Former MI6 boss says Brexit makes UK more vulnerable to attacks like Russian novichok poisoning - Politics live

Nick Clegg has put out a statement about his decision to join Facebook - appropriately enough, on his Facebook page. Here is an extract.

Having spoken at length to Mark [Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder] and Sheryl [Sandberg, its chief operating officer] over the last few months, I have been struck by their recognition that the company is on a journey which brings new responsibilities not only to the users of Facebook’s apps but to society at large. I hope I will be able to play a role in helping to navigate that journey.

Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, Oculus and Instagram are at the heart of so many people’s everyday lives – but also at the heart of some of the most complex and difficult questions we face as a society: the privacy of the individual; the integrity of our democratic process; the tensions between local cultures and the global internet; the balance between free speech and prohibited content; the power and concerns around artificial intelligence; and the wellbeing of our children.

I believe that Facebook must continue to play a role in finding answers to those questions – not by acting alone in Silicon Valley, but by working with people, organisations, governments and regulators around the world to ensure that technology is a force for good.

I am looking forward to being part of this endeavour. Throughout my public life I have relished grappling with difficult and controversial issues and seeking to communicate them to others. I hope to use some of those skills in my new role.

In his World at One interview Sir John Sawers also said he thought Saudia Arabia would have only carried out the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi if it thought it had “licence” to behave like that from Washington. He said:

This appalling killing in Istanbul, it seems to me all the evidence points to it being ordered and carried out by people close to Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. I don’t think he would have done this if he hadn’t thought he had licence from the US administration to, frankly, behave as he wished to do so.

Sawers claimed President Trump was now realising “just how dangerous it is to have people acting with the sense that they have impunity in their relationship with the United States”.

Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, told the World at One that Brexit would make the UK more vulnerable to attacks like the Russian novichok poisoning in Salisbury. He is giving a speech today in which he will say that Russia would not have used a nerve agent on the streets of America or Germany. Asked to explain this on the World at One, Sawers said:

They thought they could pick on Britain and bully us because we were looking weak. Actually I think Theresa May and her government responded very strongly and forcefully to the Skripal attack. But it was only because we were able to carry our European partners, the Americans and others, with us. It was through the engagement of others that we were able to push back and have a credible response to the Skripal attack.

When pressed on how Brexit was a factor, he went on:

I think what it is is it’s do with Britain looking weak, looking isolated. The Americans to some extent are walking away from their relationship with Europe, and we are walking away from the relationship with the European Union. The west is fragmented.

Sawers, a long-standing critic of Brexit, said the UK had more influence with the US as a member of the EU.

What we are doing is losing traction, both in Washington and in Europe. And that will make Britain less influential on the world stage ...

We will no longer be shaping the rules for data sharing and data privacy in Europe, which is increasingly vital to our security. We will not be automatic members of the information systems that European countries use for advanced notification of the movement of dangerous people. And we won’t be members of things like Europol and the intelligence centre.

Nick Clegg, the former Lib Dem deputy prime minister, is joining Facebook as its head of global affairs and communications, the Financial Times reports (paywall). It says Clegg “agree to take on the job after months of wooing by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, who told Mr Clegg he would have a leading role in shaping the company’s strategy.” Clegg, who lost his seat at the 2017 general election, is going to relocated with his family to Silicon Valley in California, the FT says.

One of the surprising aspects of this story is that this is the sort of job that you might have expected to go to one of Clegg’s former special advisers. By coincidence, Jack Blanchard in his London Playbook briefing has a good list of former Whitehall advisers who have gone on to work for tech companies. There are 15 names on his list.

In an article for today’s Evening Standard Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, urges Londoners to join him on tomorow’s People’s Vote march. He says:

I never wanted or expected to back a public vote on the final deal (or no deal). I campaigned as hard as anyone for Britain to remain in the EU during the referendum.

I respect the result — while also fulfilling my duty to Londoners, who voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU, by making the case to stay in the single market and customs union. Theresa May has had every opportunity to reach a deal with the EU that protects jobs and growth, today and in the decades ahead.

But the prime minister has failed. She has been unable to agree a deal within her own cabinet, let alone with the EU. The summit in Brussels this week was supposed to be the last opportunity to agree a deal, and yet the negotiations are so far from finished that Brexit wasn’t even on the agenda ...

While Londoners voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU, it doesn’t matter whether you ticked the leave or remain box at the referendum — this is about the future not the past.

None of us voted for the shambles the government has created.

None of us voted to make ourselves poorer.

None of us voted to make life harder for our children and grandchildren.

We all deserve a say on the final terms of the deal. It’s time to take back control.

As the Evening Standard reports, many other MPs from London and the south east are supporting the march.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, gave an interview to France Inter radio this morning. Barnier was one of the people who emerged best from this week’s summit; he was repeatedly praised by EU leaders for his handling of the negotiation, in a way that implied they weren’t happy about the UK’s government’s repeated attempts to bypass him in the hope of getting a better response by dealing with EU heads of government instead.

Here are the main points from the interview.

• Barnier said that getting a Brexit deal was “possible” but would be “difficult”. He said the withdrawal agreement deal was 90% complete, but that it could still fail over the Irish border. He said:

A deal is possible, it is desirable but it is difficult.

• He said he hoped to conclude a deal “in a few weeks or a few months, as soon as possible”.

• He said the Irish border deal could block the entire deal. Asked if the deal could fail over this issue, he replied: “My answer is yes.”

• He said he did not know what would happen because the British political situation was so “complex”. Asked if he was convinced a deal would be done, he replied:

I have no deep conviction on this subject, because in the UK the political situation is very complex and I don’t know what decisions Theresa May will take. I hope for a deal, I am working for it, because it is in our common interest.

