Boris Johnson news – live: PM accused of ‘steering country off cliff’ after Gove says no need for EU trade deal, as climate change response labelled ‘amateur hour’
The day's events as they happened
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Cabinet office minister Michael Gove sparked anger after claiming the UK doesn’t “need” a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, insisting it is better to “stand up for Britain” than accept any rules from Brussels.
It comes as a former Tory minister and ex-president of the COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow – sacked last week by the government – launched a blistering attack on Boris Johnson’s record on climate change.
Claire Perry O’Neill claimed Mr Johnson “doesn’t really get” climate change and said his promises “are not close to being met”. Ex-Labour leader Ed Miliband said the PM didn’t understand the scale of the issue and described his handling of the COP26 summit as “amateur hour”.
However Mr Johnson spent the day alongside ir David Attenborough and Giuseppe Conte, prime minister of summit co-host Italy - while saying the nation should lead the way to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
Meanwhile in the commons the SNP railed against a vote on NHS funding in England which they were barred from voting on amid increasing frustration from the nationalists as they seek to hold a second independence referendum.
Here are the day's events as they happened:
Heathrow expansion depends on ‘conditions’, says Tory MP
Our correspondent Jon Sharman is at the COP26 climate summit launch event at the Science Museum, and he has been speaking to Tory MP Theresa Villiers about Heathrow expansion.
“Parliament has given outline planning permission for Heathrow expansion and now it’s for the promoters of the scheme to demonstrate that they can meet the really tough environmental conditions,” she told The Independent.
“If they can’t deliver on the conditions, obviously the future of the project is in question.
“But parliament has voted on it.”
‘Boris has proved himself a slippery fish’ say XR protesters
Extinction Rebellion protesters outside the Science Museum expressed scepticism about the prime minister tackling climate emergency.
James Westcott, 40, said of the pledge to ban diesel cars by 2035: “It’s way too late. We’re already choking and dying in London. I can’t believe he would boast about being early on something that’s so late.
“Diesel feels primitive. I don’t hold out much hope for anything he says,” he told our correspondent Jon Sharman.
Verity Lancaster, 21, said she did not trust the PM in climate change and, echoing Claire O’Neill’s words on the subject earlier on Tuesday, said: “Boris has proved himself to be such a slippery fish, it doesn’t matter if you get it in writing – he’s going to lose the piece of paper.”
Climate change evidence ‘now overwhelming’, says PM
Boris Johnson told at a reception at the Science Museum: “We’ve put so much CO2 in the atmosphere collectively that the entire planet is swaddled in a tea cosy of the stuff.
“It’s now predicted, unless we take urgent action, to get 3C hotter, and in the hurricanes and the bushfires and melting of the ice caps and the acidification of the oceans, the evidence is now overwhelming.
“The phenomenon of global warming is taking its toll on the most vulnerable populations around the planet,” he said, adding the UK had committed to £11.6bn to tackling climate change around the world. “We know as a country, as a society, as a planet, as a species, we must now act.”
Johnson also said that efforts to tackle nature should be linked to climate change.
The prime minister did not take questions after his address and was spirited away by security staff.
In answer to a shouted question asking how he would ensure COP26 would not be a “disaster” like previous conferences, he said: “It’s going to be great.”
Asked why he had sacked Claire O’Neill as head of COP26, the prime minister did not respond.
Attenborough says Glasgow COP26 summit ‘extremely important’
Sir David Attenborough has been speaking to assembled guests at the COP26 launch event at the Science Museum.
“We all know the dangers, we all know the potential catastrophe,” he said of the scale of the climate emergency.
After Paris in 2015 there was a “sense of euphoria”, he said, but “it’s now up to us to put before the nations of the world what’s to be done”.
Sir David praised the government’s promise that 2020 would be a year of action on global warming, adding: “It’s a huge encouragement for those of us who’ve been worrying about this problem for a very long time.”
“It’s now up to us to put before the nations of the world what has to be done. We don’t need to emphasise to them or to you the longer we leave it, not doing things but going on talking about it, the worse it’s going to get. And in the end unless we do something, it becomes insoluble.”
“Unless we do something, it becomes insoluble. That’s why Glasgow is extremely important.”
Sir David Attenborough (Getty)
Australia-style trade with EU is ‘hardest of hard Brexits’
Our associate editor Sean O’Grady has taken a look at what Boris Johnson means with his reference to a potential trading relationship with the EU “more like Australia’s”.
He think it amounts to little more than “an agreement to work through the World Trade Organisation for a multilateral global reduction of barrier to trade.
“It is not free trade agreement, or a treaty, or legally binding, or anything like it. If transposed to the UK, it would mean the hardest of hard Brexits.”
Read more here:
UK gets ‘wonderful warm welcome’ at WTO
Julian Braithwaite, the UK representative to the World Trade Organisation, tweeted after his first meeting at the body since Brexit – taking a seat separately from former EU colleagues.
“A wonderful warm welcome as we move to our seat next to the US in the WTO.
“The Americans are some of the toughest negotiators in the world. But the bonds run deep.”
No 10 declines to respond to ex-Tory minister’s claims
Boris Johnson’s official spokesman declined to respond to Claire Perry O’Neill’s claim that the prime minister had admitted that he “doesn’t get” climate change.
“I have no intention of responding to anything Claire Perry has said beyond thanking her for her work,” said the spokesman.
Asked whether Johnson was considering switching the COP venue away from Scotland, the spokesman replied: “It’s always been the intention to hold this event in Glasgow.”
He added: “It’s a UK government event paid for by the UK government. There is nothing uncommon about requests being made for funding in relation to policing events of this kind.”
No point in more meetings, says Welsh Brexit minister
Jeremy Miles, the Welsh government’s Brexit minister, has said there’s “no point holding another meeting” unless the UK government guarantees the devolved nations a “meaningful” say in future negotiations with the EU.
He told ITV’s Sharp End programme about last week’s meeting of ministers from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in Cardiff. “We were very clear that we want Wales and the Welsh government to have a real and meaningful voice in the choices which face Wales and the UK in the months ahead,” said Miles.
He added: “We made some progress, the UK government brought forward some proposals but the essential principle at the heart of that – that they should seek agreement with us on issues which are devolved to Wales – hasn’t yet been agreed and we absolutely must have that agreed.”
EU flag removed from Senedd in Cardiff on 'Brexit day' (Getty)
Media outlets sorry for confusing black Labour MPs
The Evening Standard has issued an apology for wrongly identifying a black female Labour MP.
The paper’s story featured an image of Bell Ribeiro-Addy and not her colleague Marsha de Cordova as intended, but blamed Getty for captioning the images incorrectly.
The error occurred in a story about the BBC wrongly identifying Marsha de Cordova as fellow Labour MP Dawn Butler. The BBC also apologised for the error.
Keir Starmer demands investigation into Downing Street’s selective briefing of press
Labour leadership candidate Keir Starmer has demanded an investigation into Downing Street’s selective exclusion of journalists from briefings by civil servants.
In a letter to cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, Starmer said No 10’s “deeply disturbing” attempts to ration access to senior officials risked undermining the impartiality of the civil service and damaging democracy.
Meanwhile, cabinet minister and former journalist Michael Gove several times ducked the question of whether he would have joined correspondents who refused to take part in a selective briefing organised by communications director Lee Cain (below) on Monday.
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