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Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
- A Tory MP and arch critic of Boris Johnson has sparked a backlash from Brexiters after suggesting Britain rejoin the EU’s single market to help ease the cost of living crisis. Tobias Ellwood’s comments were seized upon by allies of the prime minister as evidence that deposing him would threaten the country’s more distant relationship with Brussels.
- A powerful standards watchdog has accused Boris Johnson of failing to allay fears that he and his ministers consider themselves above the rules, as his support continued to ebb away in the wake of the Partygate scandal. Jonathan Evans, the chair of the committee on standards in public life, criticised a planned overhaul to the way the ministerial code is policed, saying they undermined the role of Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, Christopher Geidt.
- Angela Rayner has repeated calls for the introduction of an ethics and integrity commission and says Boris Johnson is unfit to uphold standards in public life. The deputy leader of the Labour party said: “Boris Johnson has shown himself unfit to uphold high standards in public life and is lowering the bar each and every day he clings to office, trying to rig the rules as he faces investigation for deliberately misleading Parliament.”
- Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie, members of the cabinet as well as representatives of the opposition were spotted in the audience for this morning’s Trooping the Colour, which kickstarted the Queen’s jubilee celebrations. Earlier Johnson tweeted his congratulations to the Queen. He said: “The whole country, Commonwealth and world thank you for your unwavering duty and service. Vivat Regina Elizabetha! God Save The Queen!”
- Priti Patel has suggested Tory plotters against the prime minister risk overshadowing the Queen’s jubilee celebration in the latest intervention from Boris Johnson’s cabinet supporters to try to head off a confidence vote in the prime minister. Speaking to the Daily Mail, the home secretary urged those pushing for Johnson to resign to “forget it” and warned that writing letters against him was a “sideshow”.
- Republican campaigners have applauded a decision by Scottish Green MSPs to boycott a Scottish parliament debate celebrating the platinum jubilee by walking out en masse. All seven Scottish Green MSPs, including two government ministers – Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater – left the Holyrood chamber as Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister and Scottish National party leader, led celebrations of the Queen’s 70 years as monarch.
- The UN refugee agency has said “a clear majority” of people arriving in the UK by small boats across the Channel should be considered to be refugees, in a challenge to the home secretary, Priti Patel. Patel told MPs and peers last year that 70% of people making the crossing were “single men who are effectively economic migrants”, and the government has repeatedly referred to them as “migrants”.
- Asylum seekers who went on hunger strike over plans to send them to Rwanda have been threatened with faster deportation by the Home Office if they do not eat. At least 17 people from Syria, Egypt and Sudan, who are being held at the Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick airport, began the protest when they were told they would be sent to Rwanda on 14 June as part of a controversial new scheme.
- It was “disingenuous” for the transport secretary to speak out about chaotic scenes at Britain’s airports as issues with staffing “have been on the radar for a long time,” Andy Prendergast, national secretary of the GMB union, said. Grant Shapps said on Wednesday the aviation industry must “do their bit” to resolve problems which have led to the disruption.
Thanks so much for joining me today. I’ll be back again tomorrow.
You can follow our Russia-Ukraine war liveblog here:
Home Office threatens hunger strikers with faster deportation to Rwanda
Asylum seekers who went on hunger strike over plans to send them to Rwanda have been threatened with faster deportation by the Home Office if they do not eat.
At least 17 people from Syria, Egypt and Sudan, who are being held at the Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick airport, began the protest when they were told they would be sent to Rwanda on 14 June as part of a controversial new scheme.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, one was threatened with deportation even sooner if they did not stop their hunger strike.
In a warning that could be interpreted as a threat to the wider group, it said: “Your refusal of food and/or fluids will not necessarily lead to your removal directions being deferred. In the interests of your health and safety we may prioritise your removal from detention and the UK.”
The letter said the welfare of the person was “of real concern to the Home Office”.
In a statement, some of the hunger strikers said they had been detained in Libya but had not expected the same treatment in the UK.
One said:
I just want to be safe and free. I’m not a criminal. Why did the UK put me in prison. I have no connection with Rwanda. Why would the UK send me there?
Read the full story from my colleagues Diane Taylor and Matthew Weaver here:
Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie, members of the cabinet as well as representatives of the opposition were spotted in the audience for this morning’s Trooping the Colour, which kickstarted the Queen’s jubilee celebrations.
Have you seen Carrie’s ‘anti Boris hat’? pic.twitter.com/549CIqZhv3
— Martin Holland (@DutchieMartin) June 2, 2022
Earlier Johnson tweeted his congratulations to the Queen.
He said:
The whole country, Commonwealth and world thank you for your unwavering duty and service. Vivat Regina Elizabetha! God Save The Queen!
Here are a few more pictures from the day:
Prince Andrew has tested positive for Covid and will no longer attend the Queen’s jubilee service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday, Buckingham Palace has said.
