Inside Politics: Influential Tory wades into ‘taking the knee’ row and MPs vote through aid cuts

Steve Baker says issue could be a ‘decisive moment’ for his party, while campaigners tell foreign aid cuts MPs they have ‘blood on their hands’, writes Matt Mathers

(PA)

Was that the sun in the sky this morning? Just when you thought summer had passed by, forecasters are predicting a weekend heatwave. Don’t put away the garden chairs and BBQ just yet. We live in hope. Boris Johnson continues to feel the heat on his government’s approach to racism. After Priti Patel refused to call out fans who booed England players taking the knee, an influential Tory MP is warning his party needs a re-think on the issue. Elsewhere, anger is growing on new Covid guidance and MPs have voted through foreign aid cuts.

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Inside the bubble

Our political commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for today:

Football and racism will be on the agenda at prime minister’s questions and immediately afterwards, when Labour has secured an urgent question on racist abuse on social media. There will be statements from Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, on legacy issues in the province and Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, on decarbonisation.

Coming up shortly:

-Tory MP and transport secretary Grant Shapps on ITV GMB at 8.30am

-Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan on Times Radio at 8.45am

Daily Briefing

DECISIVE MOMENT: An influential Tory MP has waded into the debate on taking the knee after Priti Patel was accused of “stoking the fire” after England players were abused following Sunday night’s final. 1922 Committee executive Steve Baker has warned the issue “is a decisive moment for our party”. His comments came after a letter from a Conservative anti-racism group claimed MPs’ actions may have “laid the foundations” for some of the racist abuse levelled at England players during the Euro tournament. His colleague, ex-minister and Afghanistan veteran, Johnny Mercer, also suggested that England defender Tyrone Mings was “completely right” to accuse the home secretary of stoking racism, which she denies. Labour has been granted an urgent question on racism and social media today in parliament. Expect Keir Starmer to go in hard on the issue at prime minister’s question. This issue is still very much a live one and several of this morning’s papers pick up on hundreds of people gathering at a mural of Marcus Rashford in Manchester to show their support for the striker, after abuse was scrawled on the spray painting.

REBELLION QUASHED: In the end, it was a reasonably comfortable win for the government. MPs voted through foreign aid cuts by 333 votes to 298 despite a series of impassioned speeches from senior members on all sides of the Commons. After the vote, international development charities told MPs backing the move they have“blood on their hands”. Johnson said that the plan would “provide certainty for our aid budget and an affordable path back to 0.7 per cent, while also allowing investment in other priorities, including the NHS, schools and the police.” But Tory opponents, who defied a three-line whip to vote against the government, denounced the plan as a “fiscal trap”. Andrew Mitchell, one of the lead rebels, said chancellor Rishi Sunak’s conditions had been met only once in the past 20 years. Starmer said cutting aid was “callous and not in our national interest” and would damage the UK’s image around the world.

MASK ROW: It’s only been two days since the government announced lockdown lifting is going ahead on 19 July, but criticism of the new guidance to go with “freedom day” is racking up. Johnson has been accused of throwing some people in England “to the wolves” after the clinically vulnerable were told to avoid people who haven’t had both vaccine jabs and advised to do their shopping at less busy times. “One person’s freedom is another person’s fear,” said Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. “Yet another reason why some basic measures like mask-wearing should stay.” Elsewhere, Labour’s London mayor, Sadiq Khan has announced face masks will remain compulsory on trains, tubes and buses in the capital.

TROUBLES AMNESTY: The government is later today expected to publish proposals on how to deal with Troubles legacy issues. According to today's Sun, IRA terrorists and British troops accused of murdering civilians will be given amnesty. Social Democrat and Labour Party MP Colum Eastwood has come under fire after he used parliamentary privileged to name Soldier F, the former member of the British Army Parachute Regiment facing a number of murder and attempted murder charges for his role in Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. One of those who Soldier F is accused of killing is William McKinney, a newspaper printer and civil rights campaigner. Soldier F cannot be named in the media for legal reasons.

SOVEREIGNTY NOT FOR SALE: British sovereignty “must not be for sale,” MPs have warned as the UK’s largest electronic chip plant is bought by a Chinese company with links to the Beijing government. The government must do much more to protect Britain’s strategic industrial assets, according to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. It highlighted the takeover of Newport Wafer Fab (NWF) by Nexperia during a global chip shortage, a sale that means that the asset has passed into the hands of a company heavily backed by the Chinese Communist Party.

On the record

“Fewer girls will be educated, more girls and boys will become slaves, more children will go hungry and more of the poorest people in the world will die.”

Former prime minister Theresa May during a Commons debate on the government’s foreign aid cuts.

From the Twitterati

“Government advice to the clinically extremely vulnerable is to go to shops ‘at quieter times of the day’, after 19 July. I am not sure this can be dignified as support for those most at risk of serious illness from COVID-19.”

ITV political editor Robert Peston on the government’s new Covid guidance.

“We talk so much about taking the knee but spend far less time exploring the issues involved, about the gravity of the inequities which exist and what the idea of structural racism actually is.”

BBC Newsnight policy editor Louis Goodall on racism.

Essential reading

• Marie La Conte, The Independent: Despite Conservative attempts to fuel culture wars, there is no such thing as ‘woke’
• Sadiq Khan, The Independent: This is what we must do after the vile abuse of England players
• David Olusoga, New Statesman: The England team have exposed the lie of the government’s culture war
• Stephen Daisley, The Spectator: Who can make the Scottish Lib Dems great again?