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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Theresa May brushes aside Boris Johnson's criticism of her Brexit policy – as it happened

Theresa May at the G7 summit in Charlevoix in Canada
Theresa May at the G7 summit in Charlevoix in Canada Photograph: NEIL HALL / POOL/EPA

Afternoon summary

  • Theresa May has brushed aside Boris Johnson’s criticism of her Brexit policy. (See 5.14pm.) Johnson, the foreign secretary, said the UK might be having more success by adopting Trump-style confrontational tactics. (See 12.54pm.)

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Some 15% of people think the UK will end up staying in the EU, a YouGov poll suggests.

Theresa May brushes aside Boris Johnson's criticism of her Brexit policy

This is what Theresa May said in Canada when asked about Boris Johnson’s criticism of her Brexit strategy. (See 12.54pm.) Speaking to Channel 4 News, she said:

These are complex negotiations. Boris has strong views on Brexit but so do I. I want to deliver for the British people, that’s exactly what we are doing as a government and if you look at the process of these negotiations - nobody ever said it was going to be easy.

(Actually, they did. May seems to have forgotten that Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, said that reaching a free trade agreement with the EU should be “one of the easiest in human history”.)

May also played down the significance of what Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said about her plan for a Brexit backstop. (See 3.07pm.) Asked about his comments, she said:

This is a negotiation, Michel Barnier has said exactly that point.

We have put a proposal on the table, on this backstop relating to Northern Ireland, we will now sit down and negotiate it with the European Union.

We are getting on with the job and that’s what the British people want.

Updated

Theresa May brushes aside Boris Johnson's criticism of her Brexit policy

Theresa May has been giving interview at the G7 summit. She has been brushing off Boris Johnson’s criticisms of her Brexit policy. (See 12.54pm.)

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, also spoke at the SNP conference today, with a speech that challenged UK Labour on Brexit.

Inevitably he focused on the good news in the Times/YouGov poll, of which there was plenty, in terms of voters continuing to switch from Labour to the nationalists.

In Westminster voting intentions the SNP enjoy a 13 point lead over the Tories and a 17 point lead over Labour, while at Holyrood the lead is 14 over the Tories and 19 over Labour.

He had a neat line referring to Labour’s “utterly embarrassing” position on Brexit.

So here’s the SNP’s message to Jeremy Corbyn – you might be fooling the few but you are not fooling the many.

He went on the call for Labour to join the SNP in the Brexit voting next week in supporting staying in the single market and the customs union.

Lord Adonis says he is thinking of giving up peerage so he can become Labour MP

The BBC’s Nick Robinson has interviewed the Labour peer Andrew Adonis for his (very good) Political Thinking podcast this week. In it, Adonis said he was considering giving up his peerage so he could become a Labour MP. He explained:

I think the biggest mistake I made in my political career was not to seek to enter the House of Commons. There were very good reasons for it at the time, not least because I didn’t think I’d be staying in politics for long. I saw myself as a public service reformer who would move on. I thought there was a good prospect I would move back into journalism and I wanted to write books. But now that I’ve become deeply engaged and proved unable to give up because of the big controversial issues, I think it was a pity I didn’t go into the House of Commons, and I’m thinking that maybe I should seek to go into the House of Commons in future.

Asked when this might happen, Adonis replied:

At the moment, I’m overwhelmingly preoccupied with stopping Brexit. Wait and see how the cards fall afterwards. I hate being Lord Adonis, I’d much rather become Mr Adonis again.

Whether Adonis would get selected as a Labour MP is another matter. He was an adviser to Tony Blair, as a minister he championed academy school and his political hero is Roy Jenkins. With Momentum and Unite having a key role in picking Labour candidates, these are not the best qualifications to have on your cv ...

Andrew Adonis
Andrew Adonis Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

From left: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May, and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte meet at the G7 summit in La Malbaie, Quebec.
From left: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May, and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte meet at the G7 summit in La Malbaie, Quebec. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

John Swinney, the Scottish deputy first minister, told the SNP conference in Aberdeen that the Scottish government was starting to close the attainment gap in Scottish education. He said:

We are starting to close the attainment gap in Scottish education. The proportion of pupils – whatever their background – getting National 4s, National 5s and Highers is rising.

