Stakes high for Trump-Putin summit as Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal
They fear the compromise they will be forced to make will be messy, costly, unfair and ultimately beneficial to the invading tyrant who brought death and destruction to their sovereign land.
Six weeks ago, I spoke to President Zelenskyy in London.
I put it to him in our Sky News interview that Presidents Trump and Putin were heading towards making a deal between themselves, a grand bargain, in which Ukraine was but one piece on the chess board.
Zelenskyy smiled as if to acknowledge the reality ahead.
He paused and then he said this: "We are not going to be a card in talks between great nations, and we will never accept that… I definitely do not want to see global deals between America and Russia.
"We don't need it. We are a separate story, a victim of Russian aggression and we will not reward it."
35:37
It was a response that betrayed his greatest fear - that this will become essentially a Trump negotiation in which Zelenskyy and Ukraine will be told "take it or leave it".
And, by the way, if you "leave it", then it will be painful.
Harsh realities
It's the prospect that now confronts Zelenskyy as Trump and Putin plough ahead on a course that has clear attractions for both of them.
Of course, Zelenskyy is right to say there can be no deal without Ukraine. But there are harsh realities at play here.
President Trump wants a deal on Ukraine - any deal - that he can chalk up as a win. He wants it badly and he wants it now.
It's the impediment to a broader strategic deal with Putin and he wants it out of the way. It's what he does, and it's the way he does it. And President Putin knows it.
He knows Trump, he sees an opportunity in Trump, and he can't get across Russia to Alaska fast enough. He will be back at global diplomacy's top table.
Always a deal to be done
Make no mistake, when Trump says he just wants to stop the killing, he means it. Such wanton loss of young lives offends him. He keeps saying it.
He sees war, by and large, as an unnecessary waste of life and of money. Deals are there to be done. There's always a deal.
6:04
Sadly for Ukraine, in this case, it is unlikely to be a fair deal.
How can any deal be "fair" when you are the victim of outrageous brutality and heinous crimes.
But it may well be the deal they have to take unless they want to fight an increasingly one-sided war with much less help from President Trump and America.
A senior UK diplomat told me if things turn out as feared, it should not be called a land-for-peace deal. It should be called annexation "because that's what it is".
But here's the rub.
Peace, calm, the end of the nightly terror of war has much to recommend it. In short, a bad peace can often seem better than no peace. But, ultimately, rewarded dictators always come back for more.
If Ukraine has to accept a bad peace, then it will want clear security guarantees to make sure it cannot happen again.
It is the very least they deserve.
There is much at stake in Alaska.
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The Herald Scotland
31 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin preparing to ‘stitch up' Ukraine?
The leader of that third party nation then agrees to meet the leader of the aggressor nation to map out the terms of the ceasefire. This is then duly presented to the invaded nation's leader to sign and ratify. At no point is the leader of the invaded country invited to the initial negotiations. Does that sound like a fair deal to you? Would you imagine that any semblance of a sound and just peace would come of it? Only the very naïve or those suffering from a bout of the most unrealistic optimism would think so. But that is precisely what US President Donald Trump appears to believe will be the outcome of his meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, when the two men get together next Friday in Alaska to discuss an end to the conflict in Ukraine. The fact that Trump - even before the meeting takes place - has already said that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would need to cede territory for a deal to be reached, only added insult to injury in the eyes of many Ukrainians given that their leader was frozen out of the Alaska talks. (Image: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy) It perhaps came as no real surprise then that yesterday Zelenskyy unequivocally made it clear that Ukraine will not 'gift' land to Russia as part of a ceasefire deal. 'The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question already is in the Constitution of Ukraine,' Zelenskyy said in a social media post. 'No one will deviate from this - and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier,' he insisted.. Zelenskyy also went on to stress that Ukraine is 'ready to work together with President Trump.' But he said that decisions made without Ukraine are 'unworkable.' The dramatic developments of the last few days coinciding as they did on Friday with Trump's deadline to Putin to stop the fighting or face tough new economic sanctions took many by surprise. They came too just when Ukraine and its European allies thought that Trump was coming round to their view of the war. Now, instead, say critics of the move, Trump has effectively handed Putin a diplomatic coup, while others also see dark historic parallels that subsequently went on to have profound implication for the world at the time in the past. 'It looks like Munich 1938, when great powers decide the fate of the victim of the aggression,' said Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the foreign affairs committee of the Ukrainian parliament and an MP in Zelenskyy's ruling party. When the idea of a summit was initially suggested Trump said it would only go ahead if Putin agreed to meet with Zelenskyy, something Kyiv has long called for but been resisted by Moscow. Zelenskyy sidelined THEN last Thursday with characteristic unpredictability, Trump announced that a Putin Zelenskyy face-to-face was unnecessary, effectively sidelining the Ukrainian leader and making it a bilateral negotiation between Trump and Putin. Almost immediately the alarm bells went off in Kyiv and in the corridors of power of its European allies. 