Top story: Moment of Brexit truth for PM
Hello, it’s Warren Murray in from a recce with some fresh intel.
Theresa May is due to hold an emergency meeting this afternoon where she will call on cabinet to endorse her final Brexit deal. The PM is understood to have agreed with Brussels on an independent arbitration process to decide when and how the UK-wide customs “backstop” would be activated, extended or terminated. This morning, Tony Blair is hitting out at Jeremy Corbyn for his “abject refusal” to lead the UK “out of the Brexit nightmare”. We are live-blogging the lead-up to May’s big pitch.
Yesterday, ministers were given a preview of key documents at No 10 but not allowed to take any away. Hard-Brexiters including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson, who are not ministers, were quick to condemn the prospective deal. If it clears cabinet, the agreement would likely be taken to parliament in mid-December, after an EU summit at the end of November. Jeremy Corbyn, Vince Cable and the Westminster leaders of Plaid Cymru and the SNP have signed a letter to May insisting on a “truly meaningful debate” in parliament. Corbyn said separately: “If this deal doesn’t meet our six tests and work for the whole country, then we will vote against it.” The Democratic Unionists – upon whose votes Theresa May relies to hold government – said they would not accept Northern Ireland being delineated from the rest of UK.
Today’s cabinet meeting where May will make her pitch is expected to last for three hours. There is the potential for some key ministerial resignations that could derail May’s plan. But if ministers give their backing No 10 will launch an all-out campaign to sell it to the public.
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Midweek catch-up – Soupçons of news to keep you going …
> Wildfires in California have killed at least 50 people, with the Camp fire officially the deadliest in the state’s history. Authorities have warned of lives being put at risk by “evacuation fatigue” after people had to flee five times in two years.
> Trump-Russia investigators are looking into Nigel Farage, says Jerome Corsi, a rightwing conspiracy theorist questioned by the Mueller inquiry. Farage has denied Corsi’s claim as “intentionally malicious gossip and wholly untrue”.
> In the Khashoggi murder case, a Turkish paper has published airport X-rays showing his killers carried defibrillators and syringes. Turkey’s President Erdoğan says that hearing the “appalling” tapes of the murder left Saudi spy chiefs shocked.
> The trial has begun in New York of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the alleged drug cartel boss and latterly tunnelling enthusiast accused of trafficking up to $10m a day worth of cocaine into the US between 1989 and 2014.
> Prince Charles turns 70 today and an official family photograph has been released to mark the occasion. There’s a party at Buckingham Palace.
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Shown the door – A senior White House aide is facing the sack after getting on the wrong side of Melania Trump. “It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that [Mira Ricardel] no longer deserves the honour of serving in this White House,” said Stephanie Grisham, Flotus’s spokeswoman. Ricardel was hired in April as deputy to John Bolton, Donald Trump’s national security adviser. She has reportedly feuded with the first lady’s staff, including a clash over seating on a plane during Melania Trump’s trip to Africa. After getting rid of attorney general Jeff Sessions last week, the president is thought to be considering replacing John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, and Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary.
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Beyond waterboarding – The CIA wanted to use “truth serum” on prisoners after 9/11 because waterboarding appeared to be ineffective and was traumatic for US personnel, according to newly declassified documents. Files released to the American Civil Liberties Union also give a chilling picture of how tortures and mistreatment were legitimised by the involvement of CIA medical officers. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was waterboarded 140 times and the CIA doctor argued the torture “provided periodic relief from his standing sleep deprivation”. “Without the doctors’ participation none of this would have happened,” said Dror Ladin, an attorney on the ACLU’s national security project. “They were essential participants and completely complicit.” According to the papers, the CIA abandoned the idea of a truth serum for fear of getting into a legal wrangle with George W Bush’s administration.
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G20 failing in carbon mission – Climate action has been sidetracked in 19 of the world’s 20 biggest economies, with politicians paying more heed to the fossil fuel industry than scientists, according to a report from Climate Transparency. Fifteen of the G20 countries reported a rise in emissions in 2017, while the club’s members increased subsidies for fossil fuels from £58bn to £114bn between 2007 and 2016 despite having pledged to phase them out. “There is a huge fight by the fossil fuel industry against cheap renewables,” said Jan Buerck, one of the authors of the report. “The old economy is well organised and they have put huge lobbying pressure on governments to spend tax money to subsidise the old world.” Only India is on course to stay within the Paris agreement’s limits on global warming. Britain is making the fastest transition to clean energy, with a 7.7% decline in the use of fossil fuels between 2012 and 2015, but this could stall as the government cuts support for feed-in tariffs, energy efficiency and zero-carbon homes.
