Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
PM maintains that NHS is not on the table and animal welfare standards won’t drop
Boris Johnson has said he will drive a hard bargain as the UK outlined its negotiating objectives for the forthcoming trade talks with the US.
Despite fears that disagreements between London and Washington could obstruct the launch of the negotiations, a government press release claimed the prime minister wanted to open up opportunities for British businesses and investors while also ensuring the NHS was not for sale via the desired free trade agreement.
Bloc’s first UK ambassador says right to remain for many vulnerable Europeans must be protected
Prisoners and members of the Roma community, along with elderly people and the poorest in society, will be the focus of a new EU push to help Europeans “outside the mainstream” to remain in the UK after Brexit.
There are concerns that thousands of EU nationals will fail to apply to the Home Office to stay because they lack information or the means to see the digital application process through.
New recruits needed to process millions of extra declaration forms from 1 January 2021
A race to hire 50,000 people in the next six months to process Brexit paperwork is under way after the government confirmed they would be needed for border operations.
But experts have warned it will be a challenge to train enough people in time to be competent in the complexity of customs declarations and the second layer of red tape involving entry and exit declaration forms that are mandatory for trading with the EU.
The UK is to abandon a crucial tool used to speed up the transfer of criminals across borders with other European countries.
Acting against the warnings of senior law enforcement officials, the government said it would not be seeking to participate in the European arrest warrant (EAW) as part of the future relationship with the European Union.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs and Michel Barnier’s Brexit speech
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says immigration is crucial for the Scottish economy. The Scottish government’s plans for a Scottish visa system have been welcomed by business and even Scottish Tories. Does the PM accept it was a mistake to reject the plan?
Johnson says this idea was rejected by the migration advisory committee. He says under the government’s plan firms will be able to get the workers they need.
Corbyn says he has learnt a lot from visiting victims of flooding. The PM should try it. He says people cannot get insurance. Isn’t it time the PM found an urgent solution to this problem? Just imagine what it must be like. People are looking to the government for help.
Johnson says there are problems with insurance. But the government scheme has helped many households. He says he is looking at what can be done to protect homes that cannot get insurance. He says any government led by Corbyn would not be able to help.
Negotiations over Britain’s future relationship with the EU appear on course for an acrimonious start after Michel Barnier poured scorn on Boris Johnson’s spokesman and suggested the new Northern Ireland secretary did not understand the withdrawal agreement.
Barnier said he expected the talks, starting on Monday, to be “very difficult” but pronounced Brussels as “ready” following the official sign-off by EU ministers of their instructions for their chief negotiator.
The EU will demand the right to punish Britain if the government fails to shadow the Brussels rulebook in the future, member states have agreed, as Boris Johnson was warned that the bloc would not be hurried into a deal on the future relationship.
A final draft of the EU’s negotiating position agreed by ambassadors on Monday, ready for ministerial sign off on Tuesday, establishes the bloc’s developing environmental, social and workers’ standards as the baseline for a trade deal.
Britain’s main goal in trade talks with the EU will be to “restore economic and political independence from 1 January”, No 10 has said, as the government prepares to publish its negotiating aims on Thursday.
Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said the “primary objective” was ending the transition period by the end of the year, regardless of whether a deal had been struck.
Concerns raised after reports negotiating team told to devise plans to ‘get around’ protocol in withdrawal agreement
Reneging on the special Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland will risk trade deals with both the EU and the US, experts have warned.
Concern has been raised after Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiating team has reportedly been ordered to come up with plans to “get around” the Northern Ireland protocol in the withdrawal agreement, which includes checks on goods and food going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Fishing was a powerful factor in the case for leaving the EU. On the eve of crucial trade talks, the Observer finds optimism tempered by caution on the quays of Devon and Cornwall
Neil Watson was eight or nine when his dad took him out to sea for the first time. Soon he was earning his first pocket money by washing fish boxes on the quay at Brixham in south Devon. Three years after he started crewing, he got his skipper’s ticket and eventually he bought his own boat. For 30 years, he regularly spent seven days at sea followed by one night off, only stopping when his boat sank two years ago.
