The Brexit department has said that excluding the UK after Brexit from military aspects of the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation project, as the EU currently intends, would create an “irreparable security risk” for the country. (See 3.33pm.)
Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, has refused to tell MPs when the EU withdrawal bill will return to the Commons for MPs to vote on amendments passed in the Lords. (See 12.01pm.) She announced the business for the week beginning Monday 4 June, which does not include the bill. But sources later said the bill would get debated the following week, which begins on Monday 11 June.
Despite a torrid time on Brexit, May has gradually crept ahead of Corbyn on satisfaction, whereas he has fallen back compared to 2017 peak pic.twitter.com/E2XnHqxAO2
— Ben Page, Ipsos MORI (@benatipsosmori) May 24, 2018
Jeremy Corbyn (centre) with head girl Lucy Symington and head boy Michael Hare during a visit today to Lagan College, Northern Ireland’s first integrated school. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA
The Sun’s Nick Gutteridge thinks the government is playing up the threat of a Corbyn government in the economic partnership paper (pdf) published today by the Brexit department.
Fascinating how UK is playing on threat of a Corbyn government in its new trade paper. First a reassuring promise this administration won't go mad on state aid. But if the EU wants to ensure Jezza won't do so in future, it'd better offer up 'commensurate market access' in return. pic.twitter.com/aivHhP05kG
The Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns has resigned as a parliamentary private secretary attached to the ministry for housing. In a blog on her website, she explains that she is doing this so that she has more time to support the pro-Brexit minority on the Commons Brexit committee, of which she is a member. She says:
Currently, there are 21 members on the Brexit committee, only 7 of which voted to leave the EU. It is my opinion that the reports produced by the committee have been unbalanced in favour of us either remaining in the EU, the customs union or delaying our departure. I, therefore, feel I need to spend more of my time doing all I can do to correct this imbalance and be a robust voice for the benefits of Brexit.
Being excluded from Galileo satellite system creates 'irreparable security risk' for UK, says government
The title, Technical Note: UK Participation in Galileo (pdf), sounds rather dry, but the contents are anything but. It is not often that you can feel the anger coming through in bureaucratic documents, but you can with this one.
Galileo is a €10bn satellite navigation system being developed by the EU. It will be used commercially - your smartphone will end up talking to it - but, crucially, its encrypted public regulated service (PRS) will be used by the military. Galileo will be safer (less vulnerable to hacking) and more accurate than the American GPS version currently used by the armed forces, and the government says access to Galileo is a matter of national security.
Here are the main points from the document.
The government says it objects strongly to the fact it is already excluded from security-related Galileo planning for the post-Brexit period.
The UK therefore has a strong objection to its ongoing exclusion from security-related discussions and exchanges pertaining to the post-2019 development of Galileo and the PRS, which serves to limit UK assurance in the programme and discourage UK industrial participation.
It says excluding Britain from the project creates “an irreparable security risk”.
From a security perspective, any gap in UK involvement in the design and development of Galileo and PRS, whereby the UK is unable to manufacture components or assure those manufactured by member states at any point, will constitute an irreparable security risk. It will mean the UK will not be able to rely on the system for our own security and defence needs.
It says if the UK is not allowed to participate in the security aspects of Galileo, it will cut all its future involvement in the project.
It confirms that it is considering setting up its own alternative.
If agreement cannot be reached on the future balance of rights and obligations, and UK security and industrial requirements consequently cannot be met, the UK could not justify future participation in Galileo. In parallel, the UK is therefore exploring alternatives to fulfil its needs for secure and resilient position, navigation and timing information, including the option for a domestic satellite system.
It says Europe as a whole, not just the UK, would lose out from Britain being excluded from the project.
The UK wants to continue participating in Galileo. This is in the mutual interests of the UK and EU, benefitting European competitiveness, security, capability development and interoperability. An end to close UK participation will be to the detriment of Europe’s prosperity and security and could result in delays and additional costs to the programme.
It says excluding the UK from the full participation could delay the project by up to three years and add €1bn to the costs.
Excluding industrial participation by UK industry in security-related areas risks delays of up to three years and additional costs of up to €1 billion to the programme. It will not be straightforward to effectively fulfil all Galileo security work elsewhere.
