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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow and Kevin Rawlinson

Jeremy Corbyn apologises to Labour MPs for defeat 'for which I take responsibility' – as it happened

Jeremy Corbyn is facing the parliamentary Labour party for the first time since the election.
Jeremy Corbyn is facing the parliamentary Labour party for the first time since the election. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

Closing summary

That’s all from us for this evening. Thanks for reading and commenting. Here’s a summary of the day’s news:

  • Jeremy Corbyn apologised to his remaining MPs for Labour’s general election defeat. The party’s leader admitted personal responsibility as he faced the parliamentary Labour party on Tuesday evening.
  • Keir Starmer, indicated he was likely to run for the Labour leadership. The shadow Brexit secretary set out his stall in a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian on Tuesday. Barry Gardiner also declined to rule out standing for the deputy leadership.
  • The Conservative party announced a broad-brush review of discrimination after Boris Johnson broke his promise to hold an inquiry specifically into Tory Islamophobia. The party appointed a former equality and human rights commissioner to lead the review.
  • Downing Street warned businesses to prepare for life outside EU’s customs regime “in all circumstances”. The spokesman also refused to comment on the fall in the pound on Tuesday morning, that followed the ruling out of a Brexit extension. You can see a more detailed summary of the lobby briefing with journalists here.
  • Nicola Sturgeon indicated she would not drop her calls for a second Scottish independence referendum. After receiving short shrift from the prime minister, the SNP leader said the vast majority of Scotland had backed either pro-EU or pro-independence parties. She also called for cross-party support for the move.
  • Boris Johnson delivered his first speech to the Commons since the general election. Boris Johnson told MPs he thought this parliament a “vast improvement on its predecessor”.

And, if you’d like to read yet more, Zoe Williams and Heather Stewart have tonight’s main story:

Starmer 'seriously considering' running for Labour leadership

Keir Starmer has set out his pitch for the Labour leadership with a call for his party not to lurch to the right as a result of last week’s devastating election result, my colleagues Zoe Williams and Heather Stewart write.

While the leadership race has not yet formally been launched, the shadow Brexit secretary confirmed to the Guardian that, as widely expected in Westminster, he was “seriously considering” running to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.

In a wide-ranging interview, Starmer said Labour did not do enough to tackle the Conservatives’ central election pledge to ‘get Brexit done’ nor sufficiently deal with antisemitism, and urged his party to return to being a “broad church”. He insisted Labour could win the next general election; but only if it sticks to its values.

There’s no hiding from it. It is a devastating result, but it’s important not to oversteer. The case for a bold and radical Labour government is as strong now as it was last Thursday. We need to anchor ourselves in that.

I want trust to be restored in the Labour party as a progressive force for good: and that means we have to win. But there’s no victory without values.

Keir Starmer has set out his pitch for the Labour leadership
Keir Starmer has set out his pitch for the Labour leadership Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

Updated

There are conflicting reports about whether or not parliamentarians have been calling on Corbyn to quit immediately at this evening’s meeting. The Labour MP, Lloyd Russell-Moyle has said explicitly that there has been no such clamour.

But BBC Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt has this:

And here’s a little more detail from the meeting:

The prime minister has spoken to his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau, who congratulated him on his general election win this evening. A No 10 spokeswoman has said:

They agreed to continue to work closely together as Commonwealth partners on issues such as girls’ education, climate change and trade.

Labour’s Rachel Reeves said she told the meeting the party must radically change and get a leader “that actually wants to win”.

If we want to change the lives of the people we came into politics to serve, then we’ve got to win power and that’s not been possible two times under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

We need radical change, we need a party and a leader the country can trust, we need economic policies that add up and we need somebody that actually wants to win because they know that it’s only through power that we can change the lives of people.

Jess Phillips, viewed as a possible leadership candidate by some, has played down the ferocity of the PLP meeting, though she said it was largely critical of Corbyn.

It was no worse than it always is. It’s just people saying what they think. There are a couple of people being supportive.

She said she read a text from Melanie Onn, the former Labour MP who lost her Great Grimsby seat to the Tories, about “how she had been let down by the leadership and the frontbench and that nobody had bothered with Grimsby”. Phillips said:

There are lots and lots of complaints about how nobody has called any of the people who lost.

However, her Labour colleague Dame Margaret Hodge said Corbyn faced a hostile reaction. She told reporters that “on the whole, it was fury, despair, miserable and I just felt that the top table had corporate amnesia”.

They talked about vetting new members and everybody laughed. There’s fury that he didn’t go to visit the right constituencies ... there was fury over the level of organisation.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle said Labour MPs’ criticism of Corbyn centred on his leadership, his Brexit position and his manifesto for lacking an “overarching narrative”.

Not one person said go right now. They all recognise that he has apologised and that he wants to go as soon as possible, and that the duty was to save the party and do it in an orderly way. People were emotional, very emotional.

Updated

Here’s a little more on Creagh’s comments about Jeremy Corbyn: She told Channel 4 News she had confronted him in Westminster because, in her view, he’d “enabled a hard Brexit” and “five years of austerity”.

