Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Nurses could take industrial action if government refuses to lift pay cap, says RCN

Nurses protesting about the public sector pay cap earlier this year.
Nurses protesting about the public sector pay cap earlier this year. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz / Barcroft Im/Wiktor Szymanowicz / Barcroft

Afternoon summary

  • The Royal College of Nurses has said that nurses may take industrial action if the government refuses to lift the cap on public sector pay rises. (See 3.37pm.)
  • Damian Green, the first secretary of state, has said that the UK government has “no interest at all” in using the process of transferring European law into British law as a “power grab” against the devolved nations. Speaking in Cardiff after a meeting with the Welsh first minister, Carwyn Jones, Green said:

The UK government has no interest at all in any kind of power grab. We want and expect more powers to be devolved to Wales after Brexit ... A lot of the [repeal] bill is about the practicality of life where we know that we will leave the European Union at the end of March 2019.

There is a huge mass of legislation that needs to be passed to enable businesses to have certainty and confidence, to allow investment to continue and so on.

We are looking for the most practical way in which we can get all that legislation through and discussed by Parliament, as well as in devolved areas, agreed with the devolved administrations.

Damien Green (second left) talks with Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones (right) in Cardiff.
Damien Green (second left) talks with Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones (right) in Cardiff. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, takes part in a rally in Old Palace Yard outside parliament on the day of the first ever strike at McDonald’s in the UK.
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, takes part in a rally in Old Palace Yard outside parliament on the day of the first ever strike at McDonald’s in the UK. Photograph: Szymanowicz/REX/Shutterstock

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Ireland is in a “uniquely vulnerable position” as a result of the British vote to leave the European Union, the Irish foreign minister has said.

Speaking on a visit to Brussels on Monday, Simon Coveney said the UK’s decision to leave the EU had “potentially an extraordinarily negative impact on Ireland and on the island of Ireland”.

He referred to the importance of maintaining the common travel area on the island of Ireland, as well as the benefits of the peace process.

How do we, perhaps most importantly, maintain what a peace process has delivered on the island of Ireland, which is effectively an invisible border that is 500 km long, which has more than 260 road crossings on it and that has nearly 2m cars crossing every single month.

Describing Ireland as “an enthusiastic member” he quashed any suggestions that Ireland might follow the UK out of the exit door.

Coveney was speaking alongside the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier, who said that “Ireland’s interests would be the European Union’s interests and vice versa”.

The timing of the visit is no accident, coming soon after last week’s third round of Brexit negotiations and shortly before the commission is due to publish its position paper on Ireland.

The UK has already published position papers on Ireland and the customs union, although British proposals to achieve an invisible border have been dismissed by Brussels as “magical thinking”.

At the weekend, the Brexit secretary David Davis appeared to ditch the most radical idea. His department had suggested the UK should collect customs revenues on behalf of the EU at the Irish border, an idea regarded as deeply problematic in Brussels. According to the Times, Davis told an audience in Washington that “a conventional approach” that involved all goods being declared and possibly checked was more likely

Guy Verhofstadt also told journalists that the next round of Brexit talks could be delayed because of the speech that Theresa May is due to give on Brexit later this month.

It has already been reported that May is due to give a speech on Brexit on or around that date.

Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s lead Brexit spokesman, has been commenting on the Brexit talks this afternoon. As my colleague Jennifer Rankin reports, it has all got a bit surrealist.

Universal basic income 'not the silver bullet', says TUC report

Many on the left favour a universal basic income (UBI), a flat-rate, unemployment-style benefit for everyone, regardless of whether they are unemployed or not. It would not be cheap, but it would guarantee everyone a minimum income and leave people free to look for work without having to worry about losing benefit. The Green party backs the idea and, as Sonia Sodha reported in the Observer earlier this year, a wide range of other experts and organisations are interested in it too.

