UK, France and Germany tell Israel to lift restrictions on aid in Gaza
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has resisted calls for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state, asserting it must be a step within a broader pathway to peace and a two-state solution.
This position follows France's decision to recognise Palestine and comes amid pressure from 221 cross-party MPs and divisions within Sir Keir's own cabinet.
Sir Keir described the situation in Gaza as 'appalling' and 'unrelenting,' condemning Israel's 'disproportionate military escalation' and the denial of humanitarian aid as 'indefensible'.
Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel is considering 'alternative options' to ceasefire talks with Hamas, blaming the group for obstructing a hostage release deal.
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Daily Mail
22 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trump warns against second independence vote for 75 years
Donald Trump has signalled that there should not be another Scottish independence referendum until at least 2064 because countries 'can't go through that too much'. The US President said he thought there had been an agreement not to hold a rerun of the 2014 separation vote for at least another 50 years. His comments came during the third full day of his visit to Scotland as he met Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at his Turnberry golf course, and just hours after John Swinney claimed that an SNP majority in next year's Holyrood election would be a mandate for another independence referendum. During a lengthy press conference with the Prime Minister, Mr Trump also said he wants Scotland to thrive as he vowed to consider removing punishing tariffs on Scotch whisky and made the case for more North Sea drilling. He also directly pressed Sir Keir Starmer to take advantage of the North Sea's oil reserves. When asked about the SNP's plan to demand another independence referendum if it wins a majority at next year's Holyrood elections, Mr Trump said he had predicted the No vote the day before the 2014 referendum when he was visiting his first golf course at the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire. He added: 'I do say that when they made that deal (to hold a referendum) somebody said that it was - and I remember this very distinctly, I said 'could they do this all the time?'. 'There was a little bit of a restriction, like 50 or 75 years before you could take another vote because, you know, a country can't go through that too much.' SNP figures including Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon had said at the time the vote was a 'once in a generation opportunity'. Mr Trump made the comments ahead of Mr Swinney attending a dinner with him in Aberdeenshire last night and the opening of his second course at Menie today (TUE). Sir Keir said: 'I believe in a stronger Scotland in a better United Kingdom and I think that at a time like this when it is quite clear there is uncertainty and volatility around the world, the strength of the United Kingdom together is very important for all four nations, very important for Scotland. 'That should be our priority, that should be our focus - not on the politics which feels like the politics of yesteryear now at a time like this. 'I think that the First Minister should probably focus more on his delivery in Scotland than on his constitutional issues, and we might have a better health service in Scotland. 'At a time like this, I think the United Kingdom is always stronger as four nations, I think that is better for all four nations.' It comes as Mr Swinney was condemned for an 'absurd' assertion that a generation has passed since Scots rejected independence. In a desperate attempt to relaunch the SNP's failing bid to break up the UK, he has claimed a majority for the party in next year's Holyrood elections would be a mandate for another referendum. He was accused of trying to silence SNP critics and was mocked for the claim that a generation has passed less than 11 years since Scots voted decisively to stay in the UK. Then First Minister Alex Salmond and his successor Nicola Sturgeon previously described the 2014 referendum as a 'once in a generation opportunity'. After unveiling the latest bid to secure independence, Mr Swinney yesterday said: 'There is fundamentally a democratic issue here that people in Scotland in a voluntary union must be able to choose their own democratic future, and that was accepted after the SNP won a majority in the Scottish Parliament, on our own, in 2011. 'I am making the point that, having established that precedent, we must be in a position to be able to give the people of Scotland the choice about their constitutional future. 'There is now, by the time we get to 2030, going to be a million people who were not eligible to vote in the last referendum in 2014. 'A generation has now passed and I want to make sure that people in Scotland who want our country to have a choice about independence are able to do so in a democratic and legitimate fashion that can enable the establishment of an independent country as a consequence of a Yes vote. 'And the way to do that is the way we did it in 2011, which is to elect a majority of SNP MSPs to the Scottish Parliament.' In the 2014 vote, 55 per cent of Scots voted No and 45 per cent Yes. Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: 'It's patently absurd - and John Swinney knows it - to claim that 11 years constitutes 'a generation'. 'John Swinney is like a broken record. In a bid to silence internal critics of his weak leadership, he has thrown diehard nationalists some more red meat on the one issue they all agree on: independence. 'Ordinary Scots are sick and tired of the SNP's obsession with breaking up the UK. The public want John Swinney to focus on fixing the damage his government has done in decimating essential services such as schools and the NHS at the same time as making Scotland the highest taxed part of the UK.' Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: 'This SNP government has lost its way and ran out of ideas - while one in six Scots suffer on an NHS waiting list.
