General Sir Patrick Sanders, who took over on Monday from General Sir Mark Carleton Smith as the professional head of the Army, said his “singular duty” would be to “make our Army as lethal and effective as it can be.”

He told troops in a message: “We are the generation that must prepare the Army to fight in Europe once again. There is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle.

“I am the first Chief of the General Staff since 1941 to take command of the Army in the shadow of a land war in Europe involving a continental power. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines our core purpose – to protect the UK by being ready to fight and win wars on land.”

The Government set out plans last year to reduce the size of the regular Army, lowering the target size from 82,000 personnel to 72,500 by 2025.

It comes after the Prime Minister returned from Ukraine with a warning that “we need to steel ourselves for a long war”.

After visiting Kyiv, Boris Johnson said Vladimir Putin’s invasion is “entering a new phase” and if Russian advances are successful he “would not stop at dismembering Ukraine”.

Writing in The Times, Mr Johnson said: “I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war, as Putin resorts to a campaign of attrition, trying to grind down Ukraine by sheer brutality.

“The UK and our friends must respond by ensuring that Ukraine has the strategic endurance to survive and eventually prevail.”

“Everything will depend on whether Ukraine can strengthen its ability to defend its soil faster than Russia can renew its capacity to attack,” he added.

“Our task is to enlist time on Ukraine’s side.”

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/british-troops-must-prepare-to-fight-in-europe-once-again-says-new-army-chief/ar-AAYD9Vv?ocid=uxbndlbing

The post British troops must prepare ‘to fight in Europe once again’ says new Army chief first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Today is the day the mainstream has been dreading.  In actual fact, the abortion issue has been handed back to the states.  The 1973 ruling was invalidated as a matter of law.  The idea that the U. S. Constitution handed some sacred “right” to women was a fantastic reach in the first place.  Finally, nearly 50 years later, it’s been overturned.  Some “crowds” (to be charitable) have been parading, banging drums and chanting in front of the homes of Supreme Court Justices.  Who are these people?  Are they wearing masks outdoors for fear of COVID, or to hide their identities?

If the hard left gets its way, there will be all kinds of mayhem.  Nobody seems interested in prosecuting those trying to influence the decision, a crime though it may be.  They seem to be doing the dirty work we were promised.  Will it set off riots?  Maybe looting and burning?

It’s Trump’s fault, of course.  Him and his ultra-maga supporters.  Biden is mad,  Maxine Waters says they’re going to be out protesting in their thousands, or millions.  “We are going to make sure we fight for the right to control our own bodies.”  (Where was she during the mask mandate?)  They’ll defy the Supreme Court.  How, other than causing a ruckus, we’ll see.

Obama says the court has curtailed our freedoms.  Michelle is heartbroken.  It is a “horrifying decision.”  They’re both calling on people to join protests and give Planned Parenthood support.  The Justice Dept. says it will “use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom.”  It’s hard to know what that means, but the weeks ahead should give us some idea.   AOC is shown with her mouth wide open, talking about “birthing people” and  chanting with protesters.  I guess this is supposed to let us know she thinks men can get pregnant.  But sure enough, some states are announcing that abortion is illegal, as of today.

World leaders are appalled.  Especially Justin Trudeau of Canada.  He’s horrified and can’t imagine the fear and anger that it will cause.  Even Boris Johnson is bent out of shape.  Just when the whole world was seeing the light and liberalizing laws governing abortion.

It’s the second time this week they’ve seen the court rule against their  beloved philosophy.  First it struck down New York’s gun law.  So they were already ticked.  The abortion ruling though, just might drive them over the edge.  The police caught a guy who said he’d come to “kill Kavanaugh.”  No big deal, according to the mainstream media.  Hardly worth reporting.  But all bets are off as we wait to see how crazy the protesters will get.  This may well justify riots and looting.  Even if the rioters and looters don’t know what they’re mad about.  Riot police are staging outside the Supreme Court, just in case.  But not everybody is down in the dumps.  Some are celebrating.  Trump says to God be the glory.