But the TUC does not seem so keen. Today, in a low-key announcement, it has published a report (pdf) from Andrew Harrop and Cameron Tait at the Fabian Society looking at the case for an against UBI. The report isn’t entirely negative, but it says that “a fully-fledged UBI is not the silver bullet for our future labour market” and that other reforms (including some involving UBI-style universalism) would be better. It says:

When thinking about the risks arising from the future world of work, a UBI has some advantages, but in many cases more practical reforms offer alternative solutions. In reality, even most proponents of UBI accept that the policy would need to sit alongside some continuing means-testing. So a pure UBI is not a silver bullet for the changing world of work. Supporters and opponents of UBI should therefore desist from polarising confrontation and seek to discover where they share common ground, especially on the role of universal entitlements within a multi-layered tax/benefit system designed for the changing labour market.

The EU (withdrawal) bill, or the repeal bill as they call it in government (even informally, the “great” has been dropped from the title), gets its second reading on Thursday and on Monday. It is a two-day debate because it is such an important piece of legislation.

For those of you who want to learn more about it, here is the House of Commons library’s 120-page briefing paper on the bill (pdf).

Nurses could take industrial action if government refuses to lift pay cap, says RCN

The Royal College of Nursing has welcomed reports that the government plans to lift the public sector pay cap. (See 12.14pm.) According to Janet Davies, the RCN’s chief executive, nurses may take industrial action if the cap remains. In a statement she said:

If reports are true, this would be significant progress and a sign that the government is listening to our campaign. But any offer from the PM or Treasury needs to not only scrap the pay cap for future years but go some way towards making up for lost earnings.

If the government does not scrap the cap then industrial action is on the table. Nursing pay has fallen by 14% in real-terms since 2010, now worth £3,000 each year.

Thousands of nurses will be demonstrating outside parliament this Wednesday to ensure ministers are left in no doubt about the strength of feeling in the profession.

Britain for Europe, which is campaigning for the UK to stay in the EU, has announced that it is holding a march and rally in Brighton on Sunday 24 September at the start of the Labour conference. In a statement it says:

Brexit is not inevitable: it can and should be stopped. The Labour party’s performance in the 2017 general election wildly exceeded expectations, in no small part due to the gains made in areas which voted heavily to remain in the EU. Recent polls indicate that 64% of Labour members support staying in the EU. As a result of this, the Labour party leadership is beginning to see sense. Labour’s recent policy decision (that Britain should remain in the single market and the customs union during a ‘transition period’) demonstrates that sustained opposition to Brexit is already having an impact. However, pro-Europeans must keep up the pressure to ensure that Brexit and its disastrous consequences are avoided altogether. We must now drive the case in the public domain for Britain’s continued EU membership.

Jeremy Corbyn believes in giving more power to the grassroots in the party. The Labour party must also listen to its membership, its support base, and the broader electorate. Democracy did not stop in June last year, as demonstrated by the surprise general election this year. he truly believes in empowering his party’s membership, he should join the cross-party opposition to Brexit. To borrow a phrase, Labour should “listen to the many, not the few”.

The Liberal Democrats have said they will table a reasoned amendment to the repeal bill (or the EU [withdrawal] bill, as it is officially known). Assuming their amendment fails (which it will, if it gets called - they have just 12 MPs), they will vote against at second reading, a week today (after the two-day debate starting on Thursday).

Explaining the Lib Dems’ position, the Lib Dem Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said:

This bill represents a major threat to the sovereignty of parliament and no amount of tweaking and fiddling will make a silk purse of this sow’s ear.

The Liberal Democrats will fight to fix this bill and if it is not changed we will vote against it at second reading.

In its current form the legislation denies parliament its centuries-old right to scrutinise bills and instead hands extreme powers to the government.

Far from taking back control, the bill as it stands is an affront to democracy.

