Category Archives: Boris Johnson

Sajid Javid was not told in advance of adviser’s sacking by Cummings

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Sonia Khan was accused of misleading PM’s strategist over contact with ex-Hammond aide

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.

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Nationwide protests as Boris Johnson suspends parliament – video

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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

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Boris Johnson asks Queen to suspend parliament

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Decision will cut dramatically the time MPs will have to take action to prevent no-deal Brexit

Boris Johnson has confirmed he has asked the Queen for permission to suspend parliament for five weeks from early September.

The prime minister claimed MPs would have “ample time” to debate Brexit, as he wrote to MPs on Wednesday, saying he had spoken to the Queen and asked her to suspend parliament from “the second sitting week in September”.

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G7 summit: last rites of old order as Trump’s theater looms next year

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Leaders put on a show of common endeavor with awareness that meeting could be a lot worse next year when Trump will be circus master

If next year’s G7 summit turns out to be a branding event at a Trump golf resort in Florida, with Vladimir Putin as de-facto co-chair, the old guard among America’s allies will look back on this year’s meeting in Biarritz with some nostalgia.

Related: Trump defends bid to host G7 at his Miami resort: 'I don't care about money'

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Boris Johnson refuses to rule out forcing through no-deal Brexit

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PM repeatedly declines to rule out proroguing parliament if MPs try to thwart his Brexit policy

Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to rule out proroguing parliament to try to push through his Brexit policy.

Pressed repeatedly at a press conference at the end of the G7 summit about what he would do if MPs tried to thwart his policy, the British prime minister declined to rule out shutting down parliament.

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Britain can easily cope with no-deal Brexit, claims Boris Johnson

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PM said EU leaders would be blamed for their ‘obduracy’ and that UK could keep much of £39bn settlement

Britain could “easily cope” with a no-deal Brexit, which would be the fault of EU leaders’ “obduracy”, Boris Johnson claimed at the summit of G7 countries in France, as he continued to resist mounting pressure to spell out his own plans for breaking the deadlock.

“I think we can get through this, this is a great, great country, the UK, we can easily cope with a no-deal scenario,” Johnson insisted in Biarritz, as he made his debut on the international stage as prime minister with a series of bilateral meetings with world leaders including Donald Trump, the EU council president, Donald Tusk, and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.

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Boris Johnson: no deal would mean UK did not owe Brexit divorce bill

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PM says keeping £39bn is not threat but ‘reality’ before meeting with Donald Tusk

Boris Johnson has said the £39bn Brexit divorce bill would not “strictly speaking” be owed to Brussels in full in the event of no deal, insisting: “It’s not a threat. It’s a reality.”

Speaking to broadcasters as he prepared to meet the European council president, Donald Tusk, at the G7 summit in Biarritz, Johnson said: “If we come out without an agreement it is certainly true that the £39bn is no longer, strictly speaking, owed.”

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Donald Trump tells Boris Johnson at G7 he wants a ‘very big’ trade deal – video

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The US president talks up the prospects of a US-UK trade deal after meeting Boris Johnson at the G7 summit in Biarritz, praising the PM as 'the right man' to deliver Brexit and suggesting a trade agreement between the two countries could be struck quickly

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Boris Johnson seeks legal advice on five-week parliament closure ahead of Brexit

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Secret plan to block any delay in leaving EU is likely to anger European leaders at G7 summit

Boris Johnson has asked the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, whether parliament can be shut down for five weeks from 9 September in what appears to be a concerted plan to stop MPs forcing a further extension to Brexit, according to leaked government correspondence.

An email from senior government advisers to an adviser in No 10 – written within the last 10 days and seen by the Observer – makes clear that the prime minister has recently requested guidance on the legality of such a move, known as prorogation. The initial legal guidance given in the email is that shutting parliament may well be possible, unless action being taken in the courts to block such a move by anti-Brexit campaigners succeeds in the meantime.

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Britain to be ‘energetic partner’ after Brexit, PM to tell G7 allies

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Boris Johnson also expected to discuss Iran with Donald Trump at summit in Biarritz

Britain will continue to be an “energetic partner” to its international allies after Brexit, Boris Johnson has said, as he prepared to fly to Biarritz for the G7 summit – his first major appearance on the world stage as prime minister.

Fresh from Brexit discussions in Berlin and Paris this week, Johnson will use a string of bilateral meetings with world leaders in the French resort to underline Britain’s determination to remain internationalist.

