Month: July 2022

The leaders of the two Nordic nations say they are taking the issue seriously, but ultimately extradition is up to the courts not politicians. So who does Turkey want and could they ever be deported to Ankara?

Sweden and Finland applied to join the West’s defensive alliance after Russia launched its war in Ukraine. Turkey was the only one of Nato’s 30 member states to block their bids until the two Nordic states agreed to a set of demands – including handing over individuals with alleged terror links.

Under a memorandum signed at a Nato summit last week, Finland and Sweden agreed to address Turkey’s “pending deportation or extradition requests of terror suspects expeditiously and thoroughly”, with “bilateral legal frameworks to facilitate extradition”.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sweden had promised to extradite 73 “terrorists” and had already sent three or four of them. Pro-government Turkish daily Hurriyet published a list of 45 people, including 33 sought from Sweden and 12 from Finland.

Turkey is particularly keen on the handover of individuals it considers linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), considered a terror group by the EU, US and UK. It is also after followers of exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulenists are blamed by Turkey for a failed coup against President Erdogan in 2016.

The BBC has spoken to three of the people sought by Turkey.

For years, he was editor-in-chief of Today’s Zaman, a major English-language daily in Turkey, before it was shut down in 2016. Now, he lives in exile in Stockholm.

Turkish authorities accuse him of being part of the Gulen movement, or what they call the Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (Feto). It is known for its network of schools and is not considered a terror group in the EU, UK or US.

Mr Kenes said he became a target for his outspoken criticism of President Erdogan and faced accusations of plotting to topple the government: “All the allegations are fabricated. I am an independent journalist with no affiliations with any organisation.”

He was given a suspended jail term in 2015 for “insulting the president”, in a tweet that said Mr Erdogan’s late mother would be ashamed of him.

Insulting President Erdogan remains a common charge today, with 17 journalists and cartoonists put on trial in the first three months of 2022, according to independent Turkish organisation Bianet.

Bulent Kenes believes he has become a bargaining chip between Mr Erdogan and Sweden in Nato negotiations.

He is not particularly afraid of being extradited, as that would be a “betrayal of Sweden’s own values” of democracy and protecting dissidents. “This is not a test for the Erdogan regime… this is a test for the Swedish authorities,” he said.

Others on Turkey’s list are far less prominent. Fatih, a Finnish Kurd, was part of a group of five young men who set fire to the door of the Turkish embassy in 2008.

Now a 37-year-old business owner and entrepreneur, he told the BBC he regretted what he did: “At that time, my life was messed up, I had many kinds of problems.”

He was surprised to find his name on the list as he finished serving a 14-month suspended sentence long ago – and paid damages to the embassy. Finnish authorities granted him citizenship a few years ago and considered the embassy case closed, he said.

Turkey accuses him of being a member of the militant PKK, which calls for greater Kurdish self-governance and is involved in an armed struggle with the Turkish state.

Fatih said he had no ties or ideological connections to the PKK, and believed he was targeted purely because of his Kurdish background.

Kurds make up 15-20% of Turkey’s population but have faced persecution in Turkey for generations. The government in Ankara is trying to ban the pro-Kurdish HDP party, the third biggest in parliament.

While Fatih did not believe he would be extradited as a Finnish citizen, he feared harassment in the local Turkish community or possible arrest abroad at Turkey’s request. He said he was very sad that Finland was having to “fight for him”.

Aysen Furhoff came to Sweden after serving five years of a life sentence in Turkey for trying to “subvert the constitutional order” when she was 17 and a member of the Turkish Communist Party. She said she was offered protection in Sweden after being tortured in jail.

Now 45, she lives in Stockholm with her husband and daughter and works as a teacher, and insists she is no longer involved in Turkish politics.

“I left Turkey 20 years ago. If I get sent there, they will have no use for me. Everyone I know is either dead or in prison. That’s why being on the list was surprising – who am I to them?”

Ms Furhoff says she is also being prosecuted in Turkey for being a PKK member. She admits collaborating with them for three months some 25 years ago.

While she no longer sympathises with the PKK, she denies they are a terror group and believes they should be part of discussions for a negotiated peace in Turkey.

