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The Labour leader labels the decision on Saturday 19 December to cancel the planned Christmas relaxation of Covid restrictions an 'act of gross negligence by a prime minister who once again has been caught behind the curve'. Boris Johnson announced swaths of the south-east of England would be put in a new tier 4 to contain a new strain of the virus just days after he insisted Christmas plans could go ahead. 'We have a prime minister who is so scared of being unpopular that he is incapable of making tough decisions until it is too late,' Starmer says.
The nation’s Christmas plans were plunged into chaos last night after Boris Johnson dramatically abandoned his attempts to avoid tighter Covid restrictions, and instead placed millions of people under new lockdown measures to try to curb a highly infectious new strain of the virus.
In a major U-turn that prompted an immediate backlash from his party, the prime minister placed a third of England’s population under new tier 4 restrictions to counter a Covid strain believed to be up to 70% more transmissible than previous variants.
European affairs minister, Clément Beaune, says Paris will not be rushed into deal over next 48 hours
The European parliament’s Sunday deadline may pass without agreement on a post-Brexit trade and security deal, France’s European affairs minister, Clément Beaune, has said, as British and EU negotiators continued to haggle over fishing rights.
MEPs have said they will stage a vote of consent on 28 December if terms are agreed by the two sides by midnight central European time on Sunday, raising the stakes for a weekend deal.
Plans to relax Covid restrictions over Christmas are an error, says the Labour leader, as swathes of England have either entered or will enter tier 3 this week, and with mounting cases and hospitalisations. But Boris Johnson has resisted calls to reverse the five-day relaxation, instead urging the public to take individual responsibility. 'The prime minister should take the hard decisions, not hand them over to individuals,' says Starmer.
Michel Barnier has sought to break the deadlock in what he described as the final “few hours” of the post-Brexit trade talks with a new proposal on EU fishing access in British waters, after Boris Johnson called on Brussels to move to seal a deal.
After meetings with aides to the EU’s heads of state and government and fisheries ministers, Barnier was locked in late-night discussions with the UK negotiators led by David Frost, at what Barnier described as a “moment of truth”.
Tough coronavirus restrictions are expected to be in place across much of the UK until at least February, experts have said, as they warned of a “harsh” two to three months ahead.
More than 35,300 positive cases were recorded on Thursday – including a backlog of 11,000 from Wales - with infection rates increasing in many parts of the country, while rising Covid hospital numbers stand at more than 18,000. In the first wave the peak for UK hospitalisations was 21,683.
The Department of Health has released a written ministerial statement giving the reasons for the decisions taken today about why areas in England are staying in, or moving from, particular tiers. It’s here - although the version up at the moment only covers the north-west, the north-east and London.
The government is to provide interim cover for EU holiday healthcare costs for people who require routine hospital treatment such as dialysis and chemotherapy in the event there is no Brexit deal to replace the current European Health Care Insurance Scheme (EHIC).
This government will introduce the scheme with the intention that it is used by individuals who are certain to require treatment while abroad, such as regular dialysis, oxygen therapy or certain types of chemotherapy. The government recognises that these ongoing, routine treatment costs can be expensive, and makes travelling abroad extremely challenging for many people.
Member states blame uncertainty over Brexit as reason for breach of next year’s limits
Fish populations will continue to be over-exploited in EU waters, partly as a result of Brexit, after a decision on next year’s fishing quotas among EU countries fell well short of scientific advice.
Fishing limits are set to exceed scientific advice for about a third of EU fish stocks, after EU ministers met on Thursday morning, with EU member states citing the uncertainty regarding fishing rights after Brexit as a reason for breaching limits on sustainable catches.
PM says no deal is ‘very likely’ after speaking to Ursula von der Leyen
Boris Johnson claimed the Brexit talks were in a “serious situation” after a call with Ursula von der Leyen, even as the EU’s chief negotiator raised hopes of a weekend Brexit agreement by persuading the European parliament to delay its deal deadline to Sunday.
In a statement released after a short stock-take telephone call on Thursday evening with the European commission president, the prime minister repeated his suggestion that it was “very likely” that an agreement would not be reached, with fisheries the standout issue.
Move seen as political theatre as talks in Brussels continue, but may not preclude recall of MPs and peers
MPs and peers will begin their Christmas break on Thursday evening, the government has announced, amid waning hopes that a Brexit deal will be struck in time to be approved in parliament next week.
With talks on trade and security continuing in Brussels amid signs of progress and compromise, ministers had considered stipulating that parliament should sit on Monday and Tuesday to allow legislation implementing a deal to be passed rapidly.
Report says Foreign Office should formally declare detention of foreign nationals as ‘hostage taking’
The UK should do more to constrain Iran by proscribing the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist group and formally describe the Iranian practice of detaining British dual nationals as state hostage taking, the all-party foreign affairs select committee has said.
