Brexit 

Express
THE UK Government has signalled it is prepared to scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol to protect peace as it pins the blame for instability in the province on the European Union.
Northern Ireland was rocked by street violence last month and there is anger in unionist communities at how the post-Brexit protocol has disrupted trade with England, Wales and Scotland. The UK Government considers prosperity the “bedrock to peace” in Northern Ireland and is concerned that businesses and consumers are struggling. It says the present disruption s “not sustainable”. Alarm is so great that a Whitehall source warned that “nothing can be left off the table”.
Fury at the erection of a de facto border in the Irish Sea is a key reason why Arlene Foster has been forced to quit as First Minister and DUP leader, and the row is believed to have strengthened opponents of the Good Friday Agreement which underpins power-sharing at Stormont.
The protocol is designed to avoid customs checks along the Irish border but trust was badly damaged in January when the EU moved to block the export of Covid-19 vaccines to Northern Ireland. The decision was reversed but the EU’s willingness to use override the protocol using its “Article 16” emergency provisions during a health crisis caused cross-party shock.
A Whitehall source said: “We over-estimated the EU’s ability to be reasonable, particularly after the damage caused by the unilateral action in January. After so much work to achieve finely balanced compromise, their actions are destabilising things on the ground in Northern Ireland.
“No Government can stand by as businesses and consumers struggle. If we cannot find pragmatic solutions, nothing can be left off the table.” 

Fisheries 

Express
ANY move by France to cut off Jersey’s electricity supply would see it shunned by the EU, experts warned last night. But Brussels may deploy other, less radical, measures with analysts adding: “It’s not over yet”.
A face-off between Royal Navy and French navy patrol vessels ended without incident as protesting French fishermen left waters around the Channel Island on Thursday. It was the threat by French maritime minister Annick Girardin that France, a Nato ally and defence partner, may cut off Jersey’s electricity supplies that caused outrage, however. While power generated from its own La Collette Power Station and back-up generators on Queen’s Road would allow Jersey to survive any blockage for a week or so, after that it would be “lights out”.
Appeasing militant French fishermen is not the only problem facing Macron’s Government, as France finds itself trying to contain a ”blending together of generalised anti government unrest’ caused by three controversial new laws.
The global security law proposes to dramatically increase surveillance powers among private, state and security forces and is being resented by BLM supporters who claim it will protect police against brutality cases; the anti-separatist law will, apart from control foreign funding of religious communities ban civil servants from wearing any religious symbols and the climate reforms are still attracting so-called yellow vest protests.
As he grapples to keep Marie Le Pen at bay in next year’s presidential elections critics in France have suggested that attacks against “Perfidious Albion” by Macron, now the EU’s most influential leader on foreign policy may be needed.
But last night analysts from Sibylline, a UK threat assessment firm which advises the British Government, said France would soon find itself isolated in Europe if it sanctioned such a move. 

Labour Party 

Mail
Keir Starmer sacked Angela Rayner as Labour Party chairwoman and campaigns co-ordinator tonight over Thursday’s dismal election fiasco, in a move that looked certain to plunge the party into a new civil war.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP appeared to pay the price for overseeing the election debacle but was removed by the leadership the day after Sir Keir said he would personally take the blame for a series of reverses on Thursday.
Anneliese Dodds is expected to be the next high-profile victim of the reshuffle this week, with Rachael Reeves, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, the favourite to replace her, according to The Sunday Times. 
In a sign of the bitter war at the heart of the party, opponents leaked details of Ms Rayner’s use of first class rail tickets to the Sunday Times – with her allies hitting back to claim she only did so for safety reasons after the murder of Sarah Everard.
Ms Rayner is a survivor from the Corbyn era and is also deputy leader, an elected position Sir Keir cannot remove her from. But he does have the power to remove her from her other roles. 
However, the defenestration of the party’s most senior woman – who represents a Northern seat – from a key role is likely to spark a backlash from all sides of the party.
One usually supportive Labour MP said: ‘Not the best idea. She has been useless in the campaigning role, but then so has his own office.’ 
And a frustrated moderate MP said: ‘His office is full of political incompetents who act like they are in an edition of the West Wing without any political antenna. They make no attempt to connect with the PLP and think elected politicians are an inconvenience.’ 
Meanwhile from the left of the party former shadow chancellor John McDonnell piled in. ‘Keir Starmer said yesterday that he took full responsibility for the election result in Hartlepool & other losses. Instead today he’s scapegoating everyone apart from himself. This isn’t leadership it’s a cowardly avoidance of responsibility,’ he tweeted.
Speaking on Friday, leader Sir Keir said he was ‘bitterly disappointed’ with the results and vowed to take responsibility and to fix Labour’s election woes. 

