He will say the OTs have made real progress in cooperation with enforcement, but will add it remains the case that three out of four of the offshore jurisdictions with the highest risk of involvement with international corruption are UK OTs. “This is a contradiction that cuts into our credibility. We must be honest about this and we must solve it,” he will say.
He will promise a time-bound action plan to require the OTs to come into line with international standards on transparency.
The OTs baulked at bringing in public registers of beneficial ownership last year citing an 2022 European Court of Justice ruling that raised human rights concerns about public access to the register. The OTs are not subject to the ECJ, but feel it has implications for them.
But since then the European parliament has passed new laws due to appear in a fifth EU anti-laundering directive setting out precisely who can have access.
Most of the OTs, often accused of playing for time, have promised in talks with foreign office ministers that they will implement a public register by the end of this year or in the case of the British Virgin Islands by the summer of next year. The UK government appeared to have accepted these delays, even though they contain numerous caveats.
Lammy will also point out there have been zero convictions for sanctions evasion since a panoply of laws were introduced in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and he will ask whether the 18-fold increase in car exports to Azerbaijan suggests vehicles are being sold on into Russia. There has been a 500% increase in exports of Russian sanctioned goods since 2022 to Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Uzbekistan, he will point out.
Ed Conway, Sky’s economics editor, explored this issue at some length a thread on X earlier this year.
Labour MP Diana Johnson, who as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood has been one of the leading campaigners on behalf of the victims of the infected blood scandal, has posted a message on X saying it is still unclear whether or not the government will accept all the recommendations of Sir Brian Langstaff’s report.
In the Commons a few minutes ago John Glen, the Cabinet Office minister, said that, given the report runs to seven volumes and more than 2,000 pages, it would take the government some time to come up with a serious response. But he said he expected to be able to give an “outline” of how the government would repond when MPs debate the report after the Whitsun recess. He said he would be opening that debate, and a health minister would be closing it.
12.50pm and 12.53pm.)
There have been reports saying the full compensation bill could top £10bn.
But, as Sky’s Beth Rigby reports, the government has been reluctant to come up with a firm figure, even unofficially.
Whitehall source:
– scheme outline will meet “expectations & recommendations” of report
– won’t focus on total amount of compensation as numbers who claim & variability of entitlement so wide
– will be round of interim payments b4 (autumn) elex & perhaps some final settlements but govt have to set up an arms length body
Source: theguardian.com
