United Kingdom

    The number of sexual assaults reported on the Tube have soared by 42 percent in the past four years, new figures show. Attacks on the Underground recorded by the British Transport Police (BTP) rose from 844 to 1,206, according to Mayor of London statistics. The BTP said it expected a rise in reports following a drive to encourage victims to report unwanted sexual behaviour. But campaigners argue incidents are still under-reported and more needs to be done to stop attackers before they strike. The figures revealed there had been 138 sexual assaults on the Night Tube since it began in August 2016, with 62 in the past year. The Central line, which does not have CCTV cameras on its trains, saw the most recorded assaults with 1,054. This was followed by 645 on the Vi...

    Boris Johnson has spoken to the Queen today after the Supreme Court handed down its verdict, it has been confirmed. A senior UK Government official said the Prime Minister had spoken with the monarch on the phone "earlier in the day". They would not comment on the exact timing of the call. And they would not say whether he had apologised to the monarch. "We never in any circumstances discuss the contents of conversations between the Prime Minister and her majesty," the official said. The call came after the Supreme Court ruled his decision to ask her to prorogue Parliament was unlawful. The Prime Minister said he would abide by the historic judgement and Parliament “will come back” as he was cornered on a chaotic visit to the United Nations in New York. But as c...

    Boris Johnson would have no option but to recall MPs to Westminster if the supreme court rules he misled the Queen, senior legal sources told the Observer yesterday. There is a growing belief in the legal community that the court will find against the government when it hands down its momentous verdict on Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament. The prospect of the court finding against the prime minister has left the UK heading towards a constitutional eruption of volcanic proportions, according to another senior legal figure who asked not to be named. He said he also believed the case would go against the government. Before the case, few thought the court would determine that Johnson’s advice to the Queen to suspend parliament for five weeks would be found unla...

    Travel disruption and localised flooding will strike Britain today, with some regions seeing as much as 40mm rainfall in just the space of a few hours. Britain bathed in warm temperatures of 26C yesterday but today the Met Office has slapped in two yellow warnings for heavy rain across western England, all of Wales and Northern Ireland. They started at 6pm yesterday and will last all the way through to around 9pm tonight - a full 27 hours of heavy rainfall. Northern Ireland will be the worse off, with heavy showers, thunderstorms and strong gusty winds in the south and west. The Met office say flooding of home and businesses is 'likely' and spray and flooding will make journey times longer. It's also going to be colder for the rest of us as the remnants Hurricane...

    John Bercow could bypass Boris Johnson and recall Parliament himself if the Prime Minister loses his legal battle over prorogation, the Supreme Court heard yesterday. Britain's top judges will give their verdict in the highly contentious case next week after three days of legal argument which finished on Thursday. Lord Pannick QC, representing Remainer activist Gina Miller, suggested the court could find the prorogation unlawful but then leave it to Parliament to decide what happens next. In that case, the Commons Speaker and his counterpart in the Lords may be entitled to re-open Parliament themselves, Lord Pannick said. The Government has indicated it may try to prorogue again if it loses the case. In his closing remarks yesterday Lord Pannick said: 'The remedy...

    Britain has submitted some written documents to the EU to try and break the Brexit deadlock. A UK government spokesperson confirmed the "confidential technical non-papers which reflect the ideas the UK has been putting forward" were shared with Brussels. They added: "We will table formal written solutions when we are ready, not according to an artificial deadline, and when the EU is clear that it will engage constructively on them as a replacement for the backstop." It is understood the non-papers, which mean informal proposals used to inform discussions, focus on customs and manufactured goods. Technical discussions will now take place between Britain and the EU, with talks between Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and Brussels' chief negotiator Michel Barnier to ...

    The boss of the Co-op has warned that a no-deal Brexit could lead to fresh food shortages and higher prices in supermarkets. Steve Murrells said the product area he is most worried about is fruit, where he expected prices to surge as retailers may be forced to fly in supplies if the chaos predicted in leaked government documents became a reality. We think there will be shortages in some fresh food areas. Where that is the case we would endeavour to bring it in to give our customers a choice. Murrells said the convenience chain was using extra warehouse space to stockpile long-life products such as water, toilet paper and canned goods but the pinch point was fresh food, particularly soft fruits such as blueberries, and also apples and pears, which are imported durin...

    Michel Barnier has told MEPs there remain insufficient grounds for reopening formal negotiations over the Brexit withdrawal agreement, six months after Theresa May and the European commission closed them. In a private briefing with the European parliament’s leaders, the EU’s chief negotiator said Boris Johnson’s officials had yet to offer any “legally credible and workable” proposals to replace the Northern Irish backstop on which the two negotiating teams could build. In an earlier briefing with diplomats representing the EU27, a senior member of Barnier’s Brexit team had described the ideas so far put forward during technical talks between officials on both sides as “aspirational”. “Another longish meeting without tangible progress on Wednesday,” said an EU diplo...

    Concerns have been raised over an apparent threat to the UK issued by the Chinese government, which stated that the deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth to the South China Sea could be interpreted as a “hostile action”. The Ministry of Defence plans to deploy the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier to the Asia Pacific region on her first operational deployment in 2021, The Telegraph reports, adding that the UK Government is “keen to assert freedom of navigation through international waters” alongside other Western powers. In response to the plans, Major General Su Guanghui, China’s defence attaché to the UK, told reporters: “If the US and UK join hands in a challenge or violated the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China, that would be hostile action.” Sky News ...

    Labour declared class war on Boris Johnson today as Jeremy Corbyn accused him of wanting Brexit for his 'rich friends'. The Labour leader played down claims he was 'yellow' for blocking the PM's call for a snap election - saying he would not back a poll on 'Johnson's terms'. Meanwhile, the party's union paymaster Len McCluskey ramped up the rhetoric even further by raging that the 'workers are coming for you' in an extraordinary rant at the TUC conference in Brighton. The vicious attacks came after Mr Johnson suffered his latest disastrous defeat in the Commons - with MPs refusing his plea for a snap election. Labour is now threatening to delay a national poll until well into December in a bid to destroy Mr Johnson's 'do or die' vow to deliver Brexit by October 31...