What ever happened to Ukraine?  It’s not in the news much lately.  The last thing we heard was that we were going to send billions of dollars and more.  Apparently Russia has had to call in troops that were stationed in other hot spots.  Some are worried that this thing may drag on and that other countries may get involved causing an escalation that may get out of control.  We hope they’re wrong.

Meanwhile UN officials are warning of food shortages.  The pope is hinting at resignation.  Maybe he’s done enough damage.  The American economy is reeling from inflation being driven by the  pretend administration’s war on oil.  They want you to know there’s nothing more they can do.  But at least something’s gone right today.    Have a great Sabbath.

Mark

P.S. The new Feast brochures are printed and will be going out with the next letter, probably Monday or Tuesday.

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 24 June 2022 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Conservatives saw a majority of 24,000, or 40.6%, in the Devon seat of Tiverton and Honiton evaporate – a record reverse for the party – as the Liberal Democrats triumphed.

In Wakefield, the Red Wall constituency in West Yorkshire snatched by the Conservatives in 2019, it was Labour that took victory.

Politics Hub: Reaction to Boris Johnson’s humiliating double by-election blow

It was the second electoral mauling for the PM this year after the Tories lost nearly 500 council seats at the start of last month.

Mr. Johnson has been under pressure over the partygate scandal as well as the cost of living crisis squeezing British household budgets.

That pressure intensified when a no-confidence vote saw 148 Conservative MPs oppose him.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “Wakefield has shown the country has lost confidence in the Tories.

“This result is a clear judgement on a Conservative Party that has run out of energy and ideas.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “The Liberal Democrats have made political history with this stunning win.

“This should be a wake-up call for all those Conservative MPs propping up Boris Johnson. They cannot afford to ignore this result.

“The public is sick of Boris Johnson’s lies and law-breaking and it’s time for Conservative MPs to finally do the right thing and sack him.”

Mr. Johnson, who is attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Rwanda, said ahead of the by-elections that he would be “watching the results with interest” while adding that “by-elections in mid-term are never necessarily easy for any government”.

He suggested it would be “crazy” for him to quit if she lost the two seats.

The by-elections, both in leave-voting constituencies, took place on the sixth anniversary of the Brexit referendum.

They were each triggered by the resignations of Conservative MPs: in Tiverton and Honiton, Neil Parish quit after he admitted to watching pornography on his mobile phone in the Commons chamber; in Wakefield, Imran Ahmad Khan stepped down after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.

It became apparent soon after polls closed that it would be a bad night for the Tories.

Luke Hall, the party’s deputy chair, told Sky News it had been a “challenging campaign” and pointed to the impact of divisions laid bare by the confidence vote.

“I certainly would accept that disunity in political parties means parties do not win elections,” he said.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/double-blow-for-boris-johnson-as-tories-plunge-to-two-by-election-defeats-12639472

The post Double blow for Boris Johnson as Tories plunge to two by-election defeats first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The proposed bill seeks to remove customs checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. That will override parts of the trade treaty that Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed with the European Union less than two years ago.

Britain’s government maintained its move is justified under international law because of the “genuinely exceptional situation,” and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss blamed the EU for blocking a negotiated settlement. The European Commission said it could take legal action against the U.K.

Existing trade rules “provide business operators in Northern Ireland with access to the EU single market for goods. The U.K. government’s approach puts this access — and related opportunities — at risk,” said European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic.

In Ireland, Prime Minister Micheal Martin said it was “very regrettable for a country like the U.K. to renege on an international treaty.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz echoed the sentiment, saying there was “no reason” for the U.K. to make such a move.

“It’s a rejection of all the agreements we reached between the European Union and Great Britain,” Scholz said. “The European Union will react to this as one and it has the whole toolbox at its disposal.”

Brushing aside criticism, Johnson told reporters that the proposed change is “relatively simple to do.”

