Irish writer Paul Lynch wins Booker Prize 2023 with Prophet Song inspired by Syrian War

'This is a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave,' said judge Esi Edugyan

Paul Lynch, author of 'Prophet Song', accepts the 2023 Booker Prize. EPA

Simon Rushton
Nov 26, 2023

Irish writer Paul Lynch won the 2023 Booker Prize on Sunday for his novel Prophet Song, the story of a family and a country on the brink of catastrophe as an imaginary Irish government veers towards tyranny.

Lynch, 46, was presented with his trophy by last year's winner Shehan Karunatilaka, at a ceremony held in London.

The writer, who lives in Dublin, is the fifth Irish author to win the award, worth £50,000 ($63,000) after Dame Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.

The event on Sunday had a keynote speech delivered by Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was released from a prison in Iran last year.

Canadian writer Esi Edugyan, chairwoman the judging panel, said the book was “a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave” in which Lynch “pulls off feats of language that are stunning to witness”.

Ms Edugyan said Lynch’s book “captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment” but also deals with “timeless” themes.

The novel, Lynch's fifth, seeks to show the unrest in western democracies and their indifference towards disasters such as the implosion of Syria.

“From that first knock at the door, Prophet Song forces us out of our complacency as we follow the terrifying plight of a woman seeking to protect her family in an Ireland descending into totalitarianism,” Ms Edugyan said.

'I wanted to deepen the reader's immersion to such a degree,' Lynch said. AFP

Lynch, who was previously the chief film critic of Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper, said he wanted readers to understand totalitarianism by heightening the dystopia with the intense realism of his writing.

“I wanted to deepen the reader's immersion to such a degree that by the end of the book, they would not just know, but feel this problem for themselves,” he said.

Past winners of the Booker, which was first awarded in 1969, include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Yann Martel.

The island of Ireland has had one more Booker win, Northern Irish writer Anna Burns in 2018.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe spoke about reading during her imprisonment in Iran.

“Books helped me to take refuge into the world of others when I was incapable of making one of my own,” she said.

“They salvaged me by being one of the very few tools I had, together with imagination, to escape the Evin [prison] walls without physically moving.”

“One day a cellmate received a book through the post. It was The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, translated into Farsi.

“Who thought a book banned in Iran could find its way to prison through the post? We hid the cover in newspapers to hide it from the camera.”

She said inmates wanted to read the book, as did a guard.

Irish author Paul Lynch wins 2023 Booker Prize

By AFP
November 26, 2023

Irish writter Paul Lynch with his 2023 Booker Prize-winning novel 'Prophet Song'
- Copyright AFP Saidu BAH

Clara LALANNE

Irish author Paul Lynch won the 2023 Booker Prize for fiction on Sunday for his novel “Prophet Song,” a dystopian work about an Ireland that descends into tyranny.

The 46-year-old pipped five other shortlisted novelists to the prestigious award at a ceremony in London

He becomes the fifth Irish writer to win the high-profile literary prize, which has propelled to fame countless household names, including past winners Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel.

“This was not an easy book to write,” Lynch said after collecting his award, which comes with £50,000 (around $63,000) and a huge boost to his profile.

“The rational part of me believed I was dooming my career by writing this novel. Though I had to write the book anyway. We do not have a choice in such matters,” he added.

Lynch’s book is set in Dublin in a near future version of Ireland. It follows the struggles of a mother of four as she tries to save her family from totalitarianism.

There are no paragraph breaks in the novel, which is Lynch’s fifth.

Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, who chaired the five-person judging panel, called the story “a triumph of emotional storytelling, bracing and brave”.

“With great vividness, Prophet Song captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment,” she said.

“Readers will find it soul-shattering and true, and will not soon forget its warnings.”

The Booker is open to works of fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland between October 1, 2022, and September 30, 2023.

– Murdoch, Doyle –

None of this year’s six finalists — which included two Americans, a Canadian, a Kenyan and another Irish author — had been shortlisted before and only one had previously been longlisted.

The shortlisted novels, announced in September, were chosen from a 13-strong longlist that had been whittled down from an initial 158 works.

Among them was Irish author Paul Murray’s “The Bee Sting”, a tragicomic saga which looks at the role of fate in the travails of one family.

Murray was previously longlisted in 2010.

Kenyan writer Chetna Maroo’s moving debut novel “Western Lane” about grief and sisterhood follows the story of a teenage girl for whom squash is life.

The judges also selected “If I Survive You” by US writer Jonathan Escoffery, which follows a Jamaican family and their chaotic new life in Miami.

He was joined by fellow American author, Paul Harding, whose “This Other Eden” — inspired by historical events — tells the story of Apple Island, an enclave off the US coast where society’s misfits flock and build a new home.

Canada was represented on the shortlist in the shape of “Study for Obedience” by Sarah Bernstein. The unsettling novel explores the themes of prejudice and guilt through a suspicious narrator.

The Booker was first awarded in 1969. Last year’s winner was Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka for “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”.

The previous Irish winners are Iris Murdoch, John Banville, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.

