Afternoon summary
- The UK government’s stance on Brexit is like that of a husband who wants to get a divorce but keep all assets, including the marital home, an Irish minister has told colleagues. The Irish Times says Mary Mitchell O’Connor, the Irish jobs minister, came up with the analogy after meeting Liam Fox, the international trade secretary. The paper’s report also included details of a leaked Irish government memo saying some EU states will not be “unduly concerned” if Britain ends up with a “hard” Brexit.
- Labour has demanded the Government formally apologise for inflicting “pain and suffering” on disabled people and their families in the wake of a landmark court judgment. In a Commons urgent question Debbie Abrahams, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said some applications of the so-called “bedroom tax” were “manifestly without reason” after the supreme court overturned two government decisions on the benefit last week. But Damian Green, the work and pensions secretary, said Labour was wrong to suggest the policy was unlawful, given the government had won five of the seven cases that were appealed.
- Edward Timpson, an education minister, has condemned the policy of no-platforming controversial speakers at universities. He was speaking in the Commons after a fellow Tory, Fiona Bruce, said no-platforming policies were “coming increasingly close to bullying”. He replied:
I think we can all agree that students should be able to challenge those they disagree with by means of open and robust debate. And academic freedom and freedom of speech are essential to our higher education system and there is no place for intimidation to attempt to shut down open debate. Universities do have a clear legal duty to secure freedom of speech for students, staff and visiting speakers, and must have clear policies for how they will ensure that this can happen.
- Bureaucratic delays left hundreds of thousands of benefit claimants struggling without income for weeks after being made jobless, forcing many to turn to food banks, according to the chair of an all-party MPs’ group on hunger. As Patrick Butler reports, over the past 12 months more than 90,000 people waited more than three weeks for their unemployment benefit applications to be processed, while 242,000 waited more than two weeks, according to Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) figures obtained by the MP Frank Field. Field, who also chairs the Commons work and pensions select committee, called on ministers to set a new five-day target for processing benefit claims in order to dramatically cut the numbers of people reliant on food banks.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
The government has notified parliament that it intends to “opt-in” to a new legal framework for Europol. This is the first major “opt-in/out” decision taken by the government since the Brexit vote in June.
The new Europol framework updates the existing 2007 model but doesn’t extend its powers any further over member states. The decision secures British participation in Europol, particularly in Europe-wide efforts to tackle terrorism and cybercrime up to the date of Brexit. Future involvement will form part of the main Brexit negotiations.
The UK has been a member of the agency since its creation in 1998 and chose to opt-in in 2014 when the UK negotiated the right to choose which justice and home affairs matters to be part of. A new opt-in decision is now required following changes to the legal framework to the agency.
The policing minister, Brandon Lewis, said:
The UK is leaving the EU but the reality of cross-border crime remains. Europol provides a valuable service to the UK and opting in would enable us to maintain our current access to the agency, until we leave the EU, helping keep the people of Britain safe. We now await the outcome of the scrutiny process.
Debbie Abrahams' welfare speech - Summary
The Labour party is often accused of having nothing very detailed to say about new policy. There is some truth in that although, given the extent to which Brexit is sucking oxygen out of every other part of the political ecosystem, the last four months haven’t been a great time for domestic policy announcements.
But this morning we have had an interesting speech from Debbie Abrahams, the shadow work and pensions secretary. It was about welfare and the self-employed and, although it did not contain specific proposals, it did contain some important clues as to the approach that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn will take to social security.
Here are the key points.
- Abrahams said Labour would ensure that self-employed workers got the same welfare protection as workers with conventional jobs.
The self-employed currently have very poor income protection to smooth the ups and downs of their small business ...
Likewise, the self-employed have no recourse to sick pay should they fall ill. In a recent study by the then department for business, innovation and skills 30% of self-employed workers cited ‘not getting paid when ill’ as a key concern ...
Similarly, those who face longer term injury through accident, have little in the way of additional provision. While employees can access industrial injury and disablement benefits, this is not currently extended to those working for themselves.
