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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

All Tuesday's big events at the Tory party conference – as they happened

Evening summary

  • Javid has said that he does not mind knowing that his own father would not have been able to come to the UK under the immigration plans announced today that will block entry for low-skilled workers. Javid’s father came to the UK from Pakistan, although the low-skilled workers affected by the new policy are those from the EU who can currently come to the UK under freedom of movement rules. (See 6.25pm.)

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Viner ends with a quickfire round, but as they get to the end Javid starts to equivocate.

Q: Paul Dacre or Geordie Grieg?

Javid says they are both good men.

Q: Obama or Trump?

Javid says he respects the current president, but would rather have a drink with Obama

I respect the current president of the United States.

But he says he would rather a drink with Obama

Q: Dominic Grieve or Dominic Cummings?

Dominic Raab, says Javid.

And that’s it.

Q: What do you think of Bob Blackman, the Tory MP accused for various reasons of being Islamophobic?

Javid says he does not accept that characterisation of Blackman. He is a great person, he says. He says he does not think there is a racist bone in Blackman’s body. He says Blackman loves his constituents.

Updated

Q: Why did you decide it would be acceptable for two jihadists who had been British citizens to face the death penalty in the US?

Javid says the government is opposed to the death penalty. That has not changed.

He says the case in question is still going through the courts. He cannot get into the facts of this case.

He says he will do everything he can to protect the UK.

Updated

Turning to Grenfell, Javid says he did not want to tell survivors they would have to move into new homes if they were not ready for that yet.

He says John Healey, his opposite number, exploited this politically.

Q: But some families have not moved into permanent housing yet?

But what do you do if they are not happy with what they are offered? He cites as an example a family moving into a home, but then deciding they did not want to be within sight of the tower. Or a family wanting to take time to see if a new school worked out.

Updated

Javid says he accepts that people are angry about not being able to afford homes. There is a problem with the housing market, he says. It will take a long time to fix.

Nationalisation won’t help with that, he says.

Q: Is it tough being a millennial?

Of course, says Javid. He has teenage children. He knows the challenges.

He says some 40% of mortgage transactions involve help from the bank of mum and dad.

Q: How do you do it?

There is only one way, says Javid: build more homes.

Q: How about limiting the number of second homes?

Javid says he has looked at that. (He used to be communities secretary, in charge of housing.) But it would only make a difference at the margin. The only solution is to build more homes.

He says rent controls (as proposed by Labour) would be disastrous.

Q: What do millennials do in the meantime?

It will take time, he says.

But he says anyone who says price controls or rent controls are the answer is “mad”. Or if they are not mad, they are misleading people, he says.

  • Javid says rent controls would be “mad”.

Javid says that Jeremy Cobryn is “completely deluded”, but that he believes in what he says.

Javid says some people think the rich are not paying enough tax.

But the richest 10% are paying almost 60% of income tax.

Q: That’s because they are earning more?

Javid says they have always earned more. That is why they are the top 10%.

Q: Is laissez-faire economics going out of fashion?

Javid says the case needs to be made again.

Q: So you don’t think it’s a disgrace that no banker went to jail?

Of course any banker who breaks the law should get jailed.

He says Fred Goodwin, and the fact that he got his pension , was a disgrace.

But he did not break the law, Javid says.

RBS had a balance sheet bigger than the economy. The government did not regulate it properly. Labour were giving him gongs. What happened was outrageous. But to say he should go to jail would be wrong, Javid implies, because he did not break the law.

Updated

Q: What did the financial crash look like as a banker?

It was very worrying, Javid says.

He says this was one of the things that inspired him to go into politics. He thought he had something to contribute. There should be people in politics who understood finance, he thought.

Q: How do you think Labour handled the crash?

It was a very difficult situation, he says. He says there were one or two things he would have done differently. But by and large “they tried to handle it the best they could”.

Q: Boris Johnson said today it was a disgrace that no banker went to jail.

Javid says people should to go to jail if they break the law.

He says the deregulation that took place in the Blair/Brown years did not help, and going into the crash with a big deficit did not help, he says.

He says Australia managed its finances better. So the impact there was less, he says.

Updated

Q: Is it hard to understand ordinary people when you are so wealthy?

Javid says he does not think so. He has met some very wealthy people who have a good understanding of others. It is background and values that allow you to understand others.

He gets a round of applause for this.

Viner says she has been reading about Javid’s background.

Q: It is said that at the age of 14 you borrowed £500 to invest in shares and read the Financial Times.

That’s right, says Javid.

Q: And it is said at university you formed a rightwing guerrilla fighting force in student politics with Robert Halfon and Tim Montgomerie.

That’s more or less right, says Javid.

Q: Is it true that you read passages from Ayn Rand to your wife on your honeymoon?

Javid says he has read a scene out to his wife. The courtroom scene. But it may not have been on his honeymoon; it may have been when they were planning it.

Q: It is said you were earning £3m a year as a banker and took a 98% pay cut to become an MP.

Javid says he won’t comment on his salary, that’s “speculation”, but he did take a pay cut to become an MP.

Updated

Q: Under this policy, your father would not have been allowed into the UK.

Javid says he has thought about this. At the time there was a route for people like him to come to Britain. He lived in a Pakistani village, and he remembers people coming to the village encouraging that type of immigration because that is what the UK needed.

Q: Does it make you sad that he would not qualify now?

No, says Javid. He says he is optimistic about the future.

He says the referendum result was not a decision by the British people to turn their back on the world. It was a vote to take back control of immigration, not to shut people out.

Updated

Q: How will the UK be able to cope without unskilled labour from the EU?

Javid says policy should be based on evidence. Amber Rudd asked the Migration Advisory Committee to report on this. It did, earlier in the month.

He says the committee found that low-skilled immigration may increase GDP, but it did not improve GDP per head, or productivity.

He says more details of the new policy will be set out in the forthcoming white paper.

He is “absolutely confident” that the new system will meet the needs of the economy.

Updated

Q: What is the difference between a hostile environment policy [Theresa May’s term] and a compliant environment policy [the term used by the Home Office now]?

Javid says he understands the term compliant environment policy. He does not really know what a hostile environment policy means.

He says he does not like the word “hostile” in this context. It sounds harsh.

Updated

Q: So what are you doing to stop this happening again? Ending the hostile environment policy?

Javid says Amber Rudd, his predecessor, set up a unit to help those affected. That is happening. He is also setting up a compensation scheme. And finally there must be a lessons learned exercise, he says.

He queries the “hostile environment” term. That implies it was government policy that caused the problem. But he says almost half of the 164 Windrush cases involving people detained or deported wrongly happened under Labour.

Viner says Amelia Gentleman told her Javid would say that. But she should not accept that, Viner says she was told. She says Gentleman said if you look at people losing jobs or benefits, the problems all happened under the Conservatives.

Javid does not accept that. He says the Labour government introduced some of these policies. He says it was a Labour minister, Liam Byrne, who first talked about a hostile environment. And John Reid, when he was home secretary, spoke about making life as hard as possible for illegal immigrants.

Javid says any attempt to say this is a specific Tory problem is “either bad reporting or a deliberate attempt to twist the facts”.

Updated

Q: Were you surprised by how much uproar the Windrush story caused?

Sajid Javid starts by paying tribute to the work the Guardian did on that story, particular Amelia Gentleman’s reporting. The Guardian is not his paper of choice, he says. But as culture secretary he learned to realise how important a pluralistic media environment is.

He was not surprised by the outrage. The British public has a sense of decency. When they saw what happened, there was an uproar.

Q: Why did it take so long for people to pick up on what went wrong? (The Guardian was reporting these cases for some months before the story got picked up by others and the Home Office responded.)

Javid says at first people thought these were only a handful of cases. When he heard the stories, he thought it could have been his family, his mum. He has met some of the victims. There were appalling stories. In at least three cases people died.

Updated

Sajid Javid interviewed by Guardian editor Katharine Viner

Sajid Javid, the home secretary, is being interviewed by Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, at a fringe event at the conference. The event will start shortly.