Opinion (NOT A REVIEW)

This year's Booker winner is political fiction  at its laziest

Cal Revely-Calder

THE TELEGRAPH

Sun, 26 November 2023 

Showing civilisation on the brink: Paul Lynch - David Levenson/Getty Images Europe

I should have seen this coming. For the last four years, the Booker Prize has alternated between picking the right book and the very wrong. Last year, it went to Shehan Karunatilaka for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, a comic thriller set in Sri Lanka and the afterlife. That novel was a deserving winner, quick-witted and spry in style. According to the pendulum, then, 2023 would go awry.

And so it has. Though the shortlist was the strongest in years, Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song was by some distance the weakest link. In Britain, and his native Ireland, Lynch’s novels are well-regarded, but none of the previous four have been runaway hits. (On the other hand, the Americans admire him, and he’s oddly successful in France.) His style has a self-serious beauteousness; reviewing Prophet Song for this paper, Declan Ryan described it as “darkly lyrical, rich and somewhat stylised”. Several critics have even gestured to Cormac McCarthy, a comparison Lynch must like: he has used the latter’s sparse, magisterial writing for one of this novel’s three epigraphs.

Prophet Song, like some of McCarthy’s work, shows civilisation on the brink. In a totalitarian Ireland – secret police, arbitrary arrest – a molecular biologist, Eilish, loses her husband to the machine. She decides she must rebel, but she’s quickly isolated at work, and when a civil war erupts, her children slip from her control, while the distance to her father, who has dementia and lives across town, becomes a terrifying gulf. The conflict soon reaches Dublin: homes are destroyed, the lines of contact shift, Eilish and co become unmoored.

Booker chair Esi Edugyan said that Prophet Song "forces us out of complacency" - Handout


Lynch has described Prophet Song as allegorical: “Why are we in the West so short on empathy for the refugees flooding towards our borders? [The novel] is partly an attempt at radical empathy.” He wanted to bring the crisis home to the West, and make readers identify with those displaced. Upon his victory, Esi Edugyan, chair of this year’s judges, declared that Prophet Song “forces us out of our complacency” and “captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment”. Readers, she added, “will not soon forget its warnings”.

The problem is how she, and Lynch, imagine political fiction to work. There isn’t much to be gained from slamming morals upon the table. Most people who care about an issue as big as the refugee crisis already know what they think. “That could be me, were I not in the West” is the most basic thought any person can have.

Allegories are hard to craft well, because once they’re solved, the bulk of the text can seem like mere ornament. You can add explosions, and make them exciting, but that’s not the same thing as making them resonate. The purpose of Prophet Song is obvious early, so its success relies on how it’s told; yet Lynch’s prose is undisciplined, overwritten and often illogical, as when Eilish muses on the “easterly breeze blowing cold hell upon Bull Island yet cooling the mind to think”. Nor are the plot and the pacing impressive. Lynch is a film critic too, and it shows. Too many novels wish they were prestige TV scripts; this one thinks it’s in Hollywood.

The disappointment is all the more bitter, because the judges had the opportunity to reward what fiction, and only fiction, can do. They could have gone for Chetna Maroo’s Western Lane, Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You, or Paul Harding’s This Other Eden – all superior books – while I half-expected the winner to be Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, about the disintegration of an Irish family. It has been lavishly overpraised, but in its thematic breadth, physical length and (slightly strained) humour, it was at least obvious “Booker bait”.

Overturning perceptions: Sarah Bernstein's Study for Obedience was a strong contender - Alice Meikle

But I had hoped they would give the Prize to Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein, which – as I wrote last weekend – was my novel of the year. I haven’t believed since 2020, and Shuggie Bain, that someone deserved the Booker more. Study for Obedience and Prophet Song have a similar pivot: an isolated figure, an ambient threat. Bernstein’s novel is about a woman who moves to a “cold and faraway land”; her heritage, which we slowly learn is Jewish, sees the locals react with menace and fear. Her character makes the situation stranger still: she longs to be obedient, subservient, to abnegate her autonomy and dissolve into a group.

She’s no Hollywood heroine, in other words: no solitary figure defying the world. And so much isn’t stated outright; your sympathies keep being unsettled, your perception overturned. What is she thinking, and the locals doing, and what are the desires or hopes or self-loathing beneath it all? Study for Obedience could never be called an allegory – if anything, it’s a rebuke to those who like their stories trite.

The irony, then, is this: the Booker Prize could have gone to a political novel, one that does “force us out of our complacency”, and that represents, per the rubric, “the best sustained work of fiction” this year. It would have been a novel in which politics and fiction were interwoven subtly, and still have me thinking five months on. Yet the judges overlooked it – and, worst of all, on the same terms by which they picked Lynch. Come back next year, I guess.

Global event for young leaders in Belfast with ‘big rebellious spirit’ concludes


Claudia Savage, PA
Thu, 5 October 2023

The 2023 One Young World Summit in Belfast had a “big rebellious spirit”, a delegate has said.

The summit saw thousands of young leaders from more than 190 countries have discussions over three days on the biggest issues affecting humanity.

Delegates listened to speakers including the Queen of Jordan, Sir Bob Geldof, Rio Ferdinand and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.


Between panels, delegates were given the opportunity to network and collaborate on issues including climate change, peace and reconciliation, education, refugee rights and racial justice.

Akanksha Deo Sharma, a One Young World delegate from India, at the summit in Belfast (Claudia Savage/PA)

Akanksha Deo Sharma, from India, said attending the summit had been “life-changing”.

