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German warplanes to operate off Scotland’s coast under ‘landmark’ defence pact
By Deborah Haynes, security and defence editor
German warplanes that can track Russian submarines will start operating off the coast of Scotland as early as next year as part of a “landmark” defence pact between London and Berlin.
The new agreement – due to be signed tomorrow by Defence Secretary John Healey and his German counterpart – will also pave the way for a German defence company to open a factory in Britain that will make artillery gun barrels.
It will be the first time in a decade that such weapons will be built in the UK, even though the urgent need to expand this kind of production capability was exposed almost three years ago by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In a further deepening of military cooperation, the UK and Germany will work together to build new long-range missiles with the ability to hit targets at greater precision and distance than the UK-French Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
Mr Healey described what is being called the Trinity House Agreement as a “milestone” moment in the UK’s relationship with Germany and said it will help strengthen Europe’s security.
“It secures unprecedented levels of new cooperation with the German Armed Forces and industry, bringing benefits to our shared security and prosperity, protecting our shared values and boosting our defence industrial bases,” he said in a statement.
The Ministry of Defence said the UK and Germany – which ramped up defence spending in response to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine – are “Europe’s two biggest defence spenders”.
But Britain also has close defence ties – forged around specific defence treaties – with France.
Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister, who is in the UK to sign the new accord, said Berlin and London were moving closer together.
“With projects across the air, land, sea, and cyber domains, we will jointly increase our defence capabilities, thereby strengthening the European pillar within NATO,” he said.
“We must not take security in Europe for granted. Russia is waging war against Ukraine, it is increasing its weapons production immensely and has repeatedly launched hybrid attacks on our partners in Eastern Europe.”
This includes the targeting of undersea cables, gas pipelines and other submerged critical infrastructure.
The UK and Germany are pledging to work together to protect such cables in the North Sea.
Government borrowing remains at highest since pandemic
Government borrowing is at its highest since the pandemic due to public sector pay rises and the high cost of borrowing, official figures show.
Last month had the third-highest September borrowing on record, coming only behind 2020 and 2021, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
While more money came in from tax, it was outweighed by increased spending which the ONS said was partly due to higher interest rates on the debt and public sector pay rises.
Spending was £2.1bn higher in September than the same month a year ago, figures showed.
Public sector workers including teachers and junior doctors have accepted pay rises since Labour entered government in July while high interest rates set by the Bank of England to bring down inflation have made borrowing more expensive.
Badenoch’s husband ‘frustrated’ with how she’s being described by Tory colleagues
Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has described her husband as “frustrated” with how she is being portrayed after one Tory MP said she was “preoccupied” with her children.
The shadow minister described her husband Hamish as “the one looking after the children” in an interview with the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast.
She said her spouse was “probably more frustrated than anyone else because he sees me being portrayed in a way that he simply doesn’t recognise”.
“You would have heard the comments about ‘oh she spends too much time looking after her children’ and he’s thinking ‘I’m the one looking after the children. What are you talking about? Which of course he is,” she added.
“Yesterday night he couldn’t come to a reception with me because he had to look after the children and so on.”
Ms Badenoch said her partner also believes she gets “unfair criticism” and “worries about (her) safety”, as she described the impact as “quite tough”.
Last week, veteran Conservative MP Sir Christopher Chope said Ms Badenoch was “preoccupied” with her children.
The winner of the Conservative leadership contest is due to be announced at the start of November.
Trump campaign files complaint against UK Labour over claims of election interference
The Labour Party has been accused of election interference in a formal complaint filed by the Trump campaign.
Lawyers for Donald Trump filed the complaint to the US watchdog, alleging the party had given illegal foreign campaign contributions to aid Kamala Harris’s election pursuit.
The complaint to the Federal Election Commission has requested an “immediate investigation into blatant foreign interference”.
The Trump campaign has not provided any evidence that any laws have been broken.
It references a Washington Post report that suggested “strategists linked to Britain’s Labour Party have been offering advice to Kamala Harris about how to earn back disaffected voters and run a winning campaign from the centre left”.
It also mentions a Telegraph report that proposed Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, and Matthew Doyle, his director of communications, “attended a convention in Chicago and met with Ms Harris’s campaign team”.
The US law forbids any financial contributions, donations and expenditure from foreign nationals in any elections.
However, they are allowed to volunteer in campaigns “as long as the individual is not compensated by anyone for the services”.
Sky News understands that any Labour Party staff campaigning in the US election have to take annual leave and pay for their own travel.
Senior Conservatives in the UK, notably former prime minister Liz Truss, have also attended high-profile Republican events, including the National Convention in July.
Ms Truss reacted to the complaint on X, saying Labour was doing “huge damage to Britain’s standing at the economy”.
“Unbelievably arrogant and foolish of the to interfere in the US election.”
