Analysis: critics think man who once said ‘I don’t believe in economic and social rights’ is reaching goal of 12-year campaign
It may bear the unassuming title of a “consultation paper”. But critics believe that the document released by Dominic Raab’s department on Tuesday is the culmination of a steady 12-year campaign by the justice secretary to rip up the Human Rights Act.
Footage of Raab from 2009 shows the then backbench MP looking into the camera and saying: “I don’t support the Human Rights Act and I don’t believe in economic and social rights.”
‘Dangerous’ reforms to create a new bill of rights criticised as ‘blatant, unashamed power grab’
Dominic Raab is to outline a sweeping overhaul of human rights law that he claims will counter “wokery and political correctness” and expedite the deportation of foreign criminals.
The highly controversial reforms, to be announced on Tuesday – which will create a new bill of rights – will introduce a permission stage to “deter spurious human rights claims” and change the balance between freedom of expression and privacy.
Boris Johnson defended his record in office as he faced questions about his leadership and political future. The Labour Party and others are accusing the prime minister of breaking several promises that he made in his 2019 manifesto. The SNP has described him as “simply unfit for office”.
Boris Johnson's broken promises
HS2 to Leeds 6,000 more GPs 40 new hospitals Northern Powerhouse Rail No National Insurance rise No change to the Pensions Triple Lock No one will have to sell their home to pay for care
In a rowdy session of Prime Minister’s Questions, Johnson was cheered by Tory MPs as he rejected claims he was not fit for office. It comes in a week when Tory MPs have allegedly been saying that Johnson is no longer fit for his position.
Exaggerated cheers on the Conservative benches as Boris Johnson arrives in the chamber
As ever, the louder the cheers, the more trouble the prime minister is in. #pmqs
The PM’s appearance in the Chamber also followed criticism from within his party in a series of hostile briefings since a chaotic speech at the Confederation of British Industry on 22 November. Labour leader Keir Starmer highlighted Tory divisions over Johnson’s style and rumours of a rift with chancellor Rishi Sunak.
Looking at Tory MPs behind Boris Johnson and the Johnson honeymoon is most definitely over . Given the no-confidence letters now flowing into the 1922 Committee – it’s less ‘Get Brexit done’ and more ‘Get Boris gone’ #PMQs
Prime minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street, London, to attend Prime Minister’s Questions (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
The chancellor sat next to Johnson in the Chamber as Starmer said:
The Prime Minister’s routine is falling flat. His Chancellor is worried that people are getting wise, his backbenchers say it’s embarrassing… and senior people in Downing Street tell the BBC ‘it’s just not working’.
Echoing the question asked by a journalist on 22 November, Starmer said:
Is everything OK, Prime Minister?
Johnson responded:
I’ll tell you what’s not working, it’s that line of attack.
The Labour leader accused Johnson of breaking a promise that no one would have to sell their home to pay for social care under his reforms for England, on top of a pledge he had already abandoned on not raising taxes. Starmer said:
Who knows if he will make it to the next election. But if he does, how does he expect anyone to take him and his promises seriously?
The Labour leader branded the social care cap a “working class dementia tax” because poorer families face losing proportionally more of their assets than wealthier ones. Johnson defended his record and attacked Labour, saying his social care plan “does more for working people up and down the country than Labour ever did”. He also claimed:
There are now more people in work than there were before the pandemic began, that’s because of the policies this Government has pursued.
There was more support for Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions than there had been last week, although some gaps were still visible on the Tory benches. At one point, as Conservatives barracked Starmer, the Labour leader said:
I see they have turned up this week, prime minister.
Tory MP tells me the dep chief whip texted Tory MPs at about 12.10pm "pleading" for them to go to the Chamber to support Boris Johnson at PMQs
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford speaks during Prime Minister’s Questions (House of Commons/PA)
‘Incoherent’
The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford said the prime minister “can’t even give a coherent speech to business” adding:
Officials have lost confidence in him, Tory MPs have lost confidence in him – the letters are going in – and the public have lost confidence in him. Why is he clinging on when quite simply he isn’t up to the job?
The PM avoided answering the question and instead asked Blackford “what on earth he is doing talking about party political issues” when the people of Scotland wanted to know about the “manifold failures” of the SNP government in Edinburgh.
Boris Johnson is surrounded by a litany of broken promises and failure.
And a Tory sleaze and corruption scandal on a scale not seen since the 90s.
