Afternoon summary
- Theresa May has said that people should “take reassurance and comfort” from the government planning for a no deal Brexit. (See 2.01pm.) She was speaking a day after ministers confirmed the government has been considering how to guarantee food and medical supplies if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. Asked about these reports, May suggested that the government was not just focused on stockpiling. She said:
This is not just about stockpiling. That concept, what it is, is about making sure that we will be able to continue to do the things that are necessary once we have left the European Union, if we leave without a deal.
- Jeremy Corbyn has said Labour would be willing to consider extending the Brexit transition, which is due to end in December 2020. Asked about the Irish government’s suggestion that article 50, which says the UK will leave the EU on 29 March next year, might need to be extended (see 10.03am), Corbyn replied:
What we have said is there should be a transition period, and that was eventually supported and accepted. Quite clearly it might be necessary to ensure that goes on a bit longer.
The transition period was agreed by the government and the EU, and it is not in Corbyn’s power to extend it. But given that Theresa May does not have a majority, the stance of Labour on this issue could become significant. Tory Brexiters would strongly oppose any attempt to extend the transition, but many people in Brussels think that this will become necessary.
- Corbyn said leaving the EU without a deal would be unacceptable. Speaking on a visit to HS2 train bidder Bombardier in Derby, he said:
We’ve got to have a deal, we can’t have a no-deal end to this process because the manufacturing industry and all the other services we share with Europe have got to carry on. Therefore there has to be an agreement.
- A Welsh politician has resigned from the national assembly and left his party as police investigate allegations of a “serious offence”. As Steven Morris reports, Simon Thomas, who was a Plaid Cymru MP before taking up a seat in the Welsh parliament, resigned with immediate effect. The party’s chairman, Alun Ffred Jones, said: “Plaid Cymru has received Simon Thomas’s resignation as a member of the party. We are aware of a police investigation into allegations of a serious offence. Due to that ongoing investigation, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
According to BuzzFeed’s Emily Ashton, an original tweet from the Conservative MEP David Campbell Bannerman about treason and “extreme EU loyalty” was even more extreme that the one currently generating controversy. (See 11.43pm.) In her story she writes:
A pro-Brexit Tory MEP has suggested that remainers should be prosecuted under the Treason Act for “undermining the UK through extreme EU loyalty”.
David Campbell Bannerman made the comment on Twitter on Wednesday morning, sparking a flood of criticism from baffled readers.
He then deleted the original tweet, only to replace it with a reworded version to clarify that he was referring to “those in future actively working undemocratically against U.K. through extreme EU loyalty”.
Q: In the UK some opponents of Brexit raise the prospect of asset-stripping US companies harming the British economy. What is your reaction to those stories?
Fox says over the last two years there have been a remarkable number of scare stories about Brexit. The UK is still attracting a great deal of investment, the economy is growing, order books are doing well. The “economic apocalypse” did not materialise.
He says these scares are like the ones raised about TTIP, the US-EU trade treaty.
He says the people propagating these myths are anti trade and anti capitalism.
And that’s it.
Fox says opponents of Brexit are now treating the EU referendum as just consultative, not as an instruction to government.
Q: How closely do you expect the UK to align with the EU on free movement of people after Brexit?
Fox says the government rejected an EEA option because it would require accepting free movement.
He says voters do not mind people coming to the UK if they work and pay taxes. But at the time of the referendum they did object to migrants being able to access services if they were not working. That is why they rejected free movement.
He says his personal preference would be for companies to be able to bring in the skilled workers they need from wherever.
Fox says, when Juncker meets Trump, he would like to see a “de-escalation over tariffs”.
Q: Has the US administration said it will notify Congress before Christmas that it wants to start negotiating a new trade deal with the UK?
Fox says the UK government is starting its own consultation so that it can match that sort of timeframe.
Fox says the UK cannot negotiate a free trade deal until after it has left the EU. If anyone is in any doubt, they should know the UK is leaving, he says.
Fox says the fact that Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president and an unelected bureaucrat, is in Washington today negotiating trade on behalf of of the UK, is exactly why he wanted to leave the EU.
