Brexit News Live: Breaking News When Conservative MP Said Boris Johnson May Be A Deal

Nicholas Le Poer Trench, the 9th Earl of Clancarty, has called the EU an “irreplaceable” trading partner for the UK, in terms of service industries.

Speaking in the House of Lords on Tuesday, he said that the government and the media “had consistently underestimated the importance of service industries, both for the country and for our trade with Europe.”

“We do not know if we are going to reach an agreement with the EU, or how it will be if we do. What we do know is that a non-agreement on services will be a non-agreement for the country, ”he told the Chamber. “Services represent 80 percent of our GDP, a statistic that we have repeated many times, and our services trade with Europe represents 51 percent of our services exports.”

He added: “So, as it stands, Europe is a hugely important service market. The most important. And because of the importance of geography for service industries, the EU is, frankly, irreplaceable. ”

It comes as Boris Johnson reportedly continues to tell his cabinet that a no-deal Brexit is the “most likely outcome” of the ongoing negotiations.

Michael Gove is scheduled to make a call with decentralized nations later this afternoon to discuss the relaxation of Covid rules next week over Christmas, the BBC reports.

A government source is believed to have confirmed the news to the broadcaster.

It comes as number 10 confirmed Tuesday that the government has the relaxed measures “under review.”

The government wants to go ahead with the relaxed coronavirus restrictions over Christmas, but keeps its guidance “under review,” said Boris Johnson’s official spokesman.

He declined to confirm or deny reports that ministers are discussing options to reduce the number of days of relaxed restrictions from five to three or to reduce the number of homes allowed in a “Christmas bubble” from three to two.

But he said the guidance is constantly being revised in light of the latest data on topics like transmission rates, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock you have the details here:

Boris Johnson has repeated to his top ministers that failing to reach a trade deal with the EU is “the most likely outcome,” but his team would still try to reach an agreement, his spokesman said.

During an update for his Cabinet team, Mr Johnson “re-emphasized the desire to reach a free trade agreement, but not at any cost, and reiterated that any agreement must respect the independence and sovereignty of the United Kingdom,” he said. the spokesperson.

“The prime minister made it clear that not being able to reach an agreement and end the transition period on Australian-style terms was still the most likely outcome, but promised to continue negotiating on the remaining areas of disagreement.”

With only 16 days left until the Brexit transition period ends, Euronews’ The correspondent in Europe reports that “it is quite clear” that MEPs will not “not tolerate debating or ratifying any EU-UK trade agreement before” 31 December.

As such, a “new treaty between the EU and the UK will be drawn up that will allow some kind of extension of the current agreements until the agreement is ratified by parliament,” reports Shona Murray.

The Greenwich Council has told schools to reopen for all students after the education secretary threatened them with legal action for switching to online learning for fear of the coronavirus, our political editor Andrew Woodcock reports.

Council leader Danny Thorpe said Greenwich believes Gavin Williamson’s order was wrong at a time when cases were increasing rapidly and was being carried out only “reluctantly.”

But Thorpe said the council couldn’t justify using taxpayers’ cash to fight the Department of Education in court and had no choice but to ask principals to reopen classrooms for everyone.

The emergence of a new strain of coronavirus “is not a disaster” for the UK and will not lead to “a collapse in all of our plans”, a government scientific adviser has said.

A total of 1,108 cases related to the variant have been identified, predominantly in southern and eastern England, PHE announced, and scientists from the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium are investigating it.

Calum Semple, a Sage Fellow and Professor of Outbreak Medicine at the University of Liverpool, told the BBC: “People shouldn’t lose sleep over this, they really need to leave virology to the scientists because we’re in the early stages. to understand what is happening here. “

Samuel Lovett has the full story here:

As the Boris Johnson government announced the decision to eliminate training on unconscious biases, Cabinet Office Minister Julia López told MPs that a Behavioral Insights Team report found that “there is currently no evidence that this training changes behavior in the long term or improves the workplace equality in terms of representation of women, ethnic minorities or other minority groups ”.

“He also claims that there is emerging evidence of unintended negative consequences,” he told deputies.

“In light of their findings, the ministers have concluded that unconscious bias training does not achieve its intended objectives.

“Therefore, it will be phased out in public service. We encourage other public sector employers to do the same. “

Aside from the ongoing Brexit negotiations in Brussels, a lot is happening in and around Westminster on Tuesday. Here are the schedules for today:

11.30 am: Business, energy and industrial strategy issues.

12.30 pm: Business statement from the leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

12:45 pm: A statement from Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden on the government’s full response to the online damage inquiry.

13.45 h: A 10 minute rulemaking motion on the prohibition of virginity testing.

2 pm: UK Internal Market Bill – Consideration of Lords Amendments.

Also at 2pm: Taxation (post-transition period): remaining stages.

Also at 2pm: A short discussion on the 125th anniversary of the National Trust.

11am: Staff of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

2.30 pm: Planning for the future White paper.

4 pm: Welsh food and protected status.

4.30 pm: Effect of the Covid-19 outbreak on people with learning disabilities.

13:00 h: Commercial invoice: report stage (day two).

Also 1pm: A statement about Covid-19.

The Boris Johnson government has decided to eliminate training on unconscious bias for public officials in England, and ministers say it does not work.

The training aims to address prejudiced thinking patterns when it comes to race, gender and sexuality, and is widespread in workplaces across the UK. But the Cabinet Office said there is no evidence that any attitude is changing and has urged agencies across the public sector to abandon training exercises.

The move has been criticized by racial equality activists and the FDA officials union, reports my colleague. Adam Forrest: