Michel Barnier's press conference and David Davis's committee hearing - Summary
Here are the main points from Michel Barnier’s press conference and David Davis’s evidence to the Lords EU committee.
- Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, insisted that the UK would have to obey EU rules during the transition, without exception. (See 4.52pm.) At one point he said:
During transition the UK will continue to take part in the single market, to take part in the customs union. It will continue to have all the economic benefits therefore it must also apply all the EU rules. The single market cannot be a la carte.
- Davis, the Brexit secretary, indicated that the UK did want the power to opt out of new EU laws during the transition, or at least to object to them. He said he had not raised this issue yet, but expected to bring it up soon.
We will start talking about that next week. We will face an objection against it, I’m sure. We take the view that it is not particularly good democratic practice to have your country accept without any say-so anything, and particularly if the EU takes it upon itself to do something which is actively disadvantageous to a major British industry, or something like that.
Davis cited this as one of several areas where the UK and the EU would not agree initially on the transition. Asked to summarise the problem areas, he replied.
There will be an argument about the right to negotiate free trade agreements. There will be an argument, I’m sure, about the issue of whether or not we can object to new laws that we haven’t had a say in. There will be discussions about issues like representation on technical committee. Bear in mind, we are very often the prime mover in areas like aviation, pharmaceuticals; the regulators tend to be Brits because we are good at that. What else? I guess those are the main ones.
Matthew Holehouse, MLex’s Brexit correspondent, reckons that the gap between what Barnie is saying and what Davis is saying is not as large as some people are assuming.
I don't think UK and EU are necessarily as quite as far apart as portrayed on implementing new acquis. Remember Davis called for a "dialogue", not a veto. pic.twitter.com/FVo7udHTeb
— Matthew Holehouse (@mattholehouse) January 29, 2018
- Davis hinted that the government is working on the end of the year, not October, as the deadline for the Brexit withdrawal agreement. He told peers:
Mr Barnier has said that he hopes to conclude [in] October, the autumn of this year. We are also seeking, of course, the future relationship and the withdrawal agreement in parallel. That may push it a little later, because we will not want to sign the withdrawal agreement until we have got the substance of the future relationship ironed out as well. So the last quarter of the year I think is about where we are aiming at.
- Barnier said he would not be happy about extending the talks deadline. When he was asked about what Davis had told the Lords, he said that the deal would be a “major, historic treaty” and that time would be needed for it to be ratified. It was the British who wanted to leave at the end of March 2019, he said. Working backwards, to ensure there was enough time for ratification, the deal should be agreed in October, he said.
We cannot go too close to the end of the year. It is not a matter of being too fussy about a week or so. But we’re working towards the end of October.
- Barnier said, during the transition, the UK would have to comply with the terms of the EU’s trade deals with other countries but that it might not get the benefits when its own goods were exported. He made this point in his opening statement. He said:
As part of the transition, the UK will remain bound by the obligations stemming from all existing EU international agreements, for instance on trade and aviation. This is crucial for the good functioning of the single market and the customs union. And we can agree on this in the article 50 agreement between the EU and the UK.
But we cannot ensure in the article 50 agreement that the UK keeps the benefits from these international agreements. Our partners around the world may have their own views on this, for instance the 70 countries covered by trade deals.
This Centre for European Reform briefing explains this issue in more detail. Here is an excerpt from the report, written by Sam Lowe.
As well as binding the UK to the EU’s single market and customs union, the draft proposal seeks to ensure that the UK continues to apply the bloc’s external tariff rates and performs the same border checks with non-EU countries.
This could easily result in a scenario in which UK exporters are no longer able to take advantage of the EU’s existing free trade agreements, but exporters located in countries with EU FTAs [free trade agreements] would continue to benefit from preferential access to the UK market on the same terms as now. To give a practical example: during the proposed transition, Korean car exporters would still be able to sell cars into the UK without being subject to border tariffs under the provisions of the EU-South Korea free trade agreement. UK car exporters selling into Korea, on the other hand, would no longer be covered by the agreement and would face Korea’s tariffs of 8 per cent.
- Barnier said the Brexit transition deal was conditional on there being an overall withdrawal deal. He said:
In the course of this second phase we will have to translate into legal terms the commitments that we had in the joint report. These have to be put into legally binding language. That is a sine qua non condition for progress in this second phase. It is all a big package. If we have no agreement on the withdrawal issues there will be no transition.
- Barnier said the UK needed to say what it wanted from Brexit. He said:
It is very important that the UK voices its position on what it wants in this future relationship.
- Davis dismissed as “bogus” claims that the UK was interested in getting a three-year transition, not a two-year one. This has been claimed in press reports over the weekend. Davis said it has been a “spectacular weekend” for “bogus stories’. He went on:
Twenty one months may be fine, plus or minus a few months is neither here nor there. But we are not talking about extending to three years. It isn’t necessary.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
The European commission has tweeted this.
