Fisheries

Times
Foreign supertrawlers more than doubled the amount of time they spent intensively fishing in UK marine protected areas last year, an investigation has found. The 25 supertrawlers, which are each more than 100m long and can catch hundreds of tonnes of fish a day using nets up to a mile long, collectively spent 2,963 hours in 39 protected areas in 2019, up from 1,388 hours in 2018. The Russian, Dutch and Polish vessels fished in areas that were designated to protect important species and habitats, including harbour porpoises and reefs. One of the areas most heavily fished was the Southern North Sea Special Area of Conservation, which was designated to safeguard porpoises.

Express
BRITAIN will not back down during trade talks with the European Union on the fishing sector according to a Conservative MP. Cabinet Office Minister Penny Mordaunt told the House of Commons that there are some very tough areas in Brexit  negotiations, one of which is fishing. The Paymaster General added that the UK will not waiver from demanding their rights are upheld and the European Union needs to recognise that. Ms Mordaunt said: “The last round of the negotiations touched on all the workstreams. “There have been in-depth discussions across all areas that have been very constructive on both parts. “There are some very tough areas, one of them is fishing.

EU

Independent
The EU’s chief negotiator has called for an extension to the Brexit transition period in a bid to save stalling trade talks and prevent a no-deal. Michel Barnier told a committee in Brussels that the European Commission supported an extension beyond the end of the year to give negotiators more time, with scant progress so far. The EU has previously said it is open to an extension but has shied away from actively calling for one. But as the deadline to extend looms at the end of this month, Mr Barnier’s position has shifted. “We are in favour of an extension, particularly given the current circumstances,” Mr Barnier told a meeting of the European Economic and Social Committee.

Sun
MICHEL Barnier warned Boris Johnson the Brexit talks won’t go anywhere unless he accepts the EU’s offer to compromise. Brussels’ dealmaker said he’s ready to meet the PM in the middle on key sticking points but needs a sign from No 10 that it’s serious about a deal. He went his furthest yet in saying he’s “ready to compromise” on the bloc’s most controversial demands.

Guardian
The European parliament could veto any trade deal between the UK and the European Union that lacks “robust” safeguards to ensure fair competition and strong standards on the environment and workers’ rights, according to a leaked document. A draft resolution, seen by the Guardian, which will be put to a vote on Friday, underlines the implicit threat to block the EU-UK trade deal. Urging the British government to “revise its negotiation position”, the text states that a level playing field is the “necessary condition for the European parliament to give its consent to a trade agreement with the UK”.

Express
MICHEL Barnier’s latest bid to railroad the UK into a Brexit extension has been given short shrift by Brexiteers – with former Brexit Party MEP Rupert Lowe taking to social media to pour scorn on the EU’s chief negotiator. Meanwhile Robert Oulds, director of pro-Brexit think tank the Bruges Group, also suggested Mr Barnier  had zero prospect of persuading the UK to delay the process beyond December 31, the day the transition process comes to an end. Speaking during a meeting of the European Economic and Social Committee, Mr Barnier accused the UK of asking for too much in ongoing negotiations aimed at thrashing out a free trade deal.

Telegraph
London should lose its status as a European centre for financial and legal services after Brexit, Michel Barnier has said.  The EU  chief negotiator said Britain should not be allowed to become a stepping stone into the EU market or a manufacturing hub for the bloc after the end of the transition period this year. Mr Barnier told representatives of the European Economic and Social Committee that Britain should also not keep its large share of the lucrative market for testing goods to ensure they meet EU standards.  The loss of that 20 percent market share would mean a burdensome and expensive process for UK businesses in which they would have to pay for their products to be shipped to the EU for testing before they can be exported to the bloc.

City AM
Brussels’ chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has said he will not allow the UK to “cherry pick” benefits of EU membership in a free trade deal. Barnier told the EU’s Economic and Social Committee today that the UK was asking for “a lot more than Canada, Japan or any of our other free trade agreement partners” and that the EU would act in its own economic interests in negotiations. Talks between the UK and EU have stalled after four rounds, with the two sides unable to make progress on areas such as fishing policy and business competition regulations. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are set for high level meetings this month in an attempt to remove the current blockages to a trade deal.

Race riots

Telegraph
Police officers with full riot gear will be on standby “kitted up and ready to go” amid fears of potential clashes this weekend between Far Right and Black Lives Matter protesters. The move follows criticism of Metropolitan Police tactics last weekend which saw officers without helmets and shields pelted with bottles and fireworks by a minority of protesters in central London on Saturday evening. It is understood more than 30 Public Support Units (PSUs) – each with 24 police officers who have undergone specialist tactical training in public order and riot control – will be deployed because of the potentially toxic mix of three groups of protesters.

