Latest news with #Eurosceptic
Belfast Telegraph
a day ago
- Business
- Belfast Telegraph
Former NI Secretary of State ‘thrilled' with new job away from politics
Mr Heaton-Harris first entered politics when he became a member of the European Parliament in 1999. A self-described 'fierce Eurosceptic', he served in Brussels before standing down in 2009. The following year he entered the House of Commons in what was his third attempt to win a seat. He served for a time as the Government's chief whip, Minister of State for Transport and Minister of State for Europe. Mr Heaton-Harris also chaired the European Research Group, a Eurosceptic group of Conservative MPs. He garnered controversy in 2017 when he wrote to UK universities, asking for the names of professors who taught courses on Brexit. When Liz Truss became Prime Minister in September 2022, the MP for Daventry was elevated to the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, a role he retained under Rishi Sunak when he entered 10 Downing Street in October 2022. The post has long be seen as one of the less glamorous Cabinet positions. Mr Heaton-Harris was not without his critics during his time as Northern Ireland Secretary, with much of his tenure covering a period when the Executive was down. He was frequently accused of kicking the can down the road when it came to efforts to get Stormont back up and running, calling an election, and cutting MLA pay. He chose not to stand for re-election in last July's General Election and, since leaving office, launched Oak Communications, a consultancy firm offering 'straightforward insight in a changing world'. It is understood Mr Heaton-Harris, a licensed football referee, also unsuccessfully applied to chair the new Independent Football Regulator in November 2024. Now the former MP has added another job to his CV by joining M2 Recovery as a senior advisor. According to the company's website, the firm's team 'comprises seasoned professionals with decades of combined experience in cybersecurity, blockchain technology, and financial services'. 'Collectively, we have many decades of experience working with the highest-profile clients on the most complex cases involving insurance, crypto asset recoveries, and crypto legal expenses insurance,' the website reads. Mr Heaton-Harris said he was 'thrilled' to join the firm. 'In my years as an MP, I dealt with many constituents devastated by the impact of fraud and witnessed the evolution of digital threats facing consumers,' he said. 'M2 Recovery's pioneering approach to restoring trust in the crypto space is exactly what this moment demands and I'm excited to be contributing to the company's rapid growth and continued success.' Neil Holloway, founder of M2 Recovery, said: 'Chris's unparalleled governance experience, from challenging financial malfeasance in Europe to steering critical political negotiations, aligns perfectly with our ethos of accountability. 'This will strengthen our ability to protect victims of increasingly personalised crypto scams, ensuring M2 Recovery remains at the vanguard of this vital sector.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mandelson attacks ‘fetish' for ditching EU rules
Lord Mandelson has attacked the 'fetish' for ditching EU rules that work in Britain's interests, during a speech in Washington DC. Lord Mandelson, Britain's ambassador to the United States, sought to reassure critics who were concerned Sir Keir Starmer's 'reset deal' with the bloc would drag Britain back into the EU. He said: 'I mean, why make a fetish of dis-alignment when we know that it's in the interests of our business and traders to pursue and to follow those rules and standards.' Speaking at an event in Washington on Tuesday, the Labour peer suggested it was Britain's job to be of 'huge usefulness' to both allies. 'I think the job of Britain is to be of huge usefulness, both to the United States and the European Union,' he told a crowd gathered at the Atlantic Council. 'We're not in the European Union anymore, and we're not going to go back for the foreseeable future, certainly. But we are European, a European country. 'We left the European Union with a pretty miserable deal, frankly, unfair to us, not particularly favourable in the long term to the EU.' The Prime Minister unveiled the agreement in London last week, insisting it was a 'win-win' for Britain that would deliver a £9 billion boost to the economy. Credit: Reuters But critics seized on clauses in the deal which give European fishermen access to the UK's coastal waters until 2038 and allow Brussels to impose sanctions on British exports if any future government decides to rewrite the deal. Officials in Washington have warned the Prime Minister against aligning the UK too closely with the EU at the expense of his relationship with Donald Trump, a Eurosceptic 'But like the Prime Minister has said, we see absolutely nothing inconsistent with or at odds between our relationship in Europe and our relationship with the US,' Lord Mandelson added. The agreement will also force Britain to follow EU rules on food standards and submit to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which could become a point of contention for the White House. Under the US trade deal, British ministers explicitly ruled out accepting controversial products like chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef, much to Mr Trump's dismay. The biggest concession that Sir Keir offered Mr Trump was to slash tariffs on US beef imports from up to 20pc to zero. At the same time, Britain also slashed the tariff on imported ethanol. 