Boris Johnson’s chief adviser declines to explain reason for payments to Faculty
A private company owned and controlled by Dominic Cummings paid more than a quarter of a million pounds to the artificial intelligence firm that worked on the Vote Leave campaign.
The prime minister’s chief adviser is declining to explain the reason for the payments to Faculty, which were made in instalments over two years. Faculty also declined to say what they were for.
Continue reading...This week’s emergency summit will expose national divisions over budgets and the €750bn pandemic fund
Lockdown has proved challenging for most workplaces, and the European Council is no different. All-night sessions, corridor huddles and fine dining in the glass Europa building in Brussels have been replaced with hours staring at a gallery of fellow heads of state reading out prepared lines in front of a backdrop of EU and national flags – and the odd bit of pop art, as in the case of Luxembourg’s prime minister Xavier Bettel.
But this week, leaders will be forced to switch off their laptops and make their way across recently reopened borders to Brussels for their first face-to-face meeting in five months – and it is set to be a bruising encounter.
Continue reading...Exclusive: council given only hours’ notice of emergency purchase of 1.2m sq ft ‘Mojo’ site
The government has secretly purchased 11 hectares (27 acres) of land 20 miles from Dover to site a vast new Brexit customs clearance centre for the 10,000 lorries that come through the Kent port from Calais every day.
It will be the first customs post erected in the UK to deal with goods coming from the EU for 27 years.
Continue reading...Businesses will discover details of customs regime after Brexit on Monday
The government is set to launch a multi-million pound “Get Ready for Brexit” campaign on Monday, aimed at informing businesses of the complex customs regime they will face.
Details of the campaign, which will be partly aimed at Britons living in the EU, will be confirmed by Michael Gove in TV interviews scheduled for Sunday. The controversial Brexit border plans – which were criticised this week by the international trade secretary, Liz Truss – will be published on Monday along with fresh detail on post-Brexit immigration.
Continue reading...Number of nurses coming from EU fell again and coronavirus prevented further arrivals
Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt after the number coming from the EU fell again and coronavirus prevented thousands of arrivals from the rest of the world.
The prime minister made the promise a cornerstone of his general election campaign last year and has since reiterated many times his determination to deliver the increase.
Continue reading...International trade secretary tells PM and chancellor plans risk smuggling and damage to UK reputation
An extraordinary cabinet row has erupted over Brexit with Liz Truss warning that Boris Johnson’s border plans risk smuggling, damage to the UK’s international reputation and could face a legal challenge from the World Trade Organization.
The international trade secretary wrote to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and Michael Gove on Wednesday warning of four “key areas of concern” over their plans for the border next January.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson is learning the hard way that the UK’s position on the globe is a relevant factor in its negotiations with Brussels
It is possible that Boris Johnson meant it when he said last year that Brexit would not involve checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but only if he did not understand the deal he had signed. His position made sense as dishonesty or ignorance. It was never true.
As Brexit talks continue in London this week, it turns out the government has submitted to the EU its application to put border control posts at Irish Sea ports. That is a necessary act of compliance with the Northern Ireland protocol in the withdrawal agreement.
Continue reading...Many will face problems after Brexit unless they have physical card to prove right to remain in UK, critics say
EU citizens settled in the UK are being used by the Home Office as guinea pigs for a future digital-only immigration system, MPs have heard.
They will also face “significant problems” after Brexit unless the government provides them with a physical card to prove their right to remain in the UK legally, parliament’s Brexit select committee was told.
Continue reading...EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier complained of lack of respect and engagement by UK
The latest negotiations in Brussels on an EU-UK trade and security deal have broken up early, with the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, complaining of a lack of respect and engagement by the British government.
The two sides ended the week’s talks – the first held in person since February – a day ahead of the jointly-agreed schedule amid evident frustration at the lack of progress in bridging what both Barnier and his UK counterpart, David Frost, described as “serious” disagreements.
Continue reading...Unit based in No 10 will help researchers navigate post-Brexit immigration system
Downing Street is to set up a cross-departmental unit called the “office for talent” as a way to help leading scientists, researchers and others live and work in the UK in the post-Brexit immigration system.
The plan, which the Liberal Democrats said was simply trying to make up the damage caused by Brexit, is intended to “ensure excellent customer service across the immigration system”, a government announcement said.
Continue reading...Deadline to agree regulatory equivalence for financial services and allow business after Brexit likely to be missed
Britain and Brussels have each accused the other of holding up a decision on the City of London’s ability to do business in EU markets from next year, prolonging the financial services’ state of uncertainty about the future.
