Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Boris Johnson’s claims about the prospects of rewriting the Brexit deal have been compared by the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator to the “false promises, pseudo-patriotism and foreigner-bashing” he is said to have used to win the EU referendum.
The suggestion from the Conservative leadership frontrunner that he will be able to dump Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, withhold the UK’s £39bn divorce bill and still negotiate a free-trade deal in Brussels was savaged by Guy Verhofstadt.
Tory leadership frontrunner’s claim comes one day after he said UK will leave EU ‘come what may, do or die’
Boris Johnson has said the chances of a no-deal Brexit are a “million-to-one against”, despite promising to leave on 31 October whether or not he has managed to strike a new agreement with the European Union.
Johnson, the frontrunner to be prime minister, told a hustings that the chances of a no-deal Brexit were vanishingly small, as he believed there was a mood in the EU and among MPs to pass a new Brexit deal.
Jeremy Hunt has suggested there is “no trust” in Boris Johnson to fulfil his promises on Brexit, telling the BBC he believes he has the better personality to be prime minister.
Speaking after a war of words with his Conservative leadership rival, whom Hunt branded a coward for turning down a debate with him on Sky News on Tuesday night, Hunt said 31 October was a “fake deadline” and could lead to a snap general election.
Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to say whether his campaign team passed a photograph of him and his partner to newspapers as a PR strategy during a radio interview which saw the Tory leadership frontrunner quizzed again about his personal life.
Speaking to LBC, Johnson refused at least half a dozen times to comment on the photo of himself and Carrie Symonds seemingly sitting in the garden of a pub. He would not answer when the host, Nick Ferrari, pressed: “This is quite an old picture isn’t it?”
Amid mounting criticism that the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership campaign has been dodging public scrutiny, Johnson is now understood to be rolling out a “media blitz” for the coming days, beginning with five closely controlled events on Tuesday, in an attempt to defy accusations that he is in hiding.
Tory leadership candidate says his rival ‘needs to show he can answer difficult questions’
Jeremy Hunt has joined calls for Boris Johnson to explain why police were called to his home after an argument with his partner by warning that his Conservative leadership rival “needs to show he can answer difficult questions”.
The foreign secretary followed cabinet ministers, backbenchers and a major party donor in demanding that the frontrunner to succeed Theresa May speak out about the loud, late-night altercation with his partner, Carrie Symonds, which was heard by several neighbours.
Conservative voters regard the favourite as better at making decisions and negotiation
Boris Johnson is more trusted by Tory members to make big decisions and negotiate with the EU than Jeremy Hunt – as well as being regarded as more competent than the current foreign secretary – according to the latest Opinium poll for The Observer.
The findings reinforce Johnson’s position as the strong favourite to succeed Theresa May when Tory party members vote on who should be the next prime minister in the coming weeks. Last week Conservative MPs voted to send Johnson and Hunt into the final round of the contest.
Boris Johnson was struggling to keep his campaign to become prime minister on course on Saturday night as he repeatedly refused to explain why police had been called to his home after a loud, late-night altercation with his partner.
Senior Tories were quick to raise fresh concerns over the former foreign secretary’s suitablity for No 10 as the favourite to succeed Theresa May stonewalled question after question about the incident at the first hustings of the leadership contest in front of party members.
Advisers worked to keep him on message all week, but Friday night underlined why he remains a ‘grade one liability’
It was the moment the “Back Boris” team had dreaded but half-expected – when months of careful campaign planning were thrown off course by revelations about their man’s private life. As votes were being counted on Thursday afternoon in the final ballot of MPs for the Tory party leadership, a member of Johnson’s inner circle was upbeat but still on edge. As he paced the Commons corridors he knew Johnson would come top by a mile and reach the final two candidates – but there was no way he would lower his guard.
Asked how it was all going, he replied: “Yes, well, thanks. But you never know what can happen next, do you?”
CBI among industry groups to sign open letter amid concerns over project’s future
Business leaders are calling on the next prime minister to commit to completing HS2, adding that if they do not they risk blocking future investment in the north.
In an open letter, more than 20 figures from industry and commerce have called for the next Tory leader to back the project in full.
It comes amid speculation that the next prime minister – with Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson now the final two MPs vying for the position – could decide to axe the second phase of the project due to concerns over spiralling costs.
Johnson is reported to have asked a former boss of the £56bn scheme to carry out a review if he is made prime minister, while Hunt has said HS2 is “absolutely vital” and he would not scrap the project in its entirety.
Signatures of the letter include the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and London First, the BBC reports.
Jeremy Hunt will go head to head with Boris Johnson in the race to be Britain’s next prime minister, after beating Michael Gove by just two votes in the fifth and final round of voting by Conservative MPs.
Johnson won 160 votes against 77 for Hunt and 75 for Gove. Johnson and Hunt’s names will now go forward to the Tory membership of around 140,000 – with Johnson the overwhelming favourite to take possession of the keys to 10 Downing Street next month.