Creagh blamed Corbyn for Labour’s losses, adding: “This was Jeremy’s manifesto [...] Jeremy’s NEC [Labour’s governing body].” She added that the views she’d heard expressed about his policies on the doorsteps could not be broadcast pre-watershed. And she said:

In Jeremy, we have a man without honour and without shame.

Updated

Another Labour MP on his way out of the meeting says Corbyn’s leadership came up time and time again in the meeting. He said Margaret Beckett, who was acting leader after John Smith died, made a particularly noteworthy contribution, saying the leadership should not be worried about protecting its legacy when thinking about a new leader; what mattered was who would be best placed to win, she told the meeting.

The MP said several colleagues also said antisemitism had been a problem, and had to be addressed.

He acknowledged that some MPs spoke out in support of Corbyn. But, referring to MPs like Claudia Webbe (see 7.15pm), he said people just elected in safe seats were not best placed to understand the party’s problems.

That’s all from me for tonight. My colleague Kevin Rawlinson is taking over now.

“Well cheerful,” says an MP, ironically, commenting on the mood at PLP on the way out - but then she adds: “It’s no better or worse than it always is.”

Updated

Earlier one member of the PLP was complaining about the leader’s office not being in touch with MPs who lost their seats. See 6.53pm.Channel 4 News has had an interview with Mary Creagh, who has been making the same complaint.

Creagh lost her seat last week.

Another MP mutters “madness, pure madness” as he walks past journalists after leaving the PLP meeting.

On the way out one long-serving MP tells journalists that the meeting consisted of “dreary contributions from the leadership and absolutely no acknowledgment of what went wrong”.

More from Paul Waugh

Jeremy Corbyn’s comments about being sorry and taking responsibility for Labour’s defeat are significant because, when he spoke at his election count in the early hours of Friday morning, and when he gave a TV interview later in the day, he expressed little contrition over what had happened.

But in an open letter in the Sunday Mirror at the weekend he did say he was sorry about the result. However, in a separate article for the Observer, he did not use the word “sorry” or “apologise”, and just said he regretted what had happened.

Updated

Corbyn apologises to PLP for Labour's defeat

These are from my colleague Kate Proctor.

I didn’t see the Labour peer Stewart Wood go in for the PLP meeting (it’s for peers as well as MPs), but here are his thoughts, in an article for HuffPost, on what Labour needs to do to recover. Wood worked as an adviser to Gordon Brown when he was PM, and then as an adviser to Ed Miliband.

The door opens as a peer leaves the room. While it’s open we can hear a woman (I did not recognise her voice) say:

Our leadership have not got in touch with many of the MPs ...

We have heard quite a few complaints in recent days that Corbyn’s office has not been in touch with MPs who lost their seats.

When she finished she got a round of applause.

More from HuffPost’s Paul Waugh, who is ahead of everyone else when it comes to getting updates from inside the room.

Tories announce inquiry into party's handling of complaints about prejudice, including Islamophobia

In some non-Labour news, the Conservatives have announced their long-promised review into discrimination in the party. As expected, it does not focus just on Islamophobia, even though during the leadership contest Boris Johnson appeared to sign up to the idea of an Islamophobia-specific inquiry when Sajid Javid bounced him and other candidates into agreeing to the proposal during a TV debate.

Here is an extract from the Conservative party news release.

The Conservative party have today announced the appointment of Prof Swaran Singh to lead the independent review into improving party handling of complaints of all forms of discrimination and prejudice, including Islamophobia.

This independent review will look at how we can improve our processes – to make sure that any instances are isolated, and that there are robust processes in place to stamp them out as and when they occur.

Until 2019, Professor Singh was a commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. He is currently the professor of social and community psychiatry at the University of Warwick.

Updated

Good use of the word “smattering” here from Paul Waugh ...

There was some applause for Lavery, but it was relatively short and half-hearted.

From my colleague Kate Proctor

She’s right. It is Ian Lavery speaking. I am on a bench on the other side of the corridor (colleagues are nearer the door), but even from here I can tell it’s Lavery. But I can’t make out what he’s saying.

That seems a good excuse, while we wait, to flag up this recording of Neil Kinnock telling a PLP meeting in 2016 why he thought Jeremy Corbyn should go. This story contains the text of what he said, plus audio.

Updated

From the Telegraph’s Harry Yorke earlier

Another, rather muffled, round of applause ...

From HuffPost’s Paul Waugh (who has a source inside, I presume, rather than excellent hearing)

Journalists in the corridor are whispering in the hope of being able to hear better. But we can’t hear what is being said inside. The doors are quite thick, and the doorkeeper is being quite strict about not letting reporters stand too close to them.

Now a burst of laughter from inside ...

One of the Commons doorkeepers has just come past asking journalists to stand “away from the door”.

The meeting has started. From the corridor we cannot hear what is being said, but we can hear applause. We’ve had two bursts of applause so far.

Jeremy Corbyn to address PLP

I’m outside committee room 14 in the House of Commons, where the PLP (parliamentary Labour party) is holding its first meeting since the general election. The meeting is due to start, and it seems to be standing room only inside. Jeremy Corbyn has already gone in.

