Sunak says ‘all sides should show restraint’ after Iranian attack on Israel – as it happened

David Cameron ruled out trying to become PM again in an interview this morning. (See 9.30am.) But Liz Truss has not done so. In an interview with LBC’s Iain Dale, being broadcast tonight, she did not entirely dismiss the possibility. This is from LBC’s Henry Riley.

Truss is giving interviews to publicise her memoir which is out this week. According to extracts sent out in advance, she also confirmed in her LBC interview that she wanted to see Donald Trump win the US presidential election. She said:

I don’t think [Joe] Biden has been particularly supportive to the United Kingdom. I think he’s often on the side of the EU. And I certainly think I would like to see a new president in the White House …

The thing I would say about Donald Trump is, because I served as secretary of state under both Trump and Biden, and Trump’s policies were actually very effective. If you look at his economic policies, and I met his regulatory czar, I travelled around the United States looking at what he’d done. He cut regulation, he cut taxes, he liberated the US energy supply. And this is why the US has had significantly higher economic growth than Britain.

In foreign affairs, he was more effective at preventing aggressive regimes expanding and I think we’d be in a different position if he got re-elected in 2020.

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Some 534 people were detected crossing the English Channel on small boats on Sunday, the highest number on a single day so far this year, according to provisional figures from the Home Office, PA Media reports. PA says:

The cumulative number of arrivals by small boats in 2024 now stands at a provisional total of 6,265.

This is 28% higher than the total at the equivalent point last year, which was 4,899, and 7% higher than the total at this stage in 2022, which was 5,828.

Some 10 boats were detected on Sunday, which suggests an average of around 53 people per boat.

There were 29,437 arrivals across the whole of 2023, down 36% on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.

David Cameron, the foreign secretary, posted this on X this morning after meeting Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia this morning.

Alexei Navalny dedicated his life to exposing the corruption of Putin’s system and speaking up for the Russian people – @yulia_navalnaya is continuing his fight.

I was honoured to meet her today.

As Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor reports, David Cameron’s comment on Sky News this morning about how the UK would take “very strong action” against a country that attacked one of its embassies is getting favourable coverage on Iranian TV. Iran attacked Israel at the weekend as retaliation for an airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria on 1 April that killed several Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards officers.

And here is Patrick’s story from Cameron’s interview round this morning.

The Foreign Office has announced sanctions on a bank and two companies supporting military groups involved in the civil war in Sudan. “These sanctions send a clear signal to the warring parties that they must end fighting and meaningfully engage in a peace process,” the Foreign Office said in its news release.

Donald Trump did not complain to David Cameron about Cameron’s previous anti-Trump comments when they met in Florida last week, the foreign secretary said this morning.

In an interview on Sky News, Kay Burley reminded Cameron that in the past he had described Trump as “xenophobic, misogynistic. protectionist, stupid, wrong” at various points and he asked if Trump raised this.

Initially Cameron said that it was a private meeting and that he was not going to comment. But, when Burley said that implied Trump did raise this points, Cameron replied: “No, he didn’t, actually,”

Cameron went on:

Look, it was a good meeting.

As politicians, we will know there’s a track record of things we’ve said about each other. But, ultimately, Britain and America are important partners. We don’t know who will be president after November. It is not for us to get involved. It’s for the Americans to choose their president. We then work [together].

In a later interview with LBC, Cameron again claimed the meeting with Trump went well, and he rejected claims that on the same trip he was snubbed by Mike Johnson, the congressional speaker, who declined to meet him. Cameron said they had met on his last visit to Washington.

Cameron was trying to urge Trump and his ally Johnson, who controls business in the House of Representatives, to allow a vote on authorising military aid to Ukraine.

On LBC Cameron said Johnson and Trump held a meeting at the weekend. He went on:

Obviously it’s American politics, and one shouldn’t get too involved, but it sounded to me as if they are they’re thinking about how to turn that money from America to Ukraine that’s so vital, perhaps to turn it into a loan rather than a grant. And that, to me looked like good progress.

So we’ll keep pushing for that. Because in terms of helping Ukraine, there are lots of things they need, but actually nothing is more important, more important right now, than America doing what Europe have done, what we’ve done, which is providing that funding to keep them in the fight and push back against Russia, so over time they can be victorious and achieve a just peace.

Rishi Sunak is likely to face renewed calls in the Commons afternoon to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group. Some Conservative MPs have been pushing for this for some time and only last week Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, made the case for this publicly again.

Last week I visited Israel’s northern border with Lebanon where Iran-backed Hezbollah fires daily rockets into Israel & threatens its people.

Iran’s IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) also poses a daily risk to public safety & national security in the UK

That’s why the UK government must proscribe the IRGC-the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism - & take robust steps to protect the British people.

This is how we tackle extremism & the risk of terrorism in the UK.

I’ve called for this repeatedly.

It’s beyond time for action. 2/2

But, in his LBC interview this morning, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, played down the need for this. The IRGC is a state body and proscribing it as a terrorist group would probably lead to diplomatic relations being broken off. Cameron told LBC:

We recognise what a dangerous organisation it is. We have sanctioned it in its entirety. We put in place a whole sanctions regime before the end of last year to do more of this work.

I keep this under review. But the police and our intelligence services say they have the powers already to deal with IRGC action, either here or elsewhere.

And I’d make this additional point, which is I can’t pretend the diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran are in a very good state. Of course they aren’t. But, nonetheless, having those diplomatic relations means that we can deliver a direct message to the Iranians, as I’ve done speaking to the Iranian foreign minister twice in the last seven days.