Gove rules out banning non-biodegradable disposable nappies

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has hinted that disposable nappies that do not decompose naturally could soon be banned. Speaking at a fringe meeting, he said a different approach would need to be taken with items that harmed the land and sea and that his aim was to “reduce as much as possible” the amount of waste that went to landfill.

Asked if it was time to ban disposable nappies that are non-biodegradable, he replied:

I mustn’t make too much news or commit too much in advance of anything the chancellor might say but, yes, the direction of travel is that we are going to have to identify, not quite item-by-item but sector-by-sector, those areas where we do need to take a different approach.

The budget will take place on 29 October.

UPDATE: Gove has been in touch on Twitter to say the government won’t ban non-biodegradable nappies.

Updated

This is from my colleague Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor.

Sky’s Faisal Islam has posted this from his interview with Theresa May.

Some Tory MPs don't tell truth about writing letters demanding leadership contest, says man who knows

The senior Tory backbencher in charge of monitoring letters of no confidence has hinted the numbers wanting to depose the prime minister might not be as numerous as some of her more vocal critics believed.

MPs must write to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee of backbenchers, should they wish to move a no confidence vote in Theresa May, with 48 letters needed for a full vote to be triggered.

Brady, who is the only person who knows how many letters have been sent, cautioned against believing some of his more trigger-happy colleagues.

“The distance between what some of my colleagues say they might have done and what they actually have done can be considerable,” the Tory veteran told a fringe meeting hosted by the Centre for Policy Studies.

There are instances where I will see a Conservative colleague on the television saying they have written a letter to me when they haven’t. I will see them on the television saying they had withdrawn the letter to me, when they haven’t sent it in the first place. You have to be careful what you believe.

Brady, a Brexiter, said he had not purchased a “chuck Chequers” badge but declined to overtly endorse the policy. He said:

My immediate preference would always be for an ambitious free trade agreement. What I think is likely to happen, and I base this on the optimism of the prime minister and those around her, is that there appears to be a strong belief there will be an agreement reached based on Chequers ... it won’t be Chequers but it will be based on Chequers.

My concern is that we do deliver Brexit ... we need to look at what comes out of the process and what the other scenarios are that might come into play.

Brady said he had told the prime minister this week that although not everyone in the party is a “big fan”, they conceded she had “a dogged determination and an ability to absorb punishment that everybody admires.”

May says Boris Johnson's 'frustrating' Brexit stance on Ireland makes her 'cross'

Theresa May has been giving more broadcast interviews today - although not as many as the TV news organisations want. (See 4.10pm.) Here are the main things she has been saying.

  • May said that Boris Johnson’s stance on Brexit made her “cross”. Asked if his speech made her cross, she replied:

There are one of two things that Boris said that I’m cross about. He wants to tear up our guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. We are all – he and I and all members here are members of the Conservative and Unionist party. That’s because we believe in the Union of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is part of that Union.

In a separate interview she said that this aspect of Johnson’s Brexit policy was “frustrating”. She said:

What he appeared to be saying was he wanted to tear up something which was effectively a guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland. I believe as a Unionist that it is important that we recognise the needs and concerns of people in Northern Ireland.

  • She said that she did not watch Johnson’s speech, but that he “always puts on a good show”. However, what mattered was delivering for people on things that affect their lives, she said.
  • She claimed Johnson was a good foreign secretary. Asked what made her think he would be good at the job, she said:

I thought Boris would be a good foreign secretary and he was a good foreign secretary.

  • She brushed aside claims that the DUP comments today would prevent her making a compromise on the Irish backstop that would make a deal with the EU possible. (See 3.17pm.) When this point was put to her, she replied:

We are continuing to work on that new offer and we will put a new offer before the European commission ... We are working on the proposal that we will put forward to the European Union on this so-called backstop.People use this phrase ‘backstop’. What it means is a guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland. We committed to that in December in the joint report.

Updated

And in his speech to the conference Damian Hinds, the education secretary, announced that he was allocating £66m over five years to enable around 50 schools and colleges to be centres of excellence for English and maths; allocating £10m to improve behaviour training for teachers; and that he was doubling the number of trained career leaders in schools.

Damian Hinds on stage at the Conservative conference.
Damian Hinds on stage at the Conservative conference. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

In his speech to the conference Matt Hancock, the health secretary, announced that he would allocated an extra £240m this winter to pay for social care packages this winter to support the NHS.

But he did not say anything about what would be in the government’s green paper on social care coming later this year, beyond declaring that “reform of social care is long overdue.”

He also announced that he was expanding the “100,000 genome project so 1 million whole genomes will now be sequence”. Explaining what this meant, he said:

From today, our brand new NHS Genomic Medicine Service will roll out access to genomic testing.

So for everyone with a rare cancer, and for all seriously ill children, it’ll be available on the NHS…

… so we’ll have tailor made treatments and tailor made drugs that are the best fit for a patient not a best guess.

We’re leading the world, and I’m incredibly excited about this technology because of its potential to change lives for the better.

Matt Hancock speaking at the Tory conference.
Matt Hancock speaking at the Tory conference. Photograph: James Gourley/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Here is Theresa May arriving at the conference centre earlier.

Theresa May arrives at the conference centre on the third day of the Conservative conferences
Theresa May arrives at the conference centre on the third day of the Conservative conferences Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

And here is Boris Johnson a bit later taking the same route.

Boris Johnson arrives ahead of his speech at the conference.
Boris Johnson arrives ahead of his speech at the conference. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Major news broadcasters all complain to No 10 about May limiting interview opportunities

British broadcasters have sent a letter to the prime minister’s head of communications complaining about the “unprecedented circumstances” surrounding interviews with the prime minister at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham.

Representatives of BBC News, ITV News, ITN, Sky News, Channel 4 News, and Channel 5 News co-signed the letter, obtained by the Guardian, which criticises Downing Street’s decision to limit the number of broadcast interviews undertaken by the prime minister. In their letter they said:

For a functioning democracy it is vital that in turn the politicians and in particular the leaders and even prime ministers are also questioned and held to account in one-to-one interviews.

As public service broadcasters we are required by licence to produce high-quality, impartial and accurate news and analysis. If we interview the other party leaders at the conferences we are required for balance to interview every party leader.

They went on to compare the current situation to the treatment of the media by the US president, Donald Trump:

We have already seen attempts to exclude some journalistic organisations in America from press conferences, attempts which were resisted by the solidarity of the broadcasters who refused to allow it. We hope you will take this into consideration and make the prime minister available for interview with all the UK’s national broadcasters.

The letter is addressed to the prime minister’s head of communications Robbie Gibb, a former BBC News executive.

Updated

May ally hits back at Boris Johnson says he would struggle to provide serious leadership

David Gauke, the justice secretary, has hit back at Boris Johnson on behalf of the prime minister, the BBC’s Chris Mason reports.

Jon Snow, the Channel 4 News presenter, is complaining that he has been refused an interview with Theresa May today.

In a Facebook post ITV’s political editor Robert Peston says allowing regulatory checks on goods going from Britain to Northern Ireland will be part of Theresa May’s revised Irish backstop plan (the last-resort plan to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, as demanded by the EU). He says the DUP comments today (see 2.51pm) increase the risk of a hard Brexit.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, seems to agree.

DUP says it would vote against any Brexit deal involving border checks across Irish Sea

The DUP has threatened to pull the plug on Theresa May’s government warning it is not “bluffing” when it says it will not accept a border in the Irish Sea.

Nigel Dodds, the leader of the party in the House of Commons, said the party would vote against her if she returned from Brussels with a deal that involved any new checks on goods coming into Northern Ireland from Britain.

“We will vote against it,” he said. We will vote for our red lines,” he told the Guardian.

His remarks come just hours after the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, said the party’s supply and confidence arrangement with the Conservatives was “party to party” and not with May herself, fuelling speculation she would support another leader.

Dodds said the DUP was not afraid to take action if the prime minister betrayed them by going back on her promise that Northern Ireland would not be left with different trading and customs arrangements from Britain in a Brexit deal. He said:

In Northern Ireland we’ve grown up with a lot of fears and issues that we’ve faced, frankly being afraid of what Theresa May may do is not one of my biggest fears.