But for those pupils from our most deprived communities, it is rising faster than in our richest communities.

The gap is closing.

And for Advanced Highers, again awards have risen for pupils from both our most deprived and least deprived communities. But the number has risen by 40% for those from our most deprived communities, six times as much as the rise in our least deprived communities.

The gap is closing.

We all know there is much more to do, but friends, I believe we are seeing the start of a renaissance in Scottish education.

John Swinney at the SNP conference in Aberdeen.
John Swinney at the SNP conference in Aberdeen. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

David Henig, director of the UK Trade Policy Project, has posted an interesting thread on the UK/EU Brexit backstop deadlock.

Schadenfreude is to be avoided at all costs, but this interview clip with Nicola Sturgeon just released by Channel 4 news - in which she appears to have forgotten the set up costs of independence suggested by the newly published economic report which she herself commissioned - is hard to watch. Perhaps it is because Sturgeon is such a consummate media performer that a shoogly moment is so remarkable.

Leave.EU's Arron Banks pulls out of giving evidence to Commons culture committee

Leave.EU founder Arron Banks has pulled out of a scheduled grilling by MPs investigating “fake news”, the Press Association reports. The PA story continues:

The prominent Brexit campaigner was due to appear alongside colleague Andy Wigmore before the Commons culture on June 12 to answer questions about the use of targeted online advertising.

But he accused the committee of “conducting a co-ordinated witch-hunt of Leave groups” and said he and Mr Wigmore were no longer willing to appear at the hearing.

In a letter to chairman Damian Collins, Banks alleged that the committee provided support to a pressure group pursuing legal action against Leave.EU in the US courts by providing it with early access to evidence from a witness in its inquiry.

He said he would be reporting the committee to the House authorities for collusion with the Fair Vote Project.

The move comes a day after the Commons voted to require the director of rival Brexit group Vote Leave, Dominic Cummings, to appear before the committee, after he rejected a summons from Collins. Failure to do so could result in him being found in contempt of parliament.

At the G7 summit in Canada Theresa May has held a bilateral with the French president, Emmanuel Macron
At the G7 summit in Canada Theresa May has held a bilateral with the French president, Emmanuel Macron Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

A Scottish judge has rejected an attempt by a cross-party group of parliamentarians to get the European court of justice (ECJ) to rule on whether the UK can unilaterally cancel Brexit, my colleague Severin Carrell reports.

DUP accuses Barnier of 'outrageous attempt to revert to annexation of Northern Ireland'

The DUP has accused Michel Barnier of “an outrageous attempt to revert to the annexation of Northern Ireland”. Nigel Dodds, the DUP’s deputy leader and leader at Westminster, said in a statement.

Michel Barnier’s latest comments demonstrate he has no respect for the principle of consent or the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom. This is nothing more than an outrageous attempt to revert to the annexation of Northern Ireland. We will not accept such a proposal.

Mr Barnier fails to understand that both the Labour party and the Conservative party have already indicated that his proposed backstop is not acceptable. No prime minister could ever agree to any arrangement which would threaten the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.

The focus must now be on getting a new trade deal. Such a deal will be good for the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and the European Union.

Nigel Dodds.
Nigel Dodds. Photograph: Paul Davey / Barcroft Images

Today’s election results in the vote to select the Scottish National party’s new deputy leader, Keith Brown, suggest quite strongly there is discontent about the leadership amongst a large minority of party members after Brown won a less than resounding victory.

His closest rival, a popular activist called Julie Hepburn, had campaigned for a second independence referendum “at the earliest possible opportunity”, and urging the immediate start of a new independence campaign. Nicola Sturgeon has been diligently refusing to commit to any timescale given the lack of public appetite for a third referendum in the space of five years.

In the first round of voting in the three way contest to succeed Angus Robertson as deputy leader, who quit the post in February after losing his Westminster seat a year ago, Hepburn took 35.4% of the vote against 48.3% for Brown, the Scottish government’s economy secretary who has been an SNP minister since 2009.

But after the third candidate, Chris McEleny, an SNP councillor, was eliminated and his second preference votes distributed, her support jumped by more than nine points to 44.8% - that amounts to a 26% jump in her share of the vote.

