Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has objected to the EU’s plans to ban Russian oil.SOPA Images/Getty Images
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán bashed the comingling of Europeans with non-Europeans.
Orbán said in a Saturday speech that Hungarians “don’t want to be a mixed race.”
The authoritarian leader regards Putin as an ally and was endorsed by Trump.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that his country’s citizens have no interest in fraternizing with non-Europeans, according to Radio Free Europe.
Orbán idealized an “unmixed Hungarian race” while speaking at Baile Tusnad Summer University located in central Romania on Saturday. He argued that Europeans should not mix with “non-Europeans.”
“We move, we work elsewhere, we mix within Europe,” he said. “But we don’t want to be a mixed race” or a “multiethnic” group, he added.
The conservative prime minister also argued that “the west is split in two,” according to Daily News Hungary.
Half, he said, are countries where European and non-European people intermingle. “Those countries are no longer nations,” he said. He did not name any specific nations but pointed to Western Europe, per the Daily News Hungary.
He also said that the countries where Europeans and non-Europeans intermingle “continue to fight central Europe to change us to be like them.”
“In a spiritual sense, the West has moved to central Europe,” he added.
Orbán, who was re-elected for a fourth term in April, is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. He has been praised by some American conservatives but is considered an authoritarian nationalist who is vocally anti-immigrant.
Throughout his speech on Saturday, Orbán also touched on Russia’s war against Ukraine and the role he believes the US should have, The Daily Mail reported.
“A new strategy is needed which should focus peace talks and drafting a good peace proposal… instead of winning the war,” he said, adding: “As Russia wants security guarantees, this war can be ended only with peace talks between Russia and America.”
Orbán and the Hungarian Office of the Prime Minister did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
Sunak pledges to review 2,400 transferred EU laws before next election
Rishi Sunak is touting on social media a piece he has written for the Sunday Telegraph, promising: “If I am elected, by the time of the next election, I will have scrapped or reformed all of the EU law, red tape and bureaucracy that is still on our statute book and slowing economic growth.”
The paper describes Sunak as “brandishing his Brexiteer credentials”. Edward Malnick writes:
The former chancellor pledged that he will have “scrapped or reformed all of the EU law, red tape and bureaucracy that is still on our statute book and slowing economic growth” by the time of the next election if he succeeds Boris Johnson as prime minister.
Sunak said he would task a Brexit minister and a new Brexit Delivery Department with reviewing all 2,400 EU laws transferred over to the UK statute book after the UK’s exit from the bloc. He would demand the first set of recommendations as to whether each law should be scrapped or reformed “within my first 100 days in the job”.
Specific pledges included overhauling retained EU regulations “to trigger a Big Bang 2.0” for the City, with his team saying he would set a target “to make London once again the world’s leading financial centre by 2027”.
He also said he would replace the EU-derived GDPR data laws with “the most dynamic data protection regime in the world” and cut red tape slowing down clinical trials.
This post was amended on 17 July 2022to remove a reference to Sunak supporting remain in 2016. He supported leave.
Key events:
Rees-Mogg says Sunak promise on repealing EU law is ‘surprising’
Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has just described as “surprising” the pledge of Rishi Sunak to review all 2,400 EU laws transferred over to the UK statute book before the next election [see 12.28pm].
Rees-Mogg has tweeted:
This is a surprising promise as the Treasury under his leadership was insisting that taxation was exempt from the removal of EU law.
This is a surprising promise as the Treasury under his leadership was insisting that taxation was exempt from the removal of EU law. https://t.co/DON7zn9mPB
That would appear to confirm the reporting of Bloomberg earlier [see 16.17] who claimed to have seen documents from late June when the Treasury, then under Sunak’s leadership, was saying it should be in charge of any review of EU legislation, and that the Rees-Mogg timetable of sunsetting it by 2026 was too ambitious.
These are the actual head-to-head numbers in that ConservativeHome polling, which hasn’t given a margin of error figure. They show Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak picking up support among their panel as Penny Mordaunt struggles to retain it
The first quick takes on those figures from the ConservativeHome website are that they indicate the race is potentially fast-moving and very volatile. Here is pollster Matt Singh.
Volatile. You’d expect that from an unstratified sample, but I think we now have plenty of evidence that the reality genuinely can change quickly… https://t.co/xGDQ1ii7xf
It could, of course, be that the methodology or sample is all over the place.
It will surely be a bit more reliable than a Lord Ashcroft poll of random people who click buttons on Twitter though, which for some reason Harborough MP Neil O’Brien is getting excited about.
