Top story: ‘Direct threat’ to thousands of UK jobs
Good morning – I’m Warren Murray. Let’s get to the bottom of Friday’s news.
Brussels is preparing for a no-deal Brexit, Jean-Claude Juncker has declared, while the planemaker Airbus says Britain crashing out would force it to cut thousands of jobs in the UK and move production to other countries.
Juncker, the European commission president, told a joint session of the Irish parliament that Brexit negotiations are in a dangerous state, with the two sides still far apart on the “hardest issues” just days from a crunch leaders’ summit in Brussels. The EU was even drafting plans aimed at keeping the peace in Northern Ireland. “Ireland comes first,” Juncker said, warning that Brussels would not allow the UK to manipulate the border issue in order to maintain single-market access, without freedom of movement and other EU requirements.
Airbus is poised to abandon plans to build aircraft wings in British factories. The company directly employs 14,000 people in Britain, supports more than 110,000 jobs in the supply chain and generates £1.7bn in tax revenue. It has issued a damning risk assessment of a no-deal Brexit. Tom Williams, the chief operating officer of Airbus Commercial Aircraft, said: “Far from ‘Project Fear’, this is a dawning reality for Airbus. Put simply, a no-deal scenario directly threatens Airbus’s future in the UK.”
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Windrush Day – It is 70 years since the arrival of the Empire Windrush and the disembarkation of a wave of Caribbean people who would help shape postwar Britain. Alford Gardner made a beeline for Leeds where he had trained as an RAF engineer during the war. Today he is still there – with eight children, 16 grandchildren and 21 (he thinks) great-grandchildren all living nearby. “If I could start over, I would do everything the same.”
There was another, hidden Windrush generation: Polish families who ended up as wartime refugees in Mexico came on the ship to reunite with their freedom fighter husbands, fathers and brothers who had been given the right to settle in Britain. “The story of the Poles sits bizarrely alongside the official narrative for Windrush Day,” writes Jane Raca, whose mother-in-law was one of them. The legacy of Windrush has been soured for some by the scandalous treatment of migrants under the “hostile environment policy”, exposed in the award-winning reporting of the Guardian’s Amelia Gentleman. British citizen Pauline Pennant, 70, retired to Jamaica and fears returning to the UK after the NHS billed her £4,000 for cancer tests. “They have traumatised our lives,” she says.
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Compassion, after a fashion – Melania Trump’s jarring choice of a jacket that said “I really don’t care, do U?” has marred her visit to a Mexican border shelter that is housing immigrant children separated from their parents. The first lady, who has criticised the separation policy, said at the New Hope shelter in McAllen, Texas, that she wanted to “help reunite these children with their families as quickly as possible”. It remains unclear how Donald Trump’s executive order to end the separations is being put into practice. Guardian reporters at the border in Texas saw no evidence of parents separated from their children being released from jails, or children being let out and reunited.
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‘We too have lost a son’ – The parents of the Quebec City mosque shooter have appealed for the court not to impose a “death penalty in disguise”. Alexandre Bissonnette, 28, could face 150 years of back-to-back life sentences without parole after pleading guilty to six counts of murder. As sentencing arguments wrapped up on Thursday, Raymond Bissonnette said his son had been subjected to relentless bullying at school that they had tried for years to address. “Unfortunately, Alexandre’s mental condition caused by the years of intimidation was not identified by us nor by the doctors he consulted,” he said. “Alexandre is not a monster.” Sentencing is not expected to take place until October.
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Shock at Ladies’ Day – A horse-drawn carriage has crashed into a shop window during Royal Ascot, leaving one of the horses badly cut and bleeding. Witnesses said the horses panicked and went out of control down the high street, across a roundabout and into the window. Two injured animals were taken away in a horse ambulance and one passenger was treated for minor injuries.
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Dan back but Roseanne barred – The ABC television network in the US is putting together a spin-off from Roseanne, minus the disgraced star. The network revived Roseanne Barr’s 1990s sitcom but then axed it because of her racial outbursts on Twitter. The Connors is the working title for the new show, which has been conceived to save the jobs of 200 cast and crew, according to its producers.
