“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.”
Ellie Reeves has ‘updated’ the Commons on rule changes Labour is pursuing in the ongoing freebiegate scandal. Reeves blames the Tories for an anodyne discrepancy between ministerial declarations and MP declarations…
Reeves says the government will close Tories’ “freebie loophole” with a new version of the register of ministers’ gifts and hospitality – to function on a “broadly equivalent” basis to the MP register. The ministerial register is only different in that the value of gifts is not declared and it is published every quarter as opposed to every fortnight. Altering that system does nothing to address Labour’s rank hypocrisy over months of freebies revelations…
Seeing as the Tories managed to get an Urgent Question in Shadow Paymaster General John Glen asked Reeves for a few clarifications, including:
- Will ministers be banned from taking tickets to the Oasis 25 tour?
- What role did Downing Street play in the VIP escort further to the free tickets for Taylor Swift from Universal Music?
- Have all the political staff in the PM’s parliamentary office correctly declared their financial interests and hospitality?
- Why do ministers refuse in PQs to say when the new ministerial transparency platform will go live?
- Will the PM recuse himself from the Football Governance Bill after taking a donation in kind of £100,000 a year from Arsenal Football Club?
- Where is Labour’s new ethics and integrity commission?
- What discussions did Sue Gray have with Lord Alli on ministerial appointments and public appointments?
- Will ministers place in the library all the documents relating to Lord Alli’s operational integrity?
Reeves launched on the Tories in response and said she’d “take no lectures” as Labour backbenchers are rolled out to list historic Tory freebie-taking. Pressed on Swiftgate, Reeves stuck to the line that the top-level security motorcade was an “operational matter” for the police, despite the fact that the Attorney General, Mayor of London, Sue Gray, and the Home Secretary all personally got involved in lobbying the Met. Labour’s lines on the latest freebiegate scandal are going as well as all the last ones…
Guido first raised Starmer’s potential multiple electoral law breach last month over his living in an address in a constituency other than the one put on his nomination paper. Starmer himself said he and his family moved into Lord Alli’s £18 million penthouse before the deadline for submitting nomination papers – in the Cities of London and Westminster…
Starmer admitted about his son:
“I promised him we would move somewhere, get out of the house and go somewhere where he could be peacefully studying”
UKIP’s Paul Nuttall was investigated by police in 2017 for claiming on his nomination paper that he lived at a house hadn’t yet moved into. He was forced to prove to them that he used his house regularly as a “base” in the campaign for the Stoke By-Election. Guido understands that the City of London Police are in the process of referring the matter to the Met in response to a submitted inquiry. The Met will be formally required to consider it. An equal application of the law would see the matter investigated, seeing as Nuttall was officially probed for the exact same reason…
Starmer told parliament he was living at Lord Alli’s in Covent Garden (Westminster and Camden) before and after the election, declared as the sworn truth that at the time he was was living in Kentish Town (Holbron & St Pancras) on his nomination form. The law is clear, must be current address or you are committing a criminal offence.
Those who contact the Chief Executives Office of Camden Council with regard to Starmer’s potential breach of electoral law have been contacted by Camden’s Borough Solicitor, who advises them to contact the police “immediately.” Translation: ‘We do not want to deal with this one’…
Boris has done a long interview with Wilfred Frost on Sky News. Apart from pointing out that the public ‘craved’ lockdown rules, Boris had a few words about his old chum Sue Gray:
“I appointed Sue Gray, who then turned out to be the Chief of Staff leader of the Labour Party – RIP… “
Boris issued his analysis of the current Downing Street implosion:
“At the time that I asked her to do that particular job, she had presented to me as a model of political impartiality and propriety, and I’m not certain about either of those things…. I thought it was always looking a bit dodgy – her position was probably going to be untenable ever since it emerged that her son had taken money from Waheed Alli, and that she’d then given Waheed Alli a pass to No 10. I thought that was probably going to end in the way that it has.”
Cronies gonna crony…
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:
Behind closed doors some Labour figures are unsettled by the perception that Lord Alli has effectively privatised the Labour frontbench. Along with hundreds of thousands in donations his properties have been used extensively by the Labour leadership for numerous roles, as Guido revealed…
The “he doesn’t have any agenda because he’s already a peer” spin, which claims he doesn’t intervene politically apart from ‘being Labour’, took a hit on Friday when Guido revealed Alli argued against the removal of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Almost zero information exists in the public domain about Alli’s role in the Middle East, which includes his multiple meetings with Assad…
Guido can reveal that Alli was also dispatched to Iraq by No 10 to meddle in the January 2005 elections. Blair’s Downing Street pledged clandestine support to Iyad Allawi, the former member of Saddam’s security services who had earlier been chosen as interim Prime Minister by the coalition forces…
After the Labour lord was installed in Allawi’s office there was a huge increase in advertising spending on his campaign. Allawi dominated the Iraqi media landscape from that point on, leading Al Jazeera to brand him an “American puppet.” Jack Fairweather, author of ‘A War of Choice: the British in Iraq’ wrote that Alli and former Labour Party General Secretary Margaret McDonagh, his partner for the mission, suggested the “classic New Labour ploys” of polling data analysis and “working with focus groups to coordinate campaign messaging“, which were received with zero enthusiasm by Allawi’s campaign team.
By the end the Allawi campaign was a foreseeable failure, gaining a mere 13.8% of the vote. The winner was Ibrahim Al-Jaafari – the candidate of the Shiite religious establishment. Predictably Labour’s intervention to support Allawi damaged UK relations with new PM Al-Jaafari, against UK interests…
What was Alli, a TV executive best known for producing ‘The Big Breakfast’, doing intervening in foreign elections on Labour’s behalf? Why has his role been kept out of the public eye? Who paid for it? Why did Alli go on to have multiple meetings with Assad in Syria? There is much more to discover…
When the Lord Alli scandal first broke – over his acquisition of a Downing Street pass – Labour’s explanation was that the donor was “doing some transition work with us.” The key word suggesting the transition between opposition and government…
Close to a general election, the main opposition party is offered a series of secret handover talks with senior officials – designed to prepare them should they win. Guido hears from multiple well-placed sources that some of those talks took place at Lord Alli’s properties, potentially including his extravagant penthouse. Confidential government handover work carried out in a political donor’s property…
The attendees would have included Keir Starmer, Sue Gray, and Simon Case. The meetings took place in the rough six month period before the election. On at least one occasion other officials are said to have been present, including Gray ally Darren Tierney, who has run the Propriety and Ethics (now Propriety and Constitution) Group in the Cabinet Office since March 2021, though reports are unconfirmed. Government business taking place at a top donor’s house would be highly irregular, especially given the sensitive nature of the talks…
It’s well-known that the confidential access talks “usually happen away from departments” – that is understood to usually mean a low key neutral meeting space. Not the luxury penthouses of ultra-rich, heavily politically-involved donors who will go on to gain access to Downing Street…
The properties are said to be one of the Labour leadership’s favourite bolt holes for high-level confidential meetings. Guido asked the Cabinet Office if any of the talks took place at his property to which a government spokesman said: “We don’t comment on access talks.” That is not a denial…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”
