The Conservatives will again be seen as the “nasty party” unless they halt their furiously contested £4bn cuts to foreign aid, Ruth Davidson has warned.
The former Scottish Tory leader accused Boris Johnson of ducking a promised vote for MPs because he will lose it, amid a fresh push by Tory rebels to try to force a vote before the Commons enters its summer recess in less than three weeks’ time.
Meanwhile, despite praising Labour’s candidate Kim Leadbeater, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has suggested that Sir Keir Starmer deserves the credit for the party’s narrow electoral victory in Batley and Spen, which – setting aside the Tories’ two recent victories in Copeland and Hartlepool – saw the largest swing to a governing party in a by-election for 39 years.
Ms Reeves’ defence of the Labour leader came as she unveiled her first major policy intervention – revealing a post-Brexit plan for the UK to “buy, make and sell” more in Britain, which she denied amounted to “slapping a Union Jack” on public procurement.
Elsewhere, Ireland’s premier Micheal Martin urged the UK government to reciprocate the “generosity of spirit” shown by the European Union over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
In the wake of the bloc’s decision to extend the grace period on the GB-NI trade of chilled meats, following weeks of politically toxic stalemate, the Irish Taoseaich suggested European leaders have indicated they are willing to deploy a “sense of flexibility”, as he insisted there were “sustainable solutions” to be found within the existing Brexit withdrawal agreement.
However, Lord Frost, the UK’s Brexit minister, appeared to dismiss the recent “sausage wars” truce as a mere “sticking plaster” which addresses only a “tiny part of the problem” with the trade deal he negotiated last year, suggesting the NI Protocol is failing to “reflect the balance that was in the Good Friday Agreement” and therefore is “not working”.
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- Keir Starmer’s ‘leadership’ won by-election in Batley and Spen, insists Labour ally
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