United Kingdom

    Boris Johnson is poised to make a potentially explosive resignation statement to MPs, nine days after quitting as Foreign Secretary. Many MPs believe it could be as spectacular and dramatic as that of Sir Geoffrey Howe in 1990, which brought about the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. Mr Johnson was spotting approaching the Chair and seeking the permission of the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, during one of the votes on the Government's latest Brexit legislation, the Trade Bill. He has opted to make a formal resignation statement, as he is entitled to do under parliamentary convention, rather than speak in a Commons debate, as David Davis who also quit the Cabinet over Brexit chose to do on Monday. That way, again according to Parliamentary convention, the former fore...

    British military personnel could be prosecuted for killing civilians in drone strikes and risk becoming complicit in alleged war crimes committed by the US, an inquiry has found. A two-year probe by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones revealed that the number of operations facilitated by the UK in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia has been growing without any public scrutiny. As well as launching its own strikes, the Ministry of Defence is assisting operations by the US and other allies that could violate both national and international law, it said. Professor Michael Clarke, chair of the parliamentary drones group, said the UK was working with countries including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar that do not work on standard Nato rule...

    Theresa May could be seriously damaged by a defeat Theresa May is set to mount a dramatic climbdown over her Brexit plan to avoid an embarrassing defeat at the hand of a powerful group of Brexiteers. The government may adopt a series of amendments to the customs bill put forward by Jacob Rees-Mogg which are designed to impose strict conditions on the PM in negotiations with the EU. It comes after Theresa May produced a plan which would keep the UK closely tied to Brussels' rules on goods and food. The amendments are backed by arch-Eurosceptics including Jacob Rees-Mogg, Sir Bernard Jenkin, Priti Patel and Iain Duncan Smith who are furious at the Chequers plan. Sir Bernard Jenkin told the World at One the Chequers plan was dead, with opposition from both wings of t...

    The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, has unveiled plans for a new RAF fighter jet, the Tempest, which will eventually replace the Eurofighter Typhoon. Speaking at the Farnborough airshow, Williamson unveiled a model of the sixth-generation fighter jet the Ministry of Defence (MoD) expects to emerge from its new combat air strategy, designed to maintain the UK’s status as a so-called tier one military power after Brexit. This is a strategy to keep control of the air, both at home and abroad, to remain a global leader in the sector, Williamson said. He said he wanted the Tempest to be flying alongside the existing fleet of Typhoons and the US-made F-35s by 2035. The government said it would spend £2bn to develop the aircraft between now and 2025, using money set...

    The number of immigrants moving from the European Union to Britain fell by a quarter to a five-year low last year. According to the first data for a full calendar year since the Brexit vote an estimated 101,000 more people arrived in the UK from the bloc than left in 2017. It is the lowest for any 12-month period since the year to March 2013, when it stood at 95,000. Overall net long-term migration, including arrivals and departures of non-EU nationals, was about 282,000 in 2017. The figure was up by 33,000 on the year before, but statisticians attributed the rise to an unusual pattern in estimates of non-EU student immigration for 2016 which research indicates was an anomaly. Nicola White, of the ONS's Migration Statistics Division, said: With around 280,000 mor...

    US President Donald Trump has revealed details of his conversation with the Queen and hailed the 92-year-old monarch an incredible woman in a bombshell interview with Piers Morgan. Mr Trump met with the Queen on Friday at Windsor Castle as part of his working visit to the UK. He told Piers Morgan during an interview on Air Force One, that the Queen had described Brexit as a complex problem before adding that he thought she is an incredible woman. She is so sharp, she is so beautiful, when I say beautiful inside and out. That is a beautiful woman. Following his UK visit, the president is now preparing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He confessed to Mr Morgan, in the interview for Good Morning Britain, that although he didn't know Putin well, he thou...

    British Prime Minister Theresa May has warned there may be ‘no Brexit at all’ because of attempts to wreck her controversial blueprint for Britain’s departure from the European Union. She claims that rival Commons revolts by warring pro- and anti-Europe Tory MPs threaten to sabotage hopes of winning a post-Brexit deal for Britain. And in a hard-hitting message to Brussels, the Prime Minister says she will not budge an inch on the proposed Brexit deal she agreed with Cabinet Ministers at her Chequers summit. Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, Mrs May dramatically raises the stakes in her bid to win support for her proposal to make a success of leaving the EU. Her fighting talk comes after US President Donald Trump enraged Downing Street last week by claiming that Mr...

    Schools that unofficially exclude children to hide them from exam league tables are fuelling gang violence, the children’s commissioner for England says. Anne Longfield said she has begun an investigation into the practice of taking children off-roll without formally excluding them because they are viewed as difficult to manage and may drag down the school’s results. The office of the commissioner, an independent position backed by statute, is conducting an urgent analysis of confidential government data, including exclusions and police records, to establish how many off-roll children are drawn into gangs. Longfield said it was vital for the government to give clearer advice to schools on handling children at risk of joining gangs, after receiving a letter from a M...

    The grieving son of Amesbury Novichok victim Dawn Sturgess has called on Donald Trump to raise his mother’s death with Vladimir Putin. The US president, who is on the last day of his visit to the UK, is due to meet the Russian leader in Helsinki on Monday. Ewan Hope, 19, said he wants his mother’s killer, or killers, to get what they deserve. I don’t share Donald Trump’s politics and I’ll never be a supporter of his, but I would like him to raise mum’s case with the Russian president, he told the Sunday Mirror. We need to get justice for my mum. The Government has blamed Russia for the failed nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March. Ms Sturgess, 44, and her partner Charlie Rowley fell ill in Amesbury,...

    Like a desiccated woman who is crawling across a scorching desert and thinks she has spotted a source of moisture, for a brief moment Theresa May tasted the sweet tang of relief from her miseries. She had about 72 hours of experiencing what it feels like to be a prime minister who is in control. This time last week, she had launched her Brexit plan and it had not instantly exploded on takeoff. EU leaders gave the blueprint a polite, if highly guarded, reception. No one flounced out of the Chequers meeting, saying they could no longer sit in her cabinet. Even critics expressed some backhanded praise for the way in which Mrs May choreographed the corralling of her ministers. Opponents revived the old charge, an accusation not heard against her since she blew last yea...