Inside Politics: Zelensky calls for Nuremberg-style trials and NI tax hike bites

Ukraine president calls on UN to act amid mounting evidence of war crimes by Putin’s forces, and millions of Britons hit with rise to national insurance contributions, writes Matt Mathers

APTOPIX Russia-Ukraine War-United Nations (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Liz Truss is in Brussels, where she will discuss the Ukraine war with G7 and Nato leaders. The foreign secretary, who was in Poland yesterday, is expected to call on the UK’s partners in Europe to impose harsher sanctions on the Kremlin to send the Russian economy “back into the Soviet era” as punishment for invading its neighbour. The meetings, however, threaten to be overshadowed by a row over the bloc’s importation of Russian gas, with Brussels still not setting out a clear timetable of when it plans to end its reliance on Moscow for the natural resource – a lucrative source of income for Putin’s war machine.

Much has been written here in the UK about sky-high energy bills and the cost of living crisis, both of which have been exacerbated by the conflict. The increasing cost of electricity, gas and food – not to mention surging inflation – are all problems afflicting the continent too. But the difference between the UK and the EU is that we are far less reliant on Russia for our oil and gas. Overnight reports suggest the EU will agree to further measures targeting some Russian financial and state-owned bodies. Leaders on the continent are, however, unlikely to make major commitments to ending their reliance on Russian gas pipelines while the energy market remains so volatile. Doing so would mean shipping in supplies of expensive liquefied natural gas from elsewhere, resulting in even bigger bills for their voters.

Inside the bubble

Politics commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for today:

Liz Truss will discuss the Ukraine war with Nato foreign ministers in Brussels. Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, will address the Irish parliament. The Commons is not sitting but the crisis will loom large in the House of Lords. Tory peer Arminka Helic, who fled war-torn Bosnia, will stage a debate on Ukrainian refugees. The House’s international relations committee will take evidence on from two defence experts – Professors Michael Clarke and Malcolm Chalmers.

Coming up:

– Health secretary Sajid Javid on BBC Radio 4 Today at 8.10am

– Lib Dem leader Ed Davey on Times Radio Breakfast at 8.20am

Daily Briefing

• WAR CRIMES PLEA: Volodymyr Zelensky gave an impassioned speech yesterday to a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in which he called for Nuremberg-style trials as evidence of Russian war crimes mounts up. Appearing at the session virtually, Zelensky also played allies a grim video appearing to show bound, killed and burned civilians and mass graves in images from across his nation that the UK’s ambassador to the UN, Dame Barbara Woodward, described as “harrowing”. His comments came as Putin’s troops continued to bombard the besieged city of Mariupol in Ukraine’s southeast. The humanitarian situation in the destroyed port city is “worsening”, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest update on the war this morning. “Most of the 160,000 remaining residents have no light, communication, medicine, heat or water,” it added. “Russian forces have prevented humanitarian access, likely to pressure defenders to surrender.” In other updates, the UK, US and Australia have issued a joint statement saying they have agreed to work together to develop offensive and defensive hypersonic weaponry to counter Putin, following reports last month that his forces used hypersonic missiles in Ukraine. We’ll have all the latest updates from the war on our liveblog.

• TAX HIKE HITS: Against a backdrop of rising fuel, food and energy prices, millions of workers across the UK are today hit with a tax rise as the national insurance rise comes into force. Contributions increase by 1.25 per cent, although some of that rise will be offset in July by an increase to the threshold at which workers pay the levy announced by Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, in his spring statement last month. Boris Johnson has defended the manifesto-busting tax hike, saying it is “necessary, fair and responsible” to fund the NHS and social care. The government predicts that the tax rise will raise £39bn over the next three years to help reduce the Covid-induced NHS backlogs and later reform adult social care for the long-term. “We must be there for our NHS in the same way that it is there for us,” the prime minister added. “Covid led to the longest waiting lists we’ve ever seen, so we will deliver millions more scans, checks and operations in the biggest catch-up programme in the NHS’ history.” Labour says it is the wrong time to be raising taxes as families face an average increase of £700 in their annual energy costs.

• ‘WOKE WAR’: Last week was not a good one for the government’s relations with the LGBT+ community, and this one is proving to be no better. First, Iain Anderson, who was appointed last year to be No 10’s LGBT+ champion for business, resigned in protest at the government’s move to exclude trans people from upcoming legislation to ban gay conversion therapy. “I was LGBT business champion, not LGB or T, and that’s why I’m walking away,” he told ITV News, suggesting ministers were trying to “drive a wedge” between trans and lesbian, gay and bisexual people. No 10 was then forced to cancel its long-touted global LGBT+ conference as the backlash over that same issue grew. It came just 24 hours after 100 organisations pulled out of the event, accusing the government of waging a “woke war” on the community. Several hours of crunch talks had taken place to try and salvage the event, but the boycott has left organisers unable to continue as planned, according to the BBC.

• 4 SALE BACKLASH: No 10 could face yet another Tory rebellion over its plans to privatise Channel 4 after several senior Tories came out yesterday to criticise the move. Jeremy Hunt, Baroness Ruth Davidson, Damien Green and Tom Tugendhat were among those to question the decision to sell off the publicly-owned but privately funded broadcaster. Channel 4’s former head of news and current affairs, Dorothy Byrne, accused No 10 of throwing “a bit of red meat to Tory supporters of a very right-wing nature at a time that the government is in trouble”. Meanwhile Tory MP Julian Knight, chair of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, suggested the decision by the government to press ahead with selling Channel 4, created by Margaret Thatcher, may have been done in “revenge” for the channel’s “biased coverage of the likes of Brexit and personal attacks on the PM? … there is a feeling of payback time.”

• GREEN PLANS BLOCKED: Embattled Sunak, whose popularity among the Tory faithful has tumbled in the wake of his widely panned spring statement, wakes up to yet more bad headlines this morning after The Daily Telegraph was briefed that the Treasury is blocking plans for hundreds of millions of pounds to be spent on making homes more energy efficient, which would in turn reduce bills amid the cost of living crisis. Downing Street and business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng’s team were hoping for an expansion of the Energy Company Obligation scheme to be included in this week’s energy security strategy, The Telegraph said. But the chancellor is said to have rejected the proposals as he is sticking closely to pledges outlined in autumn 2021. The newspaper quoted a senior government figure as saying: “It would have been something that we could say to households ‘We’re on your side, we want you to reduce your bills’. But the Treasury doesn’t believe in it.”

The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.

On the record

“The recent leaking of a plan to drop the government’s flagship legislation protecting LGBT+ people from conversion therapy was devastating. Conversion therapy is abhorrent. Only hours later to see this plan retracted but briefing take place that trans people would be excluded from the legislation and therefore not have the same immediate protections from this practice was deeply damaging to my work.”

Former government LGBT+ business champion Iain Anderson.

From the Twitterati

“One Conservative MP tells me tonight: ‘We have mortally wounded ourselves with the LGBT community.’ A second says ‘It’s abhorrent’”.

ITV UK editor Paul Brand.

Essential reading

• John Rentoul, The Independent: Tony Blair has a point – Labour’s ‘defect at birth’ was its link with the trade unions
• Tom Peck, The Independent: There is comfort in constancy – like Nadine Dorries still not knowing what Channel 4 actually is
• Marina Hyde, The Guardian: It’s totally OK to break laws in England – just ask the MPs who make them
• Carl Miller, The Atlantic: Who’s behind #IStandWithPutin?

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