Call to back Rishi Sunak on NI protocol deal amid fears ministers may quit

Senior Brexiter Maria Caulfield says PM must be given ‘time and space’ to conclude talks with EU

A senior Brexiter minister has urged colleagues to give Rishi Sunak “time and space” to finish negotiations with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol, as warnings grew of potential ministerial resignations.

Sunak has been told he is facing the possibility ministers may quit if his deal does not significantly rewrite the protocol or remove any powers for the European court of justice.

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Government to hold new talks with EU on NI protocol ‘in coming days’, says foreign secretary – as it happened

James Cleverly’s comments come after No 10 said ‘no deal has been done as yet’

James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, will discuss the Northern Ireland protocol in a call with the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič this afternoon, PA Media reports. They will be joined by the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, amid expectations both sides are inching closer to a deal.

Micheál Martin, the Irish foreign minister and tánaiste (deputy PM), has urged UK politicians not to play politics with the Northern Ireland protocol negotiations. Speaking in Brussels, where he has been attending the EU foreign affairs council, he said:

I think what’s very important is that everybody now from here on think about the people of Northern Ireland.

Not power play, not politics elsewhere, I think the people of Northern Ireland have had enough of that, of people playing politics with their future. And, in my view, my only concern is that the people of Northern Ireland voted [in last May’s assembly election], they want their institutions [at Stormont] restored.

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Suella Braverman hints at opposition to ditching Northern Ireland protocol bill

Home secretary indicates she does not think Rishi Sunak should abandon legislation in seeking deal with EU

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, has hinted Rishi Sunak should not abandon the Northern Ireland protocol bill in his quest for a deal to break the deadlock, as hopes faded that an agreement could be struck by Tuesday.

Braverman, a former chair of the European Research Group (ERG) of hard Brexiters, struck a note of caution about plans to freeze the bill. The legislation would have allowed the UK to unilaterally override the protocol. Sunak is prepared to drop the bill should agreement be reached for changes.

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DUP says ‘progress made but more work needed’ in Northern Ireland protocol talks with Sunak – UK politics live

Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says negotiations should be led by ‘getting it right and not timelines’ as Sinn Féin president says indications are ‘heartening’

Labour will offer Rishi Sunak the additional votes he needs to get a Northern Ireland protocol deal through parliament, the shadow justice secretary has said.

Steve Reed told reporters:

We’ll wait and see what the government is coming forward with. It’s very important for everybody in the United Kingdom that this problem is resolved. It’s a problem that is of this government’s own making, of course.

He added:

We have got the prime minister today in Northern Ireland, we hope with a deal to resolve the issues around the Northern Ireland protocol.

What we do not want to happen is that that self-same prime minister then rips up the Human Rights Act, which underpins the Good Friday agreement, because if he puts peace in Northern Ireland in peril in that way, that is an act of unforgivable irresponsibility for which you would never be forgiven.

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DUP leader keeps hopes of protocol deal on track as he declares ‘progress’ in talks

Jeffrey Donaldson says ‘big moment’ looming in Rishi Sunak’s effort to cut a post-Brexit deal with EU

The Democratic Unionist party has kept on track Rishi Sunak’s attempt to change the Northern Ireland protocol, declaring “progress” in Downing Street’s talks with the EU.

Jeffrey Donaldson said on Friday a “big moment” was looming in the UK’s effort to cut a deal with Brussels over Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland. The DUP leader said his party would withhold judgment on any deal – which is expected next week – until it had seen the text.

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Rishi Sunak travels to Belfast in sign NI protocol deal is imminent

Visit suggests announcement of UK-EU solution on Northern Ireland could come as early as Friday

Rishi Sunak arrived in Belfast on Thursday night, in a sign that a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol is imminent.

The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, will also travel to Brussels on Friday for talks with the European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič.

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Brussels contacts Sweden over plans to deport British woman with Alzheimer’s

Kathleen Poole, who lives in a care home, faces removal for not having post-Brexit paperwork in order

The European Commission has contacted the Swedish authorities after it emerged they were planning to deport a 74-year-old British woman with severe Alzheimer’s because she did not have her post-Brexit paperwork in order.