'There's no point in dis-aligning ourselves from European Union rules and standards where we are operating in Britain, those rules and standards in order to export into the European single market,' Lord Mandelson added. Meanwhile, Lord Mandelson said Nato needed a 'real reinvention' amid fears that the United States could pull its troops from Europe when leaders meet next month. Mr Trump has repeatedly criticised Nato countries for not meeting the current two per cent spending goal, arguing that the disparity puts an unfair burden on the United States. In turn, the administration is said to be redrawing Nato engagement in a way that favours member countries with higher defence spending. 'Nato doesn't just need a reset. It doesn't just need a tweak or a rebalance or an adjustment in its cost bearing burden,' Lord Mandelson added. 'It needs a real reinvention for the 21st Century, and that's what I hope that the Hague summit will trigger to open up a lot of collaboration between us in the years to come.' Lord Mandelson, who has faced criticism for his alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party, said the US and Britain must combine forces to stop China's technological advancement. 'There is nothing in this world I fear more than China winning the race for technological dominance in the coming decades, China represents a far more dynamic and formidable strategic rival than the Soviet Union ever was.' 'The United Kingdom and United States are the only two Western nations with trillion dollar technology ecosystems combined with unparalleled talent and research capabilities in our universities and corporations. 'We must combine forces, in my view, to drive the scientific breakthroughs that will define this century.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Patrick O'Flynn, Westminster journalist turned leading Eurosceptic and Ukip MEP
Patrick O'Flynn, who has died of cancer aged 59, was a Eurosceptic journalist-turned-politician who became one of 24 Ukip MEPs elected to the European Parliament in 2014; he left the party in 2018, at about the same time as its former leader Nigel Farage, in protest at its appointment of Tommy Robinson, leader of the far-Right English Defence League, as an adviser on rape gangs and prison reform. While Farage went on to co-found the Brexit Party (now Reform UK), O'Flynn joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which, surprisingly, traces its origin to the party formed in 1981 by the so-called 'Gang of Four' (Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams) who split from the Labour Party principally because they considered the party too anti-EU. In the 1990s, however the SDP took a Eurosceptic turn and it campaigned for Brexit in 2016. In 2019 O'Flynn stood as SDP candidate in the Peterborough by-election, held following the removal of the Labour MP Fiona Onasanya after her conviction for perverting the course of justice. But as the Brexit Party was also fielding a candidate and was the bookies' favourite to win (it came second to Labour), O'Flynn polled just 135 votes and lost his deposit. Patrick James O'Flynn was born on August 29 1965. After graduating in economics from King's College, Cambridge, he took a diploma in journalism from City, University of London. After stints with the Birmingham Post and Sunday Express, he joined the Daily Express as a lobby correspondent, rising to chief political commentator and later political editor and chief comment editor. He also wrote extensively for The Spectator and, later, The Daily Telegraph. In 2019 he recalled that when he first launched the Express campaign to take Britain out of the EU it was 'much to the bemusement of Lobby colleagues and the vast majority of MPs'. But he played a crucial role in the political bandwagon that culminated in the Yes vote of 2016. By then, O'Flynn had joined Nigel Farage's Ukip as director of communications, before being elected an MEP for the East of England in the 2014 European elections. He became the party's spokesman on the economy and its campaign director in the 2015 general election, in which he stood, unsuccessfully, in Cambridge. But tensions at the heart of the party became apparent a few days after the poll when, in an interview with The Times, O'Flynn described Farage as a 'snarling, thin-skinned, aggressive' man who was turning the party into a personality cult, and called for a more consensual style of leadership to avoid the appearance of 'absolute monarchy'. O'Flynn was the running-mate for Lisa Duffy in the Ukip leadership election of 2016, but amid growing disenchantment he resigned from the party front bench in 2017. His unhappiness intensified after the April 2018 election of Gerard Batten as party leader. When he defected to the SDP in November that year, he explained that he had tried in vain to dissuade Ukip's leadership from its 'apparent and growing fixation' with Tommy Robinson. 'The key question in British politics now is which party are millions of sensible, moderate Brexit voters betrayed by establishment parties but wishing no tie-up with Tommy Robinson supposed to vote for?' he asked. 'The answer, alas, is clearly not Ukip.' Under Batten, he added, Ukip had become 'an impediment to the Brexit campaigning that I have energetically pursued for many years. So, like many on the communitarian wing of the party, I have decided to join the resurgent SDP, which campaigned for Brexit during the referendum and espouses broad and moderate pro-nation state political values that I – and I believe many of our voters from 2014 – will be delighted to endorse.' Patrick O'Flynn is survived by his wife, Carole Ann, also a Daily Express writer, and their son and daughter. Patrick O'Flynn, born August 29 1965, death announced May 20 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
America is looking at Britain with a mixture of bewilderment and dismay
