‘Windsor framework’
Telegraph
As Rishi Sunak hailed his Brexit deal that “takes back control” of Northern Ireland, the European Union’s chief negotiator told a private meeting in Brussels a vastly different story of who controls the province.
Debriefing the European Parliament’s Brexit committees on the freshly-minted “Windsor Framework”, Maros Sefcovic said the Prime Minister’s pact was simply designed to avoid negative headlines in the British press, and would not hand back full sovereignty over the region.
The burly Slovak diplomat, not one to bite his tongue, poured cold water over any suggestion Britain had secured an effective veto over new European laws that affect Northern Ireland, and insisted the bloc’s top court would still rule supreme.
Of the Stormont Brake, which Mr Sunak claims will allow Northern Ireland politicians a veto on new EU rules applying to the province, Mr Sefcovic assured MEPs that Brussels would have powers to react to any decision with trade sanctions, such as customs levies against British exports.
The mechanism was created to address Unionist concerns about the imposition of Brussels regulations over which the Belfast assembly currently has no say.
“This [Stormont Brake] is very much limited in the scope, and it’s really under very strict conditions,” Mr Sefcovic told them, according to a recording obtained by The Telegraph.
Illegal immigrants
Mail
Rishi Sunak is set to introduce hard-hitting new laws this week to finally put a brake on the ‘human rights’ farce which allows migrants to resist deportation from the UK.
The Prime Minister – who has made ending the tide of people crossing the Channel on small boats and then claiming asylum one of his top five policy priorities – tells The Mail on Sunday today: ‘Make no mistake, if you come here illegally, you will not to be able to stay.’
His clampdown follows months of wrangling within Whitehall over whether the UK was legally able to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which provides the ultimate legal authority for most deportation challenges. It is understood that Mr Sunak has concluded that the most contentious aspects of the convention can instead be circumvented.
A clause in the Illegal Migration Bill, which will be introduced by Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Tuesday, is expected to apply a ‘rights brake’, which No 10 hopes will finally signal an end to controversial legal challenges.
Sun
SUELLA Braverman today says “enough is enough” and she will stop the boats as she prepares to unveil a new law to thwart illegal immigrants staying in Britain.
The Home Secretary will put a new brake on Channel migrants being able to use human rights laws to fight against deportation.
Under the crackdown, all migrants who arrive in the UK via small boats will have their claims ruled inadmissible.
The Home Sec will have a new legal duty to remove them “as soon as practicable” to a “safe third country” – as first reported in The Sun on Sunday last month.
After months of intense legal wrangling behind the scenes, the Bill will be unveiled to Parliament on Tuesday.
Independent
Senior Conservatives fear Rishi Sunak is “over-promising” on fixing the small boats crisis and will fail to deliver in time for the next general election.
The number of migrants crossing the English Channel so far this year is over double the figure seen at the same point in 2022, despite the prime minister making a promise to “stop the boats” one of his five key pledges to the British public.
He has claimed that a new package of laws will “ensure that if you arrive in this country illegally, you will not be able to stay”, but The Independent understands that the legislation has not yet been fully drafted.
Metro
The prime minister is set to approve new legislation which gives the government the power to detain all refugees who arrive in small boats before sending them to Rwanda.
Rishi Sunak and home secretary Suella Braverman are set to announce the new powers next week, which will make all asylum claims from those who arrive in the UK on boats inadmissible, the Times reports.
The move would give the home secretary powers to prevent refugees from claiming asylum in the UK and ban them from returning once removed.
It would also place a duty on Ms Braverman to remove new arrivals ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’, and relocate anyone who arrives in the country on a small boat to Rwanda or another ‘safe third country’.
BBC News
Anyone arriving in the UK on a small boat will be prevented from claiming asylum, under new laws expected to be announced next week.
Ministers will have a duty to “detain and swiftly remove” anyone who comes to the UK through that route, said Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
The prime minister has already said that “stopping the boats” is one of his five priorities.
The British Red Cross charity called the plans “extremely concerning”.
Ms Braverman is expected to introduce the new legislation on Tuesday.
Telegraph
Rishi Sunak is seeking a “substantial” increase in beach patrols to stop migrants leaving France as he prepares to unveil new laws to detain and remove anyone who arrives in the UK illegally.
The Prime Minister hopes to seal a new deal to put more officers on French beaches at a summit this Friday with Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in France.