“Frankly, it’s a relatively trivial set of adjustments in the grand scheme of things,” he told LBC Radio.

He argued that his government’s “higher and prior legal commitment” is to the 1998 Good Friday agreement that brought peace and stability to Northern Ireland.

Arrangements for Northern Ireland — the only part of the U.K. that shares a land border with an EU nation — have proved the thorniest issue in Britain’s divorce from the bloc, which became final at the end of 2020. At the center of the dispute is the Northern Ireland Protocol, which now regulates trade ties between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland, part of the EU.

Britain and the EU agreed in their Brexit deal that the Irish land border would be kept free of customs posts and other checks because an open border is a key pillar of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Instead, to protect the EU’s single market, there are checks on some goods, such as meat and eggs, entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.

But the arrangement has proved politically damaging for Johnson because it treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party has refused to return to the region’s power-sharing government until the protocol is scrapped or substantially changed.

The bill to override that arrangement is expected to face opposition in Parliament, including from members of Johnson’s own Conservative ranks. Critics say unilaterally changing the protocol would be illegal and would damage Britain’s standing with other countries because it’s part of a treaty considered binding under international law.

In Brussels, Sefcovic said the protocol was the “one and only solution we could jointly find to protect the hard-earned gains of the peace process in Northern Ireland.”

He added that the EU remains open to discussions with the British government to find a solution to the dispute.

Associated Press writers Samuel Petrequin in Brussels and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/uk-moves-to-rewrite-brexit-trade-rules-around-northern-ireland-eu-threatens-legal-action

The post UK moves to rewrite Brexit trade rules around Northern Ireland; EU threatens legal action first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Boris Johnson will today set out his vision for lower-paid workers to be able to use housing benefits to buy their homes and an extension of the right to buy for housing association tenants.

The Prime Minister is expected to confirm the plans in a speech on Thursday as he moves on from a bruising Tory revolt against his leadership earlier this week.

It is hoped the pledges will help people on lower incomes onto the property ladder and will please rebel MPs and voters who are struggling amid the cost of living crisis.

The moves will form part of a plan by Mr. Johnson to reassert his authority after surviving a confidence vote on Monday, despite the revolt by 41% of his MPs.

What is the government’s new housing plan?

It is understood that Mr. Johnson’s speech will set out plans to allow low-paid workers to use housing benefits to secure and pay for mortgages, and will give tenants of housing association properties the right to buy their homes.

Mr Johnson will argue that £30 billion in housing benefit currently spent on rent could be better used to help people secure and pay for mortgages, according to the Times.

However, the newspaper said the vision to give millions the ability to buy their social properties at discounts of up to 70% is likely to be limited to a series of pilots for now, without additional government funding.

The Prime Minister will also commit to detail “reforms to help people cut costs in every area of household expenditure” over the coming weeks as he seeks to ease the impact of soaring prices.

In his speech in Lancashire, Mr. Johnson is set to say: “We have the tools we need to get on top of rising prices.

“The global headwinds are strong, but our engines are stronger. And, while it’s not going to be quick or easy, you can be confident that things will get better, that we will emerge from this a strong country with a healthy economy.”

What is the Right to Buy scheme and who is eligible?

The current Right to Buy scheme in England allows council tenants to buy their homes at a discount.

You can apply to buy your council home if:

it is your only or main home
it is self-contained
you are a secure tenant
you have had a public sector landlord for three years
If your home used to be owned by the council, but they sold it to another landlord (like a housing association) while you were living in it, you may also have the Right to Buy.

The government has an online eligibility checker on the Own Your Home website so tenants can check if they can apply.

Rules differ for those who live in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

What else is known about the housing plans?

Cabinet minister Michael Gove said there will be a “cap” on the number of people who can take advantage of the government’s new housing scheme.

When asked what the limit would be, he said: “That’s something I will be discussing with housing associations.”

