At least 61 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli bombardment taking the death toll up to 31,645 people…reports Asian Lite News
Gaza Health Ministry on Monday said that the Palestinian death toll has mounted to 31, 645 following Israel’s counter-operations inside the Gaza Strip, media reports said.
“At least 61 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli bombardment taking the death toll up to 31,645 people,” the Gaza Health Ministry said.
Israel media reports said that an Israeli delegation would soon reach Doha again for talks on a ceasefire and the release of prisoners, who are in Hamas captivity.
“More than five months of war and an Israeli siege have led to dire humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, where the United Nations has repeatedly warned of looming famine for the coastal territory’s 2.4 million people,” media reports said.
Chieh Chung, a researcher at the Taiwan-based Association of Strategic Foresight, highlighted Beijing’s intentions to create a scenario of “shared jurisdiction” with Taiwan, ultimately seeking exclusive control over the area….reports Asian Lite News
China’s persistent encroachment into the waters surrounding Taiwan-held Kinmen is a strategic maneuver aimed at establishing “de facto” jurisdictional control in the area, Central News Agency Taiwan reported, citing Taiwanese experts.
According to Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA), on both Friday and Saturday, four Chinese Coast Guard patrol vessels entered Kinmen’s waters. The CGA closely monitored these incursions, issuing warnings until the Chinese ships departed.
In response, the China Coast Guard justified its actions on Friday, stating that its patrols in the waters off Kinmen were “legal,” CNA Taiwan reported.
Chieh Chung, a researcher at the Taiwan-based Association of Strategic Foresight, highlighted Beijing’s intentions to create a scenario of “shared jurisdiction” with Taiwan, ultimately seeking exclusive control over the area.
Chieh dismissed any connection between China’s actions and its handling of a recent incident involving the deaths of two Chinese nationals in a speedboat collision. He drew parallels to past events, notably Chinese Coast Guard activities around the disputed Diaoyutai Islands, claimed by Taiwan, China, and Japan.
However, Chieh emphasised that China has exercised restraint, understanding the potential for regional conflict arising from provocations over territories like the Diaoyutai Islands or Kinmen.
Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, contextualised the recent intrusions as part of Beijing’s broader strategy employing non-military tactics against Taiwan, including cognitive warfare and economic coercion.
Regarding the Kinmen incident, Su characterised Beijing’s actions as part of gray zone operations, aimed at undermining the sovereignty of the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official designation.
Su warned that while Beijing may limit its use of new tactics against Taiwan, it is likely to increase the frequency of employing existing strategies. He urged the Taiwanese government to enhance its risk management capabilities to address potential conflicts effectively, Focus Taiwan reported. (ANI)
US President Joe Biden, whose country provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, has said a Rafah invasion would be a “red line” without credible measures to protect civilians…reports Asian Lite News
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Sunday to send ground forces into Gaza’s southern Rafah city despite growing international concern over the fate of Palestinian civilians sheltering there.
Netanyahu, whose security and war cabinets were later due to discuss latest international efforts toward a truce deal, stressed that “no amount of international pressure will stop us from realizing all the goals of the war.”
“To do this, we will also operate in Rafah,” he told a cabinet meeting, hours before he was set to meet visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for talks on the war raging since October 7.
Israel has repeatedly threatened to launch a ground offensive against Hamas militants in Rafah, now home to nearly 1.5 million mostly displaced Gazans sheltering near the Egyptian border.
US President Joe Biden, whose country provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, has said a Rafah invasion would be a “red line” without credible measures to protect civilians.
UN World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israel “in the name of humanity” not to launch a Rafah assault, warning that “this humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen.”
Envoys were planning to meet in Qatar soon to revive stalled talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
A Hamas proposal calls for an Israeli withdrawal from “all cities and populated areas” in Gaza during a six-week truce and for more humanitarian aid, according to an official from the Palestinian group.
Israel plans to attend the talks, with cabinet members due to “decide on the mandate of the delegation in charge of the negotiations before its departure for Doha,” Netanyahu’s office said, without giving a date for when they would leave.