Boris Johnson is simply unfit for office – even his own MPs are losing confidence in him. pic.twitter.com/TrBk1kWBc5
The Commons exchanges came after Cabinet minister Dominic Raab insisted the prime minister “is on great form” and dismissed “Westminster tittle tattle” about his position. Downing Street was forced to insist that the prime minister was physically “well” and “focused on delivering for the public” following questions about the CBI speech on 22 November which saw him lose his place in his notes, impersonate a car, and talk about a visit to Peppa Pig World.
This is bang on. But what does it say about British politics that the most successful Conservative politician in Britain since Thatcher was essentially a media confection? https://t.co/tZGpyjbMLy
Rumours have swirled about strained relations between Johnson’s No 10 and Sunak’s No 11 since a “senior Downing Street source” told the BBC “there is a lot of concern inside the building about the PM” and “it’s just not working”. Allies of Sunak denied the Treasury was involved in the briefing.
The anonymous source of the incendiary briefing to the BBC has been dubbed the “Chatty Pig” in Westminster, as the comments emerged following the prime minister’s CBI speech.
Justice secretary Raab told BBC Breakfast:
It’s the job of Westminster commentators to pick up on one anonymous source from wherever they found it to criticise the Government of the day, that’s fine.
The British media focusing more on Boris Johnson talking about a cartoon pig in his speech than say… his government voting through more NHS privatisation really says it all.
Reject mainstream media, support independent media instead.
He said Johnson was “focused on the job at hand”, adding:
The Prime Minister is an ebullient, bouncy, optimistic, Tiggerish character and he livens up his speeches in a way that few politicians past and present have done, but actually there is a steeliness to him as a Prime Minister and indeed his team, and we work as a team.
Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng, Dominic Raab & Liz Truss were co-authors of the “Britannia Unchained” manifesto. In it they attacked British workers as “the worst idlers in the world”. They want it to be easier for employers to sack workers.
One Tory MP told the PA news agency that Johnson was “losing the confidence” of his backbenchers and should quit in the new year. The MP would not say whether they had submitted a letter to the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers calling for Johnson to quit. Meanwhile, the Telegraph quoted a Tory whip as saying it was an “assumption” that some MPs had sent no-confidence letters to the 1922 Committee.
Conservative MP David Evennett calls on Boris Johnson to "keep on implementing our 2019 manifesto."
Johnson recently:
– Broke the Tory manifesto pledge on social care – Ripped up his promise to keep the pensions triple lock – Broke his pledge on Northern Powerhouse Rail. #pmqs
If 15% of sitting Conservatives submit letters then there would be a vote on his leadership, although the whip said “it will not get anywhere near the 50 letters you would need, but it does cause angst”. Asked about the suggestion that letters had been sent to the 1922 Committee, Raab told LBC:
There is the usual Westminster tittle tattle and I’m not aware of that.
Bit embarrassing for the deputy PM to have to be trotted out to defend @BorisJohnson's increasingly erratic & chaotic behaviour. There is nothing 'ebullient' or 'Tiggerish' about our car-crash PM, @DominicRaab should stop insulting people's intelligence defending the indefensible
Boris Johnson has refused to apologise for his handling of the Westminster sleaze row amid continued frustration and anger among Tory MPs. The prime minister reportedly admitted he “crashed the car into a ditch” in the row over standards at Westminster in the wake of the Owen Paterson row.
After Boris Johnson admits he ‘crashed the car’ in his handling of the Owen Paterson scandal, aides quietly take it to the scrap yard to add to the others: pic.twitter.com/soFtvi1PUS
Deputy prime minister Dominic Raab insisted the government is committed to “fixing the problem” but Chris Bryant, the chair of the cross-party committee tasked with detailing the plans to tackle MPs’ second jobs, said the prime minister’s proposals had “not really been thought through very properly”.
At a private meeting of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee on 17 November, Johnson took responsibility for the government’s botched attempt to get Owen Paterson off the hook after he was found to have broken the rules on paid lobbying. Johnson reportedly told the gathering:
On a clear day, I crashed the car into a ditch. I will get the car out of the ditch
On 18 November, however, he appeared to distance himself from the comments. On ITV News, it was put to Johnson that “you have told colleagues you crashed the car, you’ve even said you had regrets”. He replied:
I don’t think I actually used those words.
Following Boris Johnson’s admission that he “crashed the car” over the Paterson affair, the question on every media watcher’s lips is whether the PM will abandon his bid to put Paul Dacre into the Ofcom job – another bending of rules and a second car smash in the making
Pressed five times on whether he would say “sorry”, Johnson said:
I’ve said what I have to say.
