“The amendments are an attempt to ensure that we end up with a framework to deal with not just the goods we import and export but the services we trade in. The customs union amendment that we passed overwhelmingly a few weeks ago is only one half of the equation. The customs union deals only with goods. That is very important: it deals only with goods—tangible items such as cars, washing machines and televisions—where we have a £96 billion trade deficit.
The EEA deals with services—such as retail, tourism, transport, communications, financial services and aerospace, where we have a £14 billion trade surplus…without an EEA equivalent, it will damage our profitable export business and therefore the jobs and livelihoods of many thousands of people. It is for that reason we need to ensure that any continuation in the customs union must include continuation in the EEA or its equivalent…this is bigger than party politics. It is about people’s jobs. It is about the future of our economy.”
Foreign Secretary David Lammy is speaking in the Commons to try to defend the government’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to China-aligned Mauritius. Prepare for some heckles from the Tory benches…
The Commons has returned now that the three-week conference recess is over. Starmer is up to talk about his recent trips abroad and the Middle East one year on from Hamas’ attack on Israel.
97 hostages still remain in Hamas’ tunnels.
Britain is topping the charts yet again, though not for the right reasons. A latest study from Oxford University academics reveals that the UK now has more illegal migrants than any other European country, with up to 745,000 people living within our borders without permission. This includes those who’ve overstayed their visas, are failed asylum seekers and who’ve crossed the Channel. That’s more than one in every hundred people living here illegally…
That’s more than double the 300,000 thought to be in France and even higher than Germany’s 700,000. Meanwhile, a staggering 973 people crossed the Channel on Sunday – the highest daily figure this year. That brings the total so far in 2024 to 26,612, surpassing the figure on the same date last year and inching closer to 2022’s 33,611. Labour’s “solutions” for cutting back what they call “irregular immigration” clearly aren’t cutting it. Sunak was right when he warned migrants would be queuing up in Calais once Labour got in…
Questions about the motives of big Labour donor Lord Alli are swirling in SW1. The party’s line that he’s just a peer without any agenda, and that he doesn’t intervene politically apart from ‘being Labour’, took a hit when Guido exposed his arguments against the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Coupled with the fact he was sent to Iraq by Number 10 to meddle in the January 2005 elections, Labour’s defence line is quickly wearing thin…
Guido has dug through the archives and found more evidence of Alli intervening politically. Back in May 2018, then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urged his MPs to resist calls for a Norway-style Brexit deal. Lord Alli was far from happy, denouncing the move as “cowardice.” He made his case in the Lords for why the UK should remain in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Customs Union:
Eyebrows have long been raised about the widely-cited “independent” Institute for Fiscal Studies report into private school VAT. It has been used to “fact check” widely-held worries that Starmer’s class war on private schools will 1) funnel unsustainable numbers of children into the state system, and 2) not raise enough money. The report has for many months been the only shield for Labour politicians seeking to bat away legitimate concerns over its tax plan…
Last week it was confirmed that already 10,540 fewer students are at private schools – and that’s before Labour’s tax is even introduced. The IFS claimed 17,000-40,000 students in total would shift to the state sector. Co-conspirators might wonder why their report is so sympathetic to Labour’s policy…
As it turns out the caveat-filled report’s only author Luke Sibieta has been close mates for years with the Labour minister responsible for its implementation. Sibieta and Matthew Pennycook lived together in the noughties – Pennycook was even Sibieta’s best man at his wedding. Details of which have been meticulously scrubbed from almost everywhere on the internet…
The government has confirmed that the business rates policy change, one half of the tax raid on private schools, “will be legislated for through a Local Government Finance Bill led by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.” Pennycook’s department…
Lobby journalists treat interventions from ‘independent’ tax-fanatics at the IFS – such as today’s new call to massively hike capital gains tax – as gospel. Maybe when hacks work out that these wonks might not be as impartial as they are so desperate to appear they will treat endlesss calls for tax increases with a little more scepticism…
Questions are swirling around Gray’s departure from her £170,000 post in Downing Street. The government is refusing to say whether Morgan McSweeney will also be paid more than the PM as new Chief of Staff…
A Cabinet Office source reckons Gray won’t get a SpAd severance payment because she’s shifting to another role in government. Guido finds it hard to believe she won’t be given something like a three-month sweetener…
It has been confirmed at today’s Lobby briefing that Gray’s demotion to an advisory role will be a direct ministerial appointment to the Cabinet Office, and therefore subject to pay. They are usually reserved for part-time projects, though Downing Street’s spokesman refused to say if her role is time-limited. She’s firmly ensconced in the Civil Service…
That means Gray will keep on getting her Civil Service perks. Downing Street’s spokesman also refuses to say if Gray will be given a peerage. That’d be another £332 per day…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”