Outside there are around two dozen journalists.

Boris Johnson's speech to MPs

Here is the substance of what Boris Johnson told MPs earlier. It was only a very short speech, but it was his first as prime minister to the House of Commons, and he used it to deliver a message about his agenda. He told MPs:

I don’t know about you, Mr Speaker elect, but as you survey this house from your eminence, with a characteristic beam that has brought you such deserved popularity, I don’t know what you think but I mean absolutely no disrespect to those who are no longer with us – but I think this parliament is a vast improvement on its predecessor.

And indeed Mr Speaker, I would say it is one of the best parliaments this country has ever produced. with more female members than ever before, with more black and minority ethnic members than ever before, and it is also Mr Speaker – incarnated in your person – a vastly more democratic parliament. Because this parliament is not going to waste the time of the nation in deadlock and division and delay. On Friday of this week this parliament is going to put the withdrawal agreement in the popty ping as we say in Wales, and then this new democratic parliament, this people’s parliament, is going to do something.

During the election campaign, Johnson claimed to have learned that “popty ping” was the Welsh for microwave, even though this is apparently a myth. Johnson went on:

And Mr Speaker I wonder if you can guess what it is that this parliament is going to do. What is it going to do? I wonder if you can guess what this parliament is going to do once we put the withdrawal agreement back. We are going to get Brexit done and even your parrot, Mr Speaker, would have been able to cite that one by now.

And we are going to get on with delivering on the priorities of the British people, transforming the NHS, investing massively in education, in police, uniting and levelling up across the country and across the whole UK. And it is my belief and the belief of most honourable members in this house that we should resist the calls of those who would break up that United Kingdom. And as the parliament of the UK we should politely and respectfully defend that partnership and that union.

And I can tell the house that after three and a half years of wrangling and division, we in this government will do whatever we can to reach out across the house to find common ground, to heal the divisions of our country, and to find a new and generous spirit in which we conduct all our political dealings with one another that will last beyond this immediate season of Christmas goodwill.

Boris Johnson speaking in the Commons this afternoon.
Boris Johnson speaking in the Commons this afternoon. Photograph: -/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

Downing Street has announced some new government appointments.

  • Mike Freer and Iain Stewart, who were both government whips, remain as whips but both get promotions within the whips’ office. Freer moves up to Comptroller HM Household, and Stewart moves up to Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury.
  • Nusrat Ghani becomes a full junior transport minister. Previously she had a paid job as a whip which she combined with an unpaid job as transport minister. Now she gets a salary for her transport post. (There is a legal limit to how many paid ministers a PM can have in government.)
  • Douglas Ross becomes an unpaid Scotland Office minister, combining that with being an unpaid whip.
  • Maria Caulfield becomes a government whip.

Tories now more popular with working class voters than with middle class voters, survey says

On the subject of the Tories and anti-elitism, the polling company YouGov has published some research today looking at which groups voted for which parties. It suggests that, at least on the basis of where their support comes from, the Conservatives can now claim to be more of a working class party than a middle class party. It says:

The Conservatives comfortably outperformed Labour across all social grades, further evidence that class is no longer a key indicator of how people vote. In fact, the Conservatives actually did better amongst C2DE voters (48%) than they did amongst ABC1 voters (43%). Labour performed the same amongst both social grade groups (33%).

YouGov polling on how people voted, by class
YouGov polling on how people voted, by class Photograph: YouGov

Lord Ashcroft published some separate polling on Friday that came to much the same conclusion.

For much of the 20th century Labour was the party of the working class and the Conservatives were the party of the middle class. In recent years, class stopped being the main determinant of voting behaviour (age and education are now the key factors), but even in 2017 Labour was still doing better, proportionally, among working class voters than among middle class voters. The fact that it is the Conservatives who are now doing better, proportionally, with this demographic potentially has huge implications, and it helps to explain why Boris Johnson has been so keen to argue that he is no longer leading “the Tory party of the old days” and that instead it’s a “totally different party”.

Updated

Government ministers to snub Davos

A Downing Street source has confirmed that Boris Johnson and his ministers will not be attending the Davos World Economic Forum this year. The source implied that this was more to do with the government wanting to focus on getting Brexit done, than it wanting to burnish its populist credentials by snubbing the annual gather for the global financial elite, although one suspects No 10 would not mind too much if the move were reported that way.

In the Commons MPs are now swearing the oath of allegiance, one by one. Before the process started, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, told them they would be unable to speak or vote in debates until they were sworn in - and that they could not get paid either.

MPs take the oath in order of seniority. The whole process may not finish until Thursday.

Boris Johnson swearing oath of allegiance
Boris Johnson swearing oath of allegiance Photograph: BBC

Updated

Sturgeon appeals for cross-party support behind her calls for Scotland to have right to stage second independence referendum

Here is the full text of Nicola Sturgeon’s statement to the Scottish parliament earlier. And here are the main points she made.

