Lammy to meet Iranian foreign minister as Trump steps back from military action
In a statement read by his press secretary on Thursday, Mr Trump said there was still 'a substantial chance of negotiations' and said he would make a decision on deploying US forces 'within the next two weeks'.
Mr Trump had previously said he 'may' join Israeli strikes against Iran and its nuclear programme, but added: 'I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.'
Friday's meeting with the so-called E3 countries follows Mr Lammy's visit to Washington, where he met US secretary of state Marco Rubio in the White House on Thursday evening to discuss 'how a deal could avoid a deepening conflict'.
The Foreign Secretary said: 'The situation in the Middle East remains perilous. We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon.'
The situation in the Middle East remains perilous. We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon. Meeting with @SecRubio and @SteveWitkoff in the White House today, we discussed how a deal could avoid a deepening conflict. A window now exists within the next two… pic.twitter.com/UKAOsnDAm8
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) June 19, 2025
Adding that a 'window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution', Mr Lammy said: 'Now is the time to put a stop to the grave scenes in the Middle East and prevent a regional escalation that would benefit no one.'
Earlier on Thursday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had urged the US to step back from military action, saying there was a 'real risk of escalation'.
It remains unclear whether the UK would join any military action, although there has been speculation that US involvement could require using the British-controlled base on Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands.
The B-2 stealth bombers based there are capable of carrying specialised 'bunker buster' bombs which could be used against Iran's underground nuclear facility at Fordo.
Attorney General Lord Hermer is reported to have raised legal concerns about any British involvement in the conflict beyond defending its allies, which could limit the extent of any support for the US if Mr Trump decides to act militarily.
Meanwhile, two Labour backbenchers pushed for a 'fresh, tough approach' to Tehran.
Jon Pearce and Mike Tapp, chairman and vice-chairman respectively of Labour Friends of Israel, said the UK urgently needed 'a multifaceted diplomatic, economic and national security plan to guard against the Iranian threat and force the regime to change course'.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the pair called for tighter sanctions on Iran, the proscription of the country's Revolutionary Guard Corps and a 'comprehensive diplomatic solution' that 'eliminates once and for all' Iran's nuclear threat.
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The Guardian
10 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Thursday briefing: Labour is betting on an NHS overhaul to deliver real change, but can they pull it off?
Good morning. Wes Streeting's first statement as health secretary was a startling one. Just a day after Labour's historic election triumph, he declared that 'the NHS is broken'. Now, almost exactly a year later, he returns with a 10-year plan to fix it, in what's been billed as the most ambitious health reform agenda in a generation. It's hard to overstate the significance of this moment. Reforming the NHS was central to Labour's election manifesto, and last year prime minister Keir Starmer made the consequences clear: 'Reform or die,' he warned, and with it, staked the next election on his government's ability to deliver meaningful change. NHS leaders, unions, thinktanks, patient groups and other key stakeholders may not agree on every detail, but they are united on one thing: the NHS is in crisis and change is urgently needed. But what exactly is in this plan and will it make a difference? To find out, I spoke to health policy editor Denis Campbell, who has been covering the NHS for two decades. That's after the headlines. UK politics | Downing Street has said Rachel Reeves will keep her post and has not offered her resignation, after the chancellor was seen in tears at prime minister's questions. US news | The federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean 'Diddy' Combs reached its conclusion on Wednesday, with the jury finding the music mogul guilty on two charges The government has said that it will seek the maximum 20-year sentence. UK news | Detectives investigating the former nurse Lucy Letby have passed evidence to prosecutors alleging she murdered and harmed more babies, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed on Wednesday. US military | Iran's nuclear program was set back roughly one to two years as a result of the US strikes on three key facilities last month, according to an assessment by the Pentagon. Covid inquiry | Discharging untested patients from hospitals to care homes during the Covid crisis was the 'least worst decision', the former health secretary Matt Hancock has told a public inquiry. At its most basic, the 10-year plan is the Labour government's detailed 150-page blueprint to get the NHS back on its feet after nearly 15 years of serious neglect, Denis Campbell told me. 'It aims to address the fact that the NHS is sadly no longer able to perform its most essential function, which is to give people who need care the care they need, when they need it.' Waiting times are too long for many of the NHS's most vital services, including GP appointments, ambulances, mental health support and surgery. 