A palace spokesman said:
After undertaking a routine test the duke has tested positive for Covid and with regret will no longer be attending tomorrow’s service.
It is understood Andrew saw the Queen in the last few days but has been doing regular testing, and has not seen her since he tested positive.
A former army major running for the Lib Dems in Tiverton and Honiton has claimed if the Tories lose that byelection it could be the end of Boris Johnson.
Richard Foord is hoping to win on 23 June in the former constituency of Neil Parish, the Tory MP who resigned after admitting he watched porn in the Commons.
Foord told the Mirror: “A lot of Conservative opinion will crystallise in opposition to Johnson if we can achieve a win here in Tiverton and Honiton.”
The Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood has sparked a backlash from Brexiteers after urging the government to rejoin the single market to ease the cost of living crisis (see 13.50).
His idea has got some - not very surprising - backing from Labour MP Stella Creasy, who said the UK must work with the EU to secure jobs, peace and equality:
For sake of jobs, peace and equality, UK must discuss our future with Europe. Can't do that in sound and fury with which Boris Johnson approaches negotiating with our neighbours. As Chair of @labour4europe pleased Tory MPs like @Tobias_Ellwood speaking out https://t.co/uSNtV356w4
— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) June 2, 2022
Prendergast also encouraged travellers to only take hand luggage on their holidays to beat long queues at the airport.
The national secretary of the GMB union told The Daily Telegraph: “If individuals can check in online and don’t take luggage, that limits the disruption. It’s not a magic bullet however it does scale back the prospect of there being issues.”
It was “disingenuous” for the transport secretary to speak out about chaotic scenes at Britain’s airports as issues with staffing “have been on the radar for a long time,” Andy Prendergast, national secretary of the GMB union, said.
Grant Shapps said on Wednesday the aviation industry must “do their bit” to resolve problems which have led to the disruption.
Prendergast told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme on Thursday:
This unfortunately was a foreseeable problem, it was one we warned about at the point at which the mass redundancies were made.
We asked the government to look at the aviation industry as a special case and they refused. And now, quite frankly, for Grant Shapps to come out as he has in the last 24 hours is a little bit disingenuous considering these problems have been on the radar for a long time.
The aviation industry is suffering from staff shortages after letting thousands of people go during the coronavirus pandemic.
Airlines and airports repeatedly called for sector-specific financial support during the Covid-19 crisis as government travel restrictions suppressed demand, PA News reports. They are now struggling to recruit new workers and have their security checks processed.
Tory MP sparks Brexiter backlash with call to rejoin EU single market
A Tory MP and arch critic of Boris Johnson has sparked a backlash from Brexiters after suggesting Britain rejoin the EU’s single market to help ease the cost of living crisis.
Tobias Ellwood’s comments were seized upon by allies of the prime minister as evidence that deposing him would threaten the country’s more distant relationship with Brussels.
In a call for more radical thinking to “energise our economy through these stormy waters”, Ellwood said the government should “better maximise our Brexit fortunes”.
Drawing on his six years serving in the army, Ellwood wrote in an article for the House magazine that “if an army general, mid-battle, is mature enough to finesse his strategy to secure mission success, then government should do the same” and added there was vast room for improvement in economic relations with the EU.
His argument that exports to Europe have shrunk by £20bn, with fishers and farmers facing particular hardship and the unresolved issue of the Northern Ireland protocol, was used by Johnson’s allies to suggest the attempt to force a confidence vote next week was evidence of an anti-Brexit bias.
David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator during the divorce talks, said Ellwood’s intervention “shows Brexit really is not safe in his hands or his allies”.
A senior MP also said Ellwood had “let the cat out of the bag” and added: “After all the pain we went through on Brexit, he’s still hell bent on trying to drag us back into the EU and he’s willing to sacrifice the prime minister who delivered Brexit to get there.”
Some of those seeking to oust Johnson responded speedily to distance themselves from Ellwood’s comments, fearful they would be seized on by No 10.
Mark Harper, a senior Conservative MP who has submitted a no confidence letter in Johnson, said he categorically disagreed and was clear that Brexit “meant leaving the single market and putting an end to freedom of movement – the end”.
He admitted there were issues with the protocol but said the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, were working to deal with those issues.
Read the full story here:
Republican campaigners have applauded a decision by Scottish Green MSPs to boycott a Scottish parliament debate celebrating the platinum jubilee by walking out en masse.
All seven Scottish Green MSPs, including two government ministers – Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater – left the Holyrood chamber as Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister and Scottish National party leader, led celebrations of the Queen’s 70 years as monarch.
The most overtly pro-republican demonstration yet seen in Holyrood was heavily criticised by Scottish Conservative MSPs. Sharon Dowey, the Tories’ culture spokesperson, said every other party had joined in thanks for the Queen’s service.
