Afternoon summary
- Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has backed away from his call for the public sector pay cap to be lifted. (See 9.08am.)
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
The Institute of Directors has put out a statement about Jeremy Corbyn’s speech. (See 1.13pm.) It says that it is glad the Labour leader is a “techno-optimist”, but that it disagrees with him on abolishing tuition fees. This is from Seamus Nevin, its head of employment and skills policy.
New technology will bring disruption to companies and employees alike, but innovative new business models also mean huge new opportunities for creating wealth and boosting productivity. We are pleased to see Jeremy Corbyn emerge as a techno-optimist today, and he is absolutely right to bang the drum for the importance of lifelong learning as means of adapting to changes coming to the labour market over the next few decades.
However, the way forward is not to simply throw money at the issue. The need to get a tight grip on the public finances has not gone away, so we do not think the solution of indefinite and entirely free provision of further education is the right one – as attractive as it might sound.
Many Labour MPs don't properly represent party members, says pro-Corbyn shadow minister
Chris Williamson, the shadow fire services minister and a strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, has backed calls for the mandatory re-selection of MPs. In a statement, he said “a large bulk of MPs” don’t properly represent party members.
Williamson issued his statement a day after Momentum, the pro-Corbyn group, took control of the executive committee of Liverpool Wavertree constituency Labour party, where Luciana Berger is MP. Berger is on the right of the party and resigned from the shadow cabinet over Corbyn’s leadership last summer. At least one of the new members of the CLP executive has said she should apologise for not supporting Corbyn in the past.
In his statement Williamson did not mention development in Liverpool Wavertree CLP. But he said MPs should reflect the views of Labour members. He said:
There are interest groups and individual MPs in this party who think it’s their god-given right to rule. No MP should be guaranteed a job for life and it’s crucial that we all get with the times. MPs elected in earlier phases of this party run the risk of failing to understand what is really going on out there in society. Although this party’s hundreds of thousands of new members were once demonised the election has shown that the political instincts of these members are in line with popular opinion. For our party to succeed these members must be listened to ...
Yes Labour is a big church, but we currently have a large bulk of MPs who represent one relatively small tendency in the congregation. To keep Labour fresh and updated we need MPs who can win the support of the mass membership.
Williamson said that it was a mistake to think of mandatory re-selection as taking Labour back to the 1980s.
Where I think critics of mandatory reselection are mistaken are in trying to view the Corbyn phenomenon through the lens of the ‘70s and ‘80s when the militant left was small and ideologically driven. Today, the bulk of Labour’s new members don’t see the new politics as left or right, they see it as a matter of right or wrong.
He also said most MPs had nothing to fear from mandatory re-selection.
Those MPs who are popular with their members, which may well be the vast majority, should have no problem getting reselected. But its unreasonable to think we as MPs can avoid any contest.
Gerard Batten, Ukip’s Brexit spokesman, has said the UK should ignore the warnings from Michel Barnier today. (See 9.41am, 11.17am and 11.25am.) In a statement Batten said:
It is quite a simple matter for the EU to continue with a simple tariff free agreement to continue to trade with the UK post Brexit.
The EU already has free trade agreements with 58 countries that are not members of the customs union. Such agreements may or may not have tariffs but nothing would be simpler than to continue the existing arrangements.
If Mr Barnier insisted that we adopt simple WTO terms the tariffs would affect German car manufacturers, French wine producers far more than UK industry or agriculture.
Tariffs under WTO rules are either 0% or low on most products, and Mr Barnier should know that they cannot be discriminatory. Concerning customs arrangements the UK and the EU are already signatories to international agreements in order to simplify customs checks across borders.
China, Japan and the USA to name just three, export enormous quantities of goods to the EU without even even having formal trade agreements and the UK would be able to do exactly the same when we leave.
This is an early negotiation position from the EU, so of course they are trying to sound harsh, what else would expect from them?
Speaking at a British Chambers of Commerce event soon after Jeremy Corbyn called again for an end to university fees, Sir Vince Cable, the probable next leader of the Liberal Democrats, has warned that any such investment must also benefit those who don’t take the university route.
