Afternoon summary
- Liam Fox has criticised a former chief civil servant for “sticking to the patterns of the past” by saying the UK would be damaged for diverging from the EU after Brexit. As Peter Walker reports, the international trade secretary cast the civil servant, Sir Martin Donnelly, as a cautious bureaucrat who had spent too long in Brussels. Answering questions following a speech on Brexit in London, Fox dismissed the words of Donnelly, who had said that a future outside the EU’s single market was like swapping a three-course meal for a packet of crisps. Fox said Donnelly, who was the permanent secretary in his department until March 2017 and had previously spent time working in Paris and the EU, was unable to see the benefits that would accrue from an independent trade policy outside the single market and customs union. You can read the speech, which in news terms did not go much beyond what was briefed in advance, on BrexitCentral here.
- Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, has demanded an immediate end to all-male appointment panels, following the recruitment of Toby Young to the board of the new higher education watchdog. She was speaking during a Commons urgent question about a report saying the vetting process for Young was flawed and rife with political interference. Addressing the universities minister Sam Gyimah, she said:
The report also notes that an all-male appointment panel was used twice. Will he end that practice immediately?
Gyimah said that “the point around the all-male appointment panel is taken” and that an attempt had been made to make the panel more representative.
- A transgender former L’Oreal Paris model who was sacked by the cosmetics giant for saying “all white people” are racist has been appointed by a Labour frontbencher to an advisory panel. As the Press Association reports, Munroe Bergdorf has been asked to sit on an LGBT+ advisory board by shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler. Last year Bergdorf made headlines when she called on people to boycott L’Oreal after being sacked over a Facebook post responding to the killing of an anti-racism demonstrator who was opposing a white supremacist protest in Charlottesville in the United States with controversial comments. The model wrote: “Honestly I don’t have energy to talk about the racial violence of white people any more. Yes ALL white people.”
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
As Steven Morris and Severin Carrell report in a story filed earlier, the Scottish and Welsh governments are introducing “emergency continuity bills” to try to force UK ministers to make further concessions over their new powers after Brexit.
But in the Scottish parliament Ken Macintosh, the presiding officer, ruled that the bill “would not be within the legislative competence of the parliament”. He said:“My view is reached in each case after careful reflection and is informed by a robust consideration of the legal issues.”
The Scottish government disagrees. It has advice from the lord advocate, the Scottish government’s chief law officer, saying the bill is compliant.
The i’s Chris Green says it’s all a bit of a mess.
A brief recap on Continuity Bill:
— Chris Green (@cghgreen) February 27, 2018
Scottish PO says: not competent
Welsh PO says: competent
Scot Lord Advocate: competent
Scottish Govt: competent
Result: probably chaos
Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has joined those on Twitter mocking Boris Johnson for his comments earlier (see 10.14am) about the Irish border.
Planning to travel from Tottenham Court Road to Westminster this evening. Anyone know what the wait time at the border is like?
— Frances O'Grady (@FrancesOGrady) February 27, 2018
No 10 plays down significance of Barnier's comments about transition disagreements
Downing Street has played down the significance of what Michel Barnier said earlier (see 3.07pm) about the two sides not yet agreeing the transition. Asked for a response, the prime minister’s spokesman said:
During a negotiation you would not expect both sides to immediately agree on everything. What’s absolutely clear is that both the UK and the EU agree that an implementation period is beneficial and we’re working to reach an agreement in March that’s in the interests of both business and individuals in the UK and in the EU 27. We await publication of the draft text tomorrow and then we’ll be in a position to respond.
Updated
May chairs cabinet meeting focusing on rough sleeping
The prime minister has called rough sleeping a “tragedy” at a cabinet meeting focused on tackling the growing problem.
But homelessness charities will be frustrated that there was no discussion by ministers of the policies that are behind the increase in homelessness. Many charities blame the freeze in local housing allowance and the impact of the introduction of universal credit.
In a growing number of areas housing has become unaffordable for benefits claimants, while some new recipients of universal credit find it hard to manage their money which is paid monthly in arrears. Others say delays in receiving the new benefit and administrative mistakes force people into homelessness.
The government is committed to halving the number of people sleeping rough by 2022 and ending it all together by 2027. Officially, the number in England is at a record high of 4,751, although most charities believe the number is much higher. Even on official figures, it has risen tenfold in the decade since 2008 when it was just 435.
According to Number 10, at cabinet ministers were told the new rough sleepers’ initiative, “Housing First” which will provide intensive support to street sleepers, will be piloted in the West Midlands, Liverpool and Manchester. The chancellor, Philip Hammond announced a £28m fund for support in the budget last November.
Housing First is a scheme that has been successfully pioneered in the US. It aims to tackle the complex needs of people who have been homeless for some time. It starts from the presumption that housing is a human right.
Michel Barnier's press conference - Summary
Here are the main points from Michel Barnier’s press conference on Brussels.
- Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said that there has been no progress on many areas in the Brexit talks since December and that, on the transition, there are “significant points of disagreement”. He said that meant the transition had not yet been agreed. And he urged David David, the Brexit secretary, to come to Brussels for talks to resolve the logjam. He said:
I will say objectively, and this is something I regret, but I maintain the evaluation I gave you about three weeks ago, which is that in the light of these disagreements we have not achieved the transition yet.