“I fished through good times and bad times. Fishing’s like riding a wave – one minute you’re up the top, and the next you’re down in the trough,” he said. Now Watson works at Brixham’s fish market, one of the largest in England, where £40m of fish was sold last year across the UK and Europe. A fisherman’s life is brutal, he said, but he badly misses the camaraderie.
Downing Street is accusing the EU of being in disarray over its plans for a post-Brexit trade deal, in the latest deterioration of relations ahead of crunch talks next month.
Boris Johnson will also unveil his blueprint for a US trade deal next week, in a move designed to heap further pressure on Brussels. However, EU sources regard the hostile briefings as a bluff from the prime minister’s team, saying that their pre-negotiation plans are on track.
Leaders of EU countries have expressed concerns the union's long-term budget talks may not conclude in an agreement as politicians' positions have been miles apart on how to fill the €75bn (£63bn) hole left by Brexit.
The European council president, Charles Michel, came under criticism for aiming 'too high', with a proposed budget of 1.074% of the bloc’s gross national income (€1.094tn)
Brussels aide says UK cannot have similar trade pact because of proximity to member states
Downing Street’s hopes of a Canada-style trade deal with the EU have been dealt a further blow after a senior adviser to Brussels’ chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the bloc’s relationship with the North American country was a “different ball game”.
As the two sides prepare for the start of negotiations next month, Stefaan De Rynck highlighted the UK’s proximity to Brussels compared with Canada as a key factor, as well as warning that the trade talks could get “rather difficult”.
Government plans to take ‘full control’ of borders a disaster for economy and jobs, say industry leaders and Labour
Britain is to close its borders to unskilled workers and those who can’t speak English as part of a fundamental overhaul of immigration laws that will end the era of cheap EU labour in factories, warehouses, hotels and restaurants.
Unveiling its Australian-style points system on Wednesday, the government will say it is grasping a unique opportunity to take “full control” of British borders “for the first time in decades” and eliminate the “distortion” caused by EU freedom of movement.
Verhofstadt says it would be a ‘hell of a job’ to achieve success using David Frost’s approach
Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator has been accused of treating the EU and the UK as if they are “living on two different planets” after vowing to break all regulatory ties with Brussels.
Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister who has led the European parliament’s approach to Brexit, said it would be a “hell of a job” to secure a successful outcome from the negotiation using the British approach.
David Frost says democratic consent would snap if UK agreed to EU alignment
The democratic consent of the British public would “snap dramatically and finally” if the UK continued to be tied to EU rules, Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator has said.
In his first public speech since his appointment to the role, David Frost said Downing Street was not engaging in game-playing by rejecting alignment with EU laws after 2020.
French foreign minister says it will be hard for UK to strike deal by end of year given differences
Britain and the European Union are going to rip each other apart in talks over a future trade deal, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has predicted, while also holding out hope that UK defence co-operation with Europe will continue.
Speaking at the Munich security forum, he added it would be tough for Britain to achieve its aim of a free trade deal by the end of the year given the differences between the two sides.
UK’s withdrawal has left £62bn hole in bloc’s purse for the next seven years
Presidents, prime ministers and chancellors across Europe will pack their bags later this week in preparation for a long weekend in Brussels. They won’t, however, be taking in the baroque majesty of the Grand Place or savouring the local culinary treats. Instead, they will be preparing for that most infamous of events, a “four shirter”, to use the clothes-packing gauge adopted by male diplomats to measure the length and horror of EU leaders’ summits in the Belgian capital. The thorny subject this time around? Money. And the problem? Britain.
The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union has left a huge €75bn (£62bn) hole in the bloc’s budget for the next seven years, 2021 to 2027. “And now we are fighting like ferrets in a sack,” said one EU diplomat with a sigh.
French president says EU must have effective defence policy, larger budget and integrated capital markets
Europe’s middle classes will only remain reconciled to the European Union if it becomes more integrated, with an effective defence policy, a larger budget and integrated capital markets, and is shorn of vetoes that slow decision-making, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said.
Setting out his 10-year vision for Europe on Saturday, Macron said he still wanted to see the UK involved in defence, but urged European countries to recognise that in terms of social welfare, Europe had a different values to the US.