Boris Johnson has declared the new year “an amazing moment for this country,” in a message broadcast as the UK completed its departure from the European Union and most of Britain hunkered down at home under coronavirus restrictions. The prime minister, who was seeing in the new year with his immediate family at No 10, said he was...
The sharing of vital crime-fighting data will be “slower and more clunky” under Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, a former national security adviser has warned. And even the limited agreement reached with the EU will be ripped up if the UK ever pulls out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the full document reveals. Peter Ricketts, the security chief...
The infamous spy died at the age of 98, Russia announced this morning. Blake, who was born George Behar, has been in Russia since he escaped Wormwood Scrubs prison and fled the country in 1966. Rotterdam-born Blake was a British spy who was in fact a Soviet double-agent during the Cold War. He had become...
More than 1,300 households have been urged by police to evacuate their homes due to a risk of flooding in parts of Bedfordshire as large swaths of the UK brace themselves for Storm Bella. Torrential rain has brought widespread flooding to the country, with people having to be rescued from vehicles and others evacuated from...
Two members of a people-smuggling ring are facing life in jail after being found guilty of the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese migrants. Romanian ringleader Gheorghe Nica, 43, and lorry driver Eamonn Harrison, 24, were convicted of 39 counts of manslaughter on Monday following a 10-week trial. Their victims, aged between 15 and 44, suffocated in...
The Scottish politician, broadcaster and writer tweeted: “When Netherlands, Belgium, and France folded like a cheap tent before Hitler’s Blitzkreig we were for a time left standing alone. The Fascists were at the Channel Ports and the founders of the SNP were collaborating with the enemy. London’s burning I don’t care’ wrote their Poet.” Scottish poet...
Downing Street has rejected calls from some Conservative MPs and the mayor of London to consider extending Brexit talks beyond the new year, saying any trade deal had to be in place and approved before 31 December. Boris Johnson’s spokesman also dismissed the idea of allowing MPs to ratify a trade deal retrospectively as time was too...
Culture Minister John Whittingdale warned that the broadcaster may require different sources of income. He said the licence model is guaranteed until 2027 explaining that the “justification that everybody benefits from paying it because everybody benefited from the BBC is still largely the case, but that will diminish over time”. He said: “I suspect that...
Brexit trade talks are yet to reach a formal agreement as disagreements over fishing and regulation remain a sticking point between the UK and the EU. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today that there is a “path to an agreement”, but this has not come without tension between the UK and France. Last week...
Defence secretary Ben Wallace has said he will “miss” Donald Trump as the US president has been “quite a good friend” to the British government. The minister praised the outgoing US leader, who has repeatedly refused to admit defeat to president-elect Joe Biden, during a visit to British troops in Estonia. “I’ll miss Donald Trump, because he was quite a good...