Syrian and Afghan refugees are believed to be on the list of people set to be deported to Rwanda in a fortnight, charities have said. Zoe Gardner, head of policy and advocacy at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said 15 Syrians have been told they will be sent to Rwanda in
Politics
The deputy prime minister has insisted there will not be a Boris Johnson leadership vote next week, saying the “Westminster bubble whips this stuff up”. Dominic Raab downplayed any threat to Mr Johnson’s premiership as the number of Conservative MPs publicly calling for him to go reached 41 in the wake of the Sue Gray
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s own ethics adviser has asked him to explain why he believes he has not broken the ministerial code after being fined for a lockdown breach. Lord Geidt said there was a “legitimate question” over whether the code has been broken – which would normally mean a minister would have to resign.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner have both received questionnaires from Durham Constabulary in relation to a potential breach of lockdown rules in April 2021. Sir Keir has come under pressure over an event in Durham in April 2021 with party colleagues when he was filmed having a drink and a
The trickle of MPs publicly calling for Boris Johnson to resign is now a modest stream and gathering pace. And the dangerous thing is, the rebellion feels uncoordinated and therefore unpredictable. With the number of MPs openly questioning the prime minister‘s authority at 40, senior Conservatives are braced for the possibility of a vote of
The former cabinet minister Dame Andrea Leadsom has blamed Boris Johnson for “unacceptable failings of leadership” over the partygate scandal. The former business secretary is the 40th Conservative MP to have publicly voiced their displeasure with the prime minister since he was fined by the Met for breaching lockdown rules in Downing Street, according to
One of the youngest MPs in the Conservative Party has become the 26th Tory to publicly call for Boris Johnson to resign over the partygate scandal. Elliot Colburn emailed his constituents to say that nothing within the Sue Gray report or the Met Police investigation has “convinced me that my decision to submit a letter
Interviews with Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch and Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik. There are discussions about the prime minister’s future following the Sue Gray report, the potential for a nationwide rail strike, and an extremely powerful account of what has happened to Ukraine and its people. Host: Sophy Ridge Contributors:
Boris Johnson is poised to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with a post-Brexit pledge to bring back pounds and ounces in Britain’s shops. Whitehall sources have told Sky News he will announce on Friday that imperial measurements are to be revived as part of a bonfire of EU regulations. His promise of legislation will be
A drip feed of no confidence letters in Boris Johnson has continued as pressure grows following the Sue Gray report into partygate. There has been a steady trickle of Conservative MPs publicly calling for the PM to go after senior civil servant Ms Gray published her findings into lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street and Whitehall.
Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said he will not be silenced by the far right after a “vile racist” was found guilty of sending the MP a death threat. Glenn Broadbent sent the Labour Tottenham MP a Twitter message that said: “Are you hanging off a tree monkey boy? You will hang from a
Dominic Cummings has said the Metropolitan Police never asked him for evidence as part of its investigation into lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street. Boris Johnson‘s former adviser was asked if he was fined by the police after it concluded its inquiry last week, handing out 126 fines to 83 politicians and civil servants, including one
A Tory MP has resigned from the government saying he was “shocked and angered” by revelations about partying in Downing Street. Paul Holmes said he was quitting his role as a parliamentary private secretary at the Home Office, saying a “deep mistrust in both the government and the Conservative party” had been created by the
Rishi Sunak, a devotee of Nigel Lawson, believes in a smaller state, curbing borrowing, lower taxes and combating inflation. Yet again, he delivered a major fiscal announcement where he did the opposite. Today’s £15 billion spending splurge expanded the role of the state with the advent of one-off financial transfers, could stoke inflation, add to
The Metropolitan Police acted with “integrity” during its partygate investigation and officers made decisions “based on the facts and were proper”, the force’s acting commissioner has said. Sir Stephen House, giving evidence to the London Assembly’s police and crime committee, defended the nearly four-month investigation into lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street and Whitehall. The investigation
Boris Johnson has said he “briefly attended” Downing Street lockdown gatherings but didn’t know at the time that they “went on far longer than was necessary”. The prime minister said he had attended to thank staff because it’s “one of essential duties of leadership” and to keep morale as high as possible”. He told the
Images of Boris Johnson with a beer in his hand have emerged in Sue Gray’s damning report of Downing Street parties during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sue Gray’s report into Downing Street parties included nine photographs from two of the investigated events – one on 19 June 2020, and another on 13 November 2020. Mr Johnson
MPs should be banned from giving paid parliamentary advice or consultancy services, a long-awaited report into MP standards has recommended. It is understood up to 35 MPs would be impacted by a crackdown on second jobs. MPs must now have a written contract for any outside work, which makes explicit that their duties cannot include
London mayor Sadiq Khan has written to the Met Police asking for a “detailed explanation” of its partygate probe – after claiming photos showed the PM was “caught red-handed” at an event for which he was not fined. Mr Khan said he had written to the Metropolitan Police’s acting commissioner Sir Stephen House to ask
The “serious systemic failures” of the Afghanistan evacuation by the Foreign Office lowered the UK’s global standing, a cross-party group of MPs has said. A damning report from the Foreign Affairs Committee said Afghan allies and British soldiers were “utterly let down by deep failures of leadership” in the government during the August 2021 evacuation