Starmer ‘will not celebrate’ Brexit anniversary | Reeves denies rift with Miliband over Heathrow expansion | Lord Hermer KC’s legal guidance has led to ‘freeze on government’ | Badenoch rebukes Patel for defending soaring immigration under Tories The post Newsletter for Friday 31st January 2025 appeared first on Conservative Home.
Starmer ‘will not celebrate’ Brexit anniversary
“Downing Street has said the Prime Minister had no plans to celebrate five years since Britain officially left the European Union, at 11pm on Jan 31 2020. It comes as the Conservatives accused Labour of trying to “dismantle Brexit and drag us back into the EU’s grasp”. Sir Keir championed a second Brexit referendum while serving as Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow minister for exiting the European Union. The promise featured in the Labour manifesto…The Prime Minister will head to Brussels on Monday to join EU leaders to discuss European security matters, a further signal of Labour’s desire to “reset” relations with the bloc. In August he insisted that his plans were not “reversing Brexit” but a “closer relationship on a number of fronts” including on defence and the economy.” – The Daily Telegraph
- How five years of Brexit reshaped Britain – The Financial Times
- Brexit got done five years ago, but it has never felt in greater peril – Editorial, The Sun
- To take on the right, will Labour go blue? – Patrick Maguire, The Times
- Brexit wasn’t a failure. It liberated us from the declining, dictatorial EU – David Frost, The Daily Telegraph
- Five years on, we still haven’t taken back control. Let’s get it done – Nigel Farage, The Daily Telegraph
- Starmer isn’t the problem – the whole Westminster edifice is rotten – Sam Ashworth-Hayes, The Daily Telegraph
- Labour must not betray Brexit by dragging Britain back into the over-regulated, heavy-handed embrace of Brussels – Kemi Badenoch, The Sun
Reeves denies rift with Miliband over Heathrow expansion
“Rachel Reeves has denied a rift with Ed Miliband over her decision to support the building of a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Mr Miliband, the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, threatened to resign over expansion of the airport in 2009 and did not attend the Chancellor’s speech at which she announced the decision on Wednesday morning. But Ms Reeves insisted on Thursday that the Cabinet was “united” in its backing for the project. It came as she claimed the third runway could be finished and operational by 2035, despite critics warning that it could take decades to complete. Ms Reeves is facing a Labour backlash over the expansion plan, with Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, among those publicly against the proposal.” – The Daily Telegraph
- Heathrow expansion: Reeves sets out plans to speed up process – The Times
- He argues against Heathrow expansion in a Cabinet meeting – The Daily Telegraph
- He faces calls to approve two oil and gas fields blocked by judges – The Sun
- She refuses to say whether people will feel better off – The Times
- UK forecasts small role for green airline fuel by 2040, despite Reeves’s claims – The Financial Times
- Is our economy now run by eco-zealots? – Editorial, The Daily Mail
- Net zero is a cost, not an opportunity – Editorial, The Daily Telegraph
- A champion of net zero, the energy secretary has kept a low profile since the election – Editorial, The Times
- Reeves draws battle lines with her bets to fix low growth – Stephen Bush, The Financial Times
- Tunnel-vision Reeves can’t stop talking bats – Tom Peck, The Times
- The contradictions at the heart of Reeves’s growth plan – Peter Foster, The Financial Times
- Labour’s bold growth plan will come to nothing unless they sacrifice sacred cows – starting with mad net zero plan – Ross Clark, The Sun
Lord Hermer KC’s legal guidance has led to ‘freeze on government’
“The attorney-general is facing a backlash from cabinet ministers over claims that his changes to legal advice have led to an effective “freeze on government”. Ministers have told The Times that the move by Lord Hermer KC to significantly increase the power of government lawyers has resulted in delays to policies even if there is a relatively marginal risk. Late last year Hermer strengthened the guidance on legal risk, changing it to say government lawyers must advise ministers that policies are unlawful if they believe an argument could not be properly put forward in court. This was not previously the case. The new guidance states that they should only as a last resort put forward legal arguments that are legitimate but which have a high risk of failing.” – The Times
- Time for Starmer to cut out the planning lawyers – Emma Duncan, The Times
Cooper’s new asylum bill to criminalise those who seek prevent small boat rescues
“The UK government’s border security bill will lead to about 100 more people being sent to prison each year, according to internal government estimates, while criminalising asylum seekers who seek to prevent rescue operations at sea. Experts have questioned whether the measures will lead to a reduction in overall arrivals of migrants by small boats. In moves aimed at targeting smuggling gangs the new border security, asylum and immigration bill will give the government counterterrorism-style powers, such as seizing electronic equipment — including mobile phones — belonging to migrants when they cross the Channel into the UK. It will create an offence of ‘endangering life at sea’, aimed at criminalising people who prevent offers of rescue while at sea…” – The Financial Times
- She faces a ‘Labour revolt’ for keeping a ‘Tory policy’ in the bill – The I
- Channel migrants who refuse rescue by French will face jail – The Times
