Brexit

A DEAL HAS BEEN DONE
Click here for details

Express
BREXITEER Sir John Redwood has demanded an “exit clause” to any Brexit trade deal clinched with Brussels as fears of a sell-out soar. A Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU is within reach as both sides neared agreement last night. But, as both sides closed in on securing a deal, some warned the Prime Minister may have given up on some of his strict red lines to get a deal over the line.  Now, a leading Brexiteer has demanded an “exit clause” from the deal. Sir John Redwood wrote on Twitter: “Any UK/EU Agreement must put us in full control of our laws, and needs an exit clause we can use without EU permission.”

Fisheries

Express
BORIS Johnson has made a significant compromise offer to the European Union on fishing quotas in order to get a Brexit trade deal over the line. The Prime Minister agreed to that Brussels would only have to give back 25 percent by value of their current catches in Britain’s coastal waters.  The post-Brexit fishing agreement will feature a five-and-a-half-year transition period, during which the bloc’s generous hauls from British waters would be phased down. A senior European source said this was a “big move by Johnson” to break the deadlock.  The offer was a move on the previous attempt to reclaim 35 percent of the EU’s catch back, over three years. But British officials are pleased with the outcome and feel they have won a significant victory over Brussels.

EU

Express
BREXIT poses huge challenges for the EU as a former bloc insider warns that Brexit could be the beginning of a huge disaster for the bloc. Brexit trade talks could be coming to a conclusion as reports suggest a deal is hours away from being agreed. After four years of chaos during withdrawal negotiations and months of deadlock in trade talks, one senior EU source told the Guardian this evening: “The stars have aligned.” Both sides have said they would prefer a deal, so tonight’s reported breakthrough could ease nerves surrounding Brexit both in London and in Brussels. But Brexit still represents a seismic moment in the history of Europe, and one former EU insider warned last year that Brexit and other crises facing the bloc could lead to a “huge disaster”.

BBC News
The UK government has told the agricultural industry that the EU will allow almost all food and plant exports from Great Britain to continue after Brexit. As a first step, the UK has to be awarded “third country” listed status to be allowed to export to the EU. A Defra letter says the EU will confirm this legally on Monday, with effect from 1 January. This will apply irrespective of a post-Brexit deal. If no deal were struck taxes on imports both ways would apply too, while new red tape such as export heath certificates will be introduced. “Third country listing” is essential to permit ongoing exports of, for example, Welsh lamb or live chicks. The National Farmers Union said it was a “critical step forward”.

Flooding

ITV News
Emergency services in England and Wales have been inundated with requests for help after heavy rain fell across the UK. A yellow Met Office weather warning for rain stretched from East Anglia, across Leicester, parts of Birmingham and north London, and through to mid-Wales  and Cornwall, and remained in place until 2am on Thursday. The BBC reported the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service received 500 calls for help on Wednesday as the downpours hit many parts of the country. Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service said they had handled more than 250 flood calls, with several properties inundated and multiple people rescued from their stranded vehicles. The Environment Agency had issued more than 90 flood warnings for England as of 5am on Thursday, including 16 warnings related to the River Severn on the Welsh border. Other areas covered by flood warnings included part of the Great River Ouse and the Chediston watercourse in Suffolk.

Tier 4

ITV News
More of the east and south east of England will enter the toughest Tier 4 lockdown on Boxing Day, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced. The announcement means an additional 6 million people will be under the Government’s strictest Covid restrictions meaning a total of 24 million people will be in Tier 4 – 43% of the population of England. At a press conference at Downing Street on Wednesday he said that Tier 3 measures were not enough to control the new variant of the virus as cases around England surge. Mr Hancock also announced new travel restrictions for people arriving from South Africa after a new strain from the country had been identified in two cases in the UK that appears to have “mutated further” than the new variant in the UK.

Telegraph
Almost half the country will be in Tier 4 lockdown from Boxing Day under measures announced by Matt Hancock as he warned that another mutant Covid strain has been found in Britain. As the number of daily deaths from the virus reached 744 – the highest number since April – and daily cases hit a high of 39,237, Mr Hancock said an extra six million people will be placed under the toughest restrictions almost immediately.  He said the variant coronavirus was spreading at a “dangerous rate” as he announced the expansion of Tier 4 orders to cover 24 million people – 43 per cent of the population of England. The changes mean the vast majority of the South-East will fall under the toughest tier.

