Starmer dismisses claims he’s been ‘played’ by Trump, and says future trade deal could lessen impact of tariffs
Keir Starmer has dismissed claims that he has been “played” by President Trump over tariffs.
In an interview with Sky News this morning, echoing what Jonathan Reynolds said in his morning interview round (see 8.58am), Starmer said that a future trade deal with the US might lead to the UK getting some exemptions from the tariffs coming tomorrow. He said:
We are of course negotiating an economic deal which will, I hope … mitigate the tariffs.
Asked if he had been “played” by US President Donald Trump, Starmer replied:
The US is our closest ally. Our defence, our security, our intelligence are bound up in a way that no two other countries are.
So it’s obviously in our national interest to have a close working relationship with the US, which we’ve had for decades, and I want to ensure we have for decades to come.
He said talks on an economic deal would normally take “months or years” but “in a matter of weeks we have got well advanced in those discussions”.
Starmer also confirmed that it was likely the UK would be affected by the tariffs being announced tomorrow.
We are obviously working with the sectors most impacted at pace on that.
Nobody wants to see a trade war but I have to act in the national interests.
That means that “all options remain on the table” in response, he added.
Key events
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Jarvis refuses to rule out China being included in Firs enhanced tier in future
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Tories demand to know why China not included in enhanced tier of foreign influence registration scheme
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Russia to be in enhanced tier of foreign influence registration scheme, security minister Dan Jarvis tells MPs
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Green party claim Sentencing Council bill based on ‘wilful misunderstanding’ and will lead to more unjust punishments
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Diane Abbott says government should not be interfering with independence of Sentencing Council
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Robert Jenrick suggests chair of Sentencing Council should resign
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Mahmood confirms new bill will stop Sentencing Council making pre-sentence report guidelines relating to race
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Mahmood says, despite ‘noble’ intentions behind controversial Sentencing Council guidelines, they went too far
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Shabana Mahmood makes statement to MPs about Sentencing Council
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Starmer tells cabinet talks with US on economic deal are at ‘advanced stage’
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Conservation groups criticise Starmer over ‘spiders blocking housing’ claims
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Asylum system risks ‘damaging social cohesion’, Glasgow city council warns
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Rayner says it would be ‘ridiculous’ to cancel Trump’s state visit in retaliation for tariffs
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Badenoch rejects claims differing food standards might be obstacle to US trade deals, saying quotas more important
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Badenoch rejects claim she has told her MPs not to criticise Trump
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Badenoch claims Labour’s ‘jobs tax’ will cost average families £3,500 by end of this parliament
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Lib Dems call for Cobra meeting to discuss US tariffs, saying ‘we can’t kowtow to Trump any longer’
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Limited global trade war, with Britain exempt from US tariffs, could have ‘mildly positive’ impact for UK, MPs told
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OBR did not include US tariff policy in its forecasts partly because it was ‘changing every day’, its chair says
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Starmer says firms needs ‘calm’ not ‘knee-jerk’ response to US tariffs, playing down prospect of retaliatory measures
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Badenoch says Tories would oppose retaliatory tariffs against US because they would just make ‘everyone poorer’
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Starmer says he accepts cost of living crisis ‘ongoing’, despite wages going up
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OBR chair Richard Hughes gives evidence to Treasury committee
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Starmer dismisses claims he’s been ‘played’ by Trump, and says future trade deal could lessen impact of tariffs
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Badenoch says local elections will be ‘very difficult’ for Tories
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Kemi Badenoch interviewed on LBC
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Reynolds rejects claim prosecution of anti-abortion campaigners in UK could block trade deal with US
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UK in ‘best possible position’ to negotiate future exemptions from Trump tariffs, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds says
Lisa Smart, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesperson, says she is in the unusual position of agreeing with much of what the Conservative spokesperson said. She also asks about China, and in particular about China’s application to build a new super embassy in China.
Jarvis says national security has been the core priority for the government in dealing with the embassy application. But he says there is a limit to what he can say because the final decision will be taken by Angela Rayner, as housing secretary, in a quasi-judicial capacity.
Jarvis refuses to rule out China being included in Firs enhanced tier in future
Jarvis is responding to Philp.
He says he can understand why Philp is asking about China.
Countries will be considered separately, he says.
He says he won’t speculate on what countries may or may not be included in the Firs (foreign influence registration scheme) enhanced tier in future.
On China, the government’s policy is to “coperate where we can, compete where we need to, and challenge where we must”.
Tories demand to know why China not included in enhanced tier of foreign influence registration scheme
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, is responding to Jarvis.
He welcomes the decision about Russia.
But he says Jarvis ignored “the elephant in the room”, China. Why was he silent?
Philp goes on:
We know China engages in industrial scale espionage, seeking to steal technology from government, universities and from industry.
They repress Chinese citizens here, and have sought to infiltrate our political system. In 2022 it was exposed by MI5 that China sought to infiltrate this very parliament via their agent, Christine Lee.
