European parliament chief Guy Verhofstadt has threatened to withhold consent for Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal unless problems with EU citizens’ rights are resolved.
It comes as the launch of an inquiry into Islamophobia and other forms of prejudice in the Tory party ran into immediate trouble as prominent peer Baroness Warsi questioned the suitability of the academic chosen to lead the independent probe.
Emily Thornberry announced she is running to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, and Sir Keir Starmer showcased his left-wing credentials and distanced himself from Blairism as he also bids for the job.
Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of the election’s aftermath, as more MPs are sworn in, the Conservatives launch a long-awaited Islamophobia inquiry, and Labour figures continue to argue over the party’s future.
Corbyn feels the force of Labour’s post-election anger
Jeremy Corbyn faced harsh criticism from MPs and peers at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) on Tuesday night, as he took responsibility for the party’s heavy losses at the general election.
Veteran MP Margaret Hodge said the room was characterised by “fury” and accused the party of “corporate amnesia” for failing to learn the lessons of previous defeats.
One Labour figure said he was “cut to ribbons,” while Labour peer Lord Falconer described it as a “volcano of molten anger”.
David Lammy said it was time “end this faith-based cult once and for all”.
Earlier, former MP Mary Creagh got enraged when she spotted Corbyn smiling and taking selfies with a group of young people – rushing over to confront him. She later called him a “man without honour and without shame,” someone guilty of “preening narcissism”.
Jeremy Corbyn apologises to furious Labour MPs for general election result
Outgoing leader also branded a ‘preening narcissist’ by defeated candidateTony Blair: Labour must ditch ‘sectarian ultra-left politics’
A report commissioned by Tony Blair said that Jeremy Corbyn’s removal alone will not be enough to restore Labour’s fortunes. The former leader believes the party must also discard his “sectarian ultra-left politics” before it can begin the journey back from the political wilderness.
Launching the report in London on Wednesday, Blair will warn that Labour faces being eclipsed as a serious competitor for power if it fails to renew itself.
The Tony Blair Institute report, which studied three key marginals, found a whole set of reasons for the loss besides Brexit – including the lack of credibility on the economy and security, and a sense Labour hadn’t rooted out “extremism”.
Blair is expected to pronounce: “Labour needs not just a different driver, but a different bus.”
General election post mortem delivers scathing judgment on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership
Former PM Tony Blair warns party risks being 'replaced' as serious competitor for powerKeir Starmer: Labour must become ‘broad church’ again
Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer has been trying to showcase his left-wing credentials as he bids o become the next Labour leader.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There are people who say ‘well it’s the media’. The media was hostile but it’s been hostile in the past and it’ll probably be hostile in the future, so we can’t rest there.
“Brexit did, of course, come up on the doorstep. What really came up was this slogan ‘get Brexit done’. And we didn’t knock it back, we didn’t knock it down and neutralise it hard enough.
“We put too much in the manifesto, you couldn’t see the wood for the trees. It was really good stuff in there. And we carried, I think, too much baggage into the election, and antisemitism is an example of that because it was about values and about competence.”
Starmer also suggested it would not be wise to return to the era of New Labour centrism. “What we mustn’t do now is for a third time oversteer, make this simplistic and go back to some foregone era.”
“I don’t need somebody else’s name tattooed to my head, some past leader, in order to make decisions.”
The senior Labour figure also rejected criticisms levelled at him of being too middle-class for the role and recalled how his mother worked as a nurse while his father was employed as a factory toolmaker.
In an interview with The Guardian, Starmer said he was “seriously considering” running, and claimed it was time for Labour to become a “broad church” again. He made sure he praised Momentum, as well as “people who might self-identity as Blairites”.
Keir Starmer showcases left-wing credentials in Labour leadership battle
'I don’t need somebody else’s name tattooed to my head, some past leader, in order to make decisions'Iain Duncan Smith: EU desperate for deal
Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith said there is “pressure” on Brussels’ chiefs to forge a trade agreement with the UK in a short time frame next year, claiming the EU “needs this deal”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the UK has taken the timetable from the EU “and said to them you cannot now rely on the idea that the UK will wait for you”.
He added: “And this is the important bit, because there’s some issue here about the EU meandering around for the next couple of months, quite deliberately, trying to put compression on the UK, therefore to take more time over this, because that means we spend more money in the EU through the budgets etc.
“And what Boris Johnson has done, which I think is really quite a bold but a clever move, he’s said to them ‘no, no, no, look we’ve agreed that we’re leaving after this period at the end of the year – it’s up to you now how seriously you take that and how much you put your efforts behind trying to reach that agreement which by the way will have to include things like enhanced equivalence and divergence’.”
Duncan Smith said it is often forgotten “just exactly how much the EU needs this deal with us as well”, adding: “It’s really important. We are their single largest export market for goods. We dwarf their exports to China and America.