Q: What do you say to those who argue that you need a hard Brexit to get the best chance of a trade deal with the US? And do you see Trump as a protectionist or a free trader?
Fox says the EU is an important part of UK trade, even though it is declining. He says the IMF expects 90% of growth in global trade in future to come from outside Europe.
He says what the relationship with the EU will look like depends on whether we get “a people’s Brexit or a bureaucrats’ Brexit”.
He says the US has always been a free trading country. It is no secret that London has a difference with the US over tariffs. But there are many issues on which they agree, he says.
Liam Fox's Q&A
Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, has just delivered his speech in Washington. It was a fairly standard defence of free trade. But he is now taking questions.
There is a live feed here.
Asked about a trade deal with the US, Fox says talks with the US administration have been going on for months. He has had constructive meeting on this visit.
We are moving forward with our preparations.
He says he does not know what the final relationship with the EU will be. But the UK cannot wait, he says.
He says he was “very encouraged” by what President Trump said about the future relationship when he visited the UK.
Speaking to reporters after the British-Irish intergovernmental conference, David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, said that any “prudent’ government would be preparing for a no deal Brexit. He went on:
You have to put vim and vigour into it because you want to make sure that you have thought through all potential problems and you have got a contingency plan, which in that situation would work and deliver the best outcome in those circumstances.
“Vim” has become a new government buzzword. When Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, went to Brussels last week, he promised to push ahead with the Brexit talks “with renewed energy and vigour and vim”, to the confusion of some non-Britons, who weren’t familiar with the term, according to one report.
The Labour MP Stephen Doughty has described the Conservative MEP David Campbell Bannerman’s comments about “extreme EU loyalty” and treason (see 11.43am) as “disgraceful”. In a statement issued by the People’s Vote campaign, which is campaigning for a second Brexit referendum, Doughty said:
It is shocking and disgraceful that a Conservative MEP thinks people should face treason charges because they disagree with him on Brexit. If his aim is to intimidate those of us who support a People’s Vote on a final Brexit deal into silence I can only tell him he will fail.
In the meantime, Theresa May should make it clear she won’t be party to such campaigns of political bullying. It is appalling that there are people who want to deepen divisions on this issue rather than allowing a rational debate about how we face up to what is now becoming a serious national crisis.
Darren Grimes, the BeLeave activist who has been fined and reported to the police by the Electoral Commission for breaking electoral spending rules during the EU referendum, has launched a drive to raise funds to appeal against the judgment. As he says in an article for ConservativeHome, he thinks he is “completely innocent” and that the commission is acting out of “bias” against Brexit supporters.
👋 I’m Darren Grimes. You might know me as the twenty-something who the Electoral Commission fined £20,000 and accused of criminal conduct.
— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) July 25, 2018
I believe they are undermining our democracy, and I am asking for your help to expose what they are doing and to stop them.
Here's why 👇 pic.twitter.com/rqWsdXSGN9
According to his CrowdJustice page, he has already raised more than £20,000.
Hammond says government not planning further regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and GB
On his visit to Belfast Philip Hammond, the chancellor, was also asked whether the government would be prepared to countenance any new regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain as a way of resolving the impasse over the Irish border. Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, was ambivalent when asked about this at a select committee yesterday.
While the government has ruled out a different customs regime operating in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, the chancellor acknowledged there were already some historical regulatory differences, in areas such as animal health, the Press Association reports.
He said the government did not envisage any further divergence in regard to regulations, insisting there would be “strong resistance” to such a move. “It’s not something we are envisaging or proposing,” he said.
May says people should 'take comfort' from fact government preparing for no deal Brexit
Theresa May told 5 News today that people should not be worried by the preparations the government is making for the possibility of a no deal Brexit. She said:
Far from being worried about preparations that we’re making, I would say that people should take reassurance and comfort from the fact that the government is saying we’re in a negotiation, we’re working for a good deal, I believe we can get a good one, but it’s right that we say, because we don’t know what the outcome will be, let’s prepare for every eventuality.
Is the Government stockpiling medicines and blood products - and should we be worried?