China has set up undeclared and illegal police stations in the UK and in December China placed a bounty on the head of three Hong Kong dissidents living in the UK.
He says MI5 and the FBI have both warned about the “epic threat” posed by China.
Russia to be in enhanced tier of foreign influence registration scheme, security minister Dan Jarvis tells MPs
Dan Jarvis, the security miniser is now making a Commons statement about the foreign influence registration scheme, an initiative to allow the government to monitor people lobbying on behalf of foreign governments in the UK. It is part of the National Security Act 2023.
Jarvis says it will go live in July.
The scheme imposes routine requirements for people lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, but it also has an enhanced tier, covering hostile countries, where the rules are much tighter. If a country is in this tier, anyone carrying out activity in the UK on behalf of the country, or an entity linked to it, will have to register. Failure to comply will be an offence.
The government has already said that Iran will be in the enhanced tier.
Today Jarvis says Russia will also be in the enhanced tier.
Green party claim Sentencing Council bill based on ‘wilful misunderstanding’ and will lead to more unjust punishments
The Green party has also criticised the government’s decision to introduce the sentencing guidelines (pre-sentence reports) bill. In a statement, the Green MP Siân Berry said:
It has been chilling to witness the government pile pressure on an independent body which has been nothing but clear about the importance of these guidelines for passing effective sentences.
The new guidelines, which were publicly consulted on, would have helped create safer sentencing for many women, parents, pregnant and young people, for whom extreme custodial sentences can compound the harm that led to their offending in the first place. This delay will condemn too many people to unjust punishment while we wait for new plans.
Pre-sentencing reports offer judges information, they do not determine sentences. Politicians’ wilful misunderstanding of these processes is dangerous and will cause irrevocable harm for many if this bill is passed.
In the Commons the Labour MP Nadia Whittome said she was alarmed by the implication that, if the Sentencing Council guidelines are withdrawn, judges would not be advised to get pre-sentence reports before sentencing pregnant women.
Mahmood said the bill would not affect policy relating to pregnant offenders, because there is already court of appeal precedent saying pre-sentence reports should be obtained before pregnant women are sentenced.
Diane Abbott says government should not be interfering with independence of Sentencing Council
Diane Abbott, the Labour MP and a former shadow home secretary, told Mahmood she did not know why she was so “triumphant” about introducing legislation to interfer with the independence of the Sentencing Council. She said there have been many reports saying black and brown people are treated unfairly by the courts, and she said the judiciary was independent for a good reason.
There is a reason why the Sentencing Council is independent. It was made a statutory independent body to avoid even the appearance of ministerial interfering in sentencing. This is not the United States. Our political system, our judicial system, are entirely separate.
In response to Jenrick, Shabana Mahmood said she would not comment on the two Sentencing Council members he criticised. (See 2.10pm.) She said, unlike like Jenrick, she did not want to “make it personal”.
Robert Jenrick suggests chair of Sentencing Council should resign
The emergency legislation introduced by the govenrment is a direct result of Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, denouncing the Sentencing Council’s guidelines as “two-tier justice”. Until then, the guidelines had been accepted as reasonable by the government and almost everyone else (including the last Tory government).
In response to Mahmood, Jenrick claimed she had “completely lost control of the justice system”.
He said there were other guidelines in the legal system that amounted to two-tier justice.
And he suggested the chair of the Sentencing Council, Lord Justice William Davis, and another council member, Johanna Robinson, should resign. He claimed Davis had called for short sentences to be abolished, and he said Robinson has described the Tory Illegal Immigration Act as appalling.
Mahmood confirms new bill will stop Sentencing Council making pre-sentence report guidelines relating to race
Mahmood says how to make the justice system fairer is a policy matter for parliament. It is for politcians to decide policy, she says, and for judges to apply policy.
She says today she is introducing a sentencing guidelines (pre-sentence reports) bill. It is a tightly-focused bill, she says.
The bill adopts a targeted approach. It does not prevent [Sentencing Council] guidance from advising in general terms that pre-sentence reports should be requested when judges need more information about an offender’s personal circumstances.
But it does prohibit the council from making guidelines about pre-sentence reports with specific reference to the offender’s personal characteristics, such as their race, religion or belief or cultural background.
Mahmood says this raises further question about what the role of the Sentencing Council should be. She says this is something the government will consider going ahead. If further legislation is needed, the government will include it in the forthcoming sentencing bill, she says.
Mahmood says, despite ‘noble’ intentions behind controversial Sentencing Council guidelines, they went too far
Mahmood explains how the new guidelines were drawn up.
She says she is in favour of the use of pre-sentence reports.
But the new guidances would have encouraged judges to get them for some offenders, but not others. Judge would have been told that they would normally have been needed for people from ethnic, cultural or faith minorities.
She says pre-sentence reports can lead to people getting lower sentences, and so this would have created the “perception of differential treatment before the law”.
