Inside Politics: Boris Johnson gets trade deal warnings amid Brexit flag waving

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Friday 24 January 2020 08:56 GMT

Brexit timeline: From 2013 referendum promise to a 2020 exit

Strange days. India’s space agency is preparing to send a “half-humanoid” robot called Vyommitra into orbit in the months ahead. What will Vyommitra pick out from all the bright lights below? Will the robot notice the funny little island off the European mainland? Or will we be all alone in the dark after Brexit? With only one week to go until our exit from the EU, Brexiteers are making plans to drape patriotic banners over the White Cliffs of Dover. Boris Johnson is aiming to send out a different message to the world, about a nation open for business – hoping to get big trade deals done in 2020. But will the Little Englanders understand the difficulties that lie ahead after the orgy of flag waving? I’m Adam Forrest, and welcome to The Independent’s daily Inside Politics briefing.

Inside the bubble

Our political correspondent Lizzy Buchan on what to look out for in SW1 today:

A big day in Labour land as Unite announces its decision on who it wants to succeed Jeremy Corbyn. The country’s second biggest union, run by Corbyn ally Len McCluskey, is expected to back Rebecca Long-Bailey. But all candidates get the chance to appear before the union’s ruling body, with a decision expected by the evening. Elsewhere, Boris Johnson will sign the Withdrawal Agreement Bill after it received royal assent on Thursday. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, European Council president, are both expected to sign the legislation ahead of a vote by MEPs next Wednesday.

Daily briefing

FOOL’S GOLD: It’s taken us three years to finalise only a rough outline on the terms of our EU exit. But suddenly it’s supposed to be possible to finalise free trade deals with two major power blocs in just 11 months. Trump’s treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said Washington was expecting an “aggressive timetable” to get a US-UK deal done in 2020 (oh, and he still wants it done before the EU trade deal). Bonkers? In the Commons, SNP MP Stewart Hosie told trade secretary Liz Truss it was “foolish” to rush the deals this year. Meanwhile, the Americans are piling on the pressure over Huawei’s potential role in our 5G network. With Mnuchin set to meet chancellor Sajid Javid before a final decision next week, a US official told the Wall Street Journal: “The appetite for a US-UK trade agreement could be diminished by … the wrong decision on Huawei.” Javid, still at Davos, softened his rhetoric on alignment with Brussels – saying Britain will not diverge from EU rules “just for the sake of it”.

THERE’LL BE BLUEBIRDS OVER: Time to crank up the Vera Lynn and build your model spitfires – we’re off to the White Cliffs of Dover. Tory MP Natalie Elphicke says she wants a massive “We love the UK” banner to be hung from the iconic land formation on 31 January. She also wants the Brexit moment marked with a firework display that can be seen from France – just to show those damn Frenchies how much we love the imposition of economic barriers. But Elphicke find herself competing with a rival campaign by Lib Dem MEP Anthony Hook – who is crowdfunding an attempt to have a 150 square metre “We still love the EU” banner draped over the same chalky cliff face. Banners are the new bongs, it seems. What’s happening at Westminster next Friday? With the stupid Big Ben thing a busted flush, a clock counting down to the moment we leave will be projected onto the outside of No 10. Stay indoors with a sedative, is my advice.

GAGA OVER GALA: With Unite expected to nominate Rebecca Long-Bailey later, it’s likely to be a quiet couple of days in the Labour leadership contest. Frontrunner Keir Starmer has paused his campaign after his mother-in-law suffered a serious accident and was taken to intensive care. It won’t stop arguments elsewhere, however. Tory MPs in the north-east are still trying to get an invite to the Durham Miners’ Gala – the left’s version of Last Night at the Proms. The newly-elected Conservative for North West Durham Richard Holden clashed with Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire live on the BBC – claiming it was jolly bad form for Labour people to keep the totemic union event all to themselves. Ludicrously, he claimed Labour was “almost culturally appropriating these working-class traditions” (that’s not what cultural appropriation means, Richard). Debbonaire said: “The Labour Party is literally the political wing of the trade union movement.”

UNFLUSHABLE TURDS: Zac Goldsmith is well aware people don’t like him. The defeated Tory MP ennobled by Boris Johnson conjured up a vulgar image during his maiden speech in the House of Lords. “One political rival described me as a ‘turd that won’t flush’ – a phrase my children are very unlikely to let me forget.” Which conjures up images of Goldsmith’s children running around the house chanting: “Daddy is a t-urd, Daddy is a t-urd.” Another one of the Tory unflushables, Nicky Morgan, now Baroness Morgan, has had some ominous thoughts about the future of the BBC licence fee. She is still the culture secretary, after all. “It does come up on the doorsteps more and more – ‘Why do I pay my licence fee? I don’t watch it. I don’t agree with it’,” she told the BBC’s Nick Robinson. She warned the upcoming charter review may see the public broadcaster end up in a “wholly different” place.

OFF THE RAILS: Is the HS2 rail project in real jeopardy? Some serious bean counters have offered a seriously negative assessment. A report by the National Audit Office said phase one – London to Birmingham – could be “poor value” by delivering only 80p of benefits for every £1 spent. That’s extremely poor value, to be honest. Literally a waste of money. But, overall, the Y-shaped line to the north of England may deliver £1.40 of benefits for every £1 spent (still considered “low value” by the NAO). Anyway, the spending watchdog reckons the government “misjudged the complexity” of the whole thing. But who could have possibly foreseen that the creation of a high-speed rail network across much of England would be in any way complex?

On the record

“This is a constitutional crisis.”

The SNP’s Ian Blackford reacts to the widely-expected procedural formality of royal assent for the Brexit bill.

From the Twitterati

“It’s the oldest game in the book. Throw some mud at your political enemies & hope enough sticks to destroy them. I hope John Bercow gets the benefit of an independent investigation & is exonerated.”

SNP MP Joanna Cherry stands up for Bercow...

“Those allegations were suppressed during the Brexit process. Because a Remainer Parliament didn’t care if their Speaker might be a bully. So long as he was their bully.”

...while The Telegraph’s Allison Pearson suggests defending him is a Remainer conspiracy.