Tag Archives: deal

Trade minister lies to the UK about ‘pact’ with Texas

Greg Hands: He’s probably wishing he’d kept his lips sealed (or rather, kept his typing fingers to himself).

Tory trade minister Greg Hands wants you to think the UK has signed a trade deal with Texas worth trillions of pounds. It’s a bare-faced lie.

Here’s what he has said, followed by two responses debunking him completely:

The Tory government is currently in freefall after a series of controversies, with MPs calling for a change of leadership.

But it is lies like this that make them unelectable.

Is this how Keir Starmer wants to stop you getting the wages you deserve?

Keir Starmer: he likes to give speeches in industrial settings, claiming to be on the side of workers. But is he actually betraying them by giving employers a way of keep wages low?

The Tories have found a new angle from which to attack Keir Starmer today, claiming he will allow around 100,000 migrants into the UK in return for restoration of a “returns” scheme that would send back those arriving in the UK by non-approved routes.

Here’s Greg Hands:

And here’s Robert Jenrick:

Presumably they’re all at it but I’ve only seen these.

The claim that Starmer is somehow betraying the UK by seeking to negotiate a solution to the channel boat question is undoubtedly good for the Tories. But it is completely daft.

The UK used to have a “returns” policy along the lines suggested by the stories in the Torygraph and Hate Mail but the Tories under Boris Johnson ditched it as part of their childish Brexit. It had worked very well in keeping down the number of people seeking asylum in the UK from abroad.

Not only that, but it has to be remembered that there would not be as many people coming here if the UK had not engaged in numerous adventures in foreign countries that displaced these people in the first place. Whether because of that or domestic issues, they come because they no longer feel safe in their home countries. The solution to that is negotiation with the governments of those countries to restore them to stability.

And it would put a stop to the “criminal gangs” who exploit the people trying to cross the channel into the UK, more effectively than anything the Tories are doing.

So Starmer’s ideas are not beyond reason, as these Tories are painting them.

They are unacceptable to UK employees, though – and here’s the reason.

The country’s labour market is currently stretched to its limit; there simply aren’t enough jobseekers to fill the vacancies available to them. This is partly due to Brexit and the departure of many foreign-born workers back to the European Union.

In such a situation, employees have a stronger hand when negotiating pay deals. If evidence that average pay has increased by 8.5 per cent in the year to summer 2023 is accurate, then someone has been taking advantage of this.

Employers don’t like it. It cuts into their profits (which have been enormous in some cases but they still want it all for themselves).

The Tories have suggested that they would push sick and disabled people to seek jobs, by making the Work Capability Assessment they must take to receive benefits more difficult. The aim is to force a million people onto the jobs market, even though they are actually too infirm to work.

Starmer’s suggested deal with the EU would bring in at least 100,000 people – initially. And they all have to make a living for themselves.

It seems to This Writer that Starmer wants to undercut UK workers’ wage demands by ensuring employers have access to cheap labour from abroad. This is how he is betraying the UK today.


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Rishi Sunak is causing yet another conflict-of-interest – CORRUPTION – row

Akshata Murty and her husband, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak: it seems that, days after being forced to apologise for failing to declare that she (and therefore he) will benefit from one policy of the government he leads, he is trying to ensure that they will – corruptly? – benefit from another.

The UK prime minister who came into office promising “integrity, professionalism and accountability” is embroiled in yet another corruption/conflict-of-interest row involving his wife’s father’s multinational corporation, Infosys.

Rishi Sunak is trying to negotiate a free trade deal with India, where Infosys is based, and the allegation is that this will be hugely profitable for Infosys – and therefore, by proxy, for Sunak himself.

People are asking the obvious question:

Note that it is unlikely that the people of the UK will benefit from this free trade deal, according to Jemma Forte; Sunak is negotiating a deal to benefit his family – again.

Remember: Parliament’s Commissioner for Standards has only just stated that Sunak broke the Ministerial Code – “inadvertently” – by failing to declare that a childcare firm in which his wife has shares will benefit from a change in Tory government policy. In the current instance, there can be no such excuse as we have the evidence in advance of the deal.

Infosys is also a multiple offender in terms of preferential treatment from Sunak’s government. After war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, that firm was told to stop operating in Russia or face sanctions like all the other businesses then doing business with that state, but eight months later it was found still to be doing business there, with impunity against the UK’s sanctions regime.

Sunak is expected to attend a G20 summit in India in two weeks – and to discuss the trade deal at a separate, bilateral, meeting with that nation’s prime minister Narendra Modi.

