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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics

Theresa May's press conference with Polish prime minister – as it happened

Theresa May (second from the left) and her Polish opposite number Beata Szydło (third from the right) during talks in number 10 Downing Street.
Theresa May (second from the left) and her Polish opposite number Beata Szydło (third from the right) during talks in number 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Afternoon summary

  • Theresa May has signalled that Donald Trump’s election as American president will not result in Britain softening its stance on Russia. In a press conference with her Polish opposite number, May said that the government was opposed to relaxing sanctions on Russia and that its bombing of civilians in Syria was unacceptable. (See 4.15pm.) On Brexit, May said she hoped there would be an early agreement guaranteeing the respective rights of EU nationals living in Britain and of Britons living in the EU. May also confirmed that Britain will deploy 150 troops to Poland next year. This deployment was first announced in the summer, but May revealed that 150 troops from the Catterick-based Light Dragoons, as well as a number of armoured vehicles, will be sent to north-east Poland from April 2017.

British Influence plans to seek judicial review of the government’s position on the [European Economic Area]. Such a challenge, which would probably start in the high court, could conceivably be referred to the European court of justice – and take a long time to come to a conclusion.

May can of course short-circuit the process by triggering article 127 of the EEA treaty. But unless she wins the article 50 case, she will presumably have to ask parliament’s permission in this situation too. And that won’t be nearly as easy given that there probably isn’t a majority in the parliament or in the country to quit the single market – as this could badly damage our economy.

  • Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, has said Brexit has swept away assumptions about the partition of Ireland and presented a unique opportunity to press for reunification. Sinn Fein has launched a unity blueprint and, under the republican party’s vision for a united Ireland, there would be a series of enshrined protections for unionists, including the option of British citizenship, and the potential retention of a devolved power-sharing administration at Stormont. As the Press Association reports, the document was launched in Belfast and Dublin on Monday morning. In the foreword Adams said:

The Brexit referendum result has swept away many of the previous political assumptions about the constitutional, political and economic status quo in Ireland. Ireland’s political landscape, north and south, has been transformed dramatically. Massive uncertainties have been triggered about the implications for business, trade, jobs, social protections, educational opportunities, and future political and economic stability. This poses huge challenges for Irish national interests.

For English and Welsh votes to drag the north of Ireland out of the EU against the will of its people would, like partition itself, be yet another travesty of democracy and would undermine the Good Friday Agreement.

It is now vitally important that there is maximum co-operation to uphold the democratic wishes of the people of the north. Ultimately, the only realistic way to ensure this is through the unity of the island of Ireland.

  • Labour has announced that Jeremy Corbyn will not attend Fidel Castro’s funeral in Cuba tomorrow. Even though Corbyn was an admirer of Castro, the party will be represented by Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary. Sir Alan Duncan, the minister for the Americas, will represent the government.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

And that’s it. The press conference is over.

Frankly, it was a bit dull.

Q: You spoke about the reciprocity of rights of citizens. What does that mean? Will Britons in Poland keep their rights? And does this mean you are starting Brexit talks?

Szydlo says today was a bilateral summit. The Brexit talks will not start until article 50 has been implemented.

People talk about Brexit as a certain fact. But people are wondering how this will go. And countries are deciding their priorities.

As for reciprocity, she says this will have to be negotiated. There will have to be the right balance.

May says today’s focus was on the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

We have a shared history, May says.

Q: Donald Trump says he admires President Putin. How worried are you about an alliance between Trump’s America and Russia?

May says it is important to recognise Russia’s assertiveness. The UK wants sanctions against Russia to continue. And the government wants indiscriminate bombing against civilians in Syria to stop. The international community must tell Russia that this is unacceptable.

Szydlo says she agrees. It is important to maintain sanctions on Russia. They must not be lifted until the Minsk agreement has been implemented. She says Poland wants a good relationship with Russia. But Russia is an aggressor, and that is unacceptable.

A Polish journalist asks a question.

Q: What will today’s talks mean for the Polish community in the UK?

Szydlo says next year there will be a UK-Poland summit in Warsaw. Today they spoke about the economy and about small businesses. There are lots of Poles in the UK running their own businesses. The Polish government would like some of them to transfer their businesses to Poland.

Robert Peston from ITV asks the first question.

Q: [To Szydlo] You said in the Telegraph (see 10.04pm) Poles in the UK should not be used as hostages. Are you disappointed you have not hada firm assurance Poles can stay.