“I think this summit has been very inspirational, very thought-provoking,” she said.

“And what I loved the most was it had an undertone of a very big rebellious spirit, which I really respect.”

She added: “I have heard so many amazing young shapeshifters, change-makers, and the one lesson that I will take is that – you are enough, you can make a change.

“Everybody, no matter if they are one person or an organisation or running a big team. You all have the capability to make change.”

Nothulasizwe Mokoena, a delegate from South Africa, said her time in Belfast had been “mind-provoking”.

Nothulasizwe Mokoena, a One Young World delegate from South Africa (Claudia Savage/PA)

“I found myself thinking deeply about social challenges that I didn’t really think about before the summit,” she said.

“So really mind-provoking and really just mind-blowing. A lot of learning to take home with me to go back and start working and working hard.”

Ms Mokoena said her discussions at the forum gave her a new perspective on how global issues vary from country to country.

“When I came here, I thought we kind of like have the same challenges, but each and every country is actually experiencing different challenges,” she said.

“And what we are experiencing in South Africa is completely different to what they are experiencing in Japan. So we all come in here with different challenges and sharing perspectives, and it has been interesting.”

Ryosuke Bamba, from Japan, waved a Japanese flag as he took pictures with other delegates he had met during the week.

One Young World delegate Ryosuke Bamba, from Japan (Claudia Savage/PA)

“I really enjoyed making that connection and sharing my experiences and the good thing was we inspired each other and I was inspired by working with the delegates,” he said.

Motaz Amer, who is originally from Yemen and is living in Northern Ireland, said the week was “unbelievable and incredible”.

“People from different parts of the world, more than 190 countries, the same place together sharing perspective and experiences. Just a lifetime. Yeah, you cannot find it anywhere else,” he said.

Mr Amer said he had learned to speak some Japanese.

Motaz Amer, who is originally from Yemen and is living in Northern Ireland, at the One Young World summit in Belfast (Claudia Savage/PA)

“Listening is key. Diversity drives innovation, and together we can change the world,” he said.

“We are not the leaders of tomorrow, we are the leaders of today.”

Semiratu Abdallah, from Ghana, works in renewable and green energy.

“The week has been very amazing,” she said.

Delegate Semiratu Abdallah at the summit in Belfast (Claudia Savage/PA)

“It was very enlightening, learning and relearning different things.

“And then the message of hope has been very repeating over everything that I’ve learned and every discussion that I’ve had, so that’s the one thing I’ve taken away from here is the message of hope.”

Rishi Sunak urged to raise India detention of British man

Damian Grammaticas - Political correspondent
Wed, September 6, 2023 

Jagtar Singh Johal (right) arrives at court in India in November 2017

A cross-party group of MPs are calling on Rishi Sunak to intervene in the case of a British man who is facing the death penalty in India.

More than 70 MPs signed a letter urging the PM to call on Narendra Modi to "immediately release" campaigner Jagtar Singh Johal, when he travels to Delhi for the G20 leaders' summit.

They say Mr Johal has been "arbitrarily detained" for over five years.

The PM's spokesperson would not confirm or deny if the case would be raised.

Mr Johal, who is now 36, comes from Dumbarton in Scotland. He was a blogger and campaigner for Sikh human rights, which are said to have brought him to the attention of the Indian authorities.

He travelled to India in October 2017 to get married. The campaign group Reprieve says that while he was out shopping with his wife, he was hooded, bundled into a car by men in plainclothes, "severely tortured", and made to sign blank pieces of paper.

UK accused of tip-off that led to Brit's torture

Scot held in India faces murder conspiracy charge

Brit 'tortured to sign blank confession' in India

Tory MP David Davis told the BBC that "the first duty of a state should be to prevent a citizen getting harmed", and that if a citizen had been harmed and subjected to injustice, "the government should be raising the most serious protests".

He added: "That does not seem to be happening at the moment and that is a failure of the Foreign Office to do its most fundamental duty."

In their letter, the MPs say that "upon his arrest, Jagtar's interrogators electrocuted him, and threatened to douse him in petrol and set him alight. To make the torture stop, Jagtar recorded video statements and signed blank pieces of paper."

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said he had been targeted "because of his activism writing public posts calling for accountability for alleged actions committed against Sikhs by the authorities".

The MPs' letter says the UN Working Group "concluded that Jagtar's continued detention...lacks any legal basis".

Almost six years on, Mr Johal remains in prison in India. He faces eight charges of conspiracy to murder, linked to political violence in India. His family say court proceedings have started but been adjourned repeatedly.

His brother Gurpreet Singh Johal, who is a lawyer and Labour councillor in Dumbarton, told the BBC: "The fear for the family is that false allegations have become false charges, which could become a false conviction and result in the death penalty."

He said both former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Theresa May had discussed the case with India's prime minister, and said "it would be very difficult for Rishi Sunak not to raise the case... if Rishi Sunak doesn't, the question will be 'why didn't you?'.

Gurpreet Singh Johal has criticised the UK government's response to his brother's case

"Given Rishi Sunak has a good relationship with the Indian prime minister it shouldn't be a hard ask. Almost six years have elapsed, no evidence has been produced against Jagtar. These are just charges alleged against him, and it should be innocent until proven guilty."

