The British official who was in charge of Brexit border preparations, Karen Wheeler, has left her job, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs said on Thursday.
“I would like to thank Karen for her outstanding work leading the Border Deliver Group to prepare the UK for EU Exit and we wish her well for her retirement,” Jonathan Thompson, HMRC Chief Executive, said in a statement to Reuters.
“We shall be announcing her successor in due course,” he said. Wheeler did not respond to a request for comment and the reason for her departure was unclear.
Wheeler’s job was to ensure that the United Kingdom’s borders remained efficient and secure as it exits the EU. She was the lead coordinator across the British government on ensuring a “frictionless” border after Brexit.
The United Kingdom could be heading towards a constitutional crisis as many of the candidates vying to succeed Prime Minister Theresa May are prepared to leave the EU on Oct. 31 without a deal, but parliament has indicated it will try to thwart such a scenario.
May’s failure to deliver Brexit by the original March 29 deadline destroyed her premiership. But the next prime minister, expected to be in place by the last days of July, will face the same deadlocked political system.
That has raised concerns among investors and business leaders that the United Kingdom could be heading for an abrupt, no-deal exit from the EU for which it is not yet ready.
Wheeler said earlier this year that there was no magic technological solution for preventing a hard border in Ireland after Brexit.
She said the United Kingdom would need a customs union with the EU, plus something that looks like a single market, to have completely free movement of goods across the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
The British government and businesses began preparations for a possible no-deal scenario ahead of the original March 29 Brexit date, but then had to unwind many of those preparations.
The Institute for Government, a think tank, said this week that the United Kingdom will probably never be as ready for a no-deal Brexit as it was in March - and that later this year many warehouses will be booked up ahead of Christmas.
“Perhaps a bullish and bold Brexiteer prime minister will be able to galvanise business and the civil service to prepare for no deal,” it said in a report.
“They are likely to inherit a set of plans for no deal that are not much more developed than they were in March.”
Special Diplomatic report(wp/reuters)::: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he hoped Britain’s next prime minister would forget about the poisoning of a former double agent in England last year in order to improve battered ties.
The poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury with a nerve agent prompted a wave of diplomatic expulsions and recriminations with ties between London and Moscow shrivelling to a post-Cold War low in its wake.
British prosecutors have since charged two Russian military intelligence officers, known by the aliases Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, with attempted murder in their absence, though the Kremlin has repeatedly denied Russian involvement.
Putin, speaking to media on the sidelines of an economic forum in St Petersburg, said he hoped whoever succeeded Theresa May as Britain’s prime minister would see what he described as the bigger picture and move on from the Skripal incident.
May is due to step down soon after failing to persuade parliament to back a deal on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. The ruling Conservative Party is in the process of choosing her successor.
“When all’s said and done we need to turn this page connected with spies and assassination attempts,” said Putin, who described Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service, as London’s spy.
“He’s your agent not ours. That means you spied against us and it’s hard for me to say what happened with him subsequently. We need to forget about all this in the final analysis,” said Putin.
The Russian leader recalled his own lengthy experience working first for the Soviet Union’s KGB spy service and then Russia’s FSB security service, which he suggested meant he knew what he was talking about.
“Global issues linked with common national interests in the economic, social and security spheres are more important than games played by intelligence services. I’m talking to you as an expert, believe me. We need to cast off this fluff and get down to business.”
Putin said better ties between London and Moscow would benefit the interests of 600 British companies he said were working in Russia.
“They want to feel secure .... and we regard them as friends.”
May’s spokeswoman, reacting to Putin’s statement, said London would continue to engage with Russia on matters of international security, but that Moscow had to change its behaviour.
“We have been clear that Russia’s pattern of aggression and destabilising behaviour undermines its claims to be a responsible international partner,” she said.
“...The PM has made clear on numerous occasions we can only have a different relationship if Russia changes its behaviour.”
Pic:::Khuram Butt booked a trip to Turkey, but his wife told an inquest she feared he would go on to Syria/wp/bbc Pic:::The victims of the London Bridge attack clockwise from top left - Chrissy Archibald, James McMullan, Alexandre Pigeard, Sébastien Bélanger, Ignacio Echeverría, Xavier Thomas, Sara Zelenak, Kirsty Boden Law&Justice(wp/bbc):::
The widow of one of the London Bridge attackers is "not going to grieve" his death, she has told an inquest.
Khuram Butt and two other men were shot dead by police after they killed eight people in a 10-minute attack.
Butt's wife, Zahrah Rehman, told the Old Bailey his actions were "disgusting" and their children would never know where his grave was.
She denied prior knowledge of her husband's plot but said she had been worried he wanted to go to Syria.
