No 10 declines to comment on White House claim that Europe facing ‘civilisational erasure’ – UK politics live | Politics
No 10 declines to comment on White House claim Europe facing ‘civilisational erasure’ due to migration, speech laws and EU
Downing Street has defended Britain’s record on freedom of speech – while declining to comment on a White House policy document saying Europe is at risk of “civilisational erasure”.
At the No 10 lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said that he would not comment on the national security strategy published by the White House on Friday because it was as US document.
As Jon Henley reports, the document does not just relate to US policy because it says the American government should be “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations”.
Referring to Europe as a whole, the document says that it does not spend enough on defence and that it suffers from economic stagnation. But it goes on:
This economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
At the weekend Sarah Rogers, the US under secretary of state for public diplomacy, reinforced this claim with a post on social media claim that the UK and other European countries are suppressing free speech.
The UK government has repeatedly chosen to avoid saying almost anything critical of Donald Trump and his administration in public and that continued today at the lobby briefing when the PM’s spokesperson was asked if Keir Starmer agreed that Europe faces civilisational erasure. The spokesperson replied:
Obviously that is a strategy devised by the US for the US. It is for them to comment in.
In more broad terms, you’ve seen our action on both legal and illegal migration, and the measures we’re taking to drive that down.
Asked if the PM would stick up for Europe, the spokesperson replied:
The prime minister always sticks up for both the UK and European interests. You’ve seen that in his close working relationship with the president and he’ll continue to do that.
But, when asked about comments from US officials like Rogers saying there is no freedom of speech in the UK, the spokesperson did push back. He said:
When it comes to free speech, our position is very clear. We’re proud of it, we’ve had it in this country for a very long time, we’ll protect it, and the government is committed to open discourse.
Key events
There will be three urgent questions in the Commons after 3.30pm (all tabled by Tory MPs), followed by a statement. They are (with rough timings):
3.30pm: A defence minister responds to a UQ on problems with the Ajax armoured vehicle.
After 4pm: A justice minister responds to a UQ about the Sunday Times splash, which accused David Lammy of misrepresenting the proportion of rape victims who pull out of prosecutions because of court delays.
After 4.30pm: A Home Office minister responds to a UQ about another Sunday Times story, saying West Midlands police wrongly told a committee recently that they had consulted the Jewish community in Birmingham about the Maccabi Tel Aviv match ban.
After 5pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, makes a statement about the government’s child poverty strategy.
John Swinney says independence could cut energy bills in Scotland by one third
Libby Brooks
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
The SNP are making energy the linchpin of their Holyrood election campaign, claiming that independence could cut Scotland’s energy bills by a third in the long term.
At what was billed as the first campaign event ahead of the contest next May, John Swinney, the SNP leader and first minister, launched a short film with the tagline ‘It’s Scotland’s energy’, mirroring the party’s famous 1970s slogan ‘It’s Scotland’s oil’ which contributed to their breakthrough at Westminster.
Contrasting how the UK and Norway managed their oil wealth – a “missed opportunity” for Scotland compared with Norway’s sovereign wealth fund – Swinney said in his speech the growth in renewables was “a second opportunity to benefit from the huge natural resources of our country and to choose a different path”.
But Swinney was light on detail of how independence could be secured even if the SNP wins a majority in May, while the UK Labour government remains opposed to another referendum. And the accompanying document was thin on how these savings would be achieved, especially after the upheaval of separating from the rest of the UK.
Asked whether voters would prefer to see him focusing on their key priorities of public services, Swinney insisted there was progress in NHS waiting times for operations, education and investment in affordable housing. But he added:
Part of my challenge is that people have to see that the way to future prosperity is through independence. That’s the argument I will put to people in May.
Starmer joins TikTok, and says he thinks he’s the only world leader on Substack
Keir Starmer has joined TikTok, Downing Street has announced. At the morning lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson told journalists that Starmer has launched an account there to improve the way he communicates.
But that does not mean that the government is relaxing its security rules about the Chinese-owned app. It is banned on most government apps, and so it is not clear how many ministers and officials using government devices will be able to see the PM’s posts.