Mail
Police fear far-Right thugs could descend on London this weekend to take on anti-racism protesters, with football hooligans planning counter-protests to ‘defend’ memorials and statues. The Democratic Football Lads Alliance, founded in 2017 with a supposed aim of opposing terrorism, has urged members to defend war memorials at Whitehall this Saturday from midday. It urged people to ‘defend what our war heroes done for this country and their honour’, with members expected to gather by the Winston Churchill statue and the Cenotaph.

Voice of Europe
A massive demonstration has been planned for Saturday, the 13th of June, in response to the attacks on brave Met Police officers, the vandalism of UK landmarks, and rioting by Antifa Terrorists. The event is due to take place at 11am on Saturday June 13th on Whitehall – and intends to be a peacefull response to Antifa anarchy and welcomes and all colours, creeds and orientations. The protest hopes to give a balance to the biased coverage and reaction to the death of criminal thug George Floyd, who left-wing UK Antifa protesters have been using to further their own gains.

Yahoo News
A memorial to Queen Victoria in Leeds has been defaced with the words “racist” and “slave owner” following a wave of Black Lives Matter protests. The monument, situated at Woodhouse Moor in the Hyde Park area of the city, has also been spray-painted with the words “educate”, “colonise”, “justice” and “Black Lives Matter”. The memorial – designed by sculptor George Frampton – features a large stone plinth with a sculpture of the monarch on top. It was first erected outside Leeds Town Hall in 1905 and was later moved to another site in the city.

Social distancing

Telegraph
Boris Johnson plans to scrap the two metre rule by September at the latest so that schools can reopen fully for the start of the school year, The Telegraph has learnt.  The Prime Minister has indicated to ministers that he is preparing to change the rule, possibly bringing it into line with the World Health Organisation standard of one metre, within weeks.   The Government’s chief scientific adviser appeared to prepare the ground for a change on when he said two metres was “not a rule” but just a “risk based assessment”.

Times
Millions of children will be able to hug grandparents for the first time in almost three months from this Saturday in a limited relaxation to social distancing rules. Adults living alone or single-parent families will also be able to form a “support bubble” with another household. Two households with more than one adult cannot unite, however, meaning that many older couples must remain in isolation, along with those with serious health conditions who have been asked to “shield” from the coronavirus.

BBC News
The government is facing calls from Tory backbenchers to drop the 2m (6ft) social distancing rule in England. MPs, including former cabinet ministers Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Damian Green, say it is essential for the economy. The government has said it is constantly reviewing its coronavirus lockdown guidance. It follows the announcement of a further easing of restrictions in England, allowing single adults to stay at one other household from Saturday. No 10 said the change aims to help combat loneliness and that people are being trusted to observe the rules.

Mirror
Some grandparents will finally be able to hug their grandchildren for the first time in months this weekend as new rules allow households to create “support bubbles”. Boris Johnson made the announcement in a bid to support single people who feel isolated as lockdown drags into its 12th week. From Saturday, households in England with a single adult will be able to ‘bubble up’ with one other household of any size. Anyone in the bubble will be allowed ‘act as if they live in the same household.’

Independent
Boris Johnson wants to end the two-metre social distancing rule by September at the latest to allow schools to fully reopen for the new academic year, according to reports. Mr Johnson has told ministers he wants to change the rule within weeks, possibly to bring the UK into line with World Health Organisation guidelines advising people keep a distance of one metre, according to The Telegraph. The news comes after the government’s chief scientific officer, Sir Patrick Vallance, suggested the two-metre social distancing measures were not a hard and fast “scientific rule”.

Death toll

Telegraph
The Covid-19 death toll may be less than half what has been recorded because many victims of the pandemic would have died soon anyway, one of Britain’s leading medics has said. Professor Karol Sikora, a senior oncologist who has built a huge Twitter following for his positive takes on the health crisis, said medics were sometimes too eager to put Covid-19 on death certificates. Speaking to the Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast which you can listen to on the player above, Professor Sikora said the virus would be mentioned on death certificates when there was “any hint” it could have been the cause, without proof, as well retrospectively over the phone.

Schools

Telegraph
Parents are “more frightened than they need to be” about schools reopening, the education watchdog says. Ofsted chief inspector  Amanda Spielman said the Government’s decision not to require all primary school pupils in England to return to the classroom before the summer holidays was “disappointing”. Plans for all of England’s primary school children to return for a month of schooling before the summer break have been dropped by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson. In a controversial eleventh-hour U-turn, Mr Williamson told MPs he wanted all children back at school in September.

Times
Boris Johnson promised a “big summer of catch-up” for pupils who have missed months of lessons in the lockdown. The prime minister also announced there would be “a very big plan” to get all schools open in September and that Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, would reveal both next week. Mr Johnson made the promise at the Downing Street briefing as criticism of his education policy intensified. Primary schools in England began reopening more widely on Monday of last week for children from reception, Year 1 and Year 6.