The report finds that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s current approach to seeking the release of detainees is not working. There are least four British-Iranian dual-nationals either in jail, on a tag in Tehran or sentenced to lengthy jail terms, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Christmas plans for millions of families were in the balance last night as ministers and devolved leaders held talks on curtailing freedoms over the festive period amid warnings that the NHS would be overwhelmed.
Boris Johnson is likely to face down calls to change course, though the government may issue new advice urging extreme caution. A government source said it was possible the four nations may diverge after no agreement was reached at a crisis meeting with devolved administrations on Tuesday chaired by Michael Gove.
Heavy rain has hampered work on site intended to relieve queues around Dover from 1 January
The Kent lorry park designed to relieve queues of up to 7,000 trucks taking goods across the Channel will not be ready for Brexit on 1 January, it has emerged.
Damian Green, the MP for Ashford, said the government told him rain had hampered work on the site between the villages of Sevington and Mersham, fuelling fears of traffic queues around the county for the first two months of the year.
Plans to relax Covid restrictions at Christmas must be reversed or many lives risk being lost, according to a rare joint editorial from two of the UK’s most eminent medical journals.
The government can no longer claim to be protecting the NHS if it goes ahead with “rash” plans to allow households to mix indoors over Christmas, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal have said.
The prime minister’s spell in intensive care underscored the severity of the pandemic. Did it also make him reassess his life?
It was an unexpected twist in what already felt like an excessively dramatic disaster movie. On 6 April, the British prime minister was admitted to the intensive care ward at St Thomas’ hospital in London, after contracting a new and potentially deadly virus. Donald Trump said he was “praying for his good friend”; the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said all his wishes were with the prime minister, his family and the British people in “this difficult time”. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, described it as “terribly sad news”.
Boris Johnson pulled through, of course, surviving to witness the birth of his son, Wilfred – given the middle name Nicholas, after the doctors, Dr Nick Price and Dr Nick Hart, who saved Johnson’s life. But more than eight months later, could the country still be feeling the impact of this dramatic turn of events?
A post-Brexit trade and security deal could be sealed as early as this week after Boris Johnson made a key concession at the weekend but the pathway to agreement remains “very narrow”, Michel Barnier has told ambassadors and MEPs in Brussels.
The EU’s chief negotiator said the prime minister’s acceptance of the need to ensure that there is fair competition for British and European businesses as regulatory standards diverge over time had unlocked the talks despite difficult issues remaining.
In his Sky interview Johnson warned that no deal is still more likely. And he suggested that his suggestion to talk to other EU leaders has been rejected by the EU. He said:
The UK certainly won’t be walking away from the talks. I think people will expect us to go the extra mile. I repeated my offer, which is if it’s necessary to talk to other capitals, then I’m very happy to do that. The commission is very determined to keep the negotiations on the way that they be done between us and the commission and that’s, fine.
But I’m going to repeat the most likely thing now is of course that we have to get ready for WTO terms, Australia terms. And don’t forget, everybody, we’ve made huge preparations for this we’ve been at this for four and a half years ... perhaps more intensively in the last couple of years than previously. But anyway, we’ve got ready. And anybody who needs to know what to do get on to gov.uk/transition, see what needs to be done and get ready for January 1st and. Either way, whatever happens, the UK will do very, very well.
Boris Johnson has warned that the two sides are “very far apart on some key things.”
In quite a downbeat interview with Sky News he said:
I’ve just talked to Ursula Von der Leyen and updated the cabinet about the contents of that call. On Wednesday the hope was that we were going to be able to finish things off today, if there was a deal to be done.
As things stand, and this is basically what Urusal and I agreed. I’m afraid we’re still very far apart on some key things. But where there’s life, there’s hope we’re going to keep talking to see what we can do.
British negotiators stay on in Brussels but PM says two sides still ‘very far apart’ on key issues
Britain and the EU enter the final stretch of the Brexit negotiations with renewed hope of a deal being struck within days after Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen agreed to “go the extra mile” and ordered the resumption of talks in Brussels.
As the prime minister played down expectations following a telephone conversation with the European commission president, EU embassies in Brussels were briefed that “progress has been made” and that “the next days will be important”. UK negotiators are expected to stay in Brussels until at least Tuesday.
People in the French capital are hurt and baffled by the UK’s attitude to France as a no-deal Brexit looms
At the Châtelet branch of Boulinier, a Paris bookshop that has stocked English language books since 1845, shoppers were yesterday reflecting on a spate of British newspaper headlines threatening to send Royal Navy gunboats to board invading French trawlers in the event of a failure to agree a trade deal.
Anglophiles like Didier Aubert, 72, a retired civil servant, said the threats were “ridiculous”.