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Brexit deal solution at risk from ticking clock, not Merkel or Macron

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With or without a 30-day deadline, the Brexit endgame will play out in London – rather than Paris or Berlin

If a week is a long time in politics, three weeks feels like an eternity in Brexit. Newly installed in No 10 in July, Boris Johnson vowed that he would not sit down for talks with EU leaders until they agreed to drop the Irish backstop from the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

Less than a month later, the prime minister was in Paris and Berlin, where he heard the leaders of France and Germany pledge their support for the “indispensable” backstop – the insurance plan to avoid a hard border on Ireland that has become the stumbling block of Britain’s EU exit.

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Macron tells Johnson Brexit backstop is indispensable

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French president tells Boris Johnson he must present concrete proposals for UK exit

Emmanuel Macron has described the Irish backstop as “indispensable” to a Brexit deal and urged Boris Johnson to set out his proposed alternatives as soon as possible, as he met the British prime minister in Paris.

The French president told Johnson on Thursday that the EU would like “visibility” on London’s concrete proposals for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU within a month, echoing language used by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Wednesday.

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Johnson and Macron to hold ‘frank’ Brexit talks in Paris

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French observers fear Britain’s PM is setting up France to take blame over no-deal departure

Emmanuel Macron will hold a friendly but “frank” working lunch with Boris Johnson on Thursday after dismissing his request to renegotiate the Brexit withdrawal agreement and scrap the Irish backstop as “not an option”.

The French president told reporters on Wednesday night that there was a “British democratic crisis” over Brexit and he was seeking “clarification” from Johnson on his proposals as the 31 October exit date approaches.

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‘Unelected PM … gambling with peace’ – Irish EU commissioner launches attack on Boris Johnson – live news

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Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen

From Bloomberg’s Jess Shankleman

The pound slipped to the day's low after we reported France now sees a no-deal Brexit as the most likely outcome #gbp https://t.co/Xmvg4Lpvkf pic.twitter.com/AQcwazbBaf

This is from Jenny Hill, the BBC’s Berlin correspondent.

Sat outside German Chancellery. Slovakian president’s motorcade has just whisked her away following her first meeting with Angela Merkel. Next on the guest list, Boris Johnson in just over an hour.....

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EU rejects Boris Johnson request to remove backstop

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Johnson says MPs who claim they can prevent no deal are to blame for hardline EU response

The European Union has rebuffed Boris Johnson’s attempts to tear up the Irish backstop, in a coordinated response that appeared to close the door on further meaningful Brexit negotiations.

In remarks shortly before the prime minister departed for a whistle-stop tour to meet European leaders, Johnson put the blame for the EU’s hardline response at the feet of Conservative rebels, claiming his negotiating strategy was being undermined by those who said they could prevent no deal.

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No 10 furious at leak of paper predicting shortages after no-deal Brexit

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Government figures seek to play down predictions of food, medicine and fuel shortages in leaked document

Downing Street has reacted with fury to the leak of an official document predicting that a no-deal Brexit would lead to food, medicine and petrol shortages, with No 10 sources blaming the disclosure on a hostile former minister intent on ruining Boris Johnson’s trip to see EU leaders this week.

The leaked document, detailing preparations under Operation Yellowhammer, argues that the most likely scenario is severe extended delays to medicine supplies and shortages of some fresh foods, combined with price rises, if there is a no-deal Brexit on 31 October.

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Brexit: leaked papers predict food shortages and port delays

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Medicines will also be subject to shortages in what Whitehall sources called ‘the most realistic assessment’

The UK will be hit with a three-month meltdown at its ports, a hard Irish border and shortages of food and medicine if it leaves the EU without a deal, according to government documents on Operation Yellowhammer.

The documents predict severe extended delays to medicine supplies and shortages of some fresh foods combined with price rises as a likely scenario if the UK leaves without a withdrawal agreement, which is due to happen on 31 October.

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G7 leaders wait nervously for Boris Johnson’s debut on the world stage

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As the prime minister heads for the Biarritz summit, he has no relationship with the other governments and very little trust

For weeks things have been quiet in the summer heat. But in recent days the normal diplomatic back-channelling between London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin and Rome has cranked into gear before the G7 meeting in Biarritz of the world’s most advanced economies.

British officials have been liaising with their EU counterparts on how to get on the right side of the trade war between the US and China, tread a diplomatic fine line over the European-backed Iranian nuclear deal opposed by Donald Trump and get the rhetoric right on the precarious situation in Hong Kong in the presence of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “This is a diplomatic quagmire of a G7,” said a European diplomat.

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