As of now, there is only one video on his account – showing Starmer and his wife Victoria outside No 10 watching the Christmas tree lights being turned on.
The spokesperson said that other world leaders, like President Macron of France and the Italian PM, Giorgia Meloni, are also on TikTok. He said:
We are intent on reaching audiences where they are and communication is changing and people have a right to know about the decisions the Government is taking that affect them and why and how that is.
TikTok is simply another way to do that and reach that wider audience.
In another Downing Street communications development, Starmer has also launched a Substack blog. In his first post, which went up on Friday, he wrote at length about the child poverty strategy.
He also explained why he was on Substack, and claimed to be the first world leader with an account.
Since you’ve got this far, I’ll leave you with one final explanation … After all, I think I am the only world leader that has decided to communicate in this way. So you probably want to know: why?
The simple answer is that communication is changing and I want to be part of that. People have a right to know how decisions that affect them are taken and why. And I believe all politicians should explore innovative new ways to do that. So in this Substack that’s what I will be doing. Showing you a little bit of what life is like in Number 10. But mainly just explaining the various decisions I take to try and create that Britain which is built for all.
Unfortunately, Starmer’s first Substack post has received a lousy review from the Financial Times’s Stephen Bush, who has been writing political newsletters from more than a decade and who knows a thing or too about what makes them work. Referring to Starmer’s first effort, he says:
It lacks an overarching argument and does not express a vision, and it is not clear what audience it is pitching for. (It is too wonkish to be easy reading, but not really deep enough for wonks.) These are both familiar problems for this government.
It is obviously inauthentic. We all know Starmer did not actually write this newsletter himself, because a) he doesn’t have the time, and b) he doesn’t even write internal memos and emails to Downing Street staff or cabinet ministers on a regular basis! A regular complaint I hear from Labour veterans is that Starmer does not produce, as Tony Blair used to, a regular memo of his own thoughts for Downing Street staff to guide their thinking and the direction of the government.
Skills minister defends decision to lift cap on unfair dismissal compensation payments in workers’ rights bill compromise
Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, has defended the government’s decision to lift the cap on the compensation that can be paid in unfair dismissal cases.
At the end of last month, in what was seen as a major concession to employers, the government announced that it was dropping plans to include day one protection from unfair dismissal in the employment rights bill. Instead protection from unfair dismissal will kick in after six months.
At the same time, but attracting far less attention, the government said it would remove the cap that can be paid to people who win a claim for unfair dismissal. Both amendments to the bill were part a compromise deal negotiated with employers and unions.
Initially the details of how the cap on compensation would be lifted were not clear, but at the end of last week it was confirmed that the cap is being lifted in full. One union described this as a “major win” for workers, and something the trade union movement had been campaigning for years.
But employment lawyers said this would result in more cases going to litigation, because removing the cap would take away the incentive to settle. One described the move as “bonkers”.
Today MPs are again debating the latest Lords amendments to the bill.
Defending the decision to lift the cap on unfair dismissal compensation payments in an interview on Times Radio this morning, Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, said:
Throughout this, there’s been a careful consideration of how we make sure workers have got the rights they deserve and that employers have got the ability to work alongside their trade unions in taking on people into the workplace. That’s what the negotiation has been about.
PM says he would like to see former apprentices in cabinet, as he promotes apprenticeships as alternative to university
Keir Starmer has said that he would like to see former apprentices becoming cabinet ministers.
As PA Media reports, when he was speaking to apprentices at a McLaren facility earlier (see 10.05am), Starmer told them:
We need to crack this in politics, by the way, because around the cabinet table, we did a little survey a few weeks ago, and I think pretty well everyone around the cabinet table had been to university, but no one had been an apprentice.
And so I think the challenge is more in politics than some of our other institutions.
I think business actually has a good case to tell on apprenticeships going all the way to the top, I think its the rest of us that need to do some catching up, because those skills of being in a business, of working your way up and running the business, would be really good skills to have higher up in politics, in my view.
Starmer said he was “on a mission” to promote apprenticeships.