He added: "It should be very easy to call for Jagtar's release. The UK did it, rightfully so for Nazanin [Zagari-Ratcliffe] and Anousheh [Ashouri] in Iran previously."

Asked if Mr Sunak would raise the case, the prime minister's official spokesperson said: "I am not going to pre-empt what they will or won't discuss."

In response to further questions, the spokesman said the government had raised concerns relating to Jagtar with the Indian government "on more than 100 occasions".

He said they included consular access, judicial process and reports of torture.

He said the family was receiving consular assistance and that Foreign Office Minister Lord Ahmad had met them recently.

However, in a letter sent to Gurpreet Singh Johal in July and seen by the BBC, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said he had decided it was best not to press India over the issue.

Mr Cleverly wrote: "I do not consider that calling for Jagtar's release would result in the Indian authorities releasing him. Indeed I fear this could impact the co-operation we depend on... to conduct consular visits, resolve welfare concerns and attend court hearings."

That has angered both Mr Davis and Mr Johal's family. Gurpreet Singh Johal said: "It's saying basically 'I'm not going to do it and I'd rather have him rot in jail', that's the impression I get."

Mr Davis said it set "a terrible precedent" and "it encourages more governments to be prickly about complaints".

Gurpreet Singh Johal said he believed the UK's reluctance to speak up about the case now was connected to Mr Sunak's desire to sign a trade deal with India.

"Their focus appears to be that India are an up-and-coming country and they want this trade deal signed off with them, and they are putting trade over human rights," he said.

Mr Davis said he was clear a trade deal should come second to legal rights of a British citizen.

He added: "You don't have to be Palmerston to understand that the rights of a British citizen are the paramount concern of a British government and we do not accept torture as the price of a trade deal. Full stop."

BBC Audience Applauds And Cheers After Being Told Boris Johnson Had Resigned

Any Questions presenter Alex Forsyth revealed the breaking news during last night's programme.


Kevin Schofield

HUFFPOST
10/06/2023


The audience at the recording of a BBC radio show burst into applause after being told Boris Johnson had quit as an MP.

‘Any Questions’ presenter Alex Forsyth broke the news during this week’s edition of the Radio Four programme.

She said: “We do record on a Friday evening, it goes out on a Saturday, but I do want to bring you some news that’s just broken on Friday evening, which is that Boris Johnson has resigned as an MP with immediate effect.”

At that point, the audience in Rhosygilwen, Pembrokeshire, began clapping, whistling and cheering loudly for several seconds.

Johnson stunned Westminster by unexpectedly announcing his resignation on Friday evening with a furious blast at the privileges committee investigating whether he lied to parliament over partygate.

The former prime minister said he was the victim of a “witch hunt” and a “kangaroo court”.

He accused the committee - which has a Conservative majority - of trying to “drive me out”, all-but confirming that he has been found guilty and was facing a lengthy suspension from the Commons.

Johnson said: “It is very sad to be leaving parliament, at least for now, but above all I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias.”

The former PM - who resigned in disgrace last year - also took aim at Rishi Sunak’s government, accusing it of destroying his legacy.

He said: “When I left office last year the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened.

“Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk.

“Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.

“We need to show how we are making the most of Brexit and we need in the next months to be setting out a pro-growth and pro-investment agenda. We need to cut business and personal taxes – and not just as pre-election gimmicks – rather than endlessly putting them up.

“We must not be afraid to be a properly Conservative government.”

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigns as MP over 'Partygate' probe

Former prime minister blames a parliamentary probe into the "Partygate" scandal for driving him out

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a confidence vote, on 6 June 2022 (AFP)

By MEE staff
Published date: 9 June 2023 

Britain's former Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday announced his resignation as an MP, accusing a parliamentary probe into the "Partygate" scandal for driving him out.

Johnson, 58, said he was stepping down with immediate effect, "triggering an immediate by-election" in his seat, which heaps political pressure on his successor, Rishi Sunak.

Johnson is currently being investigated by a parliamentary committee over whether he lied to MPs about lockdown-breaching parties at Downing Street.

In the statement, Johnson said he had received a letter from the committee "making it clear – much to my amazement – that they are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of parliament.

"They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons," he said.

Speaking to the committee in March, Johnson denied intentionally misleading parliament.

"I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts the Committee know it," Johnson said in the statement on Friday.

"They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons, I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister," he added.

Johnson said he "corrected the record as soon as possible".

He accused the committee of being a "kangaroo court" and said that its "purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts”.
Political scene

Johnson has loomed large over the UK political scene. During his tenure as prime minister, he oversaw some of the biggest crises to face the country in recent years, primarily the Covid-19 pandemic and the post-Brexit process of decoupling the UK from the European Union.

His last year in office on the foreign policy front was dominated by the war in Ukraine. He positioned himself as a staunch advocate of Kyiv, but he also had some notable Middle East moments.

Is Boris Johnson staging a political comeback?Read More »

Johnson faced criticism from British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe after her release from Iran for responding too slowly to her imprisonment. His government later announced that it had paid a debt owed to Iran dating back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution on the same day Zaghari-Ratcliffe returned to the UK.

While a series of ethics scandals led to Johnson’s downfall as prime minister and now exit from parliament, he also had some Middle East gaffes.