"The EU position is very clear: the transition will last for 21 months until the 31st of December 2020. The whole EU acquis will continue to apply to the UK, as well as the jurisdiction of the EU Court of Justice". @MichelBarnier #Brexit https://t.co/L30op7XgBt pic.twitter.com/ydEqtX1VSc
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) January 29, 2018
Italy’s Europe minister Sandro Gozi has cast doubt on British hopes to vet EU legislation during the transition period.
The most controversial part of the Brexit transition paper adopted in Brussels today are the “vassal state” clauses, which require the UK to obey EU rules without any role in the decision-making processes.
From 30 March 2019, the UK will no longer have ministers, diplomats or MEPs at the table when EU laws are agreed, or a commissioner involved in drafting them. The UK “could be invited” to attend some meetings without voting rights - but only at the EU’s discretion (paragraphs 18-19 of the EU’s negotiating directives). The UK will have to follow all EU laws, including judgements of the European court of justice.
The Brexit secretary David Davis said on Friday that the UK “will agree an appropriate process” for the UK to resolve concerns “if laws are deemed to run contrary to our interests”.
Gozi said today that this idea would be “very difficult” to achieve. He said:
I think it is difficult, because once you leave you leave ... The British people decided not to decide anymore and that it is it.
We will see in the negotiation [whether this changes] but it is not us who decided the British should not decide anymore. It is the Brits who decided through their decision-making process.
Speaking to the Guardian and other European newspapers, he welcomed the EU’s decision not to lose time by negotiating unique arrangements for the transition. He said:
We cannot waste our energy on shaping a bespoke transition. We have to concentrate our energy on the future relationship.
He also made clear it was up to the UK to set out first its plan for the future relationship with the EU. He said:
It is clear that the first move has to come from the British side, because the British decided to get out, so it is up to the British to decide how they want to get out and see their future relationship with the EU. The sooner they do so, the better. The time at our disposal is sufficient, but it is not very long.
Each of us have an idea how we would like to see the future relationship with the Brits,” he said. “Until we have a clear idea on what is the British position, there can only be a discussion on general lines, but there cannot be a detailed discussion and the future relationship requires detail.
EU leaders are due to adopt a formal position on the EU’s future relationship with the UK in March, but officials have said that document could be limited if they have nothing to respond to from the British government.
Labour says government should not rule out customs union with EU after Brexit
This is what Paul Blomfield, the shadow Brexit minister, said during the Commons urgent question on Brexit.
Would the minister agree that it would be right to reach out to that majority instead of letting the European Research Group call the shots?
Does the government now recognise that it was wrong to rule out a customs union and close relationship with the single market, and does he agree with the chancellor that our economies should move only ‘very modestly apart’?
The government is too distracted negotiating with its own backbenchers to focus on the negotiations that matter with the European Union: it’s incapable of setting out a clear negotiating position, as Angela Merkel apparently said in Davos at the weekend. [See 1.32pm.]
What Barnier said about how UK has to accept all EU rules, including new ones, during transition
This is what Michel Barnier said at his press conference when asked what the UK would be able to do if it did not like EU decisions taken during the transition. (See 3.54pm.) It was a long-winded way of saying “nothing”, but it is worth quoting in full because it reveals rather well his exasperation at the latest manifestation of British cake-itis (the desire to have one’s cake and eat it, exemplified in this instance by the notion that the UK might be willing to accept EU rules during the transition except the ones it doesn’t like.) Barnier said:
I tend to think very logically, very logically. You’ve probably seen how I’ve been working over the past year and a half. I’ve tried to keep things calm, objective and logical.
So the UK asks us to have this transition period, which is very important obviously for the UK, which gives the time for the administrative preparations it needs before leaving definitively, so that all various players, stakeholders and so on can prepare for this. Time is passing very, very quickly. Obviously we also need time to prepare and we need time to negotiate on our future relations. The UK has asked us for this and our positive response, at this time, is, ‘We say that all of the acquis, the economic status quo, the European policies, will be maintained between 30 March 2019 and 31 December 2020.’ During that period the decisions will apply. And the UK must acknowledge and accept these rules of the game from the outset.
Otherwise we would be moving towards something which we did fear for the future, divergence and a type of single market a la carte, which is not possible, certainly not during transition period, which the UK has requested.
Bill Cash urges government to reject EU terms on transition
While Michel Barnier and David Davis were speaking, there was an urgent question in the Commons about Brexit. It was tabled by the Tory Brexiter Sir Bill Cash, and he used it to urge the government to reject the Brexit transition rules proposed by the EU in their guidelines today. (See 2.41pm.) Cash said:
Given that we’re leaving the EU and therefore the customs union, the single market and the provisions relating to freedom of movement, is the government going to reject this new EU ultimatum - including that the EU court of justice will continue to apply to the UK?”