Officials from the two countries have been working to build on last November’s £63 million agreement under which the UK paid towards a 40 per cent increase in French officers as well as extra drones, buggies and other surveillance equipment.
ITV News
The prime minister has vowed to put an end to the “immoral” illegal migration trade as the government prepares to unveil new powers to crack down on small-boat crossings in the Channel.The legislation, promised as part of efforts to tackle illegal migration, could come as soon as Tuesday, as Home Secretary Suella Braverman said that the only way into the UK would be a “safe and legal route”.
The legislation is expected to make asylum claims inadmissible from those who travel to the UK on small boats.It would see a duty placed on the Home Secretary to remove “as soon as reasonably practicable” anyone who arrives on a small boat to Rwanda or a “safe third country”.
Express
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to put an end to the migrant crisis with tough new measures to be unveiled this week. He said he will not flinch from doing what is necessary to halt the tide of people crossing the Channel on small boats, declaring: “Make no mistake, if you come here illegally, you will not be able to stay.”
Mr Sunak believes he has found the answer to a problem which has dogged the Government for the past four years after weeks of work carried out in relative secrecy by senior aides in the Home Office and No 10.
The group has drawn up new laws to slam a “brake” on any abuse of human rights laws that allows illegal migrants to escape deportation from the United Kingdom.
Strikes
Express
The GMB union has agreed to postpone the forthcoming strikes after the Department of Health and Social Care agreed to discuss pay for this and next year.
The GMB union has suspended planned nationwide ambulance strikes scheduled from March 6 to 8. Union chiefs have hailed a “huge shift” in the Government’s position on pay disputes in 2023, with just days to go until the first round on Monday. Announcing the postponement today, they said they had received “assurances” that the money exists for potential pay increases.
Both parties will commence talks next week, they added, with GMB national secretary Rachel Harrison saying they received a letter from the Health Secretary just hours after they announced tighter derogations.
She said: “GMB ambulance workers announced a tightening of the derogations for cover on strike days.
Ukraine
Mail
Ukrainian parents have shared their heartbreak at not knowing where their children are or if they will ever see them again after Russian forces kidnapped thousands of youngsters and transported them to ‘re-education camps’ in Russia – in a policy likened to abductions carried out by terror group ISIS.
A study by Yale University last month found more than 6,000 children aged between four months and 17 years have been taken to 43 camps across Russia, including in Moscow-annexed Crimea and Siberia, for ‘pro-Russia patriotic and military-related education’. It is thought the true number is far higher.
Russia has tried to cast the relocation of the children as saving orphans or bringing them to camps for medical care – but Ukrainians say children are either being abducted outright or their parents are pressured or tricked into giving them up.
But International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan has this week likened the large-scale kidnappings to those carried out by terror groups such as ISIS, who took Yazidi girls from their homes.
Mirror
Russian and Ukrainian forces were fighting in the streets of Bakhmut last night as its 4,000 remaining citizens hunkered down in shelters.
Stranded with no water, power or telecommunications, the city in eastern Ukraine is “almost destroyed”, but is not yet under Russia’s control, its deputy mayor Oleksandr Marchenko said.
He accused the Russians of having “no goal” but wanting to commit “genocide of the Ukrainian people”.
A woman was killed and two men wounded as they crossed a makeshift bridge. According to a Ukrainian army rep it is too dangerous for civilians to leave the city by vehicle, with people fleeing on foot.
Sun
RUSSIAN troops were last night closing in on a ravaged Ukrainian city as thousands fled.
Intense fighting was raging around Bakhmut in the east.
Ukraine reinforced the area with elite units as Putin’s soldiers and hired killers from private army Wagner Group advanced in northern suburbs, UK intelligence chiefs said.
A road to Chasiv Yar, seven miles to the west — the last major supply route to Bakhmut — was under constant shelling.
ITV News
The Ukrainian defence of Bakhmut is “under severe pressure”, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said, as Russia aims to complete the encirclement of the besieged city.
Bakhmut has been the focus of intense fighting for months, with the head of Russia’s Wagner private army claiming it is almost completely surrounded and now only has limited routes out.
Russia taking the city would represent Moscow’s first major victory in half a year after the bloodiest battle of the war.