Finally, the state has always played an important role in nurturing family life. While the self-employed can access the Maternity Allowance, provision for new fathers, or for those wishing to adopt lags remains out of reach. There is a clear precedent here for state support, one which needs to be realised ...
There is clear and inherent injustice in the current system, and in our transformation of our social security system, Labour will ensure parity for workers of differing status.
At a time when some employers are being exposed for imposing false self-employment on workers who should really be employed, any new policy needs to ensure that employment rights are respected.
Abrahams said that this principle - equality between welfare provision for the employed and the self-employed - was one of five tests Labour would apply when devising welfare policies for the self-employed. The other four principles were: adequacy, fairness, responsibility and respect for the status quo
- She said that international experience suggested that there were three possible approaches to improving welfare support for the self-employed. You could protect the self-employed through general social security arrangements, Abraham said, citing Denmark as a possible model. Alternatively you could have occupational schemes offering welfare protection for people in specific sectors, like farmers, as happened in Germany, France and Spain, she said. Or you could have a specific social insurance system for all self-employed workers, as they do in Belgium, she said.
- She said she wanted social security protection generally to become more generous.
After six years of Tory rule, the adequacy of social security support has suffered a steep decline ...
Providing social security to the self-employed must form part of a wider shift to improve the adequacy of support, reflecting the contribution that we all make to the social security system over the course of our lives and ending the Tories’ policies of destitution by design.
(The Tories must be losing their touch. Normally you would expect a comment like this to trigger a statement from CCHQ saying this shows Labour wants to increase spending on benefits by X gazillion but I haven’t heard anything from them so far.)
- She said Labour would oppose any moves by the Tories to expand the role of private insurance in welfare.
Alarm bells should ring on moves to expand the role of private insurance into the social security system too.
We must see behind this thin veneer of compassionate rhetoric to the true motivations for this change.
By allowing wealthier workers to buy out of our collective approach to security into a privatised model of individual insurance, May’s government plans to erode public support for the principles of universalism and means testing in our social security system. This would create political opportunities for continued attacks on the safety net which belongs to us all.
This seemed to be a reference to reports that Theresa May wants to encourage people to take out new forms of social insurance. Nick Timothy, May’s co-chief of staff, has also said in the past he would like welfare to be more contributions-based.
- Abrahams signalled that Labour was opposed to expanding the contributory element in welfare. Expanding the contributory element in welfare was an idea tentatively explored by Labour in the last parliament, but Abrahams’ speech suggests Corbyn is not interested. She said:
Any policy to strengthen social security for the self-employed will seek to re-enforce the current mix of contribution, universalism and means-testing, without allowing one to dominate at the expense of the others.
- She said that, while the increase in self-employment had been good for some workers, for others it had led to poverty pay.
Since the 1980s the number of self-employed people has risen dramatically. There are now nearly 5 million, accounting for 15% of our workforce ...
While self-employment can offer vast earning potential, it is a sad fact that the overall trend in recent years has been towards low pay.
The self-employed have seen falling incomes since the recession, with the average freelancer earning about £11,000. Roughly half the average wage in the wider workforce. The Resolution Foundation reported last month that the self-employed are earning less than they did 15 years ago.
In a recent study, the Social Market Foundation estimated that 45% of self-employed people earn less than the “national living wage”.
Here is my colleague Ian Cobain’s report from the opening of the trial of the man accused of murdering the Labour MP Jo Cox.
Lunchtime summary
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Downing Street has dismissed suggestions that Ukip leader Nigel Farage might become the “third person” in the relationship between Donald Trump and Theresa May. (See 11.53am and 1.03pm.) But Sir Gerald Howarth, the Conservative former defence minister, has said it would make sense for the government to use Farage’s knowledge of Trump. Speaking on the World at One Howarth said:
If Nigel Farage is well-connected with Donald Trump, and it would appear that he is, then we should certainly be talking to him. I’m not suggesting a formal role for him. But I certainly do think it’s worth talking to him.
- Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has said that Trump’s election could be a “good thing” for Britain and for Europe. (See 9.43am.)