“We are the fifth-largest export market in the world, which means, while we’re talking to the EU, the government should now be in the position to open discussions and negotiations with the United States at the same time, and that’s very important.
“That puts pressure on the EU of course.”
Yvette Cooper: Neither Corbyn nor Blair are seen as ‘patriots’
Labour MP Yvette Cooper, a potential leadership candidate, has distanced herself from both Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair.
Cooper, who said she would decide whether to stand over Christmas, told the Today programme: “I think we clearly do have to change because it hasn't worked, and we’ve got the fewest Labour MPs since 1935 and a big drop in working-class support with low-income voters choosing the Conservatives.”
Cooper said the party had to “recognise we cannot just become a party that is concentrated in cities with our support increasingly concentrated in diverse young fast-moving areas while older voters in towns think we aren't listening to them.
“And that is not a left/right issue, and this is where both the Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair challenge comes in, because both the left and the right of our party are seen as internationalist, not patriotic, at the moment.
“And that might not be fair, but it is how they are seen. Both Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair are seen as internationalist, not patriots, and we should be able to be both patriotic and outward looking because that's what we were in 1945.”
Asked if she thinks the next Labour leader has to be a woman, Cooper said: “I think it would be great to have a woman.”
Cooper pointed out two other things that need to change within Labour, saying that the party has to be “both radical and credible”.
Blair: Labour has become ‘glorified protest group which has brought shame on us’
Former PM Tony Blair has begun speaking about his institute’s report examining the reasons for Labour’s defeat. He said the party is “finished” if it continues with the Corbyn project.
Blair described the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn as a “glorified protest group which has brought shame on us”.
He also described the 2019 defeat as “seminal” and warned the party not to make the same mistakes as the early 1980s.
“The far left they say we won the argument. Except having convinced the British people that we were absolutely right, for some reason they inexplicably decided to go vote for the other guys.”
Our correspondent Lizzy Buchan is at the event, and said Blair also accused the Labour leadership of “almost comic indecision” and “terminal ineptitude”.
Tory peer pours scorn on independent inquiry into Islamophobia
The launch of an independent inquiry into Islamophobia and other forms of prejudice in the Tory party ran into immediate trouble as prominent peer Baroness Warsi questioned the suitability of the academic chosen to lead the probe.
Baroness Warsi highlighted an article by Professor Sarwan Singh in which he accused Muslims of driving other communities out of Indian Kashmir.
And the Muslim Council of Britain warned that the inquiry risked being a “whitewash” under Prof Singh’s leadership.
More details here:
Tory Islamophobia inquiry runs into trouble as Conservative peer criticises academic appointed to head it
Sayeeda Warsi raises questions about professor's comments about conflict in KashmirBaroness Warsi: Views of Islamophobia inquiry’s leader ‘doesn’t bode well’
Baroness Warsi was speaking on the Today programme about the review into Islamophobia and discrimination within the Tory Party which will be led by Professor Swaran Singh.
“Having read Swaran Singh’s views, and I wasn’t aware of him before yesterday’s announcement, I’m afraid that it doesn’t bode well,” she said.
She had highlighted an article by Professor Singh in which he accused Muslims of driving other communities out of Indian Kashmir.
Baroness Warsi added: “First of all I can actually live with the fact that the inquiry is broader than Islamophobia.
“I think what became apparent to me certainly in the last few months was that there was incidents of antisemitism and other forms of racism, so in a way I think having a broader inquiry may actually get to the hub of the issue.”
She said it is an inquiry to look at how the party can improve their processes, adding: “So there’s no look at what has actually gone on, there’s no look at the extent of the cases, there’s no detail of how bad the problem has been and how badly it’s been dealt with.
“It’s almost a sense of ‘what’s happened has happened, let’s kind of move on from that, and let’s just make sure we get it right in the future’.”
Doctors tell PM: Air pollution making NHS winter crisis worse
Air pollution is making the NHS winter crisis worse, dozens of doctors and health professionals have warned Boris Johnson in a letter.
The group of 175 medics warned the country is in the grip of a “public health crisis” as hospital wards and GP surgeries are swamped by thousands of cases of asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia believed to have been made worse by air pollution.
In a letter to the PM, the experts said the severe pressures facing A&E departments in winter “are being exacerbated by preventable causes”.
Air pollution making NHS winter crisis worse, 175 doctors tell Boris Johnson in new letter
Warning of public health crisis as hospitals and GP surgeries swamped
Tony Blair: young people now less enthused by ‘glorified protest movement’ under Corbyn
Tony Blair has been answering questions after his speech. The former PM said young people are “prospect of radical change” like that offered by Jeremy Corbyn.
“But you’ve also got to factor in, why did our vote then drop in 2019 among young people?”
