NI first minister apologises at Covid inquiry for attending IRA funeral – UK politics live | Politics

Michelle O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s First Minister is giving evidence at the UK’s Covid inquiry in Belfast today. And she said she was “really sorry” for the harm caused by her decision to attend the funeral of Bobby Storey, a leading IRA figure. Around 1,800 mourners lined the streets to mark the event, although at the time Covid rules said the maximum number of people allowed at a funeral was 30.

Asked about the event, O’Neill said:

I know my actions also angered the families and for that I am truly sorry. I’m sorry I went and I’m sorry for the hurt caused afterwards [it].

Asked if she was aware of the anger that going to the funeral would cause, she said:

I didn’t, but I should have.

I’ve said it publicly on a number of occasions how sorry I am and absolutely sorry, from the bottom of my heart.

I accept wholeheartedly that I somehow damaged our leadership relationship with colleagues who worked very hard with me all along, and I also wholeheartedly accept that I damaged public health messages and had work to do, to get this back.

There is no evidence of widespread abuse of the UK’s graduate visa route, government immigration advisers have concluded, despite repeated claims by senior Conservatives that it is used to enter the labor market. The Advisory Committee on Migration said this in report today. Rajiv Syal and Richard Adams have the story here.

In interviews this morning Grant Shapps, the defense minister also insisted that the government was fully behind Ukraine and that it would not pressure it at any time to accept a compromise peace deal with Russia.

Ministers have since been under pressure to clarify this report in the Sunday Times said David Cameron, the foreign secretary, had persuaded Donald Trump to back more US military aid to Ukraine, telling him it would extend the stalemate until the end of the year, allowing Trump to negotiate the peace deal that he claims he will be able to arrange it if he becomes president in January.

According to the Sunday Times, Trump was intrigued by this argument. Less than two weeks later, the US Congress approved the military aid package after the speaker, Trump ally Mike Johnson, scheduled a vote that he had resisted.

Downing Street yesterday did not deny the Sunday Times account of the Cameron/Trump conversation, but insisted that the UK would continue to support Ukraine for as long as necessary.

The Sunday Times did not describe Cameron as supporting a peace deal with Russia, but suggested the government might be open to that scenario should Trump win the US presidency.

Shapps said this morning that the UK would not apply pressure Ukraine to accept a deal with Russia. He told Times Radio:

There is absolutely no sense in which Britain would try to persuade, by force or otherwise, Ukraine to agree to give up some of their territory – that is entirely Ukraine’s decision.

I don’t think it is at all plausible that Putin will win this war.

If you give an inch to a thug like Putin, he’ll take a mile, and in this case he’ll take, probably quite a bit, not just Ukraine, but I’m not sure he’ll stop there either.

What Ukraine does and how it decides to end it is their business. What I can confirm is that the UK will support Ukraine to the hilt.

Asked about the Sunday Times report, Shapps said:

Obviously I wasn’t in the room. I know what the foreign secretary said, which is that it is very important that the United States follows the example of the United Kingdom, and we have just increased our money for Ukraine this year.

[Cameron] would certainly tell Trump that it is very important for the United States Senate to see this package pass Congress, and this package did pass Congress, and thank God, because these are armaments and defense weapons that our Ukrainians very much need friends.

In his speech yesterday, Rishi Sunak said Labor will not be able to continue to deliver Ukraine with the necessary military assistance the way the conservative government does. But as he spoke David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, and John Healy, the shadow defense secretary, were in Kiev for a meeting with Rustem Umerov, the Ukrainian defense minister. Labor released details of the visit last night.

Lammy said he and Healy told their hosts that Labor was committed to Ukraine was “iron”. He said:

As Putin seeks to divide the West, we visited Kiev together to send a clear message that a change in government in the UK will not mean a change in our military, diplomatic, financial and political support for Ukraine.

Moscow’s deepening cooperation with Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang requires us to deepen our cooperation with Britain’s allies to show that our commitment to Ukraine will outlast Vladimir Putin’s imperial invasion.

The next Labor government’s commitment to Ukraine will be ironclad and European security will be our first foreign and defense priority. Labour’s action plan sets out a wide-ranging approach to support Ukraine, counter Russian aggression and prosecute Putin for his war crimes. We will stand by Ukraine until it wins.

Good morning. Normally, foreign policy is not a central issue in an election year, but yesterday Rishi Sunak embraced it; after months and years of trying to find a compelling reason why he thinks people shouldn’t trust Keir Starmer to form the next government, he focuses on the argument that with Labor in power Britain would be less safe. Grant Shapps, the defense secretary, giving interviews this morning and doubling down on the message.

In fact, the gap between labor and Conservatives defense spending is not huge. Sunak has made a firm commitment to raise defense spending to 2.5% of GDP, which he plans to finance through civil service job cuts and efficiency savings, but does not plan to reach the 2.5% target by 2030. Labor stated that the goal is to increase defense spending to 2.5%, but only as resources allow (meaning there is a plan with spending to get there).

However, Shapps told Sky News this morning that he believed Starmer’s failure to have a plan to increase the defense budget was a serious problem.

You can’t ask for more defense spending. You have to set out the plans and execute them, and that is why our plans are now radically different from Labour’s.

And I have to say as Defense Secretary, with everything I know in that role, that I think Labour’s position is a danger to this country because it will send a signal to our adversaries that we are not serious about our defense if we don’t determine this schedule.

For a host of other reasons, the Conservative Party is also vulnerable to the charge that it is not serious about governance and Sunak’s speech yesterday, which opened with a passage about how the UK is about to face some of the most dangerous threats in its history. coincided with Esther McVeigh, the so-called “Minister of Common Sense”, who announced that she was going to stop civil servants wearing rainbow sashes. To her credit, she didn’t try to claim that this would minimize the risk of a Russian attack, but she did raise questions about whether the government had set its priorities right.

In an interview with Times Radio, Shapps came close to saying she thought McVeigh was wasting her time. Asked about the repression of his colleague with the rainbow, he replied:

Personally, I don’t mind people expressing their opinions on these things. No, you know, I don’t really care what kind of belt someone wears.

But I think — and I think Esther McVeigh is right here — that what we want is for our public servants to get the job done. And the main job is to serve the department they work for, in my case defence, but in Whitehall.

I think she understood that this should be the focus of civil servants.

Here is the program for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak chair cabinet.

10 am: Michelle O’Neill, First Minister of Northern Ireland, gives evidence to the Belfast Covid Inquiry.

11.30 am: Downing Street is holding a lobby briefing.

11.30 am: Grant Shapps delivers a speech at a sea power conference at Lancaster House.

afternoon: Keir Starmer has a meeting with union leaders where they are expected to raise the issue fears that plans for a new deal for working people are being watered down.

Sunak also hosts a Downing Street Farm to Fork Summit.

And Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, Lucy Fraser, the culture minister, and Cammy Badenoch, the business secretary, are in Saudi Arabia for an investment summit.

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