Category Archives: Boris Johnson

Coronavirus live news: EU rollout of Pfizer vaccine may be disrupted by supply issues, BioNTech warns

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Latest updates: German biotech startup warns of ‘gaps’ in vaccine supply; re-analysis Covid tests in US raises questions about origin of B117 ‘UK strain’

India has asked China to allow two Indian cargo ships which have been stranded for months near two Chinese ports because of the pandemic to rapidly unload their cargoes or replace their 39 crew members.

“There is growing stress on the crew members on account of the long delay,” Indian external affairs ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said. “We expect that this assistance will be provided in an urgent, practical and time-bound manner, given the grave humanitarian situation that is developing onboard the ships.”

The UK economy begins 2021 on the back foot as record numbers of coronavirus infections and tougher restrictions cloud the outlook for growth and limit the chances of a rapid recovery from the country’s worst recession in 300 years.

There had been hopes that the arrival of successful Covid vaccines could prompt a rebound in activity. But with new government controls to combat the rising infection rate, the outlook is deteriorating.

Related: UK economic outlook for 2021: Covid surge deepens the gloom

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Brexit: in crisis, without fanfare, UK finally ends the EU era

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Boris Johnson largely ignores Brexit in new year message to focus on toll of Covid and ‘the grimness of 2020’

Four years, 27 weeks and two days after a referendum that split the country almost down the middle, the UK left the EU’s orbit on Thursday night in a departure that was notably low key, and marked by warnings of likely disruption to come.

In a sometimes sombre new year message, Boris Johnson largely ignored Brexit, an outcome he arguably shaped more than any other politician, to focus instead on the toll of Covid-19 and what he called “the grimness of 2020”.

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Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal passes into UK law

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Prime minister thanks MPs and peers after Queen gives royal assent to bill redrawing ties with EU

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  • Labour frontbenchers quit after defying Starmer on deal

    • Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit trade deal with Brussels has passed into law following a whirlwind 14-hour parliamentary process that has radically redrawn the UK’s ties with Europe.

    The prime minister thanked MPs and peers for passing the European Union (future relationship) bill in one day, in a statement urging the nation to “seize” the moment when the transition period with the bloc ends at 11pm on Thursday.

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    Boris Johnson on tier 4: ‘No one regrets these measures more than I do’ – video

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    The prime minister said now was a ‘critical moment’ to take action and ‘redouble efforts’ to contain the rapid spread of the new variant of coronavirus. Boris Johnson went on to explain that the restrictions would affect the return to schools for students in the worst affected areas, but expressed hope that the situation would be 'much better' in April, if vaccination programmes are successful in coming months


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    Boris Johnson urges Tory MPs to back Brexit deal as full text published

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    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.

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    The Guardian view on Brexit in a time of Covid: Crisis? What Crisis? Editorial

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    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.

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    ‘Christmas gift’ or ‘bad timing’? Brexit deal greeted with joy and foreboding around world

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    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.

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    Brexit deal: Boris Johnson poised to announce UK and EU have reached trade agreement – live

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    Negotiations continued overnight between UK and EU at European commission’s headquarters in Brussels

    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.

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    Panic, paucity and pessimism: life on Plague Island UK | Zoe Williams

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    With a mutant Covid variant out of control and lorries piling up in Kent, Britain feels like a country adrift and rudderless

    The rest of the world is calling the UK Plague Island because it’s true: a mutant strain of the coronavirus is out of control, laying waste to fantasies that any region is out of the woods, or that the November lockdown had its desired effect, or that we might manage a “merry little Christmas”, in the words of the prime minister.

    The plague phrase carries a lot of resonance, beyond being a reference to the high prevalence of infectious disease: it casts us as a far-flung place, isolated, chaotic, uncivilised, a place that wise and/or decent people stay well away from. But is that how it feels from the inside?

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    From plans to panic: how the UK’s week of Covid chaos unfolded – video timeline

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    The week before Christmas quickly turned chaotic as the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced a new, more contagious strain of coronavirus had been found in south-east England. The news resulted in a last-minute government U-turn over Christmas mixing rules, the implementation of a new, stricter coronavirus tier, and dozens of countries suspending travel from the UK days before the end of the Brexit transition period, prompting 'Plague Island' to trend on Twitter. Here is a look back at the week of chaos

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    Von der Leyen takes control of Brexit talks in attempt to strike deal

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    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.

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    Keir Starmer: Johnson is asking public to pay for his incompetence – video

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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.

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    Johnson U-turn leaves nation’s plans for Christmas in tatters

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    Spread of new Covid strain forces lockdown with a ‘stay home’ alert for London and south-east

    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.

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    Michel Barnier seeks to end Brexit deadlock with fresh fishing proposal

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    EU chief responds in final hours to Boris Johnson’s request for Brussels to seal deal

    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”.

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    UK Covid live: tier 3 rules extended across southern England as secondary schools face staggered January return

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    Latest updates: ‘vast majority’ of areas currently in tier 3 will remain there; secondary school pupils’ return to class in England will be staggered

    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).

    In a written ministerial statement Edward Argar, a health minister, said:

    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.

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    Boris Johnson: it would be inhuman to cancel Christmas – video

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    The UK prime minister insists he will not change plans to relax Covid rules around Christmas, despite a sharp rise in cases. Johnson instead urges Britons to exercise personal responsibility, minimise social contacts, and consider delaying seeing elderly relatives until they have been vaccinated

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    ‘It made Boris seem like a normal person’: how did Johnson’s Covid change him?

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    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?

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    Brexit trade deal possible within days after Johnson concession, says EU

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    Barnier says PM’s acceptance of need for ‘evolution clause’ as standards diverge has unlocked talks

    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.

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    Johnson and EU vow to go ‘extra mile’ to thrash out Brexit deal

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    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.

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