Brexit news – live: Britons blocked from entry to EU nations as ports face first day under new rules

Scotland will return to lockdown from midnight with pressure building on Boris Johnson to implement new measures covering all of the UK.

Will these measures take us back to March? Tier 5? Or something nearer the November lockdown?

Our reporter Chiara Giordano considers what the new lockdown might look like:

Nicola Sturgeon has announced new lockdown rules meaning everyone in mainland Scotland must stay at home except for essential purposes, effective from midnight tonight until the end of January.

Ms Sturgeon said it was essential to act now to prevent infection rates soaring to the levels currently seen in London and the southeast.

“Our overriding duty now is to act quickly to save lives and protect the NHS,” she said. “Delay or prevarication in the face of this virus almost always makes things worse, not better, even if it stems from an understandable desire to wait for more data.”

Follow updates from the Scottish first minister’s announcement here:

London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for the government to order a national lockdown “as a matter of urgency”, in an appearance on LBC just now. 

Ports have been quieter than usual on the first weekday since post-Brexit rules came into effect but a representative for the freight industry said traffic is expected to build as the week goes on.

Rona Hunnisett, from Logistics UK, which represents the freight industry, said traffic levels were lower than usual at the moment due to a number of potential reasons including stockpiling by businesses in anticipation of delays, the closure of non-essential retail due to Covid-19 and a slow return to business after the Christmas break.

“We anticipate that traffic levels will build during the week and over next weekend,” Ms Hunnisett said.

Post-Brexit freight travel between Britain and Ireland is going “slow but steady”, a Dublin port official said. 

Tom Talbot, head of customs operations for Dublin Port, said they are still seeing very low levels of trade because of the time of year.

“This has provided a good opportunity for ourselves, for trade, for business to build familiarity with the system, with new procedures,” Mr Talbot said.

“It allow firms to build familiarity with procedures that apply to trade and new trade with Great Britain and the arrangements that are in place across both Rosslare and in Dublin Port.

“To date there has been really good engagement with both trade and business and that will continue to ensure that smooth flow, and I am confident that will continue in the days and weeks ahead.”

So will Boris Johnson be forced to follow Nicola Sturgeon? The PM said on Monday morning that there is “no question” that tougher measures will now be needed in England to tackle rising Covid infections.

Johnson is reportedly convening the government’s key “Covid-O” committee on Monday to decide on any changes. A Downing Street source told The Mail ministers were considering putting even more areas of England into the toughest tier 4 for now.

And plans for a return of shielding for clinically vulnerable people in England are being drawn up by Mr Johnson’s government, The Daily Telegraph has reported.

But any action taken over the next few days may not be the last of the tightening see in January – with widespread speculation that the PM will have to consider a new “tier 5” category or another full-scale lockdown if cases and hospital admissions do not come down.

Nicola Sturgeon is reportedly all set to announce a new lockdown for Scotland – with a “legally enforceable stay at home rule” – according to BBC Scotland. Schools are expected to remain shut for the rest of month.

The former Metropolitan Police commissioner has said the UK will be less safe now the country has left the EU and the Brexit process is complete.  

It follows a suggestion by home secretary Priti Patel the nation can be made safer after leaving the bloc – claiming British agencies can now be given “even tougher powers”.

Sir Ian Blair rejected the idea, and pointed to the fact the UK has lost both the European Arrest Warrant and a major EU database which had been accessed more than 600 million times a year by British police.

“We’ve lost powers,” he told the BBC on Monday. “We’ve lost full access to Europe-wide, real-time, interrogatable databases on criminal records, DNA, fingerprints, criminal intelligence.”

He added: “The police have been quietly beating the drum, saying, ‘This is going to make us less safe’. And I’m afraid that is what is going to happen.”

Half a dozen unions representing teachers and support staff have called on the government to “pause” its “chaotic” reopening of schools, as councils across the country move to defy ministers.

Local authorities in some areas of England say they will unilaterally keep their primary schools shut – ignoring orders from Whitehall on public health grounds.

“Bringing all pupils back into classrooms while the rate of infection is so high is exposing education sector workers to serious risk of ill-health and could fuel the pandemic,” said the GMB, NAHT, NASUWT, NEU, UNISON and Unite.

London’s top market hit its highest point in nine months on Monday as traders across Europe kicked off the new year by celebrating the rollout of a new vaccine in the UK.

The FTSE 100 gained more than 200 points in its first day of trading after the Brexit transition period ended. However, analysts said that a falling pound would suggest that the FTSE’s strong morning had little to do with Brexit.

Markets were probably responding to the news that the NHS is starting to roll out the new vaccine against Covid-19 which has been developed by scientists at Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

“Despite the rapid increase in daily Covid-19 case numbers and the impending need for a new national lockdown – be it immediately, as urged by Keir Starmer, or in a couple of weeks, as suggested by Boris Johnson – the FTSE was the most bombastic of the major indices after the bell,” said Connor Campbell, an analyst at Spreadex.

“These gains can be tied to the rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK – the continuation of 2021’s great hope for ending the coronavirus pandemic. It is another step on the journey back to normality, and investors have seized upon it with all their might.”