By contrast, Brown’s increased by just under seven points from 48.3% to 55.2%, a more modest 14% increase in his share. Yet his chief role is to be the members’ voice in the party, given the SNP already has a first minister, a deputy first minister in John Swinney, and a Westminster leader in Ian Blackford. (He too has a deputy, in Kirsty Blackman.)

It suggests many activists want a more robust stance on a second referendum, or a fresh non-leadership voice in the party hierachy. Brown has steered much closer to Sturgeon’s position that no decision on a second referendum can be made til the terms of Brexit are known or far clearer.

The pro-SNP National newspaper reported Brown saying in April:

The next independence referendum could be held in 12 months or two years. As the first minister has said, the time to make the decision will be later this year when the timing and shape of the Brexit deal and the extent of the damage it will do to Scotland becomes clearer. That is something no-one can predict at this stage.

Keith Brown speaking at the SNP conference in Aberdeen.
Keith Brown speaking at the SNP conference in Aberdeen. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters

This is from the Times’ Sam Coates.

What Barnier said about UK's Brexit backstop plan

In his opening statement Michel Barnier switched from French to English when he got to the passage about the UK’s Brexit backstop plan. This is a deliberate tactic he uses a lot; the section in English is the big he wants to appear on the British TV news.

Barnier made two substantial points.

First, he said the backstop plan was incomplete. It “cannot qualify as a backstop”, he said. There were too many unanswered questions. He highlighted those in a tweet yesterday posing three questions and today he expanded on those questions.

1) First: Is this a workable solution to avoid a hard border?

The UK recognises that the proposals in its paper cannot qualify as a backstop since the issue of full regulatory alignment is not addressed. I repeat that we need regulatory alignment to avoid a hard border. How do we solve this issue?

2) Second question: Does the UK proposal respect the integrity of the single market and the customs union?

The UK wants to continue benefiting from our free trade agreements. Does that mean that we will have to reopen, renegotiate or even re-ratify our existing agreements in order to keep the UK in our customs territory after the transition?

The UK tells us that it wants to avoid any control. How does that fit with the requirements of our VAT system?

3) Third question: Is this an all-weather backstop?

The UK calls this arrangement temporary. How does that fit with the need to secure the absence of a hard border in all circumstances?

Moreover, we had agreed with the UK on the principle that public authorities and businesses would need to adapt only once to the new situation created by Brexit – only once. Does the temporary nature of the customs arrangement mean that several adaptations will now be needed?

Second, Barnier said the British plan was incompatible with the EU plan.

[The EU backstop] provides specific solutions to the unique situation of Northern Ireland.

The UK is taking a different angle, however. It is looking for a UK-wide solution.

Let me be clear: our backstop cannot be extended to the whole UK.

Why? Because it has been designed for the specific situation of Northern Ireland.

When Barnier said this, it sounded like an outright rejection of the UK plan. After the press conference he posted a tweet denying this. (See 2.29pm.) But on the basis of what he said, it is hard to see how the EU could end up accepting the UK proposal - at least, without substantial other shifts in Brexit policy from London.

I will post more on this soon.

Updated

No 10 says UK will 'never' accept Ireland-only backstop as proposed by EU

Downing Street has issued a response to what Michael Barnier in his news conference. It confirms that the UK government will not accept an Ireland-only backstop, which is what the EU is proposing. (See 1.38pm.) A government spokespersons said:

The prime minster has been clear that we will never accept a customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. We are also committed to maintaining the integrity of our own internal market. That position will not change. The commission’s proposals did not achieve this, which is why we have put forward our own backstop solutions for customs.

All parties must recall their commitment in the joint report to protect the Belfast agreement in all its parts.

Michel Barnier has confirmed today that discussions will now continue on our proposal.

Here is the text of Michel Banier’s opening remarks at the press conference. It is the text as delivered, which means most of it is in French.

An English version will be available later.

Barnier insists May's Brexit backstop plan has not been already rejected by EU

Michel Barnier has now put out a tweet clarifying his remarks at the press conference.

