What the UK general election might mean for the Middle East 

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, soaked in rain, stands at a lecturn as he delivers a speech to announce July 4 as the date of the UK’s general election. (File/AFP)
Short Url
Updated 03 July 2024
Follow

What the UK general election might mean for the Middle East 

  • Perceived inaction on Gaza has hung over the election contest between Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer
  • If the polls prove correct and Labour sweeps to power, analysts predict a far closer UK-Gulf relationship

LONDON: It was clear from the moment that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stood outside 10 Downing Street on May 22 and announced that he was calling a snap general election that the next six weeks would not go well for his ruling Conservative party.

For many, the raincloud that burst over Sunak’s head as he spoke seemed to sum up the past 14 years, which, riven by factional infighting, saw no fewer than four leaders in the eight years since Theresa May succeeded David Cameron in 2016.

Adding to the comedy of the moment was the soundtrack to the announcement, courtesy of a protester at the gates of Downing Street, whose sound system was blasting out the ’90s pop hit “Things Can Only Get Better” — the theme tune of Labour’s 1997 election victory.




Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak delivers a speech at a Conservative Party campaign event at the National Army Museum in London. (File/AP)

Headline writers were spoiled for choice. Contenders included “Drown and out,” “Drowning Street” and — probably the winner — “Things can only get wetter.” That last one was also prescient. 

In theory, under the rules governing general elections, Sunak need not have gone to the country until December. The reality, however, was that both Sunak and his party were already trailing badly in the polls and the consensus at Conservative HQ was that things could only get worse.

As if to prove the point, in one early Conservative campaign video, the British Union Flag was flown upside down. A series of mishaps and scandals followed, with some Conservative MPs found to have been betting against themselves and the party.




Former British PM Boris Johnson gestures as he endorses British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at a campaign event in London, Britain, July 2, 2024. (Reuters)

Judging by the steady slide in support for the government, the electorate has neither forgotten nor forgiven the chaos of the Boris Johnson years, typified by the illegal drinks parties held in Downing Street while the rest of the nation was locked down during COVID-19 restrictions.

Nor has the electorate forgotten the failure to deliver on the great promises of Brexit, the shock to the UK economy delivered by the 44-day premiership of Liz Truss, and the inability of the government to control the UK’s borders — which was, after all, the chief reason for leaving the EU.

On the day the election was announced, a seven-day average of polls showed Labour had twice as much support as the Conservatives — 45 percent to 23 percent.

Compounding the government’s woes was the rise of Reform UK, the populist right-wing party making gains thanks largely to the failure of Sunak’s pledge to reduce immigration and “stop the boats” carrying illegal migrants across the English Channel.

On 11 percent, Reform had overtaken the Lib Dems, Britain’s traditional third-placed party, and the vast majority of the votes it seemed certain to hoover up would be those of disenchanted Conservative voters.

By the eve of today’s election, a poll of 18 polls carried out in the seven days to July 2 showed Labour’s lead had eased only very slightly, to 40 percent against the Conservatives’ 21 percent, with Reform up to 16 percent.




Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and Britain’s Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak attend a live TV debate, hosted by the BBC. (File/AFP)

On Wednesday, a final YouGov poll on the eve of voting predicted that Labour would win 431 seats, while the Conservatives would return to the new parliament on July 9 with only 102 MPs — less than a third of the 365 seats they won in 2019.

If this proves to be the case, Starmer would have a majority of 212, not only bigger than Tony Blair’s in 1997, but also the strongest performance in an election by any party since 1832.

After the polls close tonight at 10pm, there is a very good chance that Sunak may even lose his own seat, the constituency of Richmond and Northallerton, which the Conservatives have held for 114 years.

Either way, the Conservative party will be thrust into further turmoil as the battle begins to select the party’s next leader who, as many commentators are predicting, can look forward to at least a decade in opposition.




Reform UK leader Nigel Farage scratches his head as he delivers a speech during the “Rally for Reform” at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. (File/AFP)

The return of Labour, a completely regenerated party after 14 years in the wilderness, is likely to be good news for Britain’s relationships in the Middle East, as Arab News columnist Muddassar Ahmed predicted this week.

