Boris Johnson slams ‘patronising’ critics of Rwanda plan – follow it live

At 10pm tonight, the polls closed for the by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton.

Both by-elections are being held to choose the successor to two Conservative MPs who were forced to resign in disgrace.

At Wakefield, Imran Ahmad Khan resigned after being convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy at a party in 2008.

At Tiverton & Honiton, Neil Parish resigned after admitting to viewing pornography on his phone in the House of Commons on two separate occasions.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has dismissed London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s claims in a dispute over the abolition of bus routes.

He tweeted a letter he wrote to Khan about the latter’s claim that the government “forced” the City Council to have to cut 21 routes.

Shapps claimed that was not true, as the government has provided Transport for London with “close to £5bn of funding”.

He accused Khan of using a “campaign of scaremongering and threats” to “repeatedly [play] politics”.

Energy industry bosses have warned Foreign Minister Rishi Sunak that his planned windfall tax on companies could hurt investment in North Sea oil projects.

Last month, Sunak unveiled the measure under pressure from Labor to impose the one-off 25 percent surcharge on energy companies.

The policy is expected to raise up to £5bn, but energy companies have warned it could be detrimental to the sector.

In Aberdeen, Offshore Energy UK chief executive Deirdre Michie said she pressed Sunak on the issue during what she called a “frank and constructive” roundtable.

She said: “Both sides have agreed to continue discussions.

“We will work constructively with the UK government and do all we can to mitigate the damage this tax will cause, but if energy companies reduce investment in UK waters they will produce less oil and gas.

“That means they will eventually pay less in taxes and have less money to invest in low-carbon energy.”

A consultation on the policy will be closed on Tuesday.

According to the Treasury, Mr Sunak emphasized the importance of the sector to the UK’s transition away from fossil fuels, adding that the levy will provide tax relief for investments within the sector.

Fewer mice would be running around the House of Lords if post-Brexit UK law allowed more powerful vacuum cleaners to clean carpets properly, according to a minister.

Cabinet Office Minister Lord True joked that the mouse infestation could be eradicated by removing EU regulations on household appliances.

Lord True, answering questions from his Liberal Democrat colleague Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said: “Perhaps, my lords, if we had more powerful vacuum cleaners in this place, we wouldn’t have mice running around the place gorging themselves on all the bits and pieces of crumbs left.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for Brexit opportunities, has launched a dashboard to show how many changes have been made to the 2,400 pieces of EU legislation withheld after Brexit.

Announcing the initiative to MPs, Rees-Mogg said it highlights “unnecessary and disproportionate” EU regulations on consumer goods, including those “regulating the power of vacuum cleaners”.

Sir Vince Cable has predicted that Boris Johnson will take the “high risk” step of calling an early general election.

The former Lib Dems leader said the prime minister has a “gambler” mentality and could call elections in the fall to “avoid an even worse situation” for his government.

Sir Vince said a number of factors were working against the Conservative government, such as the “terrible” economic outlook that was “getting worse and worse”.

Parliamentarians across Europe have denounced Boris Johnson’s plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda as “unethical” and “racist”.

The comments were made in a debate at the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly.

Delegates raised concerns about the Conservative-led government’s apparent willingness to break international law and pass a British Bill of Rights that would allow UK judges to overturn rulings by the European Court of Human Rights.

Read the full story here by andres woodcock Y Ashley Cowburn

Labour’s experience in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement means it will be able to secure a better solution to the Northern Ireland Protocol dispute, David Lammy said.

The shadow foreign secretary told an event organized by the UK think tank In A Changing Europe on Wednesday that a Labor government would be better received in Brussels.

He said: “The EU must be less rigid. But the EU partners have told me frankly that if there was a partner they could trust, they could show more flexibility.

“Instead they have Boris Johnson, who lies, breaks the law and never keeps his promises.

“With a change of Prime Minister and a change of government, the UK could build a stable and mutually beneficial relationship with the EU in the long term.”

Speaking on the sixth anniversary of the Brexit referendum, Mr Lammy reiterated the Labor Party’s position that it would not seek to rejoin the EU or re-enter the Customs Union or the Single Market.

But, he said, the party would seek to secure “practical solutions to reduce any control to its absolute minimum” by seeking agreement on food and agricultural standards, sharing trade data and using a “risk-based approach” for goods coming in. to Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

Boris Johnson said critics of the Home Office plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda are “patronising”.

The Prime Minister, speaking from the Rwandan capital Kigali, said he was prepared to emphasize the “obvious merits” of the asylum policy to the Prince of Wales when they hold talks soon.

Prince Charles reportedly called the Rwanda plan “appalling” in comments he made privately.

But No 10 said later that Johnson was unlikely to bring up the subject with the royals when they meet downtown for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) leaders’ summit in Kigali.

It will follow Johnson’s talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, during which he did not mention human rights concerns about his regime.

The Kigali government said it had already received payments under the £120m economic and migration deal signed with the UK Home Office two months ago, and has already spent some of the money.

Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer will miss a trip next month to the Durham Miners’ Gala, which is a key event on the socialist calendar.

The traditional union-backed event, known as the Great Meeting, draws some 200,000 people to the city’s historic center, where crowds watch processions of marching bands and banners.

The gala was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid, and its return is dedicated to the key workers who kept society going during the pandemic, a decision the organizers announced last year.

Sir Keir, who is facing a so-called “beergate” police investigation over his trip to Durham in April 2021, is not among the speakers at the gala.

A decision is due to be made in the coming weeks as to whether you should be given a fixed penalty notice for drinking a bottle of beer at the offices of Mary Foy MP.

Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Miliband attended the Durham Miners gala when they were party leaders, watching the processions from a hotel balcony before speaking to large crowds gathered at the Racecourse Ground.

Before Miliband went to the Gala in 2012, the last Labor leader to attend was Neil Kinnock in the 1980s.

It has previously been described as the largest remaining labor demonstration in the country.

A collapse in support for the Conservatives in south-west England could see the party lose 11 seats in a general election and stand on the brink of losing Jacob Rees-Mogg’s constituency.

YouGov found that the Conservatives’ share of the vote in seats they dubbed the “Conservative Celtic Fringe” has fallen a remarkable 19 points since the 2019 general election, leaving Boris Johnson’s party at 38 per cent in the region.

The figures were released on the day of a by-election in the Devon headquarters of Tiverton & Honiton, where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to unseat a massive Conservative majority in an area that has been “truly blue” since 1923.