Barnier says EU will not be 'intimidated' by Britons blaming it for UK losing benefits of EU membership

Here is the Press Association’s first take on the Michel Barnier press conference.

Brussels will not be “intimidated” by Britons who try to blame the EU for their inability to secure the Brexit deal they want, chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said.

Barnier was speaking as he said that Theresa May’s proposals for a backstop customs arrangement in Northern Ireland raise a series of “difficult” questions.

Speaking in Brussels, Barnier said it was not necessarily “feasible” to extend the EU’s offer of continued participation in key elements of the customs union in Northern Ireland to cover the whole of the UK, as the Prime Minister’s proposal suggests.

And he said MMay’s insistence that the arrangement must be time-limited meant that it could not be regarded as a true backstop, providing a fallback option if the UK’s preferred permanent solution could not be agreed.

“Backstop means backstop,” he said. “The temporary backstop is not in line with what we want or what Ireland and Northern Ireland want and need.”

Barnier said it appeared that some Brexit supporters wanted to offload on to Brussels the blame for the fact that the UK cannot continue to enjoy some of the benefits of EU membership after leaving.

But he said: “We are not going to be intimidated by this form of blame game.”

Here is some critical reaction to what Michel Barnier said.

From Henry Newman, director of the Open Europe thinktank and a former special adviser to Michael Gove

From Hugh Bennett, the deputy editor of the BrexitCentral website

Q: If the backstop cannot apply to the whole of the UK, why are you even bothering to continue looking at the document?

Because I look at all British proposals in an impartial manner, he says.

He refers journalists to paragraph 49 of the joint report (pdf) from December, where the backstop was originally proposed.

He is getting to know Ireland well, he says. He thinks the practical solutions in the EU plan would not undermine British constitutional order. It is a form of decentralisation to resolve a specific problem, where the UK has a responsibility. It is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement, he says.

And that’s it.

I will post reaction and a summary shortly.

Q: Have you already started talking about issues like state aid?

Barnier says it depends what time scale you are talking about.

This is from Bloomberg’s Tim Ross.

This is from Politico Europe’s Tom McTague.

And this is from PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield.

Q: Will you categorically rule out the idea of a shared customs territory, applying to goods, after Brexit? The UK paper proposes a time limited version of this. Are you saying time limiting it is not possible because you don’t think there will ever be a long term solution to the Irish issue?

Barnier says the EU council has said clearly there will be no a la carte access to the single market, services, goods or people. He says the UK used to be very committed to the single market. They are familiar with the rules. They have to decide: when they leave, do they accept the rules or not?

He says he only saw the UK document yesterday. He will continue to look at this. Is it a temporary backstop? No, backstop means backstop.

And the UK plan does not address the question of regulatory alignment.

If there is going to be no hard border in Northern Ireland, there must be an agreement on customs, as the UK proposed. But there must be something on regulatory alignment. That is what is missing.

Q: The joint report in December said there would be no border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. The UK government has come up with a backstop plan that tries to make that possible. Was it wrong for the EU to agree the joint report if you want accept a plan to implement it?

Barnier says he has raised a series of questions. He awaits answers.

Barnier says there are no trade negotiations at the moment. The EU cannot negotiate with another EU state.

He says the negotiations will open after 30 March 2019.

After that time will be tight, he says.

He says the withdrawal agreement will go hand in hand with a political declaration on the future trade relationship.

He says the EU is working on its offer for the future partnership.

There will have to be a bilateral agreement on aviation, because the UK has decided to leave the single sky arrangement.

He says the EU is exploring all possible ways of building a new relationship with the UK. But it will be a third country after Brexit, he says. There are various tools that can be used.

Q: Boris Johnson says Donald Trump would do the negotiations better for the UK, a meltdown may be coming, but we shouldn’t panic. Do you agree?

Barnier says he will not comment on what Johnson said.

He says he tries to be very calm.

He says the EU is drawing up its position taking account of the British red lines, set out by Johnson and the British government.

We respect the British red lines. It would be perhaps good if the British could respect their own red lines.

He says, if the UK were to adjust their red lines, the EU would adjust their offer.

  • Barnier reiterates EU’s willingness to improve its offer if May abandons some of her red lines.