— 5News (@5_News) July 25, 2018
Theresa May says she's being "sensible" with preparations for a no deal Brexit to ensure "we'll be able to continue to do the things that are necessary once we've left the EU" | @andybell5news pic.twitter.com/OgRfGklxlv
On a visit to the Bombardier aircraft factory in Belfast, Philip Hammond, the chancellor, delivered a similar message. He said it was “sensible and responsible” that the government was working with industry to stockpile certain vital supplies for the event of a no deal.
Here is our story from last night about Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, admitting that the government has been considering how to guarantee food and medical supplies in the event of a no deal Brexit.
Updated
Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs committee, has written an open letter (pdf) to Sajid Javid, the home secretary, asking a series of questions about the government’s decision to accept the death penalty as an option for two jihadists, who were British until they were deprived of their citizenship, now facing trial in the US.
Referring to a statement Ben Wallace, the security minister, gave in the Commons on Monday, Cooper said:
The security minister stressed on a number of occasions the government’s need to find a ‘balance’ in cases of this kind. This would appear to be a different approach to that previously understood, whereby the objection to the death penalty - and the need to require assurances - was seen as a matter of principle rather than a matter of balance.
Voters losing confidence in May's ability to handle Brexit, poll suggests
We have some new Guardian/ICM polling out today, covering perceptions of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, as well as voting intention.
May v Corbyn on key issues
We’ve been regularly asking people whether they trust Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn most to do the best job on key issues. The results are interesting in themselves, but also for what they show about how perceptions are changing. Here are the results for January, for September 2017 and for May 2017. And here are the main points from this round of results.
- Voters are losing confidence in Theresa May’s ability to handle Brexit, the poll suggests. In January May had a big lead over Jeremy Corbyn on the issue of who was most trusted to negotiate a good Brexit deal (35% v 19% - net score +16). That was well below the net lead of +34 that May had on this measure shortly before the 2017 general election, but still significant. May’s net lead on this has halved over six months, and it is now +8. The number of people saying they trust May most on this issue has fallen (by 9 points), but the number of people saying they trust Corbyn on this has fallen too (by 1), and 44% of people replied “neither” when asked which leader they rated best on this issue - a much higher “neither” score than for any of the other issues.
- May’s announcement of an extra £20bn for the NHS seems to have an noticeable impact on her standing on this issue. Corbyn is still well ahead on protecting the NHS (May’s net score is -12), but by significantly less than six months ago (when May’s net score was -18).
- Corbyn leads May on six of the 10 issues featured in the poll, and May is seen as the best leader on the other four. Corbyn’s best issues are improving public services, protecting the NHS and and making Britain a fairer country, but he is also ahead on pensioners, the environment and education. May’s best issues are security, controlling immigration and the economy, although her leads on these issues are much lower than they were just before the 2017 election.
- May has improved her standing relative to Corbyn on six of the 10 measures over the last six months. She has made most progress on the NHS, which used to be easily Corbyn’s best topic, but she has also gone forward on security, pensioners, immigration, the economy and making Britain fairer. Corbyn’s biggest gain, relative to May, is on Brexit, but he has also made slight gains on the environment, public services and education.
Here is ICM’s Alex Turk on the findings (his bold text).
The public’s trust in Theresa May being able to negotiate a good Brexit deal for the UK has collapsed. It used to be the second strongest area for May compared to Corbyn on the areas we’ve tested, beaten only by protecting people from threats at home and abroad, but now it falls to her fourth strongest area. Whereas over a third (35%) of Brits trusted May to successfully negotiate Brexit at the start of the year, now it’s only one in four (26%). It wasn’t too long ago - back in May 2017 - that almost half (47%) of the public trusted May most to do the best job of negotiating Brexit. To see this proportion collapse to just over a quarter (26%) on what’s considered the biggest issue of the day could explain some of the pressure exerted on her leadership coming from within her party in recent weeks.
The only consolation for May’s supporters is seeing Corbyn treading water in his perceived ability to successfully negotiate Brexit, with only 18% trusting Corbyn over May.
