Politics

PM visits Kyiv to agree partnership and says Putin shows no signs of wanting to stop ‘unrelenting aggression’

Keir Starmer has announced a “historic” 100-year partnership with Ukraine, saying the UK would support the country “beyond this terrible war” and into a future where it is “free and thriving again”.

Speaking during his first trip to Kyiv as prime minister, Starmer said the unprecedented agreement reflected the “huge affection between our two countries”. He added that “right now Putin shows no signs of wanting to stop” his “unrelenting aggression”.

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Future of Diego Garcia military base should be considered before handover to Mauritius signed off, No 10 says

• UK politics live – latest updates

The UK government will not sign off a deal to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius until Donald Trump’s administration has had a chance to consider the future of the joint military base, Downing Street has confirmed.

Allies of the US president-elect have been critical of the deal because of the implications for the strategically important Diego Garcia base, with concerns that it could bolster Chinese interests in the Indian Ocean.

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Diplomats have advised the UK prime minister to have a face-saving response just in case he comes low down on the list at the inauguration

Donald Trump may invite ­populist rightwing leaders from Europe such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán to the White House before Keir Starmer, senior UK ­diplomats believe.

Downing Street and the Foreign Office are eagerly pressing for the prime minister to be at the head of the traditional “beauty parade” of overseas leaders who are called to see the new president in the days after the inauguration on 20 January. Representations are being made via the UK embassy in Washington.

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Ex-security minister says assassination ordered by Trump set off chain of events that led to revolution in Syria

Donald Trump’s decision to sanction the assassination of an elite Iranian commander triggered a chain of events that has revealed Iran as a paper tiger and led to the overthrow of Basher al-Assad, a former UK security minister has said.

Tom Tugendhat, now on the Conservative backbenches and intending to focus on foreign policy, also predicted the Iranian regime would collapse in a few years. He said that if handled properly, Syria could become the economic powerhouse of the Middle East within a decade.

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Embassy claims some UK politicians have ‘twisted mentality towards China’ and are trying to smear it

• UK politics live – latest updates

The Chinese embassy in London has accused some UK parliamentarians of having a “twisted mentality towards China”, after the identity of a businessman accused of being a spy was revealed on Monday.

A Chinese embassy spokesperson said on Tuesday that “anti-China clamours” were an attempt to “smear China, target against the Chinese community in the UK and undermine normal personnel exchanges between China and the UK”.

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UK ministers face pressure over Chinese spy scandal as MPs consider naming banned businessman

An alleged Chinese spy who forged a close relationship with Prince Andrew is just “the tip of the iceberg” of Beijing’s attempts to infiltrate the UK, a leading China-sceptic MP has said.

Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, who is seeking an urgent Commons question on Monday to quiz ministers about the issue, said Keir Starmer’s efforts to create better links with Beijing had involved the UK “showing a massive amount of weakness to China”.

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UK home secretary stressed need for economic co-operation, against backdrop of royal revelations

The UK home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has admitted the government has a “complex arrangement” with China because of the need for economic co-operation, against the backdrop of the exclusion of an alleged Chinese spy with links to Prince Andrew.

The man – who was banned from Britain by the government on national security grounds – was invited to Andrew’s birthday party and visited Buckingham Palace twice as well as St James’s Palace and Windsor Castle at the invitation of Andrew, according to the Times.

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Observer investigation into London school has sparked an inquiry into allegations that teachers harmed mental wellbeing of children

A school in one of England’s leading academy trusts is to face an independent safeguarding review after an Observer investigation exposed allegations of emotional abuse of children over two decades.

After an emergency multi-agency meeting on Tuesday, Jim Gamble, the independent child safeguarding commissioner for Hackney in east London, confirmed on Friday that he had launched a local child safeguarding practice review – normally reserved for serious individual cases of child abuse or neglect – into Mossbourne Victoria Park academy (MVPA).

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Europe-wide polling finds UK and EU leaders now out of step with public opinion and pursue ‘ambitious reset’

A majority of Britons who voted to leave the EU would now accept a return to free movement in exchange for access to the single market, according to a cross-Europe study that also found a reciprocal desire in member states for closer links with the UK.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s election as US president had “fundamentally changed the context” of EU-UK relations, the report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank said.

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