James Cleverly's voice breaks as he tells MPs of ‘painful' death of best friend in assisted dying bill debate

James Cleverly has opened up on losing his best friend during the assisted dying bill debate in the House of Commons on Friday (20 June).
The former minister's voice broke as he revealed that his closest friend 'painfully' passed away earlier this year from esophageal cancer, sharing that he spent the final weeks of his life with him.
Cleverly, one of the leading opponents of the Bill, told the Commons that he 'comes at this not from a position of faith, nor from a position of ignorance' but is instead concerned over the practicalities of the Bill.
He told his fellow MPs that whilst he wants to 'alleviate suffering', he does not believe the Bill is a good enough piece of legislation to pass.

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Telegraph

34 minutes ago

• Telegraph

The Corbynista activist behind the militant pro-Palestinian group that targeted an RAF base

In 2016, Huda Ammori experienced a political awakening. She'd had a call from her mother, urging her to join the Labour Party. 'Coming from my Iraqi mother, this was quite confusing given that Tony Blair, under the Labour government, led the invasion and destruction of Iraq.' But for pro-Palestine activists, change was in the air on the left. 'The renewal of hope was alive, with Jeremy Corbyn, a committed anti-imperialist activist and politician, elected as leader of the Labour Party,' she wrote in The New Arab, a London-based Arab news outlet, in 2022. Corbyn's Labour presented an opportunity as 'the most promising and frankly the only avenue of implementing an embargo [on Israel] through political parties'. Now was the time to get a bigger platform for their message via the opposition benches. 'Many of us fought long and hard for [an arms embargo] by passing motions, speaking at Labour meetings, lobbying several MPs, and in 2018 the Labour conference voted to sanction and freeze all arms sales to and from Israel.' Then came Corbyn's defenestration after the 2019 election, and with it an end to their direct line to Westminster. 'The options for implementing social and environmental justice through the political system were non-existent,' she said. Left out in the cold while the embers of Corbyn's Labour were snuffed out, she co-founded a new movement, an activist group modelled on Extinction Rebellion, called Palestine Action. 'From the black hole of politics, a new light through direct action and grassroots mobilisation took its place', she wrote. It was time to stop 'asking and begging' the government, she said. Instead, they'd use 'our own bodies'. 'For me, the option is clear, my only regret is not seeing it sooner.' And so, as Jeremy Corbyn's vision for Britain's left died, a new militant movement was born. In the five years since, the group has gone from ram-raiding factories and vandalising buildings to last night causing a major security breach when two of its members broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military planes. Video footage shows two people on electric scooters shooting over the runway towards a Voyager – a so-called 'petrol station in the sky' used to refuel midair and to transport prime ministers and members of the Royal family. In an attack that has raised serious questions about the security at Britain's largest RAF station, the group seem to have managed to escape undetected after attacking two planes with crowbars and repurposed fire extinguishers. In the video, you can hear the splutter of spray paint as they fire red paint into the plane's engines. On Friday, it emerged that counter-terror police were leading the investigation into the incident. Shortly afterwards, the BBC reported that Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, was preparing to proscribe Palestine Action, which would make membership of the group illegal. It comes after the group – whose militant actions have already seen several of its members arrested or jailed – warned it would be escalating its activities. Palestine Action was co-founded in 2020 by Ammori, now 31, a former campaigner at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Richard Barnard, 51, a former member of Extinction Rebellion. Ammori, from Bolton, was born to a Palestinian father, a surgeon, and Iraqi mother and studied international business and finance at the University of Manchester. Her great-grandfather was, according to an interview the pair gave with the magazine Prospect last year, involved in the 1936 uprising