Szydlo says things like Nato unite Poland and the UK, not just the EU. Brexit is in the future, she says. The EU is still waiting for article 50 to be triggered.

For Poland, the most important thing is to get guarantees for Poles living in the UK. These guarantees need to be reciprocal, she says.

Q: [To May] We are sorry about your sleepless nights. What are you asking for on Brexit?

May says her comments about Brexit and her sleep have been over-interpreted.

She says there will be aspects of the EU that she will want to consider keeping, on security for example. But she wants a deal that is good for the UK.

Szydlo thanks May for hosting the UK-Poland summit.

She says she hopes there will be future meetings.

Brexit was discussed today, she says. But it was not the most important issue on the agenda.

Szydlo says Poland wants to ensure Poles living in the UK have the right to stay.

The UK is a strategic partner for Poland, she says.

Even if the UK leaves the EU, relations with Poland will flourish, she says.

Beata Szydlo, the Polish prime minister, is speaking now. She thanks Theresa May for accompanying her to lay flowers at the monument commemorating Polish airmen who served in the war.

Here is a picture of the two of them at the Polish war memorial near RAF Northolt earlier today.

Beata Szydlo and Theresa May lay a wreath at the Polish War Memorial near RAF Northolt, London,.
Beata Szydlo and Theresa May lay a wreath at the Polish War Memorial near RAF Northolt, London,. Photograph: Radek Pietruszka/EPA

May says the UK has made significant progress on preparing for Brexit.

She will trigger article 50 by the end of March next year.

And she says she will guarantee the rights of Poles in the UK, provided the rights of Britons living in Poland are also respected. She says she hopes there will be an early agreement on this.

  • May says she wants an early agreement safeguarding rights of EU nationals in the UK, and Britons living in Europe.

May's press conference with Szydlo

Theresa May is opening the press conference with a statement.

She says the UK and Poland have been close allies in the EU. And they plan to be even closer allies once the UK leaves.

She says she and Beata Szydlo agreed to promote economic cooperation. For example, they will bring together small businesses from both countries.

And they want to strenthen ties between the people of both countries. A new forum will be set up to bring people together, with a first meeting in Warsaw next year.

She says the two countries will work together on security cooperation.

And today they spoke about how to deter Russian aggression. The UK will deploy 150 troops in north east Poland in April next year.

Both countries are committed to retaining sanctions on Russia.

Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has been tweeting about his meeting with his Polish opposite number.

The Polish prime minister, Beata Szydlo, has tweeted this picture from the UK-Poland summit held at Number 10 today.

Theresa May’s press conference with Szydlo is due to start soon.

Paul Nuttall's speech - Summary and analysis

When Ukip elected Diane James as its leader in September Labour collectively breathed a sigh of relief. James, a businesswoman brought up in Kent, sounded just like a moderately-able Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate and it was hard to imagine Ukip under her leadership achieving Nigel Farage’s long-cherished goal of hoovering up the Labour working class vote in the north. But, with Nuttall as Ukip leader, as Kevin Schofield explains, the threat to Labour looks much more real.

Nuttall was brought up in Bootle, near Liverpool, where he attended a Catholic comprehensive school and, like everyone else in his community, grew up backing Labour. He is now an MEP for the north west of England. As my colleague Jessica Elgot points out, being from Merseyside does not in itself mean everyone in the north will vote for him.

But, unlike Farage, he is not open to the charge of being an public school-educated former City trader and he is not an archetypal product of the home counties like James. More importantly, he is also strongly pushing an authoritarian, traditionalist agenda that he thinks will appeal to the socially conservative working class who instinctively vote Labour in the north of England.

Here are the key points from his speech.

  • Nuttall said he wanted Ukip to replace Labour as the “patriotic voice of working people”.

My ambition is not insignificant: I want to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people.

He suggested that this was a realistic goal because Labour had now stopped representing working people.

Today, we have a Labour party that has ceased to speak the language or address the issues of working people.

They have a leader who won’t sing the national anthem; a shadow chancellor who seems to admire the IRA more than the British Army, a shadow foreign secretary who sneers at the English flag and a shadow home secretary who advocates unlimited immigration.

They have clearly lost touch. They are more at home talking about the issues that swirl around the Islington dinner table than the issues that matter to working class communities.

So whilst Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour debate the Palestine question, fair trade and climate change, we instead will talk about the issues that concern real working people in real working class constituencies.

  • He said Ukip would stop Theresa May’s government watering down Brexit.

The country needs a strong Ukip more now than ever before, for if Ukip ceases to be an electoral force then there will be no impetus for Theresa May’s government to give us real Brexit.