In 2016, Johnson, who often references his Ottoman and Turkish heritage, published a poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he described the Turkish leader as a "wankerer from Ankara" and implied he had sex with goats.

In one of his last foreign engagements before resigning as prime minister, Erdogan jokingly addressed Johnson on video during a Nato summit, saying: "This one is a disgrace to us", apparently in reference to his Turkish heritage. Johnson responded with "very nice, very nice" in Turkish.

Decrying 'witch hunt', Boris Johnson resigns from UK parliament

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves his home in London.
PHOTO: Reuters
PUBLISHED ONJUNE 09, 2023 

LONDON - Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson abruptly quit as a member of parliament on Friday in a furious protest against lawmakers investigating his behaviour, reopening deep divisions in the ruling Conservative Party ahead of a general election expected next year.

Johnson had been under investigation by a parliamentary inquiry looking into whether he misled the House of Commons about lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street during the Covid-19 pandemic.

After Johnson received a confidential letter from the committee, he accused lawmakers investigating him of acting like a "kangaroo court" and being determined to end his political career.

Accusing the committee of mounting a "political hit job", Johnson said in a statement: "I am being forced out by a tiny handful of people, with no evidence to back up their assertions."

Parliament's privileges committee - the main disciplinary body for lawmakers - had the power to recommend Johnson be suspended from parliament. If the suspension is for more than 10 days, voters in his constituency could have demanded he stood for re-election to continue as their representative.

Johnson hinted that he could return to politics, declaring he was leaving parliament "for now".

But the decision to resign may be the end of his 22-year political career, where he rose from parliament to mayor of London and then built a profile that tipped the balance of the 2016 European Union referendum in favour of Brexit.

Johnson, whose premiership was cut short in part by anger in his own party and across Britain over Covid-19 rule-breaking lockdown parties in his Downing Street office and residence, said the committee had not found "a shred of evidence" against him.

"I am not alone in thinking that a witch hunt is underway to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result," he said. "My removal is the necessary first step, and I believe there has been a concerted attempt to bring it about."

The investigation is chaired by a senior Labour Party lawmaker, but the majority of lawmakers on the committee are Conservatives.

The committee said it will meet on Monday (June 12) to conclude its inquiry and will publish its report soon. A spokesperson for the committee said Johnson had "impugned the integrity" of parliament with his resignation statement.

Attack on Sunak

The resignation will trigger a by-election for his constituency in west London. It is the second in a day for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after an ally of Johnson, Nadine Dorries, announced she would step down.

Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the Labour Party, said: "The British public are sick to the back teeth of this never-ending Tory soap opera played out at their expense."

Johnson came to power nearly four years ago, promising to deliver Brexit and rescue it from the bitter wrangling that followed the 2016 referendum. He shrugged off concerns from some fellow Conservatives that his narcissism, failure to deal with details, and a reputation for deceit meant he was unsuitable.

Partygate panel to publish inquiry

report  after Boris Johnson quits as MP

(Victoria Jones/PA)
FRI, 09 JUN, 2023 - 
PATRICK DALY, PA POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

A report into whether Boris Johnson misled MPs over his partygate assurances will be published “promptly” after the former prime minister’s decision to dramatically quit the Commons.

The UK'sCommons Privileges Committee said the cross-party panel of MPs will meet on Monday to complete its inquiry.

It comes after Mr Johnson launched a blistering attack on the Conservative-majority committee, comparing it to a “kangaroo court” and a “witch hunt”, as he announced his intention to stand down as an MP and trigger an immediate by-election.

In a statement, a spokesman said: “The committee has followed the procedures and the mandate of the House at all times and will continue to do so.

“Mr Johnson has departed from the processes of the House and has impugned the integrity of the House by his statement.

“The committee will meet on Monday to conclude the inquiry and to publish its report promptly.”

Mr Johnson had accused the probe, chaired by veteran Labour MP Harriet Harman, of “bias” and suggested it was attempting to use its investigation to “drive me out of Parliament” in a move he said was motivated by a desire to reverse Brexit.

Several reports have suggested the committee had ruled that Mr Johnson did lie to the Commons when he said that covid rules were followed in Downing Street following reports that lockdown-busting parties were held during the pandemic.

Boris Johnson accused Harriet Harman’s committee of ‘bias’ (House of Commons/UK Parliament)

The committee was said to be recommending a 10-day suspension from the Commons, a conclusion which would have resulted in a recall petition among his constituents and a potential by-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

Mhairi Black, SNP deputy Westminster leader, said the former No 10 incumbent “jumped before he was pushed”.

The former Conservative Party leader’s announcement that he was quitting as an MP came only hours after his resignation honours list had been published, in which he gave peerages, knighthoods and damehoods to close allies.

Mr Johnson’s resignation means Rishi Sunak’s Tories face a tough battle to hold onto his old seat at an upcoming by-election.

Polling released by Savanta suggested Labour, which was 7,000 votes behind in second place at the 2019 election in Uxbridge, currently holds a 14-point lead over the Tories in Mr Johnson’s former west London constituency.

Even before Mr Johnson’s decision to stand down, the constituency was already in Labour’s top 100 target seats at the next election, which is expected to be held next year, as Sir Keir Starmer seeks a majority to put him into Downing Street.

The contest was the second by-election triggered on Friday following former culture secretary Nadine Dorries’ decision to quit the Commons immediately, rather than wait until the next election.