Citing Swedish law, she is not worried about extradition but finds it hard to believe she could be an important case for Ankara.

Legal requirements in Sweden and Finland make it very hard for Turkey to extradite the kind of numbers it wants:

According to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, of the 33 Swedish names listed in Turkish media, 19 have already been rejected for extradition by Stockholm’s Supreme Court.

“We cannot go through earlier cases that have already been processed,” said Chief Justice Anders Eka.

Finland has extradited two people to Turkey out of more than a dozen requests over the past decade. The justice ministry says no new requests have been received and it has promised the Kurdish community there will be no change to the law.

If Turkey’s demands are rejected, it could withdraw its support for the Nordic nations’ accession to Nato, says Murat Yesiltas of pro-government think tank Seta.

Parliaments in all 30 Nato countries will need to approve Sweden and Finland as members and that includes Turkish lawmakers. So Mr Yesiltas warns it is also about the “dignity of the Turkish parliament”.

Other commentators suggest Ankara’s push for extradition may be an Erdogan re-election strategy, or a tool to help land a US weapons sale.

There is little chance of Sweden or Finland handing over anyone on the list any time soon.

One former PKK member on the list, Cemil Aygan, has been targeted for extradition by Turkey in the past but believes Sweden’s Supreme Court will stand in its way. “If Sweden were to hand me over, my life would be over,” he told public broadcaster SVT.

Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether Holyrood has the power to legislate for a vote without UK government consent.

She said she currently “does not have the necessary degree of confidence” that it does.

Nicola Sturgeon has said she wants to hold a referendum on 19 October 2023.

The Lord Advocate is still expected to argue the Scottish government’s case at the Supreme Court, and she said there was an issue of “exceptional public importance” for judges to resolve.

Ms Sturgeon still hopes to win the agreement of UK ministers for a fresh referendum, but had asked the Lord Advocate to refer the matter to the Supreme Court for a ruling on whether one could go ahead without the backing of Westminster.

She told MSPs that this would “accelerate to the point when we have legal clarity and legal fact”.

However, papers lodged with the court suggest that the Lord Advocate would not have backed ministers in tabling a referendum bill while the question of whether Holyrood has the powers to do so remained unresolved.

All bills must be accompanied by a statement underlining that they are within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, which must be cleared by the Lord Advocate.

The reference to the Supreme Court said that in the case of a referendum bill, “the Lord Advocate does not have the necessary degree of confidence” to do this.

Instead, it said that Ms Bain “considers there is a genuine issue of law that is unresolved”, and this is of “exceptional public importance to the people of Scotland”.

She also said that the matter was directly relevant to a key manifesto pledge which she said had been endorsed by the Scottish public, with the SNP and Greens holding a majority of the seats at Holyrood.

Ms Bain wrote: “The Scottish government, the Scottish Parliament and the people of Scotland and the wider United Kingdom ought to have clarity on the scope of the relevant reservations on this issue of fundamental constitutional importance.

“Being questions of law, only this court can provide that clarity and unless the issue is judicially resolved there will remain uncertainty and scope for argument about the powers of the Scottish Parliament. That is not in the best interests of the people of Scotland or of the United Kingdom.”

Ms Bain will submit a written note of argument to the court, while the UK government will be asked to respond. The Welsh and Northern Irish administrations have also been notified.

Handling of the case is currently with the president of the court, Lord Reed – a Scottish former Court of Session judge. He will decide the timescales on which the case will be heard, and whether any preliminary issues need to be dealt with first.

If the Scottish government wins the case, Ms Sturgeon said the bill would be introduced at Holyrood and passed swiftly to allow a vote to happen in October 2023.

However if judges rule against this, the first minister said the SNP would treat the next UK general election as a “de facto referendum” and seek to use the result to trigger independence negotiations.

It was the centrepiece of Nicola Sturgeon’s big referendum announcement – the Supreme Court would be asked to settle once and for all the long-standing question of Holyrood’s powers.

The tactic of having the Lord Advocate push the matter to the courts immediately was an innovative one which caught Holyrood’s opposition parties and indeed the UK government on the hop.

However, it appears the first minister actually had little choice. Her previous strategy was to pass the bill, then defend it in court against an inevitable challenge, but these papers show that the Lord Advocate would not have signed off on the key first step in that plan.