What we will end up with is some sort of mealy-mouthed back sliding version, which doesn’t allow us to control our own borders, sign our own trade deals or make all our own laws.

This would be a betrayal of the British people and a united Ukip under my leadership will never allow that to happen ...

We will hold the government’s feet to fire electorally and ensure that Brexit really does mean real Brexit.

  • He outlined Ukip’s policy agenda, stressing an authoritarian approach to law and order, support for grammar schools, increased defence spending and more devolution to England. He also stressed Ukip’s patriotism, suggesting that this was a value that linked all these issues.

We will continue to call for fair but firm immigration controls which protects wages and ensures that British workers are not undercut.

We will call for sentences to mean what they say and promote policies that protect innocent victims and not career criminals.

We will promote aspiration and social mobility and ensure that working class children get the same start in life as their middle-class counterparts.

We will therefore become the champion of education by ability and not wealth.

We will support our military to the hilt. We commit to an increase in defence expenditure and ensure our brave boys and girls in the armed forces have the best equipment possible.

We will also honour the military covenant and ensure that those who are brave enough to put their lives on the line to protect this country are looked after when they return home. It is least we can do.

We will also be committed to protecting and investing in the National Health Service and slashing a foreign aid budget that is costing us around £25m every day.

We will also continue talk about the issues the other parties are too scared to touch. We will not be afraid to say that female genital mutilation and forced marriage have no place in 21st century Britain and nor do courts where the word of woman only worth half that of a man.

Finally, whilst we as a party believe in the United Kingdom and are Unionist to our fingertips, under my leadership we will champion a fair devolution deal for England and the English.

I say this because there is a value that unites the vast majority of the British people away from the small metropolitan cliques and it is a value that Ukip embodies. And that value is called patriotism.

Nuttall was talking about current Ukip policies, but he sounded more authoritarian than Nigel Farage, who has some libertarian instincts (even if he sometimes conceals them successfully.)

  • Nuttall said that Ukip’s supporters were not going to go back to the other parties.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is remarkable that even after the summer and autumn we have had that Ukip is still polling 13%.

It is clear that there is a bank of people out there who vote Ukip and they are not going to return to Establishment parties.

  • He said he was committed to uniting the party. And he suggested that people in the party who were not prepared to unite could be forced out.

There will be one theme: unity, because only unity breeds success. People do not vote, join or donate to divided parties.

So to those within the party who want to come together and unite, I say, we have a great and successful future.

To those who do not want to unify and want to continue with the battles of past, then I am afraid your time in in this party is coming to an end ...

Today is the day that we start to put the Ukip jigsaw back together. It is day zero. It is a new beginning.

And that means not just playing lip-service to my call for unity, but it means practicing what we preach.

It means the factions of the party coming together.

It means allowing bygones to be bygones.

And it means being prepared to get around a table, talk and sort out our differences.

It was not clear from what Nuttall said whether the threat of expulsions was real, or just rhetorical. For example, Nigel Farage’s supporters in the party would love to force out Douglas Carswell, Ukip’s only MP whose stance on immigration puts him at odds with most of the party. And Neil Hamilton, the former Tory minister who now leads the Ukip group in the Welsh assembly, is seen as another divisive figure that some would like to remove.

  • Nuttall announced three key appointments.

To that end my first appointment is my deputy leader, who is someone who has backed my campaign and bought into my idea of unity from the very beginning: Peter Whittle.

My second is my party chairman, who is someone who has grown in stature during the Summer months and has emerged from the shambles with his reputation enhanced: Paul Oakden.

My third is my principle political adviser, who has one of the most perceptive and acute political brains in politics today, Patrick O’Flynn.

Paul Nuttall arriving at the Emanuel Centre in Westminster for the Ukip leadership announcement.
Paul Nuttall arriving at the Emanuel Centre in Westminster for the Ukip leadership announcement. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Updated

Here is Paul Nuttall speaking to print journalists after his speech.

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, is on the World at One now.

Q: Should you have a separate immigration spokesperson? [Abbott is doing the job herself, as well as being shadow home secretary.]

Abbott says she has a keen interest in immigration. She expects to be speaking out on this subject as much as Keir Starmer was when he was shadow immigration minister.

Q: Shouldn’t Labour back immigration controls?

Abbott says that the UK cannot stay in the single market if it imposes controls on EU migrants.

Q: Doesn’t that mean Ukip can threaten Labour?

Abbott says it is important to base your policies on the facts. She says immigrants are not to blame for the problems affecting services.

