Brexit news – live: EU says Boris Johnson's plans to rip up agreement risk peace on Ireland and will lead to no-deal, as Labour warns PM playing 'dangerous game'
Follow the latest updates from parliament as they happened
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The EU has warned Boris Johnson that plans to rip-up the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement will risk peace in Ireland and lead to a no-deal outcome from trade talks.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, told the UK government that the agreement, which was ratified by the UK last year, was “an obligation under international law”.
It came as Labour said the prime minister was “playing a dangerous game in Northern Ireland” and risking the UK’s international standing.
Here are the day’s events as they happened:
Tory MP condemned for blaming Scottish Labour’s failures on leader’s English accent
A Conservative MP has been urged to apologise after suggesting Scottish Labour’s leader was struggling due to his English accent.
Dehenna Davison, the Tory MP for Bishop Auckland, suggested Richard Leonard’s “broad Lancashire accent” was the reason for Scottish Labour’s poor performance in the country.
Mr Leonard pointed out that he was from Yorkshire but had lived in Scotland for four decades.
Our reporter, Adam Forrest, has the full story below:
Tory MP condemned for ‘racist’ tweet about Scottish Labour’s leader’s accent
Conservative politician suggests Richard Leonard’s ‘broad Lancashire accent’ to blame for party’s unpopularity north of the border
Rapid tests for travellers entering UK show people not infectious only ‘at that moment’, Matt Hancock says
Asked about mass testing to reduce quarantines for travellers arriving in the UK,
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said current rapid tests show people are not infectious only "at that moment".
"For somebody coming in from Heathrow, we need to know also that they're not incubating it," he told LBC.
"Under the mass-testing proposal you'd essentially get a pass to say 'for the next 24 hours we are confident that you're not infectious'. You might still be incubating it and get ill a week later.
"The challenge with people coming in from abroad is that we need to know that they're not going to go out and about and infect everybody.
"Now we may be able to get to the point where you can regularly test every day for two weeks, but that requires enormous numbers of tests and these tests to be turned around faster."
He added the "holy grail" of testing would be a "pregnancy-style test" where a person could take a saliva swab in the morning to know they were not infectious that day.
"If we get to that position that would transform how we act as a society, short of a vaccine."
New legislation intended to provide ‘limited clarifications’ on Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, Downing Street says
Downing Street has said new legislation to be tabled this week is intended to provide "limited clarifications" to the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement to protect the Northern Ireland peace agreement.
The prime minister's official spokesman said the government was continuing to work with the EU to resolve the "outstanding issues" relating to the Northern Ireland protocol intended to ensure there is no return of a "hard border" with the Republic.
"However, as a responsible government, we cannot allow the peace process or the UK's internal market to inadvertently be compromised by unintended consequences of the protocol," the spokesman said.
"So we are taking limited and reasonable steps to clarify specific elements of the Northern Ireland protocol in domestic law to remove any ambiguity and to ensure the Government is always able to deliver on its commitments to the people of Northern Ireland."
A UK official said the legislation was necessary to protect the Good Friday Agreement if the two sides fail to reach agreement on a post-Brexit free trade deal.
"If we don't take these steps we face the prospect of legal confusion at the end of the year and potentially extremely damaging defaults, including tariffs on goods moving from GB to Northern Ireland," the official said.
Prime minister tells EU leaders progress must be made in Brexit negotiations
Boris Johnson has told European leaders that progress must be made in the eighth round of Brexit negotiations which begin on Tuesday, Downing Street said.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "(Mr Johnson) has spoken with his counterparts on a number of occasions so far, most recently on this issue with Charles Michel, Ursula von der Leyen and Angela Merkel.
"He is clear that we need to make progress this week.
"We can't be in the same position as we are now by the end of the upcoming negotiating round if we are going to reach an agreement in the time available.
"As the PM is setting out today, there needs to be an agreement by the time of the European Council on October 15 if it is going to be in force by the end of the year.
"Reaching a deal at the eleventh hour is not an option."
The president of the Socialist and Democrats Group in the European Parliament has warned that the Withdrawal Agreement is “simply not open for debate” following reports of UK plans to override key parts of it.
“It beggars belief that Boris Johnson is considering going back on an agreement he himself negotiated not even a year ago, right in the midst of talks on the future partnership,” Iratxe Garcia Perez wrote on Twitter.
“All is about trust and it is running out. Agreements must be kept.”
Extinction Rebellion condemns Priti Patel plan ‘to treat movement as organised crime group’
Extinction Rebellion (XR) has hit back at a “ridiculous” government proposal to treat the climate emergency protest movement as an organised crime group.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, is understood to be reconsidering how the group should be classified under law after activists targeted print works for several major UK newspapers last week.
“[Organised crime] is hardly an accurate description of the thousands of ordinary people – the nurses, the doctors, the grandparents and others – who take part in Extinction Rebellion’s non-violent protests,” an XR spokesperson said.
Our reporter, Adam Forrest, has the full story below:
Extinction Rebellion condemns Priti Patel’s ‘organised crime’ crackdown threat
Home secretary vows to consider ‘primary legislation’ to crack down on disruption by climate crisis activists
Boris Johnson’s full comments on the latest round of Brexit negotiations can be found below:
The House of Commons is sitting today from 2.30pm, with two ministerial statements on the schedule.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps will give an update on international travel and crime minister Kit Malthouse will give a statement on the recent Extinction Rebellion protests and Birmingham stabbings.
Opinion: ‘Never mind a ‘divorce’ from the EU – Brexit will turn into a cold war’
The legacy of the latest row over Brexit trade talks could be the “worst peacetime relations” between the UK and Europe in history, according to our columnist Sean O’Grady.
Sean writes:
“Brexit will be less like a velvet divorce and more like a cold war, the most acrimonious long-running legally entangled dispute possible, poisoning relations for decades. It will have unknowable results, but be greatly to the detriment of both sides.”
You can find his full piece below:
Opinion: Never mind a ‘divorce’ from the EU – Brexit will turn into a cold war
The legacy of all this will result in the worst ever peacetime relations between Britain and the whole continent of Europe
Here’s another reaction from the EU to the UK’s plans for the Withdrawal Agreement - this time from European Council president Charles Michel:
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