Starmer ‘humbled’ by ‘immeasurable grief’ of people who have lost relatives in Gaza
The prime minister has said he is “humbled” by the “immeasurable grief” of people whose relatives have died in Gaza after meeting with members of the British-Palestinian community.
Gaza has been destroyed in Israel’s war against the Iran-backed militant group Hamas over the past year.
More than 42,000 people have been killed in the enclave during the conflict, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
In a message on X, Sir Keir Starmer said that he and his deputy Angela Rayner also met with the head of the Palestinian mission in the UK and reiterated calls for aid to be allowed into the region.
“Today Angela Rayner and I met members of the Palestinian community in the UK who have lost loved ones in Gaza, alongside Dr Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian mission to the UK.
“I am humbled by their immeasurable grief.
“This horrific suffering must end, there must be an immediate ceasefire, and Israel must let unrestricted aid into Gaza now.”
You can read more about his visit in our 16.30 post.
Mother of writer detained in Egypt says she’s ‘willing to die’ for him to be released
The family of a jailed British-Egyptian pro-democracy writer have urged the UK government to try harder to secure his release.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been detained since 2019 and in December 2021 was sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spreading false news.
His 68-year-old mother Laila Soueif is on day 23 of her hunger strike in protest over his continued imprisonment in Egypt.
She tells the Politics Hub that she is going to continue her hunger strike until her son is released.
“I’m not going to stop,” Ms Soueif says. “I can’t go on like this, he can’t go on like this.
“I am willing to die… I would rather not get there. He has to get out of prison.”
She says she was hoping the Labour government would handle her son’s case differently, but nothing has happened.
“Do something, do something,” she adds.
Talking about the emotional toll of Alaa being imprisoned, Ms Souief says she has just been “going through the motions” and everything is surrounded by sorrow.
“I have stopped second guessing governments. I don’t see why they haven’t done more,” she adds.
“This government is here to stay for five years, they have leverage, they should do more.”
Public was ‘gaslit’ over Chris Kaba case, says Reform’s deputy leader
Deputy leader of Reform Richard Tice has said the information on Chris Kaba’s background should have been released earlier.
Mr Kaba was fatally shot by a firearms officer in 2022.
That officer was Martyn Blake, who was cleared of the 24-year-old’s murder yesterday, allowing more information about Mr Kaba’s background to be released – you can read more about this in our previous post.
“We were gaslit as the public, we were misinformed. If the true information about Mr Kaba’s background had come out in the early days, it would have dramatically reduced the tensions and anxieties amongst Londoners,” Mr Tice says.
“He [Mr Blake] was making a split second judgment… that officer’s life has been ruined for two years.”
He adds that there are “serious questions” that need to be asked.
“It’s not good enough, we’ve got to improve.”
Chris Kaba was ‘core member’ of gang
Now to the Chris Kaba case, where more details of his background have been released today.
The 24-year-old was fatally shot by firearms officer Martyn Blake in 2022, and yesterday Mr Blake was cleared of his murder.
Tonight we can report that police believed Mr Kaba to be a core member of one of London’s most dangerous gangs, directly linked by detectives to two shootings in the week before his death.
Our home affairs reporter Henry Vaughan has the full report below and our panel on the Politics Hub will be discussing it shortly…
‘We were one day away from prisons totally overflowing’ – Minister defends decision to release some criminals early
As we told you in our previous post, more than 1,000 inmates have been released today in an attempt to ease prison overcrowding.
Justice minister Heidi Alexander joins our presenter Ali Fortescue now to talk about the move, and the government’s recently announced sentencing review.
She says the government had a “dire inheritance” from the Conservatives, and the justice secretary has been forced to take the “very difficult decision” to release some prisoners early.
“We were one bad day away from the prisons totally overflowing and if that happened courts wouldn’t have been able to hear trials and the police would have had to stop arresting people,” Ms Alexander adds.
“Prison at the moment is not working and I am not prepared to sit on this programme and defend the status quo where are prisons are overflowing.”
She says the government expects prisons to run out of space by summer next year, adding that there are some “sensible solutions” in place to ensure anyone given a custodial sentence has a place.
Minister ‘understands how distressing’ early release will be for victims
Sky News has spoken to a woman whose baby received life changing injuries after being shaken by a man who is due to be let out early under the government scheme.
Ali asks Ms Alexander what she would say to the mother, who we have called Ellie.
“I understand how distressing the release of this individual will be for Ellie and for people like her,” she replies, before noting that anyone who has committed a sexual offence, terrorism and some violent offences will not be released under the scheme.
“In order to pass this legislation quickly, we had to look at offence types as opposed to offenders, but I do understand this will be distressing for victims.
“This is a big thing and it’s really important that the appropriate notifications happen.”