But Keir Starmer’s opposition party (still currently known as Labour, for reasons unknown) has called for Sunak to make an open declaration about his wife’s financial interests in a company that could profit immensely from his involvement in these negotiations.

One expert – Professor Alan Manning of the London School of Economics, according to The Guardian, wants the prime minister to recuse himself from any negotiations.

In response, it seems the Foreign Office has warned the Labour-chaired business and trade select committee not to visit India to examine the issues around a potential deal. The government department is refusing to help committee members set up meetings with Indian officials and businesspeople.

It seems clear, then, that Sunak has something to hide once again – otherwise, why try to cover up what will happen at the negotiations?

The deal, it seems, will allow Infosys to send teams of its Indian employees to the UK to work on outsourced IT contracts for firms in this country.

Why not employ home-grown expertise and keep the contracts – and all the profits arising from them – in the UK? Or has previous Tory government policy ensured that nobody here has the required expertise any more?

Of course, the controversy will only intensify the debate over MPs having business interests outside the House of Commons, or receiving donations and/or gifts-in-kind from businesses or corporate bosses.

The question here is: who does Rishi Sunak work for – the people of the UK or his wife’s family firm?

The answer seems obvious – with the best interests of the nation he is supposed to lead coming a distant second.

Reform is urgently required – but with so many Parliamentarian snouts firmly in the trough, there seems to be no will to put a stop to the corporate influence that is staining all of us with the filth of corruption. How do we force an end to it?


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Starmer shouts down young people – in speech saying youngsters should speak up

Shutting down young voices: after this incident it is clear that, despite his own speechifying, Keir Starmer doesn’t want to allow anybody to speak up for themselves.

This is too good to leave for the News in tweets: while giving a speech on how young people need to learn how to express themselves vocally, Keir Starmer was challenged by two young people on Labour policy – and told them to shut up.

The youths from Green New Deal Rising were standing as part of a group of youngsters Starmer had arranged behind himself to make a good photo – but while he was talking about “oracy”, and his desire for people to be able to express themselves verbally, as well as on paper, they stepped forward.

This is what happened:

Another commentator, tweeting a similar clip, stated: “Keir Starmer making a speech about how important it is that young people learn how to express themselves & articulate their thoughts clearly. Starmer to young people expressing themselves & articulating their thoughts clearly: stop drowning other people out.”

Quite.

Worse than what happened today (Thursday, July 6, 2023) is the fact that Starmer has form in cold-shouldering young people from Green New Deal.

Remember this, from a recent Labour Party Conference?

Put it all together and not only do you know for sure that Rishi Sunak isn’t the only leader of a UK political party who is “simply uninterested” in the environment – Starmer couldn’t care less either…

But you can also be sure that, for all his own speechifying, he really doesn’t want anybody to be allowed – let alone able – to speak for themselves.


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If RCN nurses are getting a pay deal they don’t support, what will it mean for their strike?

Steve Barclay: ask him to use any of the equipment behind him and he couldn’t. He’s only useful for punishing the people who can.

Is Steve Barclay trying to outflank the Royal College of Nursing?

It seems that, after talks with 14 health unions, he is going to impose a pay deal on more than a million NHS workers including ambulance workers, nurses, physios and porters,

The deal is a five per cent pay rise plus a one-off payment of at least ÂŁ1,655 which This Writer understands is to raise overall pay for the last (2022-23) financial year.

From the way it’s being presented, the deal is also being imposed on the three unions that haven’t accepted it – including Unite (which has a limited mandate for strike action) and the RCN (which needs to ballot for more).

This leads to an obvious question:

What if the RCN (or the others) strike again and win a better deal?

Won’t that upset members of the other unions?

And isn’t that what Steve Barclay wants?

Tory philosophy can be summed up with the words “divide and rule”.

I reckon he’s hoping that the RCN – and the others – will be discouraged from going further by the possibility of losing solidarity with the other unions – or if they go ahead, strike, and get a better deal, the other unions will turn their collective back on them.

And that will probably mess up any collective action in the future, meaning the Tories can bully these unions to their hearts’ content.

It’s vile, verminous behaviour from a government that owes any credibility it kept during the Covid-19 crisis to the dedication of these professionals.

Each one of the staff who are now to receive a derogatory pay cut (in the face of higher-than 10 per cent inflation) is worth far, far more to the nation than Steve Barclay.