Speaking of ConservativeHome, it has published its latest head-to-head run-off poll ratings, and the headline is “Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss would defeat Penny Mordaunt in the membership ballot were it held today” – with the important caveat “if our survey is correct”.
Paul Goodman goes on to write in the piece:
Truss is the overall winner – beating both Mordaunt and Sunak. The case Team Badenoch will be making to Conservative MPs this weekend, drawing on our result yesterday that found her the most popular candidate, will be: “Truss is finished – vote for Kemi.” To which Team Truss, pointing to this latest result, will be able to counter: “Liz can beat all comers in the final – hang on in there.”
Anecdotes are not data, but Orpington MP Gareth Bacon has just published what he says was a straw poll of Conservative members in his constituency who are overwhelmingly backing Kemi Badenoch.
Bacon goes on to say on Twitter: “She’s fearless, has a fresh perspective, and would lead a tightly focused government that gets the big stuff right. She deserves to be one of the final two candidates for members to decide.”
I was delighted to talk to a packed Orpington Conservative Association meeting about the leadership election and hear their views on the candidates.
It does chime with the panel survey on the ConservativeHome website published yesterday, which handed Badenoch a double-digit lead.
Bloomberg has published a piece this afternoon casting doubt on Rishi Sunak’s ability to deliver on his promise today to review or repeal all transferred EU law on the statute books by the time of the next election. The Bloomberg article claims:
Documents seen by Bloomberg show that a senior Treasury official working for Sunak when he was still Chancellor of the Exchequer privately demanded that EU-derived tax laws be exempted from legislation to scrap so-called retained EU law, or REUL.
Lucy Frazer, the financial secretary to the Treasury, said in a letter that it was not feasible to simply rip up EU laws that had been integral to British tax policy and case law for four decades. She argued that the Treasury should take charge of more carefully repealing the laws during future finance bills to prevent the government from becoming mired in litigation. She also suggested it would not be possible to sunset retained EU law by 2026.
Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg had written to colleagues on 1 June proposing that all of the REUL be sunset by 2026. Sunak appears to be bringing that date forward in today’s pledge, despite his own officials having cautioned against even aiming for 2026.
Read more here: Bloomberg – Sunak’s promise on EU law defies advice of his treasury team
During her media appearance on Times Radio this morning, attorney general Suella Braverman described Penny Mordaunt as “woke”, saying “My view of Penny is that she is woke, yes. I have no disrespect to her for her woke views, but I think we should call it out for what it is.”
Bury South Labour MP Christian Wakeford has tweeted in response, saying “The term woke essentially means someone who is concerned about social issues that may not necessarily affect them, largely centred on race and gender.”
“When,” he asks, “as a people did we become so unkind and unwilling to listen to others?”
The term woke essentially means someone who is concerned about social issues that may not necessarily affect them, largely centred on race and gender.
When as a people did we become so unkind and unwilling to listen to others? https://t.co/7rQBn0kk3X
— Christian Wakeford MP (@Christian4BuryS) July 17, 2022
Diane Taylor
The Home Office has been accused of misrepresenting the UN refugee agency’s stance on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, in a new disagreement between the two organisations, the Guardian has learned.
The Home Office and UNHCR have clashed previously over the safety and suitability of the Home Office’s policy of forcibly removing some asylum seekers who have recently arrived in the UK on small boats or in the back of lorries to Rwanda to have their claims processed there.
A high court hearing on 10 June was told that Home Office misled refugees about UN involvement in Rwanda plans.
But despite UNHCR making its position on the government’s Rwanda scheme clear during the court hearing, the Home Office is continuing to state UNHCR is supportive of the controversial scheme.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our own assessment of Rwanda has found it is a fundamentally safe and secure country with a track record of supporting asylum seekers, including working with the UN Refugee Agency, which said the country has a safe and protective environment for refugees.”
A UNHCR UK spokesperson told the Guardian: “UNHCR holds serious concerns with regard to specific shortcomings of the Rwandan asylum system and Rwanda’s capacity to offer long-term solutions for those being removed under the proposed deal.”
Read more of Diane Taylor’s report here: Home Office in fresh row with UNHCR over Rwanda asylum policy
Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, raises an interesting question about Tom Tugendhat’s suggestion that energy prices can be brought down “if we can put Putin on the back foot, if we can liberate those gas fields that he has been dominating”.
“How is Tugendhat planning to liberate the gas fields Russia is dominating?” my colleague asks. “Is he planning to invade Siberia?”