The war meanwhile raged on, and overnight Israeli bombardment across the Hamas-ruled territory killed at least 61 Palestinians, the Gaza health ministry said.
The dead included 12 members of the same family whose house was hit in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 31,645 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry.
Shelling and clashes were reported in south Gaza’s main city of Khan Yunis and elsewhere, and the Israeli army said its forces had killed “approximately 18 terrorists” in central Gaza since Saturday.
More than five months of war and an Israeli siege have led to dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the UN has repeatedly warned of looming famine for the coastal territory’s 2.4 million people.
As the flow of aid trucks into Gaza has slowed, a second ship was due to depart from Cyprus along a new maritime corridor to bring food and relief goods, said officials of the island-nation.
On Saturday the US charity World Central Kitchen said its team had finished unloading supplies from a barge towed by Spanish aid vessel Open Arms which had pioneered the sea route.
Jordan on Sunday announced the latest aid airdrop over northern Gaza together with German, US and Egyptian aircraft.
The United Nations has reported particular difficulty in accessing the north, where residents say they have resorted to eating animal fodder, and where some have stormed the few aid trucks that have made it through.
Palestinian militants seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages during the October 7 attack. Dozens were released during a week-long truce in November, and Israel believes about 130 remain in Gaza including 32 presumed dead.
Netanyahu has faced domestic pressure over the remaining captives, with protesters rallying in Tel Aviv on Saturday carrying banners urging a “hostage deal now.”
“The civilians… need to demand from their leaders to do the right thing,” said one demonstrator, Omer Keidar, 27.
In Rafah, the crisis has only grown worse, said medical staff at a clinic run by Palestinian volunteers that offers treatment for displaced Gazans.
Disagreements over the possibility of ground operations and the delivery of long-range missiles to Kyiv had threatened to undermine cooperation between the allies…reports Asian Lite News
French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview published Saturday evening that Western ground operations in Ukraine might be necessary “at some point,” days after meeting with German and Polish leaders.
Last month Macron refused to rule out putting troops on the ground in Ukraine, which prompted a stern response from Berlin and other European partners.
But the French president has not recanted from his position, but stressed that Western allies would not take the initiative.
“Maybe at some point — I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative — we will have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” Macron told newspaper Le Parisien in an interview conducted on Friday.
“France’s strength is that we can do it.”
Disagreements over the possibility of ground operations and the delivery of long-range missiles to Kyiv had threatened to undermine cooperation between the allies.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted angrily to Macron’s earlier refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine and his pointed comments urging allies not to be “cowards.”
Macron met his German and Polish counterparts in Berlin on Friday, in a show of solidarity behind Kyiv.
After the meeting, Macron said the three countries of the so-called Weimar Triangle were “united” in their aim to “never let Russia win and to support the Ukrainian people until the end.”
The pact played a central role in the US military’s operations in Africa’s Sahel region and is home to a major airbase….reports Asian Lite News
In a blow to the US security presence in Niger, the latter has suspended its military agreement with the former “with immediate effect”, Al Jazeera reported quoting the Niger’s ruling military spokesman, Colonel Amadou Abdramane.
The agreement that allowed US military personnel and civilian defence staff to operate from Niger lost its existence a week after senior US officials, led by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee and US Africa Command head General Michael Langley, visited the West African country earlier this week to discuss democratic transition.
The pact played a central role in the US military’s operations in Africa’s Sahel region and is home to a major airbase.
Speaking on local television, Abdramane said the US delegation did not follow diplomatic protocol, and that Niger was not informed about the composition of the delegation, the date of its arrival or the agenda, Al Jazeera reported.
“Niger regrets the intention of the American delegation to deny the sovereign Nigerien people the right to choose their partners and types of partnerships capable of truly helping them fight against terrorism,” Abdramane said.
The US military had some 650 personnel working in Niger in December, according to a White House report to Congress. The US military operates a major airbase in the Niger city of Agadez, some 920km (572 miles) from the capital of Niamey, using it for manned and unmanned surveillance flights and other operations.
