UK forces board sanctioned Russian oil tanker in English Channel for the first time, says Keir Starmer – UK politics live
British forces intercept Russian shadow fleet vessel in English Channel
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The British armed forces intercepted a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the English Channel in the early hours of Sunday morning, the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has said.
Royal Marine commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency boarded a sanctioned oil tanker during a six-hour operation, according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The vessel, Smyrtos, will be held and monitored for any environmental or safety concerns off the south coast of England as investigations continue, the MoD added.
In a statement, Starmer said: “This operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fuelling (President Vladimir) Putin’s war in Ukraine that they cannot hide.”
The new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, said:
Operations like this require skill, professionalism and courage. I pay tribute to our armed forces personnel and all those involved.
Russia relies on its shadow fleet to fund their conflict in Ukraine and our interdiction delivers a blow to Putin’s illegal war.
The incident comes days after the former armed forces minister, Al Carns, and defence secretary, John Healey, resigned their posts after a protracted row over the defence investment plan (Dip). They said the plan, which has faced repeated delays, is seriously underfunded and falls short of what the defence department needs to keep Britain safe at such a volatile time.
Healey said the government was only willing to give an extra £10bn in additional funding, a figure he said is well below what is needed amid the threat from Russia and other major security challenges.
Key events
As my colleagues report in this story, teenagers under the age of 16 are expected to be banned from accessing “high-risk” social media apps while safer platforms will be subjected to restrictions, under a sweeping government crackdown.
Under-18s will also be banned from using romantic or sexual AI chatbots after a consultation on keeping children safe online.
When asked on Sky News this morning about the plans, the culture secretary said banning social media for under-16s is on its own not “the silver bullet solution,” but has a “role to play” in protecting children online.
Nandy told Sky News:
I don’t want to get ahead of the prime minister’s announcement (expected on Monday). But when we launched the consultation, it was a question of how we better protect young people online, not if we do so.
And one of the things that a social media ban does and has been shown to do in Australia is that although it doesn’t stop all young people going online and onto social media apps, it does mean that you change the presumption at a very early age to stop the situation where kids as young as eight, nine, 10, 11 are going on to social media sites because all of their friends are on them at an age when, frankly, they’re not really emotionally equipped to be able to cope with it.
So the question of more regulation is – it’s a definite yes from the government, more enforcement action. I don’t think banning social media on its own is the silver bullet solution, but I do think Australia has shown very clearly that it has a significant role to play.
Culture secretary says she agrees with some of what former defence minister said in resignation letter
The UK’s culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said Keir Starmer’s top priority remains keeping the public safe, pointing to the government slashing the aid budget as a “tough decision” that apparently proved their commitment to properly funding defence.
She said government departments are looking at further cutting their budgets to help fund defence.
When pressed by Sky News presenter Wilfred Frost on whether Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, will be given more money for defence than what was offered last week, Nandy said: “I don’t know. I don’t know what stage the negotiations had reached when John Healey decided to resign.” She said that she likes and respects Healey and confirmed that the government will publish the defence investment plan ahead of the Nato summit scheduled for early July.
In what sounded like her urging the Treasury to give up more money for defence, Nandy said “we have to rise to meet this moment” as the “threat level” has risen and “we have got to be prepared to invest to the levels that are needed in order to do it”.
Despite being bound by collective cabinet responsibility, Nandy interestingly said she agreed with some of what the former defence minister, Al Carns, said in his resignation letter last week (as a reminder he quit because the defence plan had not been well enough funded and the government was planning to spend its money on outdated systems). Nandy told Sky News:
I think Al Carns though, who resigned as defence minister this week, put it very well in his resignation letter.
Because the challenge is both to transform the way that we do defence, it is to increase the levels of spending even further than this government has already done in order to meet this moment.
But it is also to invest more broadly in the national resilience of the country and that includes economic insecurity, as he pointed out in the letter, strong public services, strong communities – and we as a government have to do all three things at once.
So, I won’t pretend that this is easy and I won’t pretend that these negotiations sometimes aren’t quite tense and quite difficult.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Dan Jarvis said he had a “big responsibility” towards soldiers who risk their lives for the country.
Jarvis, himself a former soldier, said he was still working through the detail of the defence investment plan, which will lay out how much military equipment and infrastructure will be paid for over the next decade. The new defence secretary told the Sunday Telegraph:
The defence of our nation is a shared endeavour… I have a big responsibility in that regard now, but so do all of those people who expose themselves to risk tonight, tomorrow, next week, and we owe them a debt of gratitude.
I have a responsibility now to them to make sure that they get what they need, and people should be very clear about my determination to fulfil those duties, to make sure that they do (get) precisely what they need.
His comments come weeks before a crunch Nato summit in Ankara that will be attended by Donald Trump.
British forces intercept Russian shadow fleet vessel in English Channel
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The British armed forces intercepted a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the English Channel in the early hours of Sunday morning, the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, has said.
Royal Marine commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency boarded a sanctioned oil tanker during a six-hour operation, according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The vessel, Smyrtos, will be held and monitored for any environmental or safety concerns off the south coast of England as investigations continue, the MoD added.
In a statement, Starmer said: “This operation delivers yet another blow to Russia and reminds those fuelling (President Vladimir) Putin’s war in Ukraine that they cannot hide.”
The new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, said:
Operations like this require skill, professionalism and courage. I pay tribute to our armed forces personnel and all those involved.
Russia relies on its shadow fleet to fund their conflict in Ukraine and our interdiction delivers a blow to Putin’s illegal war.
The incident comes days after the former armed forces minister, Al Carns, and defence secretary, John Healey, resigned their posts after a protracted row over the defence investment plan (Dip). They said the plan, which has faced repeated delays, is seriously underfunded and falls short of what the defence department needs to keep Britain safe at such a volatile time.
Healey said the government was only willing to give an extra £10bn in additional funding, a figure he said is well below what is needed amid the threat from Russia and other major security challenges.