and killed by British soldiers. Barnard was raised Catholic and once belonged to a Christian anarchist group called the Catholic Worker. He has almost 30 tattoos, the magazine reports, including Benedictine mottos, Buddhist chants, an Irish Republican slogan, 'freedom' in Arabic, 77 in Roman numerals and 'all cops are bastards'. S ince 2020, the group has claimed responsibility for more than 300 incidents at universities, government buildings, British-based defence and engineering firms, banks and insurance companies. Among the group's members are artists, musicians and dancers. Its website bears profiles of the people (most of them young) who have been imprisoned on behalf of Palestine Action. One of the group's most prolific activists is Audrey Xiarui Corno, 22, a dancer who studies at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in Belsize Park, north London. Corno teamed up with Youth Demand, an organisation consisting of different pro-Palestinian and environmentalist groups, to spray red paint over the Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall in April 2024. She and other protesters were also arrested after occupying GRiD Defence Systems, a firm near High Wycombe which they claimed supplies arms to Israel, in June last year. Corno, whose Instagram account is filled with rainbow emojis and personal pronouns, was released from prison earlier this month after being on remand for two months for the GRiD incident. A recent post on her account's story showed a group of her friends, many wearing keffiyehs, outside Aylesbury Crown Court holding up their middle fingers towards the building. The group has hardly been discreet about its intentions. Amid the protests that followed the October 7 attacks, it emerged that Palestine Action had published an 'Underground Manual', a start-to-finish guide for their followers on how to conduct 'an action', on its website. The pamphlet was still on their website last year, and much of the advice would, it seems, have been useful to the pair who managed to get into Brize Norton. The first step, the manual says, is to 'create a cell'. Next, you are to 'pick a target'. 'Head to our website to find a list of secondary and primary targets who enable and profit from the Israeli weapons industry in Britain. Making your job to pick one a slightly easier process!' comes the cheerful instruction. Then you are to 'prepare for action'. Recces of the site you plan to hit are 'vital'. You should assess the security, the CCTV, the surroundings, any police patrols. Then it's a case of working out how to arrive and leave undetected, all while 'documenting your action'. When the manual was uncovered, the then policing minister Chris Philp (now shadow home secretary) warned the group was encouraging activists to 'smash up businesses with sledgehammers' and said he would personally report the group to the authorities. Lord Walney, then the Government's independent adviser on political violence and disruption, said the manual would become an important 'test case' of the police's willingness to take action against 'pernicious militants'. In 2022, the Jewish Chronicle went undercover at a Palestine Action meeting where activists discussed an attack that had taken place on a property in Oldham used by the Israel-based defence firm Elbit Systems, the group's main target. At the meeting, the paper reported, 'they set out their secret plans for a nationwide wave of mayhem and destruction'. 'Sporting an Arabic tattoo across his neck, Mr Barnard explained what was coming,' the paper reported. 'A sustained, intense series of 'direct actions' against Elbit offices was the objective. And as for tactics, think extreme. 'Activists could lock themselves under vans and break into factories to cause 'high-level damage' to machinery.' Advice, the paper said, was offered on how to cope with being arrested, including an instruction to wear old shoes. 