For all of these points of disagreement I am quite happy to discuss these straight away with David Davis. It is essential that we make progress by means of political discussions, political negotiations, above and beyond all the technical points of clarification.
Barnier also explained where the two sides have yet to reach an agreement on the transition. The EU wants it to end on 31 December 2020, but the UK apparently wants it to be “open-ended”, it says. (The UK government says it does not want an open-ended transition, but it has not yet proposed a firm end date.) Barnier said there was a disagreement about regulatory divergence during the transition; the EU says all EU rules must continue to apply to the UK during that period, including new ones he implied. He said the EU wanted EU nationals arriving in the UK during the transition to get exactly the same rights as those who arrived earlier, but that the UK disagreed. He said there was a dispute about whether the UK would be able to opt in to new justice and home affairs measures. And he said it had not yet been resolved how the UK would be consulted during the transition on matters like the common foreign and security policy, and the common fisheries policy.
- Barnier said the UK’s proposed “managed divergence” approach to Brexit was unacceptable to the EU. That would amount to cherry picking, he said. (See 2.22pm.)
- He appeared to dismiss Boris Johnson’s comments about the Irish border. He said he did not want to “make comments on comments or indulge in polemics”. But he went on: “What counts here is what the British prime minister says.”
- Barnier said the draft Brexit withdrawal treaty being published tomorrow would not contain surprises. It would be be 120 pages long and contain 168 paragraphs, he said.
On the World at One Mairead McGuinness, a Fine Gael MEP, said that Boris Johnson’s comments about the Irish border showed that he failed to understand the history, geography and politics of Ireland. She said:
I’ve stopped being shocked by what the foreign secretary has said on any issues. On the border question however he must realise that two boroughs in London are in the same country. What we are talking about here is the border between the republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland which is a part of the UK and therefore in a very different space. So his comments aren’t surprising but they aren’t helpful.
I don’t buy [a frictionless border] in fact I don’t even really listen to it. Has Mr Johnson any idea of what happens along the border? How they trade particularly in livestock, how milk is produced on farms in Northern Ireland and comes to the South for processing? How are we going to stop the milk flow? Who’s going to check origin?
The solution and the possibilities that he’s proposing by technology fails to understand the history, the geography or the politics.
Barnier says Davis should come to Brussels to break logjam in Brexit talks
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has called for David Davis to urgently come to Brussels to break a logjam in talks as he warned that Brussels will not accept UK demands on the transition period including the suggestion that its end date should be left open.
He reiterated that the legal text to be published tomorrow will operationalise the option of keeping Northern Ireland in the single market and customs union, and dismissed Boris Johnson’s comments this morning by saying that it was Theresa May’s words that mattered.
Barnier says UK's 'managed divergence' Brexit proposal unacceptable to EU
At a cabinet sub committee meeting at Chequers on Thursday Theresa May’s most senior ministers agreed on the Brexit outcome they will propose when they start talks on the future trade relationship with the EU. The government has not officially said what it wants - Theresa May will give details on Friday - but it has been widely reported that the UK will propose a system of “managed divergence”, involving what in Whitehall has been summarised a “three buckets” approach: sticking with EU regulations in some areas (bucket 1), adopting the same aims via different regulatory means in other areas (bucket 2), and the UK goings its own way in other areas (bucket 3).
On Friday last week, based on the initial press reports about what was decided at Chequers, Donald Tusk, president of the European council, said it was “pure illusion” if the UK thought this would prove acceptable.
Today Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, was asked if he agreed. He said yes, and explained why.
The answer is yes. I agree with the president of the European council. We can’t possibly imagine a situation in which we would expect cherry picking. We are responsible for guaranteeing the integrity of the single market. The UK knows what the rules are which underpin that integrity because they have been helping us put them together for the last 40 years.
According to the BBC’s Europe editor Katya Adler, who discussed this on the BBC’s Brexitcast podcast last week, a common joke in Brussels is that the “three baskets” proposal belongs in the fourth basket - the round one on the floor in the corner of the office.
Updated
Barnier is now taking questions.
Q: Do you agree with Donald Tusk view about the UK government’s “three baskets” proposal for a Brexit deal being unacceptable?
Barnier says the answer is yes, he agrees with Donald Tusk. We cannot possibly imagine a situation where we would accept cherry picking, he says.
He says the UK has been helping to draft EU laws for 40 years.
- Barnier says the “three baskets” approach proposed by the UK government for managed divergence from the EU is unacceptable.
Q: Do you agree with the Northern Ireland MEP who said the EU’s intervention in Northern Ireland is intolerable?
Barnier says the joint report published in December has a clear framework for Ireland.
Paragraph 49 contains three options for Ireland intended to avoid the need for a hard border.
The third option refers to the need for regulatory alignment.
Barnier says he would be happy if the alternative options worked.
But the draft treaty needs to contain an operable solution.
Updated
Barnier says he is concerned about lack of progress in Brexit talks
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is speaking at a briefing in Brussels now.
Michel Barnier says he is concerned about the shortage of time between now and autumn, when Brexit is meant to be concluded. The clock is ticking (in case anyone had forgotten).