Calling tuition fees “this terrible system that is burdening students with debt”, Cable added:
But the problem is - how the hell else do you fund universities, which are expensive institutions? And what do you do about the 60% who don’t go there? Why should they have to pay?
Cable, who as business secretary was in charge of university policy when the coalition government took the decision to triple tuition fees, said he had been invited while not in parliament last year to help the National Union of Students with a strategy on fees.
I was initially a bit hesitant. I thought I was going to be stoned or something. They said, no, you’re our ally. We have realised that the majority of our members who are students are not at university. They’re at FE colleges, or doing apprenticeships. And they resent the fact that they can’t get these student loans that other people are complaining are a terrible burden of debt.
Cable added:
There will be an enormous clamour building up to provide big, big subsidies to the relatively well off part of the population who take the university route, which will all be at the expense, as it has been historically, of the 60% who don’t. What I want to see is something that treats the whole age group on the same kind of basis.
Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story about Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to the British Chambers of Commerce conference.
In the Commons earlier Steve Brine, the care minister, said: “No government has done more to improve the quality of social care.” He was responding to an urgent question from the shadow health minister Barbara Keeley about the report from the Care Quality Commission saying one in three nursing homes has failed its official inspection.
Brine said the government has introduced a tough system of CQC ratings, new qualifications for care workers, and “new standards to ensure that everybody receives the highest quality support.” He also stressed that the CQC report found that the majority of care providers inspected were rated as good.
Keeley said the report highlighted the “damaging impacts” of cuts worth £5bn to care budgets since 2010.
Downing Street has refused to back Liam Fox’s suggestion that the BBC is biased against Brexit. Asked if Theresa May agreed with the international trade secretary’s comment earlier (see 9.47am), the prime minister’s spokesman said:
Ministers and MPs and others will all have their views. It’s a matter for newspapers, broadcasters and others to determine the tone and content of their own coverage.
The prime minister has always been clear on the need to have a free press and free media in this country.
Jeremy Corbyn has said he agrees with Sir John Chilcot, the chair of the Iraq war inquiry, that Tony Blair was not straight with the country in the run-up to the conflict. Chilcot made the comment in an interview with the BBC to mark the first anniversary of the publication of his report.
Asked if he agreed with Chilcot, Corbyn said:
I have made that very clear in the past year, and, yes, I do. The case against the Iraq War is a very strong one. We have got to think very carefully as a country what has happened since the Iraq War and the consequences that flowed from what I believe was a catastrophically wrong decision in 2003.
Asked if there would be further consequences for Blair, Corbyn said:
Well, I understand there are some preparatory legal proceedings going on. I’m more interested, actually, in what we do as a country, how we develop foreign policy, what the intervention strategy is in the future.
“I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to tweet in the way that [Donald Trump] has, much as I might like to,” Boris Johnson told the Today programme this morning. (See 9.08am.)
Actually, he can if he wants, Number 10 said. Asked what Theresa May thought about the prospect of Johnson tweeting like the US president, the prime minister’s spokesman said: “I think that’s a matter for the foreign secretary.”
Boris Johnson was effusive in his praise for Theresa May on the Today programme this morning. (See 9.08am.) This, from the Evening Standard’s Joe Murphy, may help to explain why.
Dinner with Boris only attracted two bids & £15,000 at the Tory summer ball, I hear.
— Joe Murphy (@JoeMurphyLondon) July 6, 2017
Dinner with Theresa May went for £160,000...
UK does not fully understand EU's red lines on Brexit, says Barnier
Here is another quote from Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, at the committee meeting this morning. He said he thought the UK did not understand the EU’s red lines. He set them out like this:
[Number one], the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital are indivisible. We cannot let the single maket unravel.
Number two, there can by no sector by sector participation in the single market.
Number three, the EU must maintain full sovereignty for deciding regulations.
These three points were already made clear, very clear, by the European council and by the European parliament. But I am not sure whether they have been fully understood across the Channel.
Barnier says his main job is to 'limit the cost of Brexit for the 27' remaining EU states
Here are more quotes from Michel Barnier about what will happen when the UK leaves the single market and the customs union. Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, was speaking to a committee in Brussels this morning. (See 9.41am.)