When couched in terms of negotiating Brexit, there seems to be a public appetite for someone else entirely. We’ve seen those who trust neither May nor Corbyn to negotiate a good Brexit deal jump from 31% in January to 44% in this poll. This now means that, more than in any other area we ask, a large slice of the British public tend to trust neither May nor Corbyn on Brexit.
Here is a chart.
And here are the figures.
Voting intention
And here are the voting intention figures, compared with Guardian/ICM two weeks ago.
- Labour has a one-point lead over the Conservatives, the poll suggests. Two weeks ago the Tories were two points ahead. This reinforces the findings of other polls suggesting that the publication of the Chequers Brexit plan has undermined Conservative support. It also backs up polls suggesting the Ukip vote is reviving; this poll has them up one point on 5%.
I will post a link to the tables here when they go up on the ICM website.
ICM Unlimited interviewed a representative online sample of 2,010 adults aged 18+, between 20 and 22 July 2018. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
UPDATE: Here are the tables (pdf).
Updated
Nia Griffith says Labour should not discipline people for 'speaking their minds'
The Nia Griffith quote criticising Labour’s decision to launch a disciplinary inquiry into Margaret Hodge comes from an interview she has given to Nick Robinson for his Political Thinking podcast. Here a section from the BBC transcript.
NG: Look Margaret quite clearly has had some appalling times herself in terms of prejudice against her and a massive challenge with the BNP to deal with, so if she wants to have a very clear word with Jeremy that’s entirely up to her.
Nick: Should she be disciplined?
NG: The idea that Jeremy would want to set up an atmosphere in the party where people couldn’t go and say things to him is completely absurd. It’s just not his way of dealing things. I think we’d all prefer to have somebody speak to your face rather than behind your back. It’s important that we have those discussions and if it means we need to do a lot more work to get things right let’s do it.
Nick: But do you mean that there won’t be disciplinary proceedings against Margaret Hodge or you think Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t want there to be, which is a bit different?
NG: Well at the moment I’m not aware of any processes by which because somebody speaks to somebody else ‘in a particular way’ we’ve had disciplinary procedures. Normally if we’re speaking about policy, if we’re talking about issues we can have those discussions.
Nick: Journalists have been told that she crossed a line, that should be disciplinary proceedings. If there were, how would you feel belonging to a party that disciplined Margaret Hodge, who’s worried about antisemitism, but never quite got round to disciplining Ken Livingstone?
NG: Well I just can’t see a situation where we discipline people for speaking their minds to each other, whether its members of the shadow cabinet or the leader of the opposition himself.
Hodge was informed on Wednesday last week that she was being investigated. She received a letter to that effect from Jennie Formby, the party’s general secretary, which said that allegations that Hodge had broken party rules had been reported to the party, but which did not say by whom.
Here is the letter I received from the Labour Party and the letter my lawyers have sent in reply. 1/7 pic.twitter.com/VwXRU93SBa
— Margaret Hodge (@margarethodge) July 23, 2018
On the same day Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman told journalists at a briefing that action would be taken against Hodge.
In an interview on the Today programme this morning John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said that he did not know who had initially complained about Hodge, only that only that “a range of complaints came in”.
Shadow cabinet minister criticises Labour for launching inquiry into Hodge's anti-Corbyn outburst
Nia Griffith, the shadow defence minister, has criticised Labour’s decision to launch a disciplinary inquiry into Margaret Hodge for calling Jeremy Corbyn antisemitic, PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield reports.
Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffith on Margaret Hodge row: "I just can’t see a situation where we discipline people for speaking their minds to each other, whether its members of the shadow cabinet or the leader of the opposition himself." Mmm ... https://t.co/RO9K4Hm6x2
— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) July 25, 2018
Tory MEP says working undemocratically against UK 'through extreme EU loyalty' should count as treason
The centre right thinktank Policy Exchange has published a report today saying the law on treason should be updated so that it can be applied to jihadis. The Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat is one of the co-authors of the report, and here is a summary of what it says.
The authors recommend that:
Parliament should enact a new offence which would revive the law of treason and recognise that betrayal – treason – is a clear moral wrong.
