The final part of this series about domestic abuse looks at what the political parties are doing and the prospects for the future

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Behind closed doors, part 5: the political will

Ursula von der Leyen hopes young people can drive a rapprochement but polls show they have other things on their minds

“We goofed it up, you have to fix it,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday in a message to the younger generation about Brexit.

Fixing it would be “the direction of travel” with regard to the UK rejoining the EU, she told an audience in Brussels. But as the fourth anniversary of Brexit approaches, is it likely that Britain’s millennials and generation Z will demand a rapprochement?

Press release: Sheffield-based cancer nurse wins international acclaim with research studying the impact of treatments on patients’ quality of life

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Weston Park Cancer centre nurse wins best-ranked research paper at international cancer conference

Far from freeing the UK from continental insecurities, Brexit has made some of them worse. Isolationism won’t help: the only hope is to work with our neighbours

Once again, a spectre is haunting Europe. Yet the spectre is not communism, as Karl Marx wrongly predicted nearly 200 years ago. Far from it. The spectre today consists of multiple new drivers of national and regional insecurity. Together they threaten Europe’s – and Britain’s – long postwar years of general democratic stability and intermittent economic optimism. And Europe does not yet know what to do about it.

Last week’s success for Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands’ general election is the latest of these many shocks. The vote for Wilders’ anti-migrant, anti-Islamic and Eurosceptic campaign has sent a jolt through all of Europe. It is too simplistic to call it part of a general shift to the right, partly because that may encourage simplistic responses. The far right has always been a problem in each country, and will continue to be so. But the increased vote for Wilders is also a sign of something altogether larger.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

Exclusive: ‘Cushion’ for carmakers facing looming tariff under deal for vehicles traded between EU and UK from start of 2024

The European Commission has hatched confidential Plan B proposals to “cushion” the impact of a looming 10% tariff on imports and exports of electric vehicles, the Guardian has learned.

The proposal was presented to member states on Monday in response to pressure from carmakers to amend some of the conditions imposed when the UK left the EU in January 2021.

This live blog is now closed, you can read more from today’s Covid inquiry here

Back at the home affairs committee, Tim Loughton (Con) has just had another go at getting answers about the number of asylum applications that have been withdrawn. (See 10.38am.)

He said, when he said earlier 95% of withdrawn applications were categorised as withdrawn for “other” reasons (and not because the claims were not substantiated), he was quoting figures for the last quarter.

Whilst the prospect is perhaps what none of us would wish to plan for, I believe the reality will be that we will need to discharge Covid-19 positive patients into residential care settings for the reason you have noted.

This will be entirely clinically appropriate because the NHS will triage those to retain in acute settings who can benefit from that sector’s care.

European Commission president said Brexit could be fixed because leaders had ‘goofed it up’

Rishi Sunak has rejected the suggestion that Brexit could be in peril after Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, claimed that the UK could be on a path to rejoining the European Union.

At an event in Brussels on Tuesday night, von der Leyen admitted that European leaders had “goofed up” over the departure of Britain from the bloc and suggested the younger generation could “fix” it.

The chancellor delivered enough clues to confirm that his plan for those who ‘Can’t work or won’t work’ isn’t a plan at all – it’s a slogan

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Twas the night before the chancellor got boo-ed off stage

War of words between Athens and London escalates after Rishi Sunak’s snub to Greek prime minister

Rishi Sunak’s snub of his Greek counterpart over the Parthenon marbles raised fresh questions about Britain’s fraught relations with its European neighbours as a war of words between Athens and London escalated on Tuesday.

A meeting on Tuesday between Sunak and Kyriakos Mitsotakis was cancelled because the Greek prime minister reneged on assurances that he would not use a UK visit as a “public platform” to lobby for the return of the marbles to Athens, Downing Street said. The Greek side has denied any such assurances were given.

José Manuel Albares met David Cameron to discuss agreement on trade, immigration and workers

Spain is ready to sign a deal on the post-Brexit status of Gibraltar as early as Wednesday, the country’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said before a meeting in Brussels with his British counterpart, David Cameron.