- Barnier said his main job was to “limit the cost of Brexit for the 27 [remaining EU states], to the extent that that is possible”.
- He said trade with the EU would “never be as fluid” for the UK once it left the single market and the customs union. He said:
Trade will never be as fluid for a country which makes the choice to leave the single market and the customs union.
Only a combination of the customs union and the rules of the single market make it possible to trade freely without friction between our countries. You don’t get the one without the other.
By choosing to leave the union, you are moving yourself deliberately outside that external border which is the border of the single market.
Barnier then gave some examples, as the Press Association reports here.
Barnier gave examples of the way in which he believes that “a trading relationship with a country which is not in the EU will involve friction”.
UK exporters will face additional red tape over VAT declarations, he said.
And exports of live animals and animal products will be subject to border checks, which will pose a particular challenge on the border with the Republic of Ireland.
Businesses, like Airbus in North Wales, which rely on integration with continental Europe will face new “constraints” in moving parts and staff between centres of production.
Withdrawal without agreement on future trade arrangements would mean “very cumbersome” customs procedures for businesses, with UK companies facing delays of three to four days, rather than a few hours, on every export of goods to the EU, requiring them to invest more of their resources in warehouses, storage and transportation.
Updated
Liam Fox’s claim that “some elements of our media would rather see Britain fail than Brexit succeed” (see 9.47am) is being parodied on Twitter.
This is from the Financial Times’ Robert Shrimsley.
Some elements in our Government would rather see Britain fail than abandon their own ideological position https://t.co/PtWainODH0
— robert shrimsley (@robertshrimsley) July 6, 2017
And this is from the Times’ Sam Coates.
I think some elements of the cabinet would rather see Liam Fox fail that Brexit proceed https://t.co/EeMUxpzibp
— Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) July 6, 2017
The press notice about inward investment that Liam Fox was referring to (see 10.11am) is headlined: “New figures show UK attracts more investment than ever.”
But, as the Lib Dems have pointed, this does not quite tell the whole story.
The 15-page report published by the department (pdf) shows that, if you look at the overall number of FDI (foreign direct investment) projects, they have indeed gone up.
But, if you look at the number of jobs created or safeguarded by these investments, the picture is not quite so impressive.
Another chart shows the numbers of expansions and mergers are also down.
Commenting on these figures, Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, said:
This report shows that Liam Fox’s department is a disaster. If the international trade department cannot grow international trade, what are they actually for?
While Liam Fox sits about in airport departure lounges of some of the world’s sunniest spots businesses back here in the UK are now seeing a Brexit squeeze which is impacting on our economy.
This government have no plan, no idea and no clue and this report is the latest evidence. Never has a minister risen so far and been more useless.
Fox says UK attracting more inward investment than ever
In the Commons Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, has just referred to figures published by his department showing that inward investment into the UK is at record levels. No doubt the “usual suspects” (see 9.47am) will say that is “despite Brexit”, Fox told MPs.
Here is an extract from the press release issued by the international trade department.
Figures published by the Department for International Trade have today revealed that the UK attracted more foreign direct investment (FDI) projects than ever before for the year 2016 to 2017.
With more than 2,200 projects recorded, the post-referendum figures show an increase of 2% on the previous year. The data also shows that 75,226 new jobs were created, and 32,672 safeguarded, amounting to over 2,000 jobs per week across the country.
Overall, the UK is the number one destination for inward investment in Europe, with the technology, renewable energy, life sciences and creative industries all seeing an increase in the number of projects.
The notes to the department’s press release say that these figures are different from the figures published by other organisations for inward investment. That is partly because these figures cover the tax year 2016-17, not the calendar year 2016, it says. And that is partly because the department’s figures include “wider types of inward investment projects, including mergers and acquisitions and those that are not publicly announced by foreign investors”.
In the Commons the SNP MP Hannah Bardell has just asked about Michel Barnier’s comments about frictionless trade with the EU being impossible if the UK leaves the single market. Mark Garnier, the Brexit minister who was replying, dodged the question.
