Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Chancellor aims to firm up agreements that would allow institutions to trade as if still in EU
Rishi Sunak has offered financial services firms the prospect of closer access to EU markets than outlined in the Brexit trade deal, after Boris Johnson conceded that this aspect of the agreement fell short of UK hopes.
With MPs and experts still poring over the 1,246-page details of the agreement ahead of votes in the Commons and Lords on Wednesday, increasing focus has fallen on the relative lack of provision for the service sector, which makes up about 80% of the UK economy.
“The great strategic prize of the 21st century is the full economic, political and social empowerment of women,” said William Hague, when he was foreign secretary. “There are still large parts of the world who are undervaluing, under-utilising, under-developing half their population.” That was five years ago, and there is still a long way to go. I am speaking out now, because we are about to go into reverse.
Parliament’s women and equalities committee, which I chair, isn’t afraid to take the prime minister to task when his policies fall short in providing for the marginalised and under-represented. We’ve held the government’s feet to the fire on the domestic abuse bill, the role of women in the response to Covid-19 and the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on BAME communities. But the need to level up society doesn’t stop at our borders, and many of the world’s poorest countries are also the most unequal.
‘UK caved in on fish to win a wider treaty’, industry bodies say, while leading Brexiter David Davis says one-day debate is ‘too fast’
Senior Conservative MPs late on Saturday expressed alarm at plans to rush the historic UK-EU trade deal through parliament in just one day, as fishermen’s leaders accused Boris Johnson of “caving in” at the 11th hour to clinch agreement on Christmas Eve.
And there were growing fears among senior Tories, who will spend the next three days poring over the 2,000-page agreement published on Saturday, that details in the fine print could still allow the EU to impose punitive tariffs on British exports if businesses fail to follow European rules.
PM says he is confident trade deal will withstand ‘ruthless’ scrutiny from Eurosceptics
The EU and the UK government have published the full text of the Brexit trade deal less than a week before it is due to be implemented, as Boris Johnson urged his backbenchers to support the agreement when it reaches parliament next week.
The deal, which comes to more than 1,250 pages, will be voted on in the House of Commons on Wednesday, a day before the Brexit transition period ends.
Parliament should be recalled to deal with the crisis of coronavirus, not just that of leaving the EU
In January 1979, a beleaguered Labour prime minister, James Callaghan, returned from a Caribbean summit to a country that appeared in crisis. A week earlier, truck drivers had gone on strike, cutting off petrol supplies in the “winter of discontent”. When the prime minister arrived at London’s Heathrow airport, he held a press conference in which nothing memorable was said. Instead, in a phrase that has become code for political complacency, Callaghan became for ever associated with the following day’s Sun newspaper headline: “Crisis? What crisis?”
His fate was sealed. Callaghan lost the next general election to Margaret Thatcher. The lesson for politicians is the importance of perception in a crisis. If something feels like a crisis, it is effectively a crisis. Britain now confronts its most serious emergency since the second world war. It faces the unprecedented challenge of coronavirus while adjusting to a new diminished status outside the European Union. The country’s health service is at breaking point, and its future as a unified state is on the line. All this goes unmentioned by Boris Johnson, perhaps because he disingenuously promised that Brexit would save the NHS.
Last-minute agreement assessed as either a welcome economic boost or a bad move in a world that has become dominated by uncertainty
Britain should be congratulated for coming to a Brexit deal with the EU, but be wary of the very different world they are walking into, international analysts have said.
Outside Europe, politicians, experts, and media took a short break from Christmas and the pandemic to welcome the end of Britain’s long and torturous Brexit process, but there was little in the way of celebration.
Boris Johnson is confident he can sell the trade deal to Brexiters, according to the FT (paywall).
Sebastian Payne and George Parker report that Downing Street has been preparing the ground for weeks with the ERG, ensuring that senior backbenchers were aware of the shape of things to come and compromises being made.
Senior members of the group have already welcomed Johnson’s imminent deal as the “Christmas Eve Agreement”, a reference to the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement that secured peace in Northern Ireland.
Indications from senior figures within the ERG suggest that many of its members will accept the compromises negotiated by Johnson and Lord Frost.
If they want help from the party to stay in parliament, then they’ll back the deal.
In case you’re just joining us, the final stage of the negotiations for a post-Brexit trade deal has been delayed after it emerged that the European commission was using out-of-date figures to calculate the reduction in the amount of fish that member states can catch in British waters after 1 January.
A deal was due to be announced early this morning but the announcement had to be postponed when officials noticed a discrepancy between two sets of fishing figures and realised that the numbers used in the negotiation appeared to be out of date.