Mail
Pupils in England will undergo a ‘massive summer catch-up operation’ following months out of the classroom after the Government U-turned on its promise to get primary school children back before the holidays.  The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced there would be a ‘big summer of catch up’ to help children ‘make up for lost time’ in their education amid the coronavirus pandemic.  Mr Johnson went on to confirm that education secretary Gavin Williamson would be ‘setting out a lot more’ next week about the ‘massive catch-up operation’ and recovery plan.

Sky News
School pupils will undergo a “massive catch-up operation over the summer and beyond”, the prime minister has announced, as critics rounded on the government’s handling of the impact of COVID-19 on education. Boris Johnson has said he wants all pupils back in classrooms by September – with reports suggesting he is willing to relax the two-metre rule to make this happen. It comes after the government abandoned plans to get more primary school children back in class before England’s summer break.

Independent
Teachers must be paid extra to run summer catch-up classes, a former schools’ chief inspector says, condemning the government’s failure to reopen primaries. Michael Wilshaw  attacked the “absolutely astonishing” botching of the promise that all younger children would return before the holidays – blaming a split between No 10 and the department for education. And he said: “I would be appealing to staff to come in over the summer holidays and take catch-up classes for those youngsters who need it,” adding they should be paid more.

Quarantine

Times
More than 1.1 million people have arrived in the UK by sea since the start of the year without being forced to self-isolate as concerns mount over the government’s quarantine policy. Official figures show that there were 346,000 arrivals in the UK in March and April alone despite concerns over the transmission of coronavirus, casting further doubt over the government’s quarantine policy which was introduced for arrivals this week. The figures include HGV drivers, who are exempt from the quarantine measures, although it is not known how many fell into the category.

ITV News
Forget the UK’s “patient zero”, new cases of coronavirus were pouring into the country by the hundreds each week during March, helping to explain why our outbreak grew so large so quickly, new analysis of virus genomes reveals. The study also finds the vast majority of cases arrived in the UK from mainland Europe at a time when much of our travel advice was focused on Asia. The finding reinforces the conclusion of leading scientists like Professor Neil Ferguson on Wednesday that many lives could have been saved if the lockdown had happened sooner.

Contact tracing

Times
Contact tracing and the NHS’s covid smartphone app have identified infections and reduced the spread of the virus, official figures suggest. An analysis of the integrated system, that is being used on the Isle of Wight, appears to show that it has succeeded in containing the infection during a month long trial. The findings are likely to be highlighted by an official evaluation of the project to be published next week and will increase pressure on the government to launch the app across the country.

BBC News
A second version of the smartphone software was due to have begun testing on the Isle of Wight on Tuesday, but the government decided to postpone the trial. Ministers are considering switching the app over to tech developed by Apple and Google. But countries testing that model are experiencing issues of their own. Health Secretary Matt Hancock had originally said the NHS Covid-19 app was to be launched across England – and possibly other parts of the UK – by 1 June. But he subsequently said the government had decided it would be better to establish a network of human contract tracers first.

Police

Breitbart
A British sociology professor has outlined the areas of policing that he believes the government should “immediately” defund, with the ultimate goal of completely eliminating law enforcement in the United Kingdom. Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper, a sociologist at the University of Greenwich, said that funding for the police should be diverted into “women’s refuges, youth services and greater funding for mental health provision, particularly for young people” over the next year. In an interview with Vice magazine, Elliott-Cooper pinpointed four areas of law enforcement currently carried out by London’s Metropolitan Police that should be divested immediately.

Shopping

Telegraph
Ocado is gambling £1bn on a drastic change in shopping habits as online grocery sales take off in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. The firm is launching a major fundraising bid to rapidly expand both its own internet sales operation and the production of robot factories for supermarkets worldwide to capitalise on surging demand for home deliveries. Chief executive Tim Steiner believes that many shoppers forced to buy food over the web during lockdown will now permanently stay away from physical stores – giving his firm a golden opportunity to dominate the market as grocers adapt.

5G

Telegraph
America has offered to build Britain’s 5G and nuclear power stations so that the “coercive and bullying” relationship with China can end, Mike Pompeo has said.  In a statement released yesterday the US Secretary of State said America stood with its “allies and partners against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) coercive bullying tactics”, as he sighted reports that Beijing had threatened to punish HSBC and “break commitments to build nuclear power plants in the United Kingdom unless London allows Huawei to build its 5G network”.  HSBC is understood to have claimed that it could face reprisals in China if Huawei was blocked from selling equipment to the next generation of networks being built by Britain’s mobile operators.

Post Office

Mail
Post Office bosses should face criminal prosecutions over an IT scandal branded the ‘biggest miscarriage of justice in our history’, MPs demanded yesterday. Up to 960 postmasters were wrongfully convicted of fraud, theft and false accounting after cash appeared to vanish from their tills. But it later emerged that shortfalls in the accounts of local branches were the result of flaws in their Horizon IT system. Even as evidence emerged that the computer system could be to blame, the Post Office continued to bully postmasters into pleading guilty to crimes bosses knew they had not committed.

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