According to the Al Jazeera report, a drone base known as Air Base 201 near Agadez was built at a cost of more than USD 100 million. Since 2018 the base has been used to target ISIL (ISIS) fighters and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, in the Sahel region.
Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera correspondent Shihab Rattansi said the move is “a huge blow to the US”.
“Niger is the centre of US operations in west and north Africa, notably at its Air Base 201, the most expensive construction project ever undertaken by the US government. It’s there for war on terror operations but it’s really there also for great power projection against countries like Russia and China.”
Last October, Washington officially designated the military takeover as a coup. But in December, the top US envoy for Africa, Phee, said the US was willing to restore aid and security ties if Niger met certain conditions.
The military said the delegation had accused Niger of partnering with Russia and Iran on “secret” deals, which the government denies. Officials also said the US had “threatened” action against Niger if the Niamey fails to cut ties with both countries.
The military government “forcefully denounces the condescending attitude accompanied by the threat of retaliation from the head of the American delegation towards the Nigerien government and people”, spokesman Abdramane added.
Niger has been under military rule since July 2023 when an elite guard force led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani detained President Mohamed Bazoum and declared Tchiani ruler.
Like the military rulers in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, Niger has also kicked out French and other European forces. Both Mali and Burkina Faso have turned to Russia for support. (ANI)
Putin has frequently highlighted the dangers of nuclear warfare but asserted that he has never deemed it necessary to employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine…reports Asian Lite News
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday warned the Western powers that any direct conflict between Russia and the NATO alliance, led by the US, would mean the world will be “one step away” from a full-scale World War III, TASS reported.
However, he also said that it is “unlikely” that anyone is interested in this.
The Russia-Ukraine war has sparked the most severe strain in Moscow’s relations with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Putin has frequently highlighted the dangers of nuclear warfare but asserted that he has never deemed it necessary to employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to TASS.
Speaking to reporters, after emerging victorious in the post-Soviet Russian history, Putin said that in the future, a direct conflict between Russia and NATO cannot be ruled out, although no one is interested in this.
“I think that everything is possible in the modern world. But <…> it will be one step away from a full-scale third world war. I think it’s unlikely Is anyone interested in this?” TASS quotes Putin as saying.
Before Russia’s March 15-17 elections, Ukraine had ramped up its attacks against Russia.
On Kyiv sending a large number of soldiers on the border zone, Putin said that “somewhere up to 5 thousand people” are present here.
The Russian Volunteer Corps (recognised as a terrorist organization in the Russian Federation) and similar groups include 2.5 thousand, who are now, “like meat… thrown into assaults,” in the latest attacks these “so so-called volunteers” lost approximately 800 people, according to TASS.
Securing a crushing victory in the Russian Presidential elections, Putin also said that he had agreed to a prisoner swap involving Alexei Navalny before the opposition leader’s sudden death in an Arctic prison in February.
Calling Navalny’s death a ‘sad event’, Putin said there were other cases of people in prisons passing away.
In his address at his election headquarters on Sunday, Putin said, “As for Mr. Navalny–yes, he passed away. It is always a sad event. And there were other cases when people in prisons passed away. Didn’t this happen in the United States? It did, and not once.”
Putin added that he was told of a proposal to exchange Navalny for prisoners held in Western nations days before the Opposition leader died in prison.
On February 16, jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died.
Putin won the presidential elections, receiving 87.17 per cent of the votes based on the result of processing 70 per cent of the electoral protocols, Russia-based TASS reported, citing data from the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation candidate Nikolai Kharitonov secured the second spot with 4.1 per cent of the votes while New People Party candidate Vladislav Davankov stood third with 4.8 per cent votes.
