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Jeremy Corbyn faces calls to explicitly endorse staying in the single market and customs union. Photograph: Pierre Albouy/Reuters

Tuesday briefing: Pressure on Corbyn to declare for single market

This article is more than 6 years old
Jeremy Corbyn faces calls to explicitly endorse staying in the single market and customs union. Photograph: Pierre Albouy/Reuters

Calls for Labour leader to firm up Brexit policy … suspect held after failed New York bombing … and why man-flu should be taken seriously

Top story: Is Labour keeping Brexit powder too dry?

Hello, I’m Warren Murray, here is the news on a need-to-know basis.

Jeremy Corbyn is under pressure from some quarters within Labour to more strongly advocate the softest possible Brexit, as talks move ahead and public debate turns to the nature of the final deal.

Corbyn has held back on what kind of settlement the party would ultimately support – aiming to keep both remainers and leavers in the party’s constituencies on side. But Alison McGovern, the MP for Wirral South and a founder of the Labour Campaign for the Single Market, said: “Protecting jobs, rights and fighting austerity is Labour’s mission and it’s best achieved by staying in the single market and the customs union. I think we get a lot of support for saying so.”

The party’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, has said Labour could accept “easy movement” of EU citizens in exchange for free trade, while the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said the UK could remain part of a “reformed single market”.

Meanwhile a wide-ranging study by the US-based Rand Corporation estimates a no-deal Brexit would cost Britons £1,585 each. Even the softest option of remaining in the customs union would be damaging to the economy; and any gains from leaving the EU would take at least 12 years to kick in.


New York bombing – The suspect in a failed suicide bombing on the subway in Manhattan has been named as Akayed Ullah, 27. The Bangladeshi immigrant was one of four people who sustained injuries that were not life-threatening when “an improvised low-tech explosive device” went off in a passageway near Times Square at 7.20am local time on Monday. “This was an attempted terrorist attack,” said the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio. Ullah was arrested and treated in hospital for burns from a device that was described as a crude pipe bomb. Armed police raided properties in Brooklyn connected to Ullah or relatives. The incident interrupted nearly every subway line and some trains were evacuated, though within hours almost completely normal service was resumed, with trains bypassing the Port Authority station where the explosion occurred.


‘Hear the voices of Grenfell’ – There are calls to put victims at the centre of the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry as it gets under way in central London. Survivors and bereaved family members will deliver a petition to Downing Street today with more than 16,000 signatures demanding that Theresa May take action to increase their representation at the inquiry. At hearings to finalise the inquiry’s ground rules, Michael Mansfield QC, speaking on behalf of many bereaved families, used the words “a national atrocity” to describe the fire, which claimed 71 lives. The inquiry’s chair, retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, originally aimed to produce an interim report by Easter but as things stand it appears the inquiry will not start taking evidence soon enough.


May adapts to political climate – Theresa May today begins an effort to burnish the Conservative party’s environmental credentials, describing tackling climate change as a global “moral imperative” and branding coal-fired power as “dirty and destructive”. May writes ahead of this week’s Paris summit on climate change that mitigating its effects for the world’s poorest is “amongst the most critical challenges the world faces”. We have seen this before – David Cameron had his wind turbine on the roof and his “hug a husky” Arctic jaunt, and he changed the Tory logo to a tree. But later, pressured by rightwingers, he banned expansion of onshore windfarms and reportedly told officials to “cut the green crap” from legislation. As May makes her Earth-friendly pitch, auditors have found the government might have wasted tens of millions of pounds by selling the Green Investment bank too cheaply and too soon.


Deadly fact of man-flu – Your writer has described himself at times as the “human petri dish” when it comes to sneezes and sniffles, and is feeling vindicated today to learn that man-flu might be an actual thing. Dr Kyle Sue, family medicine expert from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, writes in the British Medical Journal that men may have a greater risk of being hospitalised or dying from influenza. Testosterone might dampen the male immune response, while female hormones might boost it. And contrary to portrayals, women are more likely than men to be slowed down by minor respiratory illnesses. Sue suggests that dismissing the male half of the species as malingerers who exaggerate their symptoms, without evidence to support the accusation, is unscientific and “could have important implications for men, including insufficient provision of care”. So there.


Slipped paper crown of comedy – The “dad joke” would seem unfairly maligned if this year’s groansome “best” Christmas cracker gags are a comparable standard. We won’t give away the top 10 – you’ll have to click through – but let’s just say the list from a TV poll is topped by one about Theresa May and a stable. The Briefing’s favourite came in at 18th: “What keeps Spain from buying Christmas socks that match? Matalan separatists.”

Lunchtime read: Flying in the face of authoritarianism

The shrill denunciation of opposing views and movements is a proud specialty of China’s Communist party. No wonder, then, that the global success and popularity of the dazzling Shen Yun dance show, spawned by the Falun Gong movement, is so infuriating for the leadership in Beijing.

A Shen Yun performance. Photograph: SBC Press

“Wherever Shen Yun goes, the Chinese government follows,” writes Nicholas Hune-Brown. From Ecuador to Berlin, Chinese embassies have written to theatres and councils, or sent envoys, to try to have performances shut down. There are claims of slashed tyres, tapped phones and break-ins against the troupe. Hune-Brown traces it all back to the 1990s, when a tai chi-style exercise fad grew into a quasi-spiritual phenomenon that the party continues to see as a threat to its grip on power and the story of China itself.

Sport

Saracens have swept all before them on the continent in recent years but their 46-14 Champions Cup defeat to Clermont was a record thrashing. Confusion over the scheduling of the game, writes Rob Kitson, only added embarrassment to injury on the worst weekend for English clubs in Europe’s top rugby union tournament.

Manchester United and Manchester City are at loggerheads regarding the scuffle in the Old Trafford tunnel on Sunday night, with the Football Association expected to receive contrasting accounts of the incident from the clubs. Jonny Bairstow accepts England’s players have let down their captain, Joe Root, and must rebuild public trust by delivering on the field during the remainder of the Ashes series. Tyson Fury failed to turn up for his UK Anti-Doping hearing on Monday, the agency has confirmed. The Guardian and the Observer have won three British Journalism Awards, including sports journalism of the year for Daniel Taylor for exposing sexual abuse in football.

Business

Shares have mostly been lower in Asia as investors stepped back after several days of advances, erasing early gains. Markets are awaiting the Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday and the outcome of a major Chinese planning conference.

The pound has been trading at $1.334 and €1.133 overnight.

The papers

The Guardian leads today with the opening of the inquiry into the Grenfell tower fire. Like many other front pages it also features news of the death of TV presenter Keith Chegwin.

Guardian front page, Tuesday 12 December 2017

Social media concerns dominate elsewhere, as the Sun says Twitter is refusing to block accounts discussing child sexual abuse; while the Times leads on calls for fresh legislation to penalise the failure to remove abusive or extremist content. The Daily Mail reports on criticisms by Facebook former vice-president Chamath Palihapitiya that the tech giant is “ripping apart the social fabric”.

Pressures on the NHS over winter are “unsustainable”, warns the Scotsman, as the Mirror says Britain was colder than Moscow last night. Those planning a Christmas getaway are being denied cheap rail fares due to labyrinthine ticketing systems, the Telegraph reports. The Financial Times has European finance ministers warning Donald Trump that his tax plans would “be at odds” with international free trade rules; Metro has the US president’s accusers demanding a congressional inquiry into sexual misconduct allegations. The i splashes on a promising breakthrough in the treatment of Huntington’s disease.

For more news: www.theguardian.com

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