Raab acknowledged the government has a job of work to do to restore morale within the Conservative ranks after seeing the party engulfed by allegations of Tory “sleaze”. Asked on Sky News about discontent within the party, he said there is always “one or other disgruntled individual” who is prepared to complain anonymously in the media. Pressed on whether that means there is no general unrest, Raab added:
Not sure I’d put it in that idyllic way. There’s always debate amongst MPs, but the most important thing is we’re fixing the problem.
Naga Munchetty – Boris Johnson told Tory MPs that he crashed the car when it came to handling the Owen Paterson case… do you have faith in the PM's judgement?
On 17 November, the Commons backed Johnson’s proposals to ban MPs from taking paid political consultancies and to limit the time they can spend doing second jobs. However, only 297 MPs, fewer than half the total, voted for the motion, with opposition parties abstaining. Four Tory MPs even voted for a rival Labour motion which would have imposed a clear parliamentary timetable for implementing reform.
Raab said the Committee on Standards had been asked to deliver the details of the reforms in January and said MPs’ outside work could either be limited by time or amount earned. But Bryant, the committee’s chair, said he was worried the government was trying “to bounce everybody into a set of proposals which have not really been thought through very properly”.
Downing Street said that Johnson hoped that there could still be an agreement to take forward the proposals on a cross-party basis. Labour leader Keir Starmer told the PA news agency:
At the moment we are in a situation where he (Mr Johnson) ripped the rules up, he’s now desperately trying to back-pedal. We are always up for a conversation about how standards can be improved.
We put a very strong plan of action before the House of Commons yesterday, that would take place immediately, particularly in relation to second jobs, and the Prime Minister whipped his MPs to vote it down.
He pretends he’s had a conversion to standards for the first time in his life – that lasted about 24 hours until he then whipped his MPs to vote down a plan that would actually make a significant change. What we’ve now got is a weak proposal to have some further discussions. Discussions have been going on forever about standards – we don’t need more discussion, we need some action.
Boris Johnson is suggesting he's addressed the second jobs scandal. That's a lie.
The Conservatives didn't change the rules last night and even if their proposals were implemented, it would affect fewer than 10 MPs.
The Conservatives just want to keep lining their own pockets.
Meanwhile, Labour stepped up pressure on Johnson to declare further details of what his free holiday in Spain in a villa owned by the family of minister lord Goldsmith cost. The PM declared the use of a VIP lounge at Heathrow, donated by the airport, worth the equivalent of £1,800, but has not published details of how much the villa would have cost. Johnson said:
I always declare everything in the normal way
Boris Johnson has declared part of the cost of his Marbella trip – an £1,800 stay in Heathrow's VIP Windsor suite before he set off. But still nothing on his use of the Goldsmiths' reportedly £25k-a-week villa.
A reminder that Dominic Raab could work from a beach in Greece, Geoffrey Cox could work from an island in the Caribbean, Boris Johnson could work from his pal's luxury villa in Marbella but ordinary plebs can't be trusted to work from home. #TorySleaze
Robert Jenrick said the Government needed to rebuild trust (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
Former Cabinet minister Robert Jenrick said the prime minister had been poorly advised when it came to reforming the standards system. He told ITV’s Peston:
It has been a very difficult two weeks and almost everyone involved would agree that it’s been handled poorly by the Government and it’s damaged the Government to an extent, and it’s damaged Parliament as well.
Johnson’s appearance before the 1922 Committee was the culmination of weeks of pressure following the fiasco over the attempt to save Paterson from suspension. Former Cabinet minister Paterson had been found to have breached lobbying rules by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards but a government-backed amendment attempted to save him from suspension and overhaul the whole standards process.
The government U-turned on the idea after a backlash and Paterson resigned as an MP, but the saga kicked off a deep dive into standards in public life, with a focus on second jobs.
David Lammy says justice secretary should focus on courts after proposal to undermine human rights law
The shadow justice secretary, David Lammy, has urged Dominic Raab to tackle the “chaos” in the justice system before unpicking human rights law, after Raab said he wanted to curb the power of the European court of human rights over the government.
Raab used an interview with the Sunday Telegraph to signal that he would be reviewing the Human Rights Act, which brought the European convention on human rights into UK law, with a view to constraining the influence of the Strasbourg court.
Justice secretary called this year for government to be more ambitious as it seeks to reform act
Labour and senior legal figures have raised concerns that Dominic Raab was appointed as justice secretary in order to enact wholesale changes to the Human Rights Act.