Will [the minister] reject the idea of their enforcement mechanisms as set out in the document?
Will he reject that the European acquis will apply in relation to the United Kingdom, and reject the notion put forward in this document that during the transition period European Union law will continue to apply to the UK with direct effect and primacy?
Does the government reject this Council decision as inconsistent with our leaving the European Union, which we are entitled by European Union law itself - and by the Lisbon Treaty under Article 50?
WATCH | Bill Cash MP tears into EU's negotiating position agreed this afternoon which insists Britain remains de facto within the Customs Union and Single Market during the implementation period, rightly asks the government whether it will be rejecting this latest EU "ultimatum". pic.twitter.com/fO6Yh29gBC
— LEAVE.EU 🇬🇧 (@LeaveEUOfficial) January 29, 2018
With his boss still in the Lords giving evidence to the Lords EU committee, it was left to Robin Walker, a junior Brexit minister, to reply on behalf of the government. He said:
I want to be very clear, the UK will be leaving the EU on March 29, 2019. We will then have a strictly time-limited implementation period, which will be as short as is practicable - we currently expect that to be in the region of two years.
Walker also said the UK was going into the transition negotiations seeking to protect its interests and to exit the EU in a “smooth and orderly way”.
Q: You say you will provide a guidance documents on when the UK can sit in on EU meetings. How detailed will that be?
Barnier says the EU will clarify this. The occasions where the UK can attend will be limited, and on a case-by-case basis.
He questions the use of the term “observer status” for these meetings. That is not right, he says. He says the UK is leaving.
He says the EU will not negotiate on the integrity of the single market, or on the autonomy of EU decision making, or on the integrity of the four freedoms.
If that is understood, the EU and the UK can negotiate on other topics.
But there will be a different system, he says.
He says he hopes there is agreement on defence and security.
And that’s it. The press conference is over.
I will post a summary of the Barnier press conference and the Davis committee hearing soon.
Q: Davis wants the UK to be able to negotiate trade deals during the transition, and he wants the UK to be represented on EU committees. Do you accept that?
Barnier says he accepts that the UK will want to talk to third countries during the transition.
But the UK will not be able to implement those agreements during the transition, without the approval of the EU.
He says if decisions involve the UK, then the UK will be consulted.
Barnier indicates he is not happy about Davis’s plan to extend Brexit talks until end of year
Q: David Davis told the House of Lords earlier this afternoon that he sees the end of the year as the deadline for the Brexit talks, not October. Do you accept that?
Barnier says they are working on two legal texts, one covering withdrawal and one covering the transition. And there will be a political agreement covering the future relationship. That will not be a legal text, he says; it will be a political agteement.
The UK wants to leave on 29 March 2019. So you have to work back to see when the ratification process must start. You must allow time, he says. He says he is working towards October.
- Barnier indicates he is not happy about Davis’s plan to extend Brexit talks until end of the year.
Barnier says the EU spent a lot of time in January working on what it wants for the future relationship.
But negotiating with the British will not start until after the March European council - assuming the British say what they want.
UK will not be able to block EU laws during Brexit transition, says Barnier
Barnier is now taking questions.
Q: If decisions are taken by the EU during the transition which are not acceptable to the UK, what can it do?
Barnier says the question is about decisions relating to the single market or the customs union.
He says he thinks logically. He tries to keep things calm, objective and logical. The UK has asked for this period, he says.
The EU also needs time to prepare.
The UK asked for this. The EU’s positive response has been to say the acquis will be maintained. The UK must accept these rules. Otherwise we would be moving towards something we did fear, which is transition a la carte.
- Barnier says UK will not be able to block EU laws during the Brexit transition.
Barnier says the EU has been making progress on discussions on the future trade relationship. The European council should take a decision on guidelines in March.
But it is very important that the UK says what it wants.
He says negotiations on withdrawal have not been concluded. Sufficient progress does not mean full progress. So the December agreement will have to be put into legally binding language, he says.
He says the governance of the withdrawal agreement also has to be decided.
It will all be part of the same, big package.
Without an agreement on the withdrawal, there will be no transition, he says.
He says the EU wants an orderly withdrawal, not a disorderly withdrawal.
Michel Barnier is speaking now.
He says the European council has adopted clear negotiating directives.
The council, the European parliament and the commission are united, he says.
He says the transition will last for 21 months. During this period, the whole European acquis will apply to the UK, he says. That will include new EU rules coming into force during that period. That is for one single reason; during that period, the UK will continue to take part in the single market. If if gets the benefit of the single market, it must comply with the rules, he says.