On the World at One Dan Jarvis, the Labour MP tipped as a potential leadership candidate in the future, has said that his party should take the threat from Ukip very seriously. And Labour had to show voters that it has listened to their concerns on immigration, he said.

Jarvis makes the same point in an interview with the Times today. He told the paper:

It is clear to me that the Ukip fox is in the Labour henhouse and we have got to make a decision about what we want to do about that fox.

They see the low-hanging political fruit as being Labour voters … not just in our heartlands but across the country.

There are very few Labour MPs, if any, who would say that they are in what’s traditionally been referred to as safe seats. I’m not sure such a thing exists any more.

Updated

Douglas Carswell, the Ukip MP and fierce opponent of the outgoing Ukip leader Nigel Farage, has welcomed Paul Nuttall’s election.

Paul Nuttall's interview with the World at One

Paul Nuttall is being interview on the World at One now.

Q: How will you end in-fighting in the party?

Nuttall says he is not part of any faction in the party. But he can be quite ruthless, he says.

Q: Isn’t Nigel Farage irreplaceable?

Nuttall says, if anyone can replace him, it his him, because he has been party chairman and Farage’s deputy for eight years.

Q: But being a deputy is different?

Nuttall says he has received the biggest mandate in Ukip’s history.

Q: Farage will still be a big player in the party?

Of course. Nuttall says he wants him to continue doing his radio programme. And he will continue to be a player. But Nuttall says he is not threatened by that. He wants Farage front of house.

Tories says Ukip are too 'divided and incompetent' to offer any serious solutions

And this is what the Conservative party is saying about Paul Nuttall. A spokesman said:

Now on their third leader in as many months, Ukip are too divided, distracted and incompetent to offer any serious solutions for the people of Britain.

After a leadership contest, which the winner himself has described as ‘completely shambolic’ we’ve seen brawls and squabbling – but nothing about the issues facing ordinary working people.

It’s the Conservative party which held a referendum and is now delivering on the people’s verdict. We will deliver Brexit and more control on immigration - while UKIP continue to squabble on the sidelines.

In a briefing note for journalists the Tories flagged up Nuttall’s support for more privatisation in the NHS as a weakness, just as Labour did. (See 12.25pm.) But the Tory note also criticised Nuttall saying, in 2009, that climate change was “a con” and for casting doubt, in 2013, on the value of shared parental leave.

Paul Nuttall after his election as Ukip leader
Paul Nuttall after his election as Ukip leader Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

Hope Not Hate, which campaigns against racism and extremism, has posted a blog giving 10 reasons why Paul Nuttall should be opposed. It says he is just as hardline as Nigel Farage.

Suzanne Evans, who came second in the Ukip leadership contest, has said she will be happy to work with Paul Nuttall, my colleague Peter Walker reports.

Kevin Schofield at PoliticsHome has written a good analysis explaining why the election of Paul Nuttall as Ukip leader is a threat to Labour. The whole piece is worth reading, but ere’s an excerpt.

Speak to northern Labour MPs and they are scared. Very scared indeed.

They believe that Paul Nuttall - state school educated and from Bootle in Liverpool - represents a “clear and present danger” to their chances of returning to Westminster after the next general election.

“With Farage, all you had to do was show our voters the picture of him holding the Thatcher mug and wearing a trilby and say ‘you can’t vote for this guy, can you?’,” says one backbencher.

But Paul Nuttall is a very different proposition. He speaks the language of many white, working class voters - and crucially, can deliver those views in an impeccable white, working class accent.

Paul Nuttall speaking after being elected as the new Ukip leader.
Paul Nuttall speaking after being elected as the new Ukip leader. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

And here is Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, on Paul Nuttall’s election as Ukip leader.

I congratulate Paul Nuttall on it being his turn to lead Ukip. I am confident that he will lead the party in much the same manner as Nigel Farage, who no doubt will be back in the leadership after a few weeks of recharging his batteries stateside.

Ukip do not speak for Britain and their brand of reactionary, divisive politics threatens the character and cohesion of our society. There is nothing patriotic in stoking up hatred and mistrust of our neighbours.

Labour says Nuttall wants to privatise the NHS

Labour has responded to the election of Paul Nuttall as Ukip leader by saying he favours privatising the NHS. This is from Jon Trickett, Labour’s national campaign coordinator.

You only need to know one thing about Ukip’s new leader, Paul Nuttall: he wants privatisation in the NHS.