'A person standing at the front backed this up by saying that the worst part about being arrested at a previous action had been the confiscation of their vegan leather Doc Martens.' After the Oct 7 2023 attacks, Barnard urged activists to 'smash Israeli weapons factories'. He appeared in court in September last year on charges of encouraging criminal damage and expressing support for Hamas at two pro-Palestinian rallies in October 2023. He claims that the case 'is part of a wider intimidation campaign against Palestine Action, and a crackdown of the wider movement.' A fundraising page for his case, set up last year, states: 'My trial is scheduled to last one week from April 14th at Manchester Crown Court ... Pushing back against the state intimidation campaign at every opportunity is crucial to defending free speech on Palestine.' In April, Palestine Action said his trial had been delayed until March 2026. Analysis by The Sunday Times showed the number of incidents for which Palestine Action was responsible increased from 17 in 2020 to 170 in 2024. In the past year, the group has pledged to escalate action. In November, activists stole the wrong statue in a raid on Manchester University, mistaking a bust of a professor for that of Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel. Meanwhile, their rhetoric seems to have grown increasingly aggressive. Ammori was filmed speaking at a concert alongside the rapper Lowkey, a staunch Palestine Action supporter, in November. The rapper was criticised by Sir William Shawcross, whose independent review of the Prevent counterterrorism scheme alleged that his lyrics promoted 'what I regard to be an antisemitic conspiracy theory about the 'Zionist lobby''. At the concert, Ammori told a riled up crowd: 'We drive vans through their gates. We drive vans through their front doors. We occupy their rooms. We break inside and we destroy every single weapon.' Lowkey is one of the most foul racist extremists of all. Of late, his top cause is "Palestine Action", the nasty racist vandals. See him warmly welcome Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori at a wild hatred rally. "Intifada!" Artists who line up with him are a disgrace. — habibi (@habibi_uk) November 15, 2024 She continued: 'Let me tell you, anyone who works at Elbit Systems they are also a target.' The group has denounced Sir Keir Starmer, but its connection to Corbynista MPs persisted. In 2021, Ian Byrne, the 2019-intake Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, spoke at the same event as Ammori. Later in 2021, John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, spoke at a protest alongside Ammori in Liverpool. In December 2024, McDonnell used a debate in Parliament to state: 'The last Government even came forward with proposals and discussions about proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. I hope this Government are not going anywhere near that.' He said that Palestine Action activists who had been arrested were 'young people, a lot of them young women—some of them just starting out at university. They exercised their influence and power because we failed to exercise ours.' Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside, also attended a protest alongside Ammori, against an electronic arms fair in her constituency. Today, the group's abiding message is to keep going at all costs. In an interview with the journal New Left Review in April, Ammori spoke of destabilising 'the Zionist project itself'. 'By being security-conscious and working in small groups, we can make it difficult for the authorities to respond to individual actions by targeting the movement as a whole – such that Palestine Action can continue to grow, even in hostile conditions.' In a statement emailed to The Telegraph, the group said: 'Under Section 1 of the Genocide Convention, Britain is obliged to prevent and punish the crime of genocide ... When our government fails to uphold their moral and legal obligations, it is the responsibility of ordinary citizens to take direct action. The terrorists are the ones committing a genocide, not those who break the tools used to commit it.' The Campaign Against Antisemitism expressed concern about the escalation of the group's activities in Britain. Like politicians such as Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage, they think the time has come to proscribe it as a terror organisation. 'Palestine Action has escalated from vandalising corporate property to targeting Jewish businesses and charities, and now sabotaging RAF aircraft,' said a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism. 'They've even staged grotesque mock beheadings and destroyed works of art. This is a group fuelled by hatred and driven by destruction. 'They deliberately spread fear, disrupt public life and attack the very institutions that keep this country safe. Their actions aren't just intimidatory – they're a direct assault on British values and democracy. 'The Home Secretary must act now and proscribe this dangerous organisation before it can harm or sabotage further. We have provided her with the relevant background and legal case for a ban. There is no time to lose.'