It may make little difference in the grand scheme of things. We are still going to court, and the Lord Advocate is still arguing the case for MSPs having the power to legislate for indyref2.

But this illustrates the narrow room for manoeuvre the first minister has on this issue – and the potential difficulty of winning over the judges of the Supreme Court.

Opposition MSPs had pressed for Ms Bain to give a statement to parliament following Ms Sturgeon’s announcement, but this did not happen before Holyrood’s summer recess.

The UK government remains opposed to a referendum with Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab saying on Tuesday that the position has not changed.

He told MPs: “We do not think that now is the right time for a second referendum, given all the pressures and challenges and given the outcome of the first.

“I think what the people of Scotland want to see is both their governments – in Edinburgh and in Westminster – working closely together.”

Scottish Conservative constitution spokesman Donald Cameron claimed that the papers that had been sent to the Supreme Court showed that the SNP was “playing political games by going to court in order to stir up grievance.”

He added: “Now we know why the Scottish government, shamefully, failed to allow the Lord Advocate to appear before Parliament last week, ahead of the summer recess – because Scotland’s top law officer is not confident that the First Minister’s plan to hold a divisive and unwanted referendum has any legal basis.”

Scottish Labour MSP Sarah Boyack said: “It is clear from the document that the Lord Advocate does not have confidence that what the SNP is proposing is legal.

“With the country in the midst of a cost of living crisis, it is deeply disappointing to see Nicola Sturgeon return to the politics of the past.”

Employees can now earn £12,570 a year before paying National Insurance, up from £9,880 a year previously.

Although, in April, the government increased the rate paid – to raise money to fund health and social care.

Taken together, these changes mean workers earning less than about £34,000 a year will pay less.

Analysts said the latest change, which takes effect in pay packets from Wednesday, marks another turn in the “swings and roundabouts” of National Insurance policy.

While helping individuals manage the rising cost of living, any savings could quickly be cancelled out by increasing prices and bills, they said.

Employees across the UK pay National Insurance on their wages, employers pay extra contributions for staff, and the self-employed pay it on their profits.

The first alteration to payments came in April, when employees, businesses and the self-employed started paying an extra 1.25p in the pound.

It meant that, instead of paying National Insurance contributions of 12% on earnings up to £50,270 and 2% on anything above that, employees now pay 13.25% and 3.25% respectively.

The self-employed have seen their equivalent rates go up from 9% and 2%, to 10.25% and 3.25%.

Ministers said the money raised was earmarked for health and social care in England, and would be available to the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to spend in the same way.

The move met with disapproval from opposition parties and some backbench Conservative MPs as it coincided with price rises, and increases in energy bills.

Rishi Sunak, when chancellor, responded by raising the earnings threshold at which National Insurance starts to be paid by employees to £12,570 – a policy that has now taken effect.

The government said that 2.2 million workers would be taken out of paying National Insurance contributions completely, and would still receive credits towards their future state pension. Seven in 10 employees would be better off as a result of the changes, it said.

For example, an employee on £20,000 a year will pay £178 less National Insurance in 2022-23 than they did the previous year, while someone on £50,000 will pay £197 more.

The final change comes in April 2023, when National Insurance rates return to their previous level. The extra 1.25% charge will be collected as the new Health and Social Care Levy and, unlike National Insurance, will also be paid by state pensioners.

Alice Haine, personal finance analyst at investment platform Bestinvest, said the savings for some people “could be the difference between having dinner every night and sometimes going without”.

“For others, however, that amount will barely make a dent in their budgets as they struggle to pay the household bills amid rampant inflation as soaring food, fuel and energy prices become the norm,” she added.

Many employers are paying more in National Insurance, and business groups say that may effect their capacity to pay higher wages.

“Higher employer National Insurance contribution rates still mean less money in the economy for pay rises, let alone sustainable investment, recruitment and discretionary spending,” said Tina McKenzie, from the Federation of Small Businesses.

Overall, the increases in National Insurance for employers and higher-income workers will raise an extra £10.9bn in a year for the government, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Steven Cameron, director at pensions company Aegon, said that ministers had been “playing swings and roundabouts” with income tax and National Insurance.

