Month: June 2022

Maros Šefčovič told an event in London the EU would not “negotiate on the basis of this bill”.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says it will “fix” border problems.

But Mr Šefčovič said her plan was illegal, would create uncertainty and would not work.

His speech came two days after MPs gave their initial approval to the government’s Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.

The proposed piece of legislation would allow ministers to change the part of the UK-EU 2019 deal – known as the Northern Ireland Protocol – that introduced post-Brexit checks on goods sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

Those were designed to avoid checks at the UK’s border with the Republic of Ireland, but are unpopular among some unionists in Northern Ireland.

This week, Ms Truss said the protocol had “many practical problems”, and had created “a growing sense that the rights and aspirations of some parts of the community are being undermined”.

“The protocol was not set in stone forevermore on signing,” she said. “It explicitly acknowledges the need for possible new arrangements in accordance with the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.”

The UK government wants to allow goods leaving Great Britain for Northern Ireland to avoid checks, providing they remain in Northern Ireland.

Under the post-Brexit rules Northern Ireland remains in the EU’s single market and Mr Šefčovič argued it was “not for London to unilaterally change the game and decide what enters the EU’s single market”.

On Monday evening MPs voted for the bill at the first stage by 295 votes to 221.

Some Conservative MPs – including the former Prime Minister Theresa May – criticised the bill, arguing that it breached the agreement and therefore international law.

Boris Johnson has suggested the bill could become law before the end of the year – however, it is likely to face fierce opposition in the House of Lords.

Addressing an event hosted by Bloomberg, Mr Šefčovič argued that the protocol, negotiated by the EU and UK, protected the peace process in Northern Ireland.

“The EU cannot – and will not – accept this delicate balance being unilaterally and illegally disapplied because of an outright U-turn by the UK government,” he said.

He did not elaborate on how the EU might respond to the UK’s move.

The Slovakian diplomat said it was “simply unrealistic – and unfair – for London to expect that all barriers can be lifted when goods move to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK”.

He argued that while he had tried to bring “creative solutions” to the table, the UK had adopted a “my way or the highway approach”.

He said the EU was “ready to talk” but added “you are not going to negotiate when you have a gun on the table”.

In contrast, Ms Truss has accused the EU of not showing enough “flexibility”.

She said the protocol had had a “devastating impact” on Northern Ireland and argued the UK had been left with “no other choice” but to take unilateral action.

Rappler is one of the few Philippines media outlets critical of President Rodrigo Duterte’s government.

The regulator’s ruling comes just before Duterte leaves office and is succeeded by his ally Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who won election in May.

Rappler said it wouldn’t be closing and would challenge the order in court.

“We will continue to work and to do business as usual,” Ms Ressa told reporters on Wednesday. “We will follow the legal process and continue to stand up for our rights. We will hold the line.”

She said the ruling had come after highly irregular proceedings, and that the site couldn’t count on rule of law anymore.

The Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission said in a statement that a decision to revoke the company’s licence to operate had been upheld following an appeal – because it and the courts had concluded that Rappler’s funding model was unconstitutional.

The regulator first issued an order against Rappler in 2018, invalidating the news organisation’s credentials because – it said – the company had sold control of itself to a foreign entity in breach of foreign ownership restrictions in Philippines media.

Rappler has been fighting the ruling ever since. It denies its US investor funding breaks the law.

In 2015 Rappler received funding by the Omiydar network – a philanthropic investment company set up by Pierre Omiydar, the billionaire founder of Ebay – but denied it ceded foreign control. Three years later it donated the investment to Filipino staff of Rappler to prove it had no controlling stake in the business.

Ms Ressa said on Wednesday the SEC’s ruling was the latest blow in a six-year campaign from authorities in response to Rappler’s hard-hitting reporting.

“We have been harassed, this is intimidation, these are political tactics and we refuse to succumb to them,” she said.

Human Rights Watch said the “spurious” move from the SEC was an effort to “shut up Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, and shut down Rappler, by hook or by crook.”

Rappler has published extensively on President Duterte’s deadly war on drugs, as well as taking a critical look at issues of misogyny, human rights violations and corruption.

