United Kingdom

    The pound against the US dollar (GBPUSD=X) dropped by over 0.3% on Tuesday morning after prime minister Boris Johnson made a major move to guarantee Britain will be dragged out of the European Union by 2021. The pound held up over the key $1.31 mark, trading around $1.32, but has been steadily sliding since Friday when Johnson’s Conservative party secured a major win at the general election. The transition period. This is set to conclude in December 2020. It can be extended for up to two years, if both the UK and EU members agree. If that was to happen again, Brexit could be delayed. However, Johnson’s government is aiming to add a new clause to the Brexit bill to make it illegal for parliament to just that. This week, the House of Commons is set to vote on the am...

    The first day back in parliament after last week’s general election saw 140 excited new MPs travel to Westminster to start their new jobs. Less conspicuous were those quietly packing their offices and saying goodbye to the building that, in some cases, they had worked in for decades. Of the 73 sitting MPs to lose seats in this election, 46 were Labour, seven were Conservative and six were Liberal Democrat. After the blow of being turfed out by constituents, former members of parliament are given a week to pack up their belongings before their security passes stop working on 19 December. For Tom Brake, the longest-serving Lib Dem MP ahead of Thursday’s vote, his first task after losing his seat of Carshalton and Wallington after 22 years was to talk to his staff abou...

    Boris Johnson has fuelled fears that workers rights and environmental safeguards will be ditched after Brexit after the government watered down a promise to enshrine them in law. Downing Street suggested that the prime minister is no longer committed to pledges, made to MPs before the general election, to guarantee that standards will not be weakened when Britain leaves the EU. A promise that MPs would be given a vote on whether or not to extend the transition period at the end of 2020 to avoid leaving the EU without a trade deal has also been ditched and will not be included in a key Brexit bill to be reintroduced this week. The pledges were made by Mr Johnson and his team in October as they attempted to convince MPs to vote for the prime minister's Brexit deal. ...

    Emily Thornberry has announced she is taking legal action against ex-Labour MP Caroline Flint over the complete lie that she called Leave voters stupid. The shadow Foreign Secretary said she had given the ousted MP until the end of today to withdraw the claim made in a TV interview on Sunday but she refuses to. So that is what we are doing to do, we are having to take legal action, Ms Thornberry confirmed. The extraordinary spectacle of one senior Labour figure suing another comes after Ms Flint stepped up her criticism that a pro-Remain faction was to blame for Labour’s election disaster. The former Don Valley MP targeted Ms Thornberry, a North London MP, claiming: She said to one of my colleagues, 'I'm glad my constituents aren't as stupid as yours'. She and Ke...

    Two female Labour MPs are looking likely to throw their hats into the ring to replace Jeremy Corbyn as the party's leader. The high profile backbenchers, Birmingham Yardley MP Jess Phillips and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy, have both written in the Observer calling for change within the party. Their comments came on the same day that Jeremy Corbyn apologised to Labour supporters for his party crushing defeat in the 2019 general election and said he accepted his responsibility for it. In the Observer, Ms Phillips said she is “angry” that a generation will now be scarred and governed by a party that has done nothing to improve their lives. Working class people don't believe we're better than Tories The Birmingham Yardley MP made clear she believed her party needed to change...

    Michael Gove has categorically promised the UK will have a trade deal with the EU by the end of next year, despite deep reservations in Brussels about whether this is possible. The senior cabinet minister became the first in Boris Johnson’s cabinet to repeat that pledge after the election, saying transitional arrangements would definitely stop at the end of December 2020. He said discussions on the UK’s future relationship with the EU “will be concluded next year”. Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Gove said: “Quite a lot of the details that we need to negotiate is already laid out in the political declaration, so a lot of work has been done. “And as a number of people have pointed out, there are areas where the European Union’s interests and the United Kin...

    Boris Johnson has vowed to repay the trust of former Labour supporters whose votes helped deliver him victory in the General Election. The Prime Minister made a symbolic visit to Tony Blair’s old Sedgefield constituency in County Durham which fell to the Tories on Thursday night to pledge his commitment to spreading opportunity across the country. We believe in giving opportunity to everyone, he told a crowd of cheering supporters and newly-elected MPs from the region packed into the local cricket club. We believe that talent is evenly distributed throughout our country, but opportunity is unfairly distributed. We are going to rectify that as a One Nation Conservative government, as a people’s government, that is what we are going to do. Sedgefield was one of a s...

    The most powerful British leader since Tony Blair, Boris Johnson can steamroll Parliament for the next five years in pursuit of his agenda. The same goes for chief aide Dominic Cummings, who will exert greater influence over British national life than ever before. BBC beware and for that matter, Channel 4, civil servants and the Supreme Court. The Conservatives begin a fourth term in office with a staggeringly large majority, beyond their wildest expectations, restoring the party to the dominance it enjoyed in the late 1980s. None of this guarantees easy times ahead, since no previous postwar government has had to grapple with redefining Britain’s place in the world, brokering new trading rules and security co-operation, trying to protect the United Kingdom from th...

    Hundreds of protesters have descended on the capital in the wake of Boris Johnson's election victory. A heavy police presence was seen close to the Cenotaph in Whitehall, which was cordoned off as clashes broke out. Demonstrators carrying placards with the slogans No to Boris Johnson, No to Racism and Defy Tory Rule cried out 'Oh Jeremy Corbyn' and let off red smoke flares during angry protests. They travelled down Whitehall before moving towards Millbank and Horseferry Road, shouting "the people, united, we will never be defeated". Police were overheard shouting "box them in" as they tried to contain the crowds with a cordon.

    Jeremy Corbyn has said he is very sad at the election result and suggested he will step down in the early part of next year, but insisted he has pride in the manifesto. The Labour leader gave a short statement in which he did not apologise to the 60 Labour MPs who lost their seats or acknowledge any responsibility for the party suffering its worst result since 1935. I have pride in our manifesto that we put forward and all our policies we put forward that actually had huge public support on issues of universal credit, the green industrial revolution and investment for the future, he said. But this election was taken over ultimately by Brexit and we as a party represent people who vote remain and leave, my whole strategy was to reach out beyond the Brexit divide to ...