Labour has unearthed footage of the former foreign secretary saying he did not support the act, which he will now be expected to enforce or overhaul. In messages sent to ministers earlier this year, Raab urged the government to be more ambitious as it sought to reform human rights law and judicial reviews.
The most vulnerable people will bear the cost of sanctions, as services and the economy collapse
Watching Afghanistan’s unfolding trauma, I’ve thought a lot about Mumtaz Ahmed, a young teacher I met a few years ago. Her family fled Kabul during Taliban rule in the late 1990s.
Raised as a refugee in Pakistan, Ahmed had defied the odds and made it to university. Now, she was back in Afghanistan teaching maths in a rural girls’ school. “I came back because I believe in education and I love my country,” she told me. “These girls have a right to learn – without education, Afghanistan has no future.”
Dominic Raab has been urged to “find a backbone and resign” after MPs criticised his handling of the Afghanistan crisis.
Spineless
Labour told the foreign secretary the coordination between his department and the Ministry of Defence to assist people seeking to flee Afghanistan is “still appalling” despite the efforts of some “very hardworking” civil servants.
The SNP’s Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) went a step further when asking why Raab went on holiday to Crete despite concerns being raised in July over the future of Afghanistan. He added:
When’s he going to find a backbone and resign?
Raab replied:
He referred to the risk report that the management board received in July, it’s a standard monthly report, it goes to senior officials. It didn’t contain any novel or new intelligence assessment.
What the July document made clear was that our central planning assumption at the time was the peace process in Afghanistan would probably run for a further six months.
So we followed all that advice while at the same time preparing our contingency plans for the evacuation.
The Taliban retook control of nearly all of Afghanistan by mid-August.
“Lottery of life and death”
Raab repeatedly stressed the UK will not recognise the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan and noted his “scepticism is quite deep” about their assurances. But he told MPs:
There is some evidence, in relation to the engagement we had on the ground in relation to the airport, it is possible to have a rational, constructive engagement and be able to test whether they will keep their word.
Labour’s Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) earlier warned that the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme “is going to end up as a lottery of life and death”. She asked about the number of Afghan citizens “who want and need to flee here from Afghanistan and have already asked”. Harman said:
How will the Government in practice decide between those who will be the lucky 5,000 and be allowed to come here and those who, though meeting the criteria, will because of the 5,000 cap be refused and face a terrible fate at the hands of the Taliban?
I think the reality is unless they increase the 5,000 cap, the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme is going to end up as a lottery of life and death.
Raab replied:
I think she’s right to say frankly even if we doubled or tripled the quota, the number of people fleeing Afghanistan is going to outstrip what the UK would be able to take alone.
“Appalling”
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said:
The coordination between the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence, despite some very hardworking civil servants on the ground who are working round the clock, is still appalling.
She also asked about the number of calls handled by the crisis centre. The foreign secretary said:
Since August 11, (the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office crisis centre) has handled more than 44,000 calls. We surged 45 members of FCDO staff and 35 staff from other departments.
Since August 19, we have answered well over 90% – 93% – of the total number received, and every day since the 24th, our call handlers have answered more than 94% of the calls that were made.
And just to give the honourable lady a sense, since August 20 average wait times have been less than a minute.
Raab also told MPs there is “clearly a difference” between the Taliban and terrorist groups such as Isis-K – the affiliate of the so-called Islamic State in Afghanistan – and al-Qaeda.
He added:
Indeed, there is suspicion that the Abbey Gate attack from Isis-K, that part of the intention was to target the Taliban.
Boris Johnson has “full confidence” in Dominic Raab despite bitter Whitehall infighting about the performance of the foreign secretary as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.
“Control freak”
Downing Street said there were no plans for a reshuffle following widespread reports claiming that Raab’s position is under threat. Hostile briefings from government insiders have seen the foreign secretary labelled a “control freak” who would be “toast” when the prime minister carries out a shake-up of his Cabinet.
The prime minister’s official spokesman told reporters there were “no plans for any reshuffle”. They added:
The Prime Minister has full confidence in his Foreign Secretary
The foreign secretary, who was on holiday in Crete as the Taliban swept away opposition, has denied claims that he did not speak to ministers in Afghanistan and Pakistan for months ahead of the evacuation crisis. He called the allegations “not credible and deeply irresponsible”.
British military personnel prepare to remove cargo from a C-17 aircraft at RAF Brize Norton (Peter Nicholls/PA)
The Sunday Times reported that the foreign secretary had “shown no interest” in taking calls from either country’s government in the six months before the evacuation. The newspaper cited an unnamed Pakistani official, who said Raab had thought of Afghanistan as “yesterday’s war”.