Both parties had agreed to complete assessments of the other’s regulatory regimes for financial services by Tuesday 30 June, with the expectation that they would deemed “equivalent”, allowing business to continue in the new year.
Continue reading...The ‘gobocracy’ that surrounds the PM is capable of doing Russia’s work for it
As Boris Johnson is leading Britain’s first government of pundits, “a gobocracy”, if you like, it is worth repeating Humbert Wolfe’s scathing poem on the press: “You cannot hope to bribe or twist,/ thank God! the British journalist./ But, seeing what the man will do/ unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”
In a gobocracy, there’s no need to become too conspiratorial about why a prime minister betrays his country. Put a Telegraph columnist in charge, throw in Michael Gove from the Times and Dominic Cummings from Vote Leave’s propaganda arm, and their bottomless cynicism and instinctive charlatanism will bring ruin with or without foreign assistance.
Continue reading...Bid for 20% of OneWeb to replace Galileo after Brexit ‘looks like nationalism trumping industrial policy’
The UK government’s plan to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in a satellite broadband company has been described as “nonsensical” by experts, who say the company doesn’t even make the right type of satellite the country needs after Brexit.
The investment in OneWeb, first reported on Thursday night, is intended to mitigate against the UK losing access to the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system.
Continue reading...German leader signals trade compromise less likely as she hardens tone on no-deal Brexit
The UK will have to “live with the consequences” of Boris Johnson ditching Theresa May’s plan to maintain close economic ties with the EU after Brexit, Angela Merkel has said, hardening her tone over the prospect of a no-deal scenario at the end of the year.
After more than three years in which the German chancellor repeatedly emphasised her openness to a deal that would maintain the UK’s current flows of trade with the bloc, she suggested the door leading to such a compromise had now closed.
Continue reading...Exclusive: David Sassoli says UK appeared unenthusiastic in recent trade negotiations
Boris Johnson appeared unwilling to compromise in order to secure a trade and security deal with Brussels when he joined EU leaders for a summit last week, one of the three who attended the meeting has told the Guardian.
David Sassoli, the president of the European parliament, punctured a recent outbreak of optimism over a potential deal by warning that the EU had been left concerned at the end of a video conference call by the lack of “enthusiasm” to find common ground on the most contentious issues.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Christopher Steele claims May government turned blind eye to Trump allegations
Boris Johnson and Theresa May ignored claims the Kremlin had a “likely hold” over Donald Trump and may have covertly funded Brexit, the former spy Christopher Steele alleges in secret evidence given to MPs who drew up the Russia report.
In testimony to MPs, the MI6 veteran accused the government led by May and in which Johnson was foreign secretary for two years of turning a blind eye to allegations about Trump because they were afraid of offending the US president.
Continue reading...Failure to establish key scrutiny committee is also criticised as ‘unprecedented underhand behaviour’
The government’s apparent refusal to release a report into Russian infiltration in the UK and to delay establishing a key scrutiny committee has been condemned as unprecedented and “utterly reprehensible”.
The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has not met since before the general election in December – – its longest break since it was established in 1994 – and critics say the government has sat on the committee’s report into Russian interference for nine months.
Continue reading...Former US national security adviser reveals series of tensions and pressure points
Donald Trump dashed British hopes that he would take a tougher line on Hong Kong, including by refusing to condemn the Tiananmen Square massacre, according to John Bolton’s book about his time as the US president’s national security adviser.
In one of many episodes in the book that reveal the fragile nature of the UK’s relations with the Trump administration, Bolton writes that the president said Tiananmen Square was decades ago and he did not want to jeopardise a potential trade deal with Beijing.
Continue reading...French president holds talks with PM on UK visit to mark second world war anniversary
Boris Johnson has told Emmanuel Macron that he sees little point prolonging UK-EU talks on a future trading relationship into the autumn.
The French president was in London on Thursday for a largely ceremonial visit. No 10 said Johnson had welcomed a recent agreement to intensify talks on the issue in July. However, comments dismissing the idea of “prolonged negotiations” suggest that Johnson is increasingly prepared to end the talks without an agreement and thinks both sides would need time to prepare for this rather than make last-minute adjustments in December when the existing transition period expires.
Continue reading...Australian and New Zealand ministers say they are eager to do deals with the UK as their economies emerge from the coronavirus crisis
Australia and New Zealand are about to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement with the UK in what the Australian trade minister said was “a strong signal of our mutual support for free trade” in a post-Covid-19 world.
Simon Birmingham said Australia was “ready to help the UK find new beginnings post-Brexit and in doing so, open up new doors for our farmers, businesses and investors”.
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