  • Sturgeon said that, particularly in the light of the election result, taking Scotland out of the EU against its will was “completely and utterly unsustainable”.

The election was comprehensively won in Scotland by the SNP ...

In fact, the Conservatives have now lost 17 consecutive Westminster elections in Scotland – stretching back to 1959.

But in spite of that, we face a majority Tory government implementing a manifesto that Scotland rejected.

Furthermore, 74% of votes in Scotland were cast for parties that either supported remaining in the EU or were in favour of a second EU referendum.

90% of seats were won by pro EU or pro EU referendum parties.

But regardless, we are set to be dragged out of the EU against our will.

Such a democratic deficit is not just undesirable, it is also completely and utterly unsustainable.

  • She said later this week she would publish an argument as to why the Scottish government should have the right to call an independence referendum.

It is essential therefore that a future outside of Europe and governed by an increasingly right wing Conservative government is not foisted upon Scotland.

Instead, we must have the right to consider the alternative of independence.

That is why, later this week, in line with repeated election mandates – reinforced once again on Thursday – I will publish the detailed democratic case for a transfer of power from Westminster to this parliament to allow for an independence referendum that is beyond legal challenge.

This parliament will also vote on the final stage of the referendums (Scotland) bill which puts in place the framework for a future referendum.

  • She said she hoped there would be cross-party support for this proposal.

A new, Brexit focused Tory government presents risks that few would have predicted at the dawn of devolution.

So I hope in the coming days and weeks we will see a similar coming together around the idea of Scotland’s right to choose a better future.

  • She said the delay in the UK budget caused problems for the Scottish government.

This parliament is required to deliver a budget before the start of the next financial year, and Scotland’s local authorities would expect to set their budgets in late February or early March.

At this point, the UK government has not confirmed when it will produce its own budget – and with it the block grant adjustments for Scotland – but it may not be until March.

While contingency planning and alternative options have been under consideration for some time, meeting this timetable will require parties to work together.

From ITV’s political editor Robert Peston

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has told Euronews’ Darren McCaffrey that the EU will do “the maximum” to ensure that the UK and the EU can conclude their future partnership negotiation by the end of next year.

In the Commons the sitting has been suspended. Later MPs will return to start swearing in.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says he is pleased to congratulate Lindsay Hoyle on behalf of the expanded SNP group in the Commons.

And Sir Ed Davey, the acting Lib Dem leader, says that if Britain had a proportional representation system, his group would be the third largest, with 70 MPs. He says he hopes Hoyle will bear this in mind.

Corbyn congratulates new MPs.

He says all MPs represent a community. That is a strength of the Commons.

He says a majority of Labour MPs are now women. And 20 of the 26 new Labour MPs are women, he says.

He says he hopes the Speaker will continue to take the mental health of MPs seriously.

He finishes by urging Lindsay Hoyle to stand firm against abuses by the executive. In doing so, he will be standing up not just for MPs, but for the people they represent.

Democracy is not a given. It is something we have to defend and extend.

Jeremy Corbyn is speaking now.

He joins Johnson in recalling the London Bridge terror attack. He says MPs should remember what David Merritt said about his son Jack, who was killed on that day.

He congratulates Johnson on winning the election. And he pays tribute to Labour MPs who lost their seats, particularly Dennis Skinner.

Corbyn says Johnson will be judged by whether he keeps his promises. And he says Labour will hold the government to account.

Johnson claims this parliament 'vast improvement on its predecessor'

Boris Johnson is speaking now. He is opening a short session allowing party leaders to congratulate Sir Lindsay Hoyle.

Johnson says this parliament “is a vast improvement on its predecessor”. In fact, it is one of the best this country has produced. It has more female MPs than ever before and more BAME MPs than ever before.

And it is more democratic, he says.

He says this parliament is going to pass the withdrawal bill. And he invites the Speaker to guess what parliament will do: it will “get Brexit done”, he says.

He says even Hoyle’s parrot (Hoyle has a menagerie of pets, mostly named after parliamentarians) would have guessed that.

He says the government will do whatever it can to reach out across the House, to find common ground and to heal the divisions facing this country.

Updated

Lindsay Hoyle re-elected Speaker

MPs have passed the motion by acclamation.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle is taking the chair.

There is now a mini-debate on the motion to approve Sir Lindsay Hoyle as Speaker.

Labour’s Lisa Nandy is proposing the motion. She says new MPs will find out out how friendly and supportive he can be. Joking about his taste for Yorkshire tea, she tells an anecdote about how Hoyle (a proud Lancastrian) once said there were only two good things about Yorkshire; its tea, and the M62 leading out of it.

She says in the Speaker’s chair (he was deputy Speaker before his promotion) Hoyle has always been fair and unpartisan.

Updated

In the Commons MPs have just been to the Lords chamber and back to hear a royal commission instruct them to elect a Speaker.

Sir Peter Bottomley, the father of the Commons, is chairing proceedings and he proposes the election of Sir Lindsay Hoyle as Speaker. (Or re-election - Hoyle was first elected at the end of the last parliament.)