University is good thing to do. I’m not going to knock it. That’s what I did, but being an apprenticeship is an equally good thing to do. That’s what my dad did.
Peter Kellner, the pollster and former president of YouGov, has been in touch about the Labour Together party membership polling (see 9.12am and 10.17am) to say I was not right when I said earlier that polling party members is difficult because of sample sizes. He explains:
You are right that polling party members is tricky, But it’s not mainly about sample size.
In my YouGov days I was the first to poll party members (IDS v Clarke in the 2001 Tory leadership contest.)
We got it right; but the problem then and since is this. With normal polls we can match our samples to solid, baseline data, from census and other sources, about the demographics of the population. We have no recent data about party memberships – their distribution by gender, age, length of party membership, level of party activity and so on. The concern is that membership polling samples might be too young, too male and too activist. When I was at YouGov I always looked at these subsamples with care. Labour Together should do the same – especially for signs that activists have different views from non-activists, and any systematic differences between younger and older members.
Starmer says any peace in Ukraine has to be just and lastinng ahead of E3 meeting with Zelenskyy
Keir Starmer has said that any peace in Ukraine would have to be just and lasting. Speaking to PA Media this morning ahead of the E3 meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy later, he said:
I’m looking forward to seeing President Zelenskyy in Downing Street, where we will have time for a private discussion about the peace plan in Ukraine.
We’ve got Chancellor Merz and President Macron coming as well, so the four of us will have the opportunity to go through the various issues, to do it privately, and to make progress.
“It is important that we bear in mind that this conflict is nearly four years old, that Russia is the aggressor, and therefore, if there is to be a ceasefire, it needs to be just – because Ukraine has taken heavy, heavy losses and paid a very heavy price for a war which was not of their making – but it’s also got to be lasting, because we know Putin does not respect agreements that don’t have hard-edged security guarantees behind them, so that’s what we’ll be focusing on.
Jakub Krupa has more on his on his Europe live blog.
Q: [From LBC] Reform UK are going through a tricky patch. Would you take back any of the Tories who have defected to Reform UK?
Badenoch says people in her party are doing things because they believe them to be right. They are not doing it just because they want to win. She links that with the courage of the survivors on the platform alongside her, saying that they are speaking out because it is the right thing to do.
Q: [From Max Kendix at the Times] The government says having a judge-led inquiry hold things up, because criminal investigations would have to include first.
Badenoch says she does not accept that. It could be a retired judge. And the inquiry could run concurrent with any criminal inquiries.
Q: [From Charles Hymas from the Telegraph] Would you strip people with dual citizenship of British citizenship if convicted of grooming gang abuse? What would you do if you countries like Pakistan would not take them back?
Badenoch says people should not be allowed to exploit dual nationality status. That is why the party set out its citizenship plans at the party conference.
Chris Philp says people with dual nationality should lose their British citizenship if convicted of these offences, and should be removed.
And, if a country like Pakistan does not take back its citizenship, the government should look at visa sanctions or aid cuts to put pressure on them.
Q: [From the Sun] Should mosques have to cooperate with this inquiry?
Badenoch says having a statutory inquiry means organisations should have to provide evidence if that is where the evidence leads.
Q: [From the BBC] Why don’t you work behind closed doors to try to get a party political consensus on this?
“Because we are the opposition,” Badenoch says.
She says Tories are working with Rupert Lowe on his inquiry.
But, from the other parties, she has just heard “sneering”, she says.
She says Labour only agreed to an inquiry because the Tories raised the issue in this way.
Q: [From GB News] One of the potential chairs of the inquiry criticised party political point scoring on this issue. Have you reached out to other parties on this?
Badenoch says the Lib Dem have just made disparaging comments. Labour and other parties are not interested, she says. She says she is doing her job.
She says she does not want this to be about party political point scoring. She wants this to be about justice for victims.
Q: [From ITV’s Romilly Weeks] You say you are acting on behalf of survivors. But don’t different survivors want different things?
Badenoch says she is responding to what survivors are calling for.
Q: And what should happen about the Nigel Farage election expense claims?
Badenoch says the Electoral Commission should investigate.