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) February 27, 2018
The Brexit treaty will run to 168 articles and 120 pages, says Michel Barnier, but "no surprises".
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) February 27, 2018
He has also just referred to it as a 'draft withdrawal treaty'.
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) February 27, 2018
Barnier reveals 'there has not been any progress' on ongoing withdrawal issues since December and very little negotiation on them. He says this 'is a matter of concern for me'.
— Nick Gutteridge (@nick_gutteridge) February 27, 2018
Barnier: 'I would say objectively, and this is something I regret, we have not reached the transition yet. For all of these points of disagreement I’m happy to discuss these matters straight away with DD. It’s essential that we make progress.'
— Nick Gutteridge (@nick_gutteridge) February 27, 2018
Updated
Fox claims ex trade chief who rubbished plan to leave customs union is stuck in past
As reported earlier, Liam Fox’s speech on Brexit has been overshadowed by an intervention from Sir Martin Donnelly, who until last year was permanent secretary at the Fox’s own department for international trade. Donnelly told the Today programme this morning that leaving the customs union (the government’s policy) would be like “giving up a three-course meal, the depth and intensity of our trade relationship across the European Union and partners now, for the promise of a packet of crisps in the future” and that it would take a “fairy godmother” for the government to get what it thinks it will get from the Brexit talks with the EU. My colleague Jessica Elgot has all the details here.
The international trade secretary did not mention Donnelly in his speech. But Fox did respond to the man who use to be is most senior civil service adviser in the Q&A.
When first asked about Donnelly, Fox echoed the line used by Boris Johnson earlier and presented Donnelly as someone who spent his life “working within the European Union”. (See 10.14am.) Fox also claimed that Donnelly wrongly presented the customs issued as an either/or issue. Fox said:
First of all, it is unsurprising that those who have spent a lifetime working within the European Union would see moving away from the European Union as being threatening. The particular choice that I heard Sir Martin Donnelly outline was a choice between the European Union and trade opportunities elsewhere ... I don’t believe that is the choice we face. We are already trying to seek a full and liberal partnership with the European Union, we are already having discussions about expanding our trade agreements beyond the EU and we are also talking about rolling over the EU agreements into EU law so that we can get no disruption in terms of market access at the point of access.
So it is not a choice of one or the other. And, in any case, I think the UK Brexit process is, as we have all discovered, a little more complex than a packet of Walkers.
Fox was wrong about Donnelly being someone who spent his whole life working within the EU, unless you take the view that being a British civil servant means you are working within the EU because the UK has been a member since 1973. Donnelly did work for the commission, but that was in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Otherwise most of his civil service career has been spent in Britain.
- Liam Fox claims former trade chief who rubbished plan to leave customs union is stuck in past.
When Fox was asked about Donnelly a second time, he repeated his point about Donnelly essentially being stuck in the past.
It is not about sticking to the patterns of the past. I understand that those who have been professionally committed to those for many years would want to adhere to them.
And Fox also said Donnelly could not comment on the government’s plans properly because he did not know what they were yet. Fox said:
Neither Sir Martin, with all due respect, nor anyone else has seen the full details of what was agreed at cabinet last week at Chequers. When the prime minister sets those out on Friday, I think he will find that what we need is a hard-headed leader, not a fairy godmother.
Q: [From the BBC’s John Pienaar] Martin Donnelly says you will need a fairy godmother to deliver the Brexit goals you want. Are you worried there are not enough true Brexit believers?
Fox repeats the point about Donnelly being someone who has spent all his career working within EU structures.
He says Donnelly does not know what Theresa May will be proposing.
And he says the UK needs a hard-headed leader (Theresa May), not a fairy godmother.
And that is it. The Q&A is over.
I will post a summary in a moment.
Fox says in any future trade agreements the UK will preserve the right of governments to regulate their public services.
But you can only do that if you are in charge, he says.
If you are not in charge, you cannot do that.
He says he has a message for the “inept and clueless” Labour leadership. They have not thought about what might be imposed on the UK from EU trade deals.
He says the leader of the Welsh Labour party was in the US yesterday, as Jeremy Corbyn was giving his speech, saying Wales wanted a trade deal with the US.
After taking the first question from a journalist, Fox is now taking questions from trade bodies.
He says the government can address the structural issues that promote exports.
But there is also a cultural issue, he says. He says some questions need to be asked. Why does the UK export less than Germany? Do we need to look at the way companies are financed?
Fox says many companies are rising to the challenge. The proportion of firms that export has recently risen above 30%, he says.
Liam Fox's Q&A
Liam Fox is now taking questions.
Q: What is your response to Martin Donnelly, the former permanent secretary at your department who said leaving the customs union would be a mistake? (See 8.09am.)
Fox says it is unsurprising that those who spent a lifetime working in the EU would find the idea of moving out of it frightening. He says Donnelly presented it as a choice between trading in the EU and trading outside. But it is not a choice of one or another, he says.
Q: Do you agree with William Hague’s argument [in the Daily Telegraph - paywall] that Tories who vote for staying in the customs union would be helping Jeremy Corbyn?
Fox says he hopes his Tory colleagues will be assured by what Theresa May says in her speech on this.