'The danger for Ukraine is actually quite grave,' said Jonathan Eyal, international director at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the London-based think tank. 'There will be a sense of alarm in European capitals,' he added in an interview with American broadcaster NBC. 'Trump will be so pleased by what he perceives as the great achievement of getting Putin to the negotiating table, that he grabs any kind of offer that is made,' Eyal said. 'The danger of half-baked compromise, which Trump can claim as his main achievement, is very high.' Also speaking to NBC, Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of the charity Hope for Ukraine, warned that even if there is no truce agreement, 'a meeting with Trump - no matter the outcome - would be a big diplomatic victory for Putin.' 'Putin wants to break his diplomatic isolation' and such a meeting 'will stroke his ego, ' said Boyechko, adding that the 'meeting with Putin is a trap; President Trump must not fall for it.' But many observers are already predicting the scene when Trump with Putin alongside, emerges from the Alaska negotiations and talks up their success. It's a scenario say some commentators, that also helps fulfil Trump's craving for international prestige and his near obsession lately of being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize he so evidently covets. The obvious danger too note analysts, is that Trump would effectively be helping Putin's gambit of piling domestic pressure on Zelenskyy and his government. Many Ukrainians want the war to end but remain opposed to surrendering swathes of territory. Had Zelenskyy agreed to the ceding of territory, the risk involved was outlined by Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the foreign affairs committee of the Ukrainian parliament, who told the Financial Times (FT) that it 'might cause a social explosion in Ukraine.' In the event however, Zelenskyy was wise to Putin's ploy and wasted no time in dispelling any notion of ceding territory. (Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin) Donbas on the table EVEN as it stands, Putin's sweeping proposal would require that Ukraine hand over the eastern Ukrainian region of the Donbas, without Russia committing to anything more than stop fighting. The offer, which Putin conveyed Wednesday to US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow, said the Russian leader would agree to a complete cease-fire if Ukraine agreed to withdraw forces from all of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Read more Tears and trauma: David Pratt in Ukraine DAVID PRATT ON THE WORLD: Whatever happens in Brazil's resentful and rancorous election, the result will have major repercussions for us all David Pratt in Ukraine: It's hard to comprehend this level of destruction David Pratt: Kremlin's protestations have a hollow ring as atrocities mount up Russia would then control the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the Crimea Peninsula which it seized in 2014 and wants recognised as sovereign Russian territory. Currently Russia controls almost all of Luhansk region and a substantial swathe of Donetsk region but has struggled to capture critical Ukrainian strongholds in the latter despite its summer offensive. Reports also indicated that the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions where Russian forces have been stuck on the south-eastern side of the Dnipro river would also be up for discussion, as would small areas of Kharkiv and Sumy regions that are controlled by Russian military. Moscow could withdraw forces from those regions. According to senior Ukrainian officials cited by the FT, Putin also demanded Nato membership for Ukraine be taken off the table, although EU membership would still be allowed. The officials also said Moscow insisted that Ukraine's military would be limited in size, and Russia would demand Western allies not provide Kyiv with long-range weapons. Against this backdrop of sweeping proposals that will feature in the Alaska talks this week, the war on the ground meanwhile grinds on. What began as a broad Russian push all along the 600-mile front in eastern and southern Ukraine now appears to be narrowing into three axes of attack - in the northeastern Sumy region and in the eastern Donetsk Oblast cities of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka, two important logistical hubs for Ukraine. There is growing alarm over Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka, which are at risk of being surrounded in the coming months. Russia has been struggling to take Pokrovsk for more than a year, but recently has managed to advance on the city's flanks. This means Russian forces are increasingly threatening Ukraine's supply lines, in part by intensively targeting them with drones. Ukrainian soldiers say the Russian Army uses two main tactics to advance on the battlefield: pinning down Ukrainian troops with drones, shells and glide bombs before attacking enemy lines with relentless squad assaults on foot or by motorbike. 'In general, the basic tactics are relying even more on the manpower advantage and using those small infantry attacks in combination with heavy usage of firepower,' said Pasi Paroinen, an analyst at the Finland-based Black Bird Group that monitors conflict and intelligence analyses. 'They intensified their attacks pretty much almost all across the front line around May and towards June,' Paroinen added, speaking to ABC News. Some analysts maintain though that Russia is not only seeking to win new territory in Ukraine. 'Its goal is to destroy Ukraine's military potential, its army,' Valery Shiryaev, an independent Russian military analyst, said in a recent interview with Redaktsiya, an independent Russian news channel. 