16 2GM Friday March 6 2020 | the times
News
Parliament flies
the Union Jack
upside down
Eleni CoureaParliament has been inadvertently fly-
ing the Union Jack upside down, a sym-
bol that normally signifies distress.
Robert Courts, the Conservative MP
for Witney, raised the issue with MPs
yesterday, pointing out that the flag
above Portcullis House, parliament’s
newest annex, “has been flying upside
down for some time”.
“I doubt that the building has surren-
dered to anybody,” he told the Com-
mons, “but could we have the debate in
government time as to whether in fact
the building is in distress, or whether it’s
the MPs within it that are in distress?”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the
Commons, apologised and said that it
was a “deeply troubling matter”. He
added. “I’m glad it’s been brought to the
attention of the House authorities. I
imagine that somebody is, as we are
speaking, going to correct this. I see the
clerk of the House of Commons is
taking action immediately.”
When placed correctly, the wider
diagonal white stripe should be above
the red one in the top left corner of the
flag. However, a 2017 survey by YouGov
found that 55 per cent of Britons could
not tell when the flag was being flown
upside down.
Politicians have in the past been
mocked for flying the flag the wrong
way round. It was flown upside down on
Theresa May’s official car when she
visited Paris for Brexit talks last spring.Boris Johnson was accused last night of
undermining a Whitehall inquiry into
bullying allegations against the home
secretary after he declared that his “in-
stinct” was to “stick with Prit”.
The prime minister ordered an offi-
cial investigation to “establish the facts”
of Priti Patel’s behaviour earlier this
week after a string of allegations about
her treatment of staff.
Mr Johnson will have sole responsi-
bility to decide if she has broken the
ministerial code. But he appeared to
prejudge that decision yesterday when
he told This Morning on ITV that his
“instinct” was to stand by her.
“We have got to investigate it,” he
said. “My instinct is very much to ‘stick
with Prit’ as they say. She is doing an
outstanding job facing a lot of head-
winds. I have made it clear to all my
Pay rise for MPs boosts
salaries to over £80,
Eleni CoureaJohnson vows that he’ll ‘stick with Prit’
friends in cabinet that I don’t like bully-
ing. But I think Priti is doing an out-
standing job.”
Dave Penman, the head of the union
that represents senior civil servants,
writes in The Times Red Box to accuse
Mr Johnson of “picking a side”.
“The prime minister is, among many
things, the minister for the civil ser-
vice,” he says. “Imagine for a moment
you’re a civil servant concerned about
the behaviour of one of the most power-
ful people in the country and you’re try-
ing to work out whether to raise a com-
plaint. Would those exchanges give you
confidence that the process will deliver
a fair and balanced result?”
Mr Penman said that while he had no
doubt the inquiry, to be led by senior
cabinet office officials, would “adhere
to best practice” it was up to Mr John-
son alone to decide whether it repre-
sented a breach of the ministerial code.His comment came as fresh allegations
were made about Ms Patel dating back
to her time as employment minister.
The Daily Mail reported a Whitehall
source claiming that Ms Patel threw a
folder at an official during a briefing in
2016 because a page was missing.
“She threw the folder at him and hit
him in the face,” the source said. “It was
so aggressive. She didn’t apologise.”
A spokesman for Ms Patel said that
the claim was “categorically false”.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the work and
pensions secretary at the time, also de-
nied the claim. “If someone threw a file
at you, you would report it,” he said.
“There wasn’t a complaint.”
Labour again demanded an inde-
pendent inquiry into the allegations.
Diane Abbott, the shadow home secre-
tary, said: “The government can’t act as
judge and jury in a case against one of
their own ministers.”Oliver Wright
MPs will receive a 3.1 per cent pay rise
this year, bringing their salary above
£80,000 for the first time.
Parliament’s standards watchdog
said yesterday that the basic rate for
MPs would increase from £79,468 to
£81,932 next month. Senior MPs, such
as ministers and select committee
chairmen or women, will receive a
salary top-up of an additional £16,422,
up from £15,928.
It follows a decision made in 2015 and
confirmed in 2018 to adjust MPs’ pay at
the same rate as public sector earnings.
The staff members of MPs will also
receive a salary boost, after a review
found that they were underpaid com-
pared with workers in other sectors.Each MP will receive more than
£25,000 extra towards staffing budgets
— equivalent to a 13 per cent rise. Two
hundred MPs backed a campaign last
spring to give their staff a bigger rise.
Richard Lloyd, interim chairman of
the Independent Parliamentary Stan-
dards Authority, said that “demands on
MPs’ offices were high, with staff doing
difficult and stressful casework”.