The deal will centre on trade, immigration and the movement of workers to and from Spain. According to Spain’s Efe news agency, it will include plans to turn the Campo de Gibraltar – the Spanish area around Gibraltar – into a “zone of shared prosperity” that would eliminate the border fence so as to allow the movement of people and goods between the territory and the EU.

After a run of high-quality festive shows, Harrogate Theatre’s Dick Whittington doesn’t break the tradition

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Dick Whittington arrives at Harrogate Theatre

One diplomat likens ex-PM’s trip to EU headquarters for Nato talks to a ‘divorcee returning to the family home’

David Cameron will return to Brussels on Tuesday in an official capacity for the first time since his doomed campaign for Britain to remain in the European Union.

The former prime minister, who made a surprise return to frontline politics this month when he became the UK foreign secretary, will attend a Nato meeting of foreign ministers to discuss issues including ammunition supply to Ukraine and the alliance’s continued presence in Kosovo.

Capitalism no longer needs perpetual economic expansion, or ‘growth’; what’s needed now is positive, controlled degrowth

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Business as usual, or positive degrowth: part two, degrowth

Modern slavery is a disturbing and often hidden aspect of life in the UK – a new campaign seeks to raise awareness

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Celebrities unite against hidden menace: modern slavery on the rise for UK men

Town clerk says longstanding failure to pay energy bills was due to “toxic” working environment and councillors’ behaviour

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Town council gas arrears blamed on “dysfunction”

Dr Stella Perrott explains why migrants are the solution to, not the cause of, our failing public services

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Without more immigrants elderly people will suffer

Untenable political positions and unsavoury historical associations make Farage a problem for I’m a Celebrity… over to you, Ant and Dec

In 2011, Nigel Farage co-chaired the Europe of Freedom and Democracy grouping with Italy’s Francesco Speroni, who described the Norwegian white supremacist mass murderer and unlikely celebrity Top Gear fan Anders Behring Breivik as someone whose “ideas are in defence of western civilisation”. Farage has received £1.5m to appear on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! with Ant and Dec. Do Ant and Dec believe Breivik’s July 2011 shooting of 69 people, most of them teenagers, on the island of Utøya represented a defence of western civilisation? Do Ant and Dec, like Breivik, think Top Gear is “one of the funniest shows on TV… and one of the very few programmes at the Burka Broadcasting Corporation still worth seeing”, or do they prefer Bill Burr’s new anti-woke movie, Old Dads?

In 2017, Farage was invited to address the Alternative für Deutschland party by Beatrix von Storch, the granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister and a woman who said German border guards should be allowed to shoot migrants (an attitude she shares with Rwanda, treaty or no treaty). Farage has received £1.5m to appear on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! with Ant and Dec. Do Ant and Dec have a joint view on whether it is right to shoot migrants, or do their opinions differ? Would they like to meet Hitler’s friend’s granddaughter?

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

University of Sheffield students protest against the university’s partnerships with arms manufacturers

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Palestine protest at the University of Sheffield disrupts opening of new building The Wave

In the fourth part of this series on domestic abuse, we take a look at the support services on offer and some of the challenges that they face

Yorkshire Bylines Local News: Behind closed doors, part 4: a helping hand

Jeremy Hunt’s almost carefree approach to the autumn statement bespoke a chancellor, and a party, that has largely ceased to care

What impressed me most about the delivery of last week’s autumn statement was the good-humoured – almost jovial – manner in which our fourth chancellor in three years unveiled a seemingly endless list of measures supposed to promote “growth”.

In most cases they were nothing of the sort. But Jeremy Hunt was so relaxed that one wonders if he believed a word of it. I had the wicked thought that as his party is assumed by most observers – not least its own members – to be approaching the electoral scaffold, the prevailing mood was one of “lie back and think of the election after next”. Meanwhile, they can enjoy the spectacle of a Labour party struggling to carry out its traditional role of trying to sort out the mess it is likely to inherit.

Office for Budget Responsibility says UK entry into the Indo-Pacific agreement will add just 0.04% to GDP in the long run

The UK’s flagship trans-Pacific trade deal, which was presented as a cornerstone of post-Brexit “global Britain”, will deliver even less benefit to the economy than the tiny uplift that was previously predicted, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.