'If there is no army - the state would be defenceless.' (Image: US President Donald Trump) Exploding drones AWAY from the front lines, Russia has been increasing the toll it inflicts on the Ukrainian population and economy at large by escalating attacks on the country with mass-produced exploding drones. According to Ukraine's military intelligence service and cited by the Economist magazine, Russia has improved both the quantity and quality of its drones. Since last summer it has raised monthly production of the Geran-2 drone, Russia's version of the Iranian Shahed kamikaze drone five-fold. Last month on July 9th over 700 drones 60% of them carrying warheads and the rest cheap decoys, attacked Kyiv and other targets. Until March this year, only about 3-5% of the Gerans were getting through. Last month that rose to some 15% of a significantly higher number. The Economist also pointed to the increasing supplies of Chinese dual-use components that have helped Russia's increase in production. Military analysts insist the most promising solution in tackling the rise in Geran and other drone attacks is cheap interceptor drones. According to data from The Economist, at least four Ukrainian firms, including Wild Hornets and Besomar, are producing different models. So are Tytan, a Germany company, and Frankenberg, an Estonian one. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's commander-in-chief, says that interceptor drones have a success rate of 70% against Gerans. But as the ground and air war continues to gruesomely play out, all eyes this week will be on that meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska. Should the talks turn against Trump's hopes and he has to get tough with Putin then the sanctions and tariffs leverage might come into play. After imposing 50 % tariffs on India for purchasing Russian oil, Trump could also resort to imposing additional sanctions on Russia's 'shadow fleet' of oil tankers . The term 'shadow fleet' refers to vessels whose ownership is hidden and which avoid using services from Western companies Russia has used a shadow fleet of largely ageing tankers to ship oil around the world in an attempt to evade western restrictions imposed in the wake of Moscow's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The substantial petrodollars from these help fill Putin's war chest. Most observers however belief it will not come to that and that the meeting will be far more convivial much to the alarm of Kyiv and its European allies. Trump has long been a believer that the crux of foreign policy is two leaders in a room making historic deals, but without Zelenskyy at the table it's not so much a long shot as nigh on impossible say analysts. (Image: Efrem Lukatsky) Low expectations EVEN among Russia's pro-war Z-bloggers there seems to be limited expectation from the planned meeting. The hawkish Telegram channel Military Informant described it as 'likely the last attempt to buy time.' While the post predicted the meeting would be 'epochal,' it warned against expecting any 'major breakthrough' on the war in Ukraine. 'So far, Zelenskyy's strategy of going along with every US idea has won the sympathy of the American president for Ukraine, so the upcoming Putin-Trump meeting may be the last chance to shift the situation,' the channel wrote. It's precisely such a shift however that both Ukraine its European and other allies will be dreading. While one White House official said that planning for the meeting remains fluid and Zelenskyy could still be involved in some way, few are holding their breath. This Friday in Alaska could yet prove a significant moment indeed for both the outcome of the war and Ukraine's future.
Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Telegraph
How the gig economy conquered Britain and stoked the migration crisis
It was past midnight by the time David and Samantha Cameron emerged from the Coral Room at Sexy Fish, later followed by George Osborne. It was a bad night to avoid the paparazzi. On the same evening in late 2015, Girls Aloud stars Cheryl Tweedy, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh also dined at the A-list Mayfair restaurant. The Sexy Fish soiree, hosted by well-connected politicos Steve Hilton and Rachel Whetstone as a 'godparent's dinner', was initially viewed as just another high-status party. Hilton, a former Downing Street aide, and Whetstone, a political adviser turned Silicon Valley communications executive, were well-known friends of Cameron and Osborne. The prime minister and chancellor's powers were at their zenith, following a surprise majority election victory and before the following year's Brexit referendum. It was only later that the party would become a source of controversy. Years later, a leak of thousands of internal Uber emails suggested that Whetstone, then the head of policy and communications at the taxi-hailing app, had planned to approach Osborne about setting up a meeting as the company was battling Boris Johnson. Transport for London – overseen by Johnson, the capital's mayor at the time – had threatened to ban key aspects of the app under pressure from the capital's powerful taxi lobby. Whetstone wanted Cameron and Osborne to help. 'It was the era of Dave and George v Boris,' says Mark MacGann, who ran Uber's lobbying in Europe at the time. Whetstone had told colleagues she would bring up the issue with Osborne. The next month, TfL dropped its plans to crack down on Uber, in a major victory for the company. It is unclear if Whetstone did lobby Osborne. What is clear, though, is that the links between the gig economy and government during these years were extremely tight. Whetstone has said 'she did not routinely 'lobby' … on behalf of Uber in private'. As Cameron and Osborne were leaving Sexy Fish, the number of couriers on bicycles in brightly coloured jackets weaving around London had tailed off, but they were becoming an increasingly common sight. Deliveroo, the takeaway app founded two years earlier, was doubling orders every three months. The company was revolutionising food delivery with a network of self-employed couriers that could pick up items from any restaurant, challenging the old world of paper menus and fumbling for change. To their supporters, including Cameron and Osborne, the two companies represented a new, better way of doing things in a digital world. The on-demand economy, enabled by smartphones and algorithms, was hacking away at the red tape that had held Britain back. But to detractors, the employment models popularised by the likes of Uber, Deliveroo and an assortment of similar companies have frittered away workers' rights and created an underclass of low-paid work, increasingly populated by migrant labour. The gig economy, which rose to prominence in the coalition years, has come under fresh scrutiny in recent months. Concerns are growing that the apps are allowing undocumented work and even