Times

39 minutes ago

• Times

John Swinney in talks to avoid sending waste to England

Truckloads of Scottish waste being sent to England may be stopped after the first minister admitted that a scheme to ban landfill sites north of the border may need to be delayed. A ban on rubbish being sent to Scottish landfill sites, due to come into force at the start of next year, covers most domestic and commercial waste. However, Scotland does not have enough incinerators to cope with the surge in demand that the policy will cause. Experts have said that up to 100 truckloads of Scotland's waste will instead need to be moved down south, seven days a week, for a year from January once the ban begins. Speaking to journalists at Holyrood, John Swinney said he was in ­dialogue with local authorities to avoid the ­situation of sending truckloads of waste south of the border, but he failed to rule out a further delay to the landfill scheme.

Times

41 minutes ago

• Times

What was the worst moment in Scottish history?

Scotland's stormy past, with its roll call of battles and assassinations, revolutions and revolts, can sometimes read like a masterclass in shooting ourselves in the foot. History, by definition, is a series of dramas stitched together by a running narrative in which those responsible for life-changing decisions, whether triumphant or disastrous, are held accountable: lauded, lambasted or simply airbrushed from the record. If asked to nominate the worst decision in Scottish history, most of us would have little problem coming up with a list, with several contenders jockeying for the dubious honour of first place. Some might say, of course, that even to ask this question is to indulge in a national stereotype, the bittersweet compulsion to pick at old scabs. Can you blame us? It feels as if for every brilliant innovation or intellectual breakthrough there has been an event, often avoidable, that has left the country reeling. Take the Battle of Flodden in 1513, which remains one of the frontrunners for the most reckless and needless decision ever made. When James IV marched into England and confronted Henry VIII's troops near the border, he had a larger army and a strong strategic advantage. Shortly before battle commenced, however, he switched position, rendering his cannons useless as they shot far beyond range. Even worse, when his men charged down the hillside they were trapped in mud, allowing the English to pick them off. Around 10,000 Scots died, including the king and many of the country's aristocracy. Since then, Flodden has become a byword for self-inflicted disaster, as when in 1961, one of the best Scottish football teams ever fielded lost 9-3 to England. The goalkeeper Frank Haffey was so vilified he emigrated to Australia. A rather worse calamity was the Darien Scheme of 1695. The idea of setting up a colony in Panama to trade with the Pacific and Atlantic was not, in theory, a bad one. But climate, geography and politics turned a potentially money-spinning venture into a nightmare, bringing the country close to bankruptcy. This debacle led almost directly to the Union of Parliaments, with whose consequences, good and ill, we're still grappling. 1707 remains a sour date for those who, despite the economic benefits the Union brought, say we threw away our independence for the enrichment of a handful of self-serving toffs. Dozens of dates vie for attention once, like fossil hunters, you start looking for footprints from the past. You could point to the Jacobites turning back at Derby in 1745 rather than marching on London, as planned. Who knows what might have happened had they taken the English capital. Yet I would argue that the entire Jacobite crusade was a mistake, given what followed: harsh reprisals and ill-feeling against the Highlands and Islands, an entrenching of anti-Catholic sentiment, and the start of an era of mass-emigration from the region, whose reverberations endure. The same, of course, could be said for the Clearances. Although the emptying of glens and straths to make way for sheep in counties such as Sutherland and Caithness was the work of more than one individual, the nation was brutalised by this barbaric process. Not only was it immeasurably cruel to those who were displaced but its environmentally baleful legacy lives on. There are countless other low points, among them the near collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2008 under Fred Goodwin's pugnaciously acquisitive regime. Overnight, the country's centuries-old pride for fiscal prudence evaporated. I'd also suggest that, for those keen to end the Union, holding the independence referendum in 2014 was, in retrospect, a mistake. Had it come a few years later, after the Brexit referendum — and when 56 of 59 Scottish MPs at Westminster were SNP — a majority might well have voted yes. For me, however, the most momentous date of all is 16 May, 1568. On that day, Mary, Queen of Scots stepped into a boat and sailed across the Solway Firth to England. Despite the protestations of her closest advisers, she was determined to seek help from Elizabeth I, confident that with her cousin's support she could regain the throne that had been forcibly taken from her. It was a stupendous miscalculation, one so ill-advised that before departing she was obliged to sign a statement, produced by her inner circle, saying she was acting against their advice. How Mary could have thought she would be safe in England is inexplicable, given the threat she posed. Within days she recognised she was a prisoner. Increasingly isolated and unwell, during the next 19 or so years she was drawn into conspiracies against her cousin. Nevertheless, it was a forged postscript to one of Mary's coded letters, by an agent acting for Elizabeth's spy master Sir Francis Walsingham, that led to her execution. Had Mary not fled to England, things might have gone very differently. Although at the time of her abdication she was reviled for allegedly colluding in her husband Darnley's murder, support for her had since grown. It was entirely possible that she could have raised an army, overthrown her enemies, and lived to reign for many more years. How different Scotland might then have looked. And how much more vulnerable England would have been, with a potential ally of European Catholic powers as a neighbour. Indeed, a Catholic invasion could have reshaped the entire British isles. You can also wonder what sort of man her son, the future James VI and I, would have been if raised by his mother rather than by fanatical Protestants. Might the shameful witchhunts he set in motion have been averted? But there's another lingering legacy of Mary's fatal error. Since her beheading at Fotheringhay Castle she has been cast as a tragic figure, either a heroine or a weak and foolish woman, depending on your view. In an era of profound misogyny, promoted by the likes of John Knox, her story became a cautionary tale about the fallibility of women and their inability to be leaders. An echo of that narrative remains to this day. One bad decision; so many consequences. Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots by Rosemary Goring is published on 3 July by Birlinn.