Boris Johnson criticised Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s administration in his resignation statement (Danny Lawson/PA)


Mr Johnson said he was “stepping down forthwith” after receiving a letter from Ms Harman’s inquiry setting out its position.

However, he left the door open to making a return to frontline politics, saying he was leaving Parliament “for now”.

In a scathing attack on the Privileges Committee, he accused the MPs of producing a yet-to-be-published report “riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice” while providing him with “no formal ability to challenge anything they say”.

“They know that I corrected the record as soon as possible; and they know that I and every other senior official and minister – including the current Prime Minister and then occupant of the same building, Rishi Sunak – believed that we were working lawfully together,” he said.

“I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts the committee know it.”

He said he was “bewildered and appalled” at being “forced out, anti-democratically” by a probe that he claimed had set out from the beginning to “find me guilty, regardless of the facts”.

The Privileges Committee inquiry into Mr Johnson’s partygate comments is made up of seven MPs, with the four Tories – Sir Bernard Jenkin, Sir Charles Walker, Alberto Costa and Andy Carter – holding the majority.

Their inquiry took both written and oral evidence from Mr Johnson, along with other witnesses, with the former British leader giving testimony during a lengthy session held in March.

Boris Johnson pictured giving evidence to the Privileges Committee in March (House of Commons/UK Parliament)

In his resignation statement, Mr Johnson was also critical of Mr Sunak’s administration, questioning the decision to increase taxes and abandoning the prospect of a free trade deal with the US.

But he said the Tory Party has the “time to recover its mojo and its ambition and to win the next election”.

Mr Johnson became prime minister four years after returning as an MP, having stood down as MP for Henley in 2008 after being elected mayor of London, replacing Theresa May in Downing Street in 2019.

His landslide election victory at that year’s snap winter general election allowed him to deliver on taking the UK out of the European Union.

Mr Johnson left office in September after repeated scandals including the partygate row over lockdown breaches in Downing Street, the Owen Paterson lobbying affair and his handling of complaints against former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher.

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said the British public was “sick to the back teeth of this never ending Tory soap opera played out at their expense” as she urged voters to “turn the page with a fresh start” under a Labour government.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said it was “good riddance” to Mr Johnson.

UK: Boris Johnson quits as lawmaker after being told he will be sanctioned for misleading Parliament

Johnson accused the Commons inquiry of attempting to "drive me out"

 By PTI Updated: June 10, 2023

Boris Johnson | Reuters

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has shocked the nation by abruptly quitting as a member of the parliament after being told by a parliamentary committee that he will be sanctioned for misleading Parliament over lockdown-breaking parties at Downing street during his premiership.

Johnson, 58, had been under investigation by a parliamentary inquiry looking into whether he misled the House of Commons about lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Johnson's decision came on Friday as he received a confidential letter from the MP-led privileges Committee over the crucial matter.

Johnson accused the Commons inquiry of attempting to "drive me out". In a statement he said: "They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons."

Earlier on Friday, he received a copy of the yet-to-be-published report, which he claimed was "riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice".

In evidence given to the Privileges Committee in March, Johnson admitted misleading Parliament, but denied doing it on purpose. He said social distancing had not been "perfect" at gatherings in Downing Street during COVID lockdowns.

But he said they were "essential" work events, which he claimed were allowed. He insisted the guidelines - as he understood them - were followed at all times.

Announcing he would step down, Johnson issued a lengthy statement in which he said: "I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts the committee know it."

"They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister," he said. Johnson said he corrected the record as soon as possible, and claimed committee members "know that".

He said the "current prime minister and then occupant of the same building, Rishi Sunak" also believed they were "working lawfully together". Johnson condemned the committee as a "kangaroo court", and claimed that its "purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts".

Johnson's departure from political life comes less than four years after he won an 80-seat political majority and nine months after he stood down as prime minister after a police fine for breaking his own COVID rules.

In his statement, Johnson hit out at political enemies for targeting him after he was shown the privileges committee findings against him earlier this week.

"It is very sad to be leaving parliament at least for now but above all I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by [the Labour MP] Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias," he said.

The resignation will trigger an immediate by-election in Johnson's Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency. It was the second in a day for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak after Nadine Dorries resigned as MP for Mid Bedfordshire after her inclusion on Johnson's peerage list was blocked.

Labour sources view both the seats as winnable.

Boris Johnson's resignation statement in full as he quits as MP

The former PM suggested he was the victim of a 'witch hunt' as he criticised the Privileges Committee investigating him.

Boris Johnson will step down as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. / PA

Political Correspondent Harry Horton reports on the latest as Boris Johnson resigns from Parliament

Boris Johnson has announced his resignation as an MP after receiving the findings of a report by the Privileges Committee investigating him over the Partygate scandal.

In a lengthy resignation speech, the former prime minister said the panel was “determined” to use proceedings to drive him out of Parliament.

It comes hours after the approval of Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list and the resignation of former Cabinet member Nadine Dorries.

Here is Mr Johnson’s resignation speech in full:

“I have received a letter from the Privileges Committee making it clear – much to my amazement – that they are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of Parliament.

“They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.

“They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister.