• He said a no deal Brexit would be “would be very serious, very difficult for all of us in the EU but much more grave for Britain”.

• He claimed that even Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, could not say how Brexit would bring actual benefits to the people who voted for it. He said:

There is no added value in Brexit. It is a negative negotiation. No-one has been able to show me any added value in Brexit, not even Mr Farage, when I met him in my office at his request and I asked him ‘Show me how the decision to leave the EU provides solutions to the anxieties, discontents and sometimes the anger of the British people’.

• He claimed the British did not know all the consequences when they chose Brexit. He said:

I don’t want to impose a hard Brexit. A hard Brexit is the absence of a deal and I am working for a deal.

But Brexit can’t be soft. It has innumerable consequences. It was chosen by the British. Were they well informed at the time they voted? They were not told all the consequences - even Mr Farage recognised that everything was not spelt out in the campaign.

• He said the Brexit vote was driven in part by “nostalgia” as well as the UK’s desire to extricate itself from regulations, particularly in the financial sector, and popular anger over the impact of economic liberalisation.

In his Today interview Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, also said that there would be “consequences” for Britain’s relationship with Saudi Arabia if it is found that the Saudis murdered missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But he did also say that the UK response would be “considered” and that it would take into account Britain’s strategic relationship with the Saudis. He told the programme:

If the stories that we read about are true, and if you are asking me whether that will have consequences for the relationship with Saudi Arabia, then yes, of course it will.

What is alleged to have happened is totally inconsistent with our values and what we believe in. Not just the brutality - if it happened - but also the fact that he was a journalist. Those things are completely unacceptable to the United Kingdom.

If the stories turn out to be true, part of our reaction will depend on the Saudi reaction and whether we sense that they are taking it as seriously as we are taking it.

Our relationship with Saudi is a strategic relationship. Our response will be considered because we have to recognise in that strategic relationship that they share intelligence with us that helps keep people safe on the streets of Britain.

But even taking into account all those things, in the end, if these stories are true, we have to be absolutely clear it would not be consistent with our values.

Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, was also on the Today programme this morning. Here are the main points from his interview.

• Hunt rejected claims that Theresa May had “capitulated” to EU demands in the Brexit talks. He said:

The reason why this week has been difficult is because Theresa May has not buckled. She has held firm. She has stuck to her principles. It is precisely because she has not capitulated that we have not concluded this agreement.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory Brexiter and former party leader, told Newsnight last night that that talks “look more like a capitulation than a negotiation.” He also complained about the UK offering to extend the transition. As Jack Blanchard writes in his London Playbook morning briefing, this is about “as basic a misunderstanding of the EU’s position as you will hear today” because the EU views extending the transition as something that would actually help the UK, not disadvantage it.

• Hunt urged Tory MPs to unite behind Theresa May. He said:

The one thing I would say to my colleagues is that the great strength of the EU in these negotiations is that the 27 EU nations have remained united.

We now need to do the same behind Theresa May to maximise her negotiating leverage in Brussels and make sure she does come back with that deal that honours the letter and spirit of the referendum decision.

• He said extending the Brexit transition “might help” get an agreement on the future relationship but that this wasn’t the main issue in the talks. The main problem was the Irish backstop, he said.

The substantive area of disagreement is whether we would agree to a backstop which would allow for customs barriers down the Irish Sea - the effective break-up of the United Kingdom - or whether we agree to a backstop which would allow the UK as a whole to stay in the customs union indefinitely.

Neither of those are acceptable. Those are two very important matters of principle for the United Kingdom.

Theresa May is still in Brussels today, where an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit is being held, but the main Brexit discussions of the week are over and she will return to London to find a party not exactly reassured by her stance. I can’t be 100% sure, but I suspect she may be the first prime minister in history to have one of her backbenchers give an on-the-record interview describing the government as a “shitshow” and saying that, if he wasn’t an MP, he would not even vote for it.

The main development at yesterday’s summit was May’s admission that she was open to the idea of extending the Brexit transition by a year. The reaction from her party was so hostile that, by the end of the day, she was distancing herself from the idea, but that has not stopped the Tory Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg this morning doing his best to bury it for good. Rees-Mogg is chair of the European Research Group, the highly organised caucus of around 50 or so Tories pushing for a harder Brexit (if the ERG were a separate party, Rees-Mogg would get two questions every week at PMQs, instead of the SNP’s Ian Blackford) and in an interview on the Today programme he said the ERG would block any legislation agreeing extra payments to the EU for a longer transition. He told the programme:

If the government is saying to us we will pay £39bn plus, for the extension, £15bn or £16bn more per annum, and we don’t have anything in return other than a waffly political declaration, I think that will be very hard to get through the House of Commons. I think it will be very hard for anyone to justify to their constituents.

(Other people have said that extending the transition for a year would cost the UK £10bn in extra payments to the EU, but Rees-Mogg is quoting a higher figure on the basis the UK would no longer qualify for its rebate.) There has been speculation that the ERG might introduce an amendment to the finance bill to this effect. But Rees-Mogg said it was more like that they would target the EU withdrawal agreement bill, the one due to be introduced early next year legislating to implement the withdrawal agreement. He said:

In terms of what may happen legislatively, I think the implementation bill will probably be more important because that will set out the legal basis for making any payments to the EU and it will be possible to look to amend that. Amending finance bills is much harder than it sometimes sounds. So I think the withdrawal bill implementation will be the key legislative point.

The ERG on their own cannot win votes in the Commons. But, if they side with the opposition, they can defeat the government. So, if May did want to legislate for a longer transition period, with extra money going to the EU as a result, she would only get that through the Commons with the support of Labour.

There will be more Brexit summit fall-out today, but there’s not much on the agenda formally. As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary when I wrap up, at some point in the early afternoon.

Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.

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