Updated

Here is some more comment on the Boris Johnson speech.

From the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush

From Sky’s Faisal Islam

From the Spectator’s James Forsyth

From Sky’s Adam Boulton

From the Observer’s Michael Savage

From ITV’s Robert Peston

From the Financial Times’ Sebastian Payne

From LBC’s Iain Dale

From HuffPost’s Paul Waugh

Updated

Boris Johnson's speech - snap verdict

Boris Johnson’s speech - Snap verdict: Has Boris Johnson’s moment passed? That is one of the great questions posed by this conference, and most of those in the audience for that speech seemed to think that the answer was no. It is hard to recall any genuinely stirring conference speeches this autumn - not even the best speeches delivered in the main hall at Birmingham have qualified as exciting - but Johnson can fire up Tory activists like no one else since Michael Heseltine in his prime. You should never underestimate anyone who can generate a three-hour queue.

And it started very well. If Johnson wants to become prime minister, he will need to persuade people that he has an agenda that goes beyond hard Brexit. And his passage on housing - where he quite rightly identified that being forced out of the housing market is driving young voters to Labour, and where he set himself up as some sort of Macmillan/Thatcher on home ownership - felt like the kernel of a new Conservatism. Less convincingly, he also combined that with a call for lower taxes (although, interestingly, today he was just calling for tax cuts for people on low and modest incomes - the last time he worshipped at the shrine of Arthur Laffer, just a few weeks ago, he was calling for tax cuts for everyone.)

But we never quite got a fully fledged, alternative Conservative agenda, and then he turned to Brexit, where the speech became just a rehash of his 4,600-word anti-Chequers polemic published in the Daily Telegraph last week. It restated his call for a “super-Canada” trade deal. But he did not have anything new to say about the objections raised (mainly, that it would erect trade barriers, clobbering manufacturing dependent on just-in-time supply lines, and that it would put a hard border in Ireland).

If it felt as if Johnson had also constructed a mechanism for ousting Theresa May, the speech might have conveyed some menace. But there is nothing in what he said to suggest that he has got around the problem that he does not have enough parliamentary votes to get rid of her.

Earlier this week, an an interview with the Daily Mail, Philip Hammond, the chancellor, rubbished Johnson by mimicking him saying: “We just have to want it a bit more ... and it will all be fine.” In other words, he was saying that wishful thinking is, quite literally, Johnson’s strategy. On the basis of this speech, the same probably applies to Johnson’s leadership ambitions.

Boris Johnson giving his speech.
Boris Johnson giving his speech. Photograph: James Gourley/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

And here is Johnson’s peroration.

And so for one last time, I urge our friends in government to deliver what the people voted for, to back Theresa May in the best way possible, by softly, quietly, and sensibly backing her original plan. And in so doing to believe in conservatism and to believe in Britain.

Because if we get it wrong we will be punished. And if we get it right we can have a glorious future.

This government will then be remembered for having done something brave and right and remarkable and in accordance with the wishes of the people.

Johnson says the far left would benefit if the electorate felt betrayed.

The far left in the form of Jeremy Corbyn – a man who takes money from Iranian TV, who can barely bring himself to condemn the Russian state for the Salisbury atrocity, who indulges antisemitism, and who by opportunistically committing himself to the misery and farce of a second referendum, has finally revealed himself to be the patsy of the EU as well.

Updated

Johnson says Chequers would cheat the electorate.

If we get this right, it can be win-win for both sides of the Channel.

If we get it wrong – if we bottle Brexit now – believe me, the people of this country will find it hard to forgive.

If we get it wrong, if we proceed with this undemocratic solution, if we remain half-in half out, we will protract this toxic tedious business that is frankly so off-putting to sensible middle of the road people who want us to get on with their priorities.

If we cheat the electorate – and Chequers is a cheat - we will escalate the sense of mistrust. We will give credence to those who cry betrayal, and I am afraid we will make it more likely that the ultimate beneficiary of the chequers deal will be the far right in the form of Ukip.

Johnson claims EU would benefit from having UK competing with it

Johnson claims the EU would benefit from having the UK competing with it.

And if we get it right, then the opportunities are immense. It is not just that we can do free trade deals. In so many growth areas of the economy this country is already light years ahead. Tech, data, bioscience, financial services, you name it. We can use our regulatory freedom to intensify those advantages.

And of course our European friends know that is possible – and that is exactly why they want to constrain us. Yet I would argue that it is actually in their interests too, to have the fifth biggest economy in the world, on their doorstep, acting as a continuing brake and caution to the over- regulatory instincts that have held the EU back for so long. Instead of being relentlessly homogenised, we can actually learn from each other again, in the spirit of friendly emulation that inspired the renaissance of European civilisation.

Johnson is close to winding up.

Finally, do not believe them, when they say there is no other plan, no alternative. It is not my plan, or the ERG plan, or the IEA plan. All these models, which are substantially the same, a super-Canada trade deal at the heart of a deep and special partnership, are derived from the prime minister’s own vision at Lancaster House.

So now therefore is the time truly to take back control and make the elegant dignified and grateful exit the country voted for. This is the moment – and there is time – to chuck Chequers ...

This gets an even louder round of applause.

... to scrap the commission’s constitutionally abominable Northern Ireland backstop, to use the otherwise redundant and miserable “implementation period” to the end of 2020 to negotiate the super-Canada FTA, to invest in all the customs procedures that may be needed to ensure continued frictionless trade, and to prepare much more vigorously for a WTO deal.

Updated

Johnson dismisses calls for a second referendum.

If Chequers is agreed, then it will only embolden those who are now calling for a second referendum. These are the same people, incidentally, who explicitly told the electorate that there was no going back, that voting leave meant leaving the customs union and the single market, and that there was no way they would be asked again. They are now cynically campaigning to do just that, in a way that would be disastrous for trust in politics. People would see that they would be simply being asked to vote again until they give the answer the Remainers want.

As Ruth Davidson has rightly pointed out, we cannot tell the Scots that they have made a decision to reject independence for a generation – and then ask the UK electorate to vote again on the EU.

So the idea of a second vote is infamous – but the obvious democratic fragility of Chequers will only intensify such calls.

Johnson says it is 'total fantasy' to think Brexit can be fixed if UK leaves on wrong terms

Johnson dismisses those (like Michael Gove) who argue that, as long as the UK leaves the EU now, it will be able to revisit the terms later.

Do not believe that we can somehow get it wrong now and fix it later – get out properly next year, or the year after. Total fantasy.

This gets a huge round of applause - perhaps the loudest so far.

The opposite will happen. I have been watching the EU professionally for 30 years, and every time a referendum goes against the federalist movement, I have seen how the centripetal forces lock on and slowly slowly the offending country is winched back into place.

Indeed, by its manifest democratic injustice, Chequers provides the perfect logic and argument for those who want Britain to return to the EU, and is therefore a recipe for continued acrimony.

Johnson presses on with his critique of Chequers.

This is not taking back control: this is forfeiting control.

And they know it in Brussels. Do not be fooled by the suggestion that the EU will ultimately reject these proposals. Because what they want above all is to demonstrate above all – to any other country that might even dream of following suit – that you cannot leave the EU without suffering adverse political or economic consequences.

And what the Chequers proposals show is that the United Kingdom, for all its power and might and network of influences around the world, for all its venerable parliamentary history, was ultimately unable to take back control. And instead of reasserting our ability to make our own laws, the UK will be effectively paraded in manacles down the Rue de la Loi like Caractacus.

Updated

Chequers plan "is not democracy', says Johnson

Johnson claims that Chequers is not democracy.

And it occurs to me that the authors of the Chequers proposal risk prosecution under the 14th century statute of praemunire, which says that no foreign court or government shall have jurisdiction in this country.

It would mean that UK business and industry – the entire UK economy - would be exposed perpetually to regulations that might have been expressly designed, at the behest of foreign competitors, to do them down.

It would mean that whatever the EU came up with, banning the sale of eggs by the dozen, banning diabetics from driving, banning vaping, whatever - and all of those have been at least considered by Brussels in the last few years - all of this nonsense we would have to implement with no ability to change or resist.

