A senior Conservative MP has suggested that the government recall parliament to enact legislation which would disapply future rulings of the European Court of Human Rights on the government’s small boats policy.
Sir John Redwood, a veteran MP and former cabinet minister, told Talk TV this morning that the government should not “have this long conversation about the overall European Human Rights position with some kind of manifesto pledge”.
Instead, Sir John suggested: “The legal fix now is to get parliament back and put through a very short simple piece of legislation, which instructs all British courts to say it is parliament’s will [that] we take these necessary actions to stop the boats”.
It comes ahead of a Supreme Court decision over whether the Rwanda deportations plan is legal, and amid a row within government over its position on the ECHR.
The Telegraph is reporting today that Rishi Sunak faces calls from up to a third of his cabinet to put leaving the ECHR at the heart of the Conservative election manifesto if migrant deportation flights to Rwanda are blocked by the courts.
But Conservative MP Sir Robert Neill, who chairs the justice select committee, warned yesterday that campaigning to leave the ECHR would be “completely foolish and absolutely wrong”.
Politics Live:
11.49 am — Deputy chair of the Conservative party Lee Anderson reacts to migration milestone as 100,000 migrants have crossed the Channel since 2018. He tells GB News:
I’m very angry at the number, I get very angry every day at these illegal migrants, let’s be clear on what they are, they’re illegal migrants not genuine asylum seekers. If they were they’d be claiming asylum in many of the countries they’ve passed through to get to the UK.
It’s been very, very difficult for government, I’ve been banging on about it since I’ve got elected. We’ve now got the agreement with Turkey in place, we’ve got the agreement with Albania, we’ve got the illegal migration bill, hopefully the Rwanda scheme will be up and running [soon].
10.36 am — Shadow minister James Murray tells GB News: “What was the biggest asset on the Treasury’s balance sheet three years ago, is now its biggest liability”. (See post at 08.06 am for context).
Full clip:
10.02 am — NHS England figures published today show that 383,083 people in England had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start routine hospital treatment at the end of June. The figure is down very slightly from 385,022 at the end of May.
The government has said it wants to eliminate all waits lasting more than 52 weeks by spring next year.
09.22 am — “How should a prime minister — especially one under such concerted pressure as Rishi Sunak — treat the relative quiet of summer recess? There are a few schools of thought”.
Politics.co.uk political correspondent Josh Self takes stock as “small boats week” begins to peter out.
Read the full article here.
09.05 am — West of England mayor Dan Norris: “From this month the million plus residents of the West of England are able to ride local bus services across 515 square miles of the region, completely free throughout the whole month of their birthday, with no limit on the number of journeys taken”.
Read Dan Norris’ full comment piece on his “Birthday Bus” plan on politics.co.uk here.
08.58 am — UK to convene international energy security summit focussed on “getting to net zero”
Grant Shapps has announced that the government will seek to convene a major international summit on energy security which will include discussions about the need to “diversify from fossil fuels”
Read the full article here.
08.15 am — Senior Conservative MP Sir John Redwood suggests parliament should be recalled to introduce “a very short simple piece of legislation” which disaplies any future ECHR ruling on the government’s small boats stopping measures. Sir John told TalkTV this morning:
My advice to the government today is don’t have this long conversation about the overall European Human Rights position with some kind of manifesto pledge for year or months time.
You’ve got to solve the problem now, and the legal fix now is to get parliament back and put through a very short simple piece of legislation, which instructs all British courts to say it is parliament’s will [that] we take these necessary actions to stop the boats not withstanding anything that the European Court might have in mind
And if you did that, the European Court ruling on that will disapply without having to get out the whole thing and cause that kind of route, and you’d get an instant result and I don’t know why the cabinet doesn’t see this.
Full clip:
08.06 am — Labour is accusing the government of “catastrophic financial mismanagement”, claiming it has “lost” £251 billion from the value of assets created to rescue the banking sector after the 2008 financial crash.
Labour said analysis of recently published figures showed that a decline in the value of the Bank of England’s assets was a huge loss to taxpayers. The party said this was “equivalent to 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, or the entire GDP of Scotland and Wales combined”.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “This Tory bond black hole will land working people with another astronomical bill for years to come”.
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