When Butt booked a holiday to Turkey in 2015, Ms Rehman refused to go because she feared he would take their son on to the war-torn country, she said.
She told her family about her concerns and they took both Butt's and the child's passports away.
Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, mowed down pedestrians on London Bridge with a rented van before stabbing people in nearby Borough Market.
On the day of the attack, Ms Rehman said Butt had a lie-in until 11:00 BST and did not kiss his children goodbye when he left.
Armed police stormed Butt's home at about 08:00 BST the following day and arrested Ms Rehman.
She broke down in court as she described her shock at finding out what her husband had done.
"I could not register it that I was living with him and he was in the same house as me and my kids," she said.
"We were living together. But it was almost as if we were living different lives.
"I knew it was a possibility that he wanted to go to Syria… but he never told me that he hates this country and wanted to attack this country."
Ms Rehman said she did not observe the traditional period of mourning for her husband after his death or attend his funeral.
In the aftermath of the attack, she said she laid flower tributes to the victims on London Bridge.
"My kids will never know where his grave is but I was there mourning with the rest of London on that bridge," she said.
She told how she still cannot look at photographs of Butt's victims.
'I did not know'
Ms Rehman gave evidence from behind a screen, but the court could hear emotion in her voice as she described her horror at her husband's actions.
She began sobbing as she told the court how some people had shunned her in the two years since the horrific events of 3 June 2017.
"People say: 'She's the wife, she had to have known'," she said. "But believe me - I did not know."
The inquest was shown two pictures of the small flat she shared with Butt and their two children.
Piles of brightly coloured children's toys and a framed wooden heart on the wall made it an incongruous setting for an extremist to plan a murderous attack.
Ms Rehman said her family was originally from Pakistan, but she was born and brought up in the UK.
When she first met Butt through family connections she said he was "really confident", "charismatic", and "quite light-hearted".
They had an arranged marriage on Christmas Day, 2013.
"We were just a normal Muslim family," she said.
But she said her husband was quite strict and would get "angry" with his sister if she came to visit without wearing a headscarf.
And her brother had encouraged Butt to stop partying, drinking alcohol and smoking weed.
Butt had been upset about the plight of the Syrian people under President Bashar al-Assad, Ms Rehman told the court.
The room was shown a video of Ms Rehman and Butt on their honeymoon in Pakistan, during which Butt was heard saying, "Dawlat al-Islamiyah" - another name for the Islamic State group.
Ms Rehman said she did not know what her husband was saying as she did not understand Arabic.
In a second video, filmed on a plane, the couple joke about naming airports after extremists.
Ms Rehman suggests calling a London airport after Abu Luqman, an alias of radical preacher Anjem Choudary.
She said he was the first extremist she thought of and it was "just a stupid joke".
Butt 'wouldn't listen'
By 2015, Ms Rehman said she was aware her husband sometimes met Choudary.
She told Butt he should not associate with the preacher, but "he wouldn't listen".
She was not allowed to be in the same room as men, so would go into the bedroom when Butt's friends came to the flat.
"I was usually on my laptop... watching my films… I wouldn't be paying attention to what they were talking about," she said.
Ms Rehman was told that by mid-2015 MI5 had intelligence Butt might be planning an attack in the UK.
But she said she was not aware of any plot.
At one point, the couple had an argument when Butt suggested taking a second wife, and she left him for about a month to live with her mother.
While they were separated, Channel 4 broadcast a programme featuring Butt called The Jihadis Next Door.
The court previously heard how during the programme Butt condemned the UK government, particularly over its actions in Iraq and Syria.
Ms Rehman told the Old Bailey: "I was really angry at him. I was really embarrassed and ashamed at him."
The pair got back together, she said, but continued to argue.
Those who died were: Xavier Thomas, 45, Christine Archibald, 30, Sara Zelenak, 21, Sébastien Bélanger, 36, James McMullan, 32, Kirsty Boden, 28, Alexandre Pigeard, 26, and, Ignacio Echeverría, 39.
The Speaker of the House, John Bercow, says ending the current session of Parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit is "simply not going to happen".
Tory leadership candidate Dominic Raab has suggested he would be prepared to shut down Parliament to ensure the UK leaves the EU on 31 October.
But the suggestion of using the process - known as prorogation - has led to criticism from many MPs.
The SNP's Pete Wishart called the proposal a "subversion of democracy".
Leader of the House Mel Stride also said a new prime minister would "not necessarily" be in place before MPs take their summer recess.
Asked about it in the Commons, he said it would be down to an "interplay between when the contest within the Conservative Party for the new leader is due to conclude, and when the recess itself is announced".
He added: "We certainly don't know the answer to the latter, and I'm not sure that we entirely know the answer to the former."
