Boris Johnson scored an own goal over Brexit at G7 despite favourable conditions
An England football victory as the G7 summit wrapped up in Cornwall was something to celebrate, but even with a home advantage, Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not emerge from this global gathering with a win.
This was a big opportunity for Mr Johnson and in favourable conditions.
Serendipitous that the UK was the host nation in its year of Brexit – this the perfect setting to prove global Britain was more than just an empty slogan at a moment when western democracies wanted to turn the page on the bad tempered years of Donald Trump and make the summit work.
And yet, it became an opportunity missed – with the prime minister managing over the course of the weekend to score an own goal over Brexit.
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Boris Johnson has told Sky News that some Europeans don’t understand that the UK is a ‘single country’
In his closing remarks, Mr Johnson said the issue of post-Brexit trading relationships in Northern Ireland – the protocol agreed in the 2019 Withdrawal Agreement – took up a “vanishingly small” part of these global deliberations.
But it certainly loomed large in the minds of President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders as they jetted out of Cornwall after Mr Johnson – offered an opportunity by President Biden to park the issue for the duration of this summit on Thursday – fanned the tensions.
The PM used his broadcast round to warn European leaders that he would do “whatever it takes” to protect the integrity of the UK and was prepared to invoke Article 16 of the protocol, which allows either side to take unilateral action if its implementation were to lead to “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”.
And he didn’t stop there; asked if he thought a trade war was coming around the corner he replied: “I think it highly unlikely.
“But if I may say so, I’ve talked to some of our friends here today who do seem to misunderstand that the UK is a single country and a single territory. I think they just need to get that into their heads.”
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Dominic Raab demands respect over Northern Ireland
Sources within the UK delegation then doubled down on this overnight by claiming President Macron had told the prime minister that Great Britain and Northern Ireland were not the same country, a remark that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday he found “offensive”.
A diplomatic row then that could have been avoided entirely (this weekend at least) stoked up by the UK.
President Macron left irritated, telling reporters at his closing press conference that the two sides should stop wasting time on disputes about sausages when there are bigger global issues to tackle, pointedly telling Mr Johnson: “Let’s not waste time with controversies that are created in corridors and backrooms.”
The singular ambition of this summit is to demonstrate that the world’s wealthy liberal democracies can work together – the G7 a force for good in a world beset by problems – and there was some progress on the vaccination programme, as well as pitch rolling to implement the 2009 Copenhagen commitment, which pledged to give $100bn-a-year from public and private sources to help developing countries to transition to green energy, in time for COP26 in November.
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The PM denied any accusations of ‘moral failure’ over vaccines at the G7
But it’s true too that the row over the implementation of the Brexit deal repeatedly disturbed this summit.
And it’s true too that these European leaders – and President Biden too – are united in their differences with Mr Johnson over the post-Brexit settlement.
The host of this summit learned that global Britain when you’re no longer part of the gang is a lonely place to be. An opportunity missed.
Thousands more Afghan nationals may have been affected by another data breach, the government has said.
Up to 3,700 Afghans brought to the UK between January and March 2024 have potentially been impacted as names, passport details and information from the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy has been compromised again, this time by a breach on a third party supplier used by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
This was not an attack directly on the government but a cyber security incident on a sub-contractor named Inflite – The Jet Centre – an MoD supplier that provides ground handling services for flights at London Stansted Airport.
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July: UK spies exposed in Afghan data breach
The flights were used to bring Afghans to the UK, travel to routine military exercises, and official engagements. It was also used to fly British troops and government officials.
Those involved were informed of it on Friday afternoon by the MoD, marking the second time information about Afghan nationals relocated to the UK has been compromised.
It is understood former Tory ministers are also affected by the hack.
Earlier this year, it emerged that almost 7,000 Afghan nationals would have to be relocated to the UK following a massive data breach by the British military that successive governments tried to keep secret with a super-injunction.
Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” for the first data breach in a statement to the House of Commons, saying he was “deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the data breach, adding: “No government wishes to withhold information from the British public, from parliamentarians or the press in this manner.”
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July: Afghan interpreter ‘betrayed’ by UK govt
The previous Conservative government set up a secret scheme in 2023 to relocate Afghan nationals impacted by the data breach, but who were not eligible for an existing programme to relocate and help people who had worked for the British government in Afghanistan.
The mistake exposed personal details of close to 20,000 individuals, endangering them and their families, with as many as 100,000 people impacted in total.
Read more on Sky News:
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Afghan data leak timeline
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A government spokesperson said of Friday’s latest breach: “We were recently notified that a third party sub-contractor to a supplier experienced a cyber security incident involving unauthorised access to a small number of its emails that contained basic personal information.
“We take data security extremely seriously and are going above and beyond our legal duties in informing all potentially affected individuals. The incident has not posed any threat to individuals’ safety, nor compromised any government systems.”
In a statement, Inflite – The Jet Centre confirmed the “data security incident” involving “unauthorised access to a limited number of company emails”.
“We have reported the incident to the Information Commissioner’s Office and have been actively working with the relevant UK cyber authorities, including the National Crime Agency and the National Cyber Security Centre, to support our investigation and response,” it said.
“We believe the scope of the incident was limited to email accounts only, however, as a precautionary measure, we have contacted our key stakeholders whose data may have been affected during the period of January to March 2024.”
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