Kemi Badenoch accused of disrespecting backbenchers who fear ‘bonfire of regulations’ will not take place

Kemi Badenoch has clashed with members of her own party over the government’s post-Brexit business policy during a heated Commons committee session that highlighted ongoing Conservative tensions over the issue.

The business secretary argued openly with the Tory backbenchers David Jones and Richard Drax about her decision to reduce the number of business regulations the government is planning to scrap now that the UK has left the EU.

Commons votes to suspend Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP for 30 days after breach of Covid rules. This live blog is now closed

Full story: MPs back 30-day suspension for Margaret Ferrier over Covid breach

Q: What would the minimum wage for workers be under your fair pay agreement for care workers? (See 10.47am.)

Starmer says his sister is a care worker. He knows how hard the job is.

BBC Local’s senior head of content production Katrina Bunker explains why she wants local radio to thrive, not just survive

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: A love letter to BBC Local Radio and our plans to preserve it

In response to Nigel Farage’s recent claim that Brexit has failed, Sue Wilson writes him an open letter to see if he’s OK!

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Open letter to Nigel Farage

João Santos examines increasing concerns over who takes responsibility for the psychological welfare of university students

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Whose duty of care? Safeguarding student mental health

As World Environment Day focuses on the pervasive threat of plastic pollution, it remains the case that plastic pollution is preventable

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: We are literally drowning in plastic – a solution must be found

Climate change, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution – failing to act on these will bring ruin to our species and wipe out countless others

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: The environmental crisis is getting worse

Modelling of the result suggests the former PM will lose a significant amount of support within the party, and possibly his own seat

Judging by the polls and by May’s local elections, things aren’t looking too clever for the Conservatives. No surprise, then, that talk is already turning to what will happen to them should they go down to nationwide defeat in 2024, with speculation centred on who might take over from Rishi Sunak.

But the direction the party will take if it loses next year, and who it will pick to lead it in opposition, is ultimately going to depend on just how many Tory MPs hang on to their seats in the wake of such a defeat – and who they are. And that, in turn, might depend on quite how heavy that defeat turns out to be.

One of the enduring myths of British politics is the notion of Conservative economic competence, a new book by Russell Jones shatters the illusion

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: The tyranny of nostalgia: demolishing the myth of Tory economic competence

Unless Britain develops a closer relationship with the EU it will continue to haemorrhage investment and jobs, says the GMB

The leader of one of the country’s biggest unions has urged Labour to conduct an “honest debate” about the economic damage being caused to working people by Brexit, as evidence grows that it is fuelling inflation and driving jobs and investment abroad.

In an interview with the Observer, Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB union, which is one of Labour’s biggest financial backers, giving more than £1m a year, said politicians of all parties had been too afraid to admit the adverse consequences that leaving the EU was having on jobs and life in working communities.

Hired to fly for Omani royalty, Nick Mylne lands himself in some embarrassing cultural faux pas but generally has the time of his life

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Royal Flights and faux pas in Oman

In his latest ramble, Norky takes a close look at Colne Valley walls, one of which lines ‘the cruellest steps in the land’

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Walls, ginnels and steps

As a thought-provoking new art exhibition celebrating femininity debuts in Skipton, Yorkshire Bylines speaks to its curators

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: The power of the feminine: dynamic new art exhibition opens in the Dales

Sadiq Khan’s new book on climate change closely ties the issue with air pollution in London and elsewhere – Brian McHugh gives his verdict

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Review of ‘Breathe: Tackling the Climate Emergency’ by Sadiq Khan

Companies report trading with Europe is now more difficult as Larry Summers says exit from EU ‘contributed to higher inflation’

British factories have reported a 16th consecutive month of falling exports, with manufacturers warning obstacles to trade since leaving the EU are undermining business relationships with firms on the continent.

The findings came as the former US treasury secretary Larry Summers said Brexit will be remembered as a “historic economic error” that damaged the UK economy and has helped to drive inflation higher.

Exclusive: Analysis shows shift towards non-EU and British workers in sectors which once relied on EU workforce

There are now more non-EU than EU workers in a number of sectors that were previously reliant on European citizens, demonstrating the Brexit effect and the impact of international events on immigration patterns.

Guardian analysis shows that the number of non-EU workers surpassed their EU counterparts for the first time in 2022, at an average of 2.7 million against 2.5 million workers last year.