Ms Ressa, who co-founded the site in 2012, faces at least seven criminal and civil cases which she says are politically challenged. She is appealing her conviction in 2020 for libel – a case seen as a test of Philippine press freedom.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year – along with a Russian journalist – for her journalistic work with Rappler. She was commended for using freedom of expression to “expose abuse of power, use of violence and growing authoritarianism in her native country, the Philippines”.

The order against Rappler comes amid growing concerns about what the new Marcos government will be like.

Marcos Jr. is the son of the nation’s former dictator who persecuted journalists, human rights activists and political opposition during his decades in power.

Activists have already raised concerns about media suppression and free speech.

Just this month, Philippines officials advised internet providers to block websites supporting left-wing activists.

Journalists critical of the government are also routinely abused in the country. Several whistle blower accounts have emerged of ‘troll farms’ set up to harass and intimidate journalists and political opponents

Reporters without Borders (RSF) ranks the Philippines 147 out of 180 countries on its Press Freedom Index, down 9 places from 2021.

The victim, a tailor named Kanhaiya Lal, was killed in Udaipur district on Tuesday by two Muslim men, who filmed the act and posted it online.

They claimed the act was in retaliation for the victim’s support for controversial remarks made by a politician on the Prophet Muhammad.

The government has suspended internet services and banned large gatherings.

Police have arrested the two men, who had identified themselves in the video.

In another video, they boasted about the murder and also issued threats to Prime Minister Narendra Modi while brandishing cleavers. A top Rajasthan police official asked media outlets not to broadcast the video of the murder as it was “too grisly to watch”.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has appealed to people to stay calm.

The federal government has asked the National Investigative Agency – India’s top anti-terrorism agency – to investigate the incident.

The men posed as customers to enter Kanhaiya Lal’s shop, and attacked him while he was taking their measurements.

The victim had allegedly put up a social media post supporting former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nupur Sharma, who made controversial comments about the Prophet Muhammad last month.

Her comments sparked a diplomatic row with several Islamic countries registering their strong protests with India. The BJP subsequently suspended Ms Sharma from the party.

The controversy also led to religious protests in India which turned violent after demonstrators threw stones and damaged public property.

Three weeks before his murder, Kanhaiya Lal had been arrested by the police for allegedly hurting religious feelings, the Indian Express reported. He had asked for police protection after his release, citing threats to his life.

The police then called some Hindus and Muslims for a peace meeting, after which Kanhaiya Lal said he didn’t “need any more action against any one”, a police official told the newspaper.

The incident has been condemned by prominent politicians across party lines in India.

Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, who belongs to the BJP, blamed Mr Gehlot’s Congress party government, saying “a situation of communal frenzy and violence has arisen in the state”.

Some BJP leaders have said they will march in the national capital Delhi to protest against the killing.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said he was “deeply shocked” by the murder and called for immediate punishment for the attackers.

Some prominent Muslim organisations have also condemned the murder. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board called the incident “highly condemnable”, adding that it was against both Indian law as well as Islamic strictures.

“Nobody can be allowed to take the law into their hands and declaring someone a criminal and then murdering them is a highly condemnable act,” the board said in a statement.

It had initially opposed the Nordic countries’ bids to join.

Turkey was angered by what it saw as their willingness to host Kurdish militants. Sweden and Finland could not join Nato without Turkey’s support.

Russia strongly opposes the two states joining and has used the expansion of the West’s defensive military alliance as a pretext for its war in Ukraine.

But Moscow’s invasion has had the opposite effect, with the path now clear for the two countries to join Nato.

Foreign ministers from the three countries signed a joint security pact that addressed Turkey’s concerns.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said Sweden agreed to step up its work on Turkish extradition requests of suspected militants.

The two Nordic nations will also lift their restrictions on selling weapons to Turkey, he said.

Finland’s President Niinisto said the three countries signed the joint memorandum “to extend their full support against threats to each other’s security”.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said it was “a very important step for Nato”.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office said it “got what it wanted” from Sweden and Finland.