Distracted by one domestic or internal crisis after another, the Conservatives have not only neglected their friends and allies in the region but, in an attempt to stem the loss of its supporters to Reform UK, have also pandered to racial and religious prejudices.

“The horrific scenes unfolding in Gaza, for example, have rocked Muslims worldwide while pitting different faith communities against one another,” Ahmed wrote.




A Palestinian boy who suffers from malnutrition receives care at the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on July 2, 2024. (AFP)

“But instead of working to rebuild the relationships between British Muslims, Jews and Christians, the Conservative government has branded efforts to support Palestinians as little more than insurgent ‘hate marches’ — using the horrific conflict to wedge communities that ought to be allied.”

On the other hand, Labour appears determined to reinvigorate the country’s relationship with a region once central to the UK’s interests.

January this year saw the launch of the Labour Middle East Council (LMEC), founded with “the fundamental goal of cultivating understanding and fostering enduring relationships between UK parliamentarians and the Middle East and North Africa.”

Chaired by Sir William Patey, a former head of the Middle East Department at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and an ambassador to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Sudan, and with an advisory board featuring two other former British ambassadors to the region, the LMEC will be a strong voice whispering in the ear of a Labour government that will be very open to what it has to say.




Britain’s Labour Party leader Keir Starmer speaks on stage at the launch of the party’s manifesto in Manchester, England, Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP)

Writing in The House magazine, Sir William predicted “a paradigm shift in British foreign policy is imminent.”

He added: “As a nation with deep-rooted historical connections to the Middle East, the UK has a unique role to play in fostering a stable and prosperous region.”

The role of the LMEC would be “to harness these connections for a positive future. We will work collaboratively to address pressing global issues, from climate change to technological advancement, ensuring that our approach is always one of respect, partnership, and shared progress.”

David Lammy, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, has already made several visits to the region since Oct. 7. In April he expressed “serious concerns about a breach in international humanitarian law” over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.




Britain’s main opposition Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy addresses delegates at the annual Labour Party conference in Liverpool. (File/AFP)

It was, he added, “important to reaffirm that a life lost is a life lost whether that is a Muslim or a Jew.” In May, Lammy called for the UK to pause arms sales to Israel.

In opposition, Labour has hesitated to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, but this has been a product of its own internal and domestic tensions. Starmer has brought the party back on track after years of accusations by UK Jewish activist groups that under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn it was fundamentally antisemitic.

Whether the charges were true, or whether the party’s staunch support of the Palestinian cause was misrepresented as antisemitism, was a moot point. Starmer knew that, in the run-up to a general election, this was hard-won ground that he could not afford to lose.

Nevertheless, even as he has alienated some Muslim communities in the UK for his failure to call for a ceasefire, he has spoken out repeatedly against the horrors that have unfolded in Gaza.




A protester looks on in Parliament Square, central London, on June 8, 2024 at the end of the “National March for Gaza”. (File/AFP) 

Crucially, he has consistently backed the two-state solution, and the creation of “a viable Palestinian state where the Palestinian people and their children enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that we all take for granted.”

In broader terms, Lammy has also made clear that Labour intends to re-engage with the Middle East through a new policy of what he called “progressive realism.”

Less than a week before Sunak called his surprise general election, Lammy spoke of the need for the UK to mend relations with the Gulf states, which he saw as “hugely important for security in the Middle East” and “important in relation to our economic growth missions.”

Because of missteps by the Conservative government, he added, relations between the UAE and the UK, for example, were at “an all-time low. That is not acceptable and not in the UK’s national interests (and) we will seek to repair that.”

In an article he wrote for Foreign Affairs magazine, Lammy went further.

China, he said, was not the world’s only rising power, and “a broadening group of states — including Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — have claimed seats at the table. They and others have the power to shape their regional environments, and they ignore the EU, the UK, and the US ever more frequently.”

Lammy expressed regret for “the chaotic Western military interventions during the first decades of this century,” in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, which had proved to be a “recipe for disorder.”