Updated
I will post a full summary of the Liam Fox speech when I’ve seen the text. But here are some of the highlights so far from my colleague Peter Walker.
Liam Fox speaking now. Brexit has asked the UK all sorts of questions about its place in the world, and how it will trade, he begins. pic.twitter.com/o5p4brmFWe
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) February 27, 2018
Seven minutes into Liam Fox's Brexit speech and it's all been about aspiration and future trade ambitions. Not one specific detail so far on how it will all actually work.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) February 27, 2018
Fox says "flexibility and agility" is the key to better global trade. A standard free trade agreement is not the only way to do this, he argues. Could try "multinational alliances of like-minded nations".
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) February 27, 2018
As Fox says signing a new customs union would be a "betrayal" of voters, junior trade minister Graham Stuart, sat in front of me, mutters a quiet, "hear, hear!" like he's in the Commons.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) February 27, 2018
Updated
Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, will be giving his Brexit speech around now. As extracts released overnight made clear, he will be explaining why Britain should leave the customs union. He will say:
First of all, for goods, we would have to accept EU trade rules without any say in how they were made, handing Brussels considerable control of the UK’s external trade policy.
Secondly, it would limit our ability to reach new trade agreements with the world’s fastest-growing economies.
And thirdly, it would limit our ability to develop our trade and development policies that would offer new ways for the world’s poorest nations to trade their way out of poverty.
As rule takers, without any say in how the rules were made, we would be in a worse position than we are today. It would be a complete sell out of Britain’s national interests.
A customs union would remove the bulk of incentives for other countries to enter into comprehensive free trade agreements with the UK if we were unable to alter the rules in whole sectors of our economy, as Turkey has now discovered.
The inevitable price of trying to negotiate with one arm tied behind our back is that we would become less attractive to potential trade partners and forfeit many of the opportunities that would otherwise be available to us.
As various people have pointed out on Twitter, Fox has changed his tune on this over the years. His website still includes an article he wrote for the Mail on Sunday in 2012 making the case for remaining in the customs union. In the article Fox said:
What should be done? I believe that the best way forward is for Britain to renegotiate a new relationship with the European Union – one based on an economic partnership involving a customs union and a single market in goods and services.
This would be, in effect, a common market without the political interference that the British people have found it increasingly difficult to tolerate and which politicians of both parties have discovered makes governing our own country increasingly difficult.
Fox’s department posted this picture earlier of the international trade secretary preparing for his speech.
.@LiamFox with Permanent Secretary @AntoniaRomeoUK and Chief Trade Negotiation Adviser Crawford Falconer preparing for his speech setting out UK’s trading future #FreeTradeUK #UKisGREAT pic.twitter.com/ztXbxG6Prx
— Department for International Trade (@tradegovuk) February 27, 2018
There has been a suggestion that Theresa May could try to make a vote on a customs union, which could be lost, a confidence issue - using the threat that it would end her leadership challenge her backbenchers to defy her.
The remainer MPs signed up to it have hit back at that suggestion, which they believe is coming from hard Brexit supporters in the European Research Group.
But, interesting, the ERG chair Jacob Rees-Mogg was categorical when I spoke to him about it. He said:
It can’t be a confidence motion. The government would have to take specific action beyond that vote which may not demand the support of MPs.
Rees Mogg pointed out that the only way to actually pass a no confidence motion, under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, was a vote on exactly that motion in the House of Commons.
Enough Tory MPs, still bruised by the 2017 battle, are likely to block that and prevent it coming to pass. The alternative for May would be to trigger a leadership election within the party, but not then go to the country.
However, he admitted that losing the customs vote would be a “great blow to government strategy and the government may be asked to do something that may not seem possible”.
Updated
Gove criticises Donald Tusk for using plastic water bottles
Michael Gove, the Brexiter environment secretary, has criticised Donald Tusk, the European council president, for having plastic water bottles on the table in the picture he tweeted earlier. (See 11.20am.)
Why the plastic bottles @eucopresident? You should be aligning with us in ditching this environment-damaging habit... #greenbrexit https://t.co/oODv4EiClt
— Michael Gove (@michaelgove) February 27, 2018
Theresa May spoke with Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, on the phone last night. As Sky’s Darren McCaffrey, reports, Varadkar’s office issued a read-out last night, which makes it clear that Varadkar stressed the importance of the draft legal text of the withdrawal agreement setting out in full the “regulatory alignment” solution to the Irish border issue.
NEW: Varadkar and May have spoken on the phone this evening: "The Taoiseach also repeated the necessity from the EU side to have the detail of the backstop option of full regulatory alignment spelled out in the draft legal text of the Withdrawal Agreement." #Brexit pic.twitter.com/zE5r0dBZjX
— Darren McCaffrey (@DMcCaffreySKY) February 26, 2018
Number 10 has just released its read-out. It is shorter, and does not mention alignment at all. For what it’s worth, here it is in full.
Yesterday evening the prime minister spoke to the taoiseach on the Brexit negotiations and the situation in Northern Ireland.
The PM reaffirmed our commitment, as set out in the joint report, to avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland or between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom and to converting all of these commitments into legal text in the coming months.