She says the intention behind the guidelines was to address real inequalities that exist in sentencing. She goes on:
There is no doubt that more must be done to understand the problem we face and to address it. There are some measures already taking place across our justice system to make it more representative of the public that it serves, such that it can deliver outcomes in which we can all have confidence.
And I note that the proportion of ethnic minorities within the judiciary has risen from just 7% 10 years ago to 11% today.
While change can feel slow and must accelerate, my view is that despite the noble intentions behind them in attempting to address inequalities in our justice system, these guidelines sacrifice too much.
They raise a serious question of policy; in the pursuit of equality of outcome for different religions and races, should we treat them differently before the eyes of the law, and move so far away from an ideal that has underpinned justice in this country for centuries? On this I am clear all must be equal before the law.
Shabana Mahmood makes statement to MPs about Sentencing Council
In the Commons Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is making a statement to MPs about the Sentencing Council.
She says the recent guidelines proposed by the council raise the issue of whether everyone is equal before the law.
Following constructive talks with the council, the guidelines have been put on hold, she says.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, like Angela Rayner (see 12.23pm), the PM’s spokesperson ruled out cancelling President Trump’s state visit to the UK as retaliation for his tariffs. The spokesperson claimed the two issues were not linked. He said:
I wouldn’t draw any any link between the two. Obviously, the state visit is a matter for the Palace, as you know.
You’ll have seen that the prime minister was delighted to extend His Majesty the king’s invitation for a historic state visit during his visit to to the White House.
But when it comes to these talks, we’ll obviously continue to have these conversations. We’ll obviously continue them in the national interest, and we’ll obviously provide an update as and when we have one.
In the past Keir Starmer has also claimed that the state visit is a matter for the king, not the government. While technically true in a very narrow sense (the king issues the actual invitation), this argument is thoroughly bogus, because the king only issue a state visit invitation on the advice of Downing Street. It was Starmer’s decision, not King Charles’s.
In an interview with Times Radio, Lord Darroch, a former UK ambassador to Washington, said he was sceptical about claims that the government is close to signing a trade deal with the US.
In an interview recorded before the Downing Street lobby briefing where No 10 said Keir Starmer told cabinet that talks were at an “advanced stage”, Darroch was asked how he responded to claims that an agreement was close. He replied:
The honest answer is quite cynical, because at various points when I was in government, we were negotiating, trying to negotiate a free trade deal. The EU also tried to do a US-EU free trade deal when we were in the EU. So I’ve seen this picture play several times.
And the truth of it is that the Americans, whoever is in government, always, they try and strike a very tough deal on trade.
Darroch also said that the government should be wary of giving President Trump concessions to get exemptions from his tariffs. He explained:
I just think you need to be careful about, as it were, giving the Trump administration, giving the president a win on all of this, because he already thinks tariffs are a great idea. And if he starts getting concessions offered by the rest of the world, to keep them away, he’ll keep using them.
And every time there is some grievance or some dispute in relations, he’ll come back and threaten tariffs or impose them and then say, do what I want you to do to get them lifted.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, told MPs that the government would “prepare for the worst” over US tariffs. Speaking during Foreign Office questions, he said:
We are an open-trading nation. We have been that under successive governments. It’s hugely important at this time that we continue the intense conversations we’re having with the US administration on getting an economic agreement but of course we prepare for the worst – all options remain on the table, as the prime minister indicated again just yesterday.
Starmer tells cabinet talks with US on economic deal are at ‘advanced stage’
For the record, here is the extract from the Downing Street readout from cabinet this morning, saying what Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds told colleagues about the impending US tariffs. Starmer said talks with the US on an economic deal were at an “advanced stage”.
A No 10 spokesperson said:
The prime minister then turned to US tariffs and trade. He set out the latest position to cabinet on the announced US plans on steel, aluminium, and automotive tariffs, with further details of ‘reciprocal’ global tariffs expected this week. He said the UK’s approach is to progress ongoing talks with the US on an economic deal, which are at an advanced stage, while keeping all options on the table.
He said a calm and pragmatic approach best served UK national interests, not a knee-jerk reaction. The UK has a balanced trading relationship with the US, supporting millions of jobs both sides of the Atlantic, as well as a deeply important security and defence relationship.
He said nobody wants to see global tariffs, but the UK would continue negotiations, continue engaging with British industries, prepare for all scenarios, and double down on delivering a modern industrial strategy that supports jobs and grows the economy.
The chancellor said that global tariffs will have an impact on the UK as an open trading economy, that securing a deal could mitigate some of those effects, and updated on discussions she had with the US Treasury yesterday.
The business secretary updated on the progress of his discussions in recent days and weeks, and said that the UK was well placed to agree an economic deal with the US and that those talks would continue beyond tomorrow’s announcement. He underlined that the business community wants to see the government take a calm, cool-headed, and pragmatic approach to discussions with the US, and that would guide our approach.
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