Fisheries 

Express
SUPERTRAWLERS and other huge EU fishing vessels plundering UK waters are being targeted by environmental campaigners with an operation specially designated to hold to account to save marine protected areas (MPAs).
Greenpeace has launched Operation Ocean Witness to coincide with World Oceans Day today. The six-month project will involve a new Greenpeace ship called Sea Beaver, which monitor MPAs off the south coast and do what Greenpeace claims the UK Government has so far failed to do, namely protecting the UK’s marine protected areas from destructive fishing, a key Brexit promise.
The Oceana pressure group today published data indicating that so-called bottom trawlers, which drag huge nets along the sea bed, spent 68,000 hours fishing in UK protected areas set up specifically to protect the seabed in 2020.
Greenpeace’s Operation Ocean Witness is committed to documenting and exposing what they characterise as destructive fishing practices.
It will also document the beauty and biodiversity of the UK’s seas, and engage with fishing communities along the south coast. 

Northern Ireland 

Mail
The EU will start a trade war with Britain if Boris Johnson overrides the Brexit treaty so Northern Irish shops can keep selling British sausages, a vice-president of the European Commission has warned.
Maros Sefcovic said Brussels would react ‘swiftly and resolutely’ if Britain chose to extend the grace period in the Northern Ireland  Protocol, which expires at the end of this month.
Under the grace period, chilled meats produced in mainland Britain can be sent there. But it has been reported that ministers are now considering another unilateral extension for the produce as a last resort. 
Earlier this year Britain extended the grace periods on supermarket goods and parcels.
In March the EU hit back, launching legal action and accusing Britain of violating international law.
Mr Sefcovic wrote in the Daily Telegraph that if the UK took further unilateral action the EU ‘will not be shy in reacting swiftly, firmly and resolutely to ensure that the UK abides by its international law obligations’.
Mr Sefcovic said the current Northern Ireland Protocol was the ‘best solution’ to ‘the type of Brexit that the current UK Government chose’. He added: ‘No one knows it better than Lord Frost himself, then the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator.’ 

Similar stories can be found in the Telegraph, Sun,  

G7 

Express
THE EU has hatched a plot to “divide and conquer” the UK during the G7 summit as Brexit tensions remain high.
At this week’s G7 summit in Cornwall, EU leaders will try to approach Boris Johnson directly to discuss Brexit issues, a commentator has claimed. Amid the tense relations between Brussels and Lord David Frost, EU leaders now believe the minister is the “the problem” causing issues surrounding Brexit. According to Mujtaba Rahman, former civil servant and managing director of political risk research firm, Eurasia Group, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen will attempt to sway the Prime Minister in Cornwall this week.
He said in a tweet: “There’s a very strong consensus across the EU that Frost is the problem.
“EU strategy now is to isolate him & use margins of G7 to get to Boris Johnson directly – hope he will see sense.
“I expect a concerted push by Merkel, Macron, Von der Leyen etc.
“Call it ‘divide & conquer’ – EU style.”
The UK and EU will meet on Wednesday to discuss issues surrounding Brexit, namely the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Due to the Protocol, Northern Ireland has been left within the EU’s single market, meaning there are checks for goods moving between Great Britain and the island of Ireland.
Ahead of the meeting this week, Lord Frost insisted progress must be made in order to ease issues in Northern Ireland. 

A similar story can be found in the Times. 

Asylum seekers 

Telegraph
No migrants have been deported to safe countries in a new crackdown on “inadmissible” asylum claims because EU governments will not accept them, Home Office figures show.
The disclosure came as Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, said the British public was “absolutely fed up” with the surging numbers of illegal migrants crossing the Channel to claim asylum in the UK.
Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, also spoke by phone on Monday about the “concerning rise” in Channel crossings by migrants and the need for both countries to “deter [them] from attempting this perilous journey”, Downing Street disclosed.
The data, revealed on Tuesday by The Telegraph, shows that none of the 1,503 migrants who reached the UK largely in small boats or lorries across the Channel have been returned to safe countries despite all their asylum claims being judged “inadmissible”.
The Home Office strengthened post-Brexit rules from Jan 1 so that, once a claim was rejected, the migrant could be returned to any safe European country where it could be shown they had passed through and should have claimed asylum.
The new rules were designed to replace the Dublin Agreement, which operated when the UK was part of the EU and under which European countries agreed to take back migrants from the UK if there was evidence they had or should have claimed asylum during their journeys. 