Times
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has removed Angela Rayner as party chairwoman and will sack Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, as he tries to reset his leadership after a drubbing at the polls.
Rayner, the deputy leader, was axed from her role as Labour chairwoman and elections co-ordinator, reigniting a civil war with the left of the party.
Her wings were clipped by Starmer in a face-to-face meeting at the party’s headquarters in Westminster after criticism that she failed to deliver a coherent strategy for the elections. The leader is also understood to blame her for hostile briefings.
Rayner, who is the first casualty of Starmer’s reshuffle, will remain in her position as deputy leader, which is an elected position. 

Telegraph
Sir Keir Starmer was on Saturday night told by senior leftwing Labour MPs to “look in a mirror” for someone to blame for the party’s dismal election results as he sacked his chairman.
Sir Keir began a major reshuffle of his top team, removing Angela Rayner as his party chairman, prompting an outcry from leftwing Labour MPs.
However he was unable to remove Ms Rayner from his top team altogether because her position as deputy leader is elected by the membership.
One former party adviser likened Sir Keir to Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader who was forced out of his party before he got the chance to fight a general election.
The adviser told The Sunday Telegraph that the problem with Sir Keir is that he “actually isn’t a politician. He has done four or five years as an MP, he has absolutely no roots”.
The adviser added: “He seems out of control of himself. He seems to have lost any semblance of how to manage a political party, which is very similar to how Iain Duncan Smith became in the last days of his leadership. 

London 

Express
SADIQ KHAN was nursing a bruised ego last night after being re-elected as London Mayor with a reduced mandate.
Labour had been confident of an easy victory in the capital, expecting Mr Khan to return to City Hall with an increase in support for voters. The contest ended closer than anticipated, with the Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey exceeding expectations.
Mr Khan’s campaign team had been hopeful they could secure more than 50 percent of the vote, winning the contest in the first round of voting – a feat never achieved in London.
In the end the Labour incumbent was forced to rely on votes redistributed from smaller parties to see him over the line.
On first preference votes, Mr Khan won a 40 percent share – down four points on 2016 – compared to Mr Bailey’s 35 percent.
In the run off round, Mr Khan won 55 percent of the vote, with his Conservative challenger winning 45 percent. 

Mail
Sadiq Khan pledged to ‘build bridges’ with Boris Johnson’s government after winning a second term as Mayor of London and surviving having his majority slashed by former rank outsider Shaun Bailey. 
The Labour incumbent will serve a truncated new three-year term after winning the election that was postponed from last year due to the pandemic.
But he was pushed all the way by Mr Bailey, who until yesterday had been given little hope of getting anywhere close to him.  
Mr Khan tonight polled 1,206,034 votes to Mr Bailey’s 977, 601, a majority of 228,433. With second preference votes included Mr Khan won 55 per cent of the vote, down from 57 per cent in 2016. 
Trailing behind them were Laurence Fox who finished in sixth place and will be forced to repay his deposit after receiving only 1.8 per cent, below the required five per cent.
In a sign that will please the Tories, Mr Khan’s lead over Mr Bailey is narrower than the 14-point win he achieved over Tory Zac Goldsmith in 2016. 
However, it may raise questions about how well the Tories could have done if they had put more effort into supporting Mr  Bailey.  Boris Johnson and his most senior ministers were noticeable by their lack of appearances with him during his campaign, while making repeated visits to Hartlepool and other targets.
In a speech from City Hall Mr Bailey said: ‘As I went through these, for me what was two years of campaigning, one feeling felt familiar to me, one challenge had always felt the same.
‘And that was the feeling of being written off – by pollsters, by journalists, by fellow politicians.
‘But it’s no surprise to me that Londoners didn’t write me off.’   