- Debbie Abrahams, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has said in a speech that Labour wants to ensure that self-employed workers get the same welfare rights as workers with conventional jobs. In a speech this morning she said:
We must ensure that there is greater parity in the social security support offered to the self-employed and those who are employed.
There is clear and inherent injustice in the current system, and in our transformation of our social security system, Labour will ensure parity for workers of differing status.
At a time when some employers are being exposed for imposing false self-employment on workers who should really be employed, any new policy needs to ensure that employment rights are respected.
I will post more from the speech shortly.
- A jury has been sworn in for the trial of a man accused of the terror-related murder of Labour MP Jo Cox. As the Press Association reports, Thomas Mair, 53, allegedly shot and stabbed the 41-year-old outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, near Leeds, on June 16. He is charged with Cox’s murder, possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence and possession of an offensive weapon - a dagger. Mair, from Birstall, is also charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Bernard Carter-Kenny on the same date. He denies all the charges against him.
Carwyn Jones, the Labour Welsh first minister, has criticised Nigel Farage of missing UK Remembrance Day services so that he could meet Donald Trump in New York. Farage was not even wearing a poppy, Jones said.
Jones said:
I will never insist that anyone must wear a poppy, or attend remembrance events. This is a free country, and people choose to remember in different ways.
But, hypocrisy is something else altogether. You don’t get to appropriate the Battle of Britain in your campaign literature, only to prioritise transatlantic photo-ops a few months later.
Mr Farage likes to play by a different set of rules, this much is true. But in what universe do we let go, without comment or censure, the pictures of this grinning poppy-less popinjay in a gold lift with Donald Trump?
But, hypocrisy is something else altogether. You don’t get to appropriate the Battle of Britain in your campaign literature, only to prioritise transatlantic photo-ops a few months later.
Lauded on Fox News as some latter day revolutionary, Mr Farage basked in the warm glow of right wing acceptance. But make no mistake – he made a choice between two things this weekend. A choice between standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow Brits in solemn remembrance, or to go on a jolly to the States to pick up a bit of reflected glory. He chose the latter.
No other party leader would get away this, we shouldn’t let Mr Farage.
Farage met Trump in New York on Saturday, the 12th November, and on social media over the weekend people were defending his decision not to wear a poppy on the grounds that armistice day (the 11th) had passed.
No 10 lobby briefing summary
Here are the key points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Downing Street rejected Nigel Farage’s offer to help the government improve its relations with Donald Trump. (See 11.53am.) Asked about this, the prime minister’s spokeswoman said that the government had “established routes of engagement with the president-elect and his team”. She said that when Trump and May spoke by phone on Thursday last week the tone of their conversation was “very warm” and Trump said “he looked forward to enjoying the same close relationship that Reagan and Thatcher had”. There was no need for a “third person” in the relationship, the spokeswoman said. Asked if anyone would be talking to Farage about what he learnt from his meeting with Trump, the spokeswoman said there was no need because it was widely reported in the papers.
- The spokeswoman suggested that May’s visit to Washington to meet Trump could take place before his inauguration on Friday 20 January. When they spoke last week Trump invited May to visit him in the US at the earliest opportunity, she said. When asked if the visit could take place before the inauguration, the spokeswoman said that the date was not fixed yet. But she did not rule it out.
- The spokeswoman ducked a question about whether Trump’s election would be good for Brexit. Asked about this, she said May was focusing on getting a good deal and that this would involve negotiating with the other 27 EU member states.
- The spokeswoman said that May supported Boris Johnson’s decision not to attend the emergency meeting of EU foreign minister’s last night to discuss Trump’s election.
- The spokeswoman sidestepped questions about whether May would be apologising to Trump for some of the things her aides and ministers said about him during the campaign. Asked about a possible apology, the spokeswoman responded instead by stressing that May had had a good phone call with Trump and that Trump had talked about the warmth of the transatlantic relationship.
- The spokeswoman played down suggestions that May felt the British embassy in Washington had not done enough to forge links with the Trump campaign. Asked about those reports, the spokeswoman said she did not “recognise” them. She said May had welcomed the work British diplomats had done in Washington.