This is not pragmatic, it is not a compromise. It is dangerous and unstable – politically and economically.

My fellow Conservatives, this is not democracy. This is not what we voted for. This is an outrage.

This takes Johnson to Brexit.

Think what we could do with proper free trade deals. And that is why it is so sad, so desperately wrong, that we are preparing to agree terms with Brussels that would make it difficult if not impossible to do such deals.

And that is why it is such a mistake for us to leave on the Chequers terms, locked in the tractor beam of Brussels. We will not only be prevented from offering our tariff schedules. We will be unable to make our own laws – to vary our regulatory framework for goods, agrifoods and much much more besides.

This is politically humiliating for a £2tn economy.

Updated

And, finally, he gets around to talking about his experience as foreign secretary.

Not long ago I became the first foreign secretary to visit Peru for 52 years. And as I stood in some glittering embassy soiree in Lima I remembered that one of my Labour predecessors, Lord George Brown, had been at a similar event in the same place and allegedly made a pass at a creature clad in gorgeous scarlet who turned out to be the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima.

And I wondered why it had taken 52 years for a UK foreign secretary to visit this amazing place. It can’t have been the indiscretions of Lord George Brown.

Why was it 25 years since any of my predecessors had been to Argentina or Chile? It was because our entire global strategy has been focused on the EU. And while that may have been sensible in the 1970s, when we first joined the common market, it makes less sense in the globalised economy of today, when 95% of the world’s growth is going to be outside the EU.

Of course the EU is and will always be colossally important. But the rest of the world is proportionally gaining ground. And I was thrilled to find that even though our trade with these Latin American countries is still relatively small, the UK is already the second biggest investor in Peru, and that we already drink the second biggest quota of Argentinian Malbec.

Updated

Johnson talks about the importance of trade.

We are the only country in the world to have a trade surplus with America in music. And our manufacturing ingenuity gets daily more boggling. I think of the Uxbridge factory that makes bus stops in Las Vegas.

Wake up with a hangover in Vegas and the chances are that a little piece of London is shielding you from the elements.

And the other Uxbridge factory that makes the futuristic wooden display cabinets for duty free Toblerones in every airport in Saudi Arabia. Think of that – the invisible hand of the market circling the earth in search of a Toblerone cabinet and pointing at Uxbridge.

And now is the time to turbo charge those exports, as Liam Fox has said.

Johnson calls for tax cuts for those on low and modest incomes

Johnson calls for lower taxes.

We can’t lose our faith in competition and choice and markets.

Indeed we should restate the truth that there is simply no other system that is so miraculously successful in satisfying human wants and needs.

We should set our taxes at the optimum rate to stimulate investment and growth, and we should be constantly aiming not to increase but to cut taxes. Mindful of the insight of the great 14th century Tunisian sage Ibn Khaldoun – picked up by Arthur Laffer – that you can often cut taxes to increase yields. We should have as our objective – as soon as possible – to cut taxes for those on low and modest incomes, because it is Conservative to give people back control of their money.

Updated

Johnson takes a diversion into stop-and-search, and takes a swipe at Theresa May (who reduced the use of stop-and-search when she was home secretary.)

And let’s bring back stop and search incidentally, and end this politically correct nonsense that has endangered the lives of young people in our capital.

From there Johnson moves on to make a wider point about the market.

And when I champion the market economy you can see that I do not claim that it is perfect. It is a disgrace that no banker went to jail for the crash of 2008. I can see that the utilities have cunning ways of ripping off the consumer.

But this occasional failure of markets does not mean that state control is better.

I listened carefully to Corbyn last week, and it was astonishing that he had absolutely nothing to say about the wealth creating sector of the economy.

The people who get up at the crack of dawn to prepare their shops. The grafters and the grifters, the innovators, the entrepreneurs.

He didn’t mention any successes. He did not mention a single sector of the market economy. None of it interested him except in so far as he seems to want to nationalise 10 per cent of every company of more than 250 employees.

The only organisation whose output he singled out for praise was Preston council. I am sure they are an estimable bunch, but Preston council are not the locomotive of the UK economy.

We Conservatives know that it is only a strong private sector economy that can pay for superb public services. And that is the central symmetry of our one nation Toryism.

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Johnson proposes measures to stimulate housing market

Johnson explains how he thinks more homes could be built.

So let’s follow our Conservative instincts, and give millions more young people the chance to become owner-occupiers. Let’s encourage more small private builders as my colleague Richard Bacon has suggested for so long.

Let’s take on the big eight home builders, some of whom are now frankly abusing their dominant position.

Let’s crack down on landbankers.

And let’s give councils the incentives they need to encourage growth, and give planning permissions – on those brownfield sites, with long overdue fiscal devolution.

Give the councils the ability to retain stamp duty, council tax, business rates, and annual tax on enveloped dwellings, and they will have a motive to go for growth.

Of course you would need to prevent councils from hiking the business rate, and you would need an equalisation formula because the yields are so different across the country.

But fiscal devolution is not only Tory in principle. It is a way to help councils that are really feeling the squeeze – with the rising cost of services for the elderly. And at the same time it is the way to build the homes our children and grandchildren are going to need.

Johnson says Labour does not understand the desire to own one’s own home.

And yet Labour hates that instinct. And Corbyn hates that instinct. Because although they live themselves in posh Islington townhouses they would much rather that the electorate stayed in social rented accommodation, passed by hereditary right – as, incredibly, these state-owned dwellings are – from one generation to the next.

They like it that way because they know that as soon as you get a mortgage, as soon as you have a stake in society, you are less likely to go on strike and you are more likely to vote Conservative.

And if you stay in social rented accommodation you are more likely to vote Labour.

But I tell you something ConHomers.

The paradox is that the Conservative approach not only delivers more homes for private purchase, it delivers more affordable homes as well.

Johnson says housing offers 'massive opportunity' for Tories

Johnson says housing offers “a massive opportunity” for the Tories.

It is also a massive opportunity for us Tories. If we rise to the challenge, if we get it right, it is an open goal, because this is one of those critical issues where in the phrase of Chris Patten the facts of life do always turn out to be Conservative.

And Labour’s instincts actually clash in a fundamental way with the instincts of ordinary people.

Worse still, Labour’s political interests – which centre on the building and control of state-owned housing – are diametrically opposed to the interests of most families.

I remember when I was first absolutely certain that we Tories were right about housing.

I was a reporter on the Wolverhampton Express and Star, not far from here. And I went out to see a couple who were complaining about damp.

It was a terrible scene. They were sitting there and with the heating on full blast and a baby crying, and the condensation dripping down the window, and there were these great black spores all over the wall. The chap was in his socks in an armchair and in a state of total despair. He was worried about the baby’s cough – which was getting worse.

The council wouldn’t do anything, and he felt he couldn’t do anything – because it was not his property, and I could see that he felt somehow unmanned by the situation.

And I felt very sorry for them both – because they were total prisoners of the system.

And I thought what a difference it would make to that family if they had been able to take back control - to coin a phrase. To buy that flat.

And since then I have lost count of the times – and I bet you have too – when I have been out campaigning, and someone has told me on the doorstep that they would vote Conservative forever out of sheer gratitude to us for letting them buy their own home.

That is what people want – the pride of having a place they own.

A sense of excitement that has probably been common to humanity since the first couple took vacant possession of the first mud hut in Mohenjo-daro.

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Johnson says people have more choice than ever before.

In some respects we have more choice than you can shake a stick at. We can watch anything anywhere any time. We can zoom off to Airbnbs on cheapo flights. Our food is better, our cars are faster and safer, our life expectancy is certainly a lot longer.

And yet there is one huge difference between a baby-boomer like me and all you ConHome millennials out there. One cardinal way in which opportunity has declined.

And that is in the scope and power of the younger generation, with their own resources, to buy somewhere to live that they can call their own.

It is a disgraceful fact that we now have lower rates of owner occupation – for under 40s - than the French or the Germans.

That reflects the failure of governments for the last 30 years to build enough housing.