As shadow foreign secretary, he has traveled extensively across the MENA region, to countries including Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, the UAE, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

All, he wrote, “will be vital partners for the UK in this decade, not least as the country seeks to reconstruct Gaza and — as soon as possible — realize a two-state solution.”

For many regional observers, Labour is starting with a clean sheet, but has much to prove.

“It is an acknowledged fact among scholars that foreign policies don’t radically change after elections,” Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, professor in global thought and comparative philosophies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, told Arab News.

“Therefore, I don’t expect major shifts once Labour forms the government in the UK.

“That said, the composition of the Labour party and its ‘backbench’ politics are likely to shift the language and probably even the code of conduct, in particular with reference to the question of Palestine. For a Labour leader it may be that much more difficult to be agnostic about the horrific human rights situation in Gaza.”




Displaced Palestinians flee after the Israeli army issued a new evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis and Rafah on July 2, 2024. (AFP)

For political analysts advising international clients, however, the implications of a Labour victory extend beyond the situation in Gaza.

“In an attempt to secure political longevity, the party will renegotiate key policy priorities in the Middle East,” said Kasturi Mishra, a political consultant at Hardcastle, a global advisory firm that has been closely following the foreign policy implications of the UK election for its clients in business and international politics.

“This could include calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, ending arms sales to Israel, reviving trade and diplomacy with the Gulf states and increasing the UK’s defense spending in the region,” Mishra told Arab News.

“This renegotiation is important at a time when the UK finds itself increasingly uncertain of its global position.




Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan meets with Shadow Foreign Secretary of the British Labor Party David Lammy on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue 2023 held in Bahrain. (SPA)

“The Middle East has significant geopolitical and security implications for the West. Labour policy-makers recognize this and are likely to deepen British engagement with the region to reshape its soft power and influence.”

Mishra highlighted Lammy’s multiple trips to the region as a foretaste of a Labour’s intention to strengthen ties with the Gulf states, “which have been neglected in post-Brexit Britain. 

“Given the influential role of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar in regional security and the potential to collaborate with them on climate mitigation and other international issues, it is clear that he will seek to forge partnerships.

“His doctrine of progressive realism combines a values-based world order with pragmatism. It is expected that he will favor personalized diplomacy, more akin to that of the UAE, India and France.”

 


Indonesia volcano belches colossal ash tower

Updated 44 min 16 sec ago
Follow

Indonesia volcano belches colossal ash tower

  • Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupted on Monday and Tuesday, killing nine people and forcing the relocation of residents
  • Laki-Laki, which means ‘man’ in Indonesian, is twinned with a calmer volcano named after the Indonesian word for ‘woman’

EAST FLORES, Indonesia: A volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted more than half a dozen times on Thursday, catapulting a colossal ash tower five miles into the sky against a backdrop of lightning as nearby residents fled in panic.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupted on Monday and Tuesday, killing nine people and forcing the relocation of residents from a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) exclusion zone.
The country’s volcanology agency reported seven eruptions on Thursday, the biggest of which belched an ash tower five miles (eight kilometers) high, according to an observation post.
Some said it was the biggest eruption they had ever seen from Lewotobi Laki-Laki.
“This is the first time I saw this big eruption since I’ve been living in Lewolaga village,” said Anastasia Adriyani, 41, who lives outside the exclusion zone.
“I was cooking at the community kitchen (for evacuees) and when it happened, I ran back home. I was very scared.”
Officials have raised the alert level for the 1,703-meter (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores to the highest level.
There were no immediate reports of damage to nearby villages from Thursday’s fresh eruptions.
But residents and schoolchildren were seen running from their homes, according to an AFP journalist, who added volcanic lightning was also seen.
Locals at a temporary shelter were anxious as the latest eruptions rumbled on Thursday morning.
“It is sad to think of our village, and we are also panicked seeing the continuous eruptions. Since last night and this morning, we’re still worried,” said evacuee Antonius Puka, 56.
Laki-Laki, which means “man” in Indonesian, is twinned with a calmer volcano named after the Indonesian word for “woman.”
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”