- The spokeswoman played down suggestions that Trump was a threat to Nato. Asked about this, she said the pressing threats to Nato were those that were well documented, such as the risk from cyber-attack and the prospect of Nato aggression. She also said that the government agreed with Trump about the need for Nato countries to increase their defence spending if they are not meeting the Nato target of spending 2% of GDP on defence.
- Britain remains thinks article 5 is an “important part” of the Nato alliance, the spokeswoman said. Article 5 is the collective defence provision, which says that an attack on one Nato member is considered an attack on all. During the election campaign Trump suggested he might not be bound by this.
- The spokeswoman said the government would considering loaning a Churchill bust to Trump for the White House. According to Farage, Trump told him on Saturday that he would like to see the bust back in the Oval Office. The spokeswoman said that Trump did not raise this when he spoke to May on Thursday but that if Trump’s team put in a request, it would be considered. (The issue is something of a red herring because, as this Mirror article explains, the White House already has a Churchill bust of its own.)
- The spokeswoman brushed aside claims that people should be worried about Trump’s election. Asked if May understood why people were alarmed about the prospect of him becoming president, the spokeswoman said: “The prime minister thinks that this was a choice made by the American people. Her focus is on how we bring a strong relationship together.”
- The government still believes that invoking article 50 would be irreversible, the spokeswoman said. Last week it was reported that the government may tell the supreme court that the article 50 process, taking the UK out of the EU, could be reversed, contrary to what the government argued in the hearing that led to the high court deciding parliament must vote on article 50 being invoked. The supreme court will hear the government’s appeal next month. Asked if the government still thought invoking article 50 was irreversible, the spokeswoman replied:
That has been our position and remains our view.
No 10 rejects Farage's offer to serve as intermediary with Trump, saying no need for a 'third person' in the relationship
The Number 10 lobby briefing is over. There were a lot of questions about Nigel Farage, and the prime minister’s spokeswoman made it very clear that Theresa May has no intention of accepting Farage’s kind invitation to act as an intermediary between Number 10 and Donald Trump.
In his Telegraph article today Farage says:
If the president-elect trusts me then I would hope that some in the British Government could do the same thing. I would be very happy to provide introductions and to start the necessary process of mending fences. And I would not want anything in return. I hope in our national interest that some sense prevails on this.
Asked about this, the spokeswoman said that when Trump spoke to May last week, Trump said he looked forward to them enjoying the same close relationship that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had. Then she added:
I don’t remember there being a third person in that relationship.
The spokeswoman was alluding to Princess Diana’s famous comment in a Panorama interview in 1995: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
Diana was referring to her marriage with Prince Charles. The spokeswoman seemed to have forgotten that that ended in divorce.
I will post a full summary soon.
Dominic Cummings, the Vote Leave campaign director, has been on Twitter this morning saying that the department for Brexit and the department for international trade should be closed.
1/ Cameron shd never have swallowed Heywood's stupid idea of 2 new departments. To take back control, No10 shd swallow hard & close both now
— odysseanproject (@odysseanproject) November 14, 2016
2 A dysfunctional senior civil service can improve management of hardest job since beating Nazis with 2 new crap dptmnts + turf wars? No
— odysseanproject (@odysseanproject) November 14, 2016
3/ The Whitehall change that's really needed is what Heywood fears most: a PM dptmnt, per Hoskyns to Thatch early 80s
— odysseanproject (@odysseanproject) November 14, 2016
4/ Slash Cab Off back to secretariat, strip policy&management out of it. Delete civil service HR process. ~£10^11 savings & pro management
— odysseanproject (@odysseanproject) November 14, 2016
4/ Sensible spads & officials know new dptmnts = awful, better to have quickly forgotten media noise now & fix big management problem
— odysseanproject (@odysseanproject) November 14, 2016
I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am.
Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, is hosting a social integration conference at City Hall today. He said there is evidence that lack of social integration costs the economy £6bn. “Increasingly clear evidence has also shown that a failure to promote social integration increases the fear of crime, encourages prejudice, damages health, restricts social mobility and increases unemployment,” City Hall said in a news release.
In a statement Khan said:
We have seen major political upheaval around the world in recent months, with the EU referendum here in the UK and the presidential election in the US.
This has shown how politics is becoming more and more polarised with whole communities in cities across the world feeling increasingly disconnected and estranged from national politics. That’s why now, more than ever, we need to build a strong sense of social solidarity within our cities – a renewed sense that we are united as neighbours and citizens.
We need to see real leadership in cities across around the world if we are to avoid communities becoming increasingly divided. Promoting social integration means ensuring that people of different faiths, ethnicities, social backgrounds and generations don’t just tolerate one another or live side-by-side, but actually meet and mix with one another and forge relationships as friends and neighbours, as well as citizens. We know that when this happens, trust grows, communities flourish and become more productive, healthier and, ultimately, more prosperous for everyone.
In his Today interview Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the Conservative former foreign secretary, urged Theresa May to try to influence Donald Trump in the way that Margaret Thatcher influenced Ronald Reagan. He said:
The immediate requirement, in a sense - and I don’t want to exaggerate this - but it is to try and do with Mr Trump what Margaret Thatcher did with Ronald Reagan.
Margaret Thatcher was able to persuade Reagan as to the need to have dialogue with Mr [Mikhail] Gorbachev and because she was the Iron Lady he listened to her in a way that he wouldn’t have listened to anyone else.
The issues are different at the moment. The issues at the moment are Mr Trump’s rather dismissive comments about Nato.
I think Mrs May, as British prime minister, as a leading member of the Nato alliance - the most important military power after the United States - is in a unique position to actually explain and discuss with Mr Trump why the commitment to come to the defence of all, particularly in the event of destabilisation of the Baltic states, is crucially important.
And while we’re on the subject of Boris Johnson, Andrew Gimson, a Johnson biographer, has a long profile of him at ConservativeHome today. He says foreign policy experts dislike him intensely.
Foreign policy experts tend, however, to find him a reprehensible figure. One former diplomat, whom I had always imagined to be a man of peace, said of Johnson, “I’d push him off his bike if I saw him in the street.”
The experts (at least those who have not actually worked with him) accuse him of “lack of self-discipline”, “lack of content in his vapid assurances”, “insistence on seeing foreigners as raw material for jokes”, “the belief that he can bullshit because he’s very bright”, and “the height of irresponsibility for drawing up no plan for Brexit”.
To them, he is the British version of Trump. Johnson has long been scorned by his opponents as a clown, but now they hate him for having persuaded the British people to vote No.
But Johnson has made a good impression at the Foreign Office, Gimson says.
On Johnson’s first day at the office, he addressed the entire staff. He was then asked what lunch he would like to be brought to him in his grandiose room. He went instead to the canteen, a practice he has continued since, and which people really notice. Hierarchy is tempered by camaraderie.
Vast quantities of paper descend on a Foreign Secretary, but Johnson calls in the officials who produce the paper and talks to them. He wants the people who work for him to enjoy themselves: an instinct which not all ministers possess, or are capable of showing.
As one official puts it, “The Foreign Office is like a labrador. If you show it a bit of love, it will be eternally loyal. And Boris has tickled its tummy very well.”
Boris Johnson says Trump's election could be a 'good thing' for Britain and for Europe
Boris Johnson has arrived in Brussels for today’s meeting of EU foreign ministers. On his way in he told reporters that Donald Trump’s election could be “a good thing” for Britain and Europe.
He said:
I think there is a lot to be positive about and it is very important not to prejudge the president-elect or his administration.
It’s only a few days since the election has taken place. I think we all need to wait and see what they come up with. But I think we should regard it as a moment for opportunity.
This is a time when, as the prime minister is saying today, there’s a big change going on in the world, people who feel they haven’t been properly listened to, properly represented, are starting to make their voices heard. It is up to us, up to everybody, to listen to them and to take things forward in a positive way.
