Brexit trade deal
Telegraph
Boris Johnson will on Wednesday hail “a new chapter in our national story” as MPs prepare to make history by backing his post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. The vote on the deal, which will largely end the four-year Brexit saga, will achieve what “we were told was impossible”, the Prime Minister will say, enabling Britain to trade freely with Europe while also striking deals with countries around the world. He will tell Parliament that Britain will remain “the best friend and ally the EU could have” as he makes it clear that the purpose of Brexit was “not a rupture but a resolution” of the UK-Brussels relationship.
Express
BREXIT took massive steps forward recently after the UK and European Union finally agreed on a deal which will define their future relationship, but why does the UK have to negotiate with every EU country in 2021? The UK formally left the European Union on January 31, 2020. A deal has now been agreed between the UK and EU which contains new rules about how each bloc will live, work and trade together. But despite this deal being agreed, negotiations are far from concluded.
Times
Boris Johnson won hardline Brexiteer support for his trade deal last night and will present it to parliament today as heralding a new relationship of sovereign equals between Britain and the European Union. The prime minister is to bring forward legislation on a free trade agreement that is expected to pass comfortably in an accelerated sitting of both houses of parliament. He will promise that Britain will be a “friendly neighbour — the best friend and ally the EU could have” and to work “hand-in-glove whenever our values and interests coincide”.
iNews
Boris Johnson will declare that his post-Brexit trade deal will see the UK “open a new chapter in our national story” as MPs vote on the agreement on Wednesday. The Prime Minister was given a major boost on Tuesday when the hardcore of Tory Brexiteers said they would back the deal after they concluded it “preserved the UK’s sovereignty”. The move paves the way for the agreement to be passed through Parliament and enshrined into UK law, allowing the UK to leave the EU with a deal on Thursday. Bringing the Future Relationship Bill in front of MPs, Mr Johnson will say the free trade agreement secured with Brussels will mean Britain will become the “best friend and ally the EU could have”.
Mail
Boris Johnson will hail a new chapter in Britain’s history today as his EU trade deal goes before Parliament. On the eve of the landmark vote, Tory Eurosceptics announced they would support the agreement, finally ending decades of division in the party over Europe. Their move paves the way for the legislation to be rushed through the Commons and Lords in just one day, ahead of the end of the transition period at 11pm tomorrow. Urging MPs to back the accord struck on Christmas Eve, Mr Johnson will claim it resolves ‘the old and vexed question of Britain’s political relations with Europe, which bedevilled our post-war history’.
Express
BORIS Johnson’s Brexit trade deal with the EU is set to be backed by Parliament today in a “historic resolution” for Britain. The Prime Minister says the agreement will “open a new chapter in our national story” when the UK leaves the European Union for good with the tolling bells of Big Ben at 11pm tomorrow night (Dec 31). In what promises to be a truly momentous day in Westminster Mr Johnson will crash the EU Future Relationship Bill through both the House of Commons and Lords in just one day.
Fisheries
Express
BRITAIN’S fishing industry will be restored to its former glory within five years thanks to Boris Johnson’s Brexit trade deal, a member of the UK negotiating team has said. The agreement secured with Brussels will see quotas currently retained by EU fisheries slowly handed back to the UK over five years. Over the period the value of 25 percent of fish caught by EU boats will be returned to Britain. After the five years, annual negotiations will take place to determine quotas. UK fisheries will be given a £100million funding package from next year to prepare the industry for taking back control of its waters.
Express
SOME fishermen are furious over the new Brexit deal as they believe Boris Johnson has sold the industry short. Cabinet minister Michael Gove pledge to give a funding package to modernise trawlers and fish processing plants amid the new deal. A post-Brexit agreement on trade and other issues including fishing was agreed just a week before the transition period between the UK and European Union will end. The deal marks a new era for the UK after 40 years of EU membership. But some fishermen, including Anton Bailey in Devon, do not think the new deal benefits the fishing industry as it was originally promised.
EU
Express
BREXIT trade talks saw EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier brand the UK “rule-takers” before Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted concessions. Mr Johnson admitted last week that the UK’s trade deal with the EU “perhaps does not go as far as we would like” over access to EU markets for financial services. Talks for a trading agreement went down to the wire as many feared there would not be enough time to get a deal ratified even if agreed. Mr Johnson appeared to admit to making concessions in his interview with the Sunday Telegraph, but attempted to ease fears over regulatory divergence.