The current session has been going for almost two years - since the 2017 election - as it was extended to tackle the legislation for Brexit.
Shadow leader of the House, Valerie Vaz, told the Commons it was the longest session in Parliament since the 1800 Acts of Union.
What is prorogation?
Every parliamentary session - which usually lasts around a year, starting with the State Opening of Parliament and a Queen's Speech - is ended when it is "prorogued" by the Queen.
The process essentially closes Parliament and ends the progress of current legislation until a new session begins.
Although it is technically at the Queen's "command", in practice it is the government's decision of when it happens.
How could it be used to push through no deal?
If a new prime minister is concerned about MPs blocking the UK's exit from the EU, they could advise the Queen to prorogue Parliament.
This would send MPs away so that they cannot do anything in the Commons to hold up Brexit.
However, it would be an unprecedented move in modern times to use this power for political reasons, rather than to end a session in preparation for a new Queen's Speech.
What have MPs said?
The possibility of prorogation has arisen as part of the Tory leadership contest - which will also choose the UK's next prime minister - as the candidates battle over their vision for Brexit.
After Mr Raab made his comments to a leadership hustings on Wednesday, his fellow contender, International Development Secretary Rory Stewart, called the suggestion "unconstitutional" and "undemocratic", adding: "It wouldn't work."
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has ruled out prorogation if he wins the contest, writing on Twitter that it "undermines parliamentary democracy and risks a general election".
And former Leader of the House Andrea Leadsom told Sky News that such a plan "would not be something workable".
Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd - who is not running - also condemned the proposal, saying: "I think it's outrageous to consider proroguing Parliament. We are not Stuart kings."
The comments also led to a number of impassioned speeches in the Commons on Thursday.
Labour's Chris Bryant said it would be on "a Venezuelan scale of outrage" to carry it out "simply to force through a no-deal Brexit against the will of Parliament".
Mr Wishart asked the Leader of the House to confirm that he had "no intention of suspending democracy in this country to facilitate that no-deal Brexit".
Mr Stride said prorogation was "ultimately in the gift of the Queen", adding: "What I would say is, that I do think Her Majesty should be kept out of the politics of our Parliament.
"I'm sure that will be a matter that will be at the forefront of those who toy with those decisions in the future."
Mr Bercow said it was not going to happen and his conclusion was "so blindingly obvious it almost doesn't need to be stated".
Pic-Richard Martin (left) murdered his older brother John Martin
Crime reporter(wp/bbc):::
A man who admitted beating his older brother to death in a row over inheritance has been jailed for life.
Richard Martin, 53, was angry his brother John inherited their father's £500,000 house when he died and believed the will bequeathing the property had been forged.
Martin broke into the property in Hemel Hempstead in June 2018 and bludgeoned his sibling to death.
Judge Richard Foster gave him a minimum term of 18 years in prison.
The brothers, then aged six and eight, had moved into the house in Malmes Croft with their parents William and Jean in 1971, Luton Crown Court heard.
Following the death of their mother in 2012, Richard was asked to leave the house by his father, who later changed his will to leave the property solely to John.On 9 June 2018, his 53rd birthday, Richard Martin walked from his bedsit in Barley Croft to his brother's detached property nearby.
"I was going to break in and throw him out. It just came to me that morning, I was just so angry and irate," he had told the court.
He broke in and used a metal bar and a brick to bludgeon his 55-year-old brother to death.
The electrical engineer then dragged the body out through the patio doors to a garden shed. He later went to the pub and a cinema with a friend.
Police officers found John Martin's body two days later after concerns were raised when he failed to turn up for a tennis match.
Richard Martin told the officers: "John can't come because he is dead - I killed him."Sentencing him, Judge Foster said he had murdered his brother in "horrific circumstances".
"The background to this case makes sad reading. It is an example of how money and possessions can be a force for evil when they tear a family apart," he said.
"In my judgement you have no regrets for what you did - to the contrary, you still seek to justify it."
The BBC has confirmed details of its first TV debate between Tory hopefuls vying to be the next party leader - and the country's new PM.
Our Next Prime Minister will take place on Tuesday 18 June at 20:00 BST, broadcast on BBC One.
The live debate will be hosted by BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis.
All candidates who are in the race by that date will be invited to take part and face questions from viewers across the country via local TV studios.
BBC executive producer Jonathan Munro said: "This is a programme which allows the BBC's audiences to set the agenda, and ask the questions which are at the forefront of their minds.
"It'll be broadcast at a key moment in the process of narrowing down the field of candidates in the race for Downing Street."
The Conservative leadership contest is already under way, despite MPs still having until the end of the week to put their names forward.