She said:
The Greens’ refusal to do so is petty, student politics at its worst. Their transparent attempt to woo anti-monarchy voters will frustrate the vast majority of Scots who recognise [the] celebrations as a chance to show our gratitude for Her Majesty’s tireless dedication.
Graham Smith, the director of the anti-monarchist campaign group Republic, said the Greens’ actions were symptomatic of growing republican sentiment, particularly among younger voters and in Scotland.
He said:
I think it’s quite extraordinary. There are big political changes across the whole of the UK and certainly in Scotland. It wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago.
The Scottish Green MSPs decline requests to discuss their walkout, but a spokesperson said on Wednesday that the party believed Scotland needed an elected head of state.
We respect others hold different beliefs. Our MSPs decided to absent themselves from today’s short debate and instead spend their time serving their constituents.
Celebrations of the jubilee in Scotland appear more muted than in other parts of the UK. While central London is festooned in union flags and vast crowds gather for the weekend’s pageantry, there are no mass-participation events planned in Scotland.
Read more here:
Angela Rayner calls for ethics commission and says Boris Johnson unfit to uphold standards in public life
Angela Rayner has repeated calls for the introduction of an ethics and integrity commission.
Last night The Guardian reported that Jonathan Evans, the chair of the committee on standards in public life, had criticised a planned overhaul to the way the ministerial code is policed, saying they undermined the role of Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, Christopher Geidt.
He accused Boris Johnson of failing to allay fears that he and his ministers consider themselves above the rules.
Responding to the story, the deputy leader of the Labour party said:
Boris Johnson has shown himself unfit to uphold high standards in public life and is lowering the bar each and every day he clings to office, trying to rig the rules as he faces investigation for deliberately misleading Parliament.
The chair of the committee on standards in public life joins the prime minister’s own ethics adviser in criticising his cherry-picking of changes to the Ministerial Code and ethical scrutiny of government.
It’s time to stop the rot. Labour will clean up politics and restore standards in public life.
She said a Labour government would “clean up politics and restore standards” in public life, starting by introducing an Ethics and Integrity Commission.
Updated
Full story: Don’t overshadow jubilee by plotting against PM, Patel tells MPs
Priti Patel has suggested Tory plotters against the prime minister risk overshadowing the Queen’s jubilee celebration in the latest intervention from Boris Johnson’s cabinet supporters to try to head off a confidence vote in the prime minister.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, the home secretary urged those pushing for Johnson to resign to “forget it” and warned that writing letters against him was a “sideshow”.
She added: “This weekend is going to be all about the longstanding dedicated service that Her Majesty the Queen has given that nation. Everyone should rally behind that.”
The number of letters submitted by Tory MPs to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, is believed to be close to the 54 needed to trigger a confidence vote.
On a visit to the Mall Patel tried to equate rallying behind the prime minister with jubilee celebrations. She said: “Events like this are about celebrating our country, our nation, our values and our monarchy. This is about Her Majesty the Queen – I think that’s where all the focus should be.”
She added: “This isn’t about a parade [of leadership candidates] or a contest of letters. We need to concentrate on doing our jobs. Our job is to deliver on the people’s priorities. They won’t thank the Conservative party for talking about itself at a time when people have anxieties, concerns, apprehensions.”
Johnson is under increasing pressure from Tory MPs to consider his position in the wake of Sue Gray’s report on lockdown parties in Downing Street.
Simon Fell, elected Conservative MP for Barrow and Furness in 2019, was the latest to be reported to have raised concerns and criticised the “corrosive culture and a failure of leadership” that allowed the incidents to happen.
The deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, led the counterattack on Wednesday by insisting that questions around whether Johnson broke the rules for ministers “have been answered”, as he backed the prime minister’s assertion that he did not intend to breach Covid laws.
Raab said he did not believe the prime minister would face a confidence vote next week, as the prospect of a leadership challenge loomed.
Johnson, in an interview with Mumsnet released on Wednesday, was initially told he was considered to be a “habitual liar”. The prime minister replied: “First of all, I don’t agree with the conclusion with the question asked or the premise of the question.”
Told a teacher would have lost their job if they had broken the law and asked why the same did not apply to him, Johnson replied: “If people look at the event in question it felt to me like a work event, I was there for a very short period of time in the Cabinet Office at my desk and, you know, I was very, very surprised and taken aback to get an FPN but of course I paid it.
Read more here:
Jonathan Evans, chairman of the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life, said questions must been raised over whether proper standards are being upheld in government, given recent events.
Lord Evans also said it is up to Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, to decide his next move after the PM insisted his partygate fine did not constitute a breach of the ministerial code because he did not intend to break Covid laws.
Asked if he believes proper standards are being upheld in Government in the round, Lord Evans told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I think you’ve got to raise questions when you see the outcome of the police investigations and the Sue Gray report, and one or two of the other issues that have come up - I was outspoken myself in regard to the Owen Paterson business.