“They know that I corrected the record as soon as possible; and they know that I and every other senior official and minister – including the current Prime Minister and then occupant of the same building, Rishi Sunak – believed that we were working lawfully together.

“I have been an MP since 2001. I take my responsibilities seriously.

I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts the Committee know it.

“But they have wilfully chosen to ignore the truth because from the outset their purpose has not been to discover the truth, or genuinely to understand what was in my mind when I spoke in the Commons.

“Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court.

“Most members of the Committee – especially the chair – had already expressed deeply prejudicial remarks about my guilt before they had even seen the evidence. They should have recused themselves.

“In retrospect it was naive and trusting of me to think that these proceedings could be remotely useful or fair.

“But I was determined to believe in the system, and in justice, and to vindicate what I knew to be the truth.

“It was the same faith in the impartiality of our systems that led me to commission Sue Gray. It is clear that my faith has been misplaced.

“Of course, it suits the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the SNP to do whatever they can to remove me from parliament.

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. / Credit: PA

“Sadly, as we saw in July last year, there are currently some Tory MPs who share that view.

“I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result.

“My removal is the necessary first step, and I believe there has been a concerted attempt to bring it about. I am afraid I no longer believe that it is any coincidence that Sue Gray – who investigated gatherings in Number 10 – is now the chief of staff designate of the Labour leader.

“Nor do I believe that it is any coincidence that her supposedly impartial chief counsel, Daniel Stilitz KC, turned out to be a strong Labour supporter who repeatedly tweeted personal attacks on me and the government.

“When I left office last year the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened.

“Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk.

“Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.

“We need to show how we are making the most of Brexit and we need in the next months to be setting out a pro-growth and pro-investment agenda.

“We need to cut business and personal taxes – and not just as pre-election gimmicks – rather than endlessly putting them up. We must not be afraid to be a properly Conservative government.

“Why have we so passively abandoned the prospect of a Free Trade Deal with the US? Why have we junked measures to help people into housing or to scrap EU directives or to promote animal welfare?

“We need to deliver on the 2019 manifesto, which was endorsed by 14 million people. We should remember that more than 17 million voted for Brexit.

“I am now being forced out of Parliament by a tiny handful of people, with no evidence to back up their assertions, and without the approval even of Conservative party members let alone the wider electorate.

Johnson accused the Privileges Committee of a politically motivated ‘witch hunt’ to drive him out. / Credit: Andrew Boyers/PA

“I believe that a dangerous and unsettling precedent is being set.

The Conservative Party has the time to recover its mojo and its ambition and to win the next election.

“I had looked forward to providing enthusiastic support as a backbench MP. Harriet Harman’s committee has set out to make that objective completely untenable.

“The Committee’s report is riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice but under their absurd and unjust process I have no formal ability to challenge anything they say.

“The Privileges Committee is there to protect the privileges of parliament. That is a very important job.

“They should not be using their powers – which have only been very recently designed – to mount what is plainly a political hit-job on someone they oppose.

“It is in no-one’s interest, however, that the process the Committee has launched should continue for a single day further.

“So I have today written to my Association in Uxbridge and South Ruislip to say that I am stepping down forthwith and triggering an immediate by-election.

“I am very sorry to leave my wonderful constituency. It has been a huge honour to serve them, both as Mayor and MP.

“But I am proud that after what is cumulatively a 15-year stint I have helped to deliver among other things a vast new railway in the Elizabeth Line and full funding for a wonderful new state of the art hospital for Hillingdon, where enabling works have already begun.

“I also remain hugely proud of all that we achieved in my time in office as prime minister: getting Brexit done, winning the biggest majority for 40 years and delivering the fastest vaccine rollout of any major European country, as well as leading global support for Ukraine.

“It is very sad to be leaving Parliament – at least for now – but above all I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias.”

‘Loss for Iran’s wildlife’: woman jailed in Tehran calls for environmentalists’ release

Seven environmentalists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation remain in jail in Iran. Photograph: Handout

Aras Amiri, a British Council employee, was held in Evin prison with seven members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation

Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor

THE GUARDIAN

Thu 1 Jun 2023 00.01 BST

Aras Amiri has kept a low profile since she was released from Iranian detention two years ago, avoiding interview requests after returning to the UK. But now, the British Council employee, who spent three years in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, wants to speak. An injustice has compelled her: the detention of seven friends and environmentalists she left behind.

Kept in solitary confinement for 69 days, Amiri was allowed to return to Britain after serving just under a third of a 10-year prison sentence. In the women’s ward, she not only met fellow British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, but Niloufar Bayani and Sepideh Kashani, two of the seven members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation in jail since 2018. Of the nine originally jailed, one has been released after serving his two-year sentence and another, the founder of the group, Kavous Seyed Emami, died in his prison cell only two weeks after his arrest. The authorities called it suicide, but produced no autopsy.

Aras Amiri spent three years in prison in Tehran, where she was confined with the group of environmentalists. Photograph: Family photo.

Amiri said she had previously turned down interview requests because she finds newspaper framing of Iranian prisoners reductionist and populist. But the only crime of her environmentalist friends, she said, had been to try to save nature from extinction.

“They are so close to my heart,” she said. “Can you imagine these people were always under the sky and now, for such a long time, being in a confined space? Lack of freedom is very difficult for anyone, but maybe for those that are used to living in nature, it is made harder.”