A bridge in Khromove, a nearby town, has been damaged by Russian tank shelling and Ukrainians have been digging new trenches for defensive positions to the west, Reuters reports.
Mail
Ukrainian and Russian forces fought street battles in Bakhmut yesterday as desperate residents tried to flee the eastern city amid fears it will fall to Vladimir Putin’s advancing troops.
A woman was killed and two men were badly wounded by shelling while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of the city in Donetsk province, according to Ukrainian troops who were helping them.
An army representative said it was now too dangerous for civilians to leave Bakhmut by vehicle and residents had to flee on foot.
Bakhmut has for months been a prime target of Moscow’s grinding eastern offensive in the war, with Russian troops – including forces from the private Wagner Group – inching ever closer.
Covid
Mail
It was in early April 2020, at the start of the first national lockdown, when The Mail on Sunday became the first mainstream media outlet in the world to reveal fears that the virus had leaked from a Chinese laboratory. A member of Cobra, the Government’s secret emergency committee, told us that Ministers were studying intelligence about an accident at Wuhan’s Institute of Virology as ‘a credible alternative view’ to the idea that it was first passed to humans at an animal market in the city.
Scientists at the institute were carrying out high-risk experiments to manipulate coronaviruses, sampled from bats in caves nearly 1,000 miles away, to make them more transmissible. The source said: ‘Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan.’
Guardian
Ministers face calls to “fast-track” the public inquiry into the pandemic as official documents show civil servants are preparing for it to run for five years or longer.
The Labour party has warned that a “painfully slow” Covid inquiry increases the risk of ministers not being properly held to account for their decisions. Labour leader Keir Starmer last week called for it to report by the end of the year.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak also faces calls from Labour to ensure that no key evidence is erased, including ministerial communications on WhatsApp and private email accounts.
Mail
Matt Hancock told aides he wanted to ‘frighten the pants off everyone’ to ensure compliance with Covid-19 restrictions, leaked messages reveal, as it emerges he told top London lawyers he should be immune from prosecution just days before the WhatsApp scandal broke.
In an online Q&A with law firm Mishcon de Reya, Matt Hancock accused those prosecuting Secretaries of State as ‘chasing tabloid headlines’ just 12 days ago, The Mirror reports.
It comes as a new swathe of messages from Mr Hancock’s WhatsApp account were revealed today, involving discussions over how to scare the public to limit the spread of coronavirus, and when to ‘deploy’ details of a new strain.
BBC News
Matt Hancock suggested to an aide that they “frighten the pants off everyone”, messages published by the Sunday Telegraph show.
It appears the former health secretary discussed when to reveal the existence of the Kent variant of Covid, to ensure people comply with lockdown rules.
In another exchange, the Head of the Civil Service, Simon Case, suggested the “fear/guilt factor” was vital to the government’s messaging.
The BBC has not verified the messages.
Telegraph
Matt Hancock wanted to “deploy” a new Covid variant to “frighten the pants off” the public and ensure they complied with lockdown, leaked messages seen by The Telegraph have revealed.
The Lockdown Files – more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages sent between ministers, officials and others – show how the Government used scare tactics to force compliance and push through lockdowns.
In another message Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, said that “the fear/ guilt factor” was “vital” in “ramping up the messaging” during the third national lockdown in Jan 2021.
The previous month, Matt Hancock, the then health secretary, appeared to suggest in one message that a new strain of Covid that had recently emerged would be helpful in preparing the ground for the looming lockdown, by scaring people into compliance.
Guardian
Rishi Sunak faces calls for an inquiry into whether Treasury officials buried or ignored evidence that his £849m “eat out to help out” scheme fuelled the spread of the pandemic.
Officials dismissed a Warwick University study in October 2020 that said Sunak’s initiative may have caused a significant rise in Covid-19 infections. The report estimated 8%-17% of detected new clusters could be linked to the scheme.
Despite the government categorically rejecting the findings, the publication of former health secretary Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages appears to confirm that there were concerns about the then chancellor’s scheme in summer 2020 driving an increase in infections.
Digital ID
Express
Imagine not having to provide a utility bill to prove your identity. Imagine voting in a general election from the comfort of your home. Imagine not having to register at a new GP, dentist, or hospital ever again. These are the sorts of things a digital ID, or digital wallet promises millions of Britons. The idea has been around for decades, and was first floated in the UK by Sir Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister. His plans were ultimately scuppered when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition came to power in 2010, and no more was said about it.