Q: Are you satisfied that the UK document does not time limit the backstop?

Barnier says he is ready the British paper very carefully.

Backstop means backstop, he says again.

This has to be a backstop that provides a guarantee under all circumstances.

He says the UK option is not in line with that the EU or Ireland need.

Q: Will you rule that sufficient progress has been made by the June summit?

Barnier says he has never spoken about the need for “sufficient progress” by June, as he did before the December summit.

He says May agreed to the backstop in March. She cannot go back on that, he says.

Barnier's Q&A

Q: You say the whole of the UK cannot remain in the customs union. Doesn’t that rule out the UK’s plan?

Barnier says the EU does not accept an a la carte approach to the single market.

He says he welcomes the document, because they need texts to work on.

But, being frank, he says this “raises more questions than it answers”.

He says he will be putting his questions to David Davis when they met on Monday.

He says the EU proposed including Northern Ireland in its customs terroritory. That was an exceptional offer, he says.

He says the other issue is how temporary the backstop would be. He goes on:

Backstop means backstop.

Barnier says the UK wants to keep all the benefits of the existing relationship, while leaving the regulatory framework of the EU.

When the EU points this out, “some parties in the UK try to make us responsible for the consequences of that decision”, he says.

Barnier says EU backstop plan cannot be applied to whole of UK

Barnier is now talking about the backstop.

He has turned to speaking in English.

He says the backstop plan is not a full backstop, because it does not address regulatory concerns. What would it do about regulation?

He asks if the UK will agree to be bound by EU regulations during the backstop period. The UK says it wants to leave EU regulation, he says.

And he asks if the backstop would last.

These questions need answers, he says.

He says the EU backstop proposal does answer these questions.

He says the UK version does not.

Our backstop cannot be extended to the whole of the UK.

It is designed for the specific situation of Northern Irleand, he says.

UPDATE: I changed the headline on this post in response to the clarification Barnier issued later. See 2.29pm.

Updated

Turning to Northern Ireland, he says there must be common rules on the island.

He visited Ireland a month ago. Everywhere he went, he met people who said the same thing: that it was important for them to be able to trade freely and move around freely.

Barnier says there is more work to be done on the governance of the withdrawal agreement.

He spoke about this in a speech in Lisbon recently, he says.

Barnier is holding a copy of the draft withdrawal treaty.

He says he hopes some of the white (not agreed) and yellow (partially agreed) bits can be turned to green (agreed).

On data, he says the EU wants data already exchanged to have the same protections it has now.

On geographical indications, this is “another area where a lot has to be done”, he says.

There is still no British position on this, he says.

  • Barnier criticises UK for not having an agreed position on geographical indications (ie, whether Cornish pasties have to come from Cornwall.)

Updated

Barnier says time has come to take decisions on Brexit

Michel Barnier is holding his press conference now.

He says he will update reporters on the latest Brexit talks.

He says the time has come to take decisions.

  • Barnier says time has come to take decisions on Brexit.

The EU is happy to step up the pace of talks, he says.

  • Barnier offers to intensify pace of Brexit talks.

Michel Barnier is running late, my colleague Daniel Boffey says.

Michel Barnier's press conference

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is about to give a press conference in Brussels.

He will be asked about the UK government’s Brexit backstop plan published yesterday. In a tweet yesterday afternoon he implied his doubts about the idea.

There is a live feed here.

Labour’s Rupa Huq says Boris Johnson is turning into a “Trump tribute act”.

Sturgeon's approval ratings continues to fall, poll suggests

There’s a fascinating contradiction in this morning’s Times poll, conducted in advance of SNP conference in Aberdeen.

It’s behind a paywall but the gist is: a YouGov survey found growing support for the SNP, putting the nationalists on course for an unprecedented fourth Holyrood victory. However, that public backing is no longer being extended to the party’s leader.

Sturgeon enjoyed a 56-point positive approval rating when the SNP swept to victory in 2015. Now, however, more Scots think that she is doing badly than think she is doing well, and Sturgeon’s popularity, which has been at about zero for six months, has slipped to -2.