Guardian
The highest Covid death toll since April and the discovery of a second new variant of the virus have led to stark warnings that ministers are acting too slowly by waiting until Boxing Day to put 6 million more people into the toughest restrictions. A swathe of England will be placed under lockdown-like tier 4 curbs from Saturday, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced as the UK recorded 744 deaths – the highest since late April – and 39,237 cases. In total, 42% of England – nearly 24 million people – will be in tier 4 with a further 44% (nearly 25 million) in tier 3. With the virus surging 57% across the country in a week, and the R number rising to 1-1.3, the Isles of Scilly are the only area remaining in tier 1. The introduction of new measures on Boxing Day will leave millions of people in the worst-affected areas free to mix indoors with up to three households on Christmas Day when restrictions are eased for 24 hours.

Times
A new highly infectious strain of coronavirus has been found in Britain as ministers announced that six million more people would be moved into the toughest restrictions on Boxing Day. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, disclosed yesterday that the new variant, which originated in South Africa, is more contagious than the one found in Kent, which has led to a surge in cases in the southeast and London. Visitors from South Africa will be barred from entering Britain from 9am today. All travellers who have arrived in the past two weeks will be required to go into immediate quarantine and must “restrict all contact with any other person whatsoever”.

Mail
Matt Hancock plunged millions more families into Tier 4 today as he attempted to halt the rise of a new strain of coronavirus across England. The Health Secretary told the remaining parts of the South East not already in the toughest level they would be in it little more than 48 hours. He broke the news in a press conference this afternoon after Sage experts revealed the coronavirus R rate in Britain linked to the new variety of Covid has risen to between 1.1 and 1.3.  The outbreak of the new variant of Covid-19 is spreading fastest in London and the East of England, where the R could be as high as a shocking 1.5, and it is at least one or higher in every region of England except the North East and North West. West Sussex and the parts of East Sussex, Essex, Surrey and Hampshire not already in the top tier will enter Tier 4 from a minute past midnight on Boxing Day, with the exception of the New Forest.

‘Freedom passports’

Breitbart
The British government has awarded contracts to two firms to develop coronavirus “freedom passports” to enter into workplaces, pubs, and schools despite previously proclaiming that there are no plans to implement such a system. The two contracts were awarded to develop a smartphone app that would create a digital passport with a QR code and picture that would be linked to confirmation of a negative coronavirus test. The QR codes would allow venues to screen and refuse entry to those who do not have a recent negative test result. The proposed “negative Covid-19 test certification” system was discovered on the government’s contracts checker, according to the Daily Mail. One of the contacts awarded the IT services company Netcompany UK £42,000 in November to develop a “Covid-19 Certification/Passport MVP”. Another government contract totalling some £34,000 was granted to Hub Company to develop a QR code-based app.

Social care

City AM
Care home staff in England will receive two rapid-result tests a week in addition to regular testing to help keep the new coronavirus variant at bay, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced. Health officials have brought forward plans for care home staff to receive bi-weekly lateral flow device tests (LFDs) as concerns grow about the rapidly spreading strain. Staff in all tiers will be given two LFDs, one mid-week, in addition to the weekly PCR tests.  And if a case of coronavirus is identified in a care home in a tier four area, all staff members will be tested daily with LFDs for a week. Public Health England confirmed that LFDs can detect the new variant. The rollout of rapid testing is being supported by a £149m grant after care providers raised concerns about the added pressures associated with using the tests and enabling safe visits.

Education

Telegraph
Fears over when schools will be able to return are growing after Government scientists said the “fundamental question” is how the new Covid mutation affects children. Professor Neil Ferguson, a member of the the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said scientists hoped to learn much more over the next two weeks – while schools are shut – about how quickly the variant spreads among children. Prof Ferguson said they were “working as fast as they can” to work out whether it is safe to open schools in January and how best to ensure that children do not fuel virus spread.  He told MPs: “The fundamental question… the real question will be, how do we reduce the infection risk associated with schools?”

Mail
Ministers won’t take a decision on repoening schools in January until after Christmas as a meeting with Boris Johnson and the Department for education was postponed. The prime minister was set to meet with ministers yesterday to discuss how long pupils should be taught from home following the Christmas holidays, amid rising Covid-19 cases across the country. Britain announced another 39,237 cases of Covid-19 yesterday – the highest recorded since the pandemic began, amid concerns a second mutated strain of the virus had arrived from South Africa. Secondary schools are already set to be taught from home for the first week of next term. But as rumours of a Brexit deal neared, a meeting between the PM and senior ministers was cancelled, according to Tes, formerly the Times Educational Supplement. Despite millions more people being plunged into Tier 4 measures from Boxing Day, and talk of a third national lockdown in the New Year, Robert Jenrick yesterday assured parents that schools would be open next month.