He says the UK will remain bound by all existing EU agreements during the transition, for example on trade and aviation.
But he says the EU cannot ensure that the UK will keep the benefits of the trade deals the EU has with third party countries.
Michel Barnier's press conference
The Michel Barnier press conference is starting. You can watch a live feed here.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is about to give a press conference in Brussels. When that starts, I will switch to that (not least because, if phase one of the talks was anything to go by, what Michel Barnier is demanding re Brexit is a better guide to the eventual outcome than what Davis is demanding.)
Q: Who will negotiate for Brussels?
Davis says that is for the EU to decide. At the end of the day the European council takes the decision. He imagines Michel Barnier will head up their team.
Q: Are we going to be leaving the EU in March 2019 before we know the basis on which we will be leaving?
Davis says the UK wants to agree the substance of the future relationship before the UK leaves. He says he thinks this will be “tight”, but it can be done before the end of this year.
Q: When will that be done?
Davis says the UK cannot start until March, when the EU will set out its guidelines. After that he expects a full negotiation to start.
Davis dismisses claims Brexit transition could last three years as 'bogus'
Q: There is speculation the transition period could last for three years. Is that true?
Davis says “this weekend has been a spectacular weekend for bogus stories”. The PM has said the transition will last about two years. Plus or minus a few months is neither here nor there. Extending the transition to three years “isn’t necessary”, he says.
- Davis rules out extending Brexit transition from two years to three, saying that “isn’t necessary” and claims to the contrary are “bogus”.
Q: Has the government decided not to publish a position paper on financial services?
Davis says the government has not decided yet what further papers it will publish. It published 14 last summer. He knows, because he had to cancel his holiday to sign them off.
Q: But how can banks decide if they need to relocate on the continent if the UK does not say what it wants?
Davis says he cannot say what will happen, because it’s a negotiation.
The UK can state its aims. But sometimes stating its aims reduces the chances of achieving them.
Q: Do you have a response to the guidelines that have come out today?
Davis says the government has seen the draft guidelines. He does not expect there has been much change. But he is not going to respond to them now.
Davis says the UK is working on the premise that the implementation period and the deal on future trade will cover Gibraltar.
Q: What will be the main differences between the UK and the EU on the transition?
Davis says there will be an argument about whether the UK can negotiate new trade deals during the transition? There will be an argument about whether the UK can object to new laws? There will be arguments about whether the UK can be represented on bodies coming up with regulatory rules. He says the British often play a leading role on these committees, because they are good at regulation.
Davis accepts EU will object to call for UK to be consulted on new European laws during transition
Q: In your speech last week you implied you want the UK to have the power to object to EU proposals during the transition?
Davis says the UK has not engaged on this yet. The EU has just published its guidelines. There will be resistance to what the UK wants, he says.
He says the does not imagine the need for this being very large. There are not going to be many instances where the UK wants to object, he says. He says there will be a new European parliament after 2019 and he does not expect it to pass a lot of laws in the first two years.
He says it would not be good democratic practice for the UK not to have a say in laws affecting the UK.
- Davis accepts EU will object to his call for UK to be consulted on new European laws during transition.
Q: What happens if someone refers the withdrawal agreement to the European court of justice?
Davis says the government has considered this. The best defence against this is compliance with article 50, he says.
Q: What will happen if third countries say the UK no longer benefits from EU free trade deals?
Davis says the government has looked at this a lot.
He says third countries will have done a deal with the EU with the UK in it. They will want to continue to have access to the UK market too. The UK will want access to the third country, and the EU will want the deal to continue.
So he says all three parties have an interest in continuing the status quo.
Davis says the transition will be “very, very similar” to EU membership for the UK.
Q: Have you sought legal advice as to whether article 50 is a good basis for the withdrawal agreement?
Davis says the European commission thinks article 50 provides a good basis. The UK government accepts that, he says.
Q: Article 50 says treaties cease to apply two years after notification. So how would treaties continue to apply during the transition?
Davis says he expects the lawyers to address this in the agreement.
Q: You talk of alignment of outcomes. What happens if the UK and the Irish government agree on “alignment”, but a third party, say a trader, takes a different view. Who will arbitrate?
Davis says the plan is to put in place an arbitration agreement.
Davis says the UK wants a customs partnership with the EU.
If there are no tariffs, then goods will not have to be stopped at the border for tariff reasons.
What other reasons could there be for a stop, he asks himself. There are regulatory issues. He says the government is looking at how trusted trader schemes and the like could eliminate the need for vehicles to be checked at the border.
He says there would have to be rules of origin regulations. But trusted trader schemes, or checks away from the border, could address this, he claims.
The committee is now asking Davis about Ireland, and particularly what the December agreement at the end of phase one of the talks said about alignment.