Freedom Day 

Express
BORIS Johnson is expected to announce a two week delay to stage four of his roadmap out of lockdown, due to growing concerns over the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Cabinet ministers are said to be increasingly pessimistic that the June 21 date for ending  lockdown restrictions in England can still go ahead as planned, after receiving a downbeat briefing yesterday from the Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance. A cabinet source told The Times that any delay could be “between two weeks and a month.” The postponement would allow all over-50s to be fully vaccinated and leave sufficient time for the jabs to kick-in and take effect before restrictions are lifted.
Professor Whitty and Sir Patrick were reported to have told Cabinet ministers that they had “real concerns” about the transmissibility of the new Covid variants, and emphasised that vaccines did not provide 100 percent protection.
A spokesperson for Number 10 told The Times that there was “nothing in the data” to suggest that the final stage of the lockdown easing could not go ahead on June 21.
However, they insisted that the Government would continue to look closely at infection rates and hospitalisations.
All remaining lockdown restrictions are scheduled to end on “Freedom Day”, June 21.

Similar stories can be found in the Mail. Times, Morning Star, Evening Standard. 

EU 

Express
BRUSSELS has threatened to slap Britain with punitive sanctions unless the Brexit row over Northern Ireland is resolved.
The European Commission today warned that the UK would soon have to start showing genuine proof for the construction of border control posts in the region, as well as grant eurocrats access to customs databases in the coming weeks. The intervention comes ahead of a crunch meeting over the Brexit deal’s protocol to avoid a hard border in London between Lord Frost and his EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic. They will discuss how to continue work on implementing the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol amid growing concerns that the post-Brexit border fix is causing tensions in the region.
A senior eurocrat claimed that Britain could be hit by retaliatory trade tariffs unless Downing Street agrees to play to the bloc’s tune.
The Commission official said: “Our patience is wearing thin, and if this continues, the EU will have to consider all the tools and all the options that are available to us.”
Under the terms of the Brexit trade agreement either side can impose tariffs on the other’s exports for breaching the pact, pending independent arbitration.
The insider argued that Britain continues to avoid implementing the terms of the 2019 Brexit divorce deal that was signed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. 

 A similar story can be found in the Guardian,  

Guido
Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas has just called for the right of individual EU member states to veto decisions to be scrapped, arguing that the 27-member bloc cannot be held back by single nation hold-outs. He didn’t say “now Britain has gone” – though he might as well have done.
“We can no longer be held hostage by those who paralyse European foreign policy through their vetoes,” Maas said, accusing those doing so of “playing with Europe’s cohesion. I therefore say quite openly: the veto must go – even if that means we too can be outvoted.”
Maas did not name names, however Hungary has recently blocked EU foreign policy statements. Ireland will veto tax harmonisation. Greece has had issues with the EU majority’s stance towards Turkey. Many nations have strategic national interests protected by their veto.
In a public row last month, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto slammed the EU’s “one-sided” statements on Israel as his European counterparts called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians. Without Britain to protect them, some EU states may come to realise just how much the EU is a German racket… 

Express
A FRENCH inspired move to exclude the UK from EU research  programmes into space projects and supercomputers has been defeated in a bitter blow for Brussels bureaucrats.
Thierry Breton, the former French finance minister and current EU internal market commissioner, had attempted to introduce a blanket ban on Britain’s participation in certain parts of the €100bn (£86bn) Horizon Europe funding programme. He claimed that the EU needed to protect its intellectual property and suggested that the UK could pose a security risk. Mr Breton’s proposal was hotly disputed by leading European research institutes and countries that included Germany and Ireland.
There was concern that the UK was being treated as if it posed the same security threats as China.
After lengthy discussions in Brussels, EU diplomats decided at a meeting last Friday that a blanket ban on Britain’s participation in the Horizon programme would not be enforced.
They insisted that EU capitals and not European bureaucrats would make the decision on whether a country from outside the bloc could participate in any given research project on a case-by-case basis.
Moreover, a qualified majority of the 27 member states would have to vote in favour of imposing an exclusion order. 

