[Guardian] Exclusive: MPs and ministers say they would oppose Starmer if he tries to approve Rosebank development
Senior Labour figures are warning of a serious fight if Keir Starmer tries to give the go-ahead to a giant new oilfield off Shetland later this year.
MPs and ministers have told the Guardian they are prepared to oppose the UK prime minister should he try and give final consent to the Rosebank development, which is Britain’s biggest untapped oilfield.
Many in the party see the battle over Rosebank as the next front in the struggle between its environmental wing and those around Rachel Reeves who want to push for economic growth above all else. The chancellor signalled her support for a third runway at Heathrow this week as part of the government’s latest push to stimulate the economy.
One ally of the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, who is leading the government’s climate agenda, said the former Labour leader would have a “punchy” response for any attempt to give consent to Rosebank. The ally said: “Ed will come to that fight armed with a lot of evidence about what Rosebank will do to our carbon emissions.”
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, speaking in parliament. Image: Flickr/ House of Commons
Disability benefits claimants are experiencing “unacceptably poor service” from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), according to a damning report from the Public Accounts Committee.
It said that it is “concerning that DWP is not providing a decent service to all its customers, who include some of the most vulnerable in society and some of those with the most complex needs”.
In particular, it said claimants of disability benefits including personal independence payment (PIP) and employment and support allowance (ESA) are receiving an “unacceptably poor service”.
This has the potential to be “detrimental” for people who are already facing “real pressures in their daily lives”, the report found.
It is released as the government continues to pledge to slash the welfare bill, with a particular focus on the growing numbers of people claiming disability benefits. …
The Climate Change Resource Center page on the USDA’s website on Thursday. Photograph: USDA
Forest service website among many sites affected as agencies scramble to comply with president’s orders
On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered the US agriculture department to to take down its websites documenting or referencing the climate crisis.
By Friday, the landing pages on the United States Forest Service website for key resources, research and adaptation tools – including those that provide vital context and vulnerability assessments for wildfires – had gone dark, leaving behind an error message or just a single line: “You are not authorized to access this page.”
The government website was one of many that were affected on Friday by new directives from the Trump administration on what information federal agencies can publish.
Several went dark on Friday as agencies scrambled to comply with Donald Trump’s executive orders declaring his administration would recognize only two genders and ordering an end to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The changes at the Forest Service website followed a directive issued by the United States Department of Agriculture’s office of communications. In the memo, which was reviewed by the Guardian, officials instructed website managers across the agency to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” . It also included a Friday deadline to list the mentions in a spreadsheet for further review.
Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation Field Office building in Washington D.C., United States of America is shown on July 12, 2024. (Photo: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Trump’s outrageous attack on the DOJ and FBI is a clear and present danger to public safety, and a wrecking ball swinging at the rule of law,” Rep. Jamie Raskin said.
The Trump Department of Justice made moves on Friday to fire FBI employees and prosecutors who were involved with the government’s cases against U.S. President Donald Trump and the participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
First, on Thursday, several senior FBI officials—stationed both at headquarters and in the field—were told to either resign or be fired. Then, at 5 pm Eastern Time on Friday, dozens of DOJ prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases received an email saying they had been fired. Also on Friday, an email sent to FBI employees told them that acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who previously represented Trump in the cases against him, had requested a list of everyone who had worked on January 6 cases “to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”
“Firing the FBI agents who investigated violent attacks against police officers on January 6 would set a dangerous precedent and make all of us less safe,” Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey said in a statement. “This is a shameless act of political retribution that weakens federal law enforcement and the rule of law.”
“This is a massacre meant to chill our efforts to fight crime without fear or favor.”
The FBI higher-ups forced out included the agency’s six most senior executives as well as more than 20 directors of field offices including Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Seattle, and Las Vegas. The targeted officials had been promoted by former FBI Director Christopher Wray, according to The New York Times. The Washington, D.C. field office worked extensively on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and involvement in the January 6 insurrection, as well as the investigations of the rioters themselves, NBC News reported. One source told The Hill that agents who had worked on the cases were physically escorted out of the D.C. field office on Friday.