Paul Nuttall has welcomed privatisation of the health service, arguing that the “very existence of the NHS stifles competition”. By electing Paul Nuttall as their leader, Ukip have sent a clear message that they pose a threat to our NHS.

It is clear that we cannot trust Ukip and Paul Nuttall with the NHS. A vote for them is a vote against the health service as we know it.

Labour has backed up its claim by citing three Nuttall quotes. In 2010 in a blog on his website Nuttall said that “the very existence of the NHS stifles competition, and as competition drives quality and choice, innovation and improvements are restricted” and that the coalition deserved credit for bringing “a whiff of privatisation into the beleaguered [NHS]”. In 2011 he told a byelection meeting that the NHS was “a monolithic hangover from days gone by” and that he wanted “more free market introduced into the health service”. And in an interview in 2015, on the subject of NHS procurement, he said: “It might be better if you brought in a private company who you could hire and fire on results.”

UPDATE: The Spectator’s Isabel Hardman thinks Labour will have to find a better attack line to use against Nuttall.

Commenting on the Labour party’s anti-Nuttall tweet, the politics professor Philip Cowley is saying much the same.

Updated

Nuttall is now speaking to Sky.

Q: What is your plan to unite the party?

Nuttall says he will get everyone around the table, and they will have a chat. It will be fine.

Nuttall says Ukip has been on a fantastic journey. He has been with Ukip members every step of the way.

He has been party chairman, head of policy and deputy leader.

And he is honoured to be leader.

Ukip’s future is bright. But, for it to be so, it must unite, he says.

He ends by saying:

Let’s get out there, and let’s get cracking.

Ukip’s place in history is secure because it forced the referendum, he says.

Nuttall says Ukip only one seat in 2015 because of the outdated electoral system. That is another thing that has not place in 21st century Britain, he says.

Nuttall says he wants to replace Labour and make Ukip 'patriotic voice of working people'

Nuttall says Ukip is also committed to investing in the NHS and slashing the international aid budget.

And it will talk about the issues other parties won’t. Ukip thinks female genital mutilation and forced marriages have no place in modern Britain. And nor do courts where the word of a woman counts for only half as much as the word of a man.

He says Ukip will champion patriotism.

He says he wants to replace Labour and make Ukip “the patriotic voice of working people”.

  • Nuttall says he wants to replace Labour and make Ukip “the patriotic voice of working people”.

Nuttall says Labour refuses to address the issues that concern working people

Nuttall says it is amazing that Ukip is still getting 13% in the polls given the summer it has had.

This shows that some people who vote Ukip are never going back to the other parties, he says.

  • Nuttall says Ukip voters are never going back to other parties.

He says Labour refuses to address the issues that concern working people. It has a leader that refuses to sing the national anthem, a shadow chancellor that supports the IRA more than the British army and a shadow foreign secretary that sneers at patriotism.

  • Nuttall says Labour refuses to address the issues that concern working people.

Ukip wants sentencing policies that punish criminals.

And it wants working class kids to get the same chances as their middle class counterparts.

It will support the armed forces, and honour the military covenant, he says.

Nuttall says Ukip will ensure that Brexit really does mean Brexit.

The country must get the Brexit it voted for, he says.

Then we will put the great back in Great Britain.

Nuttall says Ukip will fight against any attempt to water down Brexit

Nuttall says he is making Peter Whittle, a Ukip member of the London assembly, his deputy leader.

And he says he is appointing Paul Oakden as party chairman.

And his main political adviser will be Patrick O’Flynn, the MEP and former Daily Express journalist.

  • Peter Whittle appointed Ukip deputy leader.
  • Paul Oakden appointed party chairman.
  • Patrick O’Flynn appointed as Nuttall’s main political adviser.

Nuttall says unity will be a key theme.

People do not join or support divided parties, he says.

He says anyone who does not accept this will find their time in Ukip is coming to an end.

He says Ukip has resembled a jigsaw tipped on the floor. Now is the time to put it together, he says.

That means party members must sought out their differences.

Those at the top of the party owe it to members, supporters and Brexit voters to unite, he says.

He says he is worried about backsliding that would be a betrayal of Brexit. A united Ukip under his leadership will not allow that, he says.

  • Nuttall says Ukip will fight against any attempt to water down Brexit.

Paul Nuttall thanks the audience for their support.

He thanks everyone involved. It was a well-run, fair and good-humoured contest.

Some journalists said it was boring, he says.

Paul Nuttall is about to speak now.

Paul Nuttall elected Ukip leader with 63% of the vote

Oakden says all Ukip needs now is a new leader.