“Not credible” – Raab
On 31 August, Raab hit back at the claims, and said there had been a “team effort” across the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to communicate with the two countries. He told Sky News:
Anyone that is toddling off to the Sunday Times or any other newspaper at a time of crisis, including the evacuation which has been two weeks running, giving buck-passing briefings either at me or the FCDO is, frankly, not credible and it is deeply irresponsible.
The Cabinet minister added that he had spoken to Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi “more intensively given the evacuation” and defended the Foreign Office’s record in Afghanistan, because it has supported the evacuation of 17,000 people since April.
However, he was unable to name any time before the last few weeks in which he had spoken to ministers from either Pakistan or Afghanistan.
He told LBC:
I can’t tell you my precise call sheet for the last six months.
He claimed he was part of a “team of ministers” and delegated phone calls to colleagues, including Foreign Office minister lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who had led the UK’s relationship with the Afghan government.
Allegedly ‘operating effectively’
Raab added:
It is right that you have delegation, a division of labour, if you are going to operate effectively as a team. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not done a job like this.
The Foreign Office told the Sunday Times that Raab had spoken to Pakistani minister Qureshi on 22 and 27 August – both dates after the fall of Kabul – but could not cite any earlier conversations between the two men in the last six months. It instead said that Ahmad was responsible for communicating with Pakistan and Afghanistan as the minister for South Asia.
Raab faced criticism for not returning early from his holiday in Crete earlier this month, as Kabul was seized by the Taliban. The foreign secretary has said that “with hindsight” he would have abandoned his holiday sooner.
First minister raises ‘deep concerns’ about case of Jagtar Singh Johal, who has been imprisoned for four years awaiting trial
Nicola Sturgeon has written to the embattled foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, urging him to intervene in the case of a Scottish Sikh man who has been imprisoned in India for nearly four years awaiting trial, and is facing the death penalty after a confession allegedly extracted under torture.
In Sturgeon’s first formal intervention on the case, seen exclusively by the Guardian, the first minister expresses the Scottish government’s “deep concerns” about Jagtar Singh Johal’s detention without trial – as well as his allegations of torture and mistreatment by Indian authorities while in custody.
Scotland’s Health Secretary has accused Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab of “having pina coladas by the pool” instead of making a call to help interpreters stranded in Afghanistan.
Raab has come under pressure this week after it emerged he was on holiday while Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.
But Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he still has confidence in the minister.
On August 13, two days before the capital was seized, Raab was told by officials to make a call to Afghan foreign minister Hanif Amtar about repatriating interpreters who helped allied forces during the war, but the task was delegated to junior minister lord Goldsmith.
It has since emerged the call was never made.
Rally in Glasgow
Humza Yousaf was speaking at a rally in George Square (Craig Paton/PA)
Speaking at a rally in Glasgow, Scotland’s Health Secretary Humza Yousaf took aim at Mr Raab and the UK Government.
He said:
In amongst all these big numbers, in amongst the trillions and the billions and the millions and the hundreds of thousands, not one single apology from the UK Government
Not one single syllable of regret by any UK Government.
Not one single ounce of compassion from the UK Government even now at the most desperate time of need for our Afghan brothers and sisters.
Shame on each and every one of those political leaders who have abandoned the Afghan people.
He added:
All the while we have a Foreign Secretary who is more occupied with having pina coladas by the pool as opposed to picking up the phone to help Afghan interpreters who helped our soldiers there in Afghanistan.
Shame on each and every one of them.
Standing in solidarity
The Health Secretary described himself as “apoplectic” about the situation in Afghanistan, but added:
As angry as I may be, and I say that on this typically Scottish day as the rain pours down and I see dozens of people, dozens of Glaswegians from all colours and races, religions, non-religions, standing here today in solidarity with the Afghan people, and I am reminded that there is good in the world.
This week, the Prime Minister pledged to take in 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan, with up to 5,000 to be allowed into the UK in the first year.
But Yousaf attacked the scheme and the UK Government, saying:
If you’re looking for sanctuary, then Scotland can be your home.
If you’re looking for a place for refuge, then Scotland can be your home.
I call on the UK Government to show some basic humanity.
To simply say we will allow 5,000 Afghans – 20,000 over a number of years – is pathetic.
Go further and go quicker, and I promise you our Scottish cities, our Scottish islands, our Scottish towns, our Scottish villages, they will welcome Afghans here as we have done for many years before with our Afghan community.