The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) candidate, Leonid Slutsky, received a mere 3.15 per cent of the votes counted. According to preliminary data as of 6 pm (Moscow time) on Sunday, the voter turnout in the presidential elections, which for the first time took place over three days from March 15-17, stood at 74.22 per cent. (ANI)
While the initiative is seen by some as a solution to the NHS’s doctor shortage, others expressed concerns over the potential brain drain from India’s healthcare system…reports Asian Lite News
National Health Service (NHS) will recruit 2,000 doctors from India on a fast-track basis as part of an initiative to address the acute shortage of medicos in the country, industry sources said.
The NHS will conduct postgraduate training for the first batch of doctors, who then will be deployed at hospitals in Britain after 6 to 12 months of training. These doctors will be exempted from the Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) examination upon completion of the training programme, they said.
While the initiative is seen by some as a solution to the NHS’s doctor shortage, others expressed concerns over the potential brain drain from India’s healthcare system.
Ravi Bhatke, an orthopaedic surgeon closely involved with the NHS, said the NHS has a long history of relying on doctors from overseas with almost 25 to 30 per cent of its medical workforce coming from non-UK trained doctors.
“The NHS is also investing in training its own doctors in the long term. In my opinion, this initiative will not motivate more doctors from India to go to Britain because India is growing and financially it is not that lucrative anymore in Britain. The NHS is looking at cutting down on overseas recruitment in the future,” he said.
Under this programme, the NHS has established training centres at major private hospitals in Indian cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Nagpur, Gurugram, Calicut, Bengaluru, Chennai, Indore, and Mysore.
A lack of widespread awareness about the initiative has been noted. While hospitals in India have established training centres, the initiative’s publicity has been limited, leaving many in the medical community unaware of its existence. Bajaj attributes this to the conservative approach of British institutions.
Ajesh Raj Saksena, senior consultant surgical oncologist at Apollo Hospital, Hyderabad, said the initiative not only promises to mitigate the medical staff shortage in the UK but also enhances the skill set and exposure of Indian medical professionals.
Netanyahu said that Israel never would have called for a new U.S. election after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and denounced Schumer’s comments as inappropriate….reports Asian Lite News
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu railed Sunday against growing criticism from top ally the United States against his leadership amid the devastating war with Hamas, describing calls for a new election as “wholly inappropriate.”
In recent days, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the country and a strong Israel supporter, called on Israel to hold a new election, saying Netanyahu had “lost his way.” President Joe Biden expressed support for Schumer’s “good speech,” and earlier accused Netanyahu of hurting Israel because of the huge civilian death toll in Gaza.
Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel never would have called for a new U.S. election after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and denounced Schumer’s comments as inappropriate.
“We’re not a banana republic,” he said. “The people of Israel will choose when they will have elections, and who they’ll elect, and it’s not something that will be foisted on us.”
When asked by CNN whether he would commit to a new election after the war ends, Netanyahu said: “I think that’s something for the Israeli public to decide.”
The U.S., which has provided key military and diplomatic support to Israel, also has expressed concerns about a planned Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. The spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, told Fox the U.S. still hasn’t seen an Israeli plan for Rafah.
The U.S. supports a new round of talks aimed at securing a cease-fire in exchange for the return of Israeli hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
The Israeli delegation to those talks was expected to leave for Qatar after Sunday evening meetings of the Security Cabinet and War Cabinet, which will give directions for negotiations.
Despite the talks, Netanyahu made it clear he would not back down from the fighting that has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. More than five months have passed since Hamas attacked southern Israel, killed 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage.
Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu said calls for an election now — which polls show he would lose badly — would force Israel to stop fighting and paralyze the country for six months.
Netanyahu also reiterated his determination to attack Hamas in Rafah and said that his government approved military plans for such an operation.
“We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen,” he said. The operation is supposed to include the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians, but it is not clear how Israel will do that.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi reiterated his warning that an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah would have “grave repercussions on the whole region.” Egypt says pushing Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula would jeopardize its peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of regional stability.
“We are also very concerned about the risks a full-scale offensive in Rafah would have on the vulnerable civilian population. This needs to be avoided at all costs,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after meeting with el-Sissi.
And German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after meeting with Netanyahu on Sunday, warned that “the more desperate the situation of people in Gaza becomes, the more this begs the question: No matter how important the goal, can it justify such terribly high costs, or are there other ways to achieve your goal?”