Speaking on Sky News, he added: “We’re looking specifically at a savings vehicle that people can use in order to save for that deposit.

“Because home ownership is not just good for individuals, it’s good for society overall.

“We want people to have a stake in the future, we want people to be able to invest in their own home, we want people to have somewhere safe and secure, warm and decent, in which they can raise their children.”

Mr. Gove added that the government will ensure there are new houses to replace those bought by lower-paid workers under the plans.

He explained: “When new homes are built for sale by the big housing companies, we will extract some of the money that they make and some of that money will be set aside explicitly to make sure that there is more affordable housing or council housing for people who need it.”

Source: https://www.nationalworld.com/news/politics/right-to-buy-housing-benefits-plan-3725265

The post What is Right to Buy? Boris Johnson’s plan to extend scheme to housing association renters – who is eligible? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Mounting numbers of Conservative MPs have publically called for the Prime Minister to go following the release of a damning investigation into Downing Street lockdown parties.

There is now growing belief that it is only a matter of time before the threshold of letters needed to trigger a no-confidence vote are reached, with some suggesting it could happen next week – but how does that process work?

How many no-confidence letters are needed?
At least 15 per cent of sitting Conservative MPs have to write a letter stating they no longer have confidence in the Prime Minister for a vote to be triggered. For Mr. Johnson that magic number is 54, as there are currently 359 Tory MPs.

The no-confidence letters are submitted to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee – the Parliamentary group representing all backbench Tory MPs.

Once the threshold is reached, the no-confidence vote would be held as a secret ballot, which typically takes place within just days of it being announced.

To survive the vote, Mr. Johnson would need to secure a simple majority – the backing of 180 Tories, or half of his MPs, plus one.

If he wins, the Prime Minister would be immune from another such vote for a year.

But if he is forced to resign, or changes tack and steps down of his own volition, the 1922 Committee would then decide the procedure and timetable for a leadership contest.

Candidates need the support of eight Tory MPs to stand – a proposer, a seconder and six others.

If more than two people can receive this, there would be a series of ballots until two MPs are left, with Tory Party members then voting on who would be the next leader, and next Prime Minister.

Would Boris Johnson win a vote of no-confidence?
Arj Singh, i‘s Deputy Political Editor, points out that even if a vote is called, “that does not necessarily mean the Prime Minister’s time in No 10 is coming to an end” – you can read his full analysis here.

He explains: “Drill into the detail and the odds still appear broadly in the Prime Minister’s favour, with 123 Tory MPs in Government as ministers, according to the Institute for Government, and dozens more parliamentary private secretaries reliant on Mr. Johnson’s patronage.

“That said, any confidence vote would be conducted via a secret ballot, so those on the Government payroll – including Cabinet ministers -could still vote against Mr. Johnson.

“But with the whips mobilizing in support of Mr. Johnson, and the seemingly haphazard nature of the rebellion – with one attempt at forcing a confidence vote already failing – the vote is likely to be close at the very least.

“And unlike other leaders who might see a narrow victory as a clear signal their time in No 10 is over, all of Mr Johnson’s actions to date suggest he will need to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the door.”

How many Tory MPs have submitted a letter of no confidence?
More than 25 MPs have publicly called on the Prime Minister to stand down, but not all of them have said they have submitted letters.

John Stevenson, MP for Carlisle, was the most recent to confirm that he had written to Sir Graham Brady, joining:

Peter Alduous, MP for Waveney
Aaron Bell, MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme
Elliot Colburn, MP for Carshalton and Wallington
Tobias Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth East
Sir Roger Gale, MP for Thanet
Stephen Hammond, MP for Wimbledon
Mark Harper, MP for Forest of Dean
Alicia Kearns, MP for Rutland and Melton
Anthony Mangnall, MP for Totnes
Nigel Mills, MP for Amber Valley
Sir Bob Neill, MP for Bromley and Chislehurst
Caroline Nokes, MP for Romsey and Southampton North
Sir Gary Streeter, MP for South Devon
Former Cabinet minister Dame Andrea Leadsom became the latest senior figure to publicly criticize Mr. Johnson.