That was because the income tax threshold, known as the personal allowance, was frozen in the April 2021 Budget until 2026. The earnings level at which the higher rate of tax is paid has also been frozen.

The result is that some people receiving pay rises are being drawn into a higher income tax bracket.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid quit within 10 minutes of each other, followed by a flurry of junior ministers and aides.

Critics said it was “over” for the prime minister, while Labour said the party he led was corrupted.

But Mr Johnson made it clear he planned to stay on as he moved to shore up his government with a cabinet reshuffle.

He named Nadhim Zahawi as the new chancellor, while the prime minister’s chief of staff, Steve Barclay, has become health secretary.

Mr Johnson – who is facing the most serious leadership crisis of his premiership so far – will come under further pressure later on Wednesday as he faces MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions.

He is also due to give evidence to the Liaison Committee – a group of MPs who scrutinise the government’s policy and decisions.

Neither Mr Javid or Mr Sunak have publicly spoken since standing down, but their resignation letters on Tuesday were highly critical of the PM.

Mr Javid warned the leadership was not “acting in the national interest”, while Mr Sunak said the public expected government to be conducted “properly, competently and seriously”.

Opposition party leaders urged cabinet ministers to join the pair and resign, and Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer said he was ready for a snap general election.

Conservative MP and former chief whip, Andrew Mitchell, told BBC Newsnight it was “over” for Mr Johnson, saying “he has neither the character nor the temperament to be our prime minister” – and the only question was how long the affair would go on.

But no Tory MPs have declared a leadership challenge against the prime minister and several ministers have rallied around the PM, including Foreign Secretary Liz Truss – one potential contender to replace him as Tory leader.

She said she was “100% behind the PM”, while cabinet ministers including Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Therese Coffey and Ben Wallace also indicated they would be staying in the government.

Tory backbencher Daniel Kawczynski suggested the resignations would ultimately strengthen Mr Johnson’s position, adding they “could have triggered an avalanche against the prime minister but it hasn’t”.

Boris Johnson is braced for more resignations, perhaps not from the cabinet but the next rung down the ministerial ladder.

For a little while, after two cabinet resignations, Westminster wondered what might happen next – and so did the PM.

Not in control of events, he was ringing around the rest of his cabinet to work out if they were still with him. They were, and the moment of greatest jeopardy for him has passed – for now at least.

A smattering of more junior resignations did follow, but there’s a defiance from his team; they point out their mandate from the electorate at the last election, in contrast with the anger and anguish among many Conservative MPs.

But what might Rishi Sunak or Sajid Javid say or do next?

Discontent on the backbenches, already considerable, is rising further, with some hoping to change Conservative Party rules so the prime minister has to face another vote of confidence.

Mr Johnson’s future is far from secure.

The political drama unfolded on Tuesday evening, just minutes after Mr Johnson gave an interview to the BBC in which he admitted he had made a “bad mistake” in appointing Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip in February this year despite being aware of misconduct allegations against him.

It followed days of changing responses from No 10 over what exactly Mr Johnson knew about the allegations facing Mr Pincher when he gave him the job.

The row is the latest issue to prompt Conservative MPs to question the prime minister’s leadership and direction of government.

Mr Johnson’s government has been dogged by a series of controversies in recent months, not least by a police investigation into parties in Downing Street during lockdown.

Some Tory MPs have also expressed dissent over tax rises, the government’s response to rising living costs and its policy direction.

Mr Sunak referenced tensions over the economy in his resignation letter, telling the PM: “In preparation for our proposed joint speech on the economy next week, it has become clear to me that our approaches are fundamentally too different.”

The departures triggered a wave of resignations by junior Tories, among them Bim Afolami, who quit as vice-chair of the party live on TV, Solicitor General Alex Chalk, and four ministerial aides.

Pressure on the prime minister was also elevated last month by the loss of by-elections in Tiverton and Honiton and Wakefield and the resignation of Conservative Party chairman Oliver Dowden.

And the resignations of come just weeks after he survived a no-confidence vote.

The PM is immune from a Conservative leadership challenge until June next year under party rules, after he won 59% of the vote.