Germany is one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe and, given memories of the Holocaust, often treads carefully when criticizing Israel.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, in Washington for St. Patrick’s Day, said during a White House reception that the Irish people were “deeply troubled” by what’s unfolding in Gaza. He said there was much to learn from Ireland’s peace process and the critical U.S. involvement in it.
Varadkar said he’s often asked why the Irish are so empathetic to the Palestinians.
“We see our history in their eyes. A story of displacement, dispossession, and national identity questioned and denied forced emigration, discrimination and now hunger,” he said.
Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul-general in New York and an outspoken critic of Netanyahu, said that the prime minister’s comments fit with his efforts to find someone else to blame if Israel doesn’t achieve its goal of destroying Hamas.
“He’s looking on purpose for a conflict with the U.S. so that he can blame Biden,” Pinkas said.
Both sides have something to gain politically from the dispute. The Biden administration is under increasing pressure from progressive Democrats and some Arab-American supporters to restrain Israel’s war against Hamas. Netanyahu, meanwhile, wants to show his nationalist base that he can withstand global pressure, even from Israel’s closest ally.
It added that the strike in Odesa the previous day raised the threat level to Shapps’s safety from substantial to critical. “Putin has shown himself to be reckless, ruthless and careless,” Shapps told the newspaper…reports Asian Lite News
Grant Shapps aborted a trip to southern Ukraine last week for “security reasons”, the UK defence ministry said. The defence secretary had to scrap his visit to Odesa last week after UK intelligence reportedly warned Russia had become aware of his travel plans.
Shapps was due to travel to Odesa a day after a missile hit the city while the Ukrainian president and the Greek prime minister were visiting. Five people were killed in the strike, Ukrainian authorities said.
Shapps had travelled on an overnight train from Poland to Ukraine, accompanied by chief of the defence staff, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, and a small team of British officials. The aim of their journey was to meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and senior members of his wartime administration.
But having arrived in Kyiv on 7 March, Shapps’s onward journey to Odesa was cancelled abruptly at the last minute, following fears surrounding his safety. According to the Sunday Times, which had a reporter travelling with his delegation, the trip was called off after an intelligence update revealed the Kremlin’s knowledge of it.
It added that the strike in Odesa the previous day raised the threat level to Shapps’s safety from substantial to critical. “Putin has shown himself to be reckless, ruthless and careless,” Shapps told the newspaper.
“The fact that he came perilously close to essentially assassinating two western leaders, it doesn’t matter whether that is deliberate or accidental. What the hell is he doing, and why the heck would the West allow him to do that kind of thing?”
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “On a recent trip to Ukraine, the defence secretary did not make a planned visit to Odesa for security reasons. The UK continues to provide strong support for Ukraine and the defence secretary’s visit and engagements only underscored the importance of this support in the face of Putin’s aggression.”
Earlier this week it emerged that an RAF plane carrying Shapps between the UK and Poland had its GPS signal jammed while flying close to Russian territory.
UK advises Ukraine to go on defensive
Shapps and Army Commander Antony Radakin have advised Ukraine’s senior leadership and military commanders on war strategy against the Russia as quoted by media reports.
Shapps and Radakin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Defence Minister Rustem Umierov, and the new Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
According to the media, Radakin was concerned that Syrskyi would become overly focused on ground battles, while the UK Commander spent two years attempting to develop a Ukrainian strategy based on Western military doctrine and the need to advance on land, in the air, and at sea.
Radakin, in particular, is actively involved in the development of a new Ukrainian Navy that meets NATO standards. He advised paying attention to the Iranian-style fleet, which consists of lighter, more manoeuvrable ships and drones capable of restraining Russia in the Black Sea while also protecting vital shipping routes for Ukrainian exports.