'The 10-year plan is meant to get the NHS back on its feet in a way that we as patients, voters and taxpayers will appreciate and notice, but crucially, to also modernise the health service, to make it work better and more efficiently to help deal with the fact that we live in a tech-driven age, with an ageing population and the fact that people expect health care to be much more convenient in the way that so many things in life are now,' Denis added. How will it do this? The 10-year plan proposes to do this with three big 'shifts': From hospital-based to community-based care: Services are moved out of hospitals and into community settings like GP surgeries, clinics and the promised new neighbourhood health centres. From analogue to digital: Rely more on digital tools like AI to spot problems early, speed up diagnoses and improve efficiency. From treating illness to preventing it: Focus more on keeping people healthy – by tackling smoking, obesity and misuse of alcohol – instead of just treating illness when it occurs. But, Denis told me, there are many practical questions, particularly on the first shift: 'What will these new centres actually look like? Will they be new places or expansions of existing GP practices? Who will staff them? Is there any money behind this bold vision to make it a reality?' On staffing, the NHS workforce continues to grow in England. 'There are 1.5 million people, but the NHS in England has for many years had roughly about 100,000 vacancies at any one time. So we know the NHS in England does not have the staff it needs already. 'The government is unveiling an ambitious and potentially voter-friendly plan to make the NHS more accessible, responsive, convenient and patient-friendly, with lots of consumer friendly positive language like this,' Denis said. 'But we do have to ask the hard question: if there isn't enough people hired to do what the NHS already does, where will the extra people come from to provide these extra services?' Denis added that while there has been some progress that the 10-year plan can build on, there's still a crisis to accessing care. 'Too many people wait too long. So there's clearly a big job to be done here to make the NHS as accessible as the government is saying,' he said. What has the reception been so far? Denis was being inundated with responses from thinktanks, unions, patient groups, and other stakeholders when I spoke to him. 'Many are welcoming the boldness of the government's vision, but they're questioning the practicality of delivering all of this and the timescale, what will it take to do this?' For many of these stakeholders, much of the plan is appealing, Denis added – who wouldn't want a local neighbourhood health centre where you can get an X-ray or scans, mental health support, pharmacist services and GP appointments? But there is scepticism. Denis groups the criticism into three main concerns: it will take a long time, there's no extra money for new buildings or services and there's not enough bold action on public health. 'This is billed as a 10-year health plan, not just the 10-year NHS plan. The government says it will improve the nation's health. But several thinktanks like the King's Fund are saying it doesn't include enough bold action to tackle the drivers of ill health and the fact we've got an increasingly sick population, particularly through diet and obesity and misuse of alcohol,' Campbell said. He added that the criticism is that there's no equivalent in this plan to past transformative policies like the sugar tax or indoor smoking ban. 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By framing it as 'reform or die' the prime minister is setting a very high bar for success.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion For our Long Wave newsletter (sign up here!), Jason Okundaye has a lovely piece on seeing Glastonbury as a 'white' festival … until he went and saw the depth of Black talent for himself. 'I can honestly say that coming back for a second year felt like coming home,' he writes. Charlie Lindlar, acting deputy editor, newsletters This is a devastating interview with a mother trying to understand how her vulnerable 24-year-old daughter was able to access a pro-suicide forum, and have poison sent to her through the post. It exposes a litany of failures, from state institutions to the absence of effective internet regulation. 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The Herald Scotland
29 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Now Donald Trump turns to alligators to terrorise migrants
'[If] people get out, there's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide,' said Uthmeier, probably hoping to slither his way to Donald Trump's notice. Trump did notice: earlier this week he jeered that people would have to 'know how to run away from an alligator' to escape it. The Dade-Collier Airstrip isn't so very far from Palm Beach and Mar a Lago, home to Trump and the wealthy elites. Welcome to Florida's version of the Hunger Games. Read more The demise of empathy on one side of US politics is stark and shocking. Undocumented migrants who have lived and worked in the United States for decades – childcare providers, waiting staff, tradespeople, small business owners – supporting the voracious US economy and paying taxes, are going into hiding in fear of deportation raids; in fear of places like Alligator Alcatraz. People who have committed no crime don't go into hiding from the government in healthy democracies. Last month, Donald Trump enacted the next part of the authoritarian playbook by ordering the National Guard into California to crush street demonstrations against his deportations. It was hardly a surprise: he has spoken of dissenters as 'the enemy from within'. Trump's callousness appears to be exactly what a lot of voters love about him. His wall on the southern border, and a much tougher stance against migrants, were key 2016 election pledges. The wall was an expensive failure but potent as a symbol of hostility towards the 'other'. That first presidency resulted in thousands of children of migrants being separated from their families and caged, sometimes with inadequate food, cleaning facilities or care, an image of American disgrace. Children cared for lone