Tag: Labour Party (UK)

In an interview with the Observer, Starmer said: “At the end of last year, the EU and UK government made a political agreement that there would be no hard border in Northern Ireland. “However, the content of the withdrawal agreement is not legally binding. Labour’s attempt to work with other parties reflects a genuine fear that negotiations on Brexit could founder on the border issues, leaving the future of cross-border trade in doubt. Don’t let the Brexiters turn Ireland into a new Cyprus | Andrew Adonis Read more Starmer said there had been signs that the government had been backsliding on its commitment to having no infrastructure on the border because it could not find another solution, other than remaining in a customs union, which Tory MPs will not accept. As a result, it was vital to hold it to its word to prevent what would be a disastrous economic and political outcome and a threat to peace. “You need to do this on a cross-party basis,” said one prominent Labour MP. “Tory MPs will be reluctant to defeat the government by backing a Labour amendment. They would not do it because they would be accused of working to put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.” While the EU signed off last week on plans for a 21-month transition period after Brexit day on 29 March next year – during which Britain will remain effectively in the EU – the main sticking point on a final deal remains the unsolved problem of the Irish border. May has said there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. But she has come up with no clear or convincing plan about how to prevent the flow of goods from Northern Ireland into the Republic and vice versa, once the UK is outside the customs union and single market.

Scotland’s transport minister, Humza Yousaf, has demanded that a councillor who made an Islamophobic comment about him be expelled from the Scottish Labour party. “I am angrier than I’ve ever been about abuse of this nature, and I’ve not been able to shake it off. It was the brazen nature of the remarks, which were made in front of my officials and members of the public.” He also warned that diversity training, which Dempster has asked to attend, “shouldn’t be seen as a punishment”. A senior Transport Scotland official who attended Tuesday’s meeting reported that Dempster had been stating his opinion that Yousaf was not concerned about road transport issues in the local area. Dempster was told the minister had attended the south-west transport conference and had met residents in the village of Springholm, to which he replied: “He may have been at Springholm but no one would have seen him under his burqa.” Yousaf was supported by the former Scottish Labour leadership candidate Anas Sarwar, who launched a cross-party group on tackling racism and Islamophobia last month. Sarwar described the comment as “crass, stupid, offensive and unacceptable”, adding that it was right to challenge it “no matter who or where it is from”. This comment was crass, stupid, offensive & unacceptable. Our society & institutions are not immune to it. Lots of work to do. Last month, one of the party’s Westminster MPs, Hugh Gaffney, apologised after making “deeply offensive and unacceptable” remarks about the LGBT community and Chinese people at a Burns supper in Edinburgh.

Harriet Harman has claimed that the arrival in parliament of a fresh generation of “Tory feminist” MPs alongside men with modern attitudes has the power to boost the women’s rights movement. The Labour MP, who has been parliament’s leading feminist advocate for decades, said the changing nature of female Conservative politicians from the “doughty tweedy matrons” of the past to today’s feminists had been critical. Women march in London to call for gender equality Read more Speaking before International Women’s Day on Thursday and a speech on Tuesday night about her experience as a female MP, Harman said: “The whole agenda for women in the House of Commons has changed, firstly because of the numbers – there are more than 200 female MPs now. But, secondly and critically, there has been a dramatic change in the nature of Conservative women MPs. We have now got feminists on the Tory side, who are very different from the doughty tweedy matrons of the past. She also praised former education secretary Justine Greening, as well as Anne Milton, Rachel McLean and Mims Davies, and said there were “loads more”. #MeToo has changed the mood. But only improved policy can change the reality | Harriet Harman Read more The comments are a significant shift for Harman, who once branded May as “no sister” on women’s rights, arguing that Britain’s second female prime minister had voted for cuts to programmes that were vital for women. “It is also about the change in the attitude of male MPs – the ‘new man’ has arrived in parliament,” she said. Harman also read out a letter from another SNP politician, Stephen Gethins, after he spoke about his responsibility to his wife.

We will continue to work with the UK and Scottish governments to that end. In his speech Lidington also said the Tories were “too slow” to accept the case for devolution. Some powers are clearly related to the UK as a whole and will need to continue to apply in the same way across all four nations in order to protect consumers and businesses who buy and sell across the UK, in all parts of what we might call the United Kingdom’s common market. (It was very odd for a minister in a government committed to Brexit to be giving a speech in favour of the common market, but that’s another matter.) On the Daily Politics, asked if he was willing to vote with Labour on this issue, he replied: He also described Corbyn’s speech as “vacuous”, and went on: (@daily_politics) "It does not sound like you are are going to get what you want" @Jo_Coburn to @S_Hammond "If you don't, will you press ahead, voting with Labour MPs... to force the government to make sure the UK does stay within a customs union?" 2 - But Corbyn has also made it clear that customs union membership would be conditional on the UK retaining “a say” in EU trade deals. I do not agree with or accept the idea there has to be competition in mail delivery. Here is the key passage. Government ministers don’t make this point in their speeches. We are serious, very serious, about investing in every community of the country.