Express
BRITONS have reacted with fury after Michel Barnier suggested future legal action could occur if there is a dispute between the UK and European Union following the agreement of the Brexit trade deal. Brussels’ chief Brexit negotiator, who led the EU’s talks over a trade deal with the UK, warned there is “obviously a risk” in the event of future arguments. Boris Johnson has said any disputes resulting occurring from the trade agreement between the two sides would be dealt with by “third-party arbitration” but stressed this move would be unlikely.
Guardian
Labour will make a clean break from its divisions over Europe and will not seek major changes to the UK’s relationship with the EU, Keir Starmer has told the Guardian, vowing to shift Labour’s focus to “Britain in the 2030s” rather than the battles of 2016. Evoking Tony Blair’s election slogan of “forward not back” on the eve of the vote on the post-Brexit trade deal, Starmer said he wanted to lead a party that was focused on the future – saying it was unlikely Europe would even feature on his party’s election leaflets.
Express
THE EUROPEAN UNION has been warned that its own failings will lead to the bloc’s demise as trust among citizens wanes. The EU is facing a battle to preserve its very existence as some fear Brexit could spark a surge in euroscepticism. German philosopher and historian Ulrike Guerot, who has previously worked with former EU Commission President, Jacques Delors, believes the bloc is in crisis. Professor Guerot, who published a ‘Manifesto for a European Republic’, has warned that Brussels’ current failings are not being addressed. She argued that one day the EU’s lack of action will mean “we will wake up one day and Europe will be gone”.
EU immigrants
Mail
EU migrants who come to the UK from New Year’s Day onwards will be barred from claiming benefits for five years. Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey will confirm today that new arrivals from the Continent will face the same rules as those coming to Britain from the rest of the world. Child benefit rules will also be overhauled so workers will no longer receive money for children living outside the UK. Announcing changes promised by the Tories before last year’s general election, Miss Coffey said: ‘We have delivered on our manifesto commitment to restore fairness in access to our welfare system by treating EU and non-EU migrants equally.
Tiers
Mail
Millions more are set to face the country’s toughest Tier 4 coronavirus restrictions this week, with Boris Johnson expected to decide which regions will endure the changes later today. Pressure mounted on the Government to act as hospitals across England warned of increasing strains on services due to Covid-19 patient numbers, which have reached their highest levels during the pandemic, while a record daily high of 51,135 further cases were reported on Tuesday, along with 414 deaths. Tuesday’s infection tally is the highest toll officially recorded by the Department of Health in a single 24-hour period and it marks a sharp 44 per cent rise on last Tuesday’s figure of 36,804.
Vaccine
Express
THE coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca has been given approval today in the UK. The drug was given approval by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and will prepare for a mass rollout across the country. Cheaper than the Pfizer drug, the UK has an initial order of 100 million doses of the vaccine. The vaccine will begin its rollout on January 4 in a vital boost for Boris Johnson as the new strain of the virus spreads rapidly across the country. In data released earlier this month, the drug was found to be 90 percent effective when applied with half a dose and then a second full shot.
Evening Standard
The UK should go “hell to leather” to roll out the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine following the jab’s approval on Wednesday, the Shadow Health Secretary has said. Jonathan Ashworth said the country was now locked in a “race against time” against Covid-19, and called for NHS staff to receive priority for the new vaccine. It comes amid mounting fears that the NHS is in danger of being overwhelmed by an avalanche of new virus cases. On Tuesday the UK recorded more than 50,000 new infections for the first time in the pandemic. Matt Hancock is expected to announce later that millions more people will be placed under strict Tier 4 restrictions, as the more infectious variant of the virus steps across the country.
Times
The coronavirus jab developed by Oxford University and the pharmaceutical giant Astrazeneca has been approved for use in Britain, paving the way for a rapid rollout of the government’s vaccine programme. The jab, which has been shown to offer up to 90 per cent protection against Covid-19, was approved by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency this morning. “The government has today accepted the recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to authorise Oxford University/Astrazeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine for use,” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said.
Sun
OXFORD University’s coronavirus vaccine has been approved by regulators today – and the jab will be rolled out to millions of Brits from Monday. Giving a glimmer of hope this morning, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the vaccine will help Britain out of the pandemic by spring, as cases surge across the country. The UK has ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine – enough to vaccinate 50 million people. Matt Hancock said the approval was “fantastic news” and confirmed its rollout would begin on January 4. He also said “we are confident we can get out of the pandemic by the spring,” telling Sky News: “It’s very good news for accelerating the vaccine rollout. It brings forward the day we can get our lives back to normal.