Keir Starmer, like most socialists, wants to have his cake and eat it too. He believes that Britain can be a vassal state to the European Union while also playing the role of America's closest friend and ally. It can't. Starmer is both delusional and incredibly short-sighted. He thinks he is Machiavelli and Metternich rolled into one. In truth he looks more like a circus clown, way out of his depth representing Britain on the world stage. The Prime Minister's emphatic surrender to Brussels will cause immense damage to the US/UK Special Relationship. It will be viewed in Washington as a stunning act of self-harm by the British Government, and a move that could very well forestall a trade deal with the United States. US officials will undoubtedly be shaking their heads this week, wondering why a nation that once held sway over a quarter of the world's surface is taking a knee before a sinking European Union that treats it with sneering contempt. Labour's move to bring the UK back into 'dynamic alignment' with Brussels on food safety and animal welfare will mean that once again EU directives and legislation will trump British rules, with the European Court of Justice having the final say. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and will undoubtedly lead to the encroachment of EU law into many other areas of British sovereignty as well. That alone will make the completion of a trade deal incredibly difficult. The US is proposing a trade agreement with the British people, not with faceless bureaucrats sitting in the increasingly irrelevant capital of Belgium. Starmer's announcement also moves Britain into closer realignment with the EU on defence and security issues, with British troops potentially taking part in EU military missions. The end result of this sheer folly will be the sidelining of the United States, the weakening of Nato unity, and the strengthening of Moscow, which would dearly love to see the British military submerged into a useless paper tiger EU army. Starmer's EU deal should and will be strongly condemned on both sides of the Atlantic by all who believe in the principles of sovereignty and self-determination. I am in no doubt that President Trump will view Starmer's kowtowing to the EU as an inexplicable humiliation for the British people, but also as a slap in the face for the United States at a time when the new US administration has championed the partnership with the United Kingdom. As I have noted before, Donald Trump is America's first Eurosceptic president. He views the European Union and the European Project which birthed it as a menace to the United States and a monument to virulent anti-Americanism as well as big government. The US President has already declared his view that the EU was 'formed in order to screw the United States,' and regards it is a mafia-style protectionist racket that operates unfairly against US exporters. In sharp contrast, Trump has just gone out of his way to place Britain at the very head of the queue for a trade agreement with the world's largest economy, and Starmer has just knifed him in the back with a reckless act designed to curry favour with the European Commission. President Trump has already been incredibly generous in his treatment of Keir Starmer, whom many American conservatives rightly view with deep suspicion. This is despite the fact that, ideologically, the Trump administration and the Starmer government are worlds apart. The alarms have already been ringing in Washington over Starmer's disastrous proposed handover of the Chagos Islands to Chinese ally Mauritius, threatening the long-term future of the vital Anglo-American military base of Diego Garcia. I have not spoken to a single US official who thinks the Chagos deal is good for America. And back in February Vice President JD Vance launched the verbal equivalent of a cruise missile strike against the Labour Government at the Munich Security Conference over the serious assault on freedom of speech in the UK. In addition it has not been forgotten in the White House that nearly 100 Labour officials actively campaigned for Kamala Harris in key swing states in 2024, in an act of direct interference in a US presidential race. Above all, in the context of US transatlantic policy, Brexit remains hugely popular with the Trump Administration and the American Right. President Trump is the biggest supporter of Brexit on the world stage today, and views the British referendum victory in 2016 as a forerunner to his own against all odds presidential win that year. Keir Starmer and his Left-wing government, however, look hell-bent on trashing the hard-won freedoms backed by 17.4 million Britons who voted to leave the EU nearly a decade ago. Starmer's shameful actions will go down in history as an emphatic betrayal of the democratic will of the British people, as well as an incredibly dangerous snub to the powerful alliance between the United States and Great Britain, who have for the last 85 years acted as the beating heart of the free world. Nile Gardiner is the Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Spectator
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Remembering Patrick O'Flynn
The unanticipated and deeply sad news of Patrick O'Flynn's death is a blow to so many – not just to his close family but also to those in the world of politics and journalism and for many throughout the country. I first met Patrick in a pub with David Goodhart in 2018 and got to know him well in the following eight years throughout our – sometimes forlorn – efforts to revive the Social Democratic party. As a prominent and influential Eurosceptic political journalist – and Ukip MEP – we were delighted when Patrick joined us. I personally was thrilled. And since Patrick was better known and far more experienced than myself, naturally, I asked him to lead the party. Alas, Paddy was far too wise to accept, and when he returned from his stint in Brussels he sensibly concentrated on rebuilding his career as a political journalist – although he pluckily stood for the SDP in the 2019 Peterborough by-election and later chaired the party's London branch.