An exhibition in Berlin explores 14 alternative histories for Germany. What a shame that we don’t do the same

What might have happened if Britain had … But where do you go with that thought? Especially in such grim times as these. If only we had voted against Brexit, perhaps. Or been better prepared for Covid. Gripped the climate crisis more ruthlessly. The list of missed moments and might-have-beens in our recent past is dauntingly long.

But always remember this. Might-have-beens are not always more benign options. Missed opportunities can look very different from the Guardian reader-pleasing list above. If only Britain had … Not joined the EU in the first place. Not imposed a Covid lockdown at all. Sent the Windrush generation back. Kept on digging the coal to fire the power stations.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Move called ‘historic’ but agreement with Australia forecast to raise Britain’s GDP by only 0.08% by 2035

The UK’s post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand have come into force, a moment lauded by the government as “historic” despite critics arguing they give away “far too much for far too little”.

The trade agreements – the first of those negotiated after Britain’s EU exit to enter into force – come after George Eustice, who was the environment secretary when the UK-Australia trade pact was struck in December 2021, admitted it was “not actually a very good deal” for Britain.

Transition to post-Brexit farming payments means scheme to protect hedgerows could be lost

Hedgerows in England are under threat, farmers and nature groups have warned, as the government prepares to cut funding that protects them.

Hedges are vital habitat for many species, providing food and shelter for mammals, birds and pollinators, with the EU paying farmers under its farming subsidy scheme to have them on their land.

The £25m port facility was built to fit government plans but stands empty while new border strategy is delayed

As white elephants go, few come larger than £25m. That is the cost of the hi-tech border control post, built to government specifications to handle post-Brexit checks on goods entering the UK, that sits near the waterfront at Portsmouth international port.

The building has sat empty and unused for almost a year since its completion, after the UK government announced in April last year that the introduction of post-Brexit import checks would be delayed for a fourth time.

People in the Lincolnshire market town were enthusiastic leavers, but seven years on there’s growing disappointment and disillusion

The breeze of change is wheezing through Boston – although not nearly hard enough for most people here. Voters in the Lincolnshire market town were the most enthusiastic supporters of Brexit, with 74.9% backing leave in the 2016 EU referendum. Now even they are sceptical that Brexit will deliver the transformation they’re still waiting for seven years later.

As the Best in Britain poll in the Observer reveals on Sunday, in the Boston and Skegness constituency more than twice as many people (40%) now want closer links with the EU against just 19% who want relations to become even more distant.

As every sector counts the mounting cost of our catastrophic break with Europe, Labour must find its nerve

What do my friends the musicians Sting, John Etheridge and Tom McGuinness (of the Manfreds) have in common, apart from music? They have recently told me they are witnessing first-hand the frustrations of Brexit: loss of the benefits of freedom of movement, and the bureaucratic damage inflicted on one of this country’s widely recognised strengths, namely the creative arts.

In this they are joined by most British manufacturers and members of the hospitality industry. These are struggling to find replacements for the EU workers who have been made to feel unwelcome and have been effectively banned, or voted with their feet. All their would-be employers think Brexit is hugely damaging to their respective businesses, and would like to reverse it.

Dramatic reversal in public opinion seen even in those constituencies that recorded the highest votes to leave

A clear majority of British voters now favours building closer relations with the European Union, according to new polling that highlights a dramatic reversal in the tide of public opinion since Brexit.

Even in those constituencies that recorded the highest votes to leave the EU in 2016, more than twice as many voters now believe the best route forward is to move in the opposite direction – and forge closer ties with Brussels.

The once humble, low-cost staple more than doubles in price, putting many fish and chip shops at risk

Whether it’s fried, baked or mashed, potatoes have traditionally been a low-cost staple food in the UK – but not any more.

A surge in costs is clobbering high street chippies, while in the supermarket, oven chips and the once humble baking potato are casualties of soaring grocery prices.

Wages remain a problem, but rising numbers of skilled non-EU workers appear to be helping the NHS, social care, and indeed the overall UK economy

The UK public policy landscape is littered with disasters. From record NHS waiting lists to the de facto legalisation of petty crime and serious sexual assault, to the environmental damage created by the privatised water and sewerage companies.