(I’ve now got a text of the speech. I will be quoting from the text, although Johnson seems to be making some minor departures from it.)

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Johnson says the Tories need to take on Labour.

Surely we can take on this Tony Benn tribute act and wallop them for six.

The Tories should not copy them, he says.

He says Labour would clobber business.

And they would confine the country to more “tedium, rancour and uncertainty” by having another referendum.

He says the Tories must not let them near the government of this country.

Johnson says he is worried Tories are losing confidence in freedom

Johnson says he wants to talk about his worries - particularly since this is just a fringe meeting that won’t be widely reported.

He says he is worried the party is losing confidence in freedom.

  • Johnson says he is worried Tories are losing confidence in freedom.

He says his function is to “put some lead in the collective pencil”, with some humility.

Not in a spirit of jingo, he says.

Boris Johnson's speech

Boris Johnson is speaking now.

He starts with what is, by his standards, a lousy joke. He says it is nice to be in Birmingham where so many roads are named after the mayor - Andy Street.

And then - a better joke. He thinks Philip Hammond for saying he won’t be Tory leader. That is one Treasury forecast that might come true, he says.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said any new government concession to the EU making it harder for the UK to sign its own future trade deals would be “an utter disgrace” and would see voters desert the Conservatives.

Speaking at a fringe event organised by the European Research Group (ERG), the strongly pro-Brexit contingent of Tory MPs he chairs, Rees-Mogg also said he believed many cabinet members might be amenable to the so-called super-Canada Brexit alternative being pushed by the ERG.

Overnight, the Times reported Theresa May might be willing to amend her Chequers proposal to make it more acceptable in Brussels, tying the UK to EU rules on goods, thus making separate trade deals harder.

Ress-Mogg told a generally rapturous audience:

Not only would it be a disgrace in terms of what I as a leaver believe, it would be dishonourable in terms of what was promised to the British electorate. It would mean the manifesto I stood for parliament on was not meant.

It would, he added, “open the door to 10 Downing Street for one Jeremy Corbyn” because so many Conservative voters would stay away.

On super-Canada, Ress-Mogg said a number of cabinet ministers, even Philip Hammond, had “very much left the door open” to such a deal, if problems with the Irish border could be solved, adding that the EU seemed positive on this point.

The bulk of Rees-Mogg’s speech and Q&A was his standard anti-Chequers pitch, mixed in with his usual, by now very polished self-deprecating jokes. Today’s included an anecdote about his eight-year-old son supposedly worrying where his father would get supplies of claret after Brexit, and a mention of visiting the National Archives ending with: “Luckily, they agreed to let me out at the end.”

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Javid says he will extend use of powers to strip dual nationals of citizenship

In his speech Javid also announced that he would use powers to strip dual nationals of their UK citizenship against people involved in gangs that sexually exploit children. He said:

The home secretary has the power to strip dual-citizens of their British citizenship.

It is a power used for extreme and exceptional cases.

It should be used with great care and discretion – but also determination.

In recent years we have exercised this power for terrorists who are a threat to the country.

Now, for the first time, I will apply this power to some of those who are convicted of the most grave criminal offences.

This applies to some of the despicable men involved in gang-based child sexual exploitation.

So our message to the very worst criminals is clear:

If you grossly abuse the laws of this country.

You will no longer be welcome in our home.

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This is from Bloomberg’s Thomas Penny.

Scottish Tory MPs have launched a campaign to help thwart a leadership bid by Boris Johnson, claiming that having him as leader or prime minister could shatter the party’s revival in Scotland.

The Daily Record reports they have nicknamed their efforts “Operation Arse”, quoting one anonymous source as saying: “We called it that so we’d all be clear who we were talking about.”

They point to polling by the Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, which shows that with Johnson as leader, support for Labour and other parties would surge, losing the Tories the 12 Scottish seats that secured Theresa May’s wafer-thin election victory last year.

An unspoken subtext is that a Johnson leadership could also boost the Scottish National party campaign for independence and a second referendum: he is hated so much north of the border, it would undermine the fragile case for the union after Brexit.

The Record and Herald report the organisers of this Scottish counter-coup want Tory MPs to vote against Johnson in any leadership contest and lobby their constituency associations to do likewise.

The Herald said one MP at the party’s conference in Birmingham said the prospect of the Tories being led by Johnson was “a nightmare scenario for Ruth” which would “leave her badly exposed. The Nats and Labour in Scotland would have a field day.”

These briefings imply this campaign is backed by Ruth Davidson, the combative Scottish Tory leader who became a key Conservative spokesperson for remain and has been extremely blunt about her views of Johnson.

It is, however, far from clear whether there will be unanimity in Scottish Tory ranks. While many MPs are loyal to Davidson, some, such as John Lamont (MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) fiercely so, there are others who are staunch leave campaigners, such as Ross Thomson, the MP for Aberdeen South.

Thomson has ignored Davidson’s appeal for her group to stop undermining Theresa May’s Brexit stance; he told the BBC earlier this year he and Davidson “had agreed to disagree” over the Chequers plan. “I don’t clear anything with anybody, thank you,” he added.

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Javid has just finished his speech. Here is his peroration.

I speak with feeling about this country ...

because for my family, Britain was a choice.

They came here for freedom, security, opportunity and prosperity.

It is because of these strengths that I have always been an optimist about Britain’s future.

And now it is my duty as their son, and a child of this country,

to help secure for this generation –

and for future generations –

all of the things that make this country a beacon for the world.

Together, we will build that stronger home.

Sajid Javid is delivering a reasonably meaty speech, but, as the Manchester Evening News’ Jennifer Williams points out, he is addressing a half-empty hall.

Everyone is queueing for Boris Johnson.

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In his speech Javid has just managed to get the Conservative conference to applaud Diane Abbott, saying that she deserves credit for being the first black woman elected to the House of Commons. That line in his speech came as a bit of a surprise, but the audience did applaud properly.

Javid says English language tests for people seeking UK citizenship will get harder

Javid is also announcing two changes to the process by which people apply for citizenship.

The Life in the UK test that people have to sit will be updated, he says. (This seems sensible. Some of the questions are quite obscure. In fact, they are so difficult that Ed Miliband included a whole round based on current Life in the UK questions in the World Transformed pub quiz at the Labour conference last week.)

According to the Tories, there will be a consultation on “putting British values at the heart of Life in the UK test” and updating the handbook.

More significantly, perhaps, Javid is going to make the language test for citizenship harder. In their press notice the Tories say:

We are raising the level of language proficiency expected for adults seeking to naturalise as British citizens. Language ability is a key skill which aids the effective integration of adults and their families into the UK and promotes positive outcomes. We want to see people who want to become citizens to make a commitment to their integration by investing in the skills they need to integrate as quickly as possible ...

There is [currently] no difference in the English language requirement for settlement and for citizenship ... This fails to recognise the greater significance of British citizenship, or give the incentive for those who have settled here to continue developing their English language skills.

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Sajid Javid announces measures to tighten laws on forced marriage

Sajid Javid, the home secretary, is speaking now. The Conservative party has just sent out a news release saying Javid will be announcing a series of measures tightening the law on forced marriage. It says Javid will be:

Consulting to include an explicit reference to forced marriage in the immigration rules to demonstrate that forced marriage is unacceptable in the UK. This will give us the means to refuse entry where there is evidence that the marriage is forced.

Consulting on introducing a mandatory reporting duty for forced marriage to help us tackle this appalling crime. This will ensure that where a crime is committed it is reported to the police, leading to more perpetrators paying for their crimes.

Working to ensure anonymous evidence of forced marriage can be admissible as closed evidence in the visa appeals process. Where someone is being forced to sponsor a spousal visa as part of a forced marriage we will always protect their anonymity. However, we want to ensure this evidence can be used to refuse a visa and that this refusal withstands an appeal in court.

Consulting on refreshed multi-agency statutory guidance on forced marriage to help ensure professionals understand forced marriage. Professionals also need to understand risk factors, their responsibilities, and what action they can take to protect and support victims.

Launching a communications campaign to raise awareness and understanding of forced marriage. The campaign will highlight the many ways people are forced to marry. This will be complemented by a series of roadshows for frontline professionals to promote the use of forced marriage protection orders.