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Coke stunt goes flat – Coca-Cola has scaled back its UK Christmas truck tour after opposition from local authorities and health bodies. In the annual stunt, two 14-tonne lorries decorated with fairy lights go around the UK offering free 150ml cans of Coke in its various forms. Public protests against the promotion have taken place in Glasgow, Waltham Forest in London, Plymouth and Bristol – while councils that once hosted the tour are turning it away. Health campaigners have signed a letter calling for only sugar-free drinks to be handed out. Jon Woods, the general manager of Coca-Cola GB and Ireland, said it expected 90% of the drinks given out this year to be zero sugar, and children under 12 would get nothing unless accompanied by a parent. The tour began in Glasgow last week and will visit 24 towns and cities, down from 38 last year, making its final stop in London on 16 December.
Today in Focus podcast: The plastic waste crisis
The world is waking up to the environmental danger of single-use plastics. But consumer pressure is not enough to reverse the decades of plastic waste that litter the globe and clog up the oceans.
Stephen Buranyi tells Anushka Asthana how an anti-plastic revolution is under way but industry is in no mood for retreat. Plus: George Monbiot on why climate change is a crisis that requires a response of civil disobedience.
Lunchtime read: Rolling with the punctuality
“I decided to start with my coat; it would become ground zero of my new life. On Friday I made an inventory for it: keys, wallet and phone in the left pocket; vape, vape juice and school-authorised blue pen in the right; multi-socket charging cable on the inside, with a lipstick with a tiny mirror. Never anything else, never anything missing.
“Reader, this changed my life … Out of nowhere, I had nearly half an hour free every morning,” writes Zoe Williams, as she takes the advice of Time to Parent author Julie Morgenstern. “Morgenstern took it very slowly: she spent six months just organising her nappy bag, before she moved on to her kitchen, her house and, ultimately, the fabric of time itself. I, conversely, want to do it all in a week, instituting one of her principles a day and becoming a functioning human who is not imposing her chaos on others by next Thursday.”
Sport
Wayne Rooney will pull on an England shirt for the final time against the US on Thursday and, having admitted he sometimes tried “too hard” for his country, he will at Wembley finally feel free to enjoy himself. England coach Eddie Jones is so disillusioned about inconsistent decisions in rugby union Tests he plans to boycott all official meetings relating to the game’s laws.
Controversy has hit the world championship chess match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana after a clip that appeared to reveal tightly held secrets of the American challenger’s preparation was uploaded to YouTube and into the public domain. Roger Federer shrugged off his loss to Kei Nishikori to blow away Dominic Thiem at the 2018 ATP World Tour Finals before he delivered a cool response to allegations that he has often received preferential treatment over scheduling. The television executive Susanna Dinnage is to become one of the most powerful women in professional sport after being named Richard Scudamore’s successor at the Premier League. Wicketkeeper Amy Jones says England are relieved to have finally got their World Twenty20 campaign under way and said their seven-wicket victory against Bangladesh on Monday had been “convincing”. And England’s men, in a strong position heading into the second Test against Sri Lanka in Pallekele, have won the toss and will bat first in their bid to secure a landmark series victory.
Business
The pound has slipped back on the foreign exchange markets overnight after bouncing above $1.30 on hopes that the cabinet would swing behind Theresa May’s Brexit deal. Sterling was trading a shade under $1.30 at time of writing this morning, after earlier rising more than 1 cent on the news last night. Euro-wise it has been buying €1.15.
Asian stock markets are on edge after the 7% slump in the price of oil on Tuesday raised further questions about global growth. The FTSE 100 is earmarked to drop 0.3% at the open this morning.
The papers
Unsurprisingly Theresa May’s Brexit deal is the main story on most of the front pages today, though several also feature Prince Charles’s 70th birthday family photo. The Guardian’s splash is “Brexit: May tells her cabinet, this is the deal – now back me”. The Mail calls it “Judgment Day”. The Telegraph says “May faces ‘moment of truth’ on Brexit deal”. The FT has a similar headline: “May faces moment of truth in cabinet clash over Brexit draft”.
The Times is unhappy, writing “May accused of betrayal as she unveils Brexit deal”. The i says “Deal done”, though it then acknowledges how far the deal has to go before Brexit happens. The Express loves it: “This Brexit deal is best for Britain”, runs the headline. The Mirror focuses instead on “Rabies dad horror” and the Sun leads on Prince Charles with “The Grins of Wales”.
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