Lunchtime summary

  • Downing Street has refused to deny that it is planning to lift the public sector pay cap. (See 12.53pm.)
  • Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, has said that Labour wants to stay in a customs union with the EU during the transitional period after Brexit, not in the EU customs union itself. He made the comment in an interview on the Today programme. Gardiner’s comment is consistent with what Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, said in his Observer article last month setting out Labour’s revised policy (“we would seek to remain in a customs union with the EU and within the single market during this period”, Starmer wrote), but it technically contradicts some Labour figures, like Tom Watson, the deputy leader, who have described the new policy as wanting to stay in the customs union.
  • The UK’s elections system will fail unless underlying problems are tackled urgently, a spokesman for the council staff who manage the polls has warned. John Turner, chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, was commenting in a statement on the publication of an AEA report (pdf) on the running of the May local elections and the June snap general election. He said:

We ... call once again on the government to address our recommendations in a positive manner, to not shy away from the more difficult challenges and to demonstrate a greater sense of urgency in doing so than has been demonstrated in recent years,” he said. The UK’s electoral system is already fractured and will fail without proper attention being given to addressing the problems.

And, while we are on the subject of Michel Barnier, he has been speaking to reporters in Brussels after a meeting with Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister. Barnier said any Irish solution to Brexit would have to be compatible with EU law and the single market. These are from RTE’s Tony Connelly.

As MLex’s Matthew Holehouse reports, Coveney said Brexit could have “an extraordinarily negative impact” on Ireland.

Barnier says his comment about 'teaching' Britons about impact of Brexit taken out of context

Michel Barnier’s comment at the weekend about wanting to “teach people … what leaving the single market means” was interpreted in some quarters as a threat. The Daily Mail described it as an “incendiary intervention”, and the Express claimed his comments were likely to “enrage” ministers.

Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotatior, insisted this morning that his comments were taken out of context. When he suggested teaching the British people a lesson, he meant in the spirit of Mr Chips, not the Kray twins - he reveals.

For a measured account, here is the Guardian’s report of what he said.

Updated

In the Times today (paywall) Matt Chorley says Theresa May is considering making Jacob Rees-Mogg a minister. On the Daily Politics Rees-Mogg (a“pantomime toff”, according to a recent Bagehot column in the Economist) did not sound particularly keen on the prospect.

Back to Scottish Labour, and this is the story my colleague Severin Carrell has filed about Anas Sarwar and Richard Leonard standing for the leadership.

No 10 lobby briefing - Summary

And here is a full summary of the Number 10 lobby briefing.

  • Downing Street refused to deny that the government is planning to lift the public sector pay cap. (See 12.14pm.)
  • Britain is pushing for fresh on North Korea after yesterday’s bomb test, Number 10 said. But the prime minister’s spokeswoman also stressed that Britain wanted a “peaceful, diplomatic” solution to the crisis. She said:

It’s our view in the UK overwhelmingly that peaceful diplomatic means are best.

The spokeswoman refused to endorse some of Washington’s more bellicose language about the crisis. Asked, for example, about President Trump’s claim that South Korea is guilty of appeasement, she replied: “I’m not going to explain comments made by other parties.”

The spokeswoman said the UK would be pushing for fresh sanctions on North Korea at a UN security council meeting later. She cited putting restrictions on North Korean workers overseas as an example of what might be proposed. But she refused to say whether the UK would call for all international oil exports to North Korea to be banned.

  • Downing Street said Britain is ready to intensify the Brexit talks. Currently talks are taking place in Brussels every four weeks, but Politico Europe says today that British officials have requested “continuous talks in Brussels starting September 18 and then rolling week-to-week until a breakthrough is achieved”. The prime minister’s spokewoman did not directly confirm this, but she said:

We are ready to intensify negotiations. Nothing has been formally agreed but that is something that we can discuss. Typically, with negotiations, as time goes on you see the pace pick up. Certainly we wouldn’t rule that out, but nothing has been agreed yet.

  • A new Brexit position paper, covering science and innovation, will be published on Wednesday.
  • May is meeting the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, for talks in Number 10 this afternoon.
10 Downing Street.
10 Downing Street. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/EPA

No 10 refuses to deny planning to lift public sector pay cap

I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. It went on rather longer than unusual, although that was not because it was especially revelatory or illuminating. (Often the newsiest briefings wrap up quite quickly, because everyone wants to rush off and file.)

The most interesting line was probably what the prime minister’s spokeswoman said about lifting the public sector pay cap.