John Harris
John Harris writes for us today, arguing that what is missing from the Conservative leadership contest is a Tory candidate with the faintest idea of what modern Britain is actually like:
A huge amount of energy has been expended on talk of tax cuts, and a debate only about whether they should come sooner – or, as per the view of Rishi Sunak, later. There is across-the-board backing – even from Tom Tugendhat, the supposed representative of a more compassionate Conservatism – for sending refugees to Rwanda, surely the single most monstrous Tory policy of the past 12 years. Amid baking temperatures, there has been almost no serious discussion of the climate emergency. To the delight of her backers in the rightwing media, Kemi Badenoch, the only serious contender who has appeared to offer anything radical, seems to want post-Thatcher Toryism to be taken to its logical conclusion, whereby government does no more than the “essentials”; although the politicians in charge of it must also guard against anything in the culture deemed “unsound” (remarkably, one of her chosen targets is Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream, as if she speaks for an imaginary constituency of diehards who walk past the freezer cabinets in Waitrose and spit feathers).
In response to any suggestions that fundamental change is needed, any staunch Tory would presumably cite their party’s winning of an 80-seat majority in the Commons. But its aura of strength is partly down to an equally weak and confused Labour party – and in any case, the Conservatives are now faced with an unarguable and increasingly uncomfortable set of political facts. If Badenoch, Suella Braverman and that zealous Brexit convert Liz Truss often sound like politicians frantically trying to change the country before it is too late, it may be because somewhere in their political subconscious, they well know that their time is running out.
Read more here: John Harris – Wanted: a Tory candidate with the faintest idea of what modern Britain is actually like
The Economist has updated its odds tracker for the Conservative leadership race, with Rishi Sunak sneaking back in front of Penny Mordaunt as the politician people think will most likely be the next prime minister. The graph isn’t based on polling data of the people who will actually make the decision, it is showing a % chance of becoming next Conservative leader implied from Betfair Exchange.
Most importantly, as head of data journalism at the Economist, Alex Selby-Boothroyd, points out, it is making a pleasing infinity symbol for those of you, who like me, enjoy seeing patterns in things that probably aren’t there.
Rob Davies
Loot boxes in video games will not be banned in the UK, despite a government consultation finding evidence of a “consistent” association between the features and problem gambling.
Loot boxes have attracted comparison with gambling because they allow players to spend money to unlock in-game rewards, such as special characters, weapons or outfits, without knowing what they will get.
The features, popular in games such as Call of Duty and the Fifa football series, were effectively banned in Belgium in 2018, but the culture minister, Nadine Dorries, said the UK would not follow suit.
Instead, after a 22-month consultation, she said the government would discuss tougher “industry-led” protections with the UK’s £7bn gaming sector, drawing allegations from one expert that “foxes are guarding the hen house”.
Legislating to impose curbs or a prohibition on loot boxes as part of an expected overhaul of the UK’s gambling laws could have “unintended consequences”, Dorries said.
“For example, legislation to introduce an outright ban on children purchasing loot boxes could have the unintended effect of more children using adult accounts, and thus having more limited parental oversight of their play and spending,” the government said, in a response to the consultation published in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The government also concluded that while there was “a stable and consistent” association between loot boxes and problem gambling – identified across 15 peer reviewed studies – it could not be sure that there was a causative link.
While the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) stopped short of proposing legislation, Dorries said: “Children and young people should not be able to purchase loot boxes without parental approval. In addition, all players should have access to spending controls and transparent information to support their gaming.”
Read more of Rob Davies’ report here: UK will not ban video games loot boxes despite problem gambling findings
Stephen Bush has just published a piece at the FT in which he argues that Rishi Sunak needs to up his game in tonight’s debate – not because he wasn’t good on Friday, but because he is struggling to convince the party membership that he is for them. Bush says:
The former chancellor’s performance in Friday’s debate was brilliant. He was clear, concise and demonstrated exactly what his supporters see in him. But he doesn’t have enough support to win: every survey suggests he will lose to whoever faces him in the final round. His biggest problem, I think, is that he is seen as a tax-raising moderate by members.
Sunak’s strategy has all too often resembled that of Ken Clarke: telling Conservative members that, yes, they may disagree with him, but he is their best chance of winning an election. That tactic ended in failure for Clarke in 1997, 2001 and 2005 and there is no reason to believe it will work better for Sunak.
Bush also identified what he sees at the core of the struggle for the support of the right of the party between Kemi Badenoch and Liz Truss, writing:
Badenoch’s hopes rest on appearing to be a more straight-talking and articulate alternative for the party’s right than Truss, and it helps that she is free and able to criticise the departing government.
Truss needs to retain the support of Boris Johnson’s remaining allies in the media and the parliamentary party if she is to remain in pole position to unite the Conservative right. On TV, she managed to stick to that position by staying loyal to Johnson. Her reward is the continued loyalty and support of much of the rightwing press, but it comes at a cost because the departing prime minister is now incredibly unpopular.