So, there has been a lot of public disquiet about standards over the last six months. It’s one of those things that comes up from time to time and it’s really important to reassure people that we want to continue to maintain decent standards in this country.
On Lord Geidt, he said:
He’s made his position very clear, that he felt in his report that was published this week that it was important that the prime minister should recognise that the partygate allegations and the outcome of that do have implications for the application of the ministerial code. And that’s what he said in his report.
Of course, the prime minister has subsequently written to him explaining why he believed that he didn’t breach the ministerial code in that regard. So, obviously, Lord Geidt will be giving consideration to what has been said. But obviously that’s a decision for him, to make up his mind on where he goes with this next.
Former Northern Ireland first minister Arlene Foster has welcomed a Sinn Fein move to write to the Queen on the occasion of the Platinum Jubilee.
Sinn Fein vice president Michelle O’Neill wrote to the Queen to praise her “significant” contribution to the peace process and to acknowledge her “dedicated public service to the British people” during her 70 years on the throne.
O’Neill thanked the Queen for her “warmth and unfailing courtesy” on the occasions when the pair have met and wrote of the “value and respect” she had for the monarch’s contribution to reconciliation.
Former DUP leader Foster praised O’Neill’s gesture, telling BBC Radio Ulster: “Obviously, I very much welcome it.”
Foster, who served alongside O’Neill at the head of the Stormont Executive, said the Platinum Jubilee celebrated three things – the Queen’s public service and dedication; the institution of the monarchy; and the concept of Britishness.
I think for republicans, like Michelle O’Neill, like Nicola Sturgeon, they have recognised in Her Majesty the Queen the first of those, the fact that she has given so much service to the country.
They’re recognising that and I think that that is something that is to be welcomed.
A powerful standards watchdog has accused Boris Johnson of failing to allay fears that he and his ministers consider themselves above the rules, as his support continued to ebb away in the wake of the Partygate scandal.
Jonathan Evans, the chair of the committee on standards in public life, criticised a planned overhaul to the way the ministerial code is policed, saying they undermined the role of Boris Johnson’s ethics adviser, Christopher Geidt.
His remarks came as two more Tory MPs wrote to their constituents condemning the prime minister’s conduct during the pandemic.
Downing Street announced the changes last week, after Evans’s committee made a string of proposals earlier this year.
The changes slated by the government include allowing ministers to escape resignation for minor infractions – but not giving Geidt the power to launch his own investigations without the prime minister’s permission, as the committee on standards had urged.
Evans, a former head of MI5, said it was “highly unsatisfactory” that Johnson had only accepted part of the package of reforms, and the plans as they stood would not “restore public trust”.
Unless Geidt can launch his own investigations independently, he said, “suspicion about the way in which the ministerial code is administered will linger.”
Johnson defended his conduct in a tough interview with the online forum Mumsnet, which kicked off with the question, “Why should we believe anything you say when it’s been proven you’re a habitual liar?”
During the exchange, Johnson said he was “very, very surprised and taken aback” to be fined by the Metropolitan police for his surprise birthday party, which he called a “miserable event”.
He said he was not considering resigning. “I just cannot see how actually it would be responsible right now, given everything that is going on, simply to abandon … the project on which I embarked, to level up.”
Read more from my colleagues Heather Stewart, Rajeev Syal and Jessica Elgot here:
Tory MPs pushing for the prime minister to resign should “forget it”, Priti Patel has said.
The home secretary said writing letters of no-confidence in Boris Johnson was a “sideshow” and the party should be focused on “real challenges that we have to find solutions to”.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said:
This isn’t about a parade (of leadership candidates) or a contest of letters. We need to concentrate on doing our jobs.
Look at what is going on in the world right now, look at the challenges that we face domestically. We can’t ignore those.
Our job is to deliver on the people’s priorities. They won’t thank the Conservative Party for talking about itself at a time when people have anxieties, concerns, apprehensions.
Patel also said she thought leadership rows should not overshadow the Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
She also praised Johnson’s role on the international stage.
Look at our standing in the world when it comes to Russia and Ukraine,’ she said. ‘Look at the leadership that has been provided.
Our job is to deliver on the people’s priorities. They won’t thank the Conservative Party for talking about itself at a time when people have anxieties, concerns, apprehensions. Our job is deliver for them.
She added:
[Johnson] is the man that won us the election, a man that has worked hard to deliver for us right now. There’s no question about that. But on top of that, he’s a man that’s focused on the people’s priorities and this government is focused on the people’s priorities.
Welcome to today’s liveblog. I’ll be updating you throughout the day. Do drop me an email on nicola.slawson@theguardian.com or send me a tweet @Nicola_Slawson if you think I’m missing something or if you have a question.
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