An “urgent intervention” is needed to secure Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release from prison, her husband and lawyers have said. Richard Ratcliffe also warned it was “inevitable” his wife would face an “autumn in court” unless the UK and other countries “called out” hostage-taking as a crime.
Mr Ratcliffe has previously claimed that Iran is holding Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe hostage to gain “leverage” over the UK regarding an unpaid debt of £400m.
Warning
The warning comes as Mr Ratcliffe and a legal team for his wife have filed a special request to the UN, asking for it to work with both the UK and Iran to see Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe freed. Mr Ratcliffe said:
We have been relatively quiet these past months, waiting and hoping that the Government’s negotiations with Iran would finally deliver.
But these week’s events – Iran’s announcements that hostage negotiations are again on hold, and the attacks on shipping that resulted in two lost lives – were a signal that things have again turned for the worse with the change of government in Iran.
He added:
I met the Foreign Secretary this week to get his sense of things. He insisted the negotiations had come close, hoped they could be picked up again under the new regime, and that he was determined not to leave any Brits behind.
I told him I feared the tide had turned, and that a summer of drift would become an autumn in court. I see that now as inevitable, unless the UK and the international community takes a much firmer stand against state hostage taking, and calls it out as a crime.
An “urgent action request and individual complaint” has been filed on Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s behalf by non-profit organisation REDRESS and two barristers at Doughty Street Chambers.
This requests that the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention should engage with the UK and Iranian governments to free Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, following her prosecution for a second time. The request comes in anticipation of an appeal for her second conviction and sentence being scheduled by Iran’s Revolutionary Court.
Foreign affairs
On 4 August, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said Iran was at a “crossroads” with the inauguration of new president Ebrahim Raisi. Raab condemned the continued detention of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the 29 July attack on the Mercer Street oil tanker in the gulf of Oman, for which the UK government believes Iran is responsible.
A spokesperson said:
Iran’s continued arbitrary detention of our dual nationals is unacceptable. We urge the Iranian authorities to release the detainees without any further delay.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in prison in Iran in 2016, spending four years in Evin Prison. She spent the final year of her sentence under house arrest in Tehran, but after her release this year was convicted of “spreading propaganda against the regime”.
Is she paying for Britain’s mistakes?
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family have reportedly been told by Iranian authorities that she is being detained because of the UK’s failure to pay an outstanding £400m debt to Iran. Writing for Declassified UK, Mr Ratcliffe noted:
The debt owed by Britain to Iran relates to a large sale of tanks to the country from the UK during the Shah’s time. The Shah paid in advance for the tanks, but following the revolution they were not delivered, and the UK kept the money.
The money withheld by the British government is the reason Nazanin has been detained in Iran since her arrest in 2016 while on a family holiday with our then 22-month old daughter, Gabriella.
A few weeks after she was arrested, Nazanin was told by her interrogators from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that while there was “nothing in her case”, she was going to be held for leverage with the UK. Gradually they revealed she was being held to recover a debt.
He added:
Nazanin’s fate has long been in the shadow of the vagaries of this court case in London, and in the hands of powerful, unaccountable old men still arguing over their money.
He concluded:
Our story is actually a warning — for the future. As the UK avoids protesting to governments who are potential or actual arms customers, cases like Nazanin’s will become more commonplace.
What obligations does the government have to ensure its sins are not visited on its own citizens? With a government picking and choosing what protections it offers its citizens, it will be a question asked more and more.
‘David Taylor’ claims hooding, sensory deprivation and waterboarding was to persuade him to cooperate with the CIA
A British citizen has claimed he was tortured in Somalia and questioned by US intelligence officers, raising concern that controversial practices of the post-9/11 “war on terror” are still being used.
The 45-year-old from London alleges he has endured hooding, sensory deprivation and waterboarding at the hands of the Somali authorities to persuade him, he believes, to cooperate with the CIA. Foreign Office officials are aware of the allegationsof torture and US involvement, but their failure to act has raised questions over UK complicity.
Fresh questions for the security services have been raised after it emerged Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s private mobile number has been available online for a number of years.
The discovery came weeks after it was revealed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s phone number was freely available on the internet for more than a decade.
The Foreign Office said on Tuesday Raab’s number and other private information was swiftly removed once the department was made aware of the oversight.
Since 2010
The Guardian, which first reported the number’s availability after being notified by a reader, said it appeared to have been online since before he became an MP in 2010.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said:
Private information was wrongly retained online, before the Foreign Secretary’s appointment.
