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Brexit: UK-EU trade deal could be 'unprecedented in scope', says EU chief in upbeat speech - live news
PMQs: Boris Johnson faces Jeremy Corbyn in first Commons clash of 2020 – live news
(32 minutes later)
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn at the first PMQs of 2020
The day’s political developments, including first PMQs of 2020 and Johnson’s meeting with new European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen
Von der Leyen says Brexit does not just mark the end of something.
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, asks who should decide the future of Scotland - the PM, or the people of Scotland.
It marks the beginning of a new relationship, she says.
Johnson says the people of Scotland decided to stay part of the UK.
Addressing her audience, she says young people can shape this future.
Blackford says this is about democracy.
Von der Leyen says the EU’s priority will be to protect the single market.
That provokes some laughter from MPs.
But she says the EU is willing to offer a trade deal including zero tariffs, zero quotas, and zero dumping. It can go well beyond trade and be “unprecedented in scope”, she says.
Blackford says people voted for the SNP. Why is the Tory government dismissing the will of the people of Scotland?
She says the EU is willing to work day and night to achieve this.
Johnson says the real question is why the SNP keeps going on about breaking up the most successful union in history to distract from its appalling domestic record.
It must be ambitious in scope, she says.
Penny Mordaunt, a Conservative, asks how many people are being held in inappropriate adult social care settings, like Winterbourne View.
Here is the key quote.
Johnson says the number is 2,190, but it is coming down.
Von der Leyen says the UK and the EU will still share the same values after Brexit, as well as the same geography and history.
Corbyn says he asked if the UK would respect the sovereignty of Iraq. He says Johnson did not answer.
As one door closes, another will open, she says.
He says the UK has not been putting the interests of the UK first. He says Johnson has been prioritising his relationship with President Trump. He is not standing up for the UK because he has prioritised a trade deal with the US.
She says now is the time to look forward, time “for the best and oldest friends to build a new future together”.
Johnson says he was waiting for the “little green men” to come out at the end of Corbyn’s contribution, implying that Corbyn is reciting a conspiracy. He says Corbyn took £10,000 from Iranian TV. He says he is surprised the Corbyn has yet to condemn Suleimani’s activities.
She says during the first stage of the Brexit negotiations, the uncertainty about whether Brexit would happen caused difficulties. Now there will be more clarity, she says.
Johnson says the British government should be doing everything it can to protect the integrity of Iraq.
She says the EU wants to go as far as it can in building the new relationship.
Corbyn asks what evidence there is that the killing of Suleimani was legal.
But the relationship will not be as close as before.
Johnson says it is not for the UK government to provide this evidence. But he refers to Suleimani’s record. He says Suleimani helped orchestrate bomb attacks on British troops in the region. He had the blood of British troops on his hands, he says.
Without free movement of people, you cannot have free movement of capital and services, she says.
Corbyn asks what representations the PM will make to President Trump to make sure the Iranian foreign minister can attend the UN in New York.
And without a level playing field, the UK cannot have full access to the single market.
Johnson says the US is obliged to let people attend the UN.
She says both sides will have to prioritise in the talks.
Jeremy Corbyn starts by paying tribute to Andrew Miller, the former Labour MP who died on Christmas Eve.
Von der Leyen says the UK and the EU will still be “the best of friends and partners” after Brexit.
He says the Australian fires are a warning of what climate change does.
And they will still have a lot to learn from each other.
He asks the PM to confirm that he opposes any further retaliation or violence in the Middle East.
Von der Leyen is now paying tribute to the contribution of individual Britons to the EU, like Roy Jenkins, a former president of the commission, and Lord Cockfield, a European commissioner. Cockfield helped to pave the way for the single market, she says.
Johnson says of course he can confirm that. He says the UK has been working with its EU allies to urge a de-escalation. But he says the EU three criticised the “baleful” role played by Qassem Suleimani. He says Corbyn has not condemned Suleimani in the same way.
Ursula von der Leyen is speaking now. She says she spent just a year at the LSE, but she learned a lot while she was here. The time she spent here “opened my eyes”, she says. She saw a warm, vibrant, multicultural society. She fell in love with London, and with the UK.
Corbyn ignores this, and asks Johnson if is he confident that UK personnel in the region are safe.
The UK is strong-willed, open-minded, patriotic, kind and generous, and full of contradictions, she says. She says she learned there can be a hidden meaning in every sentence.
Johnson says non-essential personnel have been moved. The government wants to de-escalate this, he says.
Before and after the referendum she thought about this period a lot – not just because of her love for the UK, but because of what the UK has contributed to Europe.
Andrew Lewer, a Conservative, asks for a review of the rules affecting benefit claimants with terminal illnesses.
She says it was Winston Churchill who made the best case for a united Europe. She says his Zurich speech is the best case made for a united Europe.
Johnson says the DWP is reviewing these rules.
At the LSE Minouche Shafik, the LSE director, is introducing Ursula von der Leyen. Shafik says that Von der Leyen was a student of the LSE, and that her daughter has studied there too.
Boris Johnson starts by condemning the Iranian attacks on US bases. He says Iran should not pursue these attacks.
Sir Keir Starmer has become the first Labour leadership candidate to get the 22 nominations from MPs that he needs to be on the ballot, Sky’s Sam Coates reports.
He offers condolences to those affected by the Australian bushfires, and by the crash of a Ukrainian airliner.
But Starmer, and all the other candidates, will also need to clear the threshold from nominations either from CLPs or from affiliates. The details of those rules are here.
Boris Johnson is taking PMQs now.