Here is the key paragraph, paragraph 49, from the December agreement (pdf).
The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border. Any future arrangements must be compatible with these overarching requirements. The United Kingdom’s intention is to achieve these objectives through the overall EU-UK relationship. Should this not be possible, the United Kingdom will propose specific solutions to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland. In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the allisland economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.
Davis says “alignment” refers to outcomes.
He says the government wants to ensure the all-Ireland energy market continues to work after Brexit as it does now.
He says the government expects to be able to avoid a hard border by the first method mentioned in paragraph 49 - through the EU-UK relationship.
Lady Neville-Rolfe, a Conservative, goes next.
Q: Will we only pay the EU if there is a final deal?
Davis says, if the talks were to fall apart, then the payments would be in doubt.
David Davis is giving evidence to the Lords committee now.
Lord Boswell, the peer who chairs the committee, goes first.
Q: Is the December deal binding?
At the moment it is just a joint report, says Davis. But he says the intention is to make it binding.
Q: Has there been any rowing back?
No, says Davis. But he concedes there may be differences of interpretation.
Q: How will that be converted into a final text?
Davis says there is likely to be an agreement on the transition at the March European council.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, says he wants to reach a withdrawal agreement by the October summit. But Davis says the UK wants to combine that with an understanding on the future trade relationship. So that could push things back. He thinks the deal will be done in the final quarter of this year.
Here is the EU press notice about the guidelines for the Brexit transition adopted today.
Here is the text of the guidelines (pdf), or “directives” as they are technically called.
David Davis gives evidence to Lords EU committee
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, is about to give evidence to the Lords EU committee.
You can watch the live feed here.
EU agrees guidelines for Brexit transition lasting until 31 December 2020
EU ministers have agreed the EU’s guidelines for the Brexit negotiations on the transition, according to Sabine Weyand, deputy to Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator.
BREAKING: EU General Affairs Council adopts guidelines for #Brexit negotiations within 2 min: status quo transition without institutional representation, lasting from #Brexit date to 31 December 2020 pic.twitter.com/3BSrNY3qbF
— Sabine Weyand (@WeyandSabine) January 29, 2018
Lunchtime summary
- Downing Street has conceded that there is “some distance” between what the UK wants for the Brexit transition and what the EU wants. (See 1.16pm.)
In an interview with Bloomberg Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, said Conservative MPs minded to trigger a leadership contested “would be foolish to do anything to destabilise the government and the prime minister.” A new leader would not be in a stronger position in the Commons, he argued. “Nothing will change the electoral arithmetic,” he said.
According to ITV’s political editor Robert Peston, in a post on his Facebook page, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, mocked Theresa May’s refusal to say what she wants from Brexit in a background briefing for journalists at Davos last week.
There are three urgent questions today, the first of which will come from Sir Bill Cash, the Tory Brexiter, who is asking a question about Brexit policy.
3 Urgent Questions:
— UK House of Commons (@HouseofCommons) January 29, 2018
1. Sir William Cash – Government policy on leaving the EU
2. @SDoughtyMP – Recent Taliban and ISIS attacks on civilians in Afghanistan
3. @DianaJohnsonMP – Inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal
No statements.
No 10 lobby briefing - Summary
Here is a full summary of the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Downing Street said there was “some distance” between what the UK wants for the Brexit transition and what the EU wants. Commenting on the state of the transition talks, the prime minister’s spokesman said:
The formal directives [setting out the EU’s position on the Brexit transition] will be released this afternoon. This will be a negotiation and there will naturally be some distance in the detail of our starting positions.
- Downing Street played down suggestions that Brexit transition might be extended to three years. At the weekend Peter Foster and Gordon Rayner in the Daily Telegraph (paywall) said “Britain has discreetly begun sounding out senior EU figures over whether transition could be extended” to about three years, possibly ending at the end of December 2021, instead of the end of March 2021 as the government is current proposing. Asked about this, the spokesman said that May had made it clear she wanted a time-limited transition lasting “around two years”.
- The spokesman claimed that May is still interested in creating dispute resolution mechanism that would prevent the UK having to obey the European court of justice for the whole of the Brexit transition. May floated this idea in her Florence speech, in a move that seemed intended to counter Brexiter objections to the UK being subject to the jurisdiction of the ECJ for the whole of the two-year transition. But David Davis, the Brexit secretary, did not mention this idea either in his evidence to the Commons Brexit committee last week or in the speech he gave on transition policy on Friday. Asked if the plan had been dropped, the spokesman said that if such a dispute resolution body could be set up soon, then that was still something the government would like to do.