The two Nordic nations announced their intentions to join Nato in May, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Stoltenberg had suggested the process could move “very quickly” as they already shared a close relationship with the alliance.

But that was not the case as Nato member Turkey accused the two countries of protecting Kurdish militants and said they would not back their membership. Any Nato enlargement must be approved by all 30 members.

Turkey has long accused Sweden of harbouring what it calls militants from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), but Stockholm denies it.

Now the two countries have agreed to some of Turkey’s demands, and militants will face a crackdown under amendments to Swedish and Finnish law.

If Sweden and Finland do become members, it will end over 200 years of Swedish non-alignment. Finland adopted neutrality following a bitter defeat by the Soviet Union during World War Two.

Finnish public support for joining Nato was for years at around 20-25%. But since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has shot up to a record high of 79%, according to the latest opinion poll. In Sweden, 60% of the population say it was right to apply, again far higher than before the war.

The metaphoric champagne corks will be popping in Nato’s senior ranks tonight as the biggest stumbling block is removed to admit two major new members.

Finland and Sweden are already modern, Western-leaning democracies with well-trained and well-equipped militaries used to operating in the often challenging conditions of Europe’s far North.

Their accession, once it is complete, will bring the number of Nato countries bordering the Baltic Sea to eight, effectively turning it into a Nato lake.

Russia’s two outlets, at St Petersburg and Kaliningrad, will be increasingly isolated, only adding to the Kremlin’s paranoia.

Finland and Sweden are joining Nato because Russia invaded Ukraine. That invasion was intended to push Nato further from Russia’s borders. Instead, it has achieved the exact opposite.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, filled in the blanks. And she has painted a devastating picture, including an allegation, which Trump denies, that he tried to grab the steering wheel of the car he was travelling in and wrestled with a Secret Service officer in an attempt to divert his motorcade to the Capitol, where his supporters were gathering.

Very early in the proceedings, the committee went to lengths to establish how the White House, and the president himself, knew that there was a very real threat of violence on 6 January – and did nothing to stop it.

Ms Hutchinson testified that Mr Meadows told her he thought, days before the attack, that things “might get real, real bad”.

She spoke of how White House officials were warned of the potential for violence. And, in perhaps the most damning testimony so far, she said Donald Trump personally knew that members of the crowd at his morning rally near the White House were armed because they were being turned away by Secret Service officers – and directed them to the Capitol anyway.

“I don’t [expletive] care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me,” Ms Hutchinson said she heard the president say. “Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.”

Some of Ms Hutchinson’s most damning testimony came second-hand, however. She recounted how a White House official told her that the president had insisted on travelling to the Capitol after his White House rally – something he said he would do during his speech. When he learned the motorcade was going back to the White House, he attempted to grab the steering wheel and wrestled with a Secret Service officer.

“I’m the [expletive] president,” Trump said, according to Hutchinson. “Take me up to the Capitol now.”

Since Ms Hutchinson’s testimony, a source close to the Secret Service has told CBS News that both the agent and driver travelling in the car with Mr Trump were willing to testify under oath that the former president did not physically attack either of them and never attempted to grab the steering wheel.

Later in the day, Ms Hutchinson recounted hearing Mr Meadows say that, upon learning that rioters were calling for Vice-President Mike Pence to be hanged, Mr Trump expressed approval.

“He thinks Mike deserves it,” Ms Hutchinson said she overheard her boss say. “He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”

In a trial court, such evidence would be considered hearsay and treated with scepticism. In the hearing room, however, it was explosive – and will be used by the committee to pressure senior Trump officials who have so far refused to testify, like White House top lawyer Pat Cipollone, to come forward and either corroborate or refute her accounts.

“If you heard this testimony today and suddenly you remember things you couldn’t previously recall, or you discover some courage you had hidden away somewhere, our doors remain open,” committee chair Bennie Thompson said at the conclusion of the day’s hearing.

The January 6th committee, with its surprise announcement of a mystery witness and new evidence unearthed, set a glaring spotlight on Ms Hutchinson during her in-person testimony on Tuesday.