This would specify that it is an offence to aid a state or organisation that is attacking the UK or preparing to attack the UK or against which UK forces are engaged in armed conflict.
This should apply to the actions of anyone in the UK; it should also apply to the actions of British citizens or settled non-citizens anywhere in the world.
In most cases, people convicted of treason should be sentenced to life imprisonment, a sentence which reflects the gravity of the wrong of betrayal, deters others, and incapacitates the offender.
At a minimum, parliament should reform our law to follow Australia and New Zealand and thus make it clear that it is unlawful to aid the enemy either in an international armed conflict or in a non-international armed conflict.
But the Conservative MEP David Campbell Bannerman (originally a Ukip MEP, but he defected in 2011) thinks this does not go far enough. He says a new treason law should also cover those “actively working undemocratically” against the UK “through extreme EU loyalty”.
It is about time we brought the Treason Act up to date and made it apply to those seeking to destroy or undermine the British state. That means extreme jihadis. It also means those in future actively working undemocratically against U.K. through extreme EU loyalty pic.twitter.com/CXSPCJqjOz
— David C Bannerman (@DCBMEP) July 25, 2018
I’ve called CCHQ to ask if the party approves. I’ve been told they will get back to me.
It is appropriate that Campbell Bannerman has tweeted an image of a Telegraph splash. Two weeks ago the paper tweeted this, a link to an article about the large number of letters the paper was getting from readers unhappy about Theresa May’s Chequers plan, some of whom were accusing her of treason. The tweet was widely criticised as irresponsible, on the grounds that inflammatory comments of this sort contribute to a climate in which it has become routine for MPs to face death threats, or worse.
Is Theresa May guilty of treason? Plenty of readers think so. Politicians would be wise to listen up https://t.co/s7toX8qO1s pic.twitter.com/Q14PXU5ktz
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) July 11, 2018
Turning back to the issue of a no deal Brexit for a moment, this Newsnight clip is interesting. For a long time Brexiters have been arguing that the government should be spending much more time and money preparing for a no deal Brexit; they argued that, unless the UK could show that it was in a position to walk away from the talks and manage without a deal, it would inevitably have to accept whatever the EU offered.
But, according to Newsnight’s political editor Nick Watt, some Brexiters are now complaining that talk about stockpiling food etc amounts to “project fear” - in other words, a scaremongering exercise intended to frighten people off the no deal option.
"This is project fear 2.0" - A Brexit supporting MP has given @nicholaswatt their response to comments made today by Health Secretary Matt Hancock about medical stockpiling following a no deal Brexit.@Matthancock | @nicholaswatt | #newsnight pic.twitter.com/64sOtRA2vS
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) July 24, 2018
John McDonnell was also on the Today programme this morning. As my colleague Ben Quinn reports, in that interview McDonnell called for a swift and amicable resolution to disciplinary measures taken against Margaret Hodge for accusing Jeremy Corbyn of racism and antisemitism.
In the interview McDonnell said that Hodge had criticised Corbyn because she did not understand the full scope of the new Labour code of conduct on antisemitism. She thought it did not cover some types of antisemitism that it does cover, he argued.
I realised there was a complete misinterpretation of the code, so I can understand why [Hodge] was so angry if that’s what she believed this code had done ... I think it’s a complete misunderstanding and we can resolve this amicably and move on.
I went into this issue in some detail on Monday if you want to read more on what the code actually covers.
Q: In the Commons yesterday Amber Rudd, the Hastings MP and Tory former home secretary, complained that you had visited her constituency without letting her know in advance (a courtesy MPs are supposed to observe).
McDonnell says that was a mistake. He has a new diary secretary. He has written to Rudd about it, he says.
And that’s it.
Q: Would you welcome MPs leaving Labour and forming a new centrist party?
No, of course not, says McDonnell. He says MPs like Chuka Umunna and Wes Streeting make a good contribution.
He says having a debate leads to better policies being generated.
You mustn’t mistake democracy for division.
On the key issues, the party votes together and campaigns together, he says.
Q: When you look at Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn’s favourability scores, May’s have not changed much since the election. But Corbyn’s have fallen a lot. He is now just above the PM.