According to a news article, during a meeting at the Mariinsky Palace, Shapps and Radakin advised abandoning plans for a frontline offensive in favour of maintaining defence on the northern and eastern fronts and, if necessary, retreating to more advantageous positions to hold off the Russian Army, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
According to private polling, the Tories are heading for the worst defeat in their history…reports Asian Lite News
A minister came out strongly in defence of his party leader Rishi Sunak on Sunday as the increasingly beleaguered prime minister attempts to ride out infighting within the ranks, with sections to the right of the governing Conservative Party calling for a leadership change ahead of a general election expected later in the year.
The 43-year-old has ruled out the prospect of an early election in May and with possibly months before he decides to go to the electorate, the murmurings of rebellion within the Tory ranks fearful of losing their seats seem to be growing at a steady pace.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper was directly asked during a television interview if he thinks Sunak will be the leader of the Conservative Party at the general election.
“Yes he will, and he’ll take us into that election and he’ll set out very clearly that we’re a government with a plan, Harper told Sky News’.
“The plan is working, we’re driving down inflation, we’re reducing people’s taxes. We’re the only party that’s got a plan to deal with the priorities of the country that will take us into that election and set out a choice,” he said.
On rumours that a group of Tory MPs are keen to replace Sunak with his former leadership rival and now Leader of the House of Commons in his Cabinet, Penny Mordaunt, Harper added: What I would say to all my colleagues is this; I spend my time as Transport Secretary focusing on doing what I think is the right thing for the country, making decisions that I think are sensible.”
“That is the approach that the Prime Minister takes as well. He focuses on making the right decisions even if in the short term they are not necessarily popular,” Harper said.
According to The Daily Telegraph, a meeting is understood to have taken place this weekend between leading figures on the right wing of the Tory party and prominent supporters of Mordaunt from when she previously ran for the Tory leadership after the exit of Boris Johnson as prime minister in 2022.
Some right-wing MPs met with Team Penny this week, where they expressed the view they were prepared to back her. They take the view that Penny is preferable to Rishi Sunak right now. Penny Mordaunt is now seen as the most likely person to stem the losses, the newspaper quoted a source as saying.
The discussions are reflective of despair among some Conservative MPs at the steady lead in favour of the Opposition Labour Party in pre-poll surveys and the prospect of heading towards a disastrous defeat. With the Spring Budget earlier this month failing to turn the dial in the party’s favour and a series of high-profile exits from the Tory ranks, there is growing discontent among the Conservative backbenchers.
However, some of Sunak’s very vocal critics and Boris Johnson allies, such as former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, have dismissed the idea of replacing the British Indian leader at this juncture in the electoral cycle as madness.
Interesting to hear lots of media reporting of centre-right Conservative MPs pushing for a certain leadership candidate to replace Rishi. Having spoken with lots of my colleagues, no one seems to have heard or been pushing for such a thing, said Andrea Jenkyns, a Tory MP critical of Sunak’s leadership.
Labour, meanwhile, has jumped on the turmoil to demand an early general election.
This is not in the national interest anymore. It is irresponsible. We need stability in this country. He [Sunak] could stabilise this by naming the date of a general election. Otherwise, I fear we may have a Tory leadership election ahead of a general election, said shadow minister Jonathan Ashworth.
The pressure on Sunak is likely to intensify further after the local council and mayoral elections take place across England on May 2, when the Tories are expected to suffer losses.
Harper said: “The prime minister made it quite clear at the beginning of the year that his working assumption was the election was going to be at the end of the year. All this sort of froth we’ve had about an election being in May was always nonsense, frankly, and he made that clear at the beginning of the year.”
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow paymaster general, called on Sunak to name the election date.
“There’s Tory MPs who are in the papers today saying Rishi Sunak can’t continue,” he said. “This is not in the national interest any more. It is irresponsible. We need stability in this country. He could stabilise this by calling, naming the date of, a general election. Otherwise I fear we may have a Tory leadership election ahead of a general election.”
According to private polling seen by the Mail on Sunday, the Tories are heading for the worst defeat in their history. The seat-by-seat research, which the newspaper said was conducted on behalf of corporate businesses, suggests Labour could be on course to win 250 seats and the Conservatives fewer than 150.