I don’t have to ask my French counterpart or my German counterpart to pass a message on behalf of Britain. I think it’s in Britain’s interest, it makes Britain stronger and more able, if we’re able to have those direct conversations and direct messages to the Iranians. And I think we should keep it that way.

Conservative party members are more dissatisfied than ever with Rishi Sunak, a survey for ConservativeHome suggests. In its latest monthly survey, ConHome found that Sunak had a net satisfaction rating of -27.7 (total satisfied with how he’s doing minus total dissatisfied). Only Michael Tomlinson, the illegal migration minister who attends cabinet, is doing worse.

Sunak’s previous worst score on this measure was in December 2023, when he was on -26.5. In early February he was on -18.4 and last month he was on -23.1.

The survey also found a record number of ministers are deemed to be underperforming by members. In its write-up ConHome says:

Last month, we saw an unhappy record broken in the history of the Cabinet League Table with 11 ministers in negative ratings. Well, turns out that record stood for only a month: this time it’s 12.

At the other end of the scale, Kemi Badenoch has returned to the top spot, from which she was briefly ousted last month by Penny Mordaunt. These two, along with Johnny Mercer, have been swapping places on the podium for five months; the last time anyone else broke into the top three was in our October survey, when James Cleverly topped the poll.

Although it is a survey, not a weighted poll, the results of ConHome surveys of Tory members have turned out to be a reasonably good guide to opinion in the party ahead of leadership elections.

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George Osborne rates David Cameron so highly that, as well as describing him as “acting like the British prime minister” on the world stage (see 9.30am), he even suggested in one recent edition of his Political Currency podcast that Keir Starmer should keep him on as foreign secretary.

A move like that would be unprecedented in recent UK politics, but it happens from time to time in the US. When Barack Obama became president, he retained Robert Gates as his defence secretary even though Gates had worked for his Republican predecessor, George W Bush.

In an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ed Balls, who co-presents Political Currency, asked Cameron about Osborne’s proposal. Cameron ruled it out, saying:

There’s absolutely no prospect of that happening. I’m a Conservative and I’m proud to be working for a Conservative government.

I’m very happy to be serving under Rishi Sunak. I’m a Conservative. I work for Conservative governments. I did lead a coalition government, but that’s as far as I’m taking it.

Good morning. David Cameron, the foreign secretary and former prime minister, has been touring the studios this morning doing an interview round on behalf of No 10. When he made his surprise comeback to cabinet in November last year, there were suggestions that he might be doing quite a lot of this, as a general spokesperson for the government, because he is such a good communicator. But perhaps he’s a bit too good for No 10’s taste. Sunak’s team won’t have been happy about George Osborne, Cameron’s friend and former chancellor, describing him on his podcast recently as “acting like the British prime minister” on the world stage. According to Politico, this is the first time since his appointment Cameron has done a weekday morning broadcast round.

Cameron’s main message has been to urge Israel not to retaliate after the mass missile and drone attack from Iran on Saturday night was repulsed almost entirely. Israel should “take the win”, he said (using President Biden’s phrase). Cameron told Times Radio:

The best thing to do in the case of Israel is to recognise this has been a failure for Iran.

And so they should, as President Biden has said to them, as it were, take the win and then move on to focus on how to eradicate Hamas in Gaza and how to get those hostages free …

I think we have to be sensitive in the way we put this [to Israel], but to say ‘look, you have had a win because the Iran attack was such a failure and the smart thing to do as well as the tough thing to do now is actually not to escalate’.

But most of our coverage of that conflict is on our Middle East crisis live blog. Martin Belam is writing it this morning, and he has more on Cameron’s Israel/Iran words here.

Cameron confirmed that Rishi Sunak will make a statement to MPs about the Israel/Iran situation this afternoon. But he also had some upbeat words for Conservatives about their election prospects. When LBC’s Nick Ferrari put it to him that his record as an election winner made him the equivalent of Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson, and asked if he had any advice for Sunak, whom Ferrari described as the team’s Erik ten Hag, Cameron suggested a Tory recovery was possible.

I prefer to point to the example of Unai Emery for [Aston] Villa yesterday who looked like they were on a losing run against Arsenal and in the last few minutes slotted into two. So anything is possible in football as in politics.

And I will be doing everything I can to help Prime Minister Sunak. He’s a very good boss to have. He’s the brightest person in the room, a brain the size of a planet, works incredibly hard, doing good things for this country at a difficult time. Inflation is coming down, interest rates are falling, taxes are coming down. We’ve got a plan, the other lot haven’t, and I can’t wait to get on the campaign trail.

In a separate interview with Sky News, he refused to say when he thought the election should take place, saying Sunak should call it “whenever he thinks it’s right”.

He also ruled out trying to become prime minister again. Replacing Sunak with Cameron is one of the many improbable/implausible/bonkers ideas floated by Tories a possible survival strategy in recent weeks, but Cameron is not intererested. Asked by Sky’s Kay Burley, in what circumstances he would consider becoming PM again, Cameron replied:

None. I’m not applying for this job [being PM]. I’m very happy to be working as foreign secretary.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: James Cleverly, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

3.30pm: Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, gives evidence to the public accounts committee about the Rwanda scheme.

After 3.30pm: Rishi Sunak makes a statement to MPs about Israel and Iran.

Late afternoon: MPs debate the latest Lords amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

Also, Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, is formally announcing plans to eliminate rough sleeping in the capital.

If you want to contact me, do use the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.

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