Sun
SADIQ Khan has been reelected as London Mayor after beating out his rival Shaun Bailey.
It comes after an overnight scare for the Labour incumbent when the race for City Hall proved much tighter than expected.
Khan won by 55.2% to Bailey’s 44.8% after other candidates were eliminated for a second round of voting.
Khan took 40 per cent of the first round votes, just five per cent more than his Tory rival.
Some pre-election polls projected Mr Khan to cruise to a first round victory with more than 50 per cent of ballots – but Bailey has done far better than his party did in 2016.
With all first preferences counted, Sadiq Khan won 1,013,721 votes (40.0 per cent) and Shaun Bailey won 893,051 (35.3 per cent).
After all second preferences counted, Khan ended with 1,206,034 and Bailey with 977,601.
The result will be a glimmer of hope to the Labour Party after it received a drubbing in local elections in England, losing control of a host of councils and a humiliating defeat in the Hartlepool by-election. 

Evening Standard
Sadiq Khan won a second term as London mayor tonight after securing an ultimately decisive victory over Shaun Bailey.
Labour incumbent Mr Khan polled 1,206,034 votes – the second highest total in the history of the London mayoralty – compared with 977,601 for his Tory challenger.
This gave Mr Khan a majority of 228,433again the second highest on record. Mr Khan holds the records for most votes (1,310,143) and biggest winning majority (315,529) from his inaugural victory in 2016 against Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith.
The vote-counting went to a second round run-off after no candidate managed to secure 50 per cent of the votes after first preferences were counted. 

Animal sentience 

Telegraph
Animals with a backbone will have a legal right to feel happiness and suffering in a Government drive to raise welfare standards in Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech.
An Animal Sentience Bill will enshrine in law that animals are aware of their feelings and emotions, and can experience joy and pleasure, as well as pain and suffering.
“Sentience” will apply to “vertebrate animals – anything with a spinal cord”, Environment secretary George Eustice told The Telegraph in an exclusive interview below.
An existing committee of experts and civil servants in Defra will be tasked with ensuring Government’s policies take into account animal sentience. 
Ministers were criticised in 2018 when the duty was not carried across into UK law from the European Union after Brexit.
The Government wants to make the UK a world leader in animal welfare and laws that protect animals form the centrepiece of this week’s Queen’s Speech.
As well as an Animal Sentience Bill, an Animals Abroad Bill will ban the import of trophies from animal hunting. A third measure – a Kept Animals Bill – will stop live animal exports and ban families from keeping primates as pets. 

Rail travel 

Telegraph
Rail disruption is expected to continue for a second day and into the week ahead after services were cancelled across the country due to cracks in some trains.
Hitachi 800 trains were pulled from lines on Saturday as a “precautionary measure” after the fault was found in some trains, and Great Western Railway (GWR) and London North Eastern Railway (LNER) have advised people not to travel on Sunday.
Robert Nisbet, regional director at the Rail Delivery Group, told BBC Breakfast: “With the inspections completed initially by the end of today, we are still expecting some disruption to carry on for a few days.
“It’s impossible for me to say exactly how long that is going to take, but we are obviously going through this as quickly as possible, but we don’t want to rush it.
“We want to ensure that all of those trains are thoroughly inspected and cleared and put into service when things are ready, but there may well be a knock-on effect for some of those timetables into next week.”
He said the cracks – measuring millimetres – are on the “lifting points on the underside of the carriages used for maintenance”.
Mr Nisbet said: “It’s fair to say this didn’t pose any particular danger to passengers that were travelling on those trains but if you don’t treat these kind of issues early on then they have the potential to develop.” 

Times
Intercity rail services on some of England’s busiest lines face “prolonged” disruption after cracks were found on train carriages’ chassis.
On a day of widespread cancellations, Chris Heaton-Harris, the rail minister, warned that “disruption is likely for a prolonged period”, particularly on Great Western Railway (GWR). It was feared that most of the company’s intercity services would not run today and disruption would continue this week.
GWR’s long-distance routes run from London Paddington to Penzance, Bristol and south Wales. The company suspended its intercity services yesterday.
London North Eastern Railways (LNER) told passengers not to travel on the east coast main line from London to Scotland.