Donald Trump is a dealmaker and I think that could be a good thing for Britain, but it could also be a good thing for Europe and that I think is what we need to focus on today.
Johnson seems to be taking the view that it is best to judge Trump by what he does as president, not by what he said during the election campaign. That is understandable, given that within less than a week of his election Trump is already diluting some of his key pledges, but cynics would point out that Johnson himself has a particularly keen insight into implausibility of campaign promises given all the time he spent on Vote Leave’s ‘£350m for the NHS’ bus.
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, chose not to attend a dinner of EU foreign ministers last night to discuss the election of Donald Trump. It has been described at one point as an emergency meeting. The EU foreign ministers are meeting anyway today and Johnson made his views clear on Friday when he told EU colleagues : “It’s time that we snapped out of the general doom and gloom about the result of this election and collective whinge-o-rama that seems to be going on in some places.”
On the Today programme this morning Dame Margaret Beckett, the former Labour foreign secretary, said Johnson’s decision to boycott the dinner was a mistake. She told the programme:
I think I would have gone, perhaps playing down its significance in terms of the “whinge-o-rama” aspect, but I think I would have gone because over the next couple of years Britain is going to need all the help and all the friends in Europe it can get, if we are to get a good deal, and I would not have thought it is a good idea to alienate anybody.
But Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, said Johnson made the right decision.
I’m very relaxed about Boris Johnson’s decision. I think it is rather unnecessary to treat the election of a United States president as an emergency requirement when we don’t yet know for certain what Mr Trump is going to be proposing.
Politico Europe has a good account of the dinner. Here’s an excerpt:
Whoever’s idea it was, instead of offering a display of unity against the spectre of Trump’s presidency, Europe once again put its divisions front and center. By the time the ministers finally sat down — the start of the dinner was delayed because Steinmeier showed up late — many of the participants just wanted to get it over with. The meal ended soon after 10 p.m., an early evening by EU standards, with the larger question of how to deal with a U.S. under Trump’s leadership nowhere closer to being resolved.
Westminster is still trying to come to terms with the election of Donald Trump as American president. Theresa May will set out some of her thinking in her Mansion House speech this evening, previewed here, but the Times and the Daily Telegraph are both splashing on reports saying some Tories are unhappy about May’s decision to rule out using the Ukip leader Nigel Farage as an intermediary. Both papers quote what Lord Marland, a Tory peer and former minister and former government trade envoy, told Radio 5 Live yesterday.
Anything we can do at any level to rebuild that relationship [with the US] will be to Britain’s advantage, and if Mr Farage happens to be one of the people who encourages that relationship then so be it. Any manufacturer would use its best salesman to try and help get a market for them and if No 10 decides that that’s the person, then fine.
Monday's Times front page:
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) November 13, 2016
Tories split over Farage role in deal with Trump#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/vJUD4txTN5
Monday's Telegraph front page:
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) November 13, 2016
May under fire for dismissing Farage's alliance with Trump#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/vDMtxQEXGz
Marland is a relatively obscure figure, and most other Tories who are speaking to reporters on this are doing so anonymously, but Nigel Farage has decided to stir things up with an article in the Daily Telegraph in which he says Number 10 has to “mend fences” with Trump. Discussing his meeting with Trump and his team on Saturday Farage says:
We talked to all of the key players in Trump’s team and it’s perfectly clear that to a man and woman they are anglophiles. We talked about the prospect of the United Kingdom being at the front of the queue, all of which was met positively.
The only slight negative I picked up was the sense that so many senior Conservative figures and indeed important staff figures who now work in No 10 had been so unrelentingly negative about The Donald. Clearly, there are fences to be mended.
Doubtless there will be more on this as the day goes on.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Debbie Abrahams, the shadow work and pensions secretary, gives a speech on social security for the self-employed.
10am: Thomas Mair goes on trial accused of murdering the Labour MP Jo Cox.
11am: Number 10 lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Justine Greening, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
And Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is attending a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels where Trump’s election will be discussed.
As usual, I will be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
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. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
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