Rory Stewart has been ousted from the Conservative leadership contest after losing 10 votes since the last round, sparking MPs’ speculation that Boris Johnson’s operatives may have previously pushed fellow supporters to vote for the outsider to help eliminate his Brexiter rival Dominic Raab.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the third round of voting in the Tory leadership contest and Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
The SNP’s Neil Gray say in-work poverty has risen dramatically. Isn’t that May’s legacy?
May says the relative poverty has gone up because pensioners are better off. Gray may want to see pensioners worse off, but she doesn’t.
Julian Lewis, a Conservative, asks what May feels about the principle of bringing a dying soldier to court in Northern Ireland on the basis of no new evidence.
May says no one wants to see cases like this coming to court. But previous investigations have not been found to be lawful. She says she wants to see terrorist being properly brought to justice.
Here is more on Nicola Sturgeon from my colleague Severin Carrell.
@NicolaSturgeon says @BorisJohnson asked her recently (paraphrasing) “So Nicola: full fiscal autonomy. Does that buy you guys off?” “I’m going to make that the starting point of our negotiations should he become prime minister” @reformscotland#devo20
Nicola Sturgeon has said that Boris Johnson’s “almost certain” election as the next Conservative leader has proven how sharply Scotland is now diverging from the rest of the UK, increasing the case for independence.
In a speech to mark 20 years since devolution, the first minister said Johnson’s apparent relish for a no-deal Brexit, and his “gratuitously offensive” opinions about women and minorities are in stark contrast to Scotland’s open, diverse and tolerant politics.
It is surely deeply concerning that the Conservative party is even contemplating putting into the office of prime minister someone whose tenure as foreign secretary was risible, lacking in any seriousness of purpose or basic competence and who, over the years, has gratuitously offended so many, from gay people, to Africans, Muslim women and many others.
But while that, for now, is a matter for the Tories it does further illustrate the different political trajectories of Scotland and other parts of the UK. And it raises the more fundamental question of whether the UK and therefore devolution, in its current form is capable of accommodating those differences.
Iván Duque decries social acceptability of drug that inflicts environmental and social damage on producers
Middle-class cocaine users are inconsistent hypocrites if they fail to recognise the environmental and social damage their drug use is inflicting on producer countries, the Colombian president has said during a visit to London.
In an interview with the Guardian on Monday, Iván Duque said that cocaine’s social acceptability had to end. “There are many people who present themselves as environmentalists, and if they want to be coherent, they must understand all the environmental damage that is caused by the production of cocaine – not just destroying tropical forests, [but] spreading chemicals in protected areas and destroying human capital,” he said.
Eurosceptic backer warns that hardliners want frontrunner to rip up May’s deal
Boris Johnson has been accused of giving MPs contradictory promises on Brexit to win their votes, as one of his highly Eurosceptic backers warned that hardliners want to see him effectively tear up Theresa May’s deal with the EU.
The Conservative leadership frontrunner will face questions on his Brexit stance in a television grilling for the first time in the campaign on Tuesday, amid frustration among his rivals that he is getting away with pledging to be “all things to all MPs” on issues from Brexit to HS2 in one-on-one meetings with them.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Tory leadership candidates take part in the press gallery hustings
And here’s another story from the hustings, filed by the Press Association.
Tory leadership hopefuls Rory Stewart and Sajid Javid believe they have the required number of supporters to survive Tuesday’s second round of voting.
Stewart managed to secure just 19 votes in the first ballot and Javid had 23 - both short of the 33 required to stay in the race after the second vote.
Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story about what the Tory election candidates had to say at the press gallery hustings about Donald Trump.
Jeremy Hunt has vigorously defended Donald Trump for quoting the far-right commentator Katie Hopkins in an attack on the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, as Downing Street declined to condemn the US president’s words.
The foreign secretary said that while he would not have used the same words as Trump he would “150% agree” with the overall sentiment.
Jeremy Hunt has vigorously defended Donald Trump for quoting the far-right commentator Katie Hopkins in an attack on the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, as Downing Street declined to condemn the US president’s words.
The foreign secretary said that while he would not have used the same words as Trump he would “150% agree” with the overall sentiment.
Foreign secretary says it is wrong to commit rigidly to leaving the EU by 31 October
Jeremy Hunt has said the Brexit deadline of 31 October should not be a “hard stop” and that Boris Johnson is posing a “stark choice”, between leaving the EU without a deal and a general election.
As the five remaining rivals to Boris Johnson prepare for a televised debate on Sunday evening, Hunt warned it would be wrong to commit now to leave the EU by Halloween, come what may.
Top Tories say attempt to appease hardliners means coalition of support for his leadership bid will not survive the autumn
Boris Johnson’s attempts to appease hardline Tory Brexiters will tilt the party into a “disastrous general election” that could be just months away, senior Conservatives are warning.
The runaway favourite to replace Theresa May is being told that the coalition of support set to deliver him Downing Street “won’t survive the autumn”, when he will have to decide whether to accept a deal with the EU or try to force a no-deal Brexit – a move likely to precipitate an election.