Lammy not accepting Iran's claims over enriched uranium
Representatives from the United Kingdom, Germany and France held talks with Iran last week to try to break the deadlock over the country's nuclear programme.
Tehran maintains it is open to diplomacy, though it recently suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
A central concern for western powers was highlighted when the IAEA reported in May that Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% – just below weapons-grade level – had grown to more than 400kg.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian, Mr Lammy said: 'Its leaders cannot explain to me – and I've had many conversations with them – why they need 60% enriched uranium.
'If I went to Sellafield or Urenco in Cheshire, they haven't got anything more than 6%. The Iranians claim it's for academic use, but I don't accept that.'
Mr Lammy warned that Iran developing nuclear weapons could lead to an escalation of tensions in the Middle East.
Israel and the United States carried our strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June.
'Many of your readers will have watched Oppenheimer and seen the fallout of (the US building an atomic bomb),' he said.
'So it's what (a nuclear Iran) might mean in terms of other countries in the neighbourhood who would desire one, too. And we would be very suddenly handing over to our children and grandchildren a world that had many more nuclear weapons in it than it has today.'
The Foreign Secretary said he had heard Israeli arguments in favour of regime change in Tehran, but did not believe that was behind the US decision to strike.
The Tottenham MP added any decision to topple the government was one for the Iranian people, with his focus 'on what the UK can do to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power'.
Last month, Mr Lammy suggested that Britain, France and Germany could 'snap back' on sanctions against Iran unless the country gets 'serious' about stepping back from its nuclear ambitions.
He told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee: 'Iran face even more pressure in the coming weeks because the E3 can snap back on our sanctions, and it's not just our sanctions, it's actually a UN mechanism that would impose dramatic sanctions on Iran across nearly every single front in its economy.
'So they have a choice to make. It's a choice for them to make.
'I'm very clear about the choice they should make, but I'm also clear that the UK has a decision to make that could lead to far greater pain for the Iranian regime unless they get serious about the international desire to see them step back from their nuclear ambitions at this time.'
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Almost three years on, Ms Reeves and Sir Keir still regularly resort to blaming the mini-budget for unpopular decisions on tax and spending. But the remarks also risk reopening old wounds within the Tories, with some allies of Ms Truss arguing that she had the right vision for a low-tax economy. A source close to Liz Truss told The Telegraph: 'Kemi has not learned the lessons of the Mini Budget, which is that when Conservative MPs fail to back tax cuts, fracking and welfare restraint, they get booted out of office. 'The Bank of England has since admitted that two thirds of the market movement in 2022 was down to their failure properly to regulate pensions. 'Kemi needs to do the work and actually look at what happened in 2022 and hold the Bank of England to account.' The former Tory prime minister has said it was failures by the Bank of England, rather than her tax cuts, which led to the subsequent financial turmoil. 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Ms Reeves used June's spending review to set out a £300bn spree over the next five years, to be funded by higher taxes and more debt. She has handed a £190bn increase to public services, paid for by the tax raid on businesses which has been blamed for stalling economic growth. A further £113bn will be ploughed into infrastructure projects after the Chancellor tore up her fiscal rules to allow herself to borrow more for investment. Last month's borrowing figure came in at £20.7bn, the second-highest level on record behind June 2020, when the Treasury was funding furlough payments. As a result, Mrs Badenoch warns that Britain is entering a 'debt spiral'. She says the reversal on £5bn of cuts to sickness benefits has added 'more pressure to the public purse' and has fuelled fears of further growth killing tax rises. The UK now faces higher borrowing costs than once-bankrupt Greece and is spending more on debt interest repayments every year than the entire defence budget. 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One of her closest allies, Baroness Maclean of Redditch, told a meeting in June that the party had 'done the apologies' and should now move on to setting out policies. But a few weeks later Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told activists that the Tories should keep acknowledging their mistakes. Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, had led internal Tory criticism of the mini-budget, vowing last month that the party would 'never, ever' repeat it. Until now Mrs Badenoch had held her fire, though she did privately tell her shadow cabinet that it would be helpful if Ms Truss made fewer public interventions. Her warning comes after the International Monetary Fund and senior City figures sounded the alarm about Britain's spiralling debt. Ray Dalio, a billionaire US hedge fund investor, warned last week that the UK has entered a 'doom loop' of more borrowing, higher taxes and low growth. Ms Reeves has repeatedly refused to rule out returning with more tax rises in the autumn despite warnings that doing so would further damage the economy. The Chancellor is under growing pressure from Left-wing backbenchers to introduce a wealth tax, which would probably prompt a fresh exodus of entrepreneurs. Starmer and Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget By Kemi BadenochPicture the scene: a new Prime Minister and Chancellor spending billions without also making the necessary savings to offset their splurge and balance the books. The markets react adversely, interest rates spike and the cost of living gets worse with prices soaring. For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books. They are egged on by a Left-wing Reform Party, chasing Labour votes with ever more outlandish promises of nationalisation and welfare giveaways. The Conservative Party is now under new leadership, and my abiding principle will be that the country must live within its means. Before you dismiss us as being part of the problem, (after all, the mini-budget happened on our watch), the difference is that in 2022 we recognised what had gone wrong and took action to fix it. Labour aren't doing this. In fact they're making a bad situation even worse. Since the pandemic, Britain has become more and more reliant on debt to pay for public services. We now spend almost twice as much on debt interest than we do on defence. And the deficit is over £70bn. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have taken profligate spending to a different level. Labour politicians are used to entering office with a surplus built up by cost-cutting Conservatives. 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Incredibly, borrowing costs are higher now than after the mini-budget. That means prices rising and the long-running cost of living crisis continuing. The UK economy is teetering on the brink. There are now warnings, in the City and in Westminster, that a fiscal crisis may even be on the horizon. Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, said this week that Britain had entered a 'doom loop' of rising debts, higher taxes and slower growth. Dalio's warnings came days after the International Monetary Fund said the government must take radical action to avoid a debt spiral. As we all saw in 2022, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are reliant on the bond markets. Yet those bond markets are increasingly jittery about the levels of borrowing today with no balancing spending decreases. Rachel Reeves's unfunded series of U-turns have only added to the pressure. She is boxed in by her party on one side, and her fiscal rules on the other. Everyone now assumes tax rises are coming in the November Budget and the Government isn't denying it. The OBR is warning that higher tax is not good for growth. They are right. The Institute of Directors say that taxes and dire economic outlook is leading to the worst business confidence since the pandemic. Labour's mismanagement of our economy is having real consequences, and it's working people, savers and business owners who will pay more for declining public services. At the same time, rising welfare and poor incentives are pushing more people out of the workforce, making our problems even harder to fix. This is how countries enter a debt spiral. But it is not inevitable, it is a choice. A debt crisis would make everyone in the country a lot poorer and ruin people's lives. The Prime Minister must not let pride stop him doing what, I sincerely hope, he knows deep down is essential: cutting government spending. He should do so, for all our sakes. Kemi Badenoch is the Conservative Party leader Solve the daily Crossword
