Rishi Sunak unveils £5bn extra defence spending ahead of US Aukus summit – UK politics live

Here is a key passage in the integrated review refresh explaining government policy to China. It says:

The UK’s China policy is being updated to respond to two overarching factors that have continued to evolve since IR2021:

i. First, China’s size and significance on almost every global issue, which will continue to increase in the years ahead in ways that will be felt in the UK and around the world. China is a long-standing permanent member of the UN Security Council. It now accounts for nearly a fifth of the world economy and is a major investor in the developing world. It is highly advanced in several industrial, scientific and technological fields, and plays a vital role in many global supply chains of importance to the UK. As the world’s largest investor in sustainable energy and the largest emitter of carbon, the choices that China makes are critical to our collective ability to tackle climate change. In other areas such as global health and pandemic preparedness, decisions taken by China have the potential to have profound impact on our lives at home.

ii. Second, the UK’s growing concerns about the actions and stated intent of the CCP. Since IR2021, it has chosen to strengthen its partnership with Russia just as Russia pursued its invasion of Ukraine, and continued to disregard universal human rights and its international commitments, from Tibet and Xinjiang to Hong Kong. Its ‘new multilateralism’ is challenging the centrality of human rights and freedoms in the UN system. It has pursued rapid and opaque military modernisation with huge new investments, militarised disputed islands in the South China Sea, and refused to renounce the use of force to achieve its objectives with regard to Taiwan. It has used economic power to coerce countries with which it disagrees, such as Lithuania. The CCP has sanctioned British parliamentarians and acted in other ways to undermine free speech. And as the Director General of MI5 identified publicly last year, it has engaged in both espionage and interference in the UK.

The UK does not accept that China’s relationship with the UK or its impact on the international system are set on a predetermined course. Our preference is for better cooperation and understanding, and predictability and stability for global public good. But we believe that this will depend on the choices China makes, and will be made harder if trends towards greater authoritarianism and assertiveness overseas continue. The UK’s policy towards China will therefore be anchored in our core national interests and our higher interest in an open and stable international order, based on the UN Charter and international law. Where it is consistent with these interests, we will engage constructively with the Chinese government, business and people and cooperate on shared priorities. But wherever the CCP’s actions and stated intent threaten the UK’s interests, we will take swift and robust action to protect them. This is the template for mature diplomacy between two P5 nations and is aligned with the approaches adopted by our closest allies and partners, including those in Europe, the US, Australia, Canada and Japan.

By comparision, this is what the original integrated review, published in March 2021, said about China. Since then, the language has been toughened – although not as much as some Conservatives want.

China as a systemic competitor. China’s increasing power and international assertiveness is likely to be the most significant geopolitical factor of the 2020s. The scale and reach of China’s economy, size of its population, technological advancement and increasing ambition to project its influence on the global stage, for example through the Belt and Road Initiative, will have profound implications worldwide. Open, trading economies like the UK will need to engage with China and remain open to Chinese trade and investment, but they must also protect themselves against practices that have an adverse effect on prosperity and security. Cooperation with China will also be vital in tackling transnational challenges, particularly climate change and biodiversity loss …

China’s growing international stature is by far the most significant geopolitical factor in the world today, with major implications for British values and interests and for the structure and shape of the international order. The fact that China is an authoritarian state, with different values to ours, presents challenges for the UK and our allies. China will contribute more to global growth than any other country in the next decade with benefits to the global economy. China and the UK both benefit from bilateral trade and investment, but China also presents the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security.

The updated integrated review includes a foreword from Rishi Sunak. This is what he says in it about China.

China poses an epoch-defining challenge to the type of international order we want to see, both in terms of security and values – and so our approach must evolve. We will work with our partners to engage with Beijing on issues such as climate change. But where there are attempts by the Chinese Communist party to coerce or create dependencies, we will work closely with others to push back against them. And we are taking new action to protect ourselves, our democracy and our economy at home.

Cleverly starts by saying the integrated review published two years ago set out how the UK would thrive in a more complicated age.

It showed how the government would use “the combined might of every part of government to ensure that our country remains safe, prosperous and influential into the 2030s”, he says.

He says the approach was right. He goes on:

On every continent of the world, the United Kingdom walks taller today than it has done for many years.

This provokes some laughter.

James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, is now making his statement to MPs about the updated integrated defence and security review.

Humza Yousaf has said he would shift the campaign for independence into “fifth gear” if he wins the SNP leadership, following a suggestion from a colleague that it should “go down a gear”, PA Media reports.