The PM and the taoiseach both agreed that it was their preference to achieve this through the overall future relationship between the UK and the EU. The PM advised that she would say more on this future relationship in her speech on Friday.
The leaders also discussed the current political situation in Northern Ireland. The prime minister said she had met with both Sinn Fein and the DUP last week and that she still believes a basis for accommodation remains. They committed to remain in touch on this.
A majority of Conservative party members are against the UK joining Efta (the European free trade association), according to a ConservativeHome survey. But they are less opposed to Efta than to the EEA (the European economic area), ConservativeHome’s Paul Goodman writes.
If our survey is right, Conservative party members are set against continued or new EEA membership post-Brexit. Fourteen per cent back the option. Sixty-eight per cent oppose it.
On Efta pure and simple, opinion is more divided. Fifty-four per cent oppose the suggestion. Twenty-eight per cent support it. Eighteen per cent don’t know – not an insignificant proportion of the whole. Whatever you think of the idea, it can’t fairly be said that, in the minds of a significant tranche party members, the door to it is firmly closed.
That means that Tory members strongly object to the Norway model (EEA/Efta), but find the Swiss model (Efta-only) not quite so bad.
'Regulatory alignment' best solution to Irish border problem, says European parliament's Brexit coordinator
Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator, has told the chamber’s constitutional affairs committee that ‘regulatory alignment’ between the north and south of Ireland is “the best way to solve the problem” of avoiding a hard border. He said:
It is for us key that that there will be in future, whatever the outcome of the negotiations will be, that there is no divergence in norms, rules, standards between the north and Republic of Ireland ... That is our goal. That’s the best way to solve the problem.
DUP MEP Dianne Dodds, in response, said his comments were an “intolerable interference in the affairs of the United Kingdom”.
Verhofstadt also said that the UK’s vow that EU migrants arriving in Britain during the transition period should be subject to different residency rights was “unacceptable”.
Theresa May has said she wants to be able to treat EU nationals coming to the Uk during the transition period differently than those already in the UK.
“Acquis is acquis. We cannot accept that there is differentiation of citizens .... It’s a point of disagreement and we hope it can be solved”, Verhofstadt said.
Speaking about the agreement reportedly reached among the cabinet on a plan for a future trading relationship with the EU, Verhofstadt echoed the comments last week of the European council president, Donald Tusk. He said it was “an illusion to think the problem can be soled by so called “ambitious managed divergence”. He said:
[It is] the latest buzz word. What does that mean? A word to define the so called three baskets they want. For us, this is an unacceptable way to try to establish a new relationship. It is exactly cherry picking.
Verhofstadt said that the European parliament was willing to accept a slightly longer transition period than the 21 months proposed by the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier. He said: “If it is a few months later that is not a problem. Until three years, we see that’s possible”.
Verhofstadt also backed the British government demand - still not tied down in talks - for onward movement rights for UK nationals living in EU countries. He said:
Once they have a permit to reside in one country that should be applicable in all 27 states of the EU.
Updated
Donald Tusk, the European council president, has just tweeted this.
Meeting @MichelBarnier in critical week of #Brexit talks.
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) February 27, 2018
Will meet PM @theresa_may in London on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/hysTqZHSf2
I think that’s what you would call “serious face”. It could be a hint that he does not expect an easy meeting with Theresa May later this week.
Scotland and Wales 'very likely' to refuse EU withdrawal bill legislative consent, says Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, was also on the Today programme this morning. She used her interview to say it was “very likely” that the Scottish parliament would refuse to give legislative consent to the EU withdrawal bill.
The UK government and the devolved administrations have been trying to reach agreement over what happens to EU powers relating to policy areas that are normally devolved when those powers are repatriated under the bill. David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, made a fresh attempt to offer a solution yesterday. But Sturgeon said the government was not respecting the devolution settlement.
After Brexit, in terms of the devolution settlement, those powers should return to the Scottish parliament and it should be up to us how we exercise them.
What the withdrawal bill seeks to do is restrict and constrain the ability of the Scottish parliament or the Welsh assembly to legislate in these devolved areas .
Westminster effectively wants to be able to impose uniformity in these areas and that’s not acceptable in terms of the broad sweep and fundamentals of the devolution settlement.
This meant it was likely that the Scottish and Welsh parliaments would withhold legislative consent from the bill, she said.
We are still trying, through discussions, to reach agreement but if I look at the situation right now I think it’s very likely that that’s the position both the Scottish government and the Welsh government will be in, of saying to our respective parliaments we do not recommend approval of the withdrawal bill and we will introduce then our own legislation in devolved matters to give continuity to EU law in the Brexit scenario.
Under the Sewel convention, the UK parliament is not supposed to legislate for matters that are devolved unless the devolved legislatures grant legislative consent. But Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not actually have a veto. If the Scottish and Welsh parliaments were to refuse legislative consent to the EU withdrawal bill, that would not stop it becoming law. But it might embolden the House of Lords to firm up their opposition to the bill. And it would undermine faith in the devolution settlement generally.
This Institute for Government briefing goes into more detail about how the convention works and what would happen if Sturgeon does eventually say no to the EU withdrawal bill.
And here is some reaction to the Boris Johnson Today interview from journalists and commentators.