Breitbart
Spain will keep a registry of people who refuse to have a vaccination for the Chinese coronavirus, and will share the data with other European Union member-states. Health Minister Salvador Illa announced the plans on Monday, saying that while the vaccine would not be mandatory and there would be no repercussions for refusing the injection, the government would be tracking those who declined to have it. “What will be done is a register, which will be shared with our European partners… of those people who have been offered it and have simply rejected it,” Mr Illa said during an interview with La Sexta television channel on Monday, according to the BBC.
Cases
Mail
Medics in areas worst affected by the surging number of coronavirus cases are just days away from having to make ‘horrendous choices’ over who they can treat and who is left to die, a consultant warned last night. The situation in hospitals reaching breaking point with record Covid admissions continued to deteriorate yesterday, with ambulances queuing and many intensive care units operating well over their capacity. It emerged certain London ICUs have asked major hospitals in Yorkshire, more than 150 miles to the north, if they will agree to take some patients.
Guardian
Hospitals could soon face “horrendous choices” about which Covid-19 patients receive potentially life-saving treatment because the NHS is so dangerously overloaded, doctors fear. The warning came as calls grew for the whole of the UK to be put into a new lockdown, and for a delayed return for schools after the Christmas holidays by up to a month to help stem the massive rise in coronavirus infections. The health service is struggling to cope with record numbers of Covid cases to such an extent that some patients may be denied access to an intensive care unit or the chance to go on a mechanical ventilator, the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) said on Tuesday.
BBC News
Millions more people in England are expected to be placed under tougher coronavirus restrictions amid escalating case numbers. Government sources have indicated an announcement later will see more areas move into tier four – “stay at home”. Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to detail the changes – which could be introduced within days – in the House of Commons after 14:30 GMT. The West Midlands and Hartlepool are among the areas that could be affected. Infection rates in lower tier areas of England have risen rapidly in the last seven days, according to the latest government data.
Sun
A doctor has given a dire warning from the coronavirus front line as hospitals ‘run out’ of oxygen and patients are sent across the country for treatment. Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden has warned that NHS staff are struggling to deal with the huge numbers of Covid-19 patients coming through hospital doors. In a series of powerful tweets, the President of the Doctors’ Association UK said: “Hospitals are running out of oxygen. One trust has no non-invasive machines left. “ICUs are tweeting for volunteers to prone patients.
Mail
LONDON hospitals have asked to transfer patients requiring intensive care to Yorkshire as units in the south east and east of England are overwhelmed. A junior doctor has described the situation in one London hospital as “aggressively overstretched” due to coronavirus patients – and is expecting the situation to worsen. Leaked figures obtained by the Health Service Journal reveal critical care units in the South East and East are operating at more than 100 per cent capacity. The Prime Minister is also facing increasing pressure to delay the school term following the emergence of a more transmissible coronavirus mutation.
Education
Telegraph
Secondary schools are on course not to open as planned next week as ministers prepare to push “far more areas” into a Tier 4 lockdown on Wednesday. Boris Johnson held a key Covid-O committee meeting that will pave the way for a major expansion of Tier 4 restrictions and for school reopenings to be delayed for at least a week. It came as Covid cases surged to a record daily high of 53,135, with 414 deaths, piling pressure on the Prime Minister for a full national lockdown to combat the spread of the new and highly infectious strain of the virus.
ITV News
Teachers and union bosses have called on the government to delay pupils’ return to school amid a rising surge of coronavirus cases in the UK. Armed forces are set to be drafted in the support mass Covid-19 testing of school students in England next month, with the government pushing forward with its plan to get kids back to school. The Ministry of Defence said 1,500 military personnel would be deployed to ensure testing systems were up and running by the time pupils returned to school in January.
Guardian
Secondary schools in England are unlikely to fully reopen until after mid-January at the earliest, according to new plans being thrashed out within government that would also see school staff be given high priority for Covid vaccinations. According to government sources, ministers are torn between heeding its scientific advisers over the rapid spread of the new Covid variant, and warnings from the Department for Education that switching to remote learning for the whole of January would make it hard for schools and colleges to reopen again before Easter, jeopardising summer exams.
Times
The return to secondary schools in England is likely to be delayed beyond next week as heads say they will boycott or postpone the mass use of coronavirus tests. Unions have told head teachers not to feel forced to comply with the programme of testing five million pupils at the start of term. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, is believed to be prepared to compromise on postponing the new term if it enables proper testing sites to be set up at schools.