In recent weeks, Sir Tony and his former political foe, Lord William Hague, put their heads together for a new report reimagining what digital wallets — and a number of other technological advancements — might do for a Britain that appears to be teetering on the edge of the global political and technological precipice.
ET
Mail
Scientists seeking evidence of alien life believe they will spot telltale signs on ‘thousands’ of planets within the next 20 years.
Increasingly powerful telescopes will be able to examine the atmospheres of planets hundreds of light years away for evidence that we are not alone in the universe.
And if experts find enough clues, they will even be able to hypothesise how the extraterrestrial life compares to species found on Earth.
Cambridge scientist Emily Mitchell said she believed life was probably ‘quite common’ across the cosmos, and is hoping to find the evidence. The evolutionary zoologist is researching whether it was a fluke that single-celled life developed on Earth and evolved into complex animals over billions of years, or whether this process was been repeated across the universe.
Signs of life on a planet are called ‘biosignatures’, and Dr Mitchell said: ‘We’ve only got one biosignature, here on Earth. But if we have in ten or 20 years, as my optimistic colleagues suggest, thousands of biosignatures, we can start addressing [the question of whether we are alone in the cosmos].
Express
A space expert said it is “very likely” signs of extraterrestrial neighbours will be found.
Powerful telescopes could soon pick up signs indicating possible alien life on distant planets. Devices such as the James Webb space telescope, launched in 2021, are observing the cosmos in unprecedented detail to better understand how planets, stars and galaxies are born and evolve. Other devices are already in the pipeline. Space telescopes can analyse starlight passing through a planet’s atmosphere to discover its chemical makeup. This allows astronomers to identify patterns – known as biosignatures – which may suggest a planet with life.
Mirror
Since the dawn of humanity, we have stared at the sky and asked: “Is there anyone out there?”
Well, thanks to powerful telescopes analysing the atmospheres of other planets, scientists are now far closer to answering that eternal question.
Boffins may soon be able to tell us if there are little green men, flying saucers and life on Mars… or if the evolution of life here was a one-off.
A top scientist suggests we may be able to spot any signs of alien life in the next few decades using devices such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which are observing the cosmos in unprecedented detail to better understand the birth and evolution of planets, stars and galaxies.
Just one last thing, Nigel Farage has gone over the New York to attend a conference where Donald Trump is giving a speech. On both his Facebook and Twitter sites he is banging on about Trump demanding $55 Trillion dollars from the Chinese government as compensation for infecting us with Covid etc. Its getting boring now this infatuation with Trump, and its time to give it a rest. The $55 Trillion dollars demand is pie in the sky talk, and its doubtful whether Trump will be the next president of the USA. Time for Nigel to concentrate on issues nearer to home I think, that would be more like it.
On the BBC online news site there is an article that Sunak intends to introduce laws to ensure that boat migrants are not permitted to stay in the UK but taken to Rwanda and other countries. That’s the problem with Sunak and his government, all talk and no bloody action. Sorry, but most of us with at least half a brain have seen through Sunak and what he perceives to be action. He has a little under 18 months to actually get down to the nitty gritty of producing some results If he was using his supposedly new deal with the European Union to replace the existing Northern Ireland protocol as a template we will see it for what it is, namely a piece of nothing more transparent than water. How many times have we heard from his lips of his intention to solve the migrant action since he assumed the role of prime minister through a completely undemocratic process. He is an out and out phoney and will sell us a pup just like he did with his new NI deal, or he will say he will put it in the manifesto for the next general election. I have zero faith in Sunak to deliver anything of any consequence about the Migrants crisis, or our relationship with the European Union. The obvious solution to the migrant crisis is to withdraw from ECHR, but that means having some real political conviction and a backbone, two qualities which he doesn’t possess, no more than Boris Johnson did. Two peas out of the same pod……..
‘Windsor framework’
Sunak seems to be a habitual liar with no regard for the British people he is supposed to represent. Just another BoJo type intent on pleasing his globalist mates at the WEF etc. We need rid of all such people in government at all levels.
Do we think perhaps that the little green men might be a squirrel? We have to be distracted after all, from the EU’s interpretation of the Windsor Agreement and from Sunak’s version of how the small boats invasion will be stopped.