At the same time, the office of the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, is trying to ascertain the exact circumstances that have led to the removal threat faced by Kathleen Poole, who cannot speak, walk or feed herself and is bedbound in a care home.

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Deal on Northern Ireland protocol ‘could be struck next week’

Negotiations are in crucial final phase with Rishi Sunak preparing to hold calls with EU leaders

Negotiations over the Northern Ireland protocol are in the crucial final phase with a deal possible as early as next week, according to multiple sources.

Rishi Sunak is expected to spend the latter half of the parliamentary recess this week looking at the shape of the deal, with calls pencilled in with EU leaders. However, UK sources stressed that talks were at a delicate phase and there was no guarantee of a final agreement.

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Brexiters claim ‘sellout’ after Tories discuss rapprochement with EU

Nigel Farage, John Redwood and Lord Frost rail against news of senior Tories joining cross-party summit to tackle failings of Brexit

Prominent Brexit supporters have hit out at senior Conservative figures after the Observer revealed they had taken part in a private cross-party summit entitled: “How can we make Brexit work better with our neighbours in Europe?”

John Redwood, the prominent Brexit-supporting Tory MP, and Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence party, criticised those attending the summit at Oxfordshire’s Ditchley Park retreat, including the cabinet minister Michael Gove.

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Brexit is a self-inflicted wound of unparalleled severity | Phillip Inman

Quitting the EU has stalled business investment, making us reliant on workers who are now scarce. Hence rising wages, high inflation and increased interest rates. Result? A looming recession

Whenever Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, talks about the economy, he is forced to mention the toll taken by Brexit.

Business leaders, initially reluctant to criticise the Tory decision to quit the EU, have begun to find their voice. Most recently, leading City figure Guy Hands called Brexit a “complete disaster” and a “bunch of total lies” that has harmed large parts of the economy.

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Revealed: farmers received less than 0.5% of post-Brexit money last year

Agricultural businesses risk closure as figures show government paid only tiny fraction of slashed EU farming subsidies

Cuts to post-Brexit farming payments mean farms risk “going out of business” as new figures reveal only a tiny fraction of slashed EU subsidies went to agriculture businesses last year.

The government is replacing the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which paid subsidies to farmers to keep them in business, with “payments for public goods”, meaning land managers get paid for improving nature.

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PMQs live: Rishi Sunak to face Keir Starmer for first time since cabinet reshuffle

Latest updates: PM, fresh from greeting Zelenskiy at No 10, to face questions from Labour leader and other MPs

Rishi Sunak was at Stansted to welcome President Zelenskiy, he reveals. That explains how they are going to fit in a meeting before PMQs. (See 10.47am.) It is very unusual for a visting leader to be greeted at the airport by the PM. Normally someone more junior is there to do the honours.

To coincide with President Zelenskiy’s visit, the government will today announce further sanctions against Russia, “including the targeting of those who have helped Putin build his personal wealth, and companies who are profiting from the Kremlin’s war machine”. The details are due out later this morning.

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Brexit Northern Ireland protocol is lawful, supreme court rules

Judges reject legal challenge to UK-EU trade arrangements by group of unionist leaders

The Northern Ireland protocol is lawful, the supreme court has ruled, rejecting a legal challenge to the Brexit arrangements by a group of unionist leaders including the former first ministers the late David Trimble and Arlene Foster.

Five law lords presiding in the highest court in the UK unanimously dismissed the appeal on all three grounds including the claims that the Brexit trading arrangements breached the 1800 Act of Union and the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

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Boris Johnson agreed Brexit protocol knowing it was ‘mess’, says John Major

Johnson’s administration made promises over Northern Ireland deal that it knew were unworkable, former PM tells MPs

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John Major has launched a scathing attack on Boris Johnson’s handling of Brexit, saying his administration agreed to the Northern Ireland protocol despite knowing it was unworkable.

“That must be the first agreement in history that was signed by people who decided it was useless in the first place,” Major told a Westminster committee on Tuesday.