Forced marriage is already an offence, with a maximum penalty of seven years in jail.

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David Gauke, the justice secretary, has delivered his speech to the conference. It contained a series of low-key announcements.

  • Gauke said he was setting up a unit to seize money from people who deal drugs in jail. He said:

And to further crack down on drugs and violence in prison, this month we are launching a new Financial Crime Unit which will track and seize the money that criminal kingpins use to deal drugs in prison. My message to them is this: we are already blocking your phones, putting you in isolation and now we will make sure you can’t access your money. Dealing drugs in prison will no longer be profitable because we will find your assets and we will seize them.

  • He said he was launching new measures to improve education in prisons.

Today I can announce that:

… We have successfully opened up the market for prison education, increasing the number of potential providers from four to twelve…

… We are systematising offender training and employment in prison industries such as cooking, cleaning and maintenance across the prison estate. This builds on the success of the approach within custody and community which we have developed with organisations such as the Clink Charity.

And, we have agreed a formal partnership with the construction industry, led by CITB and Lendlease, to fill skills gaps in the industry and help more prisoners do a working day during their sentence and find work on release.

  • He said the government would spend £5m on Britain’s first “secure school” at Medway.

Secure Schools are a radical new concept that places education and healthcare at the heart of youth custody. They will be run by not-for-profit academy trusts, bringing genuine expertise, knowledge and innovation into the youth custody sector.

More from the Boris Johnson queue. This is from my colleague Pippa Crerar.

Chlorine-washed chicken is 'clean chicken', former Brexit minister says

Much of the talk about a possible UK-US trade deal has focused on whether or not British consumers would be willing to buy chlorine-washed chicken - chicken treated by a process banned in the EU not because it is dangerous to consumers (it isn’t, even though chlorine sounds like something you would not want to ingest), but because it could excuse lower animal welfare standards.

But in an interview on the Today programme this morning Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister and a leading figure in the European Research Group, which is pushing for a harder Brexit, said chlorine-washed chicken was just “clean chicken”. He explained:

Nobody is proposing to reduce standards in the UK and I don’t think anyone believes that there is any kind of constituency in the UK for a reduction in food standards, but if you go over to the US and raise this issue of chlorinated chicken nobody knows what you’re talking about because it’s just not an issue ... in a sense what people are objecting to is clean chicken.

Baker also said Theresa May’s continuing support for the Chequers plan was a “cause of considerable alarm” to Tory Brexiters. Asked about May sticking to Chequers, he said:

Well that is the position at the moment and it is a cause of considerable alarm to us. Yes, it takes off the table all of the benefits of an independent trade and regulatory policy, something which countries around the world are looking forward to.

Civil partnerships to be extended to straight couples, May announces

Heterosexual couples will be able to get civil partnerships, the government has announced. In an interview with the London Evening Standard Theresa May said:

This change in the law helps protect the interests of opposite-sex couples who want to commit, want to formalise their relationship but don’t necessarily want to get married.

As home secretary, I was proud to sponsor the legislation that created equal marriage. Now, by extending civil partnerships, we are making sure that all couples, be they same-sex or opposite-sex, are given the same choices in life.

This follows a supreme court ruling earlier this year saying that the current law that restricts civil partnerships to same-sex couples is discriminatory.

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Sinn Féin has reacted angrily to Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, saying the Good Friday agreement is not “sacrosanct”. (See 10.36am.) Sinn Fein president, Mary Lou McDonald, said:

Today’s comments by DUP leader, Arlene Foster, on the Good Friday agreement are unacceptable and reveal a reckless disregard for the peace process, prosperity and progress.

Foster made her comment in an interview in the Daily Telegraph. She said:

It has been deeply frustrating to hear people who voted remain and in Europe talk about Northern Ireland as though we can’t touch the Belfast agreement. Things evolve, even in the EU context. There has been a lot of misinterpretation, holding it up as a sacrosanct piece of legislation.

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Cap on number of high-skilled migrants workers allowed into UK could go, says Javid

Sajid Javid, the home secretary, has said he will consider lifting the cap on high-skilled migrants coming to the UK as part of the post-Brexit shake up of migration policy. Speaking at a fringe event ahead of his speech, Javid fleshed out some of the details trailed this morning, adding he will be looking at “better ways” of controlling migration than a restrictive cap.

Current policy is to allow 20,700 high-skilled workers into the UK each year on Tier 2 visas. Javid in June excluded medical professionals from the skilled migration cap. His speech today comes after the Migration Advisory Commitee (MAC) published a report with recommendations to scrap the cap on high-skilled migrants and move to a system that prefers high-skilled to low-skilled entrants.

In response to a question from the Guardian, he said:

The MAC report recommended that we look at scrapping the cap so I will consider that. We’ve not made a decision yet.

Their suggestion is ... you might have better controls in other ways, not just salary, but there might be some other methods you can use so it’s worth looking again at what the best way is to control migration.

Javid said he would also be looking at where the salary threshold would be set. The current salary threshold for such visas is £30,000, which the MAC said should be retained.

Addressing concerns raised over exclusion of so-called low-skilled migrants, Javid said:

All good policy is rooted in evidence. When it comes to the immigration system this is a unique opportunity for the first time in decades as a home secretary I’m able to design the immigration system almost from scratch because we will not have those obligations to the EU. Doing that we need to look at the evidence.

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Boris Johnson is speaking at a fringe meeting at 1pm. People are queueing already, as the Evening Standard’s Joe Murphy points out.

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CBI says May's post-Brexit immigration plans will be 'self-defeating'

The CBI says the government’s post-Brexit immigration plans will be “self-defeating”. This is from Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI’s director general.

Freedom of movement is ending and firms understand that. But the prime minister’s proposals for a new system have taken a wrong turn. By dismissing the importance of low skilled workers to the UK economy, the government risks harming businesses and living standards now and in the future.

All skill levels matter to the UK economy. Today’s proposals risk worsening labour shortages, already serious in construction, hospitality and care. Restricting access to the workers the UK needs is self-defeating.

Just weeks ago the Migration Advisory Committee confirmed that EU workers – at all skill levels – pay in more than they take out. They have not reduced jobs, wages or training for UK workers.

The signals on people and trade deals are disappointing. Though mobility will be part of negotiations, this is not enough. To secure the best deals around the world the UK must be willing to put migration on the table – starting with the EU, our most significant trading partner.

It is also disappointing that the biggest flaw of the UKs current system – the net migration target – will remain. This target means that every day workers with skills the UK needs are turned away and jobs left unfilled. Employers all over the UK will continue to urge its abolition to show the world Britain means business.

This is from Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s lead Brexit spokesman, who is not happy about Theresa May’s immigration plans.

At a fringe event this morning Sajid Javid, the home secretary, said he was thinking of scrapping the cap on high-skilled immigration. This is from my colleague Jamie Grierson.

Javid was also flaunting his credentials as a possible future leader, Jamie says:

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Parts of Good Friday agreement might have to change under no deal Brexit, says DUP

The DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said that elements of the Good Friday agreement will have to be changed if there is no Brexit deal.

As Theresa May was being interviewed by the BBC, Donaldson told RTE that the party was “not seeking to alter” the peace agreement but parts of the north-south co-operation would change if Britain crashed out of the EU.

His remarks came after the party’s leader, Arlene Foster, said the peace deal was “not sacrosanct”.

The DUP was the only major political party not to support the Good Friday agreement when it was sealed in 1998 and it is not the first time Foster has said the peace deal could change. Donaldson told RTE:

We are not seeking to alter that agreement, but Arlene was simply reflecting reality that if we do end up with a no-deal scenario we would be deluding ourselves if we did not think that would have consequences in the way we do business.

One consequence he cited was the single electricity market across the island, a direct result of the peace deal. This would have to be re-negotiated under a no-deal Brexit.

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Theresa May's morning interviews - Summary

Here are the main points from Theresa May’s morning broadcast interviews.

  • May conceded that Britons might have to fill in Esta-style visa waiver forms to visit the EU after Brexit. Asked if this would happen, she said:

The question of business travel, the question of tourism, will be part of the negotiations with the European Union.