Some3 32,757 ballot papers were sent out, and 15,405 were returned.

Here are the results.

Paul Nuttall: 9,622 - 62.6%

Suzanne Evans: 2,973 - 19.3%

John Rees-Evans: 2,775 - 18.1%

Paul Oakden, the Ukip chairman, is speaking now. He says he expected a quiet time when be became chairman. But he has presided over the resignation of four members of the national executive committee, of two MEPs and of two leaders, one of them for the second time, he says.

But he says Ukip has grown in electoral influence.

People said those “Eurosceptic nutters” would never win. But then they did win, he says.

He says people say the voters were too stupid to know what they were voting for. People claim that leave voters have changed their mind.

People turn to the judges to overturn the result. And they ask, ‘Who listens to Ukip?’.

But Nigel Farage was the first foreign politician to meet Donald Trump.

Ukip are not out of tune with the tide of history, he says. He says they are the tide of history.

The liberal consensus that determined politics for the last half century is over, he says.

Farage addresses what he will do next.

He will continue to support Ukip, and to serve in the European parliament.

He will continue to speak out, he says. And he will carry on doing his radio shows.

And he is going to the US he says - but just as a tourist.

He ends by thanking his supporters.

Farage says he is worried that Brexit could be watered down.

The new leader inherits a party in a good financial position, he says.

There is everything to play for, he says.

Farage says Labour offers nothing to Old Labour voters who backed Brexit

Farage says the new Ukip leader will inherit a strong position.

First, because Labour has spent the weekend saying how wonderful Fidel Castro was.

He says Jeremy Corbyn refuses to sing the national anthem. And Labour seems to think putting Diane Abbott on TV will be good for votes when ever sentence she utters basically abuses the old Labour vote.

He says Labour offers nothing to Old Labour voters who backed Brexit.

Labour has MPs who have no sympathy with Brexit voters.

He says the new leader should spend his time - he is guessing it will be a he, he says - addressing this.

  • Farage says Labour offers nothing to Old Labour voters who backed Brexit.
  • He hints that Paul Nuttall, not Suzanne Evans, has won the leadership.

Farage says Ukip’s “difficult” summer has not affected its electoral support

Farage says people said after the referendum that there was now no need for Ukip.

But now the need for Ukip to be strong in the future is absolutely vital.

It has been a “difficult” summer for the party.

But polls show that, if there were an election tomorrow, 4m people would still vote for Ukip.

  • Farage says Ukip’s “difficult” summer has not affected its electoral support.

Farage says traditional party allegiances are breaking down.

But now people are starting to think of themselves as Ukip voters, and Ukip families.

People says Ukip voters are pessimistic. But a poll in the summer showed most of them are positive about the future.

Farage says, when David Cameron gave his Bloomberg speech, people said he had shot the Ukip fox.

But Cameron only validated Ukip’s position, and it went on from strength to strength.

Farage says, for those who did not like 2016, there is a lot more bad news to come.

Next Sunday Matteo Renzi will probably lose the referendum in Italy.

And Austria will probably vote for a president who wants to leave the EU, he says.

Farage says Brexit vote led to Donald Trump winning the US presidential election

Farage says the referendum may have had an effect on the American election.

Normally it is the US that influences the UK. But in this case Brexit led to Donald Trump winning, he says.

  • Farage says Brexit vote led to Donald Trump winning the US presidential election.

He says across Europe Ukip is the inspiration for anti-establishment parties.

Updated

Farage says since world war two scores of political parties have been set up. Most have gone nowhere. But Ukip has won the European elections, got almost 4m votes in a general election, won a couple of byelections and, above all, shifted the centre of gravity of British politics.

It has shown it is possible to talk about immigration without being racist, championed selective education and made the case for leaving the EU.

When Ukip talked about these issues, it was mocked and derided by the establishment.

Without Ukip, there would not have been a referendum, he says.

He says he regrets the fact that some “slightly snobby Tories” would not work with him in the campaign. But Ukip played a crucial role, he says.

Nigel Farage's speech

Nigel Farage is speaking now.

He says he was in this building, the Emanuel centre in London, a few months ago when he announced he was standing down.

He is going to make sure the new leader signs the Electoral Commission documentation, he says. (Diane James did not, meaning Farage technically remained party leader.)

Updated

Oakden says Farage can claim to have had a pivotal role in two of the most seismic events in Western history.

Few can argue that he is not the most influential man in Western politcs, he says.

He introduces Farage, saying Fox News calls him the leader of the UK opposition.