Hoyle says he has served two days as Speaker. It made his election a lot easier, he says. (He represents what was a relatively marginal seat.) He says it will be a privilege to serve as Speaker. He promises to be fair.

In his speech at dawn on Friday Boris Johnson said he hoped that Steve Bray, the anti-Brexit campaign best known for his costume and for shouting “Stop Brexit” loudly outside the Houses of Parliament on a regular basis, would finally call it a day. Johnson told a Tory audience.

And I say respectfully to our stentorian friend in the blue, twelve-star hat: ‘That’s it, time to put a sock in the megaphone, and give everybody some peace.’

Bray doesn’t seem to be taking much notice. He is outside parliament today, and he’s been shouting too.

Anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray outside the Houses of Parliament.
Anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray outside the Houses of Parliament. Photograph: Guy Bell/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

From the Daily Mirror’s Pippa Crerar

Experts from the Centre for European Reform thinktank have been giving interviews today about the government’s decision to rule out an extension to the Brexit transition period.

Sam Lowe, a trade specialist at the CER, described it as “domestic virtue signalling”.

And Charles Grant, the CER’s director, said that if Boris Johnson refuses to be bound by EU regulations, getting a trade deal will become much more complicated.

From the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves

Back in London MPs are in the Commons chamber for the election of Speaker.

The chamber is more or less packed, although at the back row on the opposition benches there are empty seats.

Updated

Sturgeon says this is a watershed moment for Scotland.

Later this week she will take the next steps to secure Scotland’s right to choose its future, she says.

Sturgeon has now finished.

Nicola Sturgeon's statement to Scottish parliament

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is making a statement to the Scottish parliament.

She says the SNP comprehensively won the election.

The Conservatives have successfully lost 17 elections in Scotland, she says, going back to 1959.

She says that 90% of seats in Scotland were won by pro-EU or pro-referendum parties.

She says this situation is “not just undesirable” but “completely and utterly unsustainable”.

She says she is pressing ahead with her call for the right to hold a second referendum.

Referring to Scottish Labour, she says there are some signs that people opposed to a second independence referendum are changing their minds. But she says she accepts that favouring a second referendum is not the same as favouring independence. And she says that she accepts some SNP voters do not back independence.

The Copeland MP Trudy Harrison has been appointed Boris Johnson’s parliamentary private secretary, the BBC’s Richard Moss reports.

Mairead McGuinness, first vice-president of the European parliament and an MEP for Ireland’s Fine Gael party, told the World at One that EU insiders were “cautious” about whether it would be possible to negotiate the UK-EU future partnership by the end of next year, as Boris Johnson wants. Asked if this timescale was realistic, she said:

All things are possible, but we are all a bit cautious about whether it can effectively be completed within an 11-month period ...

From the European Union side we know it is a long stretch to complete everything in 11 months, and I think all negotiators involved in trade will say that. It really then comes down to what the United Kingdom wants to achieve in that period of time, and that we don’t know entirely yet because the negotiations have not begun.

She also said that including provisions in the withdrawal agreement bill to rule out an extension to the Brexit transition amounted to going back on the withdrawal agreement Boris Johnson negotiated with the EU, because that did include provisions for a possible extension, but she implied she did not see this as a problem.

Mairead McGuinness.
Mairead McGuinness. Photograph: Pablo Garrigos/Pablo Garrigos / European Parliament

An estimated 800,000 EU citizens in the UK have yet to apply to remain in the country after Brexit, new Home Office figures suggest.

And around 900,000 EU citizens who have already applied to stay will have to apply again because they have been granted temporary leave to remain, known as “pre-settled status”. This is granted to applicants who have been in the country for fewer than five years or those whom Home Office deems not to have sufficient evidence of being in the country for five years or more.

Today’s Home Office figures (pdf) show 2.6m applications for settled status have been made so far, but the government estimates there are around 3.4 million EU citizens in the UK.

The Home Office minister Brandon Lewis said:

EU citizens have made an enormous contribution to the UK and we want them to stay.

2.6 million applications to the EU settlement scheme have already been submitted and I encourage people to keep applying.

EU citizens have until at least 31 December 2020 to apply to remain in the country post-Brexit.

The Home Office said in its statement it had completed the process on 2.2m applications, leaving a backlog of 400,000 applications.

It also said it had granted status to 305,600 EU citizens in November, showing how efficiently it can deal with straightforward applications.

Of concern to lawyers and academics monitoring the process will be the high proportion granted pre-settled status.

Of the 2.2m applications already concluded, 41% (around 900,000) were granted this status.

Barristers, including the immigration specialist Colin Yeo, have raised concerns that some EU citizens may be entitled to settled status but accept pre-settled status for convenience even though it limits their rights.

Updated

These are from Darren McCaffrey from Euronews. He is quoting Philippe Lamberts, a Belgian MEP, co-leader of the Greens-European Free Alliance and a member of the European parliament’s Brexit steering group.

Boris Johnson’s plan to make it illegal for the government to extend the Brexit transition period beyond 11 months has been described as “strange” by Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, my colleague Daniel Boffey reports.