She said that Ms. Gray’s report had exposed “unacceptable failings of leadership that cannot be tolerated and are the responsibility of the Prime Minister”.

In a letter to her constituents shared on social media, Dame Andrea stopped short of calling for him to go but said she and other Tory MPs “must now decide individually on what is the right course of action that will restore confidence in our Government”.

Former Tory leader William Hague said the Prime Minister was in “real trouble” while another ex-leader, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, appealed to colleagues to halt their plotting until celebrations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee are over.

Lord Hague said it was now clear that allies of Mr. Johnson who believed he had escaped unscathed after the relatively muted initial response last week to Ms. Gray’s findings were mistaken.

Additional reporting from Press Association

Source: https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/no-confidence-letters-how-many-needed-vote-boris-johnson-tory-leadership-1661093?ITO=newsnow

The post How many no-confidence letters are needed for a vote? What triggers a Tory leadership poll on Boris Johnson first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The question preoccupying Europe is whether Russia is on the brink of a surprise breakthrough on the Ukraine battlefield, allowing it to declare a victory on its own terms. The big issue, were this to materialize, is to ask what then?

The artillery battles across the Donbas have recently been going well for the Russian high command. A traditional attack plan has been prosecuted, involving tactics that Russia has favored for almost century. The original presumptions of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s leadership are now within its sights.

Having annexed Crimea and sustained the two breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk since the first round of this conflict in 2014, Moscow wants a contiguous strip of south-eastern Ukraine to say that it has secured the future of the Russian-speaking population in the area.

It has also overcome and vanquished the resistance of the neo-Nazi-tainted Azov Battalion after weeks of resistance to a Russian onslaught in Mariupol, the port city on the Black Sea. That means that the Kremlin’s “denazification” justification for the assault on Ukraine – it said the specter of Nazism had risen in the country – can also be defined as a success.

Any such victory declaration would be viewed from several angles.

The western countries that backed Kyiv would be forced to confront the fear that they had not in the end done enough for their ally to withstand the Russia tempest. Yet, for Russia having drawn the broadest aim for its offensive, the resulting gains look awfully puny on a map.

Faced with this, allies of Ukraine are stepping up the weapons shipments. The shoulder-fired missile systems that proved so effective when Russia’s army was advancing in columns and could be picked off are not the game changer they once were.

Ukrainian forces are only now getting access to mobile artillery. The French Caesar howitzer gun has turned up on the battlefield and offered a tantalizing glimpse of what bulk deliveries could do. The US has been trying to get M777-towed 155-millimetre howitzers to Ukraine’s frontline for a month.

The German government is being criticized for not enabling the next step, which is the delivery of main battle tanks. The Ukrainian military desperately needs these to meet the mass of forces that Russia is bringing to bear in a relatively small section of terrain.

Last week, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for the delivery of M270 multiple launch rocket systems, or MLRS, to Ukraine after receiving a downbeat assessment from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding how long Kyiv’s forces can hold out in the eastern region.

The introduction of this system has escalatory potential. Reports that US officials opened talks with Kyiv over placing limits on the range of outgoing fire for any donations Washington might make underline this. The MLRS can target as far away as 300 kilometers but the US cannot allow its guns to be striking inside Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came out to warn that the “few sane” minds in the West should think twice.

Intelligence reporting indicates that Russia has lost 1,000 of the tanks it sent to Ukraine. Its new-generation tanks have proved to be sitting ducks.

So it has removed from mothballs the hundreds of T-72s left over from the erstwhile Soviet Union’s Red Army. Pictures of its heavy fire power are telling. Iron armour will now have to do the job that was not done by the smart or next-generation technology that Russia gambled on.