Ursula von der Leyen, the new president of the European commission, is due to start her lecture at the LSE on UK-EU relations very soon.
Q: Would it be possible to negotiate parts of a trade deal this year, and then conclude it after 2020? Or is it all or nothing?
From Politico Europe’s Cristina Gallardo
Von der Leyen says it will be “impossible” to conclude a comprehensive deal by the end of this year.
Yesterday Rebecca Long Bailey, a candidate for the Labour leadership, said she would give Jeremy Corbyn 10 out of 10 as a leader. On Sky News a few minutes ago Margaret Hodge, the Labour former minister and one of Corbyn’s most outspoken critics in the PLP, said this was “crazy”. Hodge, who is supporting Jess Phillips for leader, told the programme:
She says therefore they should prioritise negotiating on issues where, if there is no deal by the end of 2020, there is a fall-back that does not involve “no deal”.
Burgon says he would be a campaigning deputy Labour leader like John Prescott
Von der Leyen says getting a comprehensive UK-EU trade deal by the end of 2020 will be “impossible”.
Labour MPs are currently listening to candidates for the deputy leadership speak at a private hustings organised by the parliamentary Labour party (PLP). One of the candidates is Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, and according to extracts from his speech released by his office, he is saying that he would like to be a campaigning deputy leader in the style of John Prescott. Burgon says:
She says she would like both sides to consider where they are before the summer, so that they can “reconsider the timeframe”.
The reference to a “leader-in-waiting” deputy will be seen as a jibe at Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, who is seen as favourite in the deputy leadership contest. Some of her supporters think that she would be a good leader now, and that if she wins the deputy leadership, that will put her in a strong position to take the top job next time round.
Von der Leyen says she does not want to rule out extending the trade talks beyond 2020. Johnson has ruled this out.
Burgon’s speech also repeats some of the points he made in his pre-Christmas Tribune article, saying Labour’s election defeat was largely down to Brexit and that a special commission should be set up to consider how it can win back leave voters.
In an interview this morning Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, rejected claims that Boris Johnson should have taken a higher public profile over the Iran crisis. Although No 10 has issued statements, Johnson has not been speaking about it in public, and yesterday he got Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, to give an oral statement to the Commons on the subject, instead of doing it himself. But Barclay said it was not fair to say Johnson had been absent. He said:
According to Annabelle Dickson at Politico Europe, Johnson is deliberately keeping a low profile on this issue. In her story she says:
Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, has caught up with yesterday’s news that the government is looking for a career civil servant to replace Sir Kim Darroch as ambassador to Washington. Farage used to claim that he did not want the job himself, despite Donald Trump once saying he would be ideal for the role, but judging from this tweet, perhaps he was still hoping that he, or one of his Brexit party chums, would get the call.
Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, has been giving interviews this morning (although not to the BBC’s Today programme, which is still subject to a No 10 boycott for reasons that have never been properly explained by Downing Street). Judging by the interviews I did hear, Today didn’t miss much, but Barclay did use a new argument to justify the government’s claim that it will be possible to conclude a trade deal with the EU by the end of 2020.
This is what he told Radio 5 Live:
Barclay is right about the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill debate taking much less time than expected yesterday. Eight hours had been set aside for the first day of the committee stage debate. Yet MPs started voting after less than three and a half hours of debate.
There were three divisions but the government won them all, with majorities of 90, 86 and 92 respectively. The era of knife-edge Brexit votes is well and truly behind us.
The BBC’s Europe editor, Katya Adler, has posted a helpful thread on Twitter about the talks between Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen in Downing Street today. It starts here.
It is worth reading the thread in full (just click on the link above), but here is a key assessment.
One of Boris Johnson’s ambitions for 2020, apparently, is to turn Brexit into a story for the business pages and not the front pages (assuming he fails in his reported ambition to get people to stop using the word altogether). You might think some of the Brexiters have concluded that the whole process hasn’t been quite the triumph that some of them were predicting in 2016. But it would be surprising if the UK-EU trade negotiating taking place this year does not end up being a front page story and, although that negotiation is not starting today, there will be an important landmark in the process when Boris Johnson holds his first meeting with the new president of the European commission, the former German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen. They will meet in Downing Street this afternoon, a few hours after Von der Leyen delivers a lecture on the UK-EU relationship at the LSE.
According to Downing Street, Johnson will tell Von der Leyen that he is firmly committed to wrapping up the negotiation this year (which many experts think is unrealistic), that he is firmly opposed to extending the post-Brexit transition period and that the new deal will not be based on “alignment” with EU rules. In a statement last night Downing Street said:
As my colleague Jennifer Rankin reports, Von der Leyen is expected to tell Johnson that this might not be as beneficial for the UK as he thinks.
Von der Leyen and Johnson will not be holding a press conference, and so it is not clear quite how much we will learn about what gets said at their meeting, but I will be covering everything that does emerge in full.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Candidates for the Labour party deputy leadership take part in a private hustings for Labour MPs in the Commons.
10am: MPs start voting in a ballot to elect two deputy Speakers. These two posts are both for Conservative MPs, and there are five candidates.
11.15am: Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission president, gives a speech at the LSE in London entitled “Old Friends, New Beginnings: building another future for the EU-UK partnership.”
12pm: Boris Johnson faces Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.
After 12.30pm: MPs resume their debate on the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill.
3.30pm: Von der Leyen meets Johnson in Downing Street.
The Iran crisis is likely to come up at PMQs, and of course I will be covering what gets said there, but generally I will be leaving coverage of developments in this story to our separate live blog, which you can read here.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary when I wrap up.
You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.
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