World Cup
Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli has accepted full responsibility for their humiliating 3-0 defeat against Croatia which leaves them on the brink of elimination from the World Cup and said he “begs for forgiveness” from the supporters who turned on him. Lionel Messi might not have been the cause of the defensive collapse at Nizhny Novgorod Stadium but the team’s dependence on him makes them predictable, writes Jonathan Wilson, and when they looked to their captain he wasn’t there. Messi’s culpability and the other action from day eight – including Australia’s draw with Denmark and France’s victory over Peru – are on the agenda in our daily World Cup podcast.
In the England camp Marcus Rashford is set to replace Raheem Sterling in Gareth Southgate’s starting lineup against Panama on Sunday, after photographs of England coach’s notes appeared to reveal his plans. Such a move would be a sign that Southgate’s national setup is run as a meritocracy, writes Dominic Fifield.
Brazil continue their redemption mission against Costa Rica, Nigeria meet a bullish Iceland and Serbia play Switzerland under the shadow of Kosovo in today’s games. You can follow each and every one with our live blogs – the buildup to the opening kick-off has already begun.
Lunchtime read: Who would be the next Tory PM?
“He’s on manoeuvres, there’s no doubt. The question is how far he is really prepared to push it.” So says one government backbench MP of Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary who, after bringing the NHS out of austerity, is being tipped as a potential successor to Theresa May.
Another is Sajid Javid, the home secretary. His father, Abdul, arrived from Pakistan in 1961with a £1 note in his pocket – Sajid rose through comprehensive schooling and university to become a banker on a reputed £3m salary. Tory insiders believe he could be the first British Asian prime minister. “He’s the face of the modern Tory party,” one MP says. Alongside Hunt we have the usual suspects of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, as well as Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary and former chief whip. Here is a look at these five Conservative leadership contenders.
Sport
Tim Kerrison, Chris Froome’s long-term coach, has attacked the growing criticism in the French media towards the Team Sky rider in the buildup to this year’s Tour de France following the latest attack on Froome from the retired five-times Tour winner Bernard Hinault. England’s cricketers can scent a whitewash after Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow relentlessly turned the screw on Australia in a six-wicket win in the fourth ODI.
Frankie Dettori played the crowd like a conductor leading an orchestra at Royal Ascot after riding Stradivarius to Gold Cup victory. Nick Kyrgios apologised for swearing at the end of his win over Kyle Edmund at Queen’s after the Australian reached boiling point, providing further evidence that his temperament could yet strangle his genius. And Lewis Hamilton has admitted Sunday’s World Cup match between England and Panama could be a distraction to his preparations for the French Grand Prix, which has itself been delayed to avoid a clash with the football.
Business
Asian stocks have fallen following Wall Street losses as trade dispute fears continue to swirl. Japan and the Hang Seng both fell, while the Shanghai Composite and the Kospi in South Korea both rose but remained down on the start of the week. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was flat while Taiwan, Singapore and south-east Asian countries were lower.
Sterling jumped back from a seven-month trough after the Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, unexpectedly joined the minority of policymakers calling for rates to rise to 0.75%. The pound traded at $1.326 and €1.142 overnight.
The papers
“Airbus prepares to take flight” says the Times as it splashes on the many UK aerospace jobs at risk because of Brexit. But the Telegraph reports that we should “Drop the defeatism on Brexit” according to the US ambassador. The Express predicts a “£90bn summer boost for the economy” and is pulling out the stops to bring it about, cheerleading on “renewed confidence about Brexit” and “unparalleled optimism among consumers”. The Mail moans “3.8 million EU migrants allowed to stay here”, and not only that, “they can bring their families”.
The Guardian’s front-page photo celebrates the Windrush pioneers who changed Britain while the lead story is about the upcoming vote on a third runway for Heathrow. “My mum blew the whistle but was bullied out” – the Mirror’s splash about the opiate deaths at Gosport War Memorial hospital. The Sun reports on the suicide of former Love Island contestant Sophie Gradon. The FT says Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane has given a boost to sterling by backing the push for a rate rise.
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