Jeremy Hunt warns European leaders to stand together with Britain and US amid Russian aggression
Jeremy Hunt will today warn European leaders to stand ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with Britain and the US over Russian aggression.
In a rebuke to Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, the Foreign Secretary is to demand fresh sanctions from the EU on ‘malign’ Moscow.
He will use a speech in Washington to urge European and American allies to speak with ‘one voice’ against transgressions by Moscow ‘whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea’.
While Britain is tied to Brussels it can only impose sanctions as part of the EU and must wait on other members before action is taken. After Brexit, the UK will be able to take its own foreign policy decisions.
EU nations including Germany and France were among dozens of countries that expelled Russian diplomats following March’s Novichok nerve agent attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury.
The attack also resulted in the death of a British woman, Dawn Sturgess. But some EU leaders have since reached out to President Putin’s regime.
German chancellor Mrs Merkel held talks with the Russian leader in her country on Saturday after he had first stopped in Austria to attend the wedding of the country’s foreign minister Karin Kneissl.
French president Mr Macron has travelled to St Petersburg to call on Russia to work ‘hand-in-hand’ with Europe.
And Italy has questioned whether sanctions imposed over the 2014 annexation of Crimea should continue.
Mr Hunt’s visit follows the historic and controversial summit between the Russian president and Donald Trump in Helsinki.
German chancellor Mrs Merkel held talks with the Russian leader in her country on Saturday after he had first stopped in Austria to attend the wedding of the country’s foreign minister
In a speech at the US Institute of Peace, Mr Hunt is due to say that under Mr Putin, Russia’s ‘aggressive and malign behaviour undermines the international order that keeps us safe’.
He will say: ‘Of course we must engage with Moscow, but we must also be blunt: Russia’s foreign policy under President Putin has made the world a more dangerous place.
‘And today, the United Kingdom asks its allies to go further by calling on the European Union to ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive, and that we truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the US.
‘That means calling out and responding to transgressions with one voice whenever and wherever they occur, from the streets of Salisbury to the fate of Crimea.’
Mr Hunt will also risk opening up a fresh rift with Mr Trump over his decision to rip up the Iran nuclear deal and his trade wars by calling on world leaders not to ‘undermine the international order that keeps us safe’.
He will also discuss Brexit, warning that a ‘catastrophic’ no-deal scenario represents ‘one of the biggest threats to European unity’.
Similar warnings he made last week that the country would regret a no-deal break ‘for generations’ caused an outcry from Brexiteers, and he was later forced to insist that Britain would still ‘survive and prosper’.
Today he will urge the European Commission to ‘engage’ with Theresa May’s Chequers plan, saying: ‘Britain would, of course, find a way to prosper and we have faced many greater challenges in our history.
‘But the risk of a messy divorce, as opposed to the friendship we seek, would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal – a geostrategic error for Europe at an extremely vulnerable time in our history.’
The Foreign Secretary’s three-day visit to the US is expected to include talks with senior Trump administration officials such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner, the president’s adviser and son-in-law.
Among the discussion topics are Iran, North Korea, Syria, Yemen and the Middle East peace process, the Foreign Office said.
Mr Hunt will then travel to New York, where on Thursday he is due to address the United Nations Security Council and discuss the fight against Islamic State.
The speech comes as Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab prepares to travel to Brussels tomorrow for a further round of talks with the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier.
Mr Raab said that, while he believed a deal was still ‘by far the most likely outcome’ of the negotiations, a responsible government needed to set out the steps it was taking to mitigate the risks of a no-deal break.
EU Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein said officials were working ‘at full speed, 24/7’ to reach an exit agreement.
No deal: Migrants ‘can stay’
Ministers could give the 3.8million EU migrants living in Britain the right to remain even under a no-deal Brexit scenario.
Leaked Cabinet papers claim it would enable the Government to take the ‘moral high ground’.
The move was said to reflect fears of potential labour shortages once Britain is outside the EU.
Ministers could give the 3.8million EU migrants living in Britain the right to remain even under a no-deal Brexit scenario (pictured Spanish Maritime Rescue Services ship carrying 274 rescued migrants arrives at the port of Algeciras, southern Spain in August 2018)
The details would be set out in technical notes due to be published by the Government setting out its preparations for a no-deal break across a range of sectors, The Daily Telegraph reported.
It will mean EU citizens in the UK could continue to access the NHS and benefits, regardless of whether Britons in the EU are granted reciprocal rights.
Downing Street said securing the rights of EU citizens in the UK had been ‘a priority right from the get-go’.