Nigel Farage appointed to advisory board of green finance firm

Dutch Green Business, which plants trees for carbon capture, says ex-Ukip leader will ‘facilitate introductions’

He has criticised Greta Thunberg for “alarmism” and wind power as “economic insanity” – but Nigel Farage appears to have made a U-turn on climate change, after signing up as a lobbyist for a Dutch green finance firm, in his first commercial role outside frontline politics.

Dutch Green Business Group, which is listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange, said it had appointed Farage to its new advisory board. The eurosceptic and former Ukip leader will “facilitate introductions to politicians and business leaders in the UK and around the world” while also acting as a spokesman for the company, it said in a press release.

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Come clean on logjams at British borders as new Brexit rules kick in, ministers told

Amid confusion for lorry drivers in Kent, logistics firms call for greater transparency to help lessen disruption

Ministers are facing demands for more honesty and transparency over any logjams at the UK border in the wake of Britain’s exit from the EU, amid concerns that waves of disruption will last for six months.

Several lorry drivers are understood to have been turned away at Dover for not having the right paperwork following the end of the Brexit transition period last week. It has caused concern among logistics and manufacturing companies that more severe problems could occur as trade flows increase later this month.

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The lockdown rebels preparing to defy No 10 on Covid restrictions

From former Tory ministers to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the key figures standing against a second lockdown

As England braces for a second national lockdown, Downing Street once more faces a rebellion over tougher restrictions. Ahead of a Commons vote on Wednesday, several Conservative MPs are weighing up their options. Here are some key figures who may line up against the government and the broad camps they sit in, alongside Nigel Farage and his plan for a new anti-lockdown party.

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Port of Dover is brought to a standstill by far-right groups

Flag-waving extremists and white nationalists block roads in protest over migrant Channel crossings

Just after 1pm, below the white cliffs of Dover, Nigel Marcham offered his take on one of the summer’s most potent symbols. “Take a knee for the brethren of this fucking country,” Marcham screamed into his megaphone.

Around him a ragtag collection of far-right supporters, white nationalists and neo-nazis knelt on the A20 outside Dover’s Eastern Docks. “Thanks for taking a fucking knee in the proper way,” he said, clearly delighted with his perversion of the global peaceful protest symbol adopted by millions following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

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Steve Bannon hails Dominic Cummings and predicts lurch to right for No 10

Architect of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign reveals admiration for Boris Johnson’s aide in interview on dark politics

Steve Bannon, who has previously backed a range of notorious far-right political figures, has publicly endorsed Dominic Cummings for the first time, calling him a “brilliant guy”.

Donald Trump’s former chief strategist also said that Boris Johnson will become an increasingly populist prime minister after jettisoning his political positioning as a “globalist” to “opportunistically jump on Brexit”.

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The high-profile figures who got into hot water over lockdown rules

Ministers, scientific advisers and footballers have all been criticised for their behaviour

Neil Ferguson is not the first high-profile figure to apparently fall foul of lockdown rules.

Related: UK coronavirus adviser Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules

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General election live: Corbyn should not resign immediately if Labour loses election, says McCluskey – live news

All the day’s developments on the campaign trail before Johnson and Corbyn’s first TV debate

Boris Johnson has gone for some Rocky Balboa-type posturing ahead of tonight’s ITV debate. (See 2.33pm and 4.50pm.) As you would expect, Jeremy Corbyn’s warm-up routine is rather different.

Labour leader @jeremycorbyn has arrived for the #ITVdebate, saying he hopes for a respectful debate and prepared by eating a Caesar salad#GE2019 #Leadersdebatehttps://t.co/itw9efaa2W pic.twitter.com/Z2PVqCmgEd

And here is another useful Twitter thread on the likely impact of the debate tonight, from the academic Prof Tim Bale. It starts here.

THREAD: Did a @SkyNews bit today on debates. Here's (some of) what we think we know from research in the UK and elsewhere. 1/8

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Brexit party will not contest 317 Tory-won seats, Farage says

Party leader announces election climbdown in effort to avoid splitting leave vote

Nigel Farage has said the Brexit party will not field any candidates against the Conservatives in the 317 seats they won at the last general election, after Boris Johnson committed to leaving the EU by 2020 and pursuing a Canada-style trade deal.

Farage said his party’s climbdown came after months of trying to create a leave alliance with the Tories, but he felt it was time to put the country before his party and make a “unilateral” move.

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Donald Trump urges Farage and Johnson to form Brexit pact – video

Donald Trump says he would like to see his 'friends' Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage form a pact to secure a pro-Brexit parliamentary majority in the general election. Farage announced on Sunday he would not stand in next month's election, choosing instead to campaign nationally against Johnson's Brexit deal. His Brexit party will stand in every seat on 12 December, which has been seen as a potential setback to Johnson.

The president said Johnson was 'the right man for the time ... He's tough, he's smart and I think he's going to do something.'

'What I'd like to see is for Nigel and Boris to come together,' he added. 'I think that's a possibility.'

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Boris Johnson faces threat of Brexit party battle in every seat

PM rejects Nigel Farage’s offer of electoral pact, saying it could allow Jeremy Corbyn into No 10

Boris Johnson faces the threat of battling against the Brexit party for leave votes in every seat across Britain, after Nigel Farage gave the prime minister a two-week deadline to drop his Brexit deal.

After a rocky 48 hours, which saw Johnson booed during a hospital visit and urged by Donald Trump to join forces with Farage, the Brexit party leader urged him to strike a “leave alliance”.

