Latest updates: transport secretary warns sanctions on Russian oil will ‘of course’ have a negative impact on UK consumers
- Brexit red tape stopping small charities getting supplies to Ukraine
- Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 14 of the Russian invasion
- Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
And here are more lines from Grant Shapps’s interview round this morning.
Geographically we are, of course, spaced further to the west [than other European countries] and President Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian government have told me that they do not want people to move far away, if at all possible, from the country because they want people to be able to come back.
You cannot go and fight if you’re in the British Army, you cannot just get up and go and fight. Of course that’s inappropriate behaviour and you would expect the army to have some very, very strict rules in place, as they do.
There’s a big difference between Britain sending its army in and some people who are breaking with our law and going to do it.
But, clearly, this is a dangerous situation. And clearly, we want to make sure that the assistance we’re providing is done in an official way – like the anti-tank missiles that we provided prior to and during this conflict, and like the 22,000 Ukrainians that we’ve trained.
We have more than enough time for the market and our supply chains to adjust to these essential changes. Businesses should use this year to ensure a smooth transition so that consumers will not be affected.
We need to stem the flow of [Vladimir] Putin’s gas and oil blood money from funding his war machine. I think that the British people – even though it will, of course, lead to some higher energy prices, although we’ve probably already seen that as they’re happening already – the British people are not prepared to see us funding Putin’s horrific war.
And so I think it’s very, very important that we take this step, we will step up our own production.
Continue reading…
