BEST
FOR BRITAIN'S
WEEKEND WIRE
Dear John,
The Deputy PM is an incorrigible bully, the PM is under
investigation for potential financial impropriety, and the Levelling
Up Secretary is peering down on Westminster like the world’s worst
Batman cosplayer but let’s start with some big news from B4B
Trade Unlocked
Businesses of the UK
Assemble!
Specifically, assemble at the
Birmingham NEC on 20th June, because Best for Britain is teaming up
with the International Chamber of Commerce, the British Chambers of
Commerce, and a wide spectrum of trade bodies to host
Trade Unlocked, a one-day conference that will gather
together hundreds of businesses of all sizes, from all sectors of the
economy and all parts of the UK
The interactive conference will
draw on the expertise and experience of all delegates to find
solutions to the challenges of the current trading environment
(including the Government’s Brexit deal) and opportunities for the
decade ahead with the evidence used to influence manifestos ahead of
the next General Election.
Speakers
will include business leaders, trade experts, and
decisions makers with both Government and Opposition invited to
address delegates. The Trade Unlocked organising committee
includes former Siemens UK CEO Jürgen Maier, British
Chambers of Commerce Director General Shevaun Haviland, International
Chambers of Commerce Chair Paul Drechsler, and more.
Registration for the event is
now open and free for all business owners and representatives. Make sure
you’re following Trade Unlocked on
Twitter and
LinkedIn to stay posted as we announce the full
slate of speakers and event updates.
UK gets Raabed, citizens
rejoice
Yesterday, we bid a not-so-fond
farewell to Dominic Raab. After eight ministerial titles, five months
under investigation, and dozens of formal complaints of bullying, the
Deputy PM/Whitehall sensei has been shown the door.
For those counting, that’s Sunak’s
third ministerial departure in his first 6 months (3.6 Liz Trusses)
and the second accused of bullying.
We thought Raab’s departure was a
perfect time to recount some of the many, many WTF moments, gaffes,
and fails from his time in Government. Read our latest blog here.
Rishi ‘Disclosure is my
middle name’ Sunak
But it wasn’t just Raab putting the
Prime Minister’s promise of “Integrity, professionalism, and
accountability” to bed this week. Rishi Sunak himself was referred to the parliamentary standards watchdog
over a failure to promptly disclose that his wife held a stake in a
childcare company which stands to benefit from the childcare overhaul
announced in the Spring Budget.
On Wednesday, 4 years after
the
initial investment in Koru Kids, he
belatedly published , a list of his financial interests which
revealed a number of previously-unreported holdings.
Among the gaggle of excuses offered
for why he seemingly failed to properly report his family’s shares in
Koru Kids, our favourite was that they have fingers in so many
financial pies that they
couldn’t possibly keep
track.
It makes us think that if you can’t
introduce a policy without benefiting from it financially, maybe you
shouldn't be Prime Minister.
Best for Britain CEO Naomi
Smith
said the investigation was just “standard
operating procedure” after 13 years of Tory sleaze at the top of
Government.
Good Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday…
This week, Bill and Hillary
Clinton
landed in Northern Ireland as commemoration of the
25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement reached its conclusion
with a three-day conference at Queen’s University Belfast. Also in
attendance were the Prime Minister, European Commission President
Ursula von der Leyen, and US pols Richard Neal and Joe
Kennedy.
In a speech, former President
Clinton hailed the willingness of the Good Friday Agreement’s authors
to privilege peace and the greater good above their own political
interests, while the Prime Minister more pointedly
warned the DUP that blocking the return of
Stormont power-sharing could spell the end of the union.
In an
op-ed in the New European over the weekend, Best
for Britain CEO Naomi Smith highlights that Biden's floating US
investment in Northern Ireland underscores how working constructively
with the EU can help improve the UK/US relationship as
well.
Gove lights
up
Following a reported public
haranguing on a questionably-deserved cigarette break, Michael Gove
has had a
special smoking hut built on the roof of the levelling-up
department where he can have a few drags in peace. The bill?
Potentially as much as £5,000!
We’ll add it to the tracker
ESA blasts
off
Proving once again that European
cooperation is better than Elon Musk, the European Space Agency this week
successfully
embarked on one of its longest-awaited missions to
search for signs of life on the moons of Jupiter this week.
After lightning forced a
cancellation of the launch on Thursday, the rocket took to the sky on
Friday afternoon as planned. The spacecraft
will reach Jupiter in 2031, where it will orbit the
largest planet in the solar system.
On Jupiter’s icy moons, Ganymede,
Callisto, and Europa, the spacecraft
will look beneath the frozen surface to see if there
could be life deep in the depths, as there is at the bottom of Earth’s
oceans.
Sadly, no members of the UK Cabinet
have volunteered to be blasted into space.
Home Sec
rebuke
Suella Braverman’s gutter-scraping
rhetoric
has finally met significant pushback within the Tory
Party–all it took was her smearing an entire nationality and
then
publicly defending racist dolls.
Former Party Chair Sayeeda Warsi
lambasted Braverman’s series of provocative statements in an
op-ed on Wednesday, calling out the Home
Secretary as “not fit to hold high office” and putting the onus on the
Prime Minister to address the dangerous nativism brewing in his
Cabinet.
This opened the floodgates for more
criticism, although in typical Tory fashion much of it came
anonymously. One Conservative former minister branded Braverman a
“real racist bigot” while Defence Select Committee Chair Tobias
Ellwood was more tepid on the record, saying her Enoch Powell-esque
ranting doesn’t “sit well” with the Prime Minister’s supposed grown-up
approach to government.
Have a wonderful weekend safe in
the knowledge that it is likely to be better than that of the
disgraced former-deputy PM.
Best
wishes,
Tommy Gillespie
Press Officer, Best for Britain
