Inside Politics: EU ‘ready to offer only short Brexit extension’

Brussels looks set to reject the UK’s call for a two-year extension of post-Brexit grace periods and prolong arrangements by only a few months, writes Adam Forrest

(REUTERS)

Always read the small print. Megan Markle is said to have some “very serious” book deals on the table, after being approached by top publishing houses with big contract offers. Michael Gove would dearly like to go back and change parts of the UK’s very serious Brexit contract with EU, having admitted things aren’t working. The Cabinet Office minister wants to “refine” parts of the deal – but it looks like the EU has an offer he may not like. 

Inside the bubble

Chief political commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for today:

The cabinet will meet on Zoom this morning. Health secretary Matt Hancock will then make a statement on the update to the NHS Test and Trace app that will add information on new Covid variants. And MPs will discuss Lords amendments on the trade bill, including another potential rebellion over clauses seeking to penalise regimes accused of genocide.

Daily briefing

BE KIND, REFINE: Michael Gove has claimed the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol is “not working” and will need “refinement” amid growing anger over the agreement’s impact. “It can be made to work,” he told MPs on Wednesday. But it looks like any refinement will be minor. The European Commission is likely to reject the UK’s call for a two-year extension of the post-Brexit grace periods – and agree to only a three to six-month extension instead, according to The Telegraph. Not good enough, says the DUP – suggesting Boris Johnson should consider triggering article 16 to suspend the protocol’s operations. Jeffrey Donaldson, the party’s Westminster leader, said: “If this is the best the EU can do … the prime minister has a duty to act.” Tory MP Richard Drax, a leading light in the Leave campaign, suggested Brexiteers had failed to take the UK out of the EU as a single country. “We have failed, have we not?” he asked the Cabinet Office minister. Gove disagreed.

CONFIDENCE IS A PREFERENCE: Boris Johnson said he still has “confidence” in the UK vaccines, despite concerns about their effectiveness against the South Africa variant. Deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam offered much stronger reassurance at the latest press conference, saying there was “no reason” to think the South African variant would become the dominant form of the virus in the UK. Van-Tam also said the current vaccines was highly effective against the “immediate threat” of the Kent variant. The government is tinkering again with travel rules, with everyone entering the UK set to be tested a few days after they arrive. But expanded testing is not enough for the Labour party. A growing number of scientists are also concerned. The best way to combat the South African variant is to “completely close the borders”, said virologist Prof Lawrence Young – condemning the government's “prevarication”. Keir Starmer accused the government of leaving “the back door open”. 

LEFT TO THEIR OWN DEVICES: Keir Starmer is on the defensive at the moment. The Labour party leader insisted that the “vast majority” of members are behind him, after a co-ordinated outburst of moaning from the left. A group of left-wing figures – Unite, Momentum and the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs – have called for an emergency party conference because of“anger and disillusionment” over the direction Starmer is taking. “Many feel our leadership has taken the fight to its own members more than it has to aTory government,” said MP Richard Burgon. Starmer insisted he was “focusing on the right things” during the Covid crisis. Poll numbers are causing Labour a lot of the anguish at the moment. The latest YouGov and Ipsos Mori polls give the Tories a four-point lead. According to the Ipsos survey, 48 per cent thinkLabour’s changed for the better under Starmer, while only 4 per cent think it’s got worse. The bad news: only 32 per cent think Labour is ready to form a government – numbers which aren’t any better than under Corbyn or Miliband.

FROWN AND GOWN: Boris Johnson is set to side with Rishi Sunak and limit the extension to the£20-a-week universal credit, according to The Times. The report suggests the chancellor will get his way and limit the extra payments to another six months– rather than the one-year guarantee the work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey wanted. MPs on the work and pensions committee will be disappointed. The group’s latest report says the uplift must be extended by a year “at the very least” to stop hundreds of thousands being “plunged into poverty”. There are fresh questions for Matt Hancock’s department after it emerged that the use of ten million surgical gowns – bought for £70m from a US firm – has been suspended for NHS staff. Safety concerns were raised when the gowns came in only one layer of protective packaging. Labour’s Rachel Reeves said it was time for “a rapid review right now” into procurement. “If we learn lessons we can save lives.”

BY ‘ECK! Watch out for Alex Salmond’s return to centre stage. The showman has ditched a scheduled appearance at the Holyrood inquiry into the Scottish government’s botched handling of harassment claims. Salmond is expected to stage a dramatic press conference instead – where he will make a series of allegations about his successor Nicola Sturgeon. The ex-SNP leader is angry that the inquiry is refusing to publish his own dossier of claims against Ms Sturgeon and her government. “Alex is going to get his story out one way or another,” said a source close to the inquiry. It come as Ms Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell was accused of giving inquiry testimony that was simply “not credible”. He denied lying previously about a meeting between Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon at his home, saying he“happened to arrive home just as the meeting was finishing”. Scottish LabourMSP Jackie Ballie, who accused Murrell of “dancing on the head of a pin”, said she would ask the Crown Office to investigate the possibility he had given false evidence. 

AND SO IT BEGINS: Donald Trump’s second impeachment kicks off in the Senate on Tuesday after party leaders agreed a speedy timetable for the proceedings. In a pre-trial statement, Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial is unconstitutional.Both sides get four hours to argue whether it’s constitutional or not today, before taking vote on whether to proceed. With the vote expected to pass, the two sides then get 16 hours each to present their case. Unless witnesses are called, we could get the vote on whether to convict Trump as soon as Monday. Could the ex-president be evicted as well as impeached? Officials in Palm Beach, Florida, are set to discuss on Tuesday whether the ex-president can live full-time at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Some of his neighbours are unhappy about a 1993 agreement when his resort was converted from a private residence to a private club.

On the record 

“The vast majority of party and movement are behind what we’re doing.”

Keir Starmer defends his leadership from the left-wing haters.

From the Twitterati

“Is Lab ready to form the next govt? Starmer’s tenure so far indicates less hostility to such a prospect than we’ve seen in a decade or so – but no obvious increase in people actually saying yes.”

Ipsos MORI’s Keiran Pedley says some positives for Starmer…

“Only one int hree think Labour is ready to govern... historic precedents suggest will need to be far higher to win elections.”

…but his colleague Ben Page says Starmer still faces an uphill struggle.

Essential reading

Sean O’Grady, The Independent: Why Brexit has made Scottish independence virtually impossible

Lisa Nandy, The Independent: Joe Biden’s action over Yemen has exposed the UK’s hypocrisy

MartinFletcher, New Statesman: The EU’s vaccine disaster does not prove Brexit was right

Julian Zelizer, CNN: Why America really needs the Trump impeachment trial

Sign up here to receive this free daily briefing in your email in box every morning