Once we were made aware, we had it removed immediately. Most of it was out of date, and no security was compromised.
In April it emerged that Johnson’s number remained on the bottom of an online press release from when he was shadow higher education minister in 2006.
That disclosure – by the Popbitch gossip newsletter – prompted concerns that Johnson had left himself vulnerable to covert activity by hostile states.
The Prime Minister had already been reportedly told by Civil Service head Simon Case to change his number, because it was too widely known from his career as a journalist.
Risk
Former UK national security adviser lord Ricketts told the Guardian:
The wide availability of Mr Raab’s personal phone number must increase the risk that other states, or even criminal gangs, have been able to eavesdrop on his calls.
It also means that anyone who happens to have had his phone number … is able to lobby the foreign secretary, bypassing the official channels which everyone else has to use.
Anyone taking on a role as sensitive as this should in their own interests pay as much attention to online as to physical security.
Concerns have also been raised over senior Government figures’ use of WhatsApp.
Former Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings has published a series of exchanges on the messaging network, showing it was used to co-ordinate elements of the coronavirus pandemic response.
Agreeing a post-Brexit free trade deal between Britain and the United States will take “some time”, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has warned.
America first
Blinken said president Joe Biden’s new trade negotiator Katherine Tai would be taking time to review the discussions that had taken place with the Trump administration before progressing with the talks.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab and US secretary of state Antony Blinken at the G7 talks in London (Hannah McKay/PA)
Blinken, who’s been in London for the meeting of G7 foreign ministers, said he believed the US and the UK were “profoundly in sync”. However he said that the US wanted to ensure any trade agreement would benefit American workers and their families. He said:
Our trade negotiator just got on the job, so she’s taking the time to go back and review everything that was discussed and that’s going to take some time.
We want to make sure that, whether it’s with the United Kingdom or anyone else, any agreements reached are consistent with the principles that President Biden has established to focus on making sure that these agreements really advance the wellbeing of our workers and their families. That’s our focus.
Peace in Ireland
In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Blinken stressed the importance the president placed on ensuring that the gains of the peace process in the north of Ireland were maintained.
With continuing tensions in the north over the implementation of the Brexit “divorce” settlement, Blinken said the US was “very focussed” on ensuring the Good Friday Agreement was maintained. He said:
We want to make sure that, whether it’s with the United Kingdom or the EU, whether it’s anything we’re doing, that we make sure that the tremendous gains from the Good Friday Agreement are sustained and that the economic as well the political wellbeing of Northern Ireland is taken fully into account
Iran
On Iran, Blinken said the US had shown its “seriousness and purpose” in seeking to strike a new nuclear deal after Donald Trump tore up the internationally agreed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). However, he said Tehran had to show it was willing to comply with the terms of the agreement – intended to curb its ability to develop a nuclear weapon – amid concerns it was close to achieving a “breakout” capability. He said:
Compliance is compliance and what we don’t know is whether Iran is prepared to make the same decision and to move forward.
He added:
Right now, unfortunately, Iran has itself lifted many of the constraints imposed on it by the agreement because we pulled out, and it is now getting closer and closer again to that point where its breakout time is going to be down to a few months and eventually even less.
So there’s nothing naive about this. On the contrary, it’s a very clear way of dealing with a problem that was dealt with effectively by the JCPOA and we’ll have to see if we can do the same thing again.
The government will introduce Magnitsky sanctions to tackle dirty money following the Russia report, Dominic Raab has confirmed.
Money laundering Britain
As ministers were pressed on why half of all the money laundered out of Russia travels through the United Kingdom, Raab announced he will “shortly be introducing an extension to the Magnitsky sanctions” to crack down on the scandal.
The foreign secretary’s comments came as MPs raised concerns about rising tensions at Ukraine’s border due to the recent Russian military build-up of forces there.
Speaking during Foreign Office departmental questions in the Commons, Labour former minister Chris Bryant asked why it has taken “so many years” to emerge that two men whose passports match the names of the Russian nationals suspected of the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury are being hunted by police in the Czech Republic.
He said:
Why is it that there has been such a delay in this information coming to the public and what are we going to do to make sure that murderers on Putin’s payroll are not strolling the seats of every capital in Europe?
Salisbury poisoning suspects Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov are being linked to a 2014 fatal blast in the Czech Republic (Met Police/PA)
Raab replied:
He’ll know that the Czech explosion that led to the attribution was many years ago.