Joe Biden gets blamed by Harris allies for the vice president’s resounding loss

Updated 07 November 2024
Follow

Joe Biden gets blamed by Harris allies for the vice president’s resounding loss

  • Biden is set to deliver a Rose Garden address Thursday about the election

WASHINGTON: Joe Biden’s name wasn’t on the ballot, but history will likely remember Kamala Harris’ resounding defeat as his loss too.
As Democrats pick up the pieces following President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory, some of the vice president’s backers are expressing frustration that Biden’s decision to seek reelection until this summer — despite longstanding voter concerns about his age and unease about post-pandemic inflation as well as the US-Mexico border — all but sealed his party’s loss of the White House.
“The biggest onus of this loss is on President Biden,” said Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden in 2020 for the Democratic nomination and endorsed Harris’ unsuccessful run. “If he had stepped down in January instead of July, we may be in a very different place.”
Biden will leave office after leading the US out of the worst pandemic in a century, galvanizing international support for Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion and passing a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that will impact communities for years to come.
But having run four years ago against Trump to “restore the soul of the country,” Biden will make way after just one term for his immediate predecessor, who overcame two impeachments, a felony conviction and an insurrection launched by his supporters. Trump has vowed to radically reshape the federal government and roll back many of Biden’s priorities.
“Maybe in 20 or 30 years, history will remember Biden for some of these achievements,” said Thom Reilly, co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University. “But in the shorter term, I don’t know he escapes the legacy of being the president who beat Donald Trump only to usher in another Donald Trump administration four years later.”
The president on Wednesday stayed out of sight for the second straight day, making congratulatory calls to Democratic lawmakers who won downballot races as well as one to Trump, who he invited for a White House meeting that the president-elect accepted.
Biden is set to deliver a Rose Garden address Thursday about the election. He issued a statement shortly after Harris delivered her concession speech on Wednesday, praising Harris for running an “historic campaign” under “extraordinary circumstances.”
Some high-ranking Democrats, including three advisers to the Harris campaign, expressed deep frustration with Biden for failing to recognize earlier in the election cycle that he was not up to the challenge. The advisers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Biden, 81, ended his reelection campaign in July, weeks after an abysmal debate performance sent his party into a spiral and raised questions about whether he still had the mental acuity and stamina to serve as a credible nominee.
But polling long beforehand showed that many Americans worried about his age. Some 77 percent of Americans said in August 2023 that Biden was too old to be effective for four more years, according to a poll by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs.
The president bowed out on July 21 after getting not-so-subtle nudges from Democratic Party powers, including former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He endorsed Harris and handed over his campaign operation to her.
Harris managed to spur far greater enthusiasm than Biden was generating from the party’s base. But she struggled to distinguish how her administration would differ from Biden’s.
Appearing on ABC’s “The View” in September, Harris was not able to identify a decision where she would have separated herself from Biden. “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” Harris said, giving the Trump campaign a sound bite it replayed through Election Day.
The strategists advising the Harris campaign said the compressed campaign timetable made it even more difficult for Harris to differentiate herself from the president.
Had Biden stepped aside early in the year, they said, it would have given Democrats enough time to hold a primary. Going through the paces of an intraparty contest would have forced Harris or another eventual nominee to more aggressively stake out differences with Biden.
The strategists acknowledged that overcoming broad dissatisfaction among the American electorate about rising costs in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and broad concerns about the US immigration system weighed heavy on the minds of voters in key states.
Still, they said that Biden had left Democrats in an untenable place.
Harris senior adviser David Plouffe in a posting on X called it a “devastating loss.” Plouffe didn’t assign blame. He noted the Harris campaign “dug out of a deep hole but not enough.”
At the vice president’s concession speech on Wednesday, some Harris supporters said they wished the vice president had had more time to make her pitch to American voters.
“I think that would have made a huge difference,” said Jerushatalla Pallay, a Howard University student who attended the speech at the center of her campus.
Republicans are poised to control the White House and Senate. Control of the House has yet to be determined.
Matt Bennett, executive vice president at the Democratic-aligned group Third Way, said this moment was the most devastating the party has faced in his lifetime.
“Harris was dealt a really bad hand. Some of it was Biden’s making and some maybe not,” said Bennett, who served as an aide to Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton administration. “Would Democrats fare better if Biden had stepped back earlier? I don’t know if we can say for certain, but it’s a question we’ll be asking ourselves for some time.”