Days before the war was launched, a western think tank expert predicted to me that Russia would not rush to war because the modernization of its armed forces was incomplete. To do so now would be to “waste” the heavy expenditure since 2012 under the New Look reform programme, the expert said. He pointed out that Russia’s army could only say that its pace of change was well behind the target of renewing 70 per cent of its equipment inventory by 2020. It is believed to have been hovering near 50 per cent when the war began.

Western officials view any move by Russia to draw a line north of Crimea and along to Donetsk and Luhansk as unsustainable peace. Not only would Russia have an iron hand on the export of Ukraine’s all-important crops as a result. It is not clear that the boundaries it is currently targeting would guarantee the water supply to Crimea, a key Moscow objective.

Yet, this is the type of outcome Henry Kissinger, the realist diplomatic thinker and former US secretary of state, argued for last week in his controversial intervention in Davos. Mr. Kissinger argued about two things: that Ukraine cede territory to Russia for a peace agreement, and that a humiliating defeat for Russia would endanger Europe’s stability.

Currently serving European officials, instead, argue that a peace deal would be more likely to kick off a new eight-year cycle of rearmament by Moscow. The inevitable result would be a renewed effort thereafter to carve up Ukraine. In such an atmosphere, and with global food shortages, there can be no reliable turning point in the confrontation.

If Russia is able to achieve a short-term comeback, the outcome looks likely to merely open the next phase of a deeply destabilizing situation.

Damien McElroy
Damien is a foreign correspondent who has covered politics and conflict across Europe, the Middle East, the US, Africa and Asia. Before joining The National in 2017, he worked for The Sunday Times and Telegraph titles as an editor and roving reporter. He started his career in China and has a degree in finance.

Source: https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2022/05/30/what-if-russia-succeeds-in-ukraines-donbas-region/

The post What if Russia succeeds in Ukraine’s Donbas region? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A report into lockdown-breaching UK government parties says blame for a “culture” of rule breaking in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office must rest with those at the top.

The review, led by senior civil servant Sue Gray and published on Wednesday, said the “senior leadership team … must bear responsibility” for the culture that allowed events to take place that “should not have been allowed to happen”.

Ms. Gray said there had been “failures of leadership and judgement in No 10 [Downing Street]”.

The review investigated 16 gatherings that were held in 2020 and 2021 at Mr. Johnson’s official residence while the UK was under strict lockdown laws that prevented socialization with anyone outside the household.

“Those in the most junior positions attended gatherings at which their seniors were present, or indeed organized,” Ms. Gray said.

A separate police investigation resulted in 83 people getting hit with fines, including Mr. Johnson — making him the first British prime minister ever found to have broken the law while in office.

The scandal has led to calls for Mr. Johnson to resign. He rebuffed those calls, apologizing but insisting he did not knowingly break the rules.
The British media and opposition politicians have found that hard to square with staff members’ accounts of “bring your own booze” parties and regular “wine-time Fridays” in the Prime Minister’s Downing Street office at the height of the pandemic.

Mr. Johnson had previously stated that no parties were held in Downing Street and no rules were broken, before photographic evidence was unearthed.

Critics, some of them inside Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party, say the Prime Minister lied to parliament, which is traditionally an offence that leads to the head of government’s resignation.

Ms. Gray’s conclusions could revive calls from his Conservative party for a no-confidence vote in the leader who led it to a big parliamentary majority just over two years ago.

Under party rules, such a vote is triggered if 15 per cent of party politicians — currently 54 people — write letters calling for one.

If Mr. Johnson lost such a vote, he would be replaced as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.

It is unclear how many letters have been submitted so far.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-25/boris-johnson-blamed-covid-lockdown-parties-sue-gray-report/101100204

The post Scathing report blames Boris Johnson for British government parties during COVID-19 lockdown first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Northern Ireland’s politicians are being told to “get back to work” by Boris Johnson, keen to resolve the deadlock over post-Brexit trade.