encouraging illegal immigration to Britain with the promise of being able to earn money without checks. Food delivery apps such as Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat have been at the centre of these claims. In May, a Telegraph investigation found that asylum seekers staying in Home Office hotels were regularly working as food delivery and grocery couriers, with one people smuggler saying: 'All you need is a phone and a bike.' All the companies say they are taking steps to tackle illegal work. To critics, this is the result of attempts to dodge responsibility for workers who use gig economy apps. Uber, Deliveroo and others spent years in Parliament and in court fighting attempts for their drivers and riders to be recognised as workers, a designation that entitled them to holiday pay and the minimum wage, and in some cases came with alternative tax arrangements. Instead, drivers and riders were self-employed, paid by the delivery rather than by the hour. The companies presented drivers and couriers as a legion of micro-entrepreneurs, able to choose their own hours and be their own boss. Uber claimed the vast majority of its drivers worked part-time. Deliveroo told a government-commissioned review into the gig economy that riders wanted flexibility. It portrayed the app as being populated by undergraduates and busy parents seeking to make some extra cash. 'The student with half an hour between classes can log on and earn some extra spending money,' the company said. It told a parliamentary committee that 85pc use the app as a 'supplementary income stream'. Yet two in five delivery workers stopped in random searches in 2023 were working illegally, according to statistics from the Home Office. The figures applied to all takeaway riders stopped, not any one app. On Saturday, the Home Office said it had arrested 280 people as part of a week-long crackdown on illegal delivery work, after stopping 1,780 riders. On social media, people constantly offer to rent out or sell accounts. One offered to set up an account for £160 using third-party documents, requiring only a name, phone number and email. The exact scale of illegal work on the platforms is unknown, but it is enough to have seen Labour announce crackdowns on gig economy companies, including blocking anyone near an asylum hotel from seeking jobs through the apps and requiring extra checks. The measures have been part of a wider attempt from Sir Keir Starmer's Government to smash small boat gangs, which this week included the start of a 'one in, one out' deal with France. The coalition and Conservative governments of the mid-2010s did not have the same problems. While Cameron was not meeting his pledge to get net migration down to the tens of thousands, the number was running at less than half of today's levels. Asylum claims were at 32,414 in 2015, against 108,138 last year. The highly visible small boats crossings would not start in large numbers for several years. Deliveroo and its rivals are now reckoning with their role in the migrant crisis. How did it come to this? 'It felt like a cabal' Britain did not end up as a gig economy pioneer by accident. In 2014, Matt Hancock, who was Business Secretary at the time, commissioned a review of what was then called the 'sharing economy', with a brief to 'make the UK a global centre'. That year, asylum claims were at 24,914, and net migration stood at 260,000. Reflecting the ambition to make the UK a global leader, Hancock recruited Debbie Wosskow, the boss of home-sharing website LoveHomeSwap, to author the review. The report loosely called for a minimum wage for gig workers, but stated that a race to the bottom on pay and conditions 'does not seem to be happening'. In a foreword, Hancock said: 'The route to self-employment has never been easier.' 'There were very close relationships with some parts of the top ends of government,' says one lobbyist at a gig economy company. 'There was a meeting of minds around low regulation, a shared belief that the consumer is getting a raw deal.' Ministers were already welcoming of the gig economy, but the appointment of a string of Westminster insiders to key companies solidified the close relationship. Whetstone had been political secretary to Michael Howard, Cameron's predecessor as Conservative leader, before reinventing herself as a Silicon Valley communications executive. She spent a decade working for Google before joining Uber in 2015. She had worked alongside Cameron when the future PM had worked in PR in the 1990s, and her husband, Hilton, had run strategy for the PM when he entered Downing Street. Arranging a meeting between Osborne and Uber's then boss Travis Kalanick was a key priority for Whetstone upon joining the company. The Chancellor was invited to a dinner at the house of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Omid Kordestani attended by Kalanick, and the two also met on the sidelines of Davos. Shortly after the Conservatives' election victory in 2015, Kalanick sent Osborne an email congratulating him on an 'amazing result' and complaining about an impending crackdown from Johnson. (Later, Uber was asked to sign a business letter calling for Britain to stay in the EU. The company declined.) Whetstone was far from the only link between the Conservatives and the gig economy. Adam Atashzai, one of Cameron's advisers, worked in policy for Uber after leaving No10. He left after seven months and was succeeded by Naomi Gummer, who had worked for Jeremy Hunt. The company's PR department included several former political advisers from both Labour and the Conservatives. Deliveroo, which was founded in 2013, was cultivating links to government too. In 2017, Deliveroo hired Thea Rogers, the former BBC producer who had been credited with improving the former chancellor's public image while in office. Osborne and Rogers married in 2023. By now Cameron and Osborne had left office and Deliveroo was keen to cultivate links to the new administration. At Deliveroo, Rogers hired Hanbury Strategy, the lobbying firm founded by Cameron's former aide Ameet Gill and the Brexiteer Paul Stephenson, as well as Vote Leave's media head Robert Oxley, an adviser to Priti Patel and Michael Fallon who later became Prime Minister Boris Johnson's press secretary. 