No 10 says businesses must prepare for life outside EU's customs regime 'in all circumstances'

And here are some more lines from the No 10 lobby briefing.

  • The prime minister’s spokesman said that, as well as ruling out an extension to the Brexit transition, the government was also ruling out having a transition after December 2020 to allow time for new UK-EU trading arrangements agreed in the future partnership deal to be implemented. When asked if this could happen, the spokesman replied:

I don’t believe that is the case. The prime minister is absolutely clear that the implementation period is not going to be extended.

  • The spokesman said businesses should prepare for the fact that the UK will be leaving the customs union and the single market. He said:

In all circumstances we are leaving the single market and customs union, which means we are leaving the EU regime which is associated with that. Businesses will need to prepare for life outside the EU’s customs regime in all circumstances.

  • The spokesman refused to comment on the fall in the pound this morning, in the light of the announcement about an extension to the transition being ruled out (see 9.06am), saying No 10 did not comment on currency fluctuations on principle.
  • The spokesman said some new non-cabinet government appointments would be announced this afternoon. These are appointments to fill gaps created by MPs leaving parliament.

UK and EU have agreed to work 'with great energy' to negotiate future partnership by end of 2020, No 10 says

I’m just back from the Downing Street lobby briefing. The prime minister’s spokesman said Johnson had a conversation this morning with Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European commission. The spokesman said:

The president congratulated the prime minister on his success in the election and they agreed to work together with great energy to agree a future partnership by December 2020.

Asked if Von der Leyen expressed any doubts about whether it would be possible to conclude the UK-EU trade deal by the end of next year, the spokesman said both sides had agreed in the political declaration that they should reach an agreement on the future partnership by the end of of next year.

Von der Leyen has tweeted about the call, but in her tweet she did not say anything about wrapping up the talks by the end of next year.

Updated

A survey of LabourList readers has Rebecca Long-Bailey very narrowly ahead of Sir Keir Starmer as the favourite candidate for next Labour leader. Angela Rayner, who is now not expected to run, is in third place. Almost 20,000 people took part, but this is a self-selecting survey of readers who may not be party members and who may not have a vote in the contest, and so it would be unwise to read too much into its findings.

Survey of readers for next Labour leader
Survey of readers for next Labour leader Photograph: LabourList

Polling companies find it hard to poll members of a particular political party, but YouGov has carried out polls of Labour members and its research in 2016 provided a reasonably good guide to the outcome of that year’s leadership contest. In July this year YouGov did survey more than 1,000 Labour members and ask them who would make a good leader. Starmer, John McDonnell and Emily Thornberry came out top. Here are the figures.

Polling on next Labour leader
Polling on next Labour leader Photograph: YouGov

I’m off to the No 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 12.30pm.

At least two bookmakers have sent out press releases today about the odds they are offering on the next Labour leader, with Rebecca Long-Bailey the favourite, followed by Lisa Nandy and then Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary.

Starmer’s opponents, as well as criticising his stance on Brexit, have been arguing that the next leader should be a woman, as well as an MP from outside London.

But Jenny Chapman, who worked for Starmer in the shadow Brexit team and who lost her Darlington seat in the election, has been giving interviews today saying saying gender and regional background should be not factors in the contest. She made this argument in an article for the Daily Mirror and she told the Today programme:

I spent the last couple of months talking to folks on the doorstep in Darlington and getting very clear messages back, as you can imagine.

What people are saying is that they want a leader that they feel could be the prime minister.

It was about, ‘do I trust this person with my mortgage, with the future, with my children, with my pension?’ And I think that Keir has the qualities that they’re looking for.

Nobody on doorsteps of Darlington said the next leader has to have ovaries or a northern accent, and I think that’s such a patronising attitude to think that presenting someone who speaks the northern accent means you’re going to win support in the north.

Jenny Chapman.
Jenny Chapman. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

Barry Gardiner refuses to rule out standing for Labour deputy leadership

Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, has been on BBC News this morning. There were two interesting lines in his interview.

  • Gardiner hinted that Labour would vote against the withdrawal agreement bill if the government holds a second reading vote on Friday. He said that the decision to remove provisions protecting workers’ rights from the bill (see 9.37am) would make it even less attractive than the original version of the bill, that Labour opposed in October. He said:

The withdrawal agreement, if it is now countenancing the rights and protections which the previous agreement, which did get a majority in parliament contained within it, the protection for workers’ rights and the protections for the environment, given that [Boris Johnson] is now taking that out, is something that is less attractive to us as a party than even the one before.

  • Gardiner did not rule out standing for the Labour deputy leadership. Asked if he would be a candidate, as some reports have suggested, he replied:

I have not made any decision on that at all ... It is speculation.

Barry Gardiner
Barry Gardiner. Photograph: BBC News

Updated

Labour's Brexit position at election did not appeal to traditional supporters, says Burnham

In an interview for the Today programme this morning Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester and Jeremy Corbyn’s main rival in the 2015 leadership contest, said that the party’s Brexit policy was a problem at the election. He explained:

We’ve always been a coalition between traditional supporting working class communities and let’s say a university-educated liberal left.