It says the UK’s share of Galileo was not taken into account when the Brexit “divorce bill” was being calculated because it was assumed the UK would retain full access. If this is not the case, the Brexit financial settlement should be reopened, it says.
Paragraph 66 of the [December joint report] states that “union assets relating to union space programmes (EGNOS, Galileo & Copernicus) are not part of the financial settlement”. The exclusion of these UK sunk costs was agreed on the basis that the UK would retain full access. Should the UK’s future access be restricted, the UK’s past contribution to the financing of space assets should be discussed.
Labour MP Ian Austin claims 'mainstream social democrats' don't support Corbyn
It is not just the DUP that has been attacking Jeremy Corbyn over his stance on Northern Ireland. (See 1pm.) The Labour MP Ian Austin, a former minister and former aide to Gordon Brown who is on the right of the party and who has repeatedly criticised Corbyn before, has published an article today on PoliticsHome arguing that Corbyn is more leftwing than any of his predecessors and that he has turned Labour “from a mainstream social democratic party into something very different”. Quite a lot of the evidence cited by Austin to back his case relates to Corbyn’s record on Ireland. Austin says:
On Northern Ireland, they were both completely outside the mainstream of the Labour Party. It might be ancient history for lots of the party’s new young recruits, but lots of older people will never forget what they said about the IRA during a brutal war which saw bombs planted and people murdered in shopping centres, hotels and pubs.
A few weeks after the IRA blew up the Grand Hotel in Brighton and murdered five people at the Tory party conference in 1984, Jeremy Corbyn invited two suspected IRA terrorists to the House of Commons. When the man responsible for planting the bomb was put on trial, he demonstrated outside the court.
As recently as 2003, John McDonnell [the Corbyn ally and shadow chancellor] said “those people involved in the armed struggle” should be honoured - people who he said had used “bombs and bullets”.
Let’s be really clear about this. It is not true to claim as John McDonnell does, that he did “everything I possibly could to secure the peace process in Northern Ireland”. It is just not true. People like him and Jeremy Corbyn were campaigning for a victory for the republican cause, not working for a peaceful agreement between the two bitterly divided sides.
That’s why Jeremy Corbyn was amongst a handful who voted against the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985 and why John McDonnell opposed setting up a power-sharing assembly which eventually became the Good Friday agreement because “an assembly is not what people have laid down their lives for over thirty years … the settlement must be for a united Ireland.”
Austin concludes his article by suggesting that “mainstream social democrats” should not support Corbyn. He says:
The truth is that Jeremy Corbyn and the hard left have taken over the Labour party and want to turn it from a mainstream social democratic party into something very different.
It’s got a different leadership, different policies and different values.
They want to create a different party. That’s why mainstream social democrats do not support Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Corbyn’s supporters would no doubt point out that lots of mainstream social democrats in the party do back his leadership. They might disagree with him on foreign policy (the main focus of Austin’s article), but on domestic policy even the centrists broadly support Corbyn, and there is also a recognition that his leadership is legitimate because he has the clear support of members.
Ian Austin. Photograph: Labour Party/The Labour Party
Opposition parties have reacted with derision after it emerged that Nicola Sturgeon will not personally launch a long-awaited and much-hyped Scottish National party report setting out a prospectus for independence, including the country’s currency options. (See 11.11am.)
The 458-page “Sustainable Growth Commission” report, first started some 20 months ago by Andrew Wilson, a former SNP MSP turned expert lobbyist, will only be published online on Friday without any press conference.
Sturgeon insisted during Thursday’s first minister’s questions at Holyrood the report would provide “the positive debate that we look forward to leading is how Scotland raises its game even further, matching the best in the world.” She said:
We will do that with our current powers and we will look to equip this parliament so it is even stronger to deliver on behalf of the people we represent.
Murdo Fraser, a Scottish Tories’ shadow finance secretary, accused the first minister of cowardice. “It’s telling that Nicola Sturgeon is too scared to face questions on the matter,” he said.