toddlers. After a torrent of criticism, the policy was supposedly ended, but last year, six years on, Human Rights Watch reported that more than 1,300 children had still to be reunited with their families. The word 'cruel' isn't working hard here. This is the dictionary definition. It is not just a MAGA phenomenon. There are no borders around ideas and we have seen cruel behaviour playing out here in the UK too. Riot police hold back protesters after disorder broke out on July 30, 2024 in Southport, England (Image: Chris Furlong) Last summer's riots in several English towns, and the vicious attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers, should rid us of any complacency on that score. Last month, an outbreak of violent rioting in Northern Ireland resulted in racially-motivated attacks. A man, woman and their four young children had to escape after their home was targeted in a fire attack. Often unrest is whipped up, sometimes by politicians, sometimes by social media. Social media has provided platform, validation and community for the hate-mongerers. Feel furious about women? Transgender people? Ethnic minorities? There's a place for you in cyberspace. There have always been instances of callous politics here in the UK – remember Theresa May's 'Go Home' vans in 2013 – but the shameless divisiveness really took hold under Boris Johnson. His political rise was fuelled by it and he seemed often to glory in it. It was Boris Johnson who appointed Priti Patel as Home Secretary, the originator of a scheme to turn precarious, overcrowded migrant boats back in the middle of the English Channel, putting lives in very real danger (it was never enacted after Patel seemed finally to accept it was plain illegal). Migrant boats accounted for a tiny proportion of immigrants (three per cent), with ever-rising net migration numbers down to the issuing of visas by the Conservatives themselves, but it was a classic example of scapegoating by a government that was failing on most metrics. The worry is that the more politicians promote inhumane policies, the less shocked we are by them and the more they are tempted to ramp them up further. Suella Braverman shamelessly cranked up the hysteria around those migrant boats, describing them as an 'invasion' and suggesting the answer was to deport all migrants to Rwanda – at enormous expense – a country that the UK's own parliament had declared unsafe. Labour thankfully put paid to that. None of this, by the way, is to suggest that having concerns about immigration is in any way inhumane. Read more The issue is the demonisation of migrants themselves and the promotion of ruthless policy responses. Addressing immigration levels is something politicians must do; characterising migrants and immigrants as the root cause of the deep, broad and thorny social and economic problems facing countries like the US and UK is grotesquely dishonest. We can debate where this is all coming from, but the worrying question is where is it taking us? Down a dangerous path – that much is clear. Cruelty begets cruelty. All this is taking place against a backdrop of a self-confidence crisis among moderate political figures, particularly in the US. They must find their voice, extending empathy to those, like some disillusioned white men, who feel blamed for society's ills and frozen out of the compassion matrix, but at the same time standing absolutely firm against a narrative in which small groups are blamed and demonised. 'Don't run in a straight line, run like this...' Trump said to reporters, zig-zagging his hand, demonstrating how to escape alligators. 'And, you know what? Your chances go up about one per cent.' Mirthless jokes about vulnerable othered minorities trying to escape man-eating animals. This is what happens when empathy dies. Rebecca McQuillan is a journalist specialising in politics and Scottish affairs. She can be found on Bluesky at @ and on X at @BecMcQ
The Herald Scotland
29 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Yes, it's time for change, Sir Keir: time for you to go
Ruth Marr, Stirling. • We are already waiting for any (even one) of Anas Sarwar's election promises from 2024 to come true, and yet here he goes again in a desperate bid to stay relevant: 'no tax hikes if Labour win in Scotland' ("No Scots income tax rise if Labour wins, insists Sarwar", The Herald, July 2). The fiscal position in both the UK and Scotland make this assertion difficult, if not impossible to sustain, as the IFS states 'since departmental spending plans are locked in and the Government has had to row back on planned cuts to pensioner and working age benefits, tax rises seem increasingly likely' ("Welfare U-turn raises questions over Labour's tax plans", heraldscotland, July 2). Given Mr Sarwar's record on promises I know who I believe. GR Weir, Ochiltree. Read more letters John Swinney's woolly words Two articles on facing pages today (July 1) are an interesting contrast in style and content. The First Minister's contribution ("'There is nothing wrong in Scotland that cannot be fixed'") is to my (admittedly unsympathetic) eye a blancmange of aspirations and largely unfulfilled, or at least untested, promises (and, Mr Swinney, the baby boxes are a sorely over-used example of something actually done). Kevin McKenna's piece ("We are being softened up to no longer believe in the sanctity of life") about assisted dying is, in contrast, clear and unequivocal. The difference between them, which to me is crucial, is that everything the First Minister says is theoretically achievable and measurable (though not by the current administration) and is, by any standard, aimed at the common good for all of the people. Mr McKenna uses the ideology of a single and highly-organised group in society to argue for an outcome which, equally, would affect us all and, for me, would take away the right to decide when life had become unbearable. It seems wrong that the untestable and