For a 25-year-old woman who four years ago was a White House college intern, she held up to the pressure remarkably well.

She answered the committee’s questions in a calm, methodical voice, noting how and under what circumstances she gained the information she was recounting. The committee made a point of showing how Ms Hutchinson’s office was just a few doors down from the president’s Oval Office and how she controlled access to Mr Meadows’ office, giving her a prime position with which to witness – and, at times, overhear – conversations between key figures in the run-up to the Capitol attacks.

Her meticulous recollection of events and account suggest she may have kept a record of the events during her time at the White House or, at the very least, has an electronic record of texts and emails that supports her claims.

As Ms Hutchinson was giving her at times damning account of the president’s actions before and during the 6 January attack, Mr Trump took to his social media platform and began trying to undercut her claims.

Much of it was typical of the way he has responded to past critics, saying that he hardly knows Ms Hutchinson but hears “very negative” things about her. He called her a phoney and a “leaker” and suggested she was bitter because he didn’t give her a job after leaving the White House.

He went on to deny many of the episodes Ms Hutchinson described and, once again, noted that he said in his rally speech that the crowd should march on the Capitol “peacefully”.

It’s always an open question whether any negative stories of Mr Trump’s behaviour will dent his popularity among his supporters. Tuesday’s testimony, and the five hearings before it, however, may remind some Republicans of the kind of chaos that frequently swirled around the Trump presidency and that, while he had some conservative accomplishments while in office, he also presided over his party losing both chambers of Congress and the White House.

Given that a potential 2024 opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is rising in head-to-head-polls against Mr Trump, these hearings may have caused real damage to the former president’s political power.

In short, something needs to happen to break the deadlock between the Scottish and UK governments on independence.

The first minister wants to hold a fresh vote, has a pro-independence majority at Holyrood and indeed has named a date. But successive prime ministers have insisted that “now is not the time”.

This means a transfer of power like the one which underpinned the 2014 vote is not forthcoming, and thus minds at Holyrood are turning to whether MSPs could just pass a referendum bill without Westminster’s blessing.

The UK government could challenge any bill passed by MSPs as potentially being outwith Holyrood’s powers, so Ms Sturgeon has opted to short-cut that argument.

Her government’s chief legal adviser – the Lord Advocate – has used her powers to refer the issue to the Supreme Court so that judges can settle the question once and for all.

Helpfully, the matter of MSPs legislating for a referendum has been kicking around for years – without ever being resolved – so the core arguments are fairly well-known.

The Scotland Act states that it would be outwith Holyrood’s competence to make provisions which “relate to reserved matters” – the reserved matter in question here being the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England.

It may seem silly to ponder whether an independence referendum bill relates to the Union. How could it not? However, there are a number of technical points to dive into here.

There is a school of thought that the bare fact of holding a referendum seeking people’s views about independence would not in itself actually break up the union.

Nicola Sturgeon argued on Tuesday that the referendum would be “consultative, not self-executing” – explaining that this meant that “a majority yes vote in this referendum will not in and of itself make Scotland independent”.

Legislation would need to be passed at Westminster and Holyrood to actually make independence a reality – and thus technically, in pure legal terms, the act of asking the electorate about it is a separate issue.

Ms Sturgeon points to the Brexit referendum as an example. The 2016 vote didn’t drop the UK out of the EU instantaneously, but rather sparked the years of negotiations and legislative wrangling which resulted in a rather gradual break-up.

Some have also pointed to the Brexit court case brought by Gina Miller in 2017, where judges opined that the 2016 referendum “did not change the law in a way which would allow ministers to withdraw the UK from the EU without legislation”.

They said the effect of the referendum was “of great political significance” and was “in no way devoid of effect”, but that “unless and until acted on by parliament, its force is political rather than legal”.

There is a nod to this argument in the first paragraph of the bill published alongside Ms Sturgeon’s statement. It specifically says the purpose of the bill is to “ascertain the views of the people of Scotland on whether Scotland should be an independent country”.