Some 53 vessels have been waiting offshore for more than four weeks while coal ships from other countries have delivered their loads
More than 50 Australian coal ships are still stranded off China’s coast, held up by a Chinese government import ban, despite the country facing coal shortages and one of its worst power blackouts in years.
China has rejected suggestions that its October ban on Australian coal has contributed to the coal shortage but the ban has been linked to higher domestic prices. Analysts have said that under the current circumstances any incoming coal would help.
Desperate relatives in Britain plead with Home Office for flexibility as paperwork holdups delay family reunions while deadline looms
The Home Office has said it will not allow a group of stranded refugee children to join their families in the UK if their cases do not make it through the Greek asylum system by 31 December when the EU family reunification programme comes to an end.
Around 20 children who are eligible to join their relatives in the UK under the current family reunification scheme are still waiting for their cases to be completed in Greece, before the UK government ends the programme when it leaves the EU on the 31st December.
Britain and Europe still seeking last-minute advantage in final stages of negotiations
A post-Brexit trade and security treaty with the European Union is within “touching distance”, Downing Street said on Wednesday night as Boris Johnson prepared to overcome final disagreements to unveil a hard-fought Christmas Eve deal.
The prime minister is expected to seal the deal following a final call with the European commission president Ursula von der Leyen – but the two sides were battling deep into the night to gain a last-minute advantage.
Exclusive: experts sign letter warning against slashing spending on public-private programmes
Experts fear a push to cut the UK’s aid budget will slash spending on global health research, handicapping international public-private programmes that have helped combat the world’s deadliest diseases over the last decade.
In a letter addressed to the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, last week, prominent parliamentarians sought reassurance that the planned cuts would not lead to “dramatic reductions” in investment for devastating diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, Aids and a clutch of neglected tropical diseases.
Joint Russia and China patrol over the Pacific signals stronger military ties between Moscow and Beijing
Japan and South Korea have scrambled fighter jets to trackRussian and Chinese bombers which flown a joint patrol mission over the western Pacific in a show of increasingly close military ties between Moscow and Beijing.
The Russian military said a pair of its Tu-95 strategic bombers and four Chinese H-6K bombers flew over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea on Tuesday.
Mission involving two Russian and four Chinese aircraft signals stronger military ties between Moscow and Beijing
Russian and Chinese bombers have flown a joint patrol mission over the western Pacific in a show of increasingly close military ties between Moscow and Beijing.
The Russian military said a pair of its Tu-95 strategic bombers and four Chinese H-6K bombers flew over the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea on Tuesday.
France and Denmark thought to be most cautious about budging from current demands on fish caught in British waters
EU member states with the largest fishing fleets are being asked by Ursula von der Leyen’s senior team to rethink their “final offer” after Downing Street made a significant move to break the Brexit deadlock.
France and Denmark are understood to be the most cautious about making a counter-proposal, budging from their current demand that their vessels lose only 25% by value of the fish they catch in British waters.
European commission president said to be in constant contact with Boris Johnson as fishing remains key issue
Ursula von der Leyen took personal control of Brexit negotiations in an attempt to strike a deal before Christmas as talks went to the wire over tens of millions of pounds worth of fish.
The European commission president is understood to be in constant contact through a series of unscheduled phone calls with Boris Johnson and the EU capitals as she battles to find a compromise.
Britain risks weeks without trade transition plans from 1 January after missing EU parliament Sunday deadline
Negotiators of a Brexit trade deal inched towards a compromise on fishing rights on Sunday but missed a major deadline, raising the prospect of weeks without arrangements from 1 January even in the event of agreement.
The teams led by the chief UK negotiator, David Frost, and his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier, were expected to continue talks on Monday despite the European parliament’s notice that it would not vote on a deal if not secured by midnight on Sunday.
Anne Sacoolas was charged with causing the teenager’s death by dangerous driving 12 months ago
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has told Harry Dunn‘s parents it will continue to pursue the prosecution of their son’s alleged killer, despite the high court ruling she had diplomatic immunity.
Anne Sacoolas was charged with causing the teenager’s death by dangerous driving 12 months ago after a fatal road crash outside a US military base in Northamptonshire on 27 August last year.
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.
The massive, ongoing hack of US federal agencies, relations with China and North Korea will be urgent issues for Biden to address
Joe Biden’s foreign policy in-tray is only looking more difficult as he approaches inauguration day – even as the US still confronts the pressing issue of record coronavirus deaths and infections.
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”.