- The spokesman said the cabinet’s 10-strong EU exit and trade (strategy and negotiations) sub-committee, the government’s most important Brexit committee, met this morning. He would not say any more about the meeting, and would not comment on a report saying ministers on the committee are being shown government impact assessments describing the impact of different Brexit outcomes on the economy. In today’s Times (paywall) Sam Coates says:
The analysis, drawn up using contributions from across Whitehall, is likely to cause a dispute since cabinet ministers expect it to show that hard Brexit options will stall the economy for years to come. “The impact analysis will put the cat among the pigeons, assuming you believe in experts,” one government source said.
The spokesman also refused to respond to questions about whether or not the impact assessments should be published.
- The spokesman refused to comment on reports at the weekend saying May has ditched plans for a major speech in February that where she was expected to set out what sort of Brexit “end state” the UK wants. The Times (paywall) on Saturday said May had “called a halt to the preparations [for the speech] ... fuelling fears that differences in her cabinet are irreconcilable.” The spokesman said he had never confirmed that such a speech was due to happen. He said May is planning to deliver a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, but that will focus on the security aspects of Brexit, he suggested.
- The spokesman said that in the course of the negotiations with the EU “it will of course be clear what the UK is seeking to achieve”, but he would not say when the government would set this out.
- The spokesman defended Philip Hammond, the chancellor, saying was doing a good job. Asked if May agreed with the various Tories suggesting over the weekend Hammond should be sacked the spokesman said:
The chancellor is doing a good job. Look at the economic statistics, in terms of borrowing being lower than expected and record levels of employment.
- The spokesman dismissed claims that May was not showing leadership on Brexit. He said many people claimed May would not be able to secure a deal in phase one of the talks, but that she did. Now the government was moving ahead in phase two, covering the transition and the future partnership with the EU, he said.
- The spokesman dismissed claims that May was being too cautious on domestic policy. He listed a range of policy areas where the government has taken action.
- The spokesman would not confirm that Theresa May thinks Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary, is telling the truth about the relationship he had with a junior colleague when he worked for a fireplace manufacturer before he became an MP. The spokesman said Downing Street regarded this as “a private matter”. Asked if May thought Williamson was telling the truth about what happened, the spokesman said he had “nothing to add”. The story was private until Williamson gave a statement about it to the Daily Mail last week, only hours after the Guardian submitted some questions to him about it. The issue of whether Williamson’s account is accurate or not is potentially relevant because Damian Green was made to resign as first secretary of state because he was found to have lied over a matter that also happened in the previous decade. Asked why Mark Garnier was investigated over a matter that happened before he became a minister, while Williamson is not being investigated, the spokesman said what was different was that there had been a complaint about Garnier.
- The spokesman defended what Williamson said about Russia in his Daily Telegraph interview last week. Williamson has been accused of scaremongering. But the spokesman said that May herself had set out the government’s position on Russia recently and that Williamson was reflecting that.
- Theresa May is visting China this week, No 10 confirmed. David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, will stand in for her at PMQs on Wednesday.
- The spokesman defended the government’s decision to replace student maintenance grants with loans. This morning Justine Greening, the former education secretary, said this policy was regressive. (See 9.50am.) Asked if May agreed, the spokesman said the change had led to students from low-income households having access to record amounts of cash-in-hand support. But the system was being kept under review, he added.
- The spokesman refused to say when May last spoke to Nick Timothy, or had contact with him by email. “The prime minister speaks to a lot of people,” the spokesman said, responding to a question prompted by Timothy’s comment about not having met May since the general election. (See 10.47am.)
Gina Miller threatens government court action over £1bn DUP payment for Northern Ireland
Campaigner Gina Miller is threatening court action over payments to Northern Ireland under the £1bn deal with the DUP to prop up the minority Conservative government, the Press Association reports. Lawyers acting for Miller and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain have issued a legal letter to the government in relation to £50m made available in this financial year to address immediate health and education pressures. They argue that this breaches a previous assurance that cash support offered at the time of last year’s post-election agreement would not be spent until it has been approved by parliament in a vote. And they warned that if ministers do not provide assurances by February 2 that they intend to recover the money, they will take the issue to court. Miller, who previously defeated the government in a supreme court case to win MPs the right to vote on the Article 50 letter triggering Brexit, said:
It beggars belief that this government is once again putting itself above the law and seeking to undermine the normal constitutional and legal processes.
Spending public money requires proper parliamentary scrutiny and accountability - and the making of these payments is no different.
The government excuse for making these payments without parliamentary approval is that the monies were to address immediate health and education pressures in Northern Ireland.
What about the immediate and pressing health and education needs in the rest of the United Kingdom? There is a demand for more social spending in all parts of the UK. This payment is more about keeping this government in power.
No 10 admits UK and EU at odds over Brexit transition, saying 'some distance' between what two sides want
The Number 10 lobby briefing is now over. It went on for ages, and covered quite a range of topics, but two lines stood out.