- People smugglers face being jailed for up to five years for looking up weather forecasts under new terror-style laws – The Sun
Streeting drops dementia and women’s health targets to end ‘overspending’
“Wes Streeting has abandoned pledges on women’s health and dementia as he halved the number of NHS targets in a drive to end a “culture of overspending”. NHS bosses said they would have to make cuts and “stop spending on some services” after the health secretary told them to prioritise cutting waiting lists. Streeting argued that “if everything is a priority, then nothing is”, and that hospitals should focus their budgets on cutting A&E waiting times, reducing waiting lists of 7.5 million and improving access to GPs. However, charities said that women were “not a special interest group” and were being de-prioritised after a 6,000-word document setting out annual NHS targets failed to mention the word “women” once.” – The Times
- Junior doctors threaten more industrial action despite 22 per cent pay rise – The Daily Telegraph
- Treat patients at home to prevent hospital bed-blocking, NHS bosses warned – The I
- Scepticism about NHS reform is warranted – Editorial, The Daily Telegraph
Tenth of farmland to be axed for net zero, Reed to reveal
“More than 10 per cent of farmland in England is set to be diverted towards helping to achieve net zero and protecting wildlife by 2050, the Environment Secretary will reveal on Friday. Swathes of the countryside are on course to be switched to solar farms, tree planting and improving habitats for birds, insects and fish. The move is part of a consultation being launched by Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, on how the competing priorities of food production, net zero and nature should be reconciled in England. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that 9 per cent of farmland would need to be removed from food production by 2050 to meet green targets, The Telegraph understands.” – The Daily Telegraph
- Land use plan for England to map best areas for farming and nature – The Guardian
- Best farmland ‘safe from large-scale solar projects’, Labour says – The Times
>Today:
- John O’Connell in Comment: Stopping Labour hitting farmers with inheritence tax is good – but why not get rid of it altogether
Lord Mandelson met Chinese official who oversaw ‘transnational repression’
“Lord Mandelson met a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official who oversaw alleged attacks on dissidents around the world, The Times can reveal. In June 2023 he met the CCP official Liu Jianchao, who formerly led a Chinese campaign to repatriate individuals seen by Beijing as corrupt. The programme has been described by human rights groups as “transnational repression”. According to a press release on the website for the CCP’s international department, Mandelson and Liu met to discuss “strategic communication with major political parties in the UK”… It is not known in what capacity Mandelson made the visit to China. When asked about the meeting, he called the questions “ridiculous nonsense”. At the time he was chairman of the consultancy firm…Global Counsel…” – The Times
- Starmer refused to keep gifts from Trump amid freebies scandal – The Daily Telegraph
- Labour can’t understand why Trump hates snivelling Mandy – Tim Stanley, The Daily Telegraph
Badenoch rebukes Patel for defending soaring immigration under Tories
“Priti Patel has been rebuked by her party leader after she defended sky-high immigration during the Conservative Party’s last years in office. The shadow foreign secretary – who was home secretary at a time of rising immigration – declined to apologise for the increase during an interview with The Sun. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said it proved that the Conservatives were “proud of mass migration”. Dame Priti’s comments were in stark contrast to those of Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, who made a speech in NOvember to admit that the party had “got it wrong” on immigration… Appearing on The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots YouTube show, Dame Priti was challenged over the fact that 1.2 million people entered the UK last year.” – The Daily Telegraph
- Watch Patel as she’s confronted with proof migration soared while she was Home Secretary – The Sun
- The ‘conservative international’ battle with Britain – Robert Shrimsley, The Financial Times
>Today:
William Atkinson: Shameless Conservatives are rewriting the history of their immigration disaster
“Being Home Secretary was Patel’s first (and last) big job in politics. Unsurprisingly, she is defensive about her record. But she had one job, and she screwed it up. People voted to leave the European Union for a variety of reasons, but no one doubts that central to it was a desire to control and reduce migration. That is exactly what Boris Johnson’s landslide-winning 2019 manifesto promised to do. Instead, Patel introduced Britain’s most liberal immigration system ever. In 2019, the year she became Home Secretary, net migration ran at 184,000 – higher than anything Britain had experienced before Tony Blair became Prime Minister. Yet in 2022, Patel’s last year, it had more than quadrupled to 764,000. A year later it hit 906,000 – about the population of Cyprus…” – The Daily Telegraph
News in Brief:
- London needs the Prince Charles cinema – John Sturgis, The Spectator
- The Left ignores the environmental cost of mass immigration – Peter Franklin, UnHerd
- Finding true north – Yuan Yi Zhu, The Critic
- Does Starmer really want growth? – Callum Price, CapX
- The costs of Labour’s growth boosterism – Jason Cowley, The New Statesman
- Britain’s Project 2029 – Ed West, Wrong Side of History
The post Newsletter for Friday 31st January 2025 appeared first on Conservative Home.