Daily Mail
25 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
STEPHEN DAISLEY President made Starmer look small and shifty... he's like a new leader of the opposition
Keir Starmer and Donald Trump are like one of those couples on a TV matchmaker competition who are so wildly incompatible you just know they'll end up going on the most awkward date ever. And it was awkward, all right. Nobbled by the hacks on the way into their press conference at Trump's golf course at Turnberry in Ayrshire, the prime minister might have been hoping his unlikely companion would wave off the questions and head inside. A quick off the record natter and down to business. Like that was going to happen. This is Donald Trump. He is drawn to TV cameras like overmanned dinghies are drawn to Dover. Naturally, the question was the last one Starmer wanted: immigration. He yapped pathetically about the deportations carried out since he came to power, while Trump steamrollered ahead with a lengthy jeremiad about how migrants had changed Europe. 'Europe is a much different place than it was five years, ten years ago,' he rambled. 'They've got to get their act together. If they don't, you're not going to have Europe anymore as you know it. You can't do that.' Truly, this was a historic summit. The first presidential visit to be recorded as a non-crime hate incident. Once inside, the prime minister and the president sat in tandem to field questions from the media. The pairing was bizarre, the tension palpable, every second breathtaking. It's a wonder it wasn't blocked under the Online Safety Act. Like all doomed couples, they couldn't see eye to eye on their friends. 'I'm not a fan of your mayor,' Trump opined to a reporter. 'I think he's done a terrible job. The mayor of London. He's a nasty person.' Starmer's face fell like his poll numbers. With a nervous chuckle in his voice, he chirped: 'He's a friend of mine.' Trump stared ahead, deadpan: 'No, he's done a terrible job — but I would still visit London.' Starmer cringed. The only thing missing was the theme tune from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Mark Twain called golf 'a good walk spoiled', but he was talking out of his hole-in-one. This was pure entertainment. I still reckon a birdie is something in the sky and bogey the bloke in Casablanca, but if every golf club puts on a show like this, sign me up. Every time Trump went on a verbal wander around his own thoughts, Starmer sat gape-mouthed, which was helpful since it gave the president somewhere to stick his foot every minute or so. The prime minister looked almost relieved to take a question on farming and inheritance tax, no doubt assuming even Trump couldn't find a way to mess this up for him. Then the president began recounting how he had removed the estate tax from family farms, mindful that farmers like to keep their land in the family and noting the increased risks of suicide where they were not allowed to do so. Starmer, whose government plans to whomp British farms with new death taxes, sat there in stoney silence. Excruciating doesn't begin to cover it. I get secondary embarrassment very easily. The sight of someone else humiliated has my cheeks smouldering like volcanoes. It's just too agonising to watch. I bit through so many fingernails yesterday afternoon I skipped dinner entirely. The lowest moment for Starmer came when a journalist asked: 'The president makes it look easy dealing with illegal migrants. You must be envious of his record in such a short period of time.' Starmer squirmed like an eel in a well-tailored suit, acknowledging the issue and the importance of tackling it. Trump beamed in satisfaction. Finally, someone from the media who wasn't Fake News. The discussion turned to internet censorship, as Trump learned that new powers would allow the nation to shut down his Truth Social network. 'I don't think he's going to censor my site because I only say nice things,' he insisted, turning to Starmer and pleading: 'Will you please uncensor my site?' The prime minister explained, in a excitable word jumble, that there were no plans to suppress Truth Social and maintained the new laws were aimed at protecting children. Asked if he could give Starmer any tips for beating Nigel Farage, Trump recommended tax cuts, cracking down on crime and curbing illegal immigration. Starmer was as impassive as a statue. All three were popular policies in Britain, but now if he did anyone of them he would be seen as taking Trump's advice. The president then congratulated Starmer for 'becoming strong on immigration'. As if he didn't have enough problems with the parliamentary Labour party, now he'd have to explain why Bad Orange Man was bigging up his border policies. Every time Trump threw Starmer a rope it had a noose on the end. Then we came to the wind mills. The president is famously not a fan. Probably intimidated by the only creations that generate more hot air than him. 