From Reaction’s Iain Martin
The Boris solution to the Irish border seems to be... the Oyster card. Unbelievable.
— Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) February 27, 2018
From Ian Birrell
Incredible that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn has more credibility with business over Brexit now than the Conservatives. Underlines how corrosive this farce has become for the party - demonstrated again by Boris Johnson’s pathetic interview with #r4today
— Ian Birrell (@ianbirrell) February 27, 2018
From the New Statesman editor Jason Cowley
Boris Johnson is so comically out of his depth as Foreign Secretary. Deeply unimpressive on the Syrian tragedy, banal on Brexit. #Today
— Jason Cowley (@JasonCowleyNS) February 27, 2018
From LBC’s James O’Brien
"One day we will be sitting here not talking about Brexit. It's going to be fantastic."@BorisJohnson highlighting a new Brexit trend whereby the people who caused it wish that the rest of us would stop highlighting their chuntering f*cknuggetry.
— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) February 27, 2018
From Bloomberg’s Robert Hutton
"One day we will be sitting here not talking about Brexit. It's going to be fantastic."
— Robert Hutton (@RobDotHutton) February 27, 2018
Shakespeare's "Tragedy of Boris Johnson" continues to write itself. #r4today
From the Manchester Evening News’ Jennifer Williams
Oh my god did Boris actually just say wearily ‘one day we’ll be sitting here and not talking about Brexit and it will be fantastic’? You do NOT get to be weary about this, mister.
— Jennifer Williams (@JenWilliamsMEN) February 27, 2018
Boris Johnson's Today interview - Summary and analysis
Boris Johnson’s Camden/Westminster border analogy is attracting all the attention, but there were quite a few other interesting lines in his Today interview. Here is a summary.
- Johnson, the foreign secretary, sought to minimise the seriousness of the Irish border in the Brexit talks by comparing it to the Camden/Westminster boundary. (See 8.58am.)
- He said the government would reject an EU proposal to have the European court of justice as the final arbiter of UK-EU trade disputes after Brexit. In the Financial Times (paywall) Alex Barker and Laura Hughes have reported this as a proposal. They say:
The EU will demand this week that the UK remains subject to European court rulings indefinitely under its Brexit divorce deal, forcing Theresa May into another fraught battle over the writ of Luxembourg judges.
Brussels will propose a draft Brexit withdrawal agreement on Wednesday that requires the UK to accept the European Court of Justice as the ultimate arbiter of treaty-related disputes, according to three officials who have seen the text.
The uncompromising “governance mechanism”, backed up by sanctions that cut off market access if Britain ignored court rulings, is among a host of potentially explosive political issues included in the 160-paragraph document.
Asked if this was acceptable, Johnson replied:
I say no, that won’t happen, because that has been expressly ruled out by the British people. We can’t remain subject to the European court of justice. That is part of taking back control of our laws.
- He claimed that Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to back staying in a customs union with the EU amounted to “cynical, shameless U-turn”. He said.
I think it is incredible that Jeremy Corbyn has done this U-turn, a completely cynical, shameless U-turn. He campaigned on a manifesto to stay in the customs union. He now suspects, he senses, that there is this Commons vote coming up, and he thinks there’s an opportunity to confound the government.
The Labour manifesto (pdf) did say Labour would accept the result of the referendum, but the only reference to the customs union was a line saying the party would seek a Brexit deal “retaining the benefits of the single market and the customs union”.
- He depicted Martin Donnelly, the former permanent secretary at the international trade department who has attacked the government’s decision to leave the EU (see 8.09am), as essentially a Eurocrat. Johnson said that he had known Donnelly for a long time and that he considered him an “excellent man”, but he also described him as his friend from the European commission. As the Telegraph’s Asa Bennett points out, Donnelly did work at the commission - but a long time ago. Most of his career has been spent in the British civil service.
Boris Johnson sticks the knife into Sir Martin Donnelly on #r4today, dismissing the former BIS permsec as "from the European Commission" pic.twitter.com/E6D46UnDxG
— Asa Bennett (@asabenn) February 27, 2018
Johnson also dismissed Donnelly’s arguments. He said it was important to leave the customs union because trade with countries outside the EU was growing faster than trade with countries inside the bloc. He said:
Actually, our trade with the EU has been declining rapidly over the last 10 years. As a share of our total trade, it’s gone from about 55% to about 44% in 10 years. If you look at where the growth is, since 2010 the growth in our exports to the EU has been about 10%, growth with America 40%, growth with Saudi Arabia 40%, growth with Japan 60%, growth with Korea, actually up 100%.
- Johnson played down the prospect of Theresa May offering Tory pro-Europeans some sort of compromise on the customs union. Asked if this was an option, he said:
You can’t suck and blow at once, as they say. We are going to come out of the customs union in order to be able to do free trade deals and take back control of our tariff schedules.
- He said that staying in a customs union with the EU would lead to the UK having “colony status”.
You cannot stay in the customs union and say that you are coming out of the EU. The EU is a customs union. [Corbyn] would be effectively saying that the Brussels commission could continue to control our commercial policy, our trade policy, to collect tariffs at our frontiers over which we would have no control ...