Labour has not been speaking to both sides of that coalition for some time.

And, actually, with the position taken on Brexit at the recent election, it was almost as if they were thwarting the views of people who had been our traditional supporters.

Labour has got to speak to both sides of that coalition.

Burnham refused to say which candidate he would be backing in the forthcoming leadership contest.

He also said that voters in the north should be “wary” of accepting Boris Johnson’s promises, saying that the PM could not simply offer infrastructure improvements that were “decades away” to keep his new northern voters on side. He said:

The north definitely does need new infrastructure.

The rail chaos – that we see this morning even, with more cancellations across the north – is due to Victorian infrastructure more than anything.

But they can’t say that they are doing everything to the north by simply promising infrastructure in the distant future. They have got to deal with the here and now.

Andy Burnham (left) with Jeremy Corbyn.
Andy Burnham (left) with Jeremy Corbyn. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

More than 140,000 EU citizens applied last month to live and work in the UK after Brexit, PAA Media reports. The Home Office said it received 142,300 applications for the EU settlement scheme in November, compared with more than half a million submitted in the previous month. This takes the total number received by the end of November to almost 2.6 million (2,592,800). Overall, the number of applications finalised in that time was more than 2.2 million (2,230,900), according to the Home Office figures (pdf).

Of these, 59% were granted permanent leave to remain in the country, called settled status, and 41% were granted pre-settled status – which means they have temporary leave to remain and would need to apply again for permanent permission at a later date.

Updated

'You ain't seen nothing yet' - Johnson quotes Reagan as he tells cabinet to work 'flat out' for change

Sky News has just broadcast some footage of Boris Johnson addressing cabinet for the first time. He told his ministers:

The voters of this country have changed this government and our party for the better, and we must repay their trust now by working flat out to change our country for the better.

And we should have absolutely no embarrassment about saying we are a people’s government, this is a people’s cabinet, and we are going to be working on delivering the priorities of the British people. And that’s what they want us to do.

And we must recognise that people lent us their votes at this election. It was a quite extraordinary, it was a seismic election, but we need to repay their trust and work 24 hours a day, work flat out, to deliver.

Of course, the first 100 days were very busy - 140 days, or whatever it was; you may remember it was a very frenetic time – but you ain’t seen nothing yet, folks. We are going to have to work even harder, because people have a high level of expectation, and we must deliver for them.

At this point, treating the cabinet like a bit like a primary school class, Johnson asked his colleagues how many new hospitals they were going to build. Forty, they chanted back at him. (No one was brave enough to point out that it would be more accurate to say just six.) Johnson also asked them to tell him how many new nurses they would hire, and new police officers they would recruit. Then he went on:

But there is a huge, huge agenda of delivering social justice, of addressing every problem from social care to homelessness, to levelling up and uniting across our country, with better infrastructure, better education and technology. That’s what we want to do. We are Conservatives; we believe in extending opportunity across the whole of the United Kingdom, and that is what we are going to devote ourselves to.

Johnson ended his opening statement by referring to today’s employment figures (see 9.53am), joking about taking the risk of “sounding more North Korean than normal”. The economy continued to be robust, he said, but the government would take steps to strengthen it.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet” was a Ronald Reagan catchphrase, and Johnson may have been quoting him deliberately. Reagan drew the political map of American by winning the support of blue-collar workers who had previously voted for the other party (“Reagan Democrats”) and, although seen as a leader with a poor grasp of detail, he exuded can-do optimism, which people seemed to like.

Boris Johnson addressing cabinet
Boris Johnson addressing cabinet. Photograph: Sky News

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James Cleverly, the Conservative party chairman, arriving for cabinet this morning.
James Cleverly, the Conservative party chairman, arriving for cabinet this morning. Photograph: James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock

The government has repeatedly said that it does not intend to lower standards on workers’ rights, consumer rights or environmental protection after Brexit. (See 9.37am.) The EU will also wants to ensure that it does not get undercut by the UK in the future, but a key issue in the UK-EU trade talks will be what rules are agreed to ensure this happens.

In an interview on the Today programme this morning Liam Fox, the former Conservative international trade secretary, admitted that the EU would start by pushing for “dynamic alignment” - an agreement that, when the EU tightens standards, the UK would follow suit. But Fox argued that, internationally, this sort of approach was going out of fashion. He explained:

There’s a wider debate here, and this discussion is part of it. At the WTO meeting in Buenos Aires there was quite a debate about how do we take forward global trade. Is it by aligning all our regulations? That’s what the EU would call harmonisation, a very legalistic model. Or do we go for outcome-based equivalence? In other words, we agree what the standards and outcomes should look like, but we can find our own way, in our own laws and regulations, to get there. That’s the wider debate.

The EU very much favours that very legalistic model. The rest of the world favours a more flexible model.

Fox was also asked if he thought the NHS would be at risk from a trade deal with the US. He said there was no chance of this whatsoever and that this was a “red herring” that had been dismissed as such by the voters.