With immigration figures on Thursday likely to show that net migration in 2022 was the highest level on record, it’s tempting for politicians and commentators to add immigration to this list – although many have already done so on the basis of what, charitably, are wild, uninformed guesstimates. For Labour, immigration levels play into the narrative that 13 years of Tory rule have broken the country. For the ethno-nationalist right inside and outside government, well represented at the National Conservative conference last week, the idea that our culture and national identity are threatened by an influx of mostly dark-skinned foreigners is foundational.

Jonathan Portes is professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London and a former senior civil servant

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

As carmakers warn that London must renegotiate its deal with Brussels, a lack of government policy is also plaguing the sector

There is no hope for Britain’s car industry … or at least no hope of maintaining the scale and productive capacity that this bedrock of the UK manufacturing sector could boast before the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s downhill from here.

The ‘remoaner elite’, the civil service, the BBC, universities, unions, refugees: anything is blamed but Brexit itself

It lasts no more than a second, but it is a moment for the ages. Interviewed on BBC Newsnight on Monday, Nigel Farage made a confession that, by rights, should end the debate that has split this country down the middle for much of the last decade. A month ahead of the seventh anniversary of the 2016 vote that took Britain out of the European Union, Farage said three words of striking simplicity and truth: “Brexit has failed.”

You can watch the clip over and over, for it is something to behold. Here is the arch-Brexiter himself, the man who dedicated his life to the cause of rupture from the EU, admitting it has been a disaster. Of course, as we shall see, he and his fellow Brexiters do not blame that failure on the idea itself, but it’s the admission that counts. It offers grounds for modest celebration: now, at last, the contours of an emerging national consensus are visible, as remainers and leavers alike can join in agreement that this thing has not worked. And yet it comes at a price, one that also became darkly visible this week.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Join Jonathan Freedland and Marina Hyde for a Guardian Live event in London on Thursday 1 June. Book in-person or livestream tickets here

Kemi Badenoch, the business and trade secretary, has said that the problem raised by car manufacturers worried about exports to the EU facing tariffs from next year 'isn’t to do with Brexit'.

She made the comment during business questions in the Commons, where Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, criticised her record since she has been in post.

The 'rules of origin' requirements raised by car manufacturers were part of the TCA and related to Brexit, but all European car manufacturers were having problems because there was not enough battery supply in Europe, she said

• UK politics: latest updates

The prime minister has a duty to resist the capture of his party by xenophobic nationalism

The campaign to leave the EU promised many things, but hard agricultural labour was not among them. Seasonal fruit picking is physically demanding, poorly paid work that was, before Brexit, done mostly by migrants exercising their freedom to live in any EU member state. Ending that freedom is one of the few Brexit pledges that has been delivered. But enthusiasts for the project are dissatisfied. Net migration has not fallen. Last year it was estimated at around 500,000.

That number is inflated by exceptional cases – Ukrainian refugees and Hong Kong passport holders – but no downward trend is forecast. There is a steady inflow of workers filling vacancies in the health service, social care and other sectors. Some employers are lobbying for more generous visa allocations. Farmers still need fruit pickers. The government has acquiesced, recognising that labour shortages put pressure on supply chains, drive up inflation, risk food security and stifle economic growth. That is the Treasury view. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is frustrated by the outbreak of pragmatic liberalism in cabinet. Earlier this week, she told a conference of radical rightwing conservatives that Britain’s home-grown workforce should be mobilised in the fields.

Ford, Stellantis and Jaguar Land Rover have criticised extra costs under trade and cooperation agreement

• Ford, Vauxhall owner and JLR call for UK to renegotiate Brexit deal
• Comment: UK needs to switch on to the car crisis

Three of the world’s largest carmakers have told the British government it needs to renegotiate its Brexit deal with the EU to change rules they say threaten UK electric vehicle production.

The Vauxhall maker, Stellantis, has warned it will be unable to keep its commitment to make electric vehicles in Britain without the changes, while Ford has called them a “pointless cost”. Jaguar Land Rover, the biggest UK automotive employer, also said the timing of new rules was “unrealistic”.

It looks like the prime minister will be as exercised by splits within his own party as by the official opposition

The length of time a party has been in power can equally make or break a premiership: it is far harder to make a mark coming to office at the end of a long period of dominance. Rishi Sunak is learning that lesson. Since last October he has been righting the listing Conservative ship. However, the losses his party suffered at the hands of opponents in May’s local elections have emboldened four distinct groups of critical voices within his party: former prime ministers; thwarted ex-ministers; the Tory right and ambitious frontbenchers jockeying to lead the party after Mr Sunak has gone. The prime minister looks as if he may be about to become as exercised by splits within his own party as by the challenge posed by the official opposition.