You can read more here: FT – Stephen Bush – In the second debate, it’s Rishi Sunak who needs to change gear
Dr Philippa Whitford, the SNP’s health spokesperson in Westminster, appears to have laughed off the suggestion coming out of Scottish Conservative MP John Lamont and Penny Mordaunt’s campaign that Mordaunt would be the candidate that the SNP fear winning the most.
The contest is now down to five candidates after the second ballot of Conservative party lawmakers with former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak in the lead
The contest is now down to five candidates after the second ballot of Conservative party lawmakers with former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak in the lead
The story so far: The second round of voting by Conservative Party MPs to replace outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the leader of the Tories and the new British Prime Minister, concluded on Thursday, July 14. The candidate leading the race is former British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, whose resignation led to a flurry of ministers stepping down from Mr. Johnson’s government, leading to the PM’s resignation.
How and when will the Prime Minister get elected?
The new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will not be elected through a general election but through internal ballots in the Conservative Party, which still holds a majority.
The Opposition Labour party had asked for a motion of confidence in the government and in Mr. Johnson, as they want him to step down with immediate effect as opposed to when the new Prime Minister is finally elected. The Labour motion was rejected by the government on July 11 as the norm is to table a straightforward motion to test the confidence of the House in the government, without naming the Prime Minister. Labour’s motion would have put Tory lawmakers in a tricky situation as it would require them to show alignment with the government and Mr. Johnson to win the vote. Losing a no-confidence vote would trigger general elections.
Instead, the government decided on July 13 to introduce a motion of confidence in itself, a vote on which is expected by next week, according to the BBC.
Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee or the Conservative Private Members’ Committee of influential Tory parliamentarians or backbencher MPs who do not hold any government posts, drew up a timetable of the process to elect the new leader.
July 12: Nominations to be the new leader of the Conservative Party formally opened and also closed. At this stage, a candidate needed the backing of 20 MPs including one proposer, one seconder, and 18 other party lawmakers.
July 13: The first round of voting by 358 Conservative MPs to shortlist candidates from those who cleared the nomination stage. Candidates need at least 30 votes in the first round to advance to the next.
July 14: The second round of voting to eliminate the candidate with the least number of votes.
Up to July 21: Subsequent rounds of voting to shortlist the final two candidates.
July/ August: The final two Prime Ministerial candidates to go campaigning among Tory party members across the country to win their votes after which 160,000 members will send their votes through postal ballots.
September 5: The Conservative Party announces who has been elected as the new leader of the party by members. As the selected leader will command a parliamentary majority, they will consequently become the next Prime Minister.
Who is still in the race and what are they pitching for?
Eight Tory MPs had qualified to enter the race after securing the support of at least 20 of their colleagues by the time voting closed on Tuesday evening (July 12). By the end of the first round of voting on July 13, two of the eight candidates could not win the support of 30 MPs each — former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and newly appointed Iraqi-origin Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. The remaining six candidates went into the second round on July 14. After the second round, the candidate with the least number of votes, Suella Braverman, was eliminated. Here is a brief look at the six candidates that cleared the first round.
Rishi Sunak
File photo of former British Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Rishi Sunak
| Photo Credit: Reuters
The Indian-origin former Chancellor of the Exchequer leads the field in the second round of voting, with 101 votes. The 42-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker, who first got elected to Parliament from the Richmond (Yorks) constituency in 2015, reached up the ranks fairly quickly. After being a part of former Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, he was appointed as the Treasury Chief Secretary when Mr. Johnson took charge in 2019 and bagged the country’s second most important government position, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 2020.
In the months leading up to his resignation from Mr. Johnson’s government, Mr. Sunak’s popularity slumped owing to a series of controversies. He faced criticism earlier this year for his handling of Britain’s worst cost of living crisis since 1972. Then came the controversy involving his wife Akshaya Murthy’s non-domicile tax status in the U.K., attracting Opposition fury as it meant she did not have to pay British taxes on foreign dividends coming annually from Infosys, the Indian company co-founded by her father N.R. Narayana Murthy. Ms. Murthy eventually announced that she would be paying all her taxes in the U.K. Then, Mr. Sunak and Mr. Johnson were fined for breaching COVID-19 restrictions to attend a party in 2020.
Mr. Sunak, while setting out his pitch for the Prime Minister’s post, said that he would make it his first priority to reduce high inflation, unlike the immediate tax cuts proposed by his opponents. He said in his campaign video that he wants to confront the U.K.’s current economic reality with “seriousness” and “determination” rather than telling the public “comforting fairy tales”.