We have put forward a set of proposals that would enable people to continue to travel for tourism to the European Union and for tourists from the EU to come here.

When it was put to her that the UK plans envisage EU nationals having to fill in Esta-style visa waiver forms to come to the UK (see 8.05am), and that it would be surprising if the EU did not demand the same, she replied:

We have put forward a proposal that is based on a reciprocal arrangement.

  • She said there would be no general exemptions from the new post-Brexit immigration rules for industries reliant on low-skilled labour. Asked about industries that rely on a lot of low-skilled EU migrants, such as the care sector, she said:

There is one area where we have said we will look at a system, which is agricultural workers. We have already said we are putting a pilot scheme into place in relation to agricultural workers. But those are seasonal workers. Those are people who come here for a limited period of time. The agricultural industry has said that they would like to see a further scheme, and we have listened to that and we are putting a pilot into place.

But I’m not saying that suddenly there are going to be lots of different sectors of the economy which are going to have exemptions, which means actually that you no longer have an immigration policy. What we are doing is setting an immigration policy which I believe reflects what people in this country want, which is they want to see an end to free movement and they want to ensure that people who come here are contributing to our economy.

  • She suggested that EU workers could still get some preferential treatment when coming to the UK under the terms of a post-Brexit UK-EU trade deal. But she claimed that a mobility arrangement was not same as the immigration system, which she said would not give EU nationals priority. Asked if a trade deal could give EU workers preferential treatment, she said:

The trade negotiations with any country always include an element that’s called mobility. The point I was making was that is different from the overall immigration policy that we are setting ...

The immigration rules are not part of our detailed discussion with the European Union in the future. That’s the point I’m making. We will be deciding what our immigration rules are.

  • She said the government remained committed to its target of getting annual net immigration below 100,000. She said:

We retain our commitment to bring net migration down as we have promised in our manifesto.

This is from my colleague Jamie Grierson, the Guardian’s home affairs correspondent.

  • She delivered a partial rebuke to Jeremy Hunt, saying that the EU and the Soviet Union were not the same. Asked about the comment in his speech on Sunday (see 9.32am), she said:

As I sit around that table in the European Union, there are countries there who used to be part of the Soviet Union. They are now democratic countries. I can tell you that the two organisations are not the same.

But she also defended the broad argument that Hunt was making.

I think the point he was making was an important one. It was that we’ve had the biggest democratic exercise in this country’s history - the referendum vote in 2016 - and we should be respecting and delivering on that referendum. Across the European Union, I think it’s important for people to recognise that vote and to deliver on that vote.

  • She accused Labour of “playing politcs” with Brexit. She said:

My message to the Labour party is that they’ve got to stop playing politics with this and start acting in the national interest.

We’ve seen the Labour party saying basically that they won’t accept any deal that I bring back from the European Union regardless of how good it is for the United Kingdom, but they would accept any deal Europe offers them, regardless of how bad it is for the United Kingdom.

That’s playing politics with this issue, it’s not acting in the national interest. I’m acting, the government is acting, in the national interest.

  • She said she was in office “for the long term”. Asked how long she expected to stay as leader, she said:

I’m in this for the long term, not just for the Brexit deal but actually for the domestic agenda we are setting out at this conference.

  • She said holding an early general election was “not in the national interest”.
  • She brushed aside questions about whether Boris Johnson was trying to undermine her. She said she expected Johnson’s fringe meeting today to be “very lively”. Asked about the photograph of Johnson running through a field, which seemed staged as a bid to mock May, she replied:

At this conference, what I feel is that I and this government and this party are getting on with the important job of getting a good deal for the UK when we leave the EU. But also working on the opportunities for this country and people in this country when we leave the EU. That’s what I’m focusing on.

(Maybe it’s just me, there does seem something odd about Johnson’s undercarriage arrangements in this picture. It is as if he’s trying to make a point about a hard Brexit.)

Updated

Leading MEP and key Merkel ally says Hunt should apologise for his EU/Soviet Union comparision

One of the most senior MEPs in the European parliament said this morning that Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, should apologise for what he said in his conference speech on Sunday implicitly comparing the EU to the Soviet Union. Manfred Weber, a German MEP and Angela Merkel ally who leads the centre-right European people’s party, the largest group in the parliament, told MEPs at a meeting in Strasbroug this morning:

Now we experience a new level of populism when the foreign minister of Great Britain, Hunt, is comparing the European Union with the Soviet Union.

Weber quoted the Polish former foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who said: “Please Mr Hunt, show us the gulag, please Mr Hunt show us the Soviet Union army troops in your country, please show us the Stasi system in your country.”

Weber went on:

So Sikorski is right. Mr Hunt, you should apologise for what you have said.

Sikorski also posted this on Twitter.

As a reminder, this is what Hunt said in his speech on Sunday:

What happened to the confidence and ideals of the European dream? The EU was set up to protect freedom. It was the Soviet Union that stopped people leaving.

The lesson from history is clear: if you turn the EU club into a prison, the desire to get out won’t diminish it will grow.

This came shortly after a passage in which Hunt also spoke about what Latvia suffered under Soviet occupation.

In some respects Hunt’s speech was similar to Michael Portillo’s famous SAS one at the Tory conference in 1995. That went down a storm with members on the day, and was seen as boosting his leadership chances, but the defence community (Portillo was defence secretary) was horrified by his comments (just as diplomats have been by Hunt’s), and eventually Portillo realised the speech was a big mistake.

Manfred Weber speaking in the European parliament this morning.
Manfred Weber speaking in the European parliament this morning. Photograph: Patrick Seeger/EPA

Updated

Q: Is HS2 definitely going ahead?

May says it is an important project for the UK. It needs that extra capacity.

Q: And your voice is fine this year?

May says she will be speaking strongly tomorrow, not just about Brexit, but about opportunities in the UK.

And that’s it.

I will post a summary of what we’ve learnt from the interviews shortly.

Q: What do you think Boris Johnson is up to?

May says she is concentrating on what is important, which is getting a good deal for the UK.

Q: Boris is trying to take over the conference, isn’t he?

May says she thinks his fringe event will be lively. But the conference is about what the government is doing for the future.

Q: Do you agree with what Digby Jones said about Boris Johnson being offensive and irrelevant? You took part in a standing ovation?

That was at the end of Jones’s speech.

Q: So you don’t think Johnson is offensive and irrelevant?

May ducks the question, and goes back to talking about the domestic policies announced.

Ferrari plays music from The Chase, a TV programme that May was filmed watching for the BBC’s Panorama documentary. One of the stars of the The Chase asks a question: what will happen if there is no deal?

May says she is working for a deal, but the government is preparing for the possibility that one might not happen.

Updated

May's LBC interview

Nick Ferrari is interviewing Theresa May.

Q: Is being in the EU like being in the Soviet Union?

May (who sounds a lot more cheerful being interviewed by Ferrari than Husain) says he is referring to what Jeremy Hunt said. Hunt spoke about the importance of honouring the EU referendum result. She knows that the EU is not like the Soviet Union.

Q: Many of my listeners felt you were very badly treated by the EU leaders at Salzburg, mostly men. What did your husband, Philip, say about it?

May says she can’t remember. He probably poured her a stiff drink.

She says she has treated the EU with nothing but respect.

Updated

In the Today post-match summary, Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC’s political editors, says that listeners won’t have been able to see May’s arched eyebrows when asked about Boris Johnson.

It sounds as if Mishal Husain was exposed to the famous May death stare.

I will post a summary after the LBC interview, which is coming up soon.

Q: The front pages are full of pictures of Boris Johnson. He is mocking you, even though it is not a field of wheat (it’s dry grass). How do you feel about that?

May says she is getting on with the job of getting a good deal for the UK as it leaves the EU.

Q: But, as you walk around here, people are constantly talking about the problems with the Chequers plan. It is not just Boris Johnson. Do you feel like John Major (who described his Eurosceptic opponents as “bastards”).

May reverts to talking about Labour, saying they should stop playing politics with this.

And she says her message to the conference is that they must unite and get th best deal for the UK.