NBC reported that several of the senior officials had chosen to retire, even though they could have challenged their dismissals as nonpolitical appointees subject to civil service regulations.
Many of the agents received the ultimatum the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, promised in his Senate confirmation hearing that he would not retaliate against any agents who worked on the Trump cases and was not aware of any attempts to do so.
“All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,” Patel told the Senate.
Trump, meanwhile, said on Friday that he was not aware of the firings, but added, “If they fired some people over there, that’s a good thing, because they were very bad. They were very corrupt people, very corrupt, and they hurt our country very badly with the weaponization.”
Another memo sent by Bove to acting FBI Director Brian J. Driscoll Jr. laid the groundwork for more firings, as Driscoll was asked to submit a list of all agents and employees “assigned at any time to investigations and/or prosecutions” related to January 6, as The New York Times reported. Field offices received a similar request from the FBI’s counterterrorism division. Bove also asked for a list of agents who worked on a case against Hamas leadership, though it is not clear why.
One employee told CNN that the January 6 case was the largest case the bureau had ever worked on, observing that “everyone touched that case.”
In an email to staff on Friday reported by NBC, Driscoll noted, “We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts,” adding, “I am one of those employees.”
“This is a massacre meant to chill our efforts to fight crime without fear or favor,” another anonymous agent told CNN. “Even for those not fired, it sends the message that the bureau is no longer independent.”
The FBI Agents Association, which represents over 14,000 active and former agents, issued a scathing statement on Friday.
“If true, these outrageous actions by acting officials are fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents,” the association said. “Dismissing potentially hundreds of agents would severely weaken the bureau’s ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats and will ultimately risk setting up the bureau and its new leadership for failure. These actions also contradict the commitments that Attorney General-nominee Pam Bondi and Director-nominee Kash Patel made during their nomination hearings before the United States Senate.”
The group added that Patel had promised association members in a meeting that “agents would be afforded appropriate process and review and not face retribution based solely on the cases to which they were assigned.”
Finally on Friday, DOJ prosecutors received an email from Interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, telling them they were being fired and including a memo from Bove. The fired prosecutors had been hired to work on the January 6 cases and were made permanent by the Biden administration following the November election. In his memo, Bove suggested the prosecutors had been made permanent in an inappropriate attempt to protect them from being fired.
“I will not tolerate subversive personnel actions by the previous administration at any U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Bove wrote, as POLITICO reported. “Too much is at stake. In light of the foregoing, the appropriate course is to terminate these employees.”
One of the impacted prosecutors told POLITICO that 25 to 30 people were let go.
“This attack on the Justice Department and particularly on the FBI is the beginning of America’s first true era of dictatorship.”
The latest round of DOJ firings comes days after the Trump administration already fired a dozen lawyers who had helped bring Smith’s two cases against Trump. They also come a week after Trump’s firing of 12 inspectors general. Trump also pardoned all approximately 1,500 people involved in the January 6 insurrection on his first day in office.
News of the FBI and DOJ firings sparked ire from Democratic lawmakers.
“Trump’s outrageous attack on the DOJ and FBI is a clear and present danger to public safety, and a wrecking ball swinging at the rule of law,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, in a statement. “Trump wants to send the message to the police and federal officers that the law doesn’t apply to Trump and his enablers. It’s also part of his campaign to replace nonpartisan career civil servants with political loyalists and incompetent sycophants. Trump’s moves have already left the Justice Department and the FBI rudderless and adrift by ousting their career senior ranks. Now, these unprecedented purges of hundreds of prosecutors, staff, and experienced law enforcement agents will undermine the government’s power to protect our country against national security, cyber, and criminal threats.”