The prime minister could dismiss as symbolic Theresa May’s sit-in protest at the base of the throne in the House of Lords last week over the government’s new asylum bill. He might brush off former home secretary Priti Patel’s claim that Boris Johnson would win the next election as sour grapes. But Downing Street will be more concerned that the Tory right is still smarting over the implosion of the Truss regime. Its collapse interrupted political careers that cannot be resumed unless Mr Sunak’s grip on power is loosened.

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has said it 'feels wrong' that EU citizens who have lived in the UK for years and pay taxes here do not have the right to vote. Speaking to LBC on Monday, Starmer said: 'The thinking behind it is: if someone’s been here say 10, 20, 30 years, contributing to this economy, contributing to the community, they ought to be able to vote'

• Keir Starmer says it ‘feels wrong’ EU citizens living in UK can’t vote

• UK politics – live updates

In the run-up to Brexit, seaside towns were in the political spotlight, before it shifted to the ‘red wall’

About a decade ago, politicians and journalists were suddenly confronted with an issue that had always festered at the edge of the national conversation: the dire state of England’s seaside towns, and their deep social problems.

The referendum that would pull us out of the EU was a couple of years away, but one of the key things that made it happen was already plain to see: the rise of the UK Independence party, and a surge of grievance and complaint that had particularly strong roots on the East coast. In 2014, the faded Essex resort of Clacton held the byelection that resulted in the Tory turncoat Douglas Carswell becoming the first of Ukip’s two elected MPs. His new party was doing equally brisk political business in coastal towns clustered in Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

It’s in its infancy, but it’s hard to imagine how the emergent mood of seriousness about the interlinked threats to our economy, society and democracy cannot but grow stronger.

Yes, there was relief at last week’s news that the economy was still growing in the first three months of this year, even if at a minuscule rate. But that was dispelled by the realisation that it is still smaller than before the pandemic three years ago, the worst performance in the G7. Another interest rate increase seems sure to follow after last week’s hike – yet more stress for those having to remortgage their homes, and a further economic dampener. Business and consumer optimism are in short supply.

Ditching of EU law guillotine shows PM realises it is voters, not Tory ‘Spartans’, who will decide his fate

• UK politics live – latest updates

Kemi Badenoch has felt the full force of backbench Brexiters’ rage in the House of Commons after ditching the “sunset clause” in the retained EU law bill that would have automatically struck out reams of EU law at the end of the year.

“Secretary of state, what on earth are you playing at?” stormed Mark Francois, while Jacob Rees-Mogg asked whether “civil service idleness” could be to blame for the failure to scrutinise and replace sufficient legislation in time. Telegraph headline-writers blamed the Whitehall “blob”.

The speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsey Hoyle, lost his temper with Kemi Badenoch when the secretary of state failed to inform the house of the government's U-turn on repealing retained EU laws.

The government has decided to go ahead with plans to allow thousands of EU-inherited laws to expire by the end of the year, news that Badenoch released in a statement and to the Telegraph newpaper before making a statement in the House of Commons.

The business and trade secretary said she was sorry that the sequencing was not to the speaker's satisfaction, infuriating Hoyle further

• UK politics: latest updates

Improving ties between the UK and EU could lead to agreements on youth mobility and research collaboration

It’s official. Relations between the EU and the UK have been reset. In an article for the Guardian, ambassadors and high commissioners of all 27 member states declared there had been a “regain in trust”.

After seven years of tension, mistrust and sometimes downright contempt, the outbreak of civility is no small thing. “The task ahead is therefore to build on this re-engagement and to develop further the ties between the EU and the UK,” the ambassadors said.

The US president said making sure the Good Friday agreement and the Windsor framework stay in place were the top priority of his trip to Northern Ireland. Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One, Joe Biden said 'making sure the Irish accords and the Windsor agreements stay in place, keep the peace, that's the main thing'.

Biden also addressed a question on the arrest of Evan Gershkovich by Russian authorities, calling his detention 'totally illegal'.