- Downing Street said there was “some distance” between what the UK wants for the Brexit transition and what the EU wants. Commenting on this, the prime minister’s spokesman said:
The formal directives [setting out the EU’s position on the Brexit transition] will be released this afternoon. This will be a negotiation and there will naturally be some distance in the detail of our starting positions.
- The spokesman would not confirm that Theresa May thinks Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary, is telling the truth about the relationship he had with a junior colleague when he worked for a fireplace manufacturer before he became an MP. The spokesman said Downing Street regarded this as “a private matter”. Asked if May thought Williamson was telling the truth about what happened, the spokesman said he had “nothing to add”. The story was private until Williamson gave a statement about it to the Daily Mail last week, only hours after the Guardian submitted some questions to him about it. The issue of whether Williamson’s account is accurate or not is potentially relevant because Damian Green was made to resign as first secretary of state because he was found to have lied over a matter that also happened in the previous decade. Asked why Mark Garnier was investigated over a matter that happened before he became a minister, while Williamson is not being investigated, the spokesman said what was different was that there had been a complaint about Garnier.
I will post a more detailed summary soon.
Updated
Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story about Claire Perry’s comment about hardline Brexers being “swivel-eyed”.
I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing.
I will post again after 11.30am.
Nick Timothy says he has not seen May since election, but sidesteps question about other contacts
At the Resolution Foundation the BBC’s Eleanor Garnier asked Nick Timothy when he was last “in direct contact” with Theresa May. The question was prompted by suspicions amongst some Tories that Timothy is still exerting an influence over May despite resigning after the general election. The sacking of Justine Greening in the reshuffle was seen as potential evidence for this; Greening was removed after Timothy used his Sun column to criticise her performance very strongly.
When Timothy was working in Downing Street, he and his co chief of staff, Fiona Hill, were remarkably influential. Reading the two best books published so far on this period, Fall Out by Tim Shipman and Betting the House by Tim Ross and Tom McTague, one is left with the impression that the 11 months until June 2017 was really the era of the Timothy/Hill premiership, not the May premiership.
In response to Garnier’s question, Timothy said:
I haven’t seen the prime minister since I resigned at the general election. Of Conservative prime ministers past and present, I see David Cameron more often than I have Theresa May, because I’ve seen him once.
That answer sounds definitive, but Garnier intentionally did not ask Timothy about his meetings with May. She asked if they had been in contact (ie, by phone, or by email). On that wider point, Timothy was silent.
Sky’s Faisal Islam has tweeted some highlights from Nick Timothy’s speech at the Resolution Foundation event. Timothy said the government’s current focus on the environment as one of its top priorities was “strange”.
Nick Timothy tells @resfoundation that “political strategy of Government from July 2016 to beginning of election campaign was a success.. we were 20 points ahead in the polls.. in every social class and region”
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 29, 2018
The PM’s former chief of staff @NickJTimothy : “We blew the election campaign because we fought a campaign that was different to that strategy.. we didnt take the lessons of that strategy into the General Election”
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 29, 2018
“Election campaign was wrong, it presupposed desire for continuity talking about Brexit constitutionally and even in nationalistic terms, not about changing the country” says Timothy.
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 29, 2018
“country is tired of austerity & public services are starting to feel the strain a little bit... school spend one of the big issues, NHS needs reform and more money... plus inv in infrastructure.. fiscal policy ought to change” says shadow Ch... err the PM’s former chief of staff
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 29, 2018
“Alighting on the environment is a strange thing to do and reflects some kind of strategic confusion” says Timothy about current Govt strategy
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 29, 2018
Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former co chief of staff, is speaking at the Resolution Foundation event about the future of Conservatism now. There is a live feed here.
Greening says Tory abolition of maintenance grants has made student finance system 'regressive'
Justine Greening, who quit the cabinet earlier this month after refusing to accept Theresa May’s proposal that she should move from education secretary to work and pensions secretary, was interviewed on the Today programme this morning. She urged Tory MPs to support May, telling the programme:
I remain a strong backer of the prime minister, so I’ve been very disappointed to see the soundings off, I think they need to stop, I think people need to get behind her. I think she’s doing an important job for our country and we need to support her in that impossible almost task she has negotiating Brexit.
But Greening was more interesting on the subject of education. She said that she was opposed to the review of tuition fees announced by May at the Conservative conference last year (which was said to be the reason May decided to move her). Greening said she felt that reviews like this “just kick things into the long grass”.
And she said that she was opposed to the decision taken by George Osborne when he was chancellor in 2015, but maintained by May’s government, to replace student maintenance grants with loans. That made the system regressive, she said.