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‘Corbyn would be so bad for your country,’ Trump tells Farage – video

The US president has taken the unusual step of using an interview with Nigel Farage on LBC radio to intervene in the UK general election. Trump said Jeremy Corbyn would be ‘so bad’ for the UK and that Farage and Boris Johnson would be an ‘unstoppable force’ if they were to work together

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Trump says Johnson and Farage could form ‘unstoppable force’

US president claims on LBC Radio that Jeremy Corbyn would take UK to ‘such bad places’

Donald Trump has intervened in the UK’s nascent election campaign, calling on Boris Johnson to team up with Nigel Farage to form an “unstoppable force” and claiming Jeremy Corbyn would be “so bad for your country”.

Speaking to Farage on LBC Radio, the US president also said Johnson’s Brexit deal could prevent the UK from agreeing a trade deal with the US.

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Brexit party MEPs are EU’s biggest earners in second jobs, study finds

Five of party’s members make top 10, as researchers raise conflict of interest concerns

Brexit party members earn more from second jobs than any other group in the European parliament, according to transparency campaigners who are warning about potential conflicts of interest.

An annual study by Transparency International showed that Nigel Farage is no longer the best-paid British MEP by second job. Now in seventh place among the 227 MEPs with outside earnings, Farage earns about €360,000 (£319,000) a year from his media company, Thorn in the Side.

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Brexit: Jess Phillips accuses Boris Johnson of using language ‘designed to inflate hatred’ – live news

Prime minister chooses not to attend Commons to answer urgent question on language he used last night

Here is more from what Boris Johnson told Conservative backbenchers at his private meeting with the 1922 Committee.

From my colleague Rowena Mason

Boris Johnson told MPs at 1922 that he would carry on using the phrase surrender bill but did say MPs must all be careful about using language of violence

Boris Johnson left the 1922 to shouts of “Will you apologise?” from journalists - he scuttled off with no comment

In 1922 meeting there was a sombre moment when @PennyMordaunt told MPs she was with @BorisJohnson in 2016 when news came through that Jo Cox had died. She said 'Boris's reaction was so human'.
"It was a moving moment in there," one Tory MP says.

Striking how few Tory MPs leaving 22 Committee with Boris after around 30 mins stopped to chat to reporters compared with the dying days of Theresa May’s premiership. Not many smiling faces either tbh.

Boris Johnson was described as ‘ebullient’ and ‘full of bonhomie’ by two walking out, others looked pretty sullen.

Jeremy Corbyn is speaking on this topic for Labour.

He says it is “extremely disappointing” that Boris Johnson is not here himself to answer the UQ.

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Boris Johnson refuses to rule out suspending parliament again

PM says adverse supreme court ruling would not stop him proroguing parliament again

Boris Johnson has refused to rule out suspending parliament again if the supreme court rules on Tuesday that he abused his powers as prime minister in doing so earlier this month.

The British prime minister, who is in New York for a UN summit, also indicated he would not feel obliged to resign if the justices rule he misled the Queen in his reasons for suspending parliament.

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Brexit: Supreme court resumes hearing to decide if Boris Johnson’s suspension of parliament lawful – live news

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including day two of the supreme court hearing to decide if Boris Johnson’s five-week suspension of parliament was lawful

Eadie says even Lord Pannick, who represents Gina Miller, accepts that it can be legitimate for the executive to obtain political advantage from prorogation.

If this is the case, how can a court decide what level of political advantage is acceptable, and what level is not.

Prorogation has been used by the government to gain a legislative and so political advantage. One of the most notable examples of that was its use to facilitate the speedy passage of what became the Parliament Act 1949. Under section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911 a non-money bill could only be enacted without the consent of the House of Lords if it was passed in three successive sessions by the House of Commons. In order to procure the speedy enactment of the 1949 Act the government arranged for a session of minimal length in 1948. Parliament was prorogued on 13 September 1948 to the following day. Following the passage of the parliament bill by the House of Commons, it was then prorogued again on 25 October 1948. Accordingly, even if the prorogation under consideration in the present case was, as the claimant and the interveners contend, designed to advance the government’s political agenda regarding withdrawal from the European Union rather than preparations for the Queen’s speech, that is not territory in which a court can enter with judicial review.

This is from the FT’s legal commentator, David Allen Green.

Interesting that there is now not even any lip-service at the Supreme Court that the prorogation was for a new Queen's Speech

Government submissions seem to be that the prorogation power stands, whatever its purpose and effect

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Hopes of clean break with EU are nonsense, says ex-Brexit official

A no-deal exit would trigger complex negotiations, argues former top DexEU civil servant

Claiming a no-deal Brexit represents a clean break with the European Union is “nonsensical”, according to Philip Rycroft, the former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU.

Boris Johnson has promised to extricate the UK from the EU on 31 October “come what may” – and has hinted that he could try to get around legislation mandating him to request a Brexit delay.

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Lessons of the second world war are at risk of being forgotten, or even rewritten | Sadiq Khan

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.

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Donald Trump’s ‘go back’ comments were ‘genius’, says Nigel Farage

Brexit leader admits racist remarks about congresswomen made him feel uncomfortable but says they were shrewd

Nigel Farage has described Donald Trump’s “go back” comments aimed at four congresswomen of colour as “genius”.

The US president’s racist remarks were widely condemned after he told the four Democrats known as the Squad to return to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came”.

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Ann Widdecombe likens Brexit to emancipation of slaves

Widdecombe becomes first Brexit party MEP to speak in new European parliament

The former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe has likened the UK’s departure from the EU to the emancipation of slaves, as she became the first Brexit party MEP to speak in the new European parliament.

With her leader, Nigel Farage, on her right, Widdecombe said the recent negotiations among the EU’s heads of state and government over the leadership of the bloc’s institutions confirmed the need for Britain to leave.

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