This is what Ms Sturgeon means when she says it would be a “consultative” vote – but she says the same was true of those in 2014 and 2016.

They may also make arguments about the right of Scots to seek self-determination under various statutes – the kitchen sink tends to be thrown in these legal submissions – but this is the core point about competence.

The UK government’s position is that the constitution is clearly reserved.

This is loose language legally, given the UK does not have a written constitution and the Scotland Act specifically reserves the Union itself.

But it is broadly the point UK law officers will pursue – that Westminster is the sovereign parliament, and that it has reserved the powers in this area. Holyrood’s powers, meanwhile, are specifically limited within the confines of the Scotland Act.

In fact they advanced these very lines of argument recently in response to a citizen legal challenge at the Court of Session in 2021. That case was ultimately thrown out as being “premature”, but provided a reasonable insight into some of the arguments we may hear.

The UK government side argued that by law, in order to “relate to” a reserved matter, a Holyrood bill must have “more than a loose or consequential connection” with it – and that a referendum bill would clearly meet this test.

They said that even beyond legal effect, legislation authorising a referendum would “seek to build momentum towards achieving independence” and the breakup of the UK.

They also argued that Scotland leaving the UK would impact directly on the powers of the UK parliament – something MSPs are also not meant to do.

And they cited statements made by ministers during the passage of the Scotland Act in 1998 – including Scottish Secretary and future first minister Donald Dewar’s claim that “a referendum that purported to be ultra vires [beyond Holyrood’s powers] is in itself ultra vires”.

It would be foolish to speculate about how the judges will assess these arguments, for all there has been some academic chin-stroking about how they have viewed the Scotland Act and devolved competence in previous cases.

The current president of the court, Lord Reed, and his deputy Lord Hodge, are both Scottish and indeed former Court of Session judges. They will be well versed in the matter of devolution, and have stressed the paramount importance of judicial independence and impartiality.

In any case, the result of the case is not guaranteed to settle whether or not there is a vote in October 2023.

For example, should the Scottish government lose, they are not going to pack up and go home. In fact they have threatened to double down by treating the next general election as a “de facto referendum”.

And equally, should the pro-union side lose, it wouldn’t necessarily stop them arguing that this is not the best time for a referendum. It would put tremendous pressure on them, but they could argue that just because you can have a vote doesn’t mean you should.

That pressure is really the point here. Ms Sturgeon still really wants to win an agreement with the UK government.

Her goal, of a legitimate referendum that wins international recognition and can actually deliver independence, is best served by a gold-standard process with both sides taking part in good faith.

So no matter what the result is in court, the search for a political solution is likely to continue.

He described calls for him to intervene to settle the ongoing dispute between the RMT transport union and rail employers as a “red herring” and a “stunt”.

Outdated practices “had to end” for a resolution to be possible, he said.

But the RMT union said that Mr Shapps was “talking complete nonsense”.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Shapps acknowledged that he and the Treasury had set an overall mandate, which dictated how much money was available, and that he had final sign-off on what was agreed.

But he said he didn’t, and shouldn’t, interfere with the detail of negotiations between the RMT and the industry, saying employers were “the only people who could settle this strike”.

Thousands of members of the RMT who work for Network Rail and 13 train companies walked out on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday last week.

Half the rail network was closed on strike days, while the knock-on impact meant services were also disrupted on the following days. The union has warned more strike action could follow.

The Transport Secretary told the BBC the dispute could “easily be settled because there are so many modernisations from antiquated work practices – for example, two vans often have to be sent to a maintenance job when only one van is required.”

The RMT said in a statement prior to Mr Shapps’ comments that sending several vans “is both a safety and engineering standards issue.

“It would be pointless sending staff to a location without their gear, equipment and tools which is why the vehicles and associated equipment are sent to site” in more than one van.

The Transport Secretary said “we want to upgrade our railways, make them digital-fit for the 21st century. We also simultaneously need the working practices to come out of the 20th century – we can’t have a digital railway, and sort of steam age working practices going alongside of it.”

Mr Shapps accused unions of not allowing workers to fill in digital timesheets. Some train companies already have Sunday work as part of their normal rota, but he said “the ones that don’t, need to”.