A leader in the Scottish edition of the Sun, a longstanding supporter of the SNP as a devolved government, said:
Nicola Sturgeon is not normally one for dodging the limelight. Earlier this week she appeared in person to announce extra funding for regeneration in Dalmarnock, Glasgow. She personally launched a community shares scheme to fund the revamp of the city’s Govanhill baths.
Yet the long-awaited growth commission report “will be published on the internet tomorrow with no fanfare and, crucially no opportunity to question Sturgeon or the report’s authors,” it said.
Nicola Sturgeon at first minister’s questions in the Scottish Parliament today. Photograph: Ken Jack - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
A duo of Russian pranksters with suspected links to the country’s security services say they managed to get through to the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, and hold an 18-minute phone conversation with him by pretending to be the Armenian prime minister, my colleague Shaun Walker reports.
Commons Brexit committee says government should urgently clarify whether it plans to extend transition
Peter Walker
The government should urgently set out whether it plans to extend the UK’s transitional membership of the customs union beyond 2020, given the likelihood that no replacement plan will be ready in time, the Commons Brexit committee has said.
In an often damning latest update on the progress of departure, the cross-party committee of MPs said it was “highly unsatisfactory” that nearly two years after the referendum, ministers had not even set out what post-Brexit trading and customs arrangements they hoped to make.
The report (pdf) – which was agreed by all the committee’s members, including Conservative Brexiters Jacob Rees-Mogg and Peter Bone, and the DUP’s Sammy Wilson – also issued a warning over progress on citizens’ rights.
It said the Windrush scandal had “undermined trust in the ability of the Home Office competently to register EU citizens living in the UK” and process their status.
It added that, while planning for this was under way in Britain, in many other EU states where UK citizens were living little work had been done on what they would need to do to keep their residential status. It said the government should “seek urgent clarification from the EU27”.
Hilary Benn, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said the “clock is now running down” and MPs would need considerably more clarity before being asked to vote on a draft withdrawal agreement in the autumn. He said:
Twenty-three months after the referendum and 14 months since the triggering of article 50, we still don’t know what the UK’s future relationship with the EU will be on trade, services, security, defence, consumer safety, data, broadcasting rights and many other things.
Hilary Benn Photograph: Richard Gardner/REX/Shutterstock
The Labour party has also accused the Telegraph of misrepresenting Cobryn’s views. In a comment on a tweet linking to the Telegraph splash (see 12.16pm), it said:
Lots of inaccurate reporting on united Ireland comments.
It was made clear this was not about Northern Ireland or now, and Jeremy has said today he's not advocating it.
The Good Friday Agreement sets out terms by which people on island of Ireland can determine their own future https://t.co/D5Fl0AbvCr
DUP accuses Corbyn of snubbing victims of IRA terrorism on visit to Northern Ireland
But the DUP has criticised Jeremy Corbyn for not meeting the victims of IRA violence during his trip to Northern Ireland. Labour told the Belfast Telegraph that Corbyn’s trip was arranged some time ago and that when the DUP MP Gregory Campbell proposed a meeting with victims, it was too late to set that up. But Campbell says he will published emails later showing that Corbyn’s office did have enough time to reorganise his schedule.
Mr Corbyn’s office was contacted on 14 May at 11:08am. Gregory Campbell will publish email chain later. Mr Campbell received a reply yesterday afternoon having confronted Mr Corbyn as he entered the House of Commons for PMQs. https://t.co/VjcdYuR4iG
Jeremy Corbyn is well known for having avoided specific issues relating to terrorism in Northern Ireland. His answer that he “condemns all bombing” when asked about IRA terrorism is somewhat reminiscent (if different in scale) to his comments that he “condemns all racism” when asked about antisemitism.
This would have been a very useful opportunity for Jeremy Corbyn to demonstrate just how willing he is to meet people who live and work in border areas, but whose views he may not have heard face to face befor
Unfortunately having emailed the invitation on the morning of 14 May, hand delivered that invitation and personally invited him in a face to face interaction yesterday, I am still without any substantive reply. Yesterday afternoon Mr Corbyn’s office emailed me asking for my direct number. I supplied it but I have never received a call. This appears to be a blatant and deliberate snub to innocent victims.
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