Oakden says he wants to say a few words about Nigel Farage, who has been acting as interim leader.

Farage probably expected to stay out of the limelight, he says.

Instead he was described by the Independent as the most influential politician today. Theresa May refuses to rule out giving him a peerage. And Graham Brady, chair of the Conservative 1922 committee, says he should get one.

Farage was also recently on the cover of the Economist, alongside Donald Trump, Oakden says.

Oakden says Farage has been tipped for a comeback in 2017, alongside Tony Blair. Blair wants to find solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. He probably includes Farage among those.

And Donald Trump has said he should be ambassador to the US.

Not bad for a stand-in leader, says Oakden.

Paul Oakden says we are here for the “latest announcement” of Ukip leader. It is a ceremony the party traditionally performs every two months, he jokes.

Paul Oakden, the Ukip chairman, is on the platform. He is looking at his mobile phone.

The Ukip event is about to start.

My colleague Peter Walker is at the Ukip event.

And the Mirror’s Dan Bloom is there too.

There is a live feed from the Ukip event at the top of the blog now.

Ukip set to announce new leader

Ukip will be announcing its new leader in about 15 minutes. As Rowena Mason writes in our preview story, it is almost certain to be Paul Nuttall.

UK expects Trump to 'stand up' to Russia, says Fallon

In his Today interview Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, said he expected the US to “stand up” to Russia under Donald Trump, despite the president-elect pro-Russian rhetoric during the election campaign. Fallon told the programme:

I think you have to distinguish between the campaign rhetoric of president-elect Trump and what he does in practice. In practice, every American administration has always stood up to Russia.

We are not suggesting you shouldn’t talk to Russia, but what you can’t do is treat Russia as business as usual, as any kind of equal partner.

David Allen Green, the lawyer, blogger and legal commentator for the Financial Times, has been tweeting about the British Influence Brexit legal challenge. He says (see point 12) that British Influence’s argument may be “too clever a point to have a real legal chance”.

OECD raises its growth forecasts for the UK despite Brexit

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the global economic thinktank, has raised its growth forecasts for the UK despite Brexit, the Press Association reports.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) raised its projections for Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP) from 1.8% to 2% for this year and from 1% to 1.2% for 2017.

It said the Bank of England’s moves to shore up the economy since the EU referendum result have boosted consumer confidence, but rising inflation would squeeze purchasing power, causing unemployment to rise as growth slows.

It also warned that while Britain is expecting to be handed the best trading terms with other countries post-2019, there is still “considerable uncertainty about this”.

“Monetary policy has mitigated the immediate impact of the shock by stabilising financial markets and shoring up consumer confidence,” the OECD said.

“This projection assumes the United Kingdom will operate with a most favoured nation status after 2019, but there is considerable uncertainty about this, which will increasingly weigh on growth, and in particular private investment, including foreign direct investment.

“Higher inflation is projected to hit households’ purchasing power and to reduce corporate margins, weakening private consumption and investment. As growth slows, the unemployment rate is projected to rise.”

Inflation is on course for a sharp jump next year following the Brexit vote, as sterling’s 18% slump against the US dollar and 11% drop versus the euro feeds its way through to consumer prices.

The Paris-based think tank previously warned in July that Britain’s decision to leave the EU could result in a 3% loss in GDP by the end of the decade and is likely to hit employment.

In its latest update for November, it said weaker growth would push up the UK’s unemployment rate to above 5%, but the current account deficit would “narrow gradually” as the Brexit-hit pound boosts exports.

“The unpredictability of the exit process from the European Union is a major downside risk for the economy,” the OECD added.

“Uncertainty could hamper domestic and foreign investment more than projected and the pass-through of currency depreciation to prices could be larger, deepening the extent of stagflation.”

On the global economy, the OECD said the world was still languishing in a “low-growth trap”.

It expects global growth to hit an unrevised 2.9% for this year, but has pushed up its projections for 2017 from 3.2% to 3.3%.

My colleague Jessica Elgot has been attending the Open Britain event this morning where Nick Clegg, Anna Soubry and Chuka Umunna are launching the report saying a hard Brexit would damage almost every sector of the British economy. Here are some of her tweets.

Polish PM says EU nationals living in UK should not be treated like 'hostages' in Brexit talks

Beata Szydlo, the Polish prime minister, has written an article for the Daily Telegraph ahead of today’s UK- Poland summit. These articles are often rather bland, but this one contains some pointed messages about Brexit. Here are the key points.