Ben Macpherson, the minister for social security in the Scottish government, said it would take longer than the short or medium term for Scotland to become a successful independent country. Writing in Scotland on Sunday yesterday, Macpherson said:

Any reckless, overly disruptive path to statehood would quickly make our quality of life in Scotland poorer. Better to go down a gear and take the journey at a reasonably safe speed than crash trying to rush things.

Today, on a visit to Stirling, Yousaf, the health secretary in the Scottish government and one of the three SNP leadership candidates, said he disagreed. Asked about Macpherson’s comment, he replied:

I have the opposite view, I think we should be ramping up, not ramping down activity.

If I was the first minister I’d put us into fifth gear – let alone take it down a gear.

There’s a number of prospectus papers I would commit to publishing around the case for independence as soon as I become first minister.

But also, on day one, we’ve got to kick start the Yes movement.

Kate Forbes, the finance secretary and Yousaf’s main rival, also said she disagreed with Macpherson suggestion that independence should be made less of an immediate goal, and more of a long term one. She said:

I would fundamentally disagree [with Macpherson]. I think we have learned lessons of how not to do it from Brexit, but I think you can be far more effective in laying the groundwork from the very beginning.

I think the nature of the transition is that it’s gradual, but I would distance myself from the assumption that it would take decades, or indeed many, many years.

Yousaf and Forbes, who are the two frontrunners in the contest, have both been accused of favouring a more gradual approach to independence than Nicola Sturgeon. Ash Regan, the former community safety minister who is the third candidate in the contest, appears to prioritise independence more than her rivals. She has said she thinks Scotland could get independence without a referendum if enough voters back pro-independence parties.

Chris Skidmore, the Conservative former minister who did a net zero review for the government and who is standing down at the next election, has said he will not vote for the illegal migration bill tonight.

Caroline Nokes, another former Tory minister, has also said she will not vote for the bill. She said the proposals filled her with “absolute horror”.

Two MPs abstaining does not constitute a significant rebellion. But what Nokes and Skidmore have shown is that the bill does not have universal support on the government backbenches. As Michael Savage and Toby Helm reported in the Observer yesterday, “a potential Tory rebellion [is] already brewing over the proposals”. There are even reports that Priti Patel, the former home secretary, may speak out against parts of the bill.

These are from Ben Zaranko, an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has posted a thread on Twitter about the significance of Rishi Sunak saying he wants to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP “in the longer term”. It starts here.

And here are some of the points he is making.

And this is from Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS (and Zaranko’s boss).

Many Tories were furious with Gary Lineker for comparing the language used by the government to discuss migrants with what was said in Nazi Germany. More than 30 MPs and peers reportedly signed a letter saying Lineker should apologise “at the very least”. It was organised by the Common Sense group, a rightwing Tory caucus particularly hostile to liberalism.

But not all rightwingers think the same way. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, is more libertarian than his Common Sense colleagues and he told GB News this morning that he was “not fussed” about Lineker criticising the govenrment. Rees-Mogg, who also presents a show on the station, said:

I think those of us broadly on the right have to be very, very careful about attacking people for freedom of speech, so I’m not fussed about what he says.

But Rees-Mogg did argue that the row strengthened the case for the abolition of the BBC licence fee. He said:

[Lineker] can say what he likes. The issue is that the BBC is the state broadcaster and that it’s funded by a tax on televisions. If it weren’t, then we wouldn’t need to worry about its impartiality.

Actually, if we change the funding mechanism of the BBC, we could have a much freer media, as they do in the United States, where people are allowed to say what they think.

I think that would be much better rather than this pretence that the BBC is impartial, which it isn’t, and then having rows about particular presenters.

Asked about the licence fee at the morning lobby briefing, the No 10 spokesperson said:

We remain committed to the licence fee for the rest of the current charter. But we’ve been clear that the BBC’s funding model faces major challenges due to changes in the way people consume media.

And it’s necessary to look at ways to ensure long-term sustainability.

The BBC’s current charter runs out in 2027.

At the No 10 lobby briefing the spokesperson said the government was glad that the BBC’s dispute with Gary Lineker had been resolved. He said:

We’re pleased that this situation has been resolved and that fans will be able to watch Match of the Day as normal this weekend.

The spokesperson repeated the line used previously about Rishi Sunak being “disappointed” by the language used by Lineker in relation to the government’s small boats policy, and the rhetoric used by ministers, but the spokesperson declined to say Lineker should apologise.

The spokesperson also declined to offer full backing to Richard Sharp, the BBC chair (and Sunak’s former boss at Goldman Sachs). No 10 is still waiting for the outcome of the review into the appointment process being carried out by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments, the spokesperson said.