Just above the PM, McDonnell says. He laughs, as if the point has been made.
He says Labour shot up in the polls during the election campaign because the party got balanced coverage. The same thing will happen again, he says.
Labour is consistently between 38% and 42% in the polls. It need to gain another five points.
He says he is doing a lot of regional engagement conferences. Some of these are targeted at particular towns. He will go to a town, like Hastings, and look at the policies they need.
Q: How do you feel about John Woodcock leaving Labour?
McDonnells says: “It’s a shame ... I like John.”
He says he respects Woodcock’s views.
Labour is a broad church. It is better like that, he says. So it is “disappointing” that Woodcock has gone. But these things happen, he says.
McDonnell says, if the government cannot deliver a Brexit deal, they should move over and let Labour take over.
If they won’t do that, they should have a general election, he says.
Q: You are preparing for a general election. How likely do you think it is that there will be an election before Brexit?
McDonnell says it is impossible to tell. Until recently he was pretty pessimistic about the possibility of an election happening. Now he is not so sure. That is why Labour needs to be ready.
He says the party is focusing on the policies it wants to pass, and preparing implementation manuals showing how the legislation will be passed.
Q: But four of your MPs supported the government in a key vote last week.
McDonnell said he went to speak to those MPs before the vote. They argued that the government was going to fall in the autumn anyway.
- The Labour Brexiters who voted with the Tories in a key vote last week argued privately that the government would fall in the autumn anyway, McDonnell says.
Q: Will any action be taken?
McDonnell says he is not sure. Usually the chief whip calls people in.
He says he is going to keep talking to these four, saying the more they prop up the government, the harder they make it for Labour to take over.
He says he respects their views. He just thinks they are making a mistake.
Q: Jeremy Corbyn’s speech yesterday has been criticised. It has been said that protectionism isn’t the way forward.
McDonnell says Corbyn was not proposing protectionism. He was talking about using procurement to support British manufacturing jobs. Those workers then pay taxes, so the government benefits.
Q: Corbyn talked about a foreign firm winning the bid to print new passports. But its bid was lower, so the taxpayer benefits surely?
But a third of that money comes back to the government through taxation, he says. And you keep people in jobs so you don’t have to pay people benefits. And that strategy also means the UK maintains manufacturing skills.
He says he does not see why the UK is buying ships from abroad. That undermines the shipbuilding industry here, he says.
John McDonnell's Radio 5 Live interview
Radio 5 Live is now playing its interview with John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor. Anna Foster interviewed him earlier, and they are broadcasting it now.
Q: What did you think of the pay rises for public sector workers announced yesterday?
McDonnell says he went into parliament yesterday expecting to welcome the news. But, after looking at the figures, he thinks people will conclude it was all spin.
He cites the Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis. Most teachers will not be getting a pay rise above inflation, he says. He says his eldest daughter is a teacher.
He says the money will have to come from within departments’ budgets. In education, that means money for schools will be raided, he says.
Q: Don’t voters like to know that public sector workers are getting a pay rise, without taxes having to go up?
McDonnell says there will have to be another round of cuts to pay for these pay rises. With the police, there will have to be another round of job losses, he says.
He says Labour wants a fair tax system. The top 5% should pay more. More importantly, the government should stop tax giveaways to corporations, he says.
Simon Coveney's Today interview - Summary
Here are the main points from Simon Coveney’s interview on the Today programme.
- Coveney, the Irish foreign minister and deputy prime minister, said the UK could not afford to leave the EU without a deal. (See 9.13am.)
- He said the British government’s Chequers Brexit plan was a “basis for negotiation”.
I welcomed the Chequers plan as a step forward. I think it’s the basis for negotiation ... I think it’s a step forward that the white paper now exists.
- He said some of the British proposals would be “difficult to negotiate” for the EU.
There are elements of that that will be difficult to negotiate because, of course, the EU wants to protect the integrity of the single market for all of the other member states of the European Union and, of course, protect the integrity of the customs union.