It will be for the Scottish commentariat to analyse precisely what this means: is Sturgeon being blamed for perceived failures in public services, while voters are still willing to give her party a chance? Or are voters still angry about her decision last March to head for a second independence referendum, specifically tied to Brexit, which lost her party so many votes in the 2017 general election?

Nicola Sturgeon at the SNP conference in Aberdeen.
Nicola Sturgeon at the SNP conference in Aberdeen. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

This is from the BBC’s Scotland editor, Sarah Smith.

Usually the most noteworthy thing about party conference agendas is what is *not* included, and the SNP’s Aberdeen gathering is no exception.

There will be no scheduled discussion of report from the party’s Sustainable Growth Commission, published last week and intended to provide a fresh economic prospectus for independence to overcome what many see as the failings of the 2014 campaign’s economic arguments.

It’s fair to say that the report has had a mixed reception, with many on the pro-independence left concerned about its ‘austerity-lite’ vision of Scotland for a decade after a Yes vote, and about its recommendation of keeping sterling after independence would leave the country in hock to bankers.

The report will doubtless be referenced at fringe events, and members will get their change to respond at a series of specially convened National Assemblies later in the summer.

What Boris Johnson told the private Tory dinner

Here is the Guardian write-up of Boris Johnson’s comments to the Conservative Way Forward dinner.

Alex Spence at BuzzFeed got the recording and wrote it up at length. Here is his report. And Lucy Fisher at the Times also got hold of a recording which she has written up here (paywall).

And here is a summary of some of the best quotes.

  • Johnson said that the UK should be adopting Trump-style confrontational tactics in the Brexit talks.

I am increasingly admiring of Donald Trump. I have become more and more convinced that there is method in his madness … Imagine Trump doing Brexit. He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere.

  • He said he was “increasingly admiring” of Trump generally.
  • He accused remainers in government, and the Treasury in particularly, of being over-concerned about the disruption Brexit would cause in the short term. Their fears were unjustified, or “mumbo jumbo”, he claimed.

The fight at the moment, I won’t hide it from you, the inner struggle, is very, very difficult. The Treasury, which is basically the heart of remain, has seized the risk — what they don’t want is friction at the borders. They don’t want any disruption. So they’re sacrificing all the medium and long-term gains amid fear of short-term disruption. Do you see what I’m saying? And that fear of short term disruption has become so huge in people’s minds that they’re turning them all wet. Project Fear is really working on them. They’re terrified of this nonsense. It’s all mumbo jumbo.

  • He said the government was paying too much attention to the Irish border issue in the Brexit talks. This was “folly”, he claimed.

It’s so small, and there are so few firms that actually use that border regularly, it’s just beyond belief that we’re allowing the tail to wag the dog in this way. We’re allowing the whole of our agenda to be dictated by this folly.

  • He said the Brexit process could be heading for “meltdown”.

You’ve got to face the fact there may now be a meltdown. OK? I don’t want anybody to panic during the meltdown. No panic. Pro bono publico, no bloody panic [he probably said panico - it’s an old joke - but the transcripts I’ve seen say panic]. It’s going to be all right in the end.

  • He conceded there would be some problems, or “some bumps in the road” as he put it, with Breixt.
  • He said Brexit would happen and “will be irreversible”.
  • He said there was a risk Brexit would not turn out as Brexiters wanted. The UK could end up with “the worst of both worlds”, he said.

The risk is that it will not be the one we want and the risk is that we will end up in a sort of anteroom of the EU, with an orbit around the EU, in a customs union and to a large extent in the single market. So not really having full freedom on our trade policy, our tariffs schedules, and not having freedom with our regulatory framework either, in the lunar pull of the EU.

What they [the establishment] are trying to do is do a Brexit that does as little change as possible and that keeps us basically in the same orbital pull … And that would be the worst of both worlds, because what you do is you lose all that British influence in Brussels.

  • He revealed that at the G7 summit in Canada May would be “putting forward a British plan that will have global support to set up a rapid response unit to identify Russian malfeasance … whether it’s cyber warfare, assassinations, calling it out and identifying it.”
  • He said Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, had asked him if Britain could use its nuclear expertise to help disarm North Korea’s nuclear missiles.
  • He said America was going to lose its dominance of the tech sector.