Blair claimed some caught up in “Corbyn-mania” had gone through a “period of political education” and were now less enthusiastic about the Labour leader.
Our correspondent Lizzy Buchan is at the event in central London, and said Blair would not endorse any of the leadership candidates. But he suggested the best candidate would have the capacity to win an election, rejecting the idea Corbyn’s successor had to be a women from the north.
Here’s Blair making his attack on the Corbyn leadership, claiming the party has become “a glorified protest movement, with cult trimmings ... the result has brought shame on us”.
What’s the timetable for Brexit now Boris Johnson has a majority?
Our Europe correspondent Jon Stone through absolutely everything you need to know about the coming weeks – and years.
Lisa Nandy loves towns
The potential Labour leadership candidate Lisa Nandy and her love of towns is the focus of a growing number of memes on social media. People having been sharing clips of Nandy saying “towns” a lot.
And this morning Nandy will be launching the first “Town of Culture” in Greater Manchester alongside Labour colleague Andy Burnham.
No 10 bans ministers from attending Davos summit
Boris Johnson was spotted quaffing “fine English sparkling wine” with Theresa May earlier this week, but the boozing and schmoozing is over.
No 10 has reportedly banned ministers from attending next month’s Davos summit, just in case it looks a bit indulgent to all those working-class northerners the Tories suddenly care so much about.
Johnson has previously referred to Davos as an event comprised of “massive mutual orgies of adulation”. A Downing Street source told The Times: “Our focus is on delivering for the people, not champagne with billionaires.”
But, according to the newspaper, Johnson attended Davos every year from 2009 to 2014 and one guest saw him “whacking back the vodkas”.
Brexit Party stopped Tories winning 20 seats, analysis shows
Nigel Farage didn’t turn out to be the party pooper the Tories feared. But according to post-election analysis by Datapraxis the Conservatives could have won another 20 seats in the north if not for the Brexit Party.
Ed Miliband and Yvette Cooper might well have lost their seats, and Johnson would have trumped even Thatcher’s 1987 majority if Farage had pulled all of his candidates.
Former Labour MP reveals recent cancer diagnosis
The ex-Labour MP Emma Dent Coad, who lost her seat in Kensington, has revealed she was diagnosed with cancer four weeks before polling day.
She told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme: “I’m a strong person, but obviously something like that is quite frightening … It was hard because of the campaign, dealing with that at the same time.
“I didn’t want it to be a factor, at all, either positively or negative in my campaign.”
Asked about the election defeat and Labour’s future, she said Labour “weren’t Leave enough” and backed Rebecca Long-Bailey to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.
Tories accused of ‘deceit’ over Islamophobia inquiry
Harun Khan, the general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he does not have “huge confidence” in the probe into Tory Islamophobia.
Professor Swaran Singh will lead the inquiry, but the Tory peer Baroness Warsi has already highlighted an article by Professor Singh in which he accused Muslims of driving other communities out of Indian Kashmir.
“This appointment is at risk of being seen in the same light as the Conservative party's customary approach to Islamophobia, that of denial, dismissal and deceit,” said Khan.
“We were promised an independent inquiry into Islamophobia specifically. Now we have a review that aims to broaden the scope to examine discrimination more generally.
“A laudable aim if it were not for the fact that the Conservative party is afflicted with a particular type of bigotry that it refuses to countenance. The appointment of Professor Singh does not instill huge confidence in the process.”
‘Ed Miliband should lead Labour again’
In a new column for The Independent, the former Labour candidate Mohammad Zaheer argues there’s someone ideal waiting in the wings to take the party forward: ex-leader Ed Miliband.
Opinion: Ed Miliband should become Labour leader again
Milifandom 2.0 has grown even as Corbynism decayed. It’s time for this older, wiser Ed to reshape his partyVerhofstadt demands Johnson grants ‘full rights’ for EU citizens – and mocks Farage
The European parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt has claimed to have received letters from hundreds of EU citizens living in the UK “panicking” about their status.
He challenged Boris Johnson to be “generous” and asked: “Grant to all EU citizens the full rights as they have today. Automatically. To all of them. No ‘ifs and buts’.”
Verhofstadt also mocked the leader of The Brexit Party is gif form. “I won’t miss Mr. Farage and his Brexiteers, I can tell you that much.”
EU parliament could block Brexit deal unless citizens’ rights resolved
Guy Verhofstadt has had more to say, or tweeted. He says EU member states should grant UK citizens living in Europe the full rights as they have today.
“Automatically. No ‘ifs and buts’ here either. Let’s also come back to the idea of ‘European associated citizenship’ for UK citizens who want to keep their link with Europe.”
He also threatened to withhold consent to the Withdrawal Agreement unless “remaining problems with the citizens’ rights” are solved. “Citizens can never become the victims of Brexit.”