[Corbyn’s plan to stay in the customs union] means that the UK will be attracted by the lunar pull of the EU system, ultimately to remain in the law making regime of the single market, but we won’t have a say around the table. We won’t be there. It really is the worst of both worlds. What he is advocating is colony status for the UK.
- He said he was looking forward to the time when Brexit was not the dominant issue of the day.
One day, Mishal, we will be sitting here not talking about Brexit. It is going to be fantastic.
- He said Britain should consider joining military action against Syrian president Bashar Assad’s regime if there is fresh “incontrovertible” evidence he has used chemical weapons against his own people. He said:
What I think we need to ask ourselves as a country, and I think what we in the West need to ask ourselves, is can we allow the use of chemical weapons, the use of these illegal weapons to go unreprieved, unchecked, unpunished? And I don’t think that we can.
If there is incontrovertible evidence of the use of chemical weapons, verified by the Office of the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, if we know that it’s happened and we can demonstrate it, and if there is a proposal for action where the UK could be useful, then I think that we should seriously consider it.
Johnson has made comments like this in the past before, but they have tended to attract little attention because Theresa May seems to show very little interest in armed intervention against the Assad regime in Syria. (In other words, the chances of it ever happening are minimal.)
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And Owen Smith, the shadow Northern Ireland secretrary, has also condemned the comment, the BBC’s Owen Smith reports.
Labour @OwenSmith_MP says @BorisJohnson comparison of N.Ireland border with London congestion zones "typically facile and thoughtless."
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) February 27, 2018
Open Britain says Johnson's London comparison shows he does not understand Irish border issue
Open Britain, which is campaigning for a soft Brexit, has also criticised Boris Johnson for his Irish border comments. It put out this statement from the Labour MP Chris Leslie.
Now we know why Boris Johnson didn’t mention the problem of the Irish border once in his big Brexit speech last week: because he simply doesn’t understand it.
To compare the border between two sovereign states, the UK and the Republic of Ireland, to the boundaries between different London boroughs is not only patently ridiculous but also shows staggering insensitivity and a stupefying ignorance of a conflict in which over 3,000 people died between 1969 and the signing of the Good Friday agreement.
Boris Johnson’s tenure as foreign secretary and Brexit cheerleader shows he has the reverse Midas touch: everything he touches turns to muck.
Colum Eastwood, leader of the SDLP, Labour’s sister party in Northern Ireland, has also condemned Boris Johnson’s comments about the Irish border. (See 8.58am.) He posted this on Twitter.
When @BorisJohnson decides to come down from the other planet that he clearly inhabits he's welcome to come and actually visit the Irish border.
— Colum Eastwood (@columeastwood) February 27, 2018
Labour condemns Boris Johnson for comparing the Irish border to the Camden/Westminster one
Labour politicians have strongly condemned Boris Johnson for claiming that crossing the Irish border could be seen as like going from one London borough to another. (See 8.58am.)
From Paul Blomfield, a shadow Brexit minister
Stumbling, bumbling @borisjohnson compares north & south of Ireland with Islington & Camden on @r4Today while trying to explain his frictionless border without a Customs Union. Unbelievable!
— Paul Blomfield (@PaulBlomfieldMP) February 27, 2018
From Angela Smith, the Labour leader in the Lords
Did I really hear Boris Johnson, the U.K. Foreign Secretary, compare the Irish border with that between 2 Boroughs in London? No, surely not even Boris could think that?? @BBCr4today
— Angela Smith (@LadyBasildon) February 27, 2018
From the Labour MP David Lammy
Did our Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson really just compare the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to the border between Camden and Islington on @BBCr4today just now? God help us all this isn’t just stupidity and ignorance but wilful recklessness #r4today
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) February 27, 2018
From Andrew Fisher, Jeremy Corbyn’s chief policy adviser
Clearly Boris Johnson was never taught the proverb "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt" https://t.co/SMgdSbKHjN
— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) February 27, 2018
Updated
Here is the key Boris Johnson clip.
"There's no border between Camden and Westminster."
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) February 27, 2018
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on the Northern Irish border debate #r4today pic.twitter.com/UMDixRaoji
Boris Johnson compares crossing Irish border to going from Camden to Westminster
The most striking line in Boris Johnson’s interview was probably the bit where he compared crossing the Irish border to going from Camden to Westminster in London. He was responding to a question about the draft legal text of the withdrawal treaty that the EU will publish this week, which will include provisions for Northern Ireland having to be in full alignment with EU law if other means of keeping the border with the Republic of Ireland open do not work.
When it was put to Johnson that the EU does not think those “other means” (which the UK favours) will work, he replied:
We think that we can have very efficient facilitation systems to make sure that there’s no need for a hard border, excessive checks at the frontier between Northern Ireland and the Republic. For people listening, there’s no border between Camden and Westminster, but when I was mayor of London we anaesthetically and invisibly took hundreds of millions of pounds from the accounts of people travelling between those two boroughs without any need for border checks whatever.
And when Mishal Husain suggested that this comparison was invalid, Johnson dug in.
I think it’s a very relevant comparison, because there is all sorts of scope for pre-booking, electronic checks, all sorts of things that you can do to obviate the need for a hard border, to allow us to come out of the customs union, take back control of our trade policy and do trade deals.