I wonder exactly where Fishy Rishy is going to “swiftly deport” these unwanted scroungers to? Unwanted here, unwanted anywhere else too.
There’s a book called “Rare Earth” that provides a good hypothesis that the chances of alien life in our galaxy is extremely low.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth:_Why_Complex_Life_Is_Uncommon_in_the_Universe
So, H A, You do not know the difference between a galaxy the universe. Besides that, what justification is there for thinking that this is the only planet that sustains life? Far more interesting is the fact that until carbon dioxide arrived in our atmosphere this planet had no life. Also, the more carbon dioxide there is in our atmosphere the more life this planet can sustain.
Should read the difference between a galaxy and a universe.
That’ll be why Venus and Mars are teeming with life then?
Pauline……can you do us all favour and ate HA back to 1072 when you next go back there!!!
Low, yes, but not nil.
You might be interested in Asimov’s 1980, “Extraterrestrial Civilisations.”
I have chosen your favourite source as a link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_Civilizations
He begins with the “The question is : Are we Alone?” and proceeds through thirteen chapters, using worst possible estimates, examining the sources of his figures and the probability of each of the 13 factors he posits to be necessary, or contribute to, the development of life. Starting with the number of stars in our galaxy, 300,000,000,000 (as known in 1980), he whittles it down through ‘with planetary systems’, ‘of which are Sun-like stars’, ‘with a useful ecosphere’, and so on.
His conclusion, readily admitted to be an estimate, is that technological civilisations have developed on 390,000,000 planets in our galaxy over vast chasms of time, but that only 530,000 are now in being. It is chastening why they always eventually become extinct, not that it will happen to us next Tuesday, unless someone takes their eye off Biden for a moment. And the number is not that large considering their lifespans and that they would be 630 light-years apart on average. Earth has been emanating radio waves for only a little over 100years, so they will not have got far enough to be noticed by the little green men, let alone to receive reply. It is sobering to think that any ‘reply’ received now would have to be a reply to a ‘message’ sent by William the Conqueror.
I like the idea of the SETI, but the chances of us intercepting a message in a bottle cast into the ocean of the universe, well I am not holding my breath.
Well there’s lies, damned lies and statistics.
I never realised you were a believer in little green men!
Where did I say that? It was a rhetorical metaphor for any intelligent life out there. You should read it. Unlike your stuff it is very well sourced and reasoned out with caveats. It’s all about probabilities explained on the basis of known science. Not agendas and opinions.
HA ……..Wikipedia again, that old chestnut. You have one thing in common with Sunak by coming out with the same old same old
Digital ID and wallet??? Voting from your living room!! Cast you mind back to Biden election ( fraudulent) , Bliar ‘s ego project Id’s we avoided.
Time to increase the use of cash and leave goods on the counter of businesses who want to use card only.
Fight now for the good of your offspring and family at least.
Precisely Michael Durrans. Apart from anything else if we vote from home it is not a secret what we voted for is it.
The Tories have no intention of controlling migration. Neil Hamilton is spot on in his view you cannot trust the Tories. Angela Rayner went slightly too far by saying it the House but she was correct that in that the Tories (Party) are scum.
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1622365995758125056?s=20.
Jake…what was the result of the UKIP meeting in Winchester yesterday that you told us about earlier in the week? However as I intimated a couple of time this week those negotiations with other parties to form a loose alliance came to nothing. I learnt that from what Neil Hamilton didn’t say and his intonation and body language in an interview video on UKIP website
Colin Will let you know when I receive a members report. There is also bound to be a video of the meeting posted on their website but its not there yet.
Jake…Neil Hamilton is weak as ditch water and nobody listens to him including those in his own party. UKIP needs a new younger leader who has vision and is able to take the party forward. Until then it will just exist with considerably less than 1000 members to its name.
The new laws on illegal migrants, if you ‘arrive’ here illegally, is rather differant to saying if you ‘arrived ‘ here illegally you will be detained and sent to Rwanda. So what about the 150.000 plus that are already here, no change then?
NORMAN I wondered what is meant by ‘detained’. Do we have loads of empty prisons to lock them in?
Detained is an interesting word Pauline try asking a police officer or lawyer the difference between arrest and detained and you will see some very odd answers! 🙂
Government effectively lies about most things, sometimes directly but mostly by omission.