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Negotiators make breakthrough in Northern Irish protocol dispute

Agreement on food and animal health checks ‘close to being done’, but no progress on trickier issues

EU and UK negotiators have made a breakthrough in reducing checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as part of efforts to resolve the long-running dispute over the Northern Irish protocol.

A senior EU official confirmed to the Guardian that an agreement on food and animal health checks was “close to being done” as part of a deal that would create red and green lanes at Northern Irish ports to differentiate between goods staying in the region and those moving south to the EU’s single market.

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Wallace and Gromit maker warns UK animators may have to move abroad

Exclusive: head of Aardman studio blames Brexit as UK falls behind on skills and tax relief

The head of Aardman, the Oscar-winning British studio behind Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, has warned that the nation’s animation productions for children’s television will have to be made overseas because acute challenges are taking their toll on the UK sector.

Sean Clarke, Aardman’s managing director, said the company is struggling with everything from serious competition from other countries on tax relief to a dire skills shortage.

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Yes, the mood has shifted against Brexit. But the road back to Brussels is long and hard

Three years on, the reality of the split with the EU has changed minds. But dashed hopes could come to haunt Labour, too

Brexit is three years old and less popular than ever. More people are unhappy with Brexit outcomes to date, and pessimistic about the gains to come today than at any point in the Brexit process so far. “Rejoin” has opened up a double-digit lead over staying out in polls asking voters how they would choose in a second referendum on EU membership.

While voters have swung against Brexit before, the current shift is different. Earlier remain gains were driven by abstainers and those too young to vote in 2016 breaking against Brexit and by demographic changes which have slowly pulled the electorate in a pro-EU direction. The vast majority of leave and remain voters have hitherto stood by the choices they made in June 2016. That is now changing, and it is Brexiters who are reconsidering. One in five leave voters now say they would vote to rejoin the EU, while remain switching has stayed much lower. The scales of opinion are being tipped against Brexit by growing doubts among its original supporters.

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Sunak ‘risks full-scale trade war’ with Brussels by scrapping EU laws

Leading European politicians have warned that the prime minister’s plan to ditch EU legislation will trigger retaliatory countermeasures, including imposing tariffs on goods

Rishi Sunak’s plan to scrap thousands of EU laws by the end of this year risks triggering a full-scale trade war between the UK and Brussels, senior figures in the European Union have warned.

Letters from leading EU politicians, seen by the Observer, reveal deep concern that the UK is about to lower standards in areas such as environmental protection and workers’ rights – breaching “level playing field” provisions that were at the heart of the post-Brexit trade and cooperation agreement (TCA).

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Brexit causes collapse in European research funding for Oxbridge

Oxford and Cambridge universities, once given more than £130m a year in total by European research programmes, are now getting £1m annually between them

One of the UK’s most prestigious universities has seen its funding from a large European research programme plummet from £62m a year to nothing since Brexit, new figures show.

The latest statistics from the European Commission reveal that Cambridge University, which netted €483m (£433m) over the seven years of the last European research funding programme, Horizon 2020, has not received any funding in the first two years of the new Horizon Europe programme.

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Labour renews call for ‘proper’ windfall tax as Shell declares record £32.2bn profit – UK politics live

As it happened: Prime minister speaks in interview on TalkTV to mark his 100th day in office

On the subject of Rishi Sunak reaching his 100th day in office, my colleague Jessica Elgot has a great assessment of how it’s going. Here is an extract.

After Liz Truss left office, polls suggested that voters wanted to keep an open mind about Sunak and rated him significantly higher than his party.

That is now beginning to turn. According to senior Labour figures, their most recent focus groups, with swing voters in Southampton, Dewsbury and Bury last week, were described as being “utterly brutal for Sunak”, with participants engaging in “open mockery” of the prime minister. Even the most pessimistic members of Keir Starmer’s team say they have seen a decisive shift.

In the coming weeks, our new stop the boats bill will change the law to send a message loud and clear.

If you come here illegally, you will be detained and removed.

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