The prime minister is due to travel to Belfast on Monday for crisis talks after the DUP blocked the election of a Speaker at the Stormont Assembly, preventing it from sitting.

Power sharing in Northern Ireland has been suspended since elections earlier this month.

The system was introduced in the 1990s in an effort to end decades of violence and is a requirement of government in the country. The first minister and deputy first minister must be one unionist, one nationalist.

Government sources said Mr. Johnson will use a series of private meetings to deliver a “tough message” that any “fix” to the post-Brexit trade protocol must involve the parties coming together to form an Executive and Assembly.

He is expected to say that while the UK government will “play its part to ensure political stability”, politicians must “get back to work” so they can deliver on “bread and butter issues” for the voters.

Ahead of his visit, however, Sinn Fein – which is now the biggest party in the Assembly following the elections on 5 May – accused the prime minister of being “in cahoots” with DUP and supporting its “blocking tactics”.

‘Dangerous brinkmanship’

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said: “It is very dangerous, it’s reckless, it’s a game of brinkmanship, very cynically carried out by a Tory government in London that has no care for the island of Ireland, north or south.”

The DUP is bitterly opposed to the protocol as it requires checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, in order to keep the border with Republic open in line with the Good Friday Agreement.

‘Delicate balance’

In his talks to the party leaders, Mr. Johnson is expected to say that while the government “will always keep the door open to genuine dialogue”, there will be “a necessity to act” to protect the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) if there is no change in the EU position.

He will insist the government has never suggested scrapping the protocol and will acknowledge there will always have to be a treaty governing the UK’s relationship with the EU in respect of Northern Ireland in order to prevent the return of a hard border with the Republic.

However he will say the “delicate balance” of the GFA has been upset, eroding the historic economic bonds linking Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, leaving the unionist community feeling its aspirations and identity were under threat.

Ireland is not ‘a pawn’

But speaking on Saturday following a meeting of Sinn Fein’s ruling council in Dublin, Ms. McDonald said the UK government had consistently failed to act in “good faith”.

“Let’s just be clear that the protocol is going nowhere. The protocol is a necessary outworking of Brexit for which the Tory party and the DUP campaigned,” she said.

“The British government cannot use Ireland as a pawn, we won’t be the collateral damage in the Brexit negotiations.

“It is very clear the Tory government in London is in cahoots with the DUP to stall and to hold back progress, to frustrate the will of the people as expressed in the election and that, to anybody who calls themselves a democrat, is clearly unacceptable and clearly shameful.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/get-back-to-work-boris-johnson-tells-northern-ireland-politicians-to-form-government-and-sort-out-brexit-trade-deal-12613443

The post ‘Get back to work’: Boris Johnson tells Northern Ireland politicians to form government and sort out Brexit trade deal first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Britain has, alongside allies, imposed far-reaching sanctions against Moscow’s wealthy oligarchs and political elites, including President Vladimir Putin.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the sanctions on members of the House of Commons were in response to Britain imposing similar restrictions on 386 members of its own lower house of parliament on March 11.

“These persons… took the most active part in the establishment of anti-Russian sanctions instruments in London, and contribute to the groundless whipping up of Russophobic hysteria in the UK,” a foreign ministry statement said.

The list of 287 names included current and former ministers as well as several people who no longer serve as members of parliament. One former lawmaker, Dominic Grieve, appears twice.

“All those 287 should regard it as a badge of honour,” Johnson, who was himself banned from Russia on April 16, told parliament.

The Kremlin has previously singled out Johnson as “the most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian” and this week warned Britain of a “proportional response” if it continued to provoke Ukraine to strike targets in Russia.

Member of parliament Chris Bryant, a long-time critic of Russia, raised a point of order in the debating chamber to complain: “I’m absolutely distressed that I’m not on the list.”

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Alex Richardson and Jonathan Oatis)

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/now/russia-bars-entry-287-british-110820241.html

The post Moscow bans 287 UK lawmakers from Russia first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.