But Tory rebels opposed to Mr Johnson’s leadership are attempting to force a change in party rules to scrap the year-long gap between formal leadership challenges.

They want to use the upcoming elections to the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs to vote in members who would be willing to change the rules.

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen told the BBC the prime minister should resign and if does not do so “the party will have to force him out”.

“The 1922 committee will deal with this turbulent prime minister, it’s what it was created for,” he said.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Sir Keir said he would welcome a snap election and the country needed a change of government.

He said: “After all the sleaze, all the failure, it’s clear that this Tory government is now collapsing.”

The next general election is expected to be held in 2024 but could be earlier if Mr Johnson used his powers to call one.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, said the prime minister’s “government of chaos has failed our country”, and called for him to go.

Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said “the whole rotten lot” in Mr Johnson’s government should go, accusing ministers of “lying to public”.

Parts of Sydney have received about eight months of rain in four days.

Roads have been cut off, some houses are underwater and thousands have been left without power.

Widespread flooding across Australia – driven by a La Niña weather pattern – has killed more than 20 people this year, many in New South Wales (NSW).

More than 100 evacuation orders have been issued across Greater Sydney for the current emergency.

People in another 50 areas have been warned to prepare to leave, as several major rivers flood. Severe weather is also hitting the nearby Hunter and Illawarra regions.

Some areas of NSW have seen 800mm of rain in four days, says the Bureau of Meteorology, almost a third more than the average rainfall Greater London receives in a year.

The downpour is expected to begin easing in Sydney on Tuesday, but gale-force winds are also forecast, bringing a risk of falling trees and powerlines.

“The emergency is far from over,” NSW Emergency Services Minister Stephanie Cooke said.

Authorities are urging locals to heed evacuation warnings, after rescuers were called to save people who were ordered to leave two days earlier.

“Ultimately if you stay you’re putting your life at risk,” said NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet.

For many locals, it is their third flood this year.

He moved into his home in the Sydney suburb of Windsor last year, and was told major flood events were supposed to be “one in 25 years, one in 50 years or whatever it was”.

“Now it has been three in 2022,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“We’ve become experts around this area now… you are almost living on the edge.”

Experts say the flooding emergency has been worsened by climate change and a La Niña weather phenomenon. A La Niña develops when strong winds blow the warm surface waters of the Pacific away from South America and towards Indonesia. In their place, colder waters come up to the surface.

In Australia, a La Niña increases the likelihood of rain, cyclones and cooler daytime temperatures.

The Democrats may control the White House and both houses of Congress but they don’t have enough votes to pass much of their political agenda. Instead, in a series of rulings that are as contentious as they are momentous, the Supreme Court is shaping the future of America – taking it in a very different direction from the one US President Joe Biden had envisaged.

The overturning of Roe v Wade has provoked fury and despair amongst pro-choice campaigners as well as jubilation from anti-abortion activists who have been working for nearly 50 years to get to this point. But rather than settle the matter, the court’s decision has set up the likelihood of legal challenges in states across the country, meaning the battle over abortion will continue for years to come.

The abortion ruling has grabbed the most attention. But other decisions from the Supreme Court will have truly global impact.

The last decision it issued before the end of this current term effectively made it impossible for the US to pass meaningful green policy, by ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot impose limits on carbon emissions unless fresh legislation from Congress specifically authorises it to do so.

US President Joe Biden, who came to office with a pledge to tackle climate change, knows he does not have enough votes to pass a bill that would force power companies to move away from using heavily polluting coal to produce electricity.

This is not the only example of the Supreme Court butting heads with the president.

Last week, President Biden signed into law a historic gun-control bill, the first of its kind in 30 years. Spurred on by the horrific massacre of 19 primary school children in Uvalde, Texas, politicians on both sides of the aisle agreed to a very limited set of new gun control laws.

While the gun control bill didn’t go nearly as far as many had hoped, it was a historic first, and a rare example of bipartisanship. But that win was tempered by the court’s decision to overturn a New York gun regulation that required people to have permits to carry guns outside their homes

Issued the same day as the federal gun control bill passed the Senate, the Supreme Court effectively stripped states of the power to put significant limits on gun ownership.

As a result of these controversial rulings, the branch of government that is meant to be the most impartial and least partisan currently appears to be highly political.