Vaccine

Telegraph
The Government is considering proposals to limit people to just one dose of the Covid jab in order to allow more people to be vaccinated as quickly as possible. Whitehall sources said “live conversations” are going on with regulators after calls for the move were made by a number of experts, including the Government’s former director of immunisation. Professor David Salisbury, who led the programme at the Department of Health until 2013, said he would “strongly urge” the Government to use the current doses available on as many risk groups as possible. He said the new variant of the virus, which is spreading rapidly, “concerns him very greatly” and “adds even more reason” for giving people just one dose. “I would be telling people [that if we did this] we are going to be saving more lives,” Prof Salisbury told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Guardian
A senior scientific adviser has said more data is needed before the government can adopt a proposal to give as many people as possible a single dose of a Covid vaccine rather than preserving stocks so there is enough for a second jab. The former prime minister Tony Blair and Prof David Salisbury, a former director of immunisation at the Department of Health, backed the idea on Wednesday, saying second shots should be given only when more stock is available. While the suggestion would mean each vulnerable person who has received the vaccine would be afforded less protection, the number of people given at least some protection would double. But Prof Wendy Barclay, a member of the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), told the Commons science and technology committee: “I think that the issue with that is that the vaccine is on the basis of being given two doses, and the efficacy is on that basis. To change at that point, one would have to see a lot more analysis coming out from perhaps the clinical trial data.”

Mail
The coronavirus vaccine programme must be speeded up, politicians and business leaders said on Wednesday night. Jeremy Hunt led calls to accelerate the roll-out as the pandemic tightened its grip with a fast-spreading new variant. ‘Time is against us with this new strain so we now need a great national effort to turbocharge the vaccination programme,’ the Tory former health secretary said.  ‘The logistics will be complex but I have no doubt our incredible NHS can rise to the challenge: just look at the lightning-speed Nightingale hospital  building programme.’ Helen Dickinson of the British Retail Consortium said action was needed because the expansion of Tier Four controls were proving devastating for high streets.

Nightingale Hospitals

Telegraph
Staff shortages have left London’s flagship Nightingale hospital empty without any equipment or its 4,000 intensive care beds, despite Covid cases doubling in the capital. One of seven built at the start of the pandemic at a cost of £220 million, the Nightingale hospital, at the ExCel Centre, was shut and placed on standby soon after, although 90 per cent of the building has returned to how it was previously.  The Nightingale at Birmingham’s NEC and the one in Sunderland are also empty but on standby, while Manchester’s was open for “non-Covid care”, with those at Exeter and Harrogate being used as “specialist diagnostics centres” and Bristol’s deployed for “local NHS services”.

Dover

Times
Chaotic scenes continued in Dover yesterday as thousands of hauliers were stranded at the border despite the first coronavirus tests being carried out. Talks with France about reopening the border had raised hopes of an end to the deadlock that has resulted in as many as 10,000 trucks being stuck by the port. Skirmishes broke out with police and lorry drivers were seen being led away in handcuffs. It was the third day of gridlock in the town. The port was effectively closed for much of the day as vehicles were prevented from entering or leaving. Tempers flared yesterday morning as about 50 frustrated truckers tried to break through police lines manning a road to the port.

Santa Claus

Telegraph
The current border chaos will not impact the journey of Father Christmas, a leading physicist has said, as he could jump into a wormhole and evade inspection. Professor John Butterworth, professor of physics at UCL who has worked at Cern’s Large Hadron Collider, has been thinking about whether travelling to every child in the world’s house in one night is possible within the laws of physics. Due to the current restrictions on travel, including the closure of Europe’s borders to the UK because of a new mutant coronavirus strain, the festive visitor may find it difficult to complete his tasks. However, Mr Butterworth said there could be theoretical ways he could get around the space and time issues that are in the way of going to every house on Christmas night. He admitted that “Father Christmas is beyond the standard model” and “we don’t really understand how it works”.

Evening Standard
The North American Aerospace Defence Command will be tracking Santa Claus‘ journey around the world again this year. Volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado have tracked Father Christmas on his journey delivering presents to children around the world for 65 years. The volunteers will field calls from children on Christmas Eve to tell them where Santa is flying. However, Covid-19 regulations mean the number of Norad staff on the lines will be limited in 2020, the 65th year of the service. Norad spokesman Preston Schlachter said: “We understand this is a time-honoured tradition, and we know undoubtedly there is going to be some disappointment. “But we’re trying to keep it safe for everyone involved.”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email