“After Brexit, Boris Johnson’s government hailed the UK as an independent actor on the global stage. The pullout from Afghanistan, where among allies the UK was the biggest contributor to the US-led mission, has revealed its utter dependence on Washington.”
“Johnson set out his vaulting ambitions in integrated review of for & def policy. Free of European straitjacket, ‘Global Britain’ would rediscover the world. Policy would tilt towards Indo-Pac..navy’s new aircraft carrier, the Queen Elizabeth, would be dispatched to S China Sea”
“On close inspection it turned out that new ventures in cyber space would be paid for by downsizing the army and cutting back the Royal Air Force. Europe, unavoidably at the heart of the UK’s security interests, barely received a mention.”
“Estrangement from Europe leaves Atlanticism as the only option. Where was ‘Global Britain’ on the streets of Kabul, Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May asked scornfully, as the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital?”
“Johnson, deeply mistrusted in Berlin, Paris, Rome & Bxl & visibly disregarded in Washington, now finds himself standing, arms flailing, on a bridge to nowhere. Britain’s standing in the world is by no means beyond repair but the task of restoring it will fall to a future PM.”

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More from @SarahLudford

1 Sep
“There is mounting anxiety in the UK legal profession that respect for the rule of law in this country is declining. The current climate and legislation due to be considered in the forthcoming parliamentary term are cause for serious concern.”
“ministers and sections of the media have derided judges as ‘enemies of the people’ & lawyers as leftwing ‘activists’. It is dangerous for government, in particular, to attack legal professionals for just doing their jobs, & to do so undermines the framework of laws made by parl”
“New leg threatens to chip away further at the system’s checks & balances. The JR & courts bill may set precedent for govt to remove its own actions from scope of legal challenges, & we have yet to see promised proposals for the HRA, which so many rely on to protect their rights”
Read 4 tweets
16 Aug
According to @nicholaswatt on @BBCNewsnight, Johnson has promised a ‘bespoke scheme’ for Afghan refugees ‘in the next few days’.
No hurry, mate, take your time.
I really don’t understand why there was no evacuation plan ready-prepared as a contingency.
I stress, for the sake of some today who have sneered at my tweets, that I am expressing no view whatsoever on the foreign policy, military or strategic decisions around the AFG withdrawal. All I am focussing on is how to save lives in the situation that now exists.
Apparently Raab is now saying that we’ll learn about their ‘bespoke’ scheme ‘in due course’.
For God’s sake, man, Afghans don’t have the luxury of waiting
Read 4 tweets
17 Jul
.@NickCohen4:
“I have spoken to many Conservative sources who are concerned about the way their party is heading and equally concerned that the security services are evading their responsibilities…Observer tried to talk to MI5 but, perhaps inevitably, it didn’t answer our qu’s”
“Russia & China want to influence Brit politics. One way to do it is to give money to ruling party & run front orgs. In 2010s, Sergey Nalobin of Russian embassy set up Conservative Friends of Russia. In 2015, his diplomatic visa was revoked after the security services intervened”
“Such is the decadence of the Johnson regime, no one expects anything of it. Johnson has rich men pay for his holidays, his decorators and even the food on his plate. To say he is up for sale is to understate the case against him. He has already been bought.”
Read 4 tweets
10 Jul
“Southern was not alone..Environment Agency data for 2020 showed water companies discharged raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters in England more than 400,000 times, up 37% on the previous year.” theguardian.com/business/2021/…
“Thatcher’s govt wiped out the industry’s debts prior to privatisation; since 1989 the industry has loaded it back up again with £48bn.
Research….found that the debt was not used to fix leaky pipes or treatment works but went straight into shareholders’ pockets.”
“shareholder divs since 1989 reached total of £57bn. In that time, customers’ water bills have increased by 40% above rate of inflation. It is the water users who have paid for upgrades to network, such as they are, while shareholders walk off with cash paid for by higher debt”
Read 4 tweets
9 Jul
“many scientists & health experts have angrily challenged the govt’s argument:
‘The world is looking at us with disbelief - a country with some of the best universities & minds acting with arrogance’ says Ravi Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge university.”
“The proposed end of compulsory mask wearing on public transport and in crowded indoor spaces has attracted the strongest criticism. Gupta says:
‘It defies logic and it’s criminal frankly. There will be unnecessary deaths as a direct result of that’.”
“clinical psychologist Julia Faulconbridge:
‘Long Covid is a serious problem, with 10-20% of people, including children, who catch the virus suffering illness, disability & psycholog problems for months & that appears to have been completely neglected in [govt’s] announcement’.”
Read 5 tweets
6 Jun
“Compounding the ill-feeling is the belief that while the Commission, according to officials, is working flat out to find flexibilities, the UK is either dragging its feet on implementing the Protocol, or publicly criticising the EU’s interpretation of it.”
“The UK pushed for the EU to agree an equivalence deal, whereby UK food standards are accepted as similar to EU ones…the EU rejected this, arguing that the UK had pledged to diverge from EU standards”
“Instead, EU has urged UK to consider SPS agreement, aligning with EU’s food safety & animal health rules, even temporarily, in order to do away with 80% of checks on the Irish Sea. London has refused to consider this.”

So Johnson is prioritising chlorinated chicken over NI
Read 7 tweets

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