'It absolutely felt like a cabal,' says one Westminster insider. 'There was this genuine shared interest in low regulation and making the UK investable. But at the same time there was this uncomfortable closeness.' Deliveroo said the company engages with all main political parties. The model pioneered by Uber quickly caught on. In 2016, Amazon, which had traditionally employed delivery drivers, introduced a gig economy-type service known as Flex. Battle in the courts Whether it was a result of such close relationships or merely shared interests, the Cameron-Osborne governments championed gig economy companies. After TfL threatened to crack down on Uber in 2015, a Downing Street aide wrote to the body accusing them of 'insane and Luddite things', according to emails later leaked to the Guardian. Johnson himself said he had been 'deluged' by correspondence from fellow Tories on the issue. Ultimately, Cameron's government did not pass any pro-gig economy legislation. But the welcoming approach and absence of new laws came as countries in Europe were applying stricter requirements and closely scrutinising tax arrangements. MacGann recalls contrasting the UK's approach with France's in an early meeting with Emmanuel Macron. This cosy relationship ended almost as soon as Theresa May replaced Cameron in Downing Street. May took charge in the shadow of the Brexit vote and was more inclined to intervene. One of her chief aides was Nick Timothy, now a Conservative MP, who has repeatedly criticised the gig economy. 'They just weren't as biddable in the same way,' the lobbyist says. At the time, asylum claims had risen slightly but immigration had rocketed up the agenda as a result of the Brexit referendum. Still, net migration was still relatively low and scrutiny of the gig economy focused on workers' rights, rather than its ability to attract migrants to Britain. Baroness Penn, who was May's deputy chief of staff while she was prime minister, says the new government, with its attention on the 'Jams' [those just about managing], was less convinced about the benefits of the gig economy. 'We definitely had a feeling that the relationship and obligations between employers and employees was changing or being disrupted, and that it was worth looking at that,' she says. Within weeks of succeeding Cameron, May's government commissioned a review carried out by Matthew Taylor, a former adviser to Sir Tony Blair. In a sign of changing attitudes, Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP who served in May's government, hit out at 'Deliveroo Conservatism' in a column for Conservative Home. 'Focusing on opening up Deliveroo/Uber free markets to increase choice is irrelevant to millions of people who are struggling to pay their bus or train fare, let alone using Uber,' he wrote. 'We must also not forget about these businesses' work practices in terms of their employees.' Osborne continued to champion the sector. He spent three years as editor of London's Evening Standard and, during his stewardship of the paper, Westminster diarists frequently drew attention to the volley of friendly stories about Deliveroo giving out free lunches and feeding hungry children, as well as pro-Uber editorials (Osborne also worked part-time at BlackRock, an investor in Uber). The Taylor review, billed as a way to address the insecurities of the gig economy, recommended that people making money on the apps should receive sick pay and holidays. But a promised employment bill to introduce them never surfaced and political energy was sapped by the battles over Brexit. By now, gig economy apps had become fixtures in Britain's cities. Most had a business model based on asking forgiveness later, rather than seeking permission in the first place. Campaigners fought it out in the courts. In 2015, two Uber drivers, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, challenged the company in the Employment Tribunal, arguing that they were workers rather than self-employed, and thus entitled to the minimum wage. The two won a shock victory, and Uber took the fight all the way to the Supreme Court, only to finally lose in 2021. The company was forced to overhaul its business model and set aside $600m (£450m) to cover the cost of historic claims. As a result, Uber's minicab business is now more regulated. But the legal arguments exposed in the case were instructive. Uber lost in part because drivers' work was not able to be 'substituted', a practice in which someone who has accepted a job can appoint another person to do it on their behalf. Substitution is a legal framework that lets contractors such as plumbers and electricians send someone else to do a job if they fall ill or have an emergency. In 2017, shortly before a legal battle with the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, Deliveroo inserted a substitution clause inside riders' contracts. The case once again went all the way to the Supreme Court, but unlike Uber, Deliveroo prevailed. While a cab driver couldn't sub in someone to drive their vehicle, a courier could get a ringer to deliver a meal to someone's door. Judges found that the ability to substitute workers, even if rarely deployed, was 'totally inconsistent with… the existence of an employment relationship'. The company says that substitution was just one reason why the court found that riders were classified as self-employed. Route for migrants? The use of substitutes has generated some uncomfortable headlines for Deliveroo. In 2022, a driver working as a substitute bit off a customer's thumb. The following year a 17-year-old died while using a rented account and moped. But since substitutes are appointed by the rider rather than the company, takeaway apps are not legally responsible for them. The clauses are now standard practice across the industry, used by Uber Eats, the company's food delivery service, and Just Eat as well as Deliveroo. Just Eat had once attempted to forge a different path by employing riders on regular shifts, with its chief executive Jitse Groen saying the gig economy created 'precarious working conditions across Europe, the worst seen in a hundred years'. But the company relented in 2023, with food delivery businesses under investor pressure to turn a profit. 