The Americans have run the tech world for decades. Microsoft, Google, Apple, blah, blah, blah — we’re used to them winning. No, no, no. The Chinese are about to win. They’ve got 5G. They’ve found out a way. Everybody’s going to be getting stuff on their gizmos through the Chinese system and not the American system. So watch out for that one.


Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

New SNP deputy leader tells activists to 'get ready' for eventual independence vote

Keith Brown, the newly elected deputy leader of the SNP, used his speech to the SNP conference in Aberdeen to tell activists to “get ready” for the next independence referendum when it comes. He said:

I am absolutely confident the person you have just elected me to deputise for, Nicola Sturgeon, will steer us towards that decision.

So while we wait for clarity on Brexit - and I don’t think anybody could argue we have anything like clarity on Brexit even though we’re only a few short months away from the deal - the challenge is for all of us in the party and the wider Yes movement across Scotland to get ready.

Sturgeon has said that in the autumn, when more is known about how Brexit is unfolding, she will say more about the possible timing of a second referendum on independence.

The Tory Brexiter Peter Bone has just told the Daily Politics that he “punched the air with joy” when he read what Boris Johnson had told the private Tory dinner. Johnson was saying what people think, Bone said.

UPDATE: Here is a video clip.

Updated

Almost 30% of people in Northern Ireland more keen on joining Irish Republic since Brexit vote, poll suggests

Almost a third of the population of Northern Ireland have changed their mind about staying in the UK because of Brexit, a poll by BBC has shown.

The survey appears to show a greater number of the population would vote to switch to rule by Dublin if there were a border poll on the future of the region.

Asked if there were a vote on the border in Ireland tomorrow which way would you vote, 45% said they would vote to remain in the UK, whilst 42% supported Northern Ireland leaving the UK and joining a united Ireland.

Just under 13% indicated they were undecided or would not vote.

The poll was conducted before it was reported that Boris Johnson told a private dinner that fears about the Border on the island of Ireland were out of proportion.

“It’s so small and there are so few firms that actually use that border regularly, it’s just beyond belief that we’re allowing the tail to wag the dog in this way,” he said in unguarded commons after a dinner in London on Wednesday.

Asked if the UK’s decision to leave the EU, ie Brexit, changed their mind about the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, 40.6% said no and that they still supported staying in the UK.

But 28% said “yes” agreeing with the statement: “I used to support NI staying in the UK, but I may/would now support NI joining the Republic of Ireland.”

A further 27%, who favoured Northern Ireland joining the Republic before the referendum said that Brexit had not changed that view.

BBC Northern Ireland poll on referendum and Northern Ireland.
BBC Northern Ireland poll on referendum and Northern Ireland. Photograph: BBC

The survey, conducted by Lucid Talk in Belfast, also shows that, by a small margin, the majority of people in the region consider themselves Irish rather than Northern Irish or European or British.

Support for a united Ireland is stronger amongst voters under 45 with 49% backing a move to integration with the republic.

Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has also been using his speech in Germany to insist that the UK will have to give up some of the advantages of EU membership when it leaves, Paul Brand reports. Hammond’s warning against “cherry picking” could also been seen as a rebuke to Johnson, who is famously a proponent of wanting to have one’s cake and eat it (which is the same as what the EU calls cherry picking).

Theresa May is going to address Conservative MPs on Monday evening, the Times’ Sam Coates’ reports. That’s the night before they debate the Lords amendments to the EU withdrawal bill, and so presumably she will be requesting some loyalty.

No 10 says May has full confidence in Johnson

Downing Street has said that Theresa May still has full confidence in Boris Johnson as foreign secretary. It is the ritual question that gets asked at lobby whenever a minister does something embarrassing, or worse, and normally journalists get the ritual answer - as they did today.

(On the very rare occasions when No 10 refuses to say the PM has full confidence in the offending minister, that’s normally a clear sign they need to start clearing the office.)

Beyond answering the confidence question, the prime minister’s spokeswoman refused to comment at today’s briefing on Johnson’s comments at the private dinner.

Philip Hammond criticises Boris Johnson for proposing confrontational approach to Brexit talks

This is from ITV’s Paul Brand.

  • Philip Hammond criticises Boris Johnson for proposing a confrontational approach to the Brexit talks.