Polling suggests that the court is out of step with public opinion. Two-thirds of Americans did not want abortion rights to be entirely removed, and around 60% favour more stringent gun control.

There also seems to be diminishing public trust in the Supreme Court itself. Recent polling suggests a sharp decline in public confidence in the court with only a quarter of people saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot of confidence” in the court.

It’s something that Justice Sonya Sotomayor warned about when the court first heard arguments on the abortion case:

“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?”

Ms Sotomayor was one of the three liberal justices who disagreed with the abortion ruling and warned about what it could mean for other rights – like same sex marriage and access to contraception.

These liberal justices will continue to be outnumbered by the six conservative judges on the court, three of whom were appointed by former President Donald Trump. Next term, the court will decide over other controversial issues, including voting rights and discrimination against gay people.

The court’s decisions over the past 10 days – and the controversial cases set to come – have done nothing to stop the fracturing of a deeply polarised society. They have even had to erect eight-foot-high security barriers surrounding the courthouse, out of safety concerns.

Remember, at the same time as the country was learning about the court’s decisions on abortion, environmental protections and gun rights, Americans were also watching the 6 January committee hearings that described how a sitting president urged an angry crowd, which he knew to be armed, to storm the US Capitol.

Americans are returning from a long weekend celebrating Independence Day, the national holiday that commemorates the democratic freedoms they won when they left the United Kingdom almost 250 years ago. Some may wonder whether the republic today is truly functioning as the founding fathers had intended.

Robert E Crimo III, 22, was detained after a brief chase, police said.

The gunman climbed on to a roof, shooting randomly at spectators using a high-powered rifle.

It is the latest mass shooting to hit the US – there has been one in every week of 2022. President Joe Biden said he was “shocked” by the violence.

Hours later, two police officers were wounded in a shooting in Philadelphia during a Fourth of July fireworks display.

Mr Crimo was detained after a manhunt. He was referred to as a “person of interest” in Monday’s shooting, but after his arrest police said they believed he was responsible.

The gunman opened fire at the parade, near the city of Chicago, at around 10:15 local time (15:15 GMT), just a few minutes after it began.

The event was scheduled to include floats, marching bands, and community entertainment as part of the city’s Independence Day celebrations.

But what should have been one of the happiest days of the year quickly turned to panic, with pushchairs, purses and lawn chairs left discarded on the street as crowds fled from the scene. Some witnesses said they thought the sound of gunfire was fireworks.

The gunman fired at members of the public from the rooftop of a nearby shop, where police recovered “evidence of a firearm.”

Five adults were killed at the scene, as well as a further victim who the local coroner said died in a nearby hospital. At least two dozen others were injured.

One of those who died has been named as Nicolas Toledo, a man in his late 70s, who was only there because he requires full-time care and his family did not want to miss the event.

“We went to have a nice family day out – and then suddenly all this gunfire happens,” said Anand P, who was there during the parade.

“At the time I personally wanted to believe it was a car backfiring. Then people started running – so we start running.”

Another witness, Noel Hara, described how he was having breakfast at Starbucks after dropping off his son at the parade, when the chaos unfolded.

“About 30 people suddenly came rushing in screaming and we were locked into the Starbucks bathroom,” Mr Hara told the BBC.

“Moments later, they evacuated us from the Starbucks because they thought the shooter was trying to get in the back door.”

No charges have been filed against Mr Crimo and there is no indication of any motive.

Social media firms suspended accounts apparently belonging to Mr Crimo, who posted rap videos under an alias.

The attack in Highland Park comes just a month after deadly shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York.

Illinois Governor Jay Robert Pritzker warned that mass shootings were becoming an “American tradition”.

“There are going to be people who are going to say that today is not the day, that now is not the time to talk about guns. I’m telling you there is no better day and no better time then right here and right now,” the Democratic governor said.

President Biden vowed to keep fighting “the epidemic of gun violence” in the country.

“I’m not going to give up,” he said, speaking outside the White House in Washington DC.

Last week, the president signed the first significant federal bill on gun safety in nearly 30 years.

It imposes tougher checks on young buyers and encourages states to remove guns from people considered a threat – but critics say the measures don’t go far enough.