'There's only one reason why it's done [allowing substitution], and that is to exploit workers and to skirt employment law,' says Farrar, one of the drivers who had challenged Uber, and now runs campaign group Worker Info Exchange. The apps all say that substitution is a legitimate part of employment law. The model employed by takeaway apps may have diminished their legal responsibilities. But critics say the embrace of substitution has made it far easier for illegal work on the platform. It has made gig economy companies a lightning rod for criticism amid concerns that they are harbouring illegal work, following a surge in small boat crossings and soaring migration levels. Between 2020 and 2024, annual boat crossings in the Channel have surged from 8,466 to 36,816, and asylum claims have climbed from 36,986 to 108,138. Neither the companies nor the Government have published estimates of the scale of illegal working on delivery apps. But Deliveroo said in February it had deactivated 105 riders who illegally shared accounts with undocumented workers. Uber says it has removed hundreds of riders a month. A study from academics at the University of Birmingham said in June that takeaway apps had become an 'essential' route for migrants 'facing legal and structural barriers to formal employment'. 'As wages have stagnated and working conditions deteriorated, food delivery has become increasingly dominated by those with limited alternatives: migrants with insecure or irregular legal status, for whom this sector represents one of the few viable options for earning a livelihood,' they said. Illegal migrants renting accounts under substitution rules has become a 'survival mechanism', they added. 'If you want to design a market so that immigration would undercut wages, you couldn't do better than this,' said one source who works in the industry. 'You have very lax right to work checks combined with no minimum wage, combined with algorithmic pay. Put those three together and you've got this perfect environment for migration to pull down wages.' Lee Anderson, a Reform UK MP, claimed that illegal migrants were 'able to roam the streets on e-bikes and make a living', adding: 'The fact that this is being allowed to happen without a serious crackdown is appalling.' A spokesman for Cameron said: 'Lord Cameron remains incredibly proud of everything he and the governments he led did to ensure the UK established itself as a truly successful global tech hub – attracting global businesses, creating jobs, and boosting economic growth. To link this success story to the legitimate issues of illegal immigration is ludicrous. 'Indeed, it's a legacy we should be proud of and successive governments should build on, as we seek to ensure the UK remains an attractive place to do business; attract talent and innovation; and secure our place as a global centre for tech and entrepreneurialism.' Illegal work has now become too big an issue for the Government, and the takeaway apps, to ignore. In 2023 Robert Jenrick, then the immigration minister, wrote to Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat declaring that the levels of illegal work, and the system that allowed it, were 'completely unacceptable'. In March, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, said companies would now have to carry out checks on any workers using their apps. And last month she said the addresses of asylum hotels would be shared with delivery apps, preventing people staying in the hotels from starting shifts there. The companies have pledged a series of crackdowns, such as regular facial recognition checks and checking all riders have the right to work. Deliveroo said it was testing further ways of preventing illegal work. A spokesman said: 'Substitution is, and always has been, a common feature of self-employment. It is not specific to Deliveroo, nor our sector. Riders choose to substitute for a number of valid reasons, enhancing the flexibility of our model. 'Substitution does not equate to illegal working, however, we are committed to ensuring it is not abused by those illegally sharing accounts. That is why we are working with the Government and broader industry to tackle the issue, with further security measures due to roll out in the coming weeks.' Uber said: 'Uber Eats takes a zero tolerance approach to illegal work. For the vast majority, flexible work offers people across the UK opportunities to boost their incomes, while fitting earning opportunities around their personal and family commitments. The freedom to work when and how they want is central to this, but everyone on our platform must have the right to work.' The company said it proactively checked social media to find people sharing accounts and had developed technology to detect fake IDs. Just Eat said: 'Just Eat is committed to tackling any illegal working via our platform. We continue to invest significant resources to strengthen our systems against abuse by individuals and organised criminal groups seeking to evade right to work rules. We are working closely with the Home Office and our industry partners to address any loopholes in the industry's checks, as well as collaborating on data sharing and enforcement.' Whether these pledges will be effective remains to be seen. But they do not appear to have stemmed attempts to illegally use the platforms. Last week, online forums and Facebook groups continued to be filled with prospective couriers looking for accounts to rent, and middlemen offering to sell them. 'These policies [to tackle illegal work] are designed to be not really workable,' says Farrar. 'They're designed to have holes in them.' The gig economy giants' links to Westminster did not end with the coalition Tories. As chancellor, Rishi Sunak broke with tradition to praise Deliveroo's 2021 float as a 'true British tech success story'. (The company is now in the process of being sold to American counterpart DoorDash). In opposition, Labour had vowed to end 'bogus self-employment' as part of a gig economy crackdown, but the measures did not make it into the Government's employment bill. Shortly after Labour swept to power, Uber's UK boss Andrew Brem and Deliveroo founder Will Shu attended a business reception in the Downing Street garden. 'We just want our voices heard,' Shu said. Critics say the problem is that gig economy voices have been heard loud and clear – whoever is in Number 10.
Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Telegraph
‘Trolling and stalking… I've lived through it all on social media'
Anna Whitehouse has spent the morning at No 10. Baby Lola, eight months old, came too. Not that she could say anything, but because Whitehouse couldn't get childcare. Some acts, however, are louder than words. Whitehouse was there to meet Bridget Phillipson, the minister for women and equalities, who had days earlier announced her desire for more young people to have babies. It was, in a word, triggering for the 43-year-old, who under the pseudonym 'Mother Pukka', has been a lively and relentless mouthpiece for a generation of burnt out, financially drained parents. Phillipson's foot in mouth statement had prompted Whitehouse to write an excoriating Instagram post to her 438k followers saying as much: 'How on Earth can parents be expected to 'make memories' when the cost of childcare is so painfully high?' It is a testament to her reach with the parenting demographic that she was quickly invited to air those feelings in person with the Right Hon MP for Houghton and Sunderland South. And Lola came with, from their home in Hertfordshire. 'Not because I want her here. I mean, it's nice. It's a privilege to have time with your child, but not while you're working; you're doing two jobs at once,' Whitehouse tells me afterwards. We're in a meeting room at The Telegraph office, having navigated the stairs with a buggy. Lola is understandably tired and fractious, with Whitehouse trying to lull her to sleep. 'We can start though,' she says when I look unsure. The juggle has become her normality, after all. She should really be on maternity leave. But: 'There's no maternity leave when you're a freelancer,' says Whitehouse. She can't get Lola into childcare; there's a nursery staff shortage after all. She is on waiting lists. There are no grandparents nearby. Whitehouse's is an all too common situation. 'And so I put that post out, and there was just this deluge of anger, pain, and frustration, but I think the baseline was exhaustion from a generation of parents who have categorically had zero support in terms of childcare.' Right now she is operating on two hours of sleep. The chit-chat went well, but Whitehouse feels like she's running on 'visceral, maternal, exhausted rage'. Without meaning to sound reductive, I tell her she looks very well. 'Five layers of sweat and bit of foundation,' Whitehouse deadpans back. As with any online persona, it can be hard to see past the gloss to reality. Scroll through her feed and it's all perfect eyeliner flick and mama-friendly leopard print. And as is so often the case, she's a lot smaller and more vulnerable in person than whatever Mother Pukka I had in my head. During our interview she wells up simply talking about how hard it can be to keep the show on the road. Eleven years have passed since she first quit her job in copywriting as a result of a request for flexible working being turned down. She had asked to arrive 15 minutes earlier so she could leave 15 minutes earlier to make nursery pick-up. The reason given for the refusal: it might 'open the floodgates' to others seeking flexibility. And so she went freelance. Whitehouse maintains she never wanted this platform – she'd much rather have had a stable job with flexible hours that works around raising her family – but now she's got it, she's making it work, and not just for herself. She is the figurehead for a generation of mothers who are also: 'Holding the baby while working to earn the bacon.' Her mother's generation might have frequently felt unfulfilled by their lack of career opportunities, but, says Whitehouse, her mum has even said to her: 'I think you have it far harder than we did, because roles were defined.' Now mums do it all. 'We are not in any way wanting it all,' asserts Whitehouse. 'I never wanted it all, but we've ended up doing it all, and that's really what today's meeting at Downing Street was about. The lack of infrastructure for parents.' She wants to know why no one is talking about the 74,000 mothers every year that are made redundant on maternity leave? Or the one million women going through menopause who leave or are made redundant because businesses simply don't understand female biology. Whitehouse calls herself an 'accidental activist'. It definitely wasn't a career intention, she stresses. It's her second time at No 10 already this year. In April she sat down with Sir Keir Starmer to address the need for flexibility in the workplace. That she's back again so soon to reiterate the same point doesn't exactly seem reassuring that they are making progress. Whitehouse just seems happy that she's had another opportunity to state her case. After all, she has been grinding out lemonade from the lemons ever since she took to Instagram in 2015. She and then husband, the writer Matt Farquharson, set up FlexAppeal, a campaign for more flexible working for everyone. The platform she has built is a powerful one; one post criticising Nigel Farage's stance on flexible working garnered 1.4 million views and 58,000 likes. Quite the reach. Before taking to social media she did try pitching her parenting ideas to publications but says they were met with indifference. 'Now I don't have to do that. I can stand up and know I've reached more people via my own account. It's a brave, new pixelated world,' she says in a way calculated to rattle the cage of hacks like myself. Working alongside Farquharson, the couple found Instagram-fame as the Pukkas, extolling the virtues of 'teamwork' parenting. Books such as Parenting The Sh*t Out Of Life and Where's My Happy Ending? followed, as well as a novel, Underbelly. And of course there was also the glamorous red carpet invites, TV pundit appearances and best-dressed lists. And then in September 2023 Whitehouse announced she and Farquharson were divorcing. Or in Pukka-language, 'kindly untangling', after 17 years together. The tattoo on her arm saying, 'It's time we danced with the truth' is a result of that period of turbulent transition. 