- He said he had doubts about the plan to take a different approach for goods and services. (The Chequers plan envisages the UK adopting EU regulations for goods, but not for services.) Coveney said:
I think it will be difficult to separate goods and services. If you look at a car, for example, today, a large part of that is services, as well as the physical components which are good.
- He implied the UK government might have to scrap the amendment passed to the customs bill last week saying Northern Ireland could not have a separate customs regime to Britain would not affect the Brexit talks. He was referring to new clause 37 (NC37), one of four amendments to the bill proposed by the pro-Brexit European Research Group and supported (after initial reluctance) by the government. Two were passed after close votes, and the other two, including NC37, went through on the nod. It was claimed afterwards that NC37 was highly significant because it would scupper the EU’s backstop plan for dealing with the Irish border, which would involve Northern Ireland, but not Britain, staying in the customs union and the single market. NC37 says:
It shall be unlawful for Her Majesty‘s government to enter into arrangements under which Northern Ireland forms part of a separate customs territory to Great Britain.
But Coveney dismissed the argument that NC37 sabotages the backstop plan, effectively implying that the UK government might have to abandon the amendment. Asked about this, he said:
First of all, they haven’t passed legislation. Amendments have been introduced to legislation that has not been fully concluded yet. [This is correct - the customs bill now has to pass through the Lords.]
Whatever final agreement is made in negotiation between the EU and the UK is going to have to be accommodated in new legislation. You can’t have negotiation on the basis of passing laws in your parliament, or introducing amendments in your parliament, and then saying, ‘Well, sorry, we have no flexibility now because this law has been passed in parliament.’ The EU could decide to do that as well, and we’d get nowhere.
- He said that Ireland would support extending the article 50 process if the Brexit talks overrun. Asked if Ireland would support a request to extend article 50, he said:
Absolutely. If Britain asks for more time, and if that is necessary to get to a sensible agreement, then we would support that, of course we would.
- He said Ireland was “one of Britain’s big allies” in the Brexit talks.
A lot of people might not think it listening to me, but, actually, Ireland is one of Britain’s big allies in these negotiations. We are a country that is going to stay as part of the European Union, and that is very important to us, but our relationship with Britain is also hugely important.
This will surprise some Brexiters, who have been bitterly critical of Ireland’s stance in the Brexit talks. Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, in particular has become a Brexiter bête noire.
Photograph: Stephanie Lecocq/EPA
Updated
UK cannot afford not to have a Brexit deal, says Irish government
Quite early in the Brexit process Theresa May declared that no deal would be better than a bad deal. Critics in the UK said she was wrong (on the grounds that no deal would be a very bad deal indeed), this rhetoric was deemed unhelpful in Brussels, and for a while the government toned down the no deal talk. But last week May announced the government would be publishing around 70 papers with information about no deal planning and yesterday, at two separate select committees, Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary, and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, revealed that the government was considering how to guarantee food and medical supplies in the event of a no deal Brexit.
But this morning Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, implied that talk of the UK being able to walk way from the talks without a deal was a bluff. Britain could not afford not to have a deal, he told the Today programme.
I’ve heard a lot of comment on this issue [the possibility of a no deal Brexit] in recent weeks and, to be honest with you, I think some of it is bravado. The truth is that I don’t believe Britain can afford to have no deal on Brexit. I don’t believe that Ireland and the EU would want that either. The negative implications of a no deal Brexit are very significant for Ireland and the United Kingdom. We all have an obligation to make sure that that does not happen.
I will post more from the interview shortly.
Parliament is in recess now and so at Westminster it is relatively quiet. Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The Office for National Statistics publishes figures on first-time buyer affordability.
9.30am: The Independent Office for Police Conduct publishes annual statistics on deaths during or following police contact.
10am: David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, chairs a meeting of the British-Irish intergovernmental conference. Afterward, at 12pm, Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, and Charles Flanagan, the Irish justice minister, will hold a press briefing.
10am: John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is interviewed on Radio 5 Live.
2.30pm: Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, gives a speech in Washington.
We’ve also got some ICM polling that I will be posting later.
As usual, I will also 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’s top 10 must-reads.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
I try to monitor the comments 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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