Brexit news – live: Boris Johnson 'confident' in US vote count amid Trump 'rigged' election controversy
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Boris Johnson has described having “every confidence in the checks and balances of the American constitution”, after Downing Street refused to say whether the prime minister believed all votes in the US election should be counted.
Under repeated questioning, No 10 had sought to avoid the PM being dragged into controversy, refusing to make any comment on Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the presidential poll is “rigged”.
Mr Johnson later said that as the UK prime minister he is “always going to work closely with whoever is the president”.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party achieved its biggest poll lead since Sir Keir Starmer became leader in April, enjoying a five-point swing to sit at 40 per cent, above the Tories’ 35, according toYouGov.
And the week’s Brexit trade talks ended with both parties’ negotiators, Lord Frost and Michel Barnier, warning serious “divergences” remain over key issues. The latter reportedly told EU diplomats that he believes London wants a deal but has yet to “internalise” the necessary compromises and concessions needed.
Mr Johnson is to call EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to discuss the talks on Sunday, which Downing Street said would allow the leaders to “take stock” of the negotiations – but contravenes wishes expressed earlier by Mr Barnier for the prime minister not to hold one-on-one talks with the bloc’s leaders lest No 10 attempt to trigger a “tug of war” over the unresolved issues.
It comes after the Bank of England decided to pump billions into the economy amid a bleaker outlook:
Bank of England to spend another £150bn on money printing
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously in favour of the additional money printing
Election poll
How would people vote in a general election at the moment?
YouGov found things would look pretty good for Labour:
People polled by YouGov also thought Keir Starmer would make a better prime minister than the current one:
Irish Sea tunnel
Meanwhile, this is what Boris Johnson is getting up to today:
Government adviser warns ‘unwise’ to resurrect Eat Out scheme
A Sage adviser has warned Boris Johnson’s tier system is not a “sensible” strategy for controlling coronavirus and suggested a return to policies such as Eat Out to Help Out when England’s restrictions are eased would be “really unwise”.
The remarks from professor John Edmunds came after the PM said the current lockdown will expire on 2 December and outlined a return to the previous tiered approach.
Insisting that “some restrictions” will have to remain in December, Mr Edmunds also predicted the country could “start to come out of this kind of nightmare of this epidemic” around Easter time – a year on from the outbreak of the pandemic in Britain.
The Independent’s political correspondent, Ashley Cowburn, reports:
Government’s own adviser says it would be ‘unwise’ to resurrect Eat Out scheme
‘After we’ve released from lockdown we will still have to have restrictions in place to stop it coming back,’ says professor John Edmunds
Conservative MPs urge Johnson to take London out of lockdown as cases fall
Boris Johnson’s colleagues are thought to be persuading him to take London out of lockdown and move it into tier 1. The move comes as figures show coronavirus cases falling in 21 boroughs across the capital.
Mr Johnson is reportedly being lobbied to significantly ease restrictions in the capital should the PM’s goal of getting Covid under control by 2 December be achieved.
The biggest drop in cases, in the week beginning 31 October, was in Kingston by 29.4 per cent, then Kensington & Chelsea by 24.6 per cent, Bromley by 22.1 per cent and Southwark by 21.9 per cent.
MPs have however stressed that Londoners must still follow lockdown rules to continue to reduce infection levels and that hospitalisations were still rising, which will likely lead to more deaths in coming weeks, according to reports.
A new graphic by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows the infection rate flattening in London, even before the second lockdown was announced on Saturday.
Mr Johnson has been largely criticised today for using out of date figures and confusing graphics to justify the second national lockdown the UK now finds itself in.
No 10 refuses to say if Johnson thinks all US votes should be counted
Downing Street today refused to say whether Boris Johnson believes that all votes in the US election should be counted.
In an effort to avoid the PM being dragged into controversy over the presidential poll, a No 10 spokesman would say only that the electoral processes used were “a matter for the relevant US authorities”.
His comments came as Joe Biden overtook Donald Trump in key battleground state Pennsylvania. The Republican candidate has continued on his legal battle to stop mail-in votes being counted in a number of US states, in a last-ditch attempt to prevent Mr Biden from being declared the next president.
Under repeated questioning from reporters at a daily press briefing, the No 10 spokesman declined to make any comment on Mr Trump’s incendiary and unsupported claims of fraud in the presidential poll. But he said that the UK government remains confident in the electoral systems used in the US.
Andrew Woodcock, our political editor, has the full story:
No10 refuses to say if Boris Johnson thinks all votes should be counted in US election
Spokesman says UK has confidence in ‘checks and balances of the US system’
Britons react to PM’s silence over Trump’s vote count remarks
Ireland-France ferries will start in January to bypass Brexit congestion
Daily ferries, travelling from Ireland to France, will begin in January. The new direct route, which cuts out travelling through the UK, will help traders and hauliers bypass anticipated delays caused by fresh EU-UK border checks agreed during Brexit discussions.
The services are expected to take at least 18 hours, making journeys significantly longer than the current route, which goes through the UK and onto mainland Europe and is favoured for those delivering time-sensitive loads.
Stena and Irish Ferries are set to start running the new direct services from Dublin and Rosslare to Cherbourg in France.
Ireland’s minister of state for international and road transport, Hildegarde Naughton, is urging traders and hauliers to explore alternative direct ferry routes before EU-UK border checks congest the “landbridge” route after Brexit comes into effect at the start of January.
“Businesses need to act now and they need to start talking to their logistics companies, to hauliers, to the shipping industry and to start trialling those direct routes now,” she told reporters in Ireland.
Sainsbury’s worried about Brexit impact on food in Northern Ireland
Sainsbury’s has said its range of meat, fish and dairy products could be seriously reduced across Northern Ireland due to trade changes as a result of Brexit, according to the brand’s chief executive.
When the UK leaves the single market for good, and NI remains, a proportion of products arriving in NI will need to go through lengthy checks.
The EU has strict rules on products of animal origin: meat, milk, fish and eggs. These kinds of products will have to enter through a kind of border control where paperwork is checked and some items are physically inspected.
All these products must also have an export health certificate, an expensive piece of administration, which could add substantial costs to every load of supermarket goods making its way to Sainsbury’s stores across NI.
The UK government has asked the EU to be flexible on this issue though no agreement has so far been reached.
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