The RMT responded: “Network Rail is intending to consult in the use of digital time sheets. We have not rejected them… We have no principled opposition to the introduction. We do use digital time sheets… on other parts of the railways.” It also previously said that: “In many companies we have agreements that Sunday forms part of the working week.”

The RMT has already rejected a pay offer totalling an uplift of 3%. Network Rail has insisted more would be possible, if modernised working practices were accepted.

It has said that 1,800 job losses that would come with those reforms could likely be achieved through voluntary redundancy.

But the union is demanding a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.

Asked why a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies couldn’t be put forward in writing, the Transport Secretary said it was something the RMT needed to discussed with employers.

However, he added “in what business… would you be able to say: we will never have to lose anyone from their jobs?”. He pointed out that previous voluntary redundancy schemes had been over-subscribed.

Mr Shapps refused to put a figure on what pay increase would be possible if all the proposed changes to working practices were brought in. Nor would he say whether 7% would be too much.

He acknowledged that he knew how much money was available for a pay rise, but insisted it was a matter for the employers in the negotiations. “I can’t discuss it on national TV. If I were to do that, I would effectively be intervening on those discussions”.

However, he added: “What we do know is we’ve got a spike in inflation – we do not want to see that built in to the system [and] end up going forward for years as it did in the 1970s”.

Mr Shapps did not directly respond to the question of whether the government would be prepared to put in any more money, if it provided the flexibility to prevent another strike.

But he said “we still have working practices which go back to the 50s and 60s and 70s. And that has to end. The strike can’t be resolved without those things ending.”

He went on: “There are so many things that are required to bring this railway up to date in terms of the working practices. Then, in a way, that actually does provide the opportunities to get a good decent settlement”.

He said because many people had spent two years working from home, the only people being hurt by strikes were people who have to go to work: “the hospital porter, the cleaner, people who have no other option”.

Mr Shapps said the outcome of the dispute would affect how much fares would rise next year.

“If we want decently low fare rises, of course, we have to have the costs of the railway lower and that means running them more efficiently. And that’s all these working practices from the steam age that I’m afraid are time-expired.”

Annual fare rises on regulated tickets are normally calculated using the UK RPI figure of inflation for July. RPI climbed to 11.7% in May. Next year’s fare rise has not yet been set.

The UK prime minister said the “crazy, macho” invasion was a “perfect example of toxic masculinity” and he called for “more women in positions of power”.

Mr Johnson’s comments come ahead of a Nato meeting where allies will discuss how to respond to future threats.

At the summit in Madrid, he is set to call on fellow members of the defensive alliance to ramp up defence spending.

The UK’s defence spending is projected to reach 2.3% of GDP – a key measure of the annual income of a country – this year as a result of defence industry investment and £1.3bn in military support for Ukraine, the government said.

Several other nations that make up the alliance have not met the 2% annual target set by Nato.

On Tuesday, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace urged Mr Johnson to increase spending on the UK’s armed forces even further, in light of the threat posed by Russia.

Speaking after the G7 summit of wealthy nations in Bavaria, Mr Johnson gave an interview to German broadcaster ZDF.

While speaking about gender equality and the importance of education, he said “you need more women in positions of power”.

“If Putin was a woman, which he obviously isn’t, but if he were, I really don’t think he would’ve embarked on a crazy, macho war of invasion and violence in the way that he has,” Mr Johnson said.

“If you want a perfect example of toxic masculinity, it’s what he’s doing in Ukraine.”

Mr Johnson also said that while G7 leaders “desperately” want an end to the war in Ukraine, there is “no deal available” currently.

But he also described the summit as “incredible” as leaders “got closer and closer” to an agreement.

Mr Johnson said the West must support Ukraine’s military strategy, in order to get President Volodymr Zelensky “in the best possible position” in negotiations with Russia “when talks eventually come”.

The Nato meeting in Madrid comes after news that Turkey has reached a deal with prospective members Finland and Sweden, removing a final barrier to their joining.