Hammond was referring to how Boris Johnson suggested that a Trump-style approach to the Brexit talks would work better than what Theresa May is doing now. Johnson said:

I am increasingly admiring of Donald Trump. I have become more and more convinced that there is method in his madness … Imagine Trump doing Brexit. He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere.

My colleague Dan Sabbagh was at the Best for Britain launch this morning. (See 10.18am.) He says it is understood that around 40 MPs have indicated they are willing to sign an amendment backing a second referendum on Brexit. Here is his report.

Sarah Wollaston, the Conservative MP and chair of the Commons health committee, believes that Boris Johnson was quite happy for his remarks to Conservatives at a private dinner to be made public.

Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, points out that she was calling for Boris Johnson to be sacked even before his latest indiscretion.

Nicola Sturgeon said she struggled to find diplomatic language to express her views about Boris Johnson. (See 10.40am.) The Labour MP Jess Phillips doesn’t have quite the same scruples. She posted this on Twitter.

Keith Brown elected SNP deputy leader

Keith Brown, the Scottish government’s cabinet secretary for the economy, has been elected as the SNP’s deputy leader. This is from the Herald’s Tom Gordon.

Updated

Boris Johnson should be sacked, says Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has been giving interviews this morning ahead of the opening of the SNP’s conference. And she has called for Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, to be sacked. She told the BBC:

Any prime minister that had any semblance of authority would have got rid of Boris Johnson a long time ago, not just because of comments like this. It’s not the first time he’s made comments that suggest that he’s - I’m finding it difficult to think of a diplomatic term to use about him, actually.

I just don’t think Boris Johnson is somebody who should be in one of the high offices of state. I don’t think the way he conducts himself, I don’t think the opportunistic way he puts his own interests constantly ahead of what is obviously in the best interests of the country, is behaviour befitting of somebody holding that office.

The Press Association’s Andy Woodcock is at the Best for Britain launch.

Anti-Brexit group launches second referendum campaign with roadmap showing how it can happen

Good morning. Sorry for the late start. I was held up for various reasons.

The news this morning has been dominated by the leak of Boris Johnson’s private views on Brexit, Donald Trump and much else. To summarise, he thinks that there could be a “meltdown” and that the UK would be doing better if Trump were in charge of the negotiations. (A cynic might say, given how things are going at the moment, Trump probably couldn’t make things much worse.) Michael Howard, the former Conservative leader this morning, weighed in this morning, suggesting he agreed with Johnson’s complaints about the Treasury.

All of this is good timing for Best for Britain, the anti-Brexit group, which this morning is formally launching its campaign for a second referendum. It has set out a roadmap showing how this might be achieved. Here is the summary from its news release.

The key points of the roadmap are:

In October parliament would amend the withdrawal and implementation bill (WAIB) to include a call for a people’s vote

The bill would be introduced by government and passed by parliament

In early 2019, the WAIB continues through parliament whilst a national conversation is launched

A people’s vote is held before March 2019

Lord Malloch-Brown, the former Foreign Office minister (in Gordon Brown’s government) who chairs Best for Britain, said this plan would show how Britain could solve the national uncertainty of Brexit via a democratic process. And Eloise Todd, Best for Britain’s chief executive, said:

For too long we’ve been asked to swallow the lie that the votes of 17m people - with their individual histories, experiences, and ideas - gave May a clear mandate to deliver whatever Brexit she can fashion, no matter how different that is from its original conception or how damaging it might prove to be. But I say to everybody out there: don’t let them force feed you such nonsense. However you voted, you deserve to know there is a deal on offer that the government is intent on burying.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Best for Britain launches its formal campaign for a second referendum.

10.30am: The SNP conference opens in Aberdeen with the announcement of the winner of the election for deputy leader (or depute leader, as they call it in Scots.) Other highlights include speeches from Ian Blackford, the leader at Westminster, at 12.15pm, and John Swinney, the deputy first minster, at 3pm.

1pm: Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, holds a press conference in Brussels.

4.45pm (UK time): The G7 summit in Canada formally opens. Theresa May is representing the UK.

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 the end of the day.

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

Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ 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 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.

Updated

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