The watchdog has no role in setting
ministerial salaries. According to Cabi-
net Office figures, the prime minister
was entitled to a second salary of
£79,286 last year, while senior ministers
including the chancellor and secretar-
ies of state could get up to up to £71,090.
Total UK earnings increased by 2.
per cent last December, according to
the Office for National Statistics.300 Tories
accused of
Islamophobia
A dossier detailing alleged Islamopho-
bia in the Conservative Party has been
submitted to a human rights watchdog.
The Muslim Council of Britain
included claims against 300 people,
including councillors, advisers to the
prime minister and 16 MPs, in its sub-
mission to the Equality and Human
Rights Commission (EHRC).
It named Boris Johnson for “dehu-
manising and offensive” comments
about Muslim women wearing the veil.
Harun Khan, the council’s secretary-
general, said that the Tories had a “sys-
temic and widespread” Islamophobia
crisis and accused the party of “denial,
dismissal and deceit”.
The council had sent a similar dossier
naming 150 individuals to the EHRC in
May. Mr Khan criticised the commis-
sion for having “failed to give any
response” to the first dossier and urged
it to take “swift action”.
Baroness Warsi, a former party
chairwoman, said that Islamophobia
ran “deep and wide” among Conserva-
tives and accused the party leaders of
allowing it to “fester”.
A Conservative spokeswoman said
that the party “consistently takes deci-
sive action” to deal with hatred. The
party has committed to an inquiry into
all forms of discrimination but has re-
sisted calls to set up an independent in-
quiry into Islamophobia specifically.
The EHCR said that it was waiting for
the Conservatives to specify the terms
of their inquiry before responding. Priti Patel visited Border Force officers in Portsmouth yesterday, who told her how they are tackling illegal immigration
Britain and the European Union face
“very grave and serious” disagreements
that could scupper a Brexit trade deal,
Michel Barnier said yesterday, as the
first round of talks concluded.
The EU’s chief negotiator said
that the UK’s stance on fishing,
human rights and how a trade
deal would be policed were pro-
foundly at odds with his mandate.
“To be completely frank
there are many divergen-
ces and they are very seri-
ous divergences,” he said.
The negotiations
highlighted the gov-
ernment’s refusal to
enshrine the Euro-
Michel Barnier
fears “serious
divergences”News Politics
Barnier warns of ‘grave’ divisions on trade
Bruno Waterfield Brussels
Oliver Wright Policy Editor
pean Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR) in the final agreement. The EU
is demanding that ministers accept the
ECHR and the European Court of
Human Rights as the price for criminal
justice co-operation.
“They do not wish formally to com-
mit to continuing to apply the
ECHR, nor do they wish to per-
mit the European Court of Jus-
tice to play its full role in inter-
preting EU law,” Mr Barnier
said in reference to sharing
crime data. “This is serious. I say
this is grave because if the
UK’s position does
not move it willhave an immediate and concrete effect
on the level of ambition of our co-oper-
ation.”
British sources said that the EU,
which is not a signatory to the ECHR,
wanted Britain to agree a new treaty
clause that would interfere with how
the court’s rulings were enforced in
domestic law. A government spokes-
man said that while there were “expect-
ed, significant differences” the final
deal had to respect that the country
would be outside the orbit of EU law or
its courts.
Whitehall’s spending watchdog has
said that Brexit has so far cost the tax-
payer more than £4 billion. The
National Audit Office said that since
the referendum in June 2016 govern-
ment departments had spent at least
£4.4 billion on extra staff, consultancyfees and no-deal infrastructure. There
are now 9 per cent more civil servants
than in 2010 and one in ten senior civil
servants works on Brexit.
In Brussels Mr Barnier defended his
demands for Britain to stay aligned to
European legislation, with a role for the
EU’s courts in enforcing alignment,
particularly on state subsidies to indus-
try and on competition policy.
“Whilst we agree on preserving high
standards, my question is why not
commit to them formally? It is a ques-
tion of trust,” he said. “Nobody contests
the UK’s independence.”
David Frost, the government’s chief
negotiator, told Mr Barnier it would not
accept “level playing field” demands
that went beyond existing free-trade
agreements and sought to use EU law
as the point of reference. Britain oppos-es the EU’s proposal of a single legal
structure for the deal, modelled on
previous “association agreements”
with countries such as Ukraine.
Mr Barnier wants such a structure
because association agreements have
an inbuilt orientation to EU law and are
easier to ratify than Britain’s preferred
option of a “suite of agreements”.
A government spokesman said: “The
UK is committed to the ECHR and
championing them at home and
abroad. But we believe that does not
require an additional binding inter-
national agreement.”
Mr Barnier also said that finding an
agreement on fishing would be difficult,
adding: “A balanced solution on
fisheries should be part of the free-
trade agreement, if we want a trade
agreement.”
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