The BBC’s Damian Grammaticas has more on Michel Barnier’s comments on Brexit at the committee hearing this morning. (See 9.41am.)
EU chief neg @MichelBarnier if UK is outside Customs Union will require "checks to determine rules of origin" of goods
— Damian Grammaticas (@dngbbc) July 6, 2017
EU chief neg @MichelBarnier if UK is outside Single Market will require " a system of checks to ensure compliance with European standards"
— Damian Grammaticas (@dngbbc) July 6, 2017
EU chief neg @MichelBarnier "100% of farm produce will be subject to border checks. One of the fundamental challenges we face." Irish border
— Damian Grammaticas (@dngbbc) July 6, 2017
EU chief neg @MichelBarnier "no deal would mean trade with the UK would fall under WTO" so return to tariffs eg on cars, lamb etc
— Damian Grammaticas (@dngbbc) July 6, 2017
EU chief neg @MichelBarnier "no deal wld mean v cumbersome procedures at borders and harm businesses that rely on 'just in time' processes"
— Damian Grammaticas (@dngbbc) July 6, 2017
This is from James Chapman, who until recently was a special adviser to David Davis, the Brexit secretary.
I'm a great fan of @LiamFox but politicians attacking the free media makes me deeply uncomfortable
— James Chapman (@jameschappers) July 6, 2017
Liam Fox accuses BBC of being biased against Brexit
Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, is taking questions in the Commons. In response to a question from the Conservative MP Nigel Evans about negative coverage of Brexit in the media, Fox accused the BBC of being biased against Brexit. He told MPs:
It does appear that some elements of our media would rather see Britain fail than Brexit succeed. I cannot recall a single time in recent times when I have seen good economic news that the BBC did not describe as “despite Brexit”.
Barnier says 'frictionless' trade with EU will be impossible if UK leaves single market
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has been giving evidence to an EU committee in Brussels this morning. And he has delivered some blunt messages to the UK. Here are the key points, from the Press Association coverage.
- Barnier said that it would be impossible for the UK to have frictionless trade with the EU if it left the single market. The government has said that it wants trade with the EU to be “as frictionless as possible” after Brexit. But Barnier said that the EU had made it clear to the UK that the EU’s “four freedoms” - including freedom of movement - are indivisible, that there can be no sector-by-sector participation in the single market and that the EU will maintain full sovereignty over its own rules and regulations. He said:
These three points were already made very clear by the European council and European parliament, but I am not sure whether they have been fully understood across the Channel.
I have heard some people in the UK argue that one can leave the single market and keep all of its benefits. That is not possible.
I have heard some people in the UK argue that one can leave the single market and build a customs union to achieve frictionless trade. That is not possible.
- He said Brexit would inevitably have “negative” consequences for the UK.
The decision to leave the EU has consequences and I have to explain to citizens, businesses and civil society on both sides of the Channel what those consequences mean for them.
These consequences are the direct result of the choice made by the UK, not by the EU. There is no punishment for Brexit and of course no spirit of revenge. But Brexit has a cost, also for business in the EU27, and businesses should assess with lucidity the negative consequences of the UK choice on trade and investment and prepare to manage that.
- He said that if the UK and the EU failed to reach a deal, the UK would lose out more. Brexit would create a “loser/loser situation” for both the EU and UK, he said. But he went on:
No deal would worsen the loser/loser situation which will necessarily be the result of Brexit and objectively the UK would have rather more to lose than its partners.
There is no reasonable justification for a no deal scenario. There is no reason further to worsen the consequences of Brexit.
Boris Johnson backs away from call for public sector pay cap to be lifted
Boris Johnson , the foreign secretary, was on the Today programme this morning. He was more candid than usual when talking about President Trump, although probably less candid when the interview turned to his own leadership ambitions.
What was most interesting was what he had to say on the subject of public sector pay. Having let it be known at the weekend that he favoured lifting the 1% cap on public sector pay, today he was reading out the Philip Hammond/Treasury script, playing down the prospect and stressing the importance of balancing the budget.
