Brexit news – live: Trade issues not ‘teething problem’, warns Cameron as PM branded ‘unrepentant liar’

Feathers flew in a Stormont committee meeting this week, but not because of any hard-fought political dispute or personal falling-out, Jon Sharman reports.

A moment of levity came when a man called Colin Pidgeon was brought a live pigeon by his cat, which he managed to rescue and return to safety.

“You kept your composure the whole way through that – amazing,” said deputy committee chair Paul Frew.

Lord Fowler, the Speaker of the House of Lords, will step down early in order to campaign on HIV/Aids and LGBT+ rights.

The peer, 83, who served in Thatcher’s cabinet as health secretary, was due to leave his post in September. However, he will now return to the backbenches in April.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader at Holyrood, has accused the Scottish government of being involved in a “cover up” over the censoring of Alex Salmond’s evidence in an ongoing inquiry.

The politician claimed the parts which were redacted “are exactly the parts that expose the first minister” in her government’s mishandling of sexual harrassment complaints made against Mr Salmond.

“To the public this looks like a cover up, when the exact evidence that’s being redacted is the most damaging to her personally,” the Tory MSP said.

Ms Sturgeon has denied that politics was behind the Crown Office’s decision to censor part of Mr Salmond’s evidence, adding that anyone who thought otherwise was “signing up to a dangerous and quite deluded conspiracy theory”.

Businesses affected by red tape at the UK’s border are paying the price for Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit, David Cameron has said.

The former prime minister told CNN that the issues seen in recent months are not merely “teething problems”, warning that “bureaucracy” was the inevitable result of leaving the EU’s single market.

“I hope they can tackle as many of these problems as possible but, ultimately, some of them are because we chose to leave the single market and become a third country,” he said.

Mr Cameron also weighed in on the subject of corporation tax, saying it “wouldn’t make any sense at all” to raise it in the current economic conditions.

Our deputy political editor Rob Merrick has the details:

 Jeremy Corbyn has said it is “a scandal” that there is rough sleeping in this country.

The former Labour leader told MPs in the Commons: “Last year, 2020 saw the deaths of 976 rough sleepers on the streets of this country – that is a scandal, as indeed any rough sleeping is a scandal.”

The Islington North MP asked the housing secretary Robert Jenrick whether the government would address the situation by building more council houses.

Robert Jenrick said the government was “very committed” to building more homes, and had taken steps to provide cheaper housing through the Affordable Homes Programme.

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has announced more sanctions against military leaders in Myanmar for the toppling of the democratic government on 1 February.

Six more people now face sanctions for serious human rights violations, bringing the total to 25, the Foreign Office said.

This means they will be banned from travelling to Britain and will be unable to have financial dealings in this country.

Mr Raab once more called on the army to hand back control to the government. “My message to the people of Myanmar is simple – the UK is working closely with our international partners to support your right to democracy and freedom of expression,” he added.

No 10 has warned Conservative MPs they could be stripped of the Tory whip if they vote against the government at next week’s Budget.

Asked by reporters if the votes will be considered a confidence issue for Tory MPs, Boris Johnson’s press secretary, Allegra Stratton, told a briefing: “Yes.”

Ms Stratton also used the time to reject former chancellor Lord Philip Hammond’s suggestion that the PM is running a “populist” government and lacks the appetite to be unpopular by doing the right thing.

“The Prime Minister has spoken about the tough choices ahead. There have been difficult choices he has had to make in responding to the pandemic and indeed over the months and years ahead there will be more of them,” she said.

“So, I don’t recognise the picture the former chancellor makes.”

She cited “difficult” policy decisions made by Mr Johnson, including to cut foreign aid, and to order people to stay at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is a prime minister who is prepared to take difficult decisions and is weighing up very hard choices at the moment,” Ms Stratton added.

Boris Johnson is an “unrepentant and inveterate liar”, who will blame the problems of Brexit on coronavirus, France’s former ambassador to the UK has said.

In her new book Sylvie Bermann, France’s top representative in London during the EU referendum, said the prime minister uses “lies to embellish reality, as a game and as instrument of power”.

Describing the prime minister’s approach, she said: “The ends justify the means. He has no rules.”

Her book, Goodbye Britannia, characterises the Brexiter mindset of “reciting a history in which the UK is never defeated, never invaded”.

Our policy correspondent Jon Stone has more:

Previously classified documents from the start of the Gulf War reveal Margaret Thatcher compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler following the Iraqi dictator’s invasion of Kuwait.

The former prime minister and her foreign secretary privately agreed that Hussein was “behaving like Hitler” in 1990 after his military attack on the neighbouring country.

Thirty years on from Operation Desert Storm, which ended 30 years ago this week, the documents, which were first made public in 2017,  underline how Mrs Thatcher viewed Hussein – as a “selfish, despotic dictator” who engaged in “psychological warfare”.

My colleague Clea Skopeliti reports:

A man accused of sending abusive emails to a number of current and former MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn and Amber Rudd, has had his case sent to the crown court.

Paul William Maciver Ritchie appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court by video-link on Thursday for a brief administrative hearing. He spoke only to state his name, address and date of birth.

The 34-year-old, from Lanarkshire, is accused of 28 counts of sending a letter, communication or article conveying a threatening message against a series of politicians.

Alleged victims included former Commons Speaker John Bercow, former attorney general Dominic Grieve QC, ex-Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, former home secretary Amber Rudd, one-time London mayoral candidate and Cabinet minister Rory Stewart, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford, and current Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey.

Court documents show Mr Ritchie is accused of sending former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn an email in March 2019 containing the message “You should be hung for treason you f****** terrorist”.

In an email on May 2019 to former politician Chuka Umunna, who represented several parties, Mr Ritchie is alleged to have written: “You have been warned… shut your f****** mouth boy”.

In July that year, he is said to have followed up with: “If you kill brexit… (w)e will kill you and your entire family.”

Mr Ritchie was released on bail.