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 battles to keep Brexit plan on track after Amber Rudd quit the government on Saturday
Boris Johnson will fly to Dublin to meet the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, on Monday, as he battles to show his Brexit plan remains on track after Amber Rudd dramatically quit the cabinet.
Against a backdrop of mounting disquiet inside government at Johnson’s gung-ho approach and the combative style of his chief strategist Dominic Cummings, the British prime minister hopes to demonstrate that he is serious about negotiating a fresh Brexit deal.
French foreign minister decries ‘worrying’ lack of progress as EU diplomats express frustration
The French government has threatened to veto a further Brexit extension due to the “worrying” lack of progress in the recent talks, as EU diplomats expressed their frustration at being caught up in game-playing by the British government.
In a sign of rising exasperation, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, highlighted the lack of realistic proposals being put forward by Downing Street as an alternative to the Irish backstop.
The prime minister takes his game of Brexit bluff to Dublin tomorrow, seemingly unconcerned that his mendacity is now visible to all
The self-image of the public-school ethos from which Boris Johnson springs is best expressed in Thomas Hughes’s high-Victorian novel, Tom Brown’s School Days. But Johnson’s own model is surely not the honourable Tom but the contemptible cad Harry Flashman, as he is so hilariously reimagined in George MacDonald Fraser’s The Flashman Papers. The arch-bounder was sometimes suggested as an avatar for David Cameron but he is surely a better match for Johnson. He rises inexorably to become Sir Harry Flashman VC and brazenly informs us that “all my fame and glory has been earned by accident, false pretence, cowardice, doing the dirty, and blind luck”. Flashman makes his career in the military and explains: “Some human faults are military virtues, like stupidity, and arrogance, and narrow-mindedness.”
We may take assurance from the very fact that Johnson is prime minister that the same goes for politics. Some human faults – mendacity, cynicism, opportunism, bluster, recklessness – are political virtues. But only up to a point. Those qualities have taken Johnson to the pinnacle of power. Shamelessness is practically a requirement for high office. But as we have seen in a dramatic week, the vices that allow you to take power are not much use when you have to wield it – at least not yet and not in a country whose battered democracy retains some life.
PM suggests he will break the law to avoid asking for extension of article 50 as his hopes of election by end of October recede
Boris Johnson’s shrinking options have narrowed further on Friday, after opposition leaders agreed to reject his demand for a snap general election, until a Brexit delay has been secured.
The prime minister reportedly wrote to Tory members on Friday evening pledging to break the law that will require him to seek an extension of article 50. “They just passed a law that would force me to beg Brussels for an extension to the Brexit deadline. This is something I will never do.”
Boris Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament for five weeks is legal, the high court in London has ruled.
In a judgment handed down by three of the most senior judges in England and Wales, the prime minister was found to have acted lawfully in the advice he gave to the Queen to suspend parliament from next week.
The ruling will be go to appeal at the supreme court, which has already announced it is prepared to hear any appeals on 17 September.
Earlier this week, a Scottish court turned down a similar legal challenge. A third claim seeking to overturn the prime minister’s decision to prorogue parliament until 14 October is being heard in Belfast.
Prorogation has never lasted longer than three weeks in the past 40 years and in most cases was only for a week or less, the London court was told.
During Thursday’s hearing, Lord Pannick QC, representing the legal campaigner Gina Miller, described the prime minister’s decision as an “unlawful abuse of power”.
Signatories including Diane Abbott and Alf Dubs say the rights of EU nationals should be guaranteed. Plus Richard Griffiths on his Swedish wife’s difficulty in getting settled status and Emanuele Maindron on her family being torn apart. And another contributor says spare a thought for non-EU nationals too
In his first statement as prime minister, Boris Johnson gave “unequivocally our guarantee to the 3.2 million EU nationals now living and working among us … that, under this government, they will have the absolute certainty for the right to live and remain”. In less than a day, the prime minister’s spokesperson rushed to clarify that this did not mean new legislation would be proposed. Instead Johnson would maintain the EU Settlement Scheme.
As campaigners have pointed out, the current scheme implies that migrants who fail to apply will lose their legal status and residency rights. Figures suggest at least 2 million EU nationals have not applied for settled status yet. In order to be given settled status, migrants have to prove they have lived in the UK for at least five years.
The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, has warned that there is “no such thing as a clean break” – Brexit deal or no Brexit deal – with difficult and complex negotiations on the future relationship with the EU whatever the outcome of talks. In a speech in Dublin to the British and Irish Chambers of Commerce, he has said:
If there is no deal – and I believe we may have to live with no deal for a period – then, at a certain point, we will have to begin negotiations again. The first and only items on the agenda ... will be citizens’ rights, the financial settlement with the EU and a solution to the Irish border.
Whatever happens, Ireland will not be dragged out of the single European market.
Recently, Prime Minister Johnson and I spoke by phone. We spoke of our shared desire to see the Northern Ireland political institutions reinstated. We shared our perspectives on the withdrawal agreement and agreed that our teams would establish one-to-one contact.
We will meet again in Dublin on Monday. Unfortunately, given political developments in the UK, there is a significant and growing risk of no-deal.
Here’s some more detail on the criticism of Johnson from the West Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, Labour’s Mark Burns-Williamson:
To use police officers as the backdrop to what became a political speech was inappropriate and they shouldn’t have been put in that position.