Myanmar junta chief discusses civil war with key ally China

Updated 07 November 2024
Follow

Myanmar junta chief discusses civil war with key ally China

  • Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing says military ready for peace if armed groups would engage
  • Myanmar is a vital part of Beijing’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative

YANGON : Myanmar’s junta chief has held talks with Premier Li Qiang of key ally China on the civil war roiling his country, state media said Thursday, during his first visit to the country since seizing power in a 2021 coup.
Min Aung Hlaing told Li at a meeting in the southwestern city of Kunming that the military was ready for peace if armed groups would engage, according to an account of the meeting in the Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM).
Myanmar has been racked by conflict between the military and various armed groups opposed to its rule since the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021.
The junta is reeling from a major rebel offensive last year that seized a large area of territory, much of it near the border with China.
“The door of peace is always open if they genuinely want peace,” Min Aung Hlaing told Li, according to the GNLM report.
“The armed insurgents should do what needs to be done instead of giving priority to their needs and wishes.”
China has been a major arms supplier to the junta and provided Myanmar with political backing even as other countries shun the generals over their brutal crackdown on dissent.
But Beijing is concerned about the chaos unfolding on its doorstep, in particular the growth of online scam compounds in Myanmar, run by and targeting Chinese citizens.
In its report of the Kunming meeting, on the sidelines of a regional summit, China’s state news agency Xinhua said Li had stressed the need to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and projects in Myanmar.
Last month, a blast targeted the Chinese consulate in Mandalay. There were no casualties but Beijing issued a furious rebuke.
Li did not explicitly back the junta’s approach to the civil war, according to the Xinhua report.
Instead, he told Min Aung Hlaing that China supported Myanmar in “advancing the political reconciliation and transformation.”
Beijing is concerned about the possibility the junta could fall, analysts say, and is suspicious about Western influence among some of the pro-democracy armed groups battling the military.
Myanmar is a vital part of Beijing’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative, with railways and pipelines to link China’s landlocked southwest to the Indian Ocean.


South Korea president says ‘not ruling out’ direct weapons to Ukraine

Updated 07 November 2024
Follow

South Korea president says ‘not ruling out’ direct weapons to Ukraine

  • Yoon also revealed he had discussed North Korea with US president-elect Donald Trump

SEOUL: Major arms exporter South Korea is not ruling out providing weapons directly to Ukraine, President Yoon Suk Yeol said Thursday, signalling a possible shift in Seoul’s stance on the issue.
Yoon also revealed he had discussed North Korea with US president-elect Donald Trump in a phone conversation that laid the groundwork for a meeting in the “near future.”
South Korea has a long-standing policy of not providing weapons to countries in conflict but indicated that could change in light of Pyongyang’s deployment of troops to Russia to aid its war efforts in Ukraine.
“Now, depending on the level of North Korean involvement, we will gradually adjust our support strategy in phases,” Yoon said at a press conference in Seoul.
“This means we are not ruling out the possibility of providing weapons.”
North Korea has become one of the most vocal and important backers of Russia’s full-scale offensive in Ukraine.
Seoul and the West have long accused Pyongyang of supplying artillery shells and missiles to Moscow for use in Ukraine.
The latest accusations, based on intelligence reports, indicate the North has deployed around 10,000 troops to Russia, suggesting even deeper involvement in the conflict and triggering an outcry and warnings in Seoul, Kyiv, and Western capitals.
Yoon said his office would monitor unfolding developments related to the operations of North Korean soldiers, and if he decided to provide weapons to Kyiv, the initial batch would be defensive.
“If we proceed with weapons support, we would prioritize defensive weapons as a first consideration,” he said without elaborating further.
US-Korea relations
In a call with Trump that took place before the press briefing, Yoon said the two men had discussed a number of issues surrounding North Korea while agreeing to a face-to-face meeting.
“We agreed to meet in the near future... I believe there will be an opportunity to meet within this year,” Yoon said.
Among the topics discussed were recent moves by the North, including its sending of trash-carrying balloons southward, he said.
“Regarding North Korea, we addressed issues such as the launching of over 7,000 trash balloons, GPS jamming, and their indiscriminate firing of ICBMs, IRBMs and SRBMs,” Yoon said, referring to a recent flurry of missile tests.
Compared with his dovish predecessor Moon Jae-in, Yoon has taken a tough stance with the nuclear-armed North while improving ties with security ally Washington.
Since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s second summit with then-president Trump collapsed in Hanoi in 2019, Pyongyang has abandoned diplomacy, doubling down on weapons development and rejecting Washington’s offers of talks.
While in office, Trump met with Kim three times, beginning with a landmark summit in Singapore in June 2018, though the pair failed to make much progress on efforts to denuclearise the North.
During the campaign, Trump said: “I think he misses me,” and that it was “nice to get along with somebody that has a lot of nuclear weapons.”
In a commentary released in July, North Korea said that while it was true Trump tried to reflect the “special personal relations” between the heads of states, he “did not bring about any substantial positive change.”