'When we go to Aberdeen,' he mused, drifting off on a tangent, 'they have some of the ugliest windmills you've ever seen.' These 'ugly monsters', he told the viewers at home, had a lifespan of eight years, would have to be dumped in the ocean, and required 'massive subsidies' to sustain them. He had stopped as many in the US as he could. Alas, some 'poor stupid people' had approved a number of them before he came along. Starmer, who approves of windmills, didn't seem to like that. There was the mildest of twitches in his otherwise disciplined facial expression. His countenance was that of a condemned prisoner having his death warrant read out and wishing they would just skip to the shooting. Trump proposed an alternative energy source, one that involved creating only a hole in the ground 'this big' — he cupped his hands by way of illustration. He was talking about drilling the North Sea bed for oil. At this juncture, Starmer looked like he would happily climb into a hole in the sea, anything to escape this televised torture. Trump is awful, of course, but he's a wonderful kind of awful. He's that friend everyone has who is a bit of a rogue but so damn charming you can't resist them. Watching one of his press conferences is like being present at a bomb disposal operation. You find yourself fixated on his every word, tic, breath and flutter of the eyes, knowing that, any second now, he could cut the wrong wire and blow everyone to kingdom come. Mercifully, the press conference concluded without any detonations, but the prime minister still looked shellshocked. Without really trying Trump had made him look small and shifty, doing a number on his credibility that Kemi Badenoch would struggle to manage. The man's only been in the country a few days and already he's the new leader of the opposition. The Labour leader wasn't the only politician left reeling by Trump's restless tongue. The president proposed that there not be another referendum on Scottish independence for 50 or 75 years. Given how slow progress is under John Swinney, the SNP rank and file should take Trump up on his offer. The political class resents Trump and, yes, he is vulgar, crass, short-tempered and toweringly arrogant, but he speaks in a plain, direct language never heard in British politics. There's no artifice there. He's too much of an egomaniac for that. But for all his flaws, two men sat before the world's press yesterday and while one could brag about his successes in office the other could only squirm.
Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Ghislaine Maxwell begs Donald Trump to free her
Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded with President Donald Trump to free her from prison after being questioned by his administration about Jeffrey Epstein. The disgraced British heiress, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for procuring underage girls for the late paedophile, asked the US Supreme Court and the president for leniency. 'We are appealing not only to the Supreme Court but to the president himself to recognise how profoundly unjust it is to scapegoat Ghislaine Maxwell for Epstein's crimes, especially when the government promised she would not be prosecuted,' attorney David Oscar Markus said in a statement. Maxwell's lawyers appeared to be capitalising on the Trump administration's recent interest in their client's case, filing a motion on Monday urging the Supreme Court to move forward with the appeal they filed in April. Maxwell, the financier's ex-girlfriend, has long argued her 2021 sex-trafficking conviction should be overturned because of a 2007 plea deal that promised immunity for Epstein's accomplices. She is the only person who has been convicted in connection with his crimes. Flanked by Sir Keir Starmer at his Turnberry golf course in Scotland on Monday, Mr Trump again refused to rule out pardoning Maxwell. Responding to a question on the prospect of granting clemency to Maxwell, he said: 'Nobody's asked me about it. It's in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.' When asked the same question last week, Mr Trump refused to rule out the prospect, instead telling reporters he was 'allowed' to pardon her. Todd Blanche, US deputy attorney general, and Mr Trump's former personal lawyer, visited Maxwell last week at her jail in Tallahassee, Florida. Legal experts have speculated that Maxwell is keen to make a deal, and that the president may be dangling a pardon in exchange for testimony that would paint him in a favourable light, or implicate his enemies. Maxwell answered 'every single question' Mr Trump is under mounting pressure over his own links to the late financier and Maxwell. Maxwell answered 'every single question' put to her by Mr Blanche, her lawyer said in a statement. 'She never stopped, she never invoked a privilege, she never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability,' he said. Mr Trump and Maxwell socialised in the same circles in Palm Beach and New York in the 80s and were pictured together on several occasions at parties and fashion shows. Speaking in 2020 when she was being prosecuted for sex trafficking, Mr Trump said of Maxwell: 'I just wish her well, frankly. I haven't really been following it too much. I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they [Epstein and Maxwell] lived in Palm Beach.' Mr Trump has repeatedly stated that his friendship with Epstein, and his former girlfriend, ended long before the financier was implicated in any criminality.