Mail
Boris Johnson will delay the opening of all England’s secondary schools for at least another week after pressure from SAGE scientists, ministers, teachers and unions to keep all students at home throughout January, it emerged today. The Prime Minister is expected to announce the new extended schools lockdown after being accused of ‘dithering’ on the eve of the new term – but primary schools will be told to open as usual on Monday. Pupils studying for GCSEs and A-levels in Years 11 and 13 will now not go back to school on January 4 as agreed, and will have to wait until at least January 11 – and can only return after receiving a negative Covid test, according to the TES.
Gibraltar
Express
BRITISH negotiators are thrashing out a separate 11th hour post-Brexit border deal for Gibraltar. The British territory’s border was not included in the trade deal struck between the UK and the EU on Christmas Eve but the issue is still subject to the same negotiating deadline. London and Madrid are trying to agree arrangements for how the border will work when the transition period ends on December 31 and freedom of movement rules no longer apply to the UK.
this vaccine to be applied half a dose first and then second a full dose
Why that format
Was it ever tested the other way round full dose first and half dose second
Or full dose first, full dose second
Or half dose first half dose second.
Or even a double dose one shot????
Is there much of a difference in cost between a full or half dose?
Will we be able to specify which maker we get.?
The maker is irrelevant. None have been properly tested; there simply hasn’t been the time to do so.
This from Breitbart:
“England Will Need to Build Over 100K Houses Per Year to Keep Up with Mass Migration”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/12/30/england-will-have-to-build-over-100k-houses-per-year-to-keep-up-with-immigration/
How was this ever in our best interests or beneficial to the country as a whole? Beneficial possibly for a few bankers, estate agent and other assorted spivs.
We’ll have to build over our green belt and turn our once beautiful country into an urban nightmare, a concrete jungle. All of this with rampant crime, violence and rape as is already the case.
We’ll never keep up with demand of course, we’re adding the equivalent of one major city a year to our little island it is unsustainable and will lead to disaster.
If our politicians had set out to make our lives a complete misery on purpose, they couldn’t have done a better job, I can only assume then that this was indeed their intention all along. The reality is that our politicians will never listen to us until we string a few of them up.
And politicians like Boris Johnson who just find it difficult whatever the situation to say ‘no we are not having it’ finds other ways because it is easier for him. Rather than sorting out the root cause to this problem by putting an end to mass immigration and sending illegal migrants back from whence they came, instead we all have to suffer the consequences of their incompetence having our beautiful country built over with all the problems that would entail. The present Conservative administration MUST be the last for a very long time. This country is in desperate need of a party with true conservative values, rather then the poor excuse of one, that we have in power right now.
‘Best friends and ally the EU could ever have’, what an utter load of cobblers Johnson talks, just like ‘our European friends and partners’ which he has laughingly uttered on many a occasion. In his own mind he may believe this’ but I don’t believe him and never have done, and I really don’t like his brand of liberal democrat conservatism either, and whilst I may have given him the benefit of the doubt in December 2019 and voted for his party for the fist time in 38 years, it will be a case of never again. The Conservatives haven’t conserved anything in years and are now on par for being as wet as the Liberal Democrats themselves. In truth, the European Commission/European Union have never had any real respect for this country, and this has been compounded by our weak willed, indecisive, and dithering prime minister, who over the past year has broken every deadline he himself set.
In other words, we have been sold a “pup”.
Just as I expected all along. All those who held their nose and voted Tory needn’t have bothered. Whats more they’ve assented to whatever horrors this govt want to inflict. They’d have done better putting up independents or voting “none of these,”
Mary – I voted ‘none of the above’ and thought it mattered at the time. I know now that it was a wasted vote. Nobody counted it, nobody cared. Enough people voting for an Independent at least opens the door to the possibility of providing a constituency with a constituency representative chosen by the constituents. But it takes a great deal of work, time, resources, to get people to think differently and break their habits of a lifetime. I believe we should be promoting our independent candidates now, not three weeks before the next election but who has that kind of stamina? Not enough of us, I fear.
Quite agree Michael. The big parties have so many resources that independents don’t have access to, and even if the independent has backing, it’s a helluva lot of work.
And of course there are loads of people who will vote just to keep the ‘other lot’ out.
Worse than that Lisa. Good parts of our Constitution have been by-passed to get it through.