  • Szydlo suggested that EU citizens living in the UK are being used as “hostages” in the Brexit negotiations. Theresa May has said that she wants EU nationals living in the country to be allowed to stay but she will not give a firm promise on this until EU countries have given parallel guarantees to Britons living in the continent. But Szydlo implied this was unacceptable. She said:

One thing is certain: millions of UK citizens living across the EU, and millions of EU-27 citizens living in the United Kingdom, should not be made to feel like hostages. Our common duty should be to ensure their maximum security and prosperity, wherever they have chosen to live.

That means we have to guarantee not only their right of residence but also the proper coordination of social security systems on both sides of the English Channel.

  • Szydlo said Britain and the EU would have to “compromise” in the Brexit talks.

Whether we manage to complete this arduous task of bringing negotiations to a satisfying result will depend solely on our imagination and leadership. We need a good compromise which gives both our countries the best possible options for economic and security cooperation.

  • She challenged the UK to say what it wants from Brexit.

Poland will be a constructive partner in this process [the Brexit talks], as we have been in the past – but the initiative for determining British ambitions and expectations as to the future level of cooperation with the EU has to come from London.

In the referendum, the British people expressed their will to regain full control over their political life, and so Brexit is inevitably about their readiness to propose and effect a new arrangement for their relations with the EU.

Although diplomatically worded, this reads like a complaint about May not being willing to say anything much about what relationship the UK wants with the EU when it leaves.

  • She said she wanted Britain to remain “as close as possible” to the EU after Brexit.

We hope, as I believe the rest of the EU hopes, that Britain’s new relationship to the EU will be as close as possible, and based on the principles of proportionality and balance of rights and obligations.

  • She said that Poland was “saddened” by the Brexit vote because the UK has been an important strategic partner in the EU. Both countries have been committed to making it a “less bureaucratic and economically more competitive” organisation, she said.
Beata Szydlo, the Polish prime minister
Beata Szydlo, the Polish prime minister Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters

Leaving EU will automatically lead to UK leaving EEA, says government

The British Influence potential legal challenge to Brexit is based on the claim that leaving the EU is not the same as leaving the EEA. But the government does not accept this. Asked about the potential legal action, a government spokesman said:

As the UK is party to the EEA agreement only in its capacity as an EU member state, once we leave the European Union we will automatically cease to be a member of the EEA.

The future relationship between the UK and the EU will be subject to negotiations. It’s not in the UK’s interest to give a running commentary on our thinking that could undermine our negotiating position.

The referendum result will be respected and we intend to invoke article 50 no later than the end of March next year.

British Influence has been tweeting about its legal challenge.

So it looks as if there could be a second legal challenge to the government’s decision to leave the EU. British Influence, the pro-European group, is arguing that while people voted in the referendum to leave the EU, that is not the same as leaving the European Economic Area (a slightly wider group, including three other countries in the single market but not in the EU), and it is threatening to go to court over the issue. My colleague Anushka Asthana has the details here.

British Influence is saying MPs should have a vote on the decision to leave the EEA. But, on the Today programme this morning, Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, said parliament was already being consulted.

MPs and peers are having a say at the moment. We had a debate just last week on Brexit and how it affected the future in Britain. Ministers like David Davis, who heads the [Brexit] department, are regularly subject to questioning in the Commons. It is right that parliament should be involved in tracking the negotiations. But what we are not going to do is open up our entire negotiating hand, precisely because it concerns a lot of the complexities of the sort we are going to be discussing with the Polish delegation today.

When it was put to him that the new legal challenge could delay the Brexit process, he insisted it would not. He told the programme:

There is no delay. We have already announced we are going to start the negotiations by triggering the famous article 50 next spring, and those negotiations are prescribed in the treaty lasting two years.

If we hear more on this topic, I will post it.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Nick Clegg, Anna Soubry and Chuka Umunna speak at an Open Britain event where they will publish a report saying leaving the single market would be damaging to almost every sector of the British economy from manufacturing and energy to retail and financial services.

9.30am: Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, speaks at a UK in a Changing Europe event.

10am: The OECD publishes its Global Economic Outlook report.

11am: Number 10 lobby briefing.

11.15am: Ukip announces the result of its leadership election.

12.15pm: Theresa May meets her Polish counterpart, Beata Szydlo, as part of today’s UK-Poland summit.

2.45pm: May and Szydlo hold a joint press conference.

4.15pm: Sir Mark Lyall-Grant, the national security adviser, gives evidence to the parliamentary joint committee on national security strategy.

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 plan on posting 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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