Amiri said she learned about Iran’s environment and wildlife through conversations with them in prison, where they held informal workshops for the detainees. “They made prison a better place just by their presence,” she said.

“They always taught if you want to do conservation in a sustainable way, you need local people to trust you so that they continue to support the work, and that applies to conserving the Asiatic cheetah, or dolphins in Qeshm Island, or wild sheep in Larestan, or the Iranian leopard in Golestan national park,” said Amiri. “What makes it more appalling is that the more their imprisonment is prolonged, the greater there is an irreversible loss for Iran’s wildlife, and Iran’s wildlife is also the world’s wildlife.”

For World Environment Day on 5 June, Amiri has helped organise an event at which leading environmentalists will pay tribute to the importance of the group’s work, and again call for their release.

Dr Christian Walzer, now director of health at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, who has worked with members of the Iranian group since 2007, said they were “really instrumental” in work to get the near-extinct Asiatic cheetahs defined as a distinct subspecies and to get collars on the animals to track their movement across huge areas.

Unfenced roads, drought, the decreasing population of the prey species, and habitat loss have all led to the decline to as few as 12 Asiatic cheetahs, although Walzer said the precise data was unclear. In March, a female cheetah pregnant with three cubs was killed by a car. Walzer said since the group’s arrest, international cooperation with Iran had withered.

Asked why this group was targeted, he said: “It is incomprehensible. … Putting up camera traps [treated as espionage by their accusers] is standard practice all over the world. We might talk about politics, but just as normal chit-chat. They would talk about rock climbing or fixing Land Cruisers so we could chase animals.”

The imprisoned environmentalists were involved in work to save the endangered Asiatic cheetah. 

Photograph: Houman Jowkar

If there was anything distinctive about the group, it was that some members, such as Morad Tahbaz, a British-Iranian-American trinational, had international connections.

Asked why they were arrested, Amiri said: “Everyone has their own reading. Often stopping the exploitation of nature conflicts with those in power, including governments and big corporations. This is true in Iran and elsewhere ... It is hard to find a direct logic. Sometimes it can be random: perhaps it is to create fear.”

Homan Jowkar, one of the group of seven members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation imprisoned in Iran, with a Persian leopard. Photograph: Houman Jowkar

But Amiri cannot understand why the group has been treated so harshly, even by the standards of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Two weeks of solitary confinement is difficult, she knows from her own experience, so two years is unimaginable. One of the prisoners, Bayani, sent a letter detailing the interrogation techniques used against her, including sexual threats and warnings that she would end up dead.

Amiri was arrested after she had flown to see her grandmother, who was in a coma in Tehran. She was charged with forming a group to subvert the regime. She said all her work at the British Council had focused on fostering knowledge of Iranian art and artists in the UK. “It was transparent, and agreed with the foreign ministry.” Despite living in the UK since the late 80s, she had an Iranian passport, and chose not to campaign for her release in the UK, hoping discreet lobbying by her family would make the judiciary grant her appeal.

“The principle for me was not to collaborate if I could tolerate the pressure. It is hard if the threats are to your life and people that you know and love,” she said. “The interrogators know their job very well.”

Actor Nazanin Boniadi asks world to back Iran women protests


Wed, March 8, 2023



ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Actor Nazanin Boniadi on Wednesday urged the world to back the protests in her native Iran calling for women's rights and political change, saying despots fear nothing "more than a free and politically active woman.”

Speaking on the sidelines of the Forbes 30/50 Summit in Abu Dhabi, Boniadi told The Associated Press that she hopes people will sign a petition she's supporting accusing Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and Iran of committing “gender apartheid” with their policies targeting women.

“These systems of oppressing women, of dehumanizing women, are based on strengthening and keeping these entrenched systems of power in place," she said. "So we have to legally recognize this as gender apartheid in order to be able to overcome it.”

Boniadi, who as a young child left Tehran with her family for England following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has used her fame as an actor in the series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” on Amazon Prime and in roles in feature films to highlight what's happening back in Iran.

Since September, Iran has faced mass protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being detained by the country's morality police. In the time since, activists say over 500 people have been killed and more than 19,000 others detained in a security force crackdown.

“The thing that is unprecedented is we’re seeing 12-year-old girls, schoolgirls, come out into the streets saying, 'We don’t want an Islamic Republic," Boniadi said. "The courage that takes is astounding. And that courage has been contagious.”

However, recent months have seen suspected poisonings at girls' schools in the country. While details remain difficult to ascertain, the group Human Rights Activists in Iran says at least 290 suspected school poisonings have happened over recent months, with at least 7,060 students claiming to be affected.

It remains unclear what chemical might have been used, if any. No one has claimed the attacks and authorities have not identified any suspects. Unlike neighboring Afghanistan, Iran has no recent history of religious extremists targeting girls’ education. However, some activists worry extremists might be poisoning girls to keep them out of school.

“The thing that ties us together is that (with) dictators and despots, there’s nothing that they fear more than a free and politically active woman. And so that’s why the crackdowns exist today in Iran ... as you’re seeing with the chemical attacks on schoolgirls."

She added: "We have to come together. We have to unite. We have to find a way forward and end these atrocities against women.”

___

Follow Malak Harb on Twitter at www.twitter.com/malakharb.

Malak Harb, The Associated Press