BEST FOR BRITAIN'S 

WEEKEND WIRE

Dear John,

The Government had one of its many days in court this week, and hopefully a rich tradition of losing has been born.

Rwanda plan gets legal rebuke

On Thursday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the Government’s Rwanda deportation plan was unlawful.

The two-to-one ruling held that the Home Office could not adequately prove that Rwanda was a safe country to deport asylum seekers to, and that such a plan would constitute a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (which we’re, for the moment, still party to). The Government is expected to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

The ruling against the Government’s flagship anti-asylum policy, introduced three Home Secretaries ago, came hot on the heels of another defeat for the Government on the Illegal Migration Bill in the House of Lords, where peers added a number of amendments requiring the Government to comply with the ECHR. 

Best for Britain CEO Naomi Smith said the ruling “must be the end of the Rwanda plan and the so-called Illegal Migration Bill”.

Trade Unlocked continued

Trade Unlocked may have come to an end, but we’re sitting on a treasure trove of content from the biggest consultation of businesses on international trade since Brexit, and we want you to see it.

Our series of vox pops from the conference featuring businesspeople representing firms large and small continue to be rolled out on Trade Unlocked and Best for Britain social channels.

In addition, all of our plenary sessions and breakout forums are available to stream here. Make sure you watch our keynote addresses from Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Shadow International Trade Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds!

Kangaroos fire back at Tories

Privileges Committees, as Nadine Dorries, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel, Andrea Jenkyns, and a few of their fellow BoJo diehards found out, are not for publicly lambasting as witch hunts.

On Thursday, the Committee released a special report criticising the “sustained interference” and attempts to “discredit the Committee as a whole” by allies of Boris Johnson throughout the process, naming seven MPs and three peers whose conduct had been particularly detrimental to the process. 

The report reserved its sternest rebukes for Dorries and Rees-Mogg, the former of whom used her Talk TV slot as a stream of conspiratorial consciousness wondering what rewards the anti-Johnson wing had promised the Committee’s Tory majority, and the latter of whom busted out his thesaurus to find every antiquated word for kangaroo to describe the court.

Should MPs approve the sanctions, all the named troublemakers could face parliamentary suspensions. Only time will tell if Dorries dares to actually resign before then.

Brexit manufacturing bust

Thanks to Brexit, the UK’s manufacturing sector could be reduced to churning out cracked eggs by 2030.

A report from the Financial Times revealed that industry leaders, including Dave Seaward, the founder of 3P Innovation, fear low confidence in the UK’s regulatory environment and new red tape could put the UK’s manufacturing sector at disadvantage long-term. 

Due to their Europe-wide supply chains, experts in the report warned that advanced products like medicines could be the first to leave the UK, citing a rash of recent pharma contracts that have gone to Ireland. 

You can watch Dave Seaward on the Labour Mobility breakout forum at Trade Unlocked 2023. Beneficial regulatory alignment with the EU is one of the key recommendations in the UK Trade and Business Commission’s Trading our way to prosperity report.

Goldsmith goes out swinging

With Boris Johnson thoroughly disgraced and booted from office, Zac Goldsmith has suddenly discovered the conviction to resign his ministry in protest of Rishi Sunak’s nonchalance about climate change.

Following a rebuke of his own from the Privileges Committee, the newly-minted peer wrote a scathing resignation letter, both attacking Sunak’s abandonment of climate pledges and clutching his “horrified” pearls as he held his tongue until a politically-opportune time for Boris Johnson.

Gauntlet thrown, Sunak fired back that teacher The Privileges Committee reprimanded Goldsmith more and that he’d really been forced out after refusing to apologise for his smear campaign against the Committee. 

If the universe has a sense of humour, Goldsmith’s resignation will be the tipping point that finally ends climate change–it’ll all be thanks to Boris.

Evolución español

As Spain’s centre-left government heads to the polls in a tight snap election next month, Politico has published a tremendously-crafted piece detailing the country’s journey from dictatorship to home of some of the most forward-thinking equalities legislation–and attitudes–in the world.

Writer Aitor Hernández-Morales traces the path from the dark days of the Franco regime through the country being one of the world’s first to introduce same-sex marriage in 2005 (against the objection of future right-wing Partido Popular Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy) to the passage of a landmark slate of legal protections for women and LGBTQ people in the past year, alongside the growth of one of the world’s most LGBTQ-friendly and feminist societies. 

However, the fate of the new legislation hangs in the balance with the prospect of a right-wing government looming at the election, scheduled for 23 July.

With Pride coming to London this weekend and June coming to an end, we hope you’re finding something to celebrate. Bye for now! 

Best wishes,

Tommy Gillespie 
Press Officer, Best for Britain