Former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace targets Trump and Vance over Ukraine and Russia | Russia sentences former British soldier to 19yrs in prison after he was captured in Kursk invasion | Conservatives accuse Labour of building a two tier sentencing policy | Labour workers rights’ bill threatens growth, bosses protest The post Newslinks for Thursday 6th March 2025 appeared first on Conservative Home.

Former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace targets Trump and Vance over Ukraine and Russia

“Let me paint you a vision of a new era. Donald Trump and JD Vance mean everything they say. They mean it when they say Russia isn’t a threat. They genuinely believe that the US should leave Nato and they want one way or another to take Greenland. That only China, Russia and the US count. Britain is treated as a quaint exception to Europe. Sovereignty of others doesn’t matter. Might is right. Oppressing opponents, judges and the free press is acceptable in the cause of America First. Facts are fiction and fiction are facts. Putin and Trump sign mineral extraction deals in the occupied Donetsk region. Five Eyes intelligence is shared not with Britain’s friends but our enemies. The US withdraws from European bases and pulls the drawbridge up.” – Daily Telegraph

• US stops sharing intelligence on Russia with Ukraine – Guardian
• US cuts off intelligence sharing with Ukraine – FT
• Trump turns off Ukraine’s missiles – Daily Telegraph
• UK locked in talks with US over American jets and surveillance for Ukraine peace – The i
• Britain forced to salvage old jets and vehicles for peace mission in Ukraine – Daily Mail
• Russian TV’s talking heads boast of Trump’s lack of peace demands – The Times
• ‘Seismic’ shift in UK-US relations is not a blip, warns ex-ambassador – Guardian
• US intelligence loss could hamper Ukraine’s battlefield progress – Unherd

Comment

How the return of the German army could help save Europe – Daily Telegraph

Trump’s Ukraine power play. Everything is leverage – Unherd

How Trump blinded Ukraine with US intelligence blackout – Daily Telegraph

Europe must trim its welfare state to build a warfare state – FT

Donald Trump is spectacularly right and dangerously wrong – Daily Telegraph

>Today

Our survey. Seven in ten Tory members back putting troops in Ukraine – and cutting spending to boost defence

Russia sentences former British soldier to 19yrs in prison after he was captured in Kursk invasion

“Russia has sentenced British PoW James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, to 19 years in the gulag after he was brutally captured in the Kursk region. The ex-British Army squaddie was sentenced by Russian authorities after a trial at the 2nd Western District Military Court in Kursk, the court said on Telegram. Anderson had gone on trial from March 3 to 5 in secret in Russia in a “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions. A Telegram account for the United press service of the judicial system of the region said Anderson was accused of “terrorism” and being a mercenary. During the closed session, an Armed Forces of Ukraine soldier who served with the former Brit soldier was “questioned as a witness,” the court said. According to a Telegram post, Anderson “admitted guilt” to “incriminating acts, citing that he decided to take part in the conflict because of monetary compensation”. – The Sun

• Briton captured while fighting for Ukraine jailed for 19 years in Russia – The Guardian
• Father of British POW, 22, jailed for 19 years by Russian court for fighting for Ukraine fears his son’s ‘life is over’ – Daily Mail
• Briton fighting for Ukraine sentenced to 19 years in Russian jail – The Times

Comment

Ukraine’s troops dying because US cut aid, say soldiers on front line – Daily Telegraph

Conservatives accuse Labour of building a two tier sentencing policy

“Labour faced fresh accusations of a ‘two-tier justice system’ on Wednesday night amid astonishing moves to give minorities special treatment in the courts. All ethnic minorities and transgender people convicted of a crime should be treated differently under measures due to come into force in less than four weeks. The Conservatives said it could open the door to softer sentences for minorities, and risked making the criminal courts ‘anti-white and anti-Christian’. And it reignited a row from last summer, during the riots in the wake of the Southport murders, of various groups being treated differently by the justice system.The new rules, distributed to magistrates and judges by the Sentencing Council yesterday, say it must ‘normally be considered necessary’ for the courts to commission a ‘pre-sentence report’ about criminals if they come from ‘an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community’.” – Daily Mail