• Biden says keeping Good Friday and Windsor agreements in place are main priority as he flies to Belfast – UK politics live

Held up as a model for peace, the historic agreement ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland over 58 tense hours

The historic Good Friday agreement that ended three decades of the Troubles, brought peace to Northern Ireland and saw the Irish Republican Army and others lay down their arms, is 25 years old this Easter.

It was signed on 10 April 1998, which fell on Good Friday that year, and led to a joint Nobel peace prize for David Trimble and John Hume, leaders of the Ulster Unionist party and the SDLP.

Suella Braverman has denied Brexit is responsible for delays at the port of Dover after some passengers said they had been queueing for up to 14 hours to have their passports checked. Extra sailings were being put in place overnight with hopes of clearing the backlog by lunchtime on Sunday, after a critical incident was declared at the port on Friday. Speaking on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, the home secretary said operations at the French border had been 'very good' since Brexit

• Braverman denies Brexit to blame for Dover queues

UK foreign secretary James Cleverly met with Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice-president, to agree to work 'intensively and faithfully' to implement the Windsor framework after formally adopting it. On behalf of the UK and EU, both counterparts agreed to accept the revised version of the Northern Ireland protocol. Prime minister Rishi Sunak's deal with the 27-nation bloc has rewritten the post-Brexit rules on Northern Ireland trade. Cleverly said that, after long negotiations, the two had finally found a way 'to move forward'

• Brexit: UK and EU formally agree Windsor framework for Northern Ireland – live

Rishi Sunak has won parliamentary backing for his revised post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland despite hardline Conservative Brexiters voting against it. Among those who did not support the prime minister’s proposals were his two immediate predecessors, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, members of the European Research Group as well as Democratic Unionist party MPs

• More Partygate evidence published as Boris Johnson prepares to face inquiry – UK politics live 
• Boris Johnson and Liz Truss to vote against Northern Ireland Brexit plan
• Northern Ireland voters back Windsor framework – poll

Britain appears to be an international outlier after the shock reading in double digits this week

• Live coverage: Inflation jumps as cost of living crisis intensifies
• UK inflation rate in surprise rise to 10.4%
• Inflation calculator: find out how much price rises affect you

Britain has the highest inflation rate in the G7, as the only nation in the group of advanced economies with a reading in double digits after last month’s shock increase.

With the UK appearing to be an international outlier, some economists have suggested Brexit is having an impact.

Conservative MP Mark Francois, who chairs the European Research Group, makes a statement to the press detailing its study of Rishi Sunak's Northern Ireland Brexit plan. Summarising the ERG's stance, Francois said  it had concluded the Stormont 'brake' was not effective and that the check-free 'green lane' for the bulk of goods moved between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would not work as billed

• Hardline Tory MPs reject Sunak’s Northern Ireland Brexit plan

Speaking at the Global Soft Power summit in London, the ex-prime minister Boris Johnson said the Northern Ireland Brexit deal agreed by Sunak was 'not about the UK taking back control'. Johnson admitted he was at fault that the checks on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland had become too 'onerous' but reiterated his call for the UK to be allowed to diverge with EU regulations and laws. He said: 'This is nothing if it is not a Brexit government, and Brexit is nothing if we in this country don’t do things differently' 

• UK politics live - latest updates

Conditions that would let Northern Ireland politicians block EU laws are very strict, it has emerged

• UK politics live – latest news updates

The right of local Northern Ireland politicians to block new EU laws under the Brexit deal just announced by Rishi Sunak and the European Commission president can only be used in exceptional circumstances, it has emerged.

How the so-called Stormont brake can be used is just one of four big questions about the revised Northern Ireland protocol pact, known as the Windsor framework.

Speaking at a Q&A in Lisburn as he pitched his new protocol deal, Rishi Sunak said Northern Ireland would be 'the world’s most exciting economic zone', because if the agreement passed, it would have access to both the European single market and the UK. 'Nobody else has that. No one. Only you guys. Only here. And that is the prize,' he said. 

• Being in single market and UK makes NI ‘world’s most exciting economic zone’, says Sunak – UK politics live

Trade and governance will be at centre of new post-Brexit pact, but what about other areas of disagreement?

• UK politics live – latest news updates

Named the “new Windsor framework”, the revised Northern Ireland protocol has been described as a “decisive breakthrough” by Rishi Sunak and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

What does it mean and what are the big breakthroughs?