But, of course, in backwards Britain, the rewards are reversed:

There is a simple way out of the dilemma Barclay has set.

It is to remember that Steve Barclay is creating any problems – not the unions, their members or their leaders.

And one more thing, for people in England and Northern Ireland:

A vote against the Conservatives (and/or their allies) during the local elections on Thursday is a vote in support of the health unions.


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Rwanda refugee deal is reciprocal: the UK should take people from there. But will it?

Suella Braverman in Rwanda: she can send people there, but if that country’s government invokes the part of the deal in which it sends people to the UK, it seems she’ll renege on it.

It’s good to know that Suella Braverman will lie in the face of the facts during a TV interview when she is confronted with them.

BBC reporters have examined the deal by which the UK gets to send refugees to Rwanda, and it is reciprocal; Rwanda will be able to send people to this country in return.

But when Braverman – who is the UK’s Home Secretary, remember – was confronted with this, she flatly denied that it would happen:

Notice that she didn’t say it wasn’t a part of the deal.

It seems likely, therefore, that the UK will renege on the deal, should Rwanda try to invoke that part of it.

What then? An international incident?


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As the ERG prepares to vote against Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland deal, its hypocrisy is exposed

Jacob Rees-Mogg: try not to throw up on your screen – it’s only a satirical comment on his rabid nationalism.

This is embarrassing for Jacob Rees-Mogg and all his European Research Group (ERG) colleagues who are about to vote against Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’.

It’s just an improved update of the Northern Ireland Protocol that they all supported to the hilt when Boris Johnson brought it, “oven-ready”, to Parliament.

Have a gander at this video clip in which Peter Stefanovic exposes the hypocrisy:

The ERG was set to vote with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party against the ‘Stormont Brake’ aspect of the ‘Windsor Framework’ today.

Doesn’t it seem clear that this decision is a political move – probably intended to destabilise Rishi Sunak in preparation for a possible return by Boris Johnson?


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Democratic Unionists will vote against Rishi Sunak’s new Northern Ireland deal. Why?

No entry: are the Democratic Unionists opoposing Rishi Sunak’s new Northern Ireland deal because they don’t want to return to the Stormont Assembly as only the second-largest party?

Do we believe the Democratic Unionists when they say they won’t support Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’ trade deal for Northern Ireland and the European Union because they have “ongoing concerns”?

Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the party would continue to assess the deal, but that “we don’t believe that this represents the significant progress that we need to see in order to have the institutions restored at this point”:

“There remain for us concerns, for example, and the Stormont Brake deals with the application of EU law in Northern Ireland, but it doesn’t address how are we dealing with change to UK law, which could impact on NI’s ability to trade within the United Kingdom itself.”

He said he wanted to ensure “what the prime minister is claiming is translated into law”.

“Our seven tests have not yet been met. Sufficient progress has not yet been made. I am determined to continue engaging with the government and to get this right,” he added.

Some have doubts…

… and I am among them. The comment triggered an interesting (if short) discussion:

What do you think?


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Boris Johnson comments on Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland deal

We were told Boris Johnsons would criticise parts of Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’ for Northern Ireland but would not oppose it outright.

We were told he had significant concerns and stood by his warning that the Government should keep the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in place, and get rid of all legislation covering the movement of goods across EU borders.

And what did he say?

Here he is, speaking at a Global Soft Power summit:


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Has the DUP been outmanoeuvred by Rishi Sunak and his ‘Windsor Framework’?

Well, they didn’t get what they wanted.

The Democratic Unionist Party wanted the removal of all borders between Northern Ireland and both Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, and that hasn’t happened (although border controls have been lifted to a very great extent).

They wanted the removal of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which has happened – but they didn’t want it to be replaced by a new system called the ‘Windsor Framework’.

The green and red lanes were proposed by the European Commission in 2021 and rejected by the UK government of the day. Now they’ve been revived as a panacea by Sunak.

But the real kicker for the DUP is that Sunak has said the Northern Ireland Assembly will decide whether the ‘Windsor Framework’ should be supported, next year.

This means, I think, that if the DUP wishes to oppose it, there needs to be a functioning Assembly – if that party continues to refuse to take up its seats there, stopping it from working, then government of Northern Ireland goes back to Westminster, which will support the new deal.

Either way, it seems the DUP is checkmated because the Assembly will probably back it.

But with no advantage in going back, and an opportunity to snub Sinn Fein by refusing, what do you think the DUP will do?

Here’s Maximilien Robespierre to explain in greater detail:


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