Similar stories can be found in the Guardian, Telegraph,  

Foreign aid 

Mail
Boris Johnson was spared an humiliating defeat on foreign aid today as Speaker Lindsay Hoyle dismissed a Tory-backed amendment – but demanded ministers hold a vote soon.
Sir Lindsay said clerks had advised him that the rebel bid to reinstate the 0.7 per cent spending target could not proceed as it is ‘out of scope’ of the legislation they were trying to change.
But he read the riot act to the government, saying that they should allow politicians to have a vote on the issue soon. He suggested there could be an emergency debate as early as tomorrow. 
Sir Lindsay said: ‘The House has not had an opportunity for a decisive vote on maintaining the UK’s commitment to the statutory target of 0.7 per cent. 
‘I expect that the Government should find a way to have this important matter debated and to allow the House formally to take an effective decision.’ 
Former International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell, the ringleader of the revolt, said he believed they would have won by up to 20 votes.    

Similar stories can be found in the Independent, Guardian, Times, ITV News, Evening Standard,  

Gibraltar 

Express
SPANISH nationalists have lashed out against the UK calling for Gibraltar to return under the full jurisdiction of the Spanish Government.
The Secretary General of Vox, a far-right party in Spain, is accusing the Andalusian and the  Spanish Government of allowing the entry of “contaminated” land so that the Rock continues to build on Spanish territorial waters.
After he visited La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz) last Thursday, Javier Ortega Smith lamented an attack on national sovereignty by  Gibraltar under British lead.
He said: “For those of us who defend national sovereignty, territorial unity and the free development of Campo de Gibraltar, it is unacceptable to continue yielding to blackmail and the invasion of Gibraltar.
“We must tell them very clearly that this is over, that we are not going to allow it anymore, and that we are going to permanently vindicate our sovereignty and control of our waters.”
Mr Smith has insisted that Vox does not renounce the sovereignty of the Rock, which he recalled is the last colony of the European Union.
He added: “It belongs to us by right and by history.
“We claim the national sovereignty of Gibraltar and especially of those areas that are being permanently occupied. 

Alzheimer’s 

Telegraph
The US regulator’s decision to approve aducanumab is understandably a moment of real optimism for many Alzheimer’s patients and their loved-ones.
It is, after all, the first medication to get the green light since 2003, and the first ever that tackles the disease process itself, rather than merely the symptoms.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are not pushovers.
They will not have given their consent unless they believed the evidence suggested at least a reasonable chance that some patients will benefit.
These are likely to be those in the early stages of the disease.
But before getting too optimistic, it is worth understanding just how murky that evidence is, plus the further hurdles aducanumab must overcome before becoming available in the UK.
A monoclonal antibody, it targets the buildup of amyloid protein plaques in the brain, which are believed to cause Alzheimer’s. 

Similar stories can be found in the Times, ITV News 

eScooters 

Evening Standard
The launch of the e-scooter rental trials in London hit an early bump in the road on Monday when one of the main areas postponed its involvement.
The City of London was last month announced by Transport for London as one of five boroughs where the electric-powered scooters could be hired from Monday under a 12-month Government-backed trial.
On Sunday The Standard learned the City Corporation, the local authority for the Square Mile, said it would not be joining the scheme until July 5, apparently due to a delay in resolving administrative rather than safety concerns.
This will restrict the initial use of the e-scooters to Canary Wharf and to four west London boroughs – Richmond, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea. The original plan had been to allow e-scooters to be ridden between the twin financial hubs of Canary Wharf and the Square Mile.

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