He added that the UK has the ability to use Magnitsky sanctions as a “means of targeting human rights abuses”, adding:
And to the extent that they also impinge on dirty money […] I’ve already made clear that we will shortly be introducing an extension to the Magnitsky sanctions to cover that.
“Concerns”
The foreign secretary also told MPs that the government has “significant concerns about the recent Russian military build-up of forces on Ukraine’s border” and that the UK is working with its allies “to de-escalate the situation”.
Raab’s comments came as shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy demanded the government provide a date at which point all the Russia report’s recommendations would be implemented in full. Nandy said it was “pathetic” that Raab is not standing up for British interests on the matter. She told the Commons:
He has had 18 months from a publication that his own Prime Minister tried to block. We’ve had no action on golden visas, no powers to sanction corrupt officials.
Up to half of all the money that is laundered out of Russia comes through the United Kingdom and in three years since the Salisbury attacks it is still not illegal to be a foreign agent in this country.
Meanwhile, we have seen the oligarchs and kleptocrats that have profited from the Putin regime funnelling money to the Conservative party. He shakes his head, £5 million since David Cameron became leader.
His own minister, the Minister for Asia, has had multiple donations from a former Russian arms dealer who described himself as untouchable because of his links to the Kremlin.
Raab said the Government will “continue standing up” for British interests amid the build-up of Russian troops at the Ukraine’s border and accused Ms Nandy of making “political points”.
A Ukrainian soldier on the line of separation from pro-Russian rebels near Luhansk, Ukraine (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
Foreign secretary told staff UK intended to trade with countries with poor rights records
Civil servants have been scolded after the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, was revealed to have told staff the UK intended to trade with countries with poor human rights records.
Philip Barton, the permanent secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), said Raab had been speaking “openly and candidly” to Whitehall workers on a call with thousands of them on Tuesday.
Nearly 140 parliamentarians warn trumped-up charges could result in death penalty for Jagtar Singh Johal
Nearly 140 MPs and peers have written to Dominic Raab urging him to do more to secure the release of a young Sikh man facing the death penalty in India after a confession allegedly extracted under torture.
The letter calls on the foreign secretary to accept that Jagtar Singh Johal is being detained arbitrarily, and says at least three of the charges levelled against him carried the death penalty.
Proposal is attempt to find compromise on issue after two rejections in Commons
The government’s marathon resistance to giving the UK judiciary any role in determining if a country is committing genocide has suffered a fresh blow after peers voted to set up an ad hoc five-strong parliamentary judicial committee to assess evidence of genocide crimes. The peers voted in favour by a majority of 367 to 214, a majority of 153.
It is the third time peers have voted for the measure in various forms and Tory whips will have to face down a third rebellion on the issue when the trade bill returns to the Commons. The judicial but parliamentary genocide assessment would be made if the government was planning to sign a new trade or economic agreement and would be most relevant to claims that China is committing genocide against the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province.
For him to choose the situation facing the Uighurs in China to do so also seems appropriate, but it represents a blunt instrument for the task in hand. Fines for companies that refuse to issue modern slavery statements will increase the number of statements, but not necessarily their quality.
Foreign secretary sets out measures to ensure UK companies cannot profit from forced labour in Xinjiang
China’s treatment of the Uighur people amounts to torture, the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said as he set out measures designed to ensure no companies allow the use of forced labour from Xinjiang province in their supply chain. Deterrent fines will be imposed on firms that do not show due diligence in cleaning up their supply chains, he said.
The aim, he told MPs, was to “ensure no company that profits from forced labour in Xinjiang can do business in the UK, that no UK business is involved in their supply chains”.
Companies could face fines amid demands UK government do more to challenge China
Dominic Raab is to address concerns over UK complicity in the use of forced labour in China’s Xinjiang province with more requirements on companies that buy goods there and possible sanctions on Chinese officials believed to be instrumental in the abuse.
Proposals released by the foreign secretary this week could include fines if companies fail to meet commitments to show due diligence in their supply chains. A proposal for a total ban on cotton from the province is thought not to be feasible.
HS2 to Leeds
(@AnnelieseDodds) 
. Given the no-confidence letters now flowing into the 1922 Committee – it’s less ‘Get Brexit done’ and more ‘Get Boris gone’ 
Boris Johnson is surrounded by a litany of broken promises and failure.
And a Tory sleaze and corruption scandal on a scale not seen since the 90s.
Boris Johnson is simply unfit for office – even his own MPs are losing confidence in him. 
(@BThroughParty) 
(@Haggis_UK) 
