Brexit news – live: Trade talks resume, as Sturgeon says Scotland has ‘right to choose future’

Labour’s shadow immigration secretary has written to the Home Office to seek urgent clarification that they are not repeating and compounding the injustices of the Windrush scandal.

Holly Lynch pointed to reports that at least one Windrush generation descendant has already been deported, with at least one other due on Wednesday’s charter flight. 

“Details of others are emerging,” Ms Lynch said, urging the government to ensure none of those due to be on the flight are eligible under the Windrush Scheme or have been impacted by its previously illegal handling of immigration cases.

The chair of Nottingham East’s Constituency Labour Party has been suspended after a Jewish party member felt “they had no choice but to leave” an online meeting.

Louise Regan’s suspension is understood to be linked to a decision to press ahead with a motion which included a call for the party whip to be restored to Jeremy Corbyn – which has been forbidden by the central party.

Labour is also believed to be looking into an allegation that a man who took part in Friday night’s meeting had verbally abused a Jewish party member.

Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome described the “atmosphere and tone” of the Constituency Labour Party meeting as “wholly unacceptable”.

Boris Johnson has appointed a dedicated minister to take charge of the deployment of the Covid vaccine, days after Labour warned the role was necessary to avoid a repeat of the mistakes seen with PPE and Test and Trace, our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports.

Nadhim Zahawi – currently a minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – will be made a health minister, with responsibility for the coronavirus vaccine until at least next summer.

After Boris Johnson’s embarrassing row and painful U-turn with Marcus Rashford over free school meals, the SNP has pledged to provide free breakfasts and lunches to all primary school children all year round if re-elected in May.

SNP education minister John Swinney made the commitment as he warned that Scotland was facing a “tsunami of child poverty” if Rishi Sunak imposes a “second wave of austerity”.

However, education has been a sore point for the SNP. While Nicola Sturgeon had sought to push a Blair-esque education-first narrative, the party’s critics now frequently point to falling standards, increasing inequalities and a lack of subjects on offer to pupils – with Mr Swinney’s ambitious reforms somewhat hampered by UK government-led austerity.

As campaigners urge the government to be more ambitious in their efforts to stall climate change, by rewilding and vastly reforesting swathes of the UK, a campaign to celebrate Queen’s Platinum Jubilee has been launched to encourage communities, schools and charities across the country to plant more trees.

The Queen’s Green Canopy campaign, led by charity Cool Earth, will launch next year and will strive to “increase and protect our native tree cover which, for centuries, has played such a central role in the life of the nation”.

Boris Johnson encouraged involvement in the campaign, noting the “huge role” trees have to play in tackling climate change and the potential they hold to “transform our communities, connect us with nature and provide homes for precious wildlife”.

“Nature” receives only a brief mention in the PM’s new 10-point climate plan, which includes a goal of planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year – a repeat of an election pledge in 2019.

Columnist James Moore has looked at the “chilling” similarities between Donald Trump and Boris Johnson:

“Reading former Republican operative Stuart Stevens’ It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump, a new fierce critique of what the party has become under Donald Trump, I found myself asking a question: how much of it could be applied to Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party he has created?

“Yes, yes, I know. The US and the UK are not “two countries divided by a common language” and it’s ridiculous to pretend that we are. The political and cultural contexts are very different.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that there has long been a transatlantic exchange of ideas between the two nations’ centre-right parties and there are some disturbing parallels in the rise of Trump and his debasement of Grand Old Party and the rise of Johnson and the debasement of the Tories.”

Read his thoughts, in full, here:

Anti-Brexit activists, all claiming to be from the county, have stormed Kent to modify road signs which now describe the “garden of England” – as Kent is known – as the “toilet of England”.  

The stunt aimed to highlight fears of huge lorry queues along the county’s motorways, with suggestions that portable toilets will have to be installed on roadsides for use by delayed drivers.

Government minister Michael Gove has previously warned that queues of up to 7,000 trucks could form in Kent unless businesses do more to prepare.

Kent Police said they have been made aware of “criminal damage” to road signs in the county and inquiries are continuing. But a member of the activist team, known collectively as EU Flag Mafia, hit out at the idea of officers devoting time to the newly-stickered signs.

They told the PA news agency: “We acted on behalf of the residents of Kent. Everyone who was involved in placing ‘Toilet’ on the road signs lives in Kent and we reject any suggestion that any damage was done to any of the road signs – the stickers can be removed very easily.

“If any Kent resident feels offended, we suggest they simply remove the stickers. We suggest that Kent Police have better things to be doing with their valuable time, like trying to work out how the people in Kent will be still be able to travel around the county while thousands of lorries are gridlocked in jams around the county.”

The cloak-and-dagger operation – believed to have complied with Covid guidelines – covered around 30 road signs stretching from Dartford near London to the border with East Sussex.

New YouGov polling for The Times suggests that Labour has again nosed ahead of the Tories, having gained three points.

With the clock fast approaching midnight on a UK-EU trade deal before the transition period ends, our political editor Andrew Woodcock has this explainer on the possible impact of a no-deal outcome:

The Labour leader is considering imposing a three-line whip in support of a Brexit trade deal if negotiators are able to broker one, The Guardian reports, citing multiple sources.

While Keir Starmer’s decision is reportedly dependent on the details of such a deal, he risks fuelling anger from some corners of the party who are said to fear that such a move could kneecap future Labour criticism over the socio-economic fallout of Brexit, and hand ammunition to the SNP.