'Some would say midlife crisis, some would say midlife opportunity,' laughs Whitehouse. To begin with they attempted 'magpie' parenting their two daughters, now aged 12 and eight – a co-parenting arrangement where children remain in the family home, while their parents take turns living there to care for them. The Whitehouse I meet today is a lot more settled and in the midst of a bumper new life chapter. She and Matt have both since moved on romantically, Whitehouse finding love with Olly Bretton, via the dating app Hinge. Lola came along in November last year and the pair are marrying later this year. Bretton already had two children of his own, so now Whitehouse has embraced blended family life, parenting five children when it's their turn at once. I can't help but observe that just as the travails of motherhood might have relented, she's in it deeper than ever. 'I've gone back into the trenches,' admits Whitehouse. 'But on my own terms, and I couldn't be more grateful.' She describes Lola as the best thing that's ever happened to her. She did wonder if her body would be able to do it. But then, waiting until later in life, past peak biological timing, has become a reality for so many women who first feel they must sort their financial and career foundations. 'It means we're doing it at a slightly more exhausted, biological time in our lives,' states Whitehouse. The benefit of new motherhood in her forties is that she is approaching it with a lot more wisdom and experience. It's arguably the same with her online life, too. Today she has healthier boundaries around what she shares of her life. Announcing the split with Farquharson was of course awkward. She was forced to address it after messages from her followers. 'Unfortunately, when we both went on dating apps, I had hundreds of my followers saying, 'Your husband's trying to have an affair'. And so in the end, I ended up having to be open, because it was getting a little bit murky in that sense.' Still, she insists she doesn't feel like she has to give her audience everything. 'Even saying audience feels a bit uncomfortable, but people have invested in your story and your journey. For better or worse.' Bretton has minimal online presence himself, but is happy for Whitehouse to share what she thinks is reasonable of their lives. There are endorsements, of course, most notably an advert for Hinge, the Cupid that brought them together. Campaigning doesn't pay the bills. She refuses to be snotty about the word 'influencer'. For her, it isn't a dirty word, it's an economic reality. When I ask if she minds being called one, she reminds me that 86 per cent of those who earn money online are women. Why is that? 'Because we're scrabbling together the broken fragments of our jobs and our lives to try and make something that was taken away.' Yes, she is popular. But she has learnt that it is impossible to please everyone. She appreciates that talking about miscarriage and then later sharing her journey to parenthood with Lola, is bound to alienate somebody. 'I have walked through Instagram fire on many levels, from trolling and stalking to adoration and applauding, I have lived the full 360 degrees of this pixelated new media,' she says. As such she is fascinated by the recent exposure of the creator of Tattle Life, an online forum of scurrilous celebrity gossip that encouraged trolls to indulge in relentless scrutiny. The platform inspired the main character of her new novel, Influenced, which follows Alexandra, a menopausal forty-something, failing at work, with a crumbling marriage and distant daughter. Alexandra finds solace in the online world of likes, finding her voice on Influenza, a platform not dissimilar to Tattle Life. Whitehouse's view of the women who indulge in online vitriol like that posted on Tattle Life is generously empathetic, given she's been on the receiving end of online hate herself. 'Women are complex. Happy, sad, angry beings who are wonderful daughters one day, terrible friends the next,' she says. 'Influenced is a love story to forgotten women and how they end up turning to places like Tattle Life.' As someone who frequently uninstalls Instagram for my own mental health, only to be drawn back, frequently for work purposes, I wonder if she feels trapped on the platform, too? 'I don't want to be online,' says Whitehouse honestly. 'But I also want to be with my children, and there's currently no job that facilitates what I can do right now and the earning capacity that I have. This is not my dream job. 'You have to have the hide of a rhino to operate against a backdrop of people telling you your child's hair is awful, or you're clearly one of those mothers that puts their child in a taxi to nursery.' Of course the good bit is the community of women that champion each other. 'But it can be an incredibly dark place of stalking and harassment.' Would she ever just stop posting and disappear altogether? 'No, because I think that would be really unfair to everybody who has actually built me up. And I think for every negative comment there's thousands of positives. And that's really the story I'll always tell my daughters, is that you know you're not going to be liked by everyone. You will be judged by some. But what's your purpose?' On this she is clear. Her current focus is the review on parental leave, and continuing to lobby the Government for changes. She may have found her way through the world of work and motherhood, and kept body and soul, but it's not a world she wants for her daughters. 'I'm not going to tell my children that 'You too should set up an Instagram account and ride on into the pixelated sunset'. 'But also, I'm going to say to them, 'Your mum scrapped. I really scrapped because it mattered to me being there at school gates at 3.15pm.' 'That's it.'