After the full list of candidates has been confirmed on Monday, MPs will begin a series of votes, and the contender with the lowest number will be eliminated in each round.
The process will take place until only two MPs remain, and the wider party membership will then vote to decide on the winner.
The first ballot will take place on Thursday 13 June, but the second will take place on the same day of the debate, with the results expected around 18:00.
The new leader - who also becomes the new prime minister - is expected to be announced by the end of July.
Telecom reporter(wp/reuters):::China’s Huawei Technologies needs to raise its “shoddy” security standards which fall below rivals, a senior British cyber security official said on Thursday, as the company comes under increasing pressure in the West.
U.S. has led allegations that Huawei’s equipment can be used by Beijing for espionage operations, with Washington urging allies to bar the company from next-generation 5G networks.
British officials have also raised concerns about security issues but said they can manage the risks and have seen no evidence of spying. Huawei has repeatedly denied the allegations against it.
“Huawei as a company builds stuff very differently to their Western counterparts. Part of that is because of how quickly they’ve grown up, part of it could be cultural - who knows,” said Ian Levy, Technical Director of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, part of the GCHQ signals intelligence agency.
“What we have learnt as a result of that, the security is objectively worse, and we need to cope with that,” he told a conference in London.
Asked about how Huawei compares with its competitors, Levy said: “Certainly nothing is perfect, certainly Huawei is shoddy, the others are less shoddy.”
The United States has placed sanctions on Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of mobile network equipment, and tried to block it from buying U.S. goods. Washington has also said it will limit intelligence sharing with allies who continue to use the company’s technology.
Britain’s National Security Council decided in April to block Huawei from all core parts of its future 5G network but to give it restricted access to non-core parts.
That decision came after a British government report in March rebuked the company for failing to fix long-standing security flaws in its equipment and revealed new “significant technical issues.”
Huawei has pledged to spend more than $2 billion as part of efforts to address the problems but also warned it could take up to five years to see results.
Levy said he had not yet seen any action by the company to reassure him Huawei was taking the necessary steps and “the start of a high-level plan that we can talk about in public would be a good thing.”
“To be fair, they have a lot of work to do, and I think they know that,” he said. “You wouldn’t expect to have, in six months since we published that report, less than that, them coming out going ‘we’ve fixed it.’ That would be unachievable.”
Business reporter(wp/reuters):::Britain’s John Lewis Partnership, the employee-owned retailer, has poached Sharon White, the head of UK telecoms and media regulator Ofcom, to be its new 1 million pound ($1.3 million) a year chairman.
White will step down from Ofcom around the turn of the year after more than four years in the job and succeed Charlie Mayfield at the retail group that runs John Lewis department stores and upmarket grocery chain Waitrose in early 2020.
White, a trained economist who had been seen as an outside contender to succeed Mark Carney as Bank of England Governor, will be John Lewis’ sixth chairman and the first woman to hold the high-profile position in the retailer’s 155-year history.
Before joining Ofcom, White was a senior government official in Britain’s finance, justice and international development departments.
She has also worked as an adviser at the UK Prime Minister’s Policy Unit and in Washington DC as a senior economist at the World Bank.
“I readily recognize that Sharon is not the conventional retail choice. But these are not conventional retail times, nor is the partnership a conventional company,” said Mayfield, chairman since 2007.
Mayfield said White had had a stellar career in a number of senior strategic and executive roles, and had stood out as an exceptional candidate.
“I believe she has the vision, leadership, drive and flair to steer the partnership through its next phase,” he said.
In March the partnership reported a 45% drop in full-year profit and cut its staff bonus to the lowest in 66 years, as it dealt with weak demand and rising costs as well as the approach of Britain’s exit from the European Union.
Mayfield said at the time that a no-deal Brexit would be “extremely unfortunate and damaging” to it and other companies.
“PASSIONATE BELIEVER”
White said she was a “passionate believer” in the John Lewis co-ownership model, which has been lauded by government and sees profits shared out among its 83,900 staff, which it calls partners.
“John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners are not merely British retail icons, but also a model of a better way to do business,” she said.
“In my current role, my vision has been to ensure that consumers in fast-moving markets get high quality, reliable services at fair prices, from thriving businesses they can trust.”
White is the third leader of Ofcom, an independent regulator set up in 2003 to bring together the duties of five organizations across broadcasting and telecommunications.
She forced Britain’s former telecoms monopoly provider BT to separate the national broadband network into a different unit, stopping short of a complete split, to improve customer service and drive investment in fiber connections.
She also sold the airwaves for 5G mobile services, and started regulating the publicly-funded BBC.
Ofcom said it had begun the search for White’s successor.
Her basic pay at John Lewis will be 990,000 pounds, though she will also be eligible for the annual partnership bonus.
