Rishi Sunak claims he is extra statesmanlike than Keir Starmer regardless of marbles row
Rishi Sunak has overtly denied being much less “statesmanlike” than Keir Starmer after his petulant spat with the Greek authorities.
The Prime Minister shall be assembly world leaders on the COP28 summit in Dubai at the moment, the place he’ll desperately attempt to claw again credibility after a bruising week. He sparked anger after calling off a gathering with Kyriakos Mitsotakis following his name for the Elgin Marbles to be returned from the British Museum.
Mr Starmer may even be within the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and can declare that Britain “will be back on the world stage” under a Labour Government. He will accuse Mr Sunak of overseeing a string of diplomatic gaffes, as well as a willingness to break international law over the Rwanda scheme.
In a brutal PMQs session on Wednesday the Prime Minister looked rattled as Mr Starmer quipped he had “misplaced his marbles”. Mr Sunak accused the Greek PM of “grandstanding” in a row over the 2,500 year old statues.
Asked if he’s worried the Labour leader – who did hold a meeting with Mr Mitsotakis on Monday – appears more statesmanlike, Mr Sunak responded: “No. If you take a look at the observe document of my international diplomacy during the last yr since I’ve had this job what have we carried out? We’ve acquired the Windsor Framework agreed, we’ve acquired the Aukus partnership with Australia and America, we’ve acquired Gcap which is the following era of fighter jets with Japan and Italy.”
He added that the UK is working with Albania, Turkey, Bulgaria, France, Italy and multiple others on illegal migration, adding: “So I really feel fairly good about how we’ve carried out our overseas coverage and engaged all our companions and allies around the globe over the previous yr and delivered actual advantages for the British individuals at house in funding and jobs and higher safety. And that’s what we’ll proceed to do.”
He faces a tough audience after weakening green pledges. Former Cabinet member Lord Goldsmith told Sky News that there’s “little doubt our standing has diminished significantly in current months”. The Tory peer continued: “The UK is simply not seen by our allies – massive and likewise small island members of the commonwealth- as a dependable or critical associate.”
Mr Sunak replied: “What l’d say at the beginning is we have a greater observe document than another main financial system in decarbonising. Those are the info.” He said he would walk around “very proudly” and said he is excited to be announcing £1.6billion of funding for forest and fuel and finance projects.”
Defending the choice to award new licenses to drill for oil and fuel within the North Sea, he mentioned: “In any reasonable scenario of the future, we are still going to need fossil fuels at 2050 and that’s even the projections of our independent committee for climate change which also contains respectable and independent scientists. The question you should ask yourself is given we’re going to need some of them, are we better off getting them from home or shipping them in from overseas which is a) bad for our security, rather not rely on unreliable foreign sources but also not good for the economy because it supports 200,000 jobs and lots of tax revenue and also most importantly not good for the environment.”
Questioned whether or not he had mentioned the summit along with his daughters, he mentioned: “Totally honest, I didn’t discuss it with her. Only one of them is at home at the moment and she was busy running around the Christmas market with me, hoovering up as much pasta and popcorn as she could earlier in Downing Street.”
He went on: “It’s not just about my kids, I think it’s a very strong Conservative instinct to protect what we have for future generations.”
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