Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Exclusive: European commission insists letting UK nationals use e-gates would breach EU law
Boris Johnson has clashed with Brussels over an 11th-hour attempt to save British passport holders from hours of delays at European airports from the end of the year.
The government is seeking continued use by UK nationals of the automatic e-gates used by EU nationals at airports and Eurostar terminals. The move is seen by the European commission as an attempt to keep Britons in faster lanes rather than having to queue up with the rest of the world after the end of the transition period.
Mustafa al-Kadhimi also urges Europe to assist the Middle Eastern nation’s debt-ridden economy
Iraq’s prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, has warned that he is being forced into an impossible balancing act between the US and Iran, as he urged Europe to come to the aid of his country’s debt-ridden economy.
Appointed as prime minister in June, Kadhimi – a British citizen and former journalist – came to power after unprecedented street protests over corruption, and has since governed with a simple programme of early elections, better security and preventing the collapse of his oil-dependent economy.
Arrested Lawyers Initiative says hundreds punished on trumped-up charges and hundreds more await trial
Campaigners are seeking to use the UK’s Magnitsky-style human rights sanctions against Turkish prosecutors and officials responsible for arresting and imprisoning thousands of lawyers.
Organisers of the Arrested Lawyers Initiative (ALI) are gathering evidence about the alleged torture and mistreatment of judges and legal representatives detained in Turkish jails.
Policy is ‘huge step backwards’ that will prevent vulnerable people from seeking help, charities say
Foreign rough sleepers face being deported from Britain under draconian immigration laws to be introduced when the Brexit transition period ends.
Under the immigration rules to be laid before parliament and due to come into force on 1 January, rough sleeping will become grounds for refusal of, or cancellation of, permission to be in the UK.
EU’s chief negotiator meets Downing Street’s threshold for resumption of troubled talks
The Brexit talks will resume on Thursday, with negotiators tasked with working through weekends in pursuit of a deal in the remaining few weeks, after Michel Barnier met the prime minister’s demands for re-engagement.
The impasse was broken after the EU’s chief negotiator made public his intention to “seek the necessary compromises on both sides”, telling the European parliament that he believed an agreement was “within reach” and that he was willing to work “day and night”.
Foreign secretary condemns ‘cynical and reckless’ bid to disrupt Games, before they were postponed
Russian military intelligence services were planning a cyber-attack on the Japanese-hosted Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo this summer in an attempt to disrupt the world’s premier sporting event, the UK National Cyber Security Centre has revealed, disclosing a joint operation with the US intelligence agencies.
The Russian cyber-reconnaissance work covered the Games organisers, logistics services and sponsors and was under way before the Olympics was postponed due to coronavirus.
No 10 unmoved even after Barnier’s offer prompts Gove to make U-turn at dispatch box
Downing Street has refused to restart Brexit deal negotiations despite Michael Gove performing a U-turn at the dispatch box in which he praised a “constructive move” by the EU minutes after declaring the talks “effectively ended”.
The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, seemingly agreed to all the government’s demands for the resumption of Brexit talks in pursuit of a deal – sending a tweet just as Gove was making a statement in the Commons castigating the bloc.
Michael Gove confirms British government’s door to re-engagement with Brussels is ‘ajar’
Brussels expects the Brexit negotiations to resume within days, as Michael Gove confirmed that despite Downing Street’s tough rhetoric the door remained “ajar” on re-engagement.
The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, will hold a video conference call with his British counterpart, David Frost, on Monday afternoon to discuss the structure of future talks.
Immediate shopping spree is unlikely after end to military sanctions despite US protests
Iranian officials have hailed the lifting of a 13-year UN arms embargo on their military as a momentous day, claiming they were once again free to buy and sell conventional weapons in an effort to strengthen their country’s security.
The embargo was lifted on Sunday morning despite US protests and was in line with the five-year timetable set out in the Iran nuclear deal, which was signed in 2015.
From my colleagues Pamela Duncan and Niamh McIntyre
From tonight over half the population of England will be living in areas classed as “high risk” or “very high risk” under the government’s three-tier system, equivalent to 28.4m people.
All of Lancashire county (Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool council areas) are to move from tier 2 to the higher tier 3 category from midnight, meaning more than 3m people are now living in the highest-risk areas.
Trade negotiations often involve threats to walk away, and dire forecasts, before both side agree to compromise, and Brexit-watchers have been waiting for the UK-EU trade talks to this moment. It came this morning, when Boris Johnson used a TV statement (see 12.29pm) to say that there would no deal without a “fundamental change” in the EU’s approach.
But threats only work if people take them seriously and Johnson’s comments do not seem to have been taken as a sincere statement of intent to talk away. It was telling that, despite being asked twice if he was saying the talks were over, he would not use those words. (See 12.41pm.) If the foreign exchange markets thought Johnson was abandoning hopes of a deal, the pound would have fallen (as it has repeatedly in key moments in the Brexit drama since 2016). But it didn’t. “Market participants see comments from Boris Johnson as mainly political posturing at this stage,” an analyst told Bloomberg.