He said it was now the “norm” to insert “exemption clauses” into trade deals to protect the running of public services. He went on:

That is the norm now, and we have always said that the Government will retain its right to regulate public services in the national interest. That’s what we said in the election. That’s what we will do.

What the Labour Party said about the NHS was a lie then, and it’s irrelevant now.

Liam Fox
Liam Fox Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

During his round of interviews this morning Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, also insisted that the government would protect employment rights when the UK left the EU. He said a bill to this effect would be in the Queen’s speech on Thursday.

This is from the Mirror’s Dan Bloom.

UK unemployment dropped to its lowest level in 44 years in the three months to October, as the number of unemployed women hit a record low, PA Media reports. However, the reduction in unemployment came as wage growth stalled over the period and the number of job vacancies also shrank.

The number of people claiming unemployment benefits decreased by 13,000 to 1.28 million for the quarter, the Office for National Statistics said. It meant the rate of unemployment stayed flat at 3.8%, surpassing analyst expectations, which had forecast an increase to a 3.9% rate of unemployment. This was largely driven by a decrease in the unemployment rate for women, which fell to a record low of 3.5% for the period.

Meanwhile, the number of people in work increased by 24,000 to 32.8 million for the quarter, while the proportion of people in employment stayed flat at 76.2%.

Updated

Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has been giving interviews this morning (although not to the Today programme, which is still subject to a No 10 ministerial boycott). As my colleague Kate Proctor reports, on BBC Breakfast Gove refused to explicitly rule out a no-deal Brexit at the end of the transition - although he repeatedly insisted that this was not something people needed to worry about anyway, because both sides were committed to reaching a deal before the end of next year.

Thornberry says it was mistake for Corbyn not to say what side he would be on in second Brexit referendum

Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, has said that it was a mistake for Jeremy Corbyn not to say what side he would take in the second referendum Labour was planning to hold on Brexit. In an interview with the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, recorded during the Labour conference in September and broadcast in Kuenssberg’s documentary, The Brexit Storm Continues, going out tonight, Thornberry said:

I think Jeremy is trying to find a compromise but if he goes into an election saying ‘I don’t have a view’ on the single biggest decision that we have to make – I think – what worries me is that every single interview he does will all be about Brexit.

Asked if Labour could win if Corbyn adopted that position, Thornberry said:

Well, I think it makes it more difficult and that’s why I’m really pushing this because I want Jeremy in No 10.

Thornberry also said she wanted Labour to be more overtly pro-remain.

At the time Corbyn was refusing to say which side he would back in a second referendum. During the election campaign he refined his position, saying he was taking a deliberate decision in advance to stay neutral.

Thornberry is likely to stand for the Labour leadership and Brexit is likely to be a key issue in that context. Jeremy Corbyn’s allies, who are rallying behind the shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey as their candidate, argue that agreeing to a second referendum was a mistake (although Long-Bailey herself has yet to express a view on this topic.)

The biggest threat to Long-Bailey may come from the candidate attracting most Labour remain supporter, either Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, or Thornberry herself. Both Starmer and Thornberry strongly argued for a second referendum, and said that in such a poll they would back remain.

Emily Thornberry.
Emily Thornberry. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

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Starmer says Johnson's decision to rule out transition extension 'reckless and irresponsible'

On Friday, in a statement in Downing Street after his surprise and overwhelming election victory, Boris Johnson offered an olive branch of sorts to people who voted remain. Addressing specifically those who still wanted to stay in the EU, he said “we in this one-nation Conservative government will never ignore your good and positive feelings of warmth and sympathy towards the other nations of Europe.” It was hard to know what he meant by that, and this morning many remainers will be concluding “not much” following the overnight announcement from No 10 that its new version of the withdrawal agreement bill will ban the government from seeking an extension to the Brexit transition. This is a concession to Brexiters and, although it could be argued that the intention is just to intensify pressure for the UK-EU trade deal to be finalised by the end of 2020, it does raise the prospect of the UK falling out of the transition into a no-deal Brexit this time next year if agreement cannot be reached.

That is the conclusion of the financial markets. The pound has been falling this morning, wiping out all the gains it made after the election result was announced. This is from the BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam.

My colleague Graeme Wearden has full coverage on his business live blog.

Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, has condemned the government’s move, saying that it is “reckless and irresponsible” and will put jobs at risk.

The government wants to hold a vote on the second reading of the withdrawal agreement bill on Friday. Starmer’s comment implies that Labour will vote against it, but the party’s election defeat has opened an intense debate about its Brexit position and others in the party will be arguing that the party should not vote against the bill at second reading.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs a political cabinet, followed by a normal cabinet meeting.

12pm: Downing Street lobby briefing.

After 2pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is due to address the Scottish parliament about the consequences of the election.

2.30pm: The Commons assembles for the first time since the election. MPs will re-elect Sir Lindsay Hoyle as Speaker, and then the swearing-in of MPs starts.

6pm: Jeremy Corbyn is due to address the parliamentary Labour party.

The shadow cabinet is also due to meet at some point this morning.

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. We plan to publish a summary at the end of the day.

You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.

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

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is 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 questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

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

Updated

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