It clearly turned into a rant about Brexit, the opposition and a potential general election. There’s no way that police officers should’ve formed the backdrop to a speech of that nature.
Yes, because he’s used the pretence of an announcement around police recruitment for mainly a political speech.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including reaction to PM’s threat to remove whip from Tory MPs who vote against him on Brexit
Rumours of a snap general election have sent the pound tumbling on the international currency markets, as investors brace for further political turmoil as the Brexit deadline edges closer.
Sterling has slumped by almost a cent against the US dollar and sold-off sharply against the euro, sliding below $1.21 and €1.10 as election speculation spreads through the City.
Anyone who thinks that an election will solve the UK’s political crisis has not been paying attention over the past three years.
Speculation is mounting that Boris Johnson could call a snap general election if backbench rebels succeed in passing a bill to delay Brexit, with a Downing Street source saying the issue would be treated as “an expression of confidence” in the government.
Johnson’s cabinet ministers are being summoned for an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday afternoon, before the prime minister addresses Conservative MPs at a No 10 drinks reception.
Rebel Tories face deselection over Brexit, as PM abruptly cancels meeting with group including ex-ministers
Boris Johnson is prepared to blow up his own parliamentary majority and withdraw the whip from dozens of Conservative MPs if they back plans to stop no-deal Brexit, Tory whips have warned potential rebels, in an extreme move by Downing Street that would pave the way for an imminent general election.
As hostilities escalated, Johnson also signalled how serious his intention is to follow through the threat of deselection by abruptly ripping up plans for a meeting with rebellious former ministers, including Philip Hammond and David Gauke, that had been billed as a last-ditch effort to limit support for the action in parliament.
As we mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the second world war, with liberal democracies again under siege, Britain should be leading the fight against extremism
Eighty years ago, the start of the second world war saw Nazi Germany invading Poland. Six years later, up to 85 million people were dead. I’m in Poland this weekend to commemorate the start of the bloodiest war in human history.
An entire generation of brave men and women around the globe sacrificed everything to defeat the singular evil of Nazism and fascism.
Protesters ranged from students at the prime minister’s old Oxford college to retired teachers, children and activists
In Cambridge’s Market Square, a crowd of families, young people and silver-haired academics listened as Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Masque of Anarchy was read out. Many joined in, from memory, making a collective appeal for non-violent resistance: “Rise, like lions after slumber... Ye are many – they are few.” There were moments of more garrulous protest too. During a speech criticising Boris Johnson, someone shouted: “Off with his head!”
From Bodmin to Berlin, Bristol to Oxford, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in towns and cities across England, Scotland and Wales on Saturday to vent their fury at Johnson’s plan to suspend parliament. Around 1,200 people attended the rally in Cambridge, where they booed the prime minister and his adviser Dominic Cummings as though they were pantomime villains.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators are taking to the streets across Britain and outside the gates of Downing Street in protest against Boris Johnson’s move to suspend parliament.
Crowds brandished banners pledging to “defend democracy”, chanted “stop the coup” and waved EU flags in London in a bid to resist the parliament shutdown.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators are taking to the streets across Britain and outside the gates of Downing Street in protest against Boris Johnson’s move to suspend parliament. Crowds brandished banners pledging to 'defend democracy', chanted: 'Stop the coup' and waved EU flags in dozens of locations around the country, including London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh and Leeds
Dominic Cummings ‘pissed off’ about briefings on pay and gender balance – report
A furious Sajid Javid confronted Boris Johnson on Friday and demanded an explanation of why his media adviser was sacked without his knowledge, amid claims that a deep “culture of fear” has taken hold within the government.
Sonia Khan, Javid’s media adviser, was escorted from No 10 by an armed police officer after a meeting with Johnson’s top strategist, Dominic Cummings, in which she was accused of being dishonest about her contact with the former chancellor Philip Hammond and one of his ex-advisers, who have been trying to block a no-deal Brexit.
A hearing at the High Court in London relating to a bid to challenge the suspension of Parliament will take place on Thursday 5 September, a spokesman for the judiciary has confirmed.
The spokesman told PA:
“A hearing into an application for judicial review received from Gina Miller with the Prime Minister as defendant has been fixed for Thursday 5 September 5 2019 at the Divisional Court in Court 4 at the Royal Courts of Justice, with the Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett presiding.
“The court will first consider the request for the case to be heard and, if it agrees, a full hearing will follow the same day. Further information will be given early next week.”
The chancellor, Sajid Javid, was not informed in advance about the sacking of one of his senior advisers by Boris Johnson’s strategist Dominic Cummings, it has emerged.
Sonia Khan, Javid’s media adviser, was escorted from No 10 by a police officer after being accused of misleading Cummings over her contact with individuals close to the former chancellor Philip Hammond, who has been trying to block a no-deal Brexit.
If the past few years of Brexit debate have passed you by, here is what you need to know
If you’ve lost track of Brexit’s seemingly endless “cliff edges”, now is the time to pay attention as three years of argument appears set to come to a head.
Protesters across the UK took to the streets to demonstrate against the Queen’s approval to prorogue parliament on the request of the prime minister. Boris Johnson confirmed the government will suspend parliament in September with a Queen’s speech on 14 October, which would drastically reduce MPs’ ability to influence changes to the Brexit deal or seek a delay