Downing Street has rejected calls from some Conservative MPs and the mayor of London to consider extending Brexit talks beyond the new year, saying any trade deal had to be in place and approved before 31 December. Boris Johnson’s spokesman also dismissed the idea of allowing MPs to ratify a trade deal retrospectively as time was too...
Culture Minister John Whittingdale warned that the broadcaster may require different sources of income. He said the licence model is guaranteed until 2027 explaining that the “justification that everybody benefits from paying it because everybody benefited from the BBC is still largely the case, but that will diminish over time”. He said: “I suspect that...
Brexit trade talks are yet to reach a formal agreement as disagreements over fishing and regulation remain a sticking point between the UK and the EU. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today that there is a “path to an agreement”, but this has not come without tension between the UK and France. Last week...
Defence secretary Ben Wallace has said he will “miss” Donald Trump as the US president has been “quite a good friend” to the British government. The minister praised the outgoing US leader, who has repeatedly refused to admit defeat to president-elect Joe Biden, during a visit to British troops in Estonia. “I’ll miss Donald Trump, because he was quite a good...
Boris Johnson has been snubbed by Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron after he requested a phone call with them to try and unblock Brexit talks. A senior EU official said the request for a three-way call on Monday was rejected because all negotiations should go via the European Commission rather than individual leaders. The claim, which is...
Boris Johnson has said it is “very, very likely” that the UK will fail to strike a trade agreement with the European Union, raising the prospect of a no-deal Brexit at the end of this month. On a visit to Blyth in Northumberland, the prime minister predicted the UK would not strike a post-Brexit deal with the EU before the end of the transition period....
The Prime Minister was speaking on a visit to Blyth in Northumberland on Friday when he made the remarks. Boris Johnson said: “Unfortunately at the moment there is a key thing where we cannot seem to make progress. And that is this ratchet clause they have got to keep the UK locked into whatever they want to...
Last-ditch efforts to break the deadlock in UK/EU trade talks have failed to produce a breakthrough, as Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that “significant differences” remain on crucial issues. In a downbeat joint statement after phone talks lasting an hour on Saturday evening, the pair said that no free trade agreement (FTA) was “feasible” unless they could bridge...
After three years of political wrangling, Britain finally left the EU at 11pm on January 31. It is a new chapter for the country’s national history – one that will hopefully see the UK return to being an independent sovereign state after the transition period. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has less than a month to secure a free trade...
The Met Office has issued yellow rain warnings for parts of Scotland next week. From 6pm on Monday until 9pm on Tuesday, one yellow rain warning covers swathes of northern and eastern Scotland – including Aberdeen and Inverness. The Met Office is warning heavy rain could bring localised flooding, with hill areas catching up to 50mm of...