so unverifiable beliefs of that one portion of our society should be allowed to have a disproportionate influence on this or any other article of legislation of such importance. The First Minister's words are woolly but lacking in harm: Mr McKenna's, better expressed though they may be, are potentially dangerous to our democratic process. Bryan Chrystal, Edinburgh. The lesson of Ukraine Stan Grodynski (Letters, July 2) continues to write from the independent state of La La Land. His belief that an independent Scotland would not require to defend itself is counter to the fact that Scotland is essential in the defence of the gateway to the North Atlantic and the North Sea, both strategically important routes commercially and militarilly. Mr Grodynski might look to the Crimean peninsula for a good example of a very similar situation where Ukraine, in a referendum, relinquished its 30% of the USSR's nuclear arsenal in return for security guarantees. Those guarantees have been proven worthless by President Putin and the rest, as they say, is history. Peter Wright, West Kilbride. • Stan Grodynski is clearly an unhappy man, with a long list of grievances about the UK in general and the Westminster Government in particular. There is however one goodish aspect of Britain that he might like to consider, which is that he can spout his nonsense on one day, and will still be at the same address the next day. Malcolm Parkin, Kinross. Veiled allusion In 2014 we were promised the earth and all that is in it. Rishi Sunak vowed to lead us to sunlit uplands. Today a 'socialist' government lurches from one disaster to the next and London-based newspapers are seeking any number of heads to roll. The outgoing chief of the Institute of Fiscal Studies has warned that the state pension triple lock should be scrapped as soon as possible. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan's story about the woman of some mature years who walked into a bridalwear shop. An assistant asked: 'How can I help you?' "I would like a dress for my fourth wedding." "What sort of dress exactly?" "Oh, virgin white, veil and a long train – the full works." As delicately as possible the assistant inquired as to whether that would be appropriate for a fourth-time bride. "Oh, I'm just as entitled as a first-time bride." "How so?" inquired the assistant. "Well my first husband got so excited at the wedding, he collapsed and died of a heart attack." "I'm sorry to hear that. And the second?" "We had a heated argument on the way to the reception and never spoke again." "Oh dear. And the third?" "The marriage was never consummated." "Never consummated?" "He was a unionist. He just sat on the edge of the bed each night saying how great it was going to be." Alan Carmichael, Glasgow. IDF are the terrorists As I sign a petition to allow baby food into Gaza (with no hope it will make a difference) and watch coverage of yet more atrocities committed by the Israeli Defence Force, the British Establishment continues to try to squeeze the last drops of faux rage out of the comments of a couple of musicians. Hundreds of unarmed Palestinians are shot every week queuing for food because the Israeli state backed by the US closed down 400 food distribution centres run by experienced independent agencies and replaced them with four distribution centres. A reputable Israeli newspaper has reported that soldiers were told to use live ammunition to help control crowds. This is the Hunger Games added to the destruction of all schools, hospitals and homes. The rap duo at Glastonbury were wrong to shout for anyone to be killed. They should have been shouting "The IDF is a terrorist organisation". There is no other way you could describe an organisation that has carried out the atrocities it is guilty of. But British senior politicians and sections of the media want to divert attention from the horrifying reality with the trivia of paint on planes and music festival chants. And let us expose the antisemitism claim for what it really is. It has been used for years to bully people who criticise the actions of the Israeli state. It no longer works. Too many people see the reality and those who continue to use it need to question their own ethics. We know that there are many honourable people of Jewish ethnicity in and outwith Israel who are also strong critics of the government of that state. Isobel Lindsay, Biggar. What did Benjamin Netanyahu know in advance of the October 7 attack? (Image: PA) • Otto Inglis (Letters, July 1) is correct in reminding us of atrocities committed at that other music festival on October 7, 2023. What he chooses to ignore is the apparent complicity of Prime Minister Netanyahu, a situation now generally accepted, even by many of his Israeli subjects. Over a period of weeks he is known to have received information from frontier guards who saw, and heard through increased wireless activity, the necessary extensive preparations for the attack. Information is also said to have come from Egypt. In spite of the repeated warnings, frontier defences at that crucial point were not strengthened. The Prime Minister's craven response, which incidentally involved betrayal of the hostages, appears to have been made in relation to a number of current personal and political problems. But, from a longer perspective, the vastly exaggerated retaliation and unprecedented slaughter in modern times of thousands of innocent civilians, especially the children who would have formed a future Palestinian Gaza, helped to further his personal aim as founder of a greater Israel. Further proof of the real situation on October 7 and determination to distance themselves is provided by the resignations, soon after the event, of three top generals and the head of Shin Bhet, on the basis of "not on my watch." Why does our own Prime Minister, after those months of slaughter, not have the courage to join so many of us in saying the same? Murdo Grant, Rosemarkie.