Mr. Sunak also committed, on Tuesday, to stick to Mr. Johnson’s pledge to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), that the U.K. would increase its defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 (i.e., above NATO’s annual target of 2%).
Penny Mordaunt
British Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt speaks at an event to launch her campaign to be the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister, in London, Britain July 13, 2022.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Junior Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt came in second with 83 votes in the second round of voting on Wednesday. She is known for becoming Britain’s first female Defence Secretary in 2019, albeit for a short period of 85 days, after which she was sacked by Mr. Johnson when he took charge. She entered the cabinet again after a year as Paymaster General and was subsequently made the Minister of State for Trade in the 2021 Cabinet reshuffle. She has also previously served as the Minister for Women and Equalities. She is also known for her appearance on a now-off air British relay TV show Splash.
Ms. Mordaunt is a Brexit supporter and has said in her pitch that she hopes to hold discussions to get the British economy growing again. George Freeman, one of the Tory MPs backing her, told the BBC about Ms. Mordaunt’s plan: “firstly, an emergency budget, the targeted tax cuts for those really struggling with the cost of living, and for those small businesses, the job creators.” She also plans to raise income tax thresholds for basic and middle-income populations as per inflation and has also promised to bring down Value Added Tax (VAT) on fuel. She has also pledged to make the British leadership “a little less about the leader” and “a lot more about the ship”.
Liz Truss
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss leaves after the weekly cabinet meeting on Downing Street, in London, Britain May 24, 2022.
| Photo Credit: TOBY MELVILLE
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was first elected to the parliament from South West Norfolk in 2010 and is popular among the Tories. She came in third with 64 votes in the second round of Tory voting.
Having received praise for handling Britain’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, she is a Boris Johnson loyalist and did not resign even as he lost support in his party. Ms. Truss has served in multiple positions under former Prime Ministers David Cameroon, Theresa May and Mr. Johnson, including the posts of Chief Treasury Secretary, and International Trade Secretary when she negotiated post-Brexit trade pacts.
She said in her pitch on Thursday, July 14 that she was the only contender having the experience of taking “tough decisions”, and that such is the nature of decisions needed to get the British economy out of the woods. Among her campaign promises are introducing immediate tax cuts and rolling back increase in National Insurance payments on earnings.
According to a Reuters report, Ms. Truss said at her campaign launch event on Thursday : “We have to level with the British public that our economy will not get back on track overnight. Times are going to be tough, but I know that I can get us on an upward trajectory by 2024.”
Kemi Badenoch
A file photo of Kemi Badenoch
| Photo Credit: AP
Former Joint Minister for Levelling Up and Equalities, the London-born politician who grew up in Nigeria and the United States, entered the London Assembly in 2015 and subsequently became an MP from Saffron Walden in 2017. She has also made it through the second round. According to The Guardian, she is popular among right-wing Tory MPs and is known for being a critic of “wokeness”, having defended the U.K. by saying that it is “falsely criticised as oppressive to minorities and immoral because it enforces its own borders”. She is critical of Britain’s climate action targets like net-zero emissions saying that a green transition would hurt the pockets of Britons. According to the Daily Mail, she said at her campaign event referring to her opponents that she is not going to indulge in a “tax bidding war” over who is offering bigger cuts.
Tom Tugendhat
A file photo of Conservative politician Tom Tugendhat
| Photo Credit: AFP
A former army officer and a veteran having served in Afghanistan and Iraq, the backbench Tory lawmaker became an MP in 2015 from the constituency of Tonbridge, Kent. He has also made it through after the second round. Since 2020, he has been serving as the chairman of the influential Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee. He became a subject of headlines for criticising United States President Joe Biden for the way he led his country’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Mr. Tugendhat has also promised tax cuts and repealing of the National Insurance hike in Britain, besides vowing to ease the cost-of-living crisis and promising fuel duty cuts. Referring to himself as the “backbone” of the Conservative party, he has sought support for his candidacy as it would be a timely “clean start”.
Suella Braverman
British Attorney General Suella Braverman
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Serving as the current Attorney General of the U.K., the Indian-origin politician became an MP from Fareham, Hampshire, in 2015. Ms. Braverman secured 32 votes in the first round, coming in last. She has been eliminated from the race after the second round of voting. A Brexit supporter, she had served at the government’s Brexit Department under Ms. May.
She has pledged corporate tax cuts to increase foreign investment. According to the BBC, she has also promised to make the U.K. exit the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). She is against Britain’s net-zero emission targets and climate action as she finds the policies too expensive.