Johnson, of course, was not trying to say the Irish border is exactly the same as the Camden/Islington one. With the flair for a vivid analogy that made him such a compelling newspaper columnist, he was trying to make the point that the congestion charge illustrates how modern technology allows authorities to raise huge sums from motorists without toll booths or delays etc.
But, even allowing for Johnson using journalistic licence, there are two big problems with his comparison.
First, although there are proposals to allow tariffs to be levied in a friction-free way at the Irish border in the way that the congestion charge is levied in London, the border control issues are not just about charging lorries carrying goods. Border controls also involve checks on goods, and rules of origin regulations. A Camden dairy farmer transporting thousands of gallons of milk every day to a cheese factory in Westminster would not have to worry about these concerns, but in Ireland they do.
Second, the congestion charge relies upon CCTV cameras an ANPR (automatic number plate recognition). Johnson is assuming that it would be easy to install such cameras at the Irish border. But it would not, because there are good grounds for assuming terrorists would blow them up.
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Q: Have you given the PM leeway to be flexible on customs arrangements?
Johnson says “you can’t suck and blow at once”. The UK needs to come out of the customs union to be able to do free trade deals, he says.
He says, if the UK adopts Corbyn’s policy, it will be attracted by the “lunar pull” of the EU. But it won’t have a say. It will be the worst of both worlds, he says.
He says many people who voted Labour thinking it was committed to Brexit will be disappointed.
And that’s it. The interview is over.
I will post a summary soon.
Q: The draft EU legal text will say the European court of justice will be the ultimate arbiter of trade disputes.
Johnson says that is unacceptable.
Q: So is it a red line?
Johnson says there will be a deal. And one day they will be sitting here and not talking about Brexit. It will be fantastic, he says.
Johnson says Donnelly is an excellent man. But he used to work for the European commission.
He says the EU’s share of UK trade has been going down.
Growth in trade with areas outside the EU is much bigger than growth in trade with the EU, Johnson says.
Husain now turns to Brexit.
Q: The EU is going to publish a draft treaty text including a reference to full regulatory alignment in Ireland.
Johnson says the UK does not think that is the right way forward. It thinks there are alternative approaches to the Irish border problem.
Q: But the European commission does not think those will work?
Johnson says the UK disagrees. It thinks facilitation checks can solve the problem. He says there is no border between Camden and Westminster. But when he was mayor of London, he had a way of taking millions of pounds from people travelling between the two (the congestion charge.)
He accuses Jeremy Corbyn of doing a “shameless U-turn” on the customs union. He campaigned against it, Johnson claims. Now he has changed his stance because a Commons vote is coming up.
Q: The CBI agree with him.
Johnson says Corbyn has decided to betray those who voted for him. The EU is effectively the customs union, he says.
Q: Corbyn says he wants the UK to have a say in EU trade policy.
Johnson says that is interesting. Would the UK be part of the EU’s commercial directorate? Would it actually leave the EU?
Q: The Conservatives used to be seen as the party of business, but the CBI is now backing Labour on this.
Johnson says the CBI has long had a view on this.
He says he speaks to businesses that support the government’s view.
He says his old friend, Martin Donnelly, was on the programme earlier. Johnson says he disagrees with what Donnelly said. (See 8.09am.)
Johnson says the “overwhelming bulk” of the killing in Syria has been done by Assad’s force.
He controls 50% of the territory, and 75% of the people. There has to be a process, he says.
He says people in the west have to ask if they can allow the use of chemical weapons to go unpunished. He does not think they can, he says.
If there is incontrovertible evidence of the use of chemical weapons, and if there is a proposal for action where the UK could be useful, it should consider military intervention, he says. “That is my view.”
- Johnson says UK should consider military intervention in Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons. But he stresses that there is no proposal for action at the moment.
Boris Johnson's Today programme
Mishal Husain is interviewing Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary.
She starts by asking about the assault on eastern Ghouta.
Q: Why wasn’t the UK at the forefront of calling for a ceasefire?
Johnson says the UK was. It was very involved in the UN effort to agree a security council resolution, he says.
He says he does not think it is inevitable that Bashar al-Assad will win. There are 4m people not under his control, he says.
Former international trade department chief dismisses Fox's case for leaving customs union
It’s another very busy Brexit day. Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, is giving a speech later making the case for leaving the customs union. Here is our preview story.
But Fox’s arguments have been rubbished by Sir Martin Donnelly, who was permanent secretary at the international trade department until last year. He will set out his case in a speech tonight, but, summarising his argument, he told the Today programme:
You’re giving up a three-course meal, which is the depth and intensity of our trade relationships across the European Union and partners now, for the promise of a packet of crisps in the future if we manage to do trade deals outside the European Union which aren’t going to compensate for what we’re giving up. You just have to look at the arithmetic - it doesn’t add up I’m afraid.
I will post more from his speech, and interview, shortly.
First, thought, we have Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, on the Today programme at 8.10. After that, here is the agenda.
9.30am: Theresa May chairs cabinet.
11.30am: Philip Hammond, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.
11.45am: Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, gives a speech on Brexit.
1.15pm: Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, gives a speech to the Association of British Insurers conference.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
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.
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