Pressure on Downing Street to release evidence in collapsed China spy case
Downing Street is under pressure to publish its evidence in the collapsed China spy case after the Crown Prosecution Service denied having blocked its release, Emine Sinmaz reports.
Good morning. In a much-praised FT column yesterday, Stephen Bush argued that one problem facing the Conservatives today is that “an essential condition for entry into the upper echelons of [the party] is being willing to at least pretend that you think taking Britain out of the EU was a good idea”. As Bush memorably put it, “this is a never-ending lobotomy for the Tories”.
But, to a much lesser extent, Labour has also had a problem with Brexit truth telling. At the last election Keir Starmer knew that he would only win with the support of people who voted to leave the EU in 2016 and as a result Labour avoided any language on Brexit that implied that this group might have been wrong.
Gradually that is changing and at the weekend the Times ran a story saying that Starmer and Rachel Reeves plan to make the argument that, with a downgrade in productivity forecasts set to necessitate huge tax rises in the budget, this will be at least in part due to Brexit. In their story Steven Swinford and Oliver Wright said:
Starmer and Reeves are expected to argue that, if it hadn’t been for Brexit, this type of downgrade would not have been needed, and to cite official figures suggesting that if Britain had not left the European Union the economy would be about £120bn bigger by 2035 than current forecasts suggest it will be.
The message is simple: [Nigel] Farage is ultimately to blame as the man who delivered Brexit with “easy sloganeering” then walked away from the aftermath rather than putting in the hard yards. Or, to put it another way: Farage, not us, is responsible for putting up your taxes.
Referring to the story, Wes Steeting, the health secretary, told a book festival at the weekend: “I’m glad that Brexit is a problem whose name we now dare speak.”
This morning Sky News has broadcast an interview with Reeves, who will be in Washington today for IMF and World Bank meetings, and Sam Coates asked her if it was true that the government is now blaming Brexit for the anaemic productivity figures that have led to the Office for Budget Responsibility warning Reeves she will have to raise more tax. Reeves replied:
Austerity, Brexit, and the ongoing impact of Liz Truss’s mini-budget, all of those things have weighed heavily on the UK economy. Already, people thought that the UK economy would be 4% smaller because of Brexit. Now, of course, we are undoing some of that damage by the deal that we did with the EU earlier this year … but there is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long lasting and that’s why we are trying to do trade deals around the world, US, India, but most importantly with the EU.
“Severe and long lasting” is stronger than the language that Reeves normally uses when talking about the negative impact of Brexit. The Times were probably onto something.
In the interview Reeves also confirmed that tax rises are coming in the budget. (Asked if tax rises were coming down the track, she replied yes before swiftly moving on.) Perhaps more surprisingly, she also implied she is looking at potential spending cuts. “Of course, we’re looking at tax and spending as well,” she said at another point.
Graeme Wearden has more on Reeves at the IMF on his business live blog.
Will the Reeves interview come up at PMQs? Probably not. Instead, Kemi Badenoch is likely to challenge Starmer over the collapse of the China spy prosecution. With the CPS now saying it has no objection to the release of the three witness statements the government prepared ahead of the trail, Starmer is under pressure to either publish them – or come up with a decent reason why he can’t.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10.30am: The high court starts hearing a claim by Epping Forest council saying the Bell hotel in Epping should not be used to house asylum seekers. (This is the main case; legal action earlier this year only focused on the narrow issue of whether asylum seekers should be allowed to stay in the hotel, or have to leave, before the main hearing.)
Morning: Ruslan Stefanchuk, chair of the Ukrainian parliament (their equivalent of the Speaker), gives a speech to MPs and peers, before attending PMQs.
Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
Afternoon (UK time): Rachel Reeves is in Washington for IMF meetings where she is expected to speak to the media.
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