2024 ‘virtually certain’ to be hottest year on record: EU monitor

Updated 07 November 2024
Follow

2024 ‘virtually certain’ to be hottest year on record: EU monitor

  • Copernicus said 2024 would likely be more than 1.55 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average — the period before the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels
  • Scientists say the safer 1.5C limit is rapidly slipping out of reach, while stressing that every tenth of a degree of temperature rise heralds progressively more damaging impacts

PARIS: This year is “virtually certain” to be the hottest in recorded history with warming above 1.5C, EU climate monitor Copernicus said Thursday, days before nations are due to gather for crunch UN climate talks.
The European agency said the world was passing a “new milestone” of temperature records that should serve to accelerate action to cut planet-heating emissions at the UN negotiations in Azerbaijan next week.
Last month, marked by deadly flooding in Spain and Hurricane Milton in the United States, was the second hottest October on record, with average global temperatures second only to the same period in 2023.
Copernicus said 2024 would likely be more than 1.55 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average — the period before the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels.
This does not amount to a breach of the Paris deal, which strives to limit global warming to below 2C and preferably 1.5C, because that is measured over decades and not individual years.
“It is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels,” said Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Deputy Director Samantha Burgess.
“This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29.”

The UN climate negotiations in Azerbaijan, which will set the stage for a new round of crucial carbon-cutting targets, will take place in the wake of the United States election victory by Donald Trump.
Trump, a climate change denier, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement during his first presidency — and while his successor Joe Biden took the United States back in, he has threatened to do so again.
Meanwhile, average global temperatures have reached new peaks, as have concentrations of planet-heating gases in the atmosphere.
Scientists say the safer 1.5C limit is rapidly slipping out of reach, while stressing that every tenth of a degree of temperature rise heralds progressively more damaging impacts.
Last month the UN said the current pace of climate action would result in a catastrophic 3.1C of warming this century, while all current climate pledges taken in full would still amount to a devastating 2.6C temperature rise.
Global warming is not just about rising temperatures, but the knock-on effect of all the extra heat in the atmosphere and seas.
Warmer air can hold more water vapor, and warmer oceans mean greater evaporation, resulting in more intense downpours and storms.
In a month of weather extremes, October saw above-average rainfall across swathes of Europe, as well as parts of China, the US, Brazil and Australia, Copernicus said.
The US is also experiencing ongoing drought, which affected record numbers of people, the EU monitor added.
Copernicus said average sea surface temperatures in the area it monitors were the second highest on record for the month of October.
C3S uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its calculations.
Copernicus records go back to 1940 but other sources of climate data such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much deeper in the past.
Climate scientists say the period being lived through right now is likely the warmest the earth has been for the last 100,000 years, back at the start of the last Ice Age.