Q: How long will you stay?

May says she has said she is in this for the long term. It is not just about Brexit; it is about the domestic economy too.

That is what we are focusing on.

And that’s it.

May says she is not opposed to a backstop.

But it is only meant to be there if there is a delay in introducing the end arrangements.

Q: Could the backstop remain permanently?

May says the government will not agree to something that keeps the UK in the EU permanently.

She says, when MPs vote on the final deal, they will need to know what the future relationship will be.

Q: Will you compromise on the Irish backstop?

May says she hopes to get a backstop that never needs to be used.

Her Chequers plan would ensure that there was no hard border in Ireland, and hence no need for the backstop.

Q: Would you consider light-touch regulatory changes on goods crossing the Irish Sea?

May says she thinks a solution can be found that preserves the integrity of the UK.

The government will bring forward proposals in due course, she says.

May does not rule out Britons having to apply for Esta-style visa waiver forms to visit EU after Brexit

Q: Will travel to the EU become harder?

May says this will be part of the negotiations.

Q: But you are proposing Esta-style visa waiver forms for EU visitors coming to the UK. So you would expect them to do the same for us?

May says she expects these arrangements to be reciprocal.

  • May does not rule out Britons having to apply for Esta-style visa waiver forms to visit the EU after Brexit.

Q: Will your plans cause problems for employers dependent on low-skilled immigrant labour?

May says the government wants to train people to do the jobs available?

Q: But will some employers get an exemption?

May says the government will consider the demands of the economy, but it wants to train workers.

Q: So there might be exemptions?

May says the government is considering this for agricultural workers. It is putting a pilot scheme in place.

But these are seasonal workers, she says.

She says she is not proposing widespread exemptions.

  • May rules out widespread exemptions to the new immigration rules for employers dependent on low-skilled workers.

May says getting net immigration below 100,000 remains a target

Q: Will these proposals enable you to meet your target of getting net migration below 100,000 year?

May says: “We retain our commitment to that target.”

She says these plans will give the UK control over immigration.

  • May says getting net immigration below 100,000 remains a target.

Updated

May's Today interview

Mishal Husain is now interviewing Theresa May on Radio 4’s Today.

Husain starts by summarising the immigration announcement.

And she points out that May has lost six cabinet ministers since last year’s conference.

Q: What will your plans mean for parts of the economy dependent on low-skilled migration?

May summarises the plans first.

She picks up the point about trade deals. In any trade deal, there are terms relating to things like the movement of business people.

But, if conditions like that are included in the EU trade deal, other countries would be able to get the same terms from a trade deal.

She says immigration rules are different from these mobility rules that get included in trade deal.

  • May accepts that EU trade deal could include “mobility” concessions for EU workers. But she insists that immigration rules are different, and that these will not prioritise people from the EU.

Q: Could high-skilled immigration rise?

May says the government is committed to bringing immigration down.

More details of May's plans for post-Brexit immigration policy

Here are more details of the post-Brexit immigration policy plans announced by the Conservatives overnight. (See 7.41am.) This is how the party explains them in a press release.

The proposals follow a report from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) that recommended high-skilled workers are given priority over visa applications from low-skilled workers. The report was based on an immigration policy that had a level playing field for EU nationals and applicants from other countries.

A white paper detailing how the new system will work will be published this autumn, ahead of an Immigration Bill next year.

Under the shake up there will be routes for short-stay business trips and tourists and for those who want to live and work for longer in the UK.

Under plans being developed people arriving for a short stay would see passports scanned at e-gates in airports, train stations and ports, for so-called ‘fly-in, fly-out’ visitors. Currently EU citizens get fast-tracked through e-gates while tourists or businessmen from countries like Japan and Australia have to queue for passport control.

All security and criminal records checks would be carried out in advance of visits, cutting down red tape for travellers. These in-country security checks would be a similar system of prior authorisation to that operating in the United States.

For those wanting to live and work in the UK longer term, there will be a new immigration system for applicants with the skills that help meet Britain’s needs.

Applicants will need to meet a minimum salary threshold to ensure they are not competing for jobs that could otherwise be recruited in the UK.

Successful applicants for high skilled work would be able to bring their immediate family but only if sponsored by their future employers.

The new system will not include a cap on student visas, which are a separate system to work visas and are granted on the basis of academic ability, the ability to speak English and the ability of students to support themselves financially.

The ability of people from trading partners to deliver services and student exchange programmes will form part of future trade agreements.

The government has already announced rights for the existing three million EU citizens already living and working in the UK will be safeguarded – even in the event of no deal.

When the MAC published its report two weeks ago, making recommendations that are the basis of May’s policy, business groups and professional organisations reacted badly, claiming that shutting out low-skilled workers could lead to labour shortages.

The MAC also said that offering concessions on immigration to the EU could be sensible, because this would be “potentially something of value to offer in the negotiations”, although it did not formally recommend this.

May insists the government is taking action to stop pollution caused by plastics.

But it is not just a matter of banning things. It is about working with industry to stop these products getting into the environment in the first place, she says.

And that’s it.

We’ve got at least two more May interviews coming - Today at 8.10am, and LBC at 8.30am.

May insists EU and Soviet Union not the same in bid to defuse row triggered by Hunt

Q: How damaging was what happened at Salzburg? You don’t seem to be getting much respect?

May says the EU has put two offers on the table, neither of which are acceptable to the UK.

That is why the UK put an offer on the table. The EU likes some aspects, but has concerns about others. Let’s hear those concerns.

Q: You talk about respect. Do you agree with Jeremy Hunt about the EU being like the Soviet Union?

May says Hunt was right to say that the government must deliver on the rest of the EU referendum.

She says she sits around the table at EU meetings. There are countries there that used to be in the Soviet Union. She knows the EU and the Soviet Union are not the same.

  • May attempts to defuse row triggered by Hunt’s Soviet Union comparison, saying the EU and the Soviet Union are not the same. That could be read as a partial rebuke to Hunt, although Hunt would say he was not making a direct comparison.

Q: How are relations with Boris Johnson?

May says she is sure his fringe meeting will be “lively”.

Updated

Q: What will you do if you can’t get the Chequers plan through parliament?

May says, if she gets a deal, she will bring it back to parliament.

She says her message to Labour is that they should stop “playing politics” with this and act in the national interest.

Labour has said it will reject any deal she brings back, regardless of how good it is, she says. But Labour will accept any deal offered by the EU regardless of how bad it is. That is playing politics with the national interest, she says.

Q: Will you rule out a general election?

May says it is not in the national interest to have a general election.

On the subject of a second referendum, she says it is important that the government delivers on the result of the EU referendum.

May's BBC News interview

Theresa May is being interviewed on BBC News.

Q: How can you claim to be the party of business if you are ignoring their concerns about Brexit?

May says she is listening to the concerns of business.

Theresa May gives details of post-Brexit immigration policy

Good morning. Theresa May is about to do a round of morning interviews, and she will be asked about plans announced overnight to stop EU workers having priority in the post-Brexit immigration system.

Here is an extract from the party’s news release.

The prime minister, Theresa May, today set out details of how Britain will take back control of its borders and reduce immigration to sustainable levels through a new post-Brexit system.

In the biggest shake-up in decades, high-skilled workers who want to live and work in Britain will be given priority while low skilled immigration will be curbed.

There will be a new single immigration system that treats EU countries the same as non EU countries.

And the UK is looking at introducing a swift system of e-gate visa checks for tourists and visitors coming to the country for short stay business trips from all low risk countries.

This confirms what we reported after the cabinet signed off this plan on Monday last week.

But it is still not clear whether EU workers could be offered exceptions as part of a post-Brexit trade deal.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Session on “a stronger, fairer United Kingdom”, with speeches from ministers including David Gauke, the justice secretary, and Sajid Javid, the home secretary.

1pm: Boris Johnson speaks at a fringe event.

2pm: Session on “high-quality public services”, with speeches from Damian Hinds, the education secretary, and Matt Hancock, the health secretary.

6pm: Sajid Javid is interviewed by Katharine Viner at a Guardian fringe event.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

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