“The loyal friend of autocrats, kleptocrats, oligarchs, and broligarchs, Trump doesn’t care about the requirements of democracy, national security, and public safety,” Raskin continued. “His agenda is vengeance and retribution. If allowed to proceed, Trump’s purge of our federal law enforcement workforce will expose America to authoritarianism and dictatorship.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, (D-Ill.), who serves on the Judiciary Committee, called the firings “a major blow to the FBI and Justice Department’s integrity and effectiveness.”
“This is a brazen assault on the rule of law that also severely undermines our national security and public safety,” Durbin continued. “Unelected Trump lackeys are carrying out widespread political retribution against our nation’s career law enforcement officials. President Trump would rather have the FBI and DOJ full of blind admirers and loyalists than experienced law enforcement officers.”
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) also decried the firings and cast doubt on the integrity of Bondi and Patel, whom Trump had tapped to lead the DOJ and FBI respectively.
“Pam Bondi and Kash Patel both committed to protecting the Department of Justice and the FBI from politics and weaponization. If these reports are true, it’s clear they misled the Senate,” Himes said. “As ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, I have repeatedly asked the FBI for more information about these reports and will insist on answers.”
Fellow Connecticut Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro wrote on social media: “Priority #1 for the Trump administration: Protect the lawless and purge those who uphold the law. The firing of FBI agents and federal prosecutors without cause is an assault on the rule of law and law enforcement. It leaves Americans vulnerable and less safe. We will push back.”
As Democrats promised action, Harvey of Stand Up America also called on Republican lawmakers to respond.
“This is not about public safety—it’s about revenge and control,” Harvey said. “Removing experienced law enforcement professionals and replacing them with political loyalists puts all of our safety at risk. If there are any Republican senators left who care about protecting the rule of law and public safety, they should oppose this dangerous purge and reject Kash Patel’s nomination as FBI Director.”
Progressive political commenter Thom Hartmann urged U.S. citizens to call their representatives.
“Let’s just call these mass firings at Justice and the FBI what they are. Donald Trump is a lawless man who is ripping apart the FBI to turn it into a banana republic-style group of enforcing thugs who will only do his will,” Hartmann wrote on his Substack Saturday morning. “They will spare his friends and persecute his enemies. We’ve seen this over and over during the past century in countries all over the world; it’s nothing new. It’s just that we never expected to see it here in America.”
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin dreamed for most of his life of destroying America; he now has a friend who is doing it for him. This attack on the Justice Department and particularly on the FBI is the beginning of America’s first true era of dictatorship. The only question now is how long and how far Democratic and Republican politicians and career government employees will tolerate this, and, when their resistance comes, whether it will be too late. The phone number for Congress is 202-224-3121.”
FORMER Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP has criticised the government for “making no attempt” to answer MPs’ questions over its complicity in the Gaza genocide.
A five-strong pro-Palestine group of MPs, forming the Independent Alliance parliamentary group, has asked for the government’s definition of genocide, what advice it has received over its applicability in Gaza and what it was doing to fulfil its legal obligations to prevent genocide.
In letters sent to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the Attorney General Richard Hermer, they also asked whether RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, is being used as a route for weapons to be deployed in Gaza and what legal advice the government has received over its use to support Israeli military operations.
Replying to Mr Corbyn two months after the letters were sent, Middle East minister Hamish Falconer did not address the questions.
…
Mr Corbyn shared a copy of The Independent Alliance’s written response to Mr Falconer on social media.
It said: “We are extremely disappointed that you’ve made no attempt whatsoever to answer any of these questions.
…
“It remains unknown whether the government has refused to seek legal advice over the definition of genocide, or whether the legal advice it has received is at direct odds with the statement the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have made.”
They added that it is “particularly concerning” that the government failed to provide any detail on how it has met its obligations to prevent genocide.
“We say again: we deserve to know the full scale of our government’s complicity and participation in genocide,” it added.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWREGenocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