• ‘Two-tier justice’ claims over sentencing for ethnic minority criminals – Daily Telegraph
• Fury over ‘two-tier justice’ as ethnic minority criminals less likely to be jailed – Daily Express

Government under pressure to tackle small boats after over 1000 cross in four days

“More than 1,100 small boat migrants reached Britain in just four days as human traffickers took advantage of calm conditions on the Channel. Latest Home Office figures showed there were 326 arrivals on Tuesday, bringing the number since Saturday to 1,168. It brought the total since Labour came to power to 26,466, up 26 per cent on the equivalent period in 2023-24Yet Yet the total does not include other migrants – thought to be several hundred – who were intercepted in the Channel and brought to Dover yesterday. The occupants of one dinghy refused to be rescued by French authorities yesterday, and carried on to UK waters. It was the latest example of migrants declining rescue by the French – in some cases violently – in order to avoid being taken back to Calais.” – Daily Mail

• France slammed for failing to stop deathtrap boat crossing the Channel – Daily Express
• Moment French navy officers refuse to rescue 60 migrants from dinghy filling with water – instead demanding UK Border Force step in even though they were spotted just 1.3miles from French coast – Daily Mail
• Mobster unmasked. Killer terrorist free to roam UK streets in human rights fiasco because he’d be hunted by mobsters if he’s deported – The Sun
• Killer Albanian mafia kingpin ‘is free to walk the streets of Britain’ after claiming he’d be murdered in his home country – and he has cost taxpayers £10,000s fighting deportation – Daily Mail

Comment

Human Rights are mad if an Albanian drug baron can stay in the UK to be a role model for his daughter – Rod Liddle The Sun

Labour workers rights’ bill threatens growth, bosses protest

“Ministers have been accused of harming jobs and growth as they toughened up a workers’ rights overhaul that will introduce protections on the first day of employment and make it easier for unions to raise money for Labour. Employers said that Labour had taken an “irreversible” step towards a less business-friendly Britain with changes to the Employment Rights Bill that extend a ban on zero-hours contracts to cover agency workers and give a new enforcement body more powers.Business leaders said ministers had rejected almost all of their pleas to soften the rules, warning that the measures represented a “thicket of regulation” that would “undermine the government’s own push for growth”. – The Times 

• UK business confidence in crisis, new report says – City AM
• Labour’s workers’ bill ‘may increase discrimination against mothers’ – The Times
• Interest rate cuts might not be ‘rapid’ due to ‘sticky’ inflation, Bank of England chiefs warn as they highlight ‘substantial’ risks from Trump’s trade war – Daily Mail
• ‘Substantial’ risk to the UK from Trump tariffs, says Andrew Bailey – The Times

>Today

Labour’s Employment Rights Bill will not increase employment and isn’t right

Labour seem determined to drive up unemployment, again

Rishi Sunak dismisses Suella Braverman’s comments that they cannot be ‘English’ as ‘simply ridiculous’

“Rishi Sunak has said that he is English and proud, as he branded comments by Suella Braverman, his former home secretary, as “ridiculous”. The former prime minister, who was born in Southampton to parents that emigrated from east Africa to Britain, said it was “beyond me” why people would question his identity. Braverman intervened in a debate between conservative commentators last week, to claim that she and Sunak were not English, despite both being born in the UK. Ancestry, heritage, and ethnicity make one English, Braverman argued, adding that she was better described as British Asian.  Sunak, who became Britain’s first Asian prime minister in October 2022, said it was “slightly ridiculous” and by that logic many players for England’s national sports teams would not qualify as English. “Of course I’m English. [I was] born here, brought up here,” he told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast.” – The Times

News in Brief

For once, local government is correct: nobody has a right to park in their drive – Daily Telegraph

Europe has always stood alone – The Critic

Britain’s regulators have turned to the dark side – Henry Hill CapX

Trump can’t override everything – Spectator

Everything is bigger in Texas even the prisons – Harry Phibbs CapX

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