Critics might say this says something Johnson’s honesty and consistency, but it may be more useful to see this as a sign of the extent to which Hammond is winning this argument in cabinet. This time last week cabinet ministers seemed to be queuing up to call for a pay rise for public sector workers. But this is said to have alarmed Hammond, who thinks the government must not give up on trying to balance the budget, and at PMQs yesterday Theresa May took the Hammond line on this issue. Johnson was doing the same this morning.
Here are the key points from his interview.
- Johnson backed away from his call for the public sector pay cap to be lifted. On Monday the Guardian reported that Johnson calling for this. Admittedly, the foreign secretary did not go on the record. But my colleague Heather Stewart quoted a “senior government source” saying:
The foreign secretary supports the idea of public-sector workers getting a better pay deal and believes the findings of the pay review bodies should be respected ... He strongly believes the rises can be done in a responsible way and without causing fiscal pressures.
These comments were widely reported elsewhere. And I’ve been in the Guardian office all week. We have not had Johnson, or anyone else from the the Foreign Office, on the phone saying our source was wrong.
But when Johnson was asked about these comments by John Humphrys, he rowed back. Asked if public sector pay could really go up without tax increases, he replied:
What it means is that I think, and I know my friend the chancellor thinks, is there has to be a balance in all this. What we believe is that you can’t endlessly borrow, you can’t endlessly spend .... It is very, very important that you manage your economy sensibly and you don’t just go for a crazy, Corbynite splurge.
The second point, as Phil - Philip Hammond - has also said, is that we recognise that people are weary of restraint and we recognise that when the public sector pay review bodies report, we will obviously be wanting to look at their thinking very closely.
This is from the BBC’s Norman Smith.
Hmmm...Boris Johnson crunching thru the reverse gears on public sector pay. Now stresses need to be "fiscally sensible and responsible"
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) July 6, 2017
- Johnson praised President Trump for getting people “engaged in politics” and suggested that he would like to be able to tweet like Trump.
I think, actually, that Donald Trump’s approach to politics has been something that has gripped the imagination of people around the world. He has engaged people in politics in a way that we have not seen for a long time, with his tweets and all the rest of it. I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to tweet in the way that he has, much as I might like to.
- Johnson said that the UK had acted as a restraining influence on President Trump, shifting some of his policies “into a better place”.
I do think that [Trump] raises people’s awareness of issues. He engages in a very direct way.
We in the UK do not agree, by any means, with everything that Washington currently says. And it is very important to understand that when Theresa May goes to meet the president today, as she will in Hamburg, that our role, as the UK, is to represent our own point of view, whether it is on Nato, the vital importance of article 5, whether it’s on climate change, whether it’s on the Iran nuclear accord. It is the UK that is actually helping, we think, to mitigate, to get some of those American attitudes and policies that are currently coming out of the White House into a better place.
- He praised Theresa May for her “unbelievable grace and steel” and said that he expected her to remain prime minister for a “very long” time. Asked about a ConservativeHome survey suggesting Tory members would rather have David Davis as the next leader than Johnson, Johnson replied:
I think that everybody listening to this will know very well that there is no vacancy for that post, nor is there going to be for a very long [time] ...
There was an event last night ... Theresa May gave a fantstic speech. I was watching her and thinking what unbelievable grace and steel she has shown over the last few weeks when the thing did not, frankly, look too brilliant on the morning of June 9. It looked very difficult. She’s put things back together. She has got the show on the road. She is delivering a stable government, as she said she would, and we are getting on with it.
The last think people want is any more of this nonsense. What they want to see is a long period of stability and calm and progress for the British people .
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
10am: Jeremy Corbyn gives a speech to the British Chambers of Commerce conference.
10am: William Hague, the Conservative former foreign secretary, George Robertson, the former Nato chief, and Cathy Ashton, the former EU foreign affairs representative, give evidence to a Lords committee about Brexit.
12.40pm: Justine Greening, the education secretary, gives a speech to the BCC conference.
1.45pm: Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, holds a press conference with the Ukrainian prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, after the Ukraine reform conference they are jointly hosting.
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.
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. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
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