  • No 10 refuses to deny it plans to lift public sector pay cap. The spokeswoman was asked about a Sun story saying the government is planning to start lifting the 1% cap on public sector pay increases from spring next year. The Sun says:

No10 aides are drawing up a series of major policies away from Brexit to try to win back the PM’s authority to stay on in No10.

The Sun can reveal that the “jewel” in the package will be ending the 1% cap on rises for all public sector workers.

But because of the huge £4bn a year cost of the move, it will be done gradually over two years.

Under one plan favoured by ministers, the lowest paid and professions with the biggest retention problems – such as nursing and senior leaders across the civil service – will see the first rises, from April next year.

Asked about the story, the spokeswoman refused to deny it. But she insisted that a process would have to be followed: the Treasury would be writing to the pay review bodies in the autumn giving them their remit (the spokeswoman would not be drawn on which of the two standard definitions for the start of autumn the government uses); departments will then submit evidence; and then the pay review bodies will make recommendations in the spring. But, having set out the process, the spokeswoman went on:

[The prime minister] has said on a number of occasions that many people in the public and private sectors feel they are just about managing. We recognise the sacrifice they are making. But there is a process in place.

Asked, finally, if she was telling us effectively that the Sun story was true, the spokewoman just ignored the question and asked what other topics we wanted to raise.

I will post more from the briefing soon.

Good morning. I’m sorry I’m late launching the blog. I was held up at home for various reasons.

This morning Anas Sarwar announced he is runnning for the Scottish Labour leadership. The Press Association has just filed this.

Labour’s Anas Sarwar has pledged to “reunite” his party as he announced his bid to become the next Scottish leader.

Sarwar, a former MP who lost his seat in 2015 when Scottish Labour was virtually wiped out at Westminster, is the second candidate to declare in the contest to succeed Kezia Dugdale.

She stood down suddenly last week, leaving the party in Scotland looking for its fourth leader since the independence referendum in 2014.

Richard Leonard, a former trade-union organiser who was elected to Holyrood in 2016, has already confirmed he is running for the job.

Earlier Sarwar’s rival, Richard Leonard, told BBC Radio Scotland that Scottish Labour failed to capitalise on a so-called “Corbyn bounce” during the general election. Leonard said:

There was an opportunity, I think in all honesty, the Scottish Labour Party missed. I think there was a Corbyn bounce, I don’t think it was picked up soon enough and acted on quickly enough in Scotland.

I think if the Labour Party in Scotland had properly understood what was going on and reacted to it I think that there would have been the opportunity for even greater success.

I think we should have used the opportunity of Jeremy Corbyn’s growing popularity in that election to knock on more doors to get across the Labour message and I think to get away a bit from the entrenchment in constitutional politics which we found ourselves in.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11am: Downing Street lobby briefing.

James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland secretary, has a round of meetings today with the main Northern Ireland parties about the prospect of resuming talks on the resumption of powersharing. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is in Manchester and Leeds, where is he meeting the Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, the Liverpool metro mayor Steve Rotheram and the Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen. And Damian Green, the first secretary of state, is in Cardiff for talks with the Welsh first minister, Carwyn Jones.

I’m just off to the lobby briefing.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Mark Wahlberg was one of the highest paid actors in the world last year – and people are confused
The annual list of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors saw the star of ‘The Family Plan 2’ out-earn the likes of Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Zach Braff denies he is dating AI chatbot
‘Not me,’ said the star of ‘Scrubs’ and ‘Garden State’, ‘love, the guy not dating his chatbot’
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Andrew and Peter Mandelson pictured in bathrobes with Jeffrey Epstein
Trio captured relaxing around a wooden table in photo believed to have been taken on Martha’s Vineyard
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Hooked by Asako Yuzuki: a biting tale of female loneliness and obsession
After the sensational reception of her novel Butter (2017, translated into English in 2024), Asako Yuzuki is back with Hooked (translated by Polly Barton) – a novel about loneliness and the sometimes twisted and complicated relationships between women.
The Conversation
The Conversation
What experts want you to know about the squigglies in your vision
Eye ‘floaters’ are generally harmless - until they’re a sign of something terribly wrong
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal
Fiery writs, imperial sovereigns, and cheating escheators.
Reason
Reason
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play