There’s no point in trade talks if the EU doesn’t change its position. The EU effectively ended the trade talks yesterday.
Only if the EU fundamentally changes its position will it be worth talking.
What I would say to that is there is only any point in Michel Barnier coming to London next week if he’s prepared to discuss all of the issues on the basis of legal text in an accelerated way without the UK being required to make all of the moves, or if he’s willing to discuss practicalities of areas such as travel and haulage which the PM mentioned in his statement.
Our position is a clear one. Only if the EU fundamentally changes position will it be worthwhile talking.
Boris Johnson has told Britons to prepare for a no-deal Brexit unless the EU makes a fundamental change in its approach to the deadlocked trade and security talks.
In a televised statement, the prime minister stopped short of walking away from the talks, despite his self-imposed deadline for a deal having passed on Thursday.
Bloc’s stance apparently taken as challenge to Boris Johnson’s threat to walk out on talks
Downing Street reacted in dismay as Emmanuel Macron led EU leaders in warning Boris Johnson that he must swallow the bloc’s conditions, in what appeared to be taken as a direct challenge to the British prime minister’s threat to walk out on the talks.
At a summit in Brussels, the EU proposed a further “two to three weeks” of negotiations but Europe’s heads of state and government offered Johnson little succour, demanding that he alone needed to “make the necessary moves to make an agreement possible”.
It could be the most significant election for US foreign policy since 1940, with huge implications for the UK
The British government has a long history of misreading America – from Lord Palmerston expecting the Confederacy to survive the civil war, to Ernie Bevin being shocked that the US would not pay the UK’s postwar bills, to Tony Blair believing in 2003 that he could ride the US military tiger in Iraq and create a democracy.
Few serving or former British diplomats are confidently predicting the outcome of this November’s presidential election, or even whether an increasingly erratic Donald Trump will accept the result as legitimate. The collective delusion about the 2016 election hangs heavy.
UK negotiator to tell Boris Johnson that two more weeks of talks could lead to breakthrough
Boris Johnson will be advised by his chief negotiator that a trade deal with the EU is still possible should the prime minister ditch his deadline and continue to negotiate with Brussels as tentative signs of a compromise on fisheries emerged.
David Frost, who has been in talks with the EU team led by Michel Barnier this week, will inform the prime minister that a further two weeks, at least, of daily talks could result in the remaining gaps being bridged.
Ken McCallum also pledges to boost diversity in the service as response to Black Lives Matter movement
MI5’s new boss has said the spy threats posed by China and Russia to the UK are “growing in severity and complexity” while the terrorist threat from Isis and the far right “persists at scale”.
Giving his first speech since his domestic spy agency’s director general in April, Ken McCallum focused on risks from hostile states, including undermining “the integrity of UK research” on a coronavirus vaccine.
Chief negotiator says little prospect yet of EU and UK entering ‘tunnel’ negotiations
Michel Barnier has mocked Boris Johnson for issuing a “third unilateral deadline” during a meeting with EU ministers, warning that the Brexit talks remain difficult with little prospect yet of the two sides entering a decisive “tunnel” negotiation.
With 48 hours remaining before an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, by which time the British prime minister has demanded a breakthrough moment, the bloc’s chief negotiator suggested a deal was “very difficult but still possible”, according to diplomatic sources.
Former Conservative leader says government should assess China’s influence in areas from 5G to Covid-19 research
Chinese ownership of British businesses should be subject to a national security review by the UK government to assess the impact of Beijing’s growing economic power, according to the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.
The senior backbencher – a leading figure in the rebellion that forced Downing Street to introduce tougher controls on Huawei – believes ministers have failed to deal with the scale of China’s influence on strategic industries in the UK.
UK and French leaders spoke as British and EU negotiating teams engage in eleventh-hour trade deal meetings
Boris Johnson has held Brexit telephone talks with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as the clock ticks down to the deadline for a deal.
The two leaders spoke on Saturday with seemingly just days remaining for an agreement on a future trade deal to be reached, after UK and EU negotiating teams met on Friday for what sources said was a positive meeting.
Boris Johnson has publicly suggested a Brussels summit next week is his deadline for a deal
Brussels does not believe Boris Johnson will walk out on the Brexit talks next week despite repeated threats from London, with negotiations set to continue deep into the month.
The prime minister has publicly suggested that an EU summit next Thursday is his deadline for a deal. He said in September that without agreement it would be time to “accept and move on”.
Giuseppe Conte under pressure from Italian exporters to ensure favourable outcome on withdrawal agreement
Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has urged the British government to come good on a Brexit deal but admitted it was currently “difficult to feel optimistic” amid legal wrangling over the withdrawal agreement.
“Obviously the legislative move in the UK creates tension,” said Conte, referring to Boris Johnson’s tabling of a bill that violates key elements of the agreement reached with Brussels last year.