Mandelson says UK must respect Trump’s mandate as EU hits back at US president’s global tariffs: Live – UK Times

The European Union will not let the decision by the US to impose import tariffs on European steel go unanswered, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday.

“I deeply regret the US decision to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports,” she said in a post on X. “Unjustified tariffs on the EU will not go unanswered.”

Kim Leadbeater has insisted that replacing a High Court judge’s oversight of assisted dying applications with a panel of experts would not move the process behind closed doors.

Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if the proposed new process for approving assisted dying could lead to it being done in private, the Labour MP, who is sponsoring the law change, replied: “It wouldn’t be done in private, it would be taking into account patient confidentiality but there would be public proceedings.

“And actually, I think it’s really difficult to suggest that by having three experts involved in this extra layer of scrutiny that is somehow a change for the worse.”

Experts who sit on the panel would not be selected based on whether they support assisted dying, she signalled, adding: “There would be a very strict recruitment procedure for people to sit on these panels, and they would not be there in a personal capacity. They would be there in a professional capacity to do their job.”

Asked if the amendment was a sign she was watering down the Bill, Ms Leadbeater replied: “I would say this is exactly what the process is designed to do, and the purpose of having such a comprehensive Bill committee procedure hearing from over 50 witnesses.

“What’s the point of having witnesses if we don’t listen to them, and we don’t listen to the expertise that they provide?”

It is up to voters whether the two MPs who belonged to a WhatsApp group which contained offensive messages should remain in Parliament, a minister has said.

Asked whether Andrew Gwynne and Oliver Ryan should remain as MPs after having the Labour whip suspended, education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith of Malvern told Times Radio: “In the end, obviously it’s up to their constituents as to whether or not they remain as MPs.

“But the important point here is the things that the Prime Minister could control, he took action on.”

Lady Smith, a former MP who served as home secretary, described the WhatsApp remarks as “terrible things to say for anybody, and they’re terrible things for an MP or a minister to say”.

Asked whether the views of Mr Gwynne’s replacement as health minister, Ashley Dalton, on gender self-identification reflected Government policy, Lady Smith replied: “I don’t agree with them, but what’s important about Ashley Dalton is, we can go back over everybody’s statements over the last few years, but Ashley Dalton is recovering from her second bout of breast cancer.

“She will be, I think, a brilliant advocate for people with cancer and for public health campaigns, and that’s what she’s bringing to this Government.”

In Mandelson’s case, as the prospective UK ambassador to Washington, he was taking no chances. On Fox News, the default channel of right-wing America, he expressed regret for previous comments that Trump was “a danger to the world” and a “bully”, describing them as “ill-judged and wrong”. For good measure, he said the returning president had earned “fresh respect” with his “dynamism and energy”.

The interview was classic Mandelson: a fleet-footed, tactical play, intended to ensure that the formal diplomatic agrément to serve as the UK’s ambassador to Washington is followed swiftly by formal confirmation this month, with no last-minute thumbs down from a famously mercurial president.

Having known Peter Mandelson – aka ‘the prince of darkness’ – for over 30 years, Anne McElvoy can attest to his brilliance at anticipating shifts in mood, something that has come in handy in his recent campaign to be named UK ambassador to the United States. Read more here:

Lord Peter Mandelson, a former minister and key architect of the Labour party’s renewal in the 1990s, said his “priority” in his new role as US ambassador would be to help encourage an investment relationship with the US fit for the 21st century.

“Each of us wants to grow our economies,” he said.

“I think that what we need to do is to build a technology and investment relationship between the US and the UK that’s fit for the 21st century. That’s where I want to focus.”

He added: “We’re going to depend in growing our economy on private investment, foreign investment, a large amount of which is going to come from the United States of America.”

Donald Trump has said he plans to impose 25 per cent tariffs on “any steel coming into the United States”, adding that aluminium will also be subject to additional duties.

The UK Government is waiting to see details of the policy, but the steel industry body called for decisive action from ministers while unions warned further jobs could be put at risk in an already crippled sector.

Britain exported 166,433 tonnes of steel to the US in 2023, the last full year for which figures are available.

Figures from trade body UK Steel showed that in 2024 some 162,716 tonnes were sent to the US, but that does not yet include data from December.

The US is the industry’s second-largest export market after the EU, although the government said it only accounted for 5 per cent of UK steel exports in 2023.

Reports suggest the prime minister is hoping to visit Washington in the coming weeks, though Downing Street has not confirmed any upcoming travel.

So far in his second term in the White House, Mr Trump has imposed, but then delayed, duties on imports from Mexico and Canada, and has also imposed 10 per cent levies on goods from China.

Britain must respect Donald Trump’s “strong and clear mandate for change”, Lord Peter Mandelson has said, amid questions over how the UK will respond to global tariffs threatened by the White House.

The UK’s top diplomat in Washington said that Sir Keir Starmer’s Government can “always make our views known privately and directly” but that it must “understand what drives him”.

Lord Mandelson acknowledged he was “concerned” about the looming prospect of tariffs and said Britain would “not necessarily agree” with every detail of the new US President’s agenda.

On how the UK could try to persuade Mr Trump to change his position on certain policy areas without alienating his administration, he told the BBC: “Well, we’ve got to take all these issues as they come, realise that the president has a very strong and clear mandate for change in the United States.

“Now that doesn’t mean to say that we’re going to agree in Britain with every single detail of what he does, but we have to respect and understand what drives him, what his mandate is to do, and how his allies need to adjust sometimes.

“And I believe that, given the relationship that we have, we can always make our views known – best, by the way, directly and privately.

“We have a strong relationship that enables us to influence the president and his policies where necessary, and it certainly should not affect our ability to work well together, and that’s what I intend remains the case.”

Under the chancellor’s plan, a 20 per cent inheritance tax rate will be introduced on farms worth more than £1 million from April 2026. But it has sparked a furious backlash in farming communities and created a problem for many newly-elected Labour MPs in rural constituencies.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has faced calls for “meaningful tweaks” to planned inheritance tax on farmland from Labour backbenchers.

Sam Rushworth said that farmers who work a £5 million estate are “not millionaires”, while Julia Buckley said sector businesses currently face a choice to “go big or go bust”.

Conservative former Scottish secretary David Mundell warned that under plans to impose inheritance tax on agricultural property worth more than £1 million, farmers’ children will sell their land to private equity firms to cover the bill, and estates would instead be used for solar panels or industrial tree planting.

They made their comments during a debate about a House of Commons petition which called on Treasury ministers to carry on with a 100% relief from inheritance tax covering agricultural property.

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