There’s a maintenance loan that has now replaced the grant. And that means, I think wrongly, to be perfectly frank, young people from more disadvantaged poorer backgrounds are coming out, like for like on the same course, with more debt than their better off peers.
When it was put to Greening that restoring grants would cost around £2bn, she said:
I think we have to have a student finance system that’s progressive, not regressive.
No surge in youth turnout at general election, say academics
The so-called youthquake that fuelled support for Jeremy Corbyn at the general election was a myth, according to a study. As the Press Association reports, academics have found that turnout among young voters was broadly similar to the 2015 poll and may even have decreased. Voters under the age of 25 were more likely to vote Labour than ever before but were no more likely to turn out than in previous years, the British Election Study discovered. It said:
The Labour ‘youthquake’ explanation looks to become an assumed fact about the 2017 election.
The Oxford English Dictionary even declared ‘youthquake’ their word of the year. But people have been much too hasty. There was no surge in youth turnout at the 2017 election.
Brexit has its own lexicon. There are words that have their own meaning in the Brexit context (hard, soft, transition etc) but then there is also a category of words that only ever get used by diehards on one side of the debate or the other. For example, there is probably no recorded use of anyone using the term “vassal state” in modern times other than a Brexiter referring to the relationship between the UK and the EU. And, on the other side, the term “swivel-eyed” almost always means the speaker is referring to Eurosceptics - and not favourably.
Claire Perry, who is now energy minister, has been caught deploying the term to refer to party colleagues. The Daily Telegraph has splashed on the story, which quotes a message Perry sent to colleagues on WhatsApp referring to Brexiter Tories using the term “traitor” to describe those backing the government’s decision to pay the EU a “divorce bill” of up to £39bn. In response to a colleague who said he was getting criticism “from the usual suspect about sell-outs and traitors”, Perry replied:
The ‘sell out traitor mob’ should be ignored. Listening to them means wrecking the economy in the short term and via a Corbyn Government delivering a long steady slow decline for the country we love.
And I would hypothesise that they are mostly elderly retired men who do not have mortgages, school-aged children or caring responsibilities so they represent the swivel-eyed few not the many we represent.
TELEGRAPH: Minister: Brexiteers opposes to EU bill are ‘swivel eyed’ #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/ig1IBY6yio
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) January 28, 2018
Last night Perry, who was a climate change minister when the WhatsApp message was sent last month, used Twitter last night to partially distance herself from what she said. She also claimed that the “swivel-eyed” jibe only applied to people condemning Tories as “traitors” - although the actual quote (see above) implies she is using it to refer to elderly, hard Brexit supporters in general.
(1/3) The conversation with my MP colleagues was had at a time when we were all working so hard to get the Brexit Bill passed last year. Passions were running high and mine spilled over. No excuses but it was painful to see hard working, loyal colleagues branded as “traitors”.
— Claire Perry (@claireperrymp) January 28, 2018
(2/3) My comments were exclusively directed at those using the term of “traitor” to describe my colleagues, and to suggest that I am somehow applying them to anyone else is 100% wrong.
— Claire Perry (@claireperrymp) January 28, 2018
(3/3) Whether one voted Leave or Remain in 2016 no longer matters. There is a unity of purpose to deliver the smooth and orderly Brexit that the PM and Brexit Secretary are negotiating.
— Claire Perry (@claireperrymp) January 28, 2018
In 2013 Lord Feldman, the then Conservative co-chairman and a close ally of David Cameron’s, got into trouble after it was claimed he had referred to Tory activists as “mad, swivel-eyed loons” in private comments to reporters. He strongly denied using the phrase.
In other circumstances Perry’s would be of little or no consequence. But over the last week or so the Conservative party’s uneasy, semi-truce over Brexit has collapsed and the two sides - the Brexit hardliners lined up behind Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and the Eurorpean Research Group and the softer Brexit pragmatists led by Philip Hammond - are briefing against each other with revived ferocity, in a way that threatens Theresa May’s premiership. The Perry insult won’t help calm things down.
Here is our overnight story about the Tory Brexit difficulties.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former co chief of staff, and the Conservative MP Johnny Mercer speak at a Resolution Foundation event about the future of the Conservatives.
11am: Downing Street lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Damian Hinds, the new education secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
2.35pm: David Davis, the Brexit secretary, gives evidence to the Lords EU committee.
3pm: Former intelligence chiefs give evidence to the joint national security strategy committee.
3.30pm: Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, gives a press conference after EU ministers meet to agree the EU’s negotiating guidelines for the Brexit transition.
At some point today the cabinet’s key Brexit committee, the EU exit and trade (strategy and negotiations) sub-committee, is also holding another meeting to discuss what final Brexit outcome (“end state”) the UK actually wants. As yet, there is no agreement.
As usual, I will 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 lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
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’ top 10 must reads.
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