In a report accompanying last week’s autumn statement, the OBR said the UK’s entry into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) would add just 0.04% to GDP in the “long run”, which it defines as after 15 years of membership.

Home Office data reveals impact of end of free movement and raises questions over Border Force hostility

The number of EU citizens refused entry to the UK since Brexit has increased fivefold, Home Office figures show.

In the first three quarters of 2019 just over 2,200 people from the EU were turned away at the border – compared with 11,600 in the first three quarters of 2023.

Office for National Statistics raises previous figure by 140,000 and gives estimate for year to June of 672,000

Net migration boosted the UK population by a record 745,000 in the year to December 2022, fuelled in part by a surge in overseas professionals arriving to work in the NHS and care homes and prompting a furious response from rightwing Conservatives.

Amid signs No 10 might consider tightening guidelines on what has become a totemic issue for some Tory MPs, one group of backbenchers said a failure to deliver on the manifesto pledge to reduce net migration could prove “existential” for the party.

Dave Ramsden tells MPs referendum fallout also contributed to lower speed limit for growth of UK economy

• Business live – latest updates

The outcome of the Brexit vote and years of political uncertainty it triggered has had a chilling impact on business investment in Britain, a deputy governor of the Bank of England has said.

Dave Ramsden, the Bank’s deputy governor for markets and banking, said the fallout from the 2016 referendum had “chilled” investment levels compared with other leading nations and contributed to a lower “speed limit” for the UK economy.

The chances of the UK striking key deals with Brussels are looking up, with many seeing the new foreign secretary David Cameron as the latest step in a rapprochement

In her final key pre-Brexit speech in 2019, Ursula von der Leyen declared she would “always be a remainer”, insisting that Europe’s “bond of friendship” with the UK would remain unbreakable.

In her hour-long “state of the union” address this year, the EU’s most senior executive official did not mention the UK once, despite common interests in Ukraine, the climate crisis, energy and China.

The prime minister’s moves reveal his failure to restore trust in government after the calamitous Truss administration

Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle reveals the identity crisis at the heart of the Conservative party. Are the Tories the party of tax cuts or of fiscal responsibility? Are they the party of levelling up or the City? Do they want to improve institutions or wreck them? With the sacking of Suella Braverman from the Home Office and the return of David Cameron as foreign secretary, it would be tempting to think Mr Sunak’s shift was a victory for a more recognisable, centre-right politics. But that assessment would be premature.

Mr Sunak has failed to restore trust in his party after the bedlam of the Truss government. The shakeup of his team illustrates how hard it is for the Tories to escape their own chaos.Demoting his health secretary in the middle of negotiations with the doctors’ union to end industrial action spells panic. It is a desperate sign to replace the party chairman a year before an election. No voter thinks a housing emergency of rocketing rents and soaring evictions will be solved by the 16th housing minister since 2010.

As former UK PM makes a return to cabinet, we look at his somewhat chequered record on global stage

• UK politics live – latest updates

David Cameron has made a shock return to the UK government as foreign secretary.

A profile on the government’s website credits him with developing “a foreign policy that responded to the new challenges of the Arab spring and also evolving challenges from various state and non-state actors”.

From privatisation to Brexit to its current collapse, the damage done by the Conservative party leaves one longing for the past

When thieves fall out, they certainly know how to do it. The sight of former cabinet ministers such as Nadine Dorries slagging off the prime minister, and the home secretary – at the time of writing – plumbing the depths of extreme rightwing prejudice, shows that there are now no depths to which the Conservative party will not sink.

They are desperate, and with reason. The chickens bred during George Osborne’s austerity chancellorship, and let out of captivity by Boris Johnson’s Brexit, are finally coming home to roost.

Collaboration and funding are key to reversing the regional divide, but both are in short supply

The idea that governments should act to level up Britain is nothing new. For at least a century there has been an acceptance that something needs to be done for those parts of the country initially hit by the long-term decline of cotton, coal and shipbuilding, and subsequently at the sharp end of the deindustrialisation of the 1980s.

But only in recent years has regional policy become sexy, and for that we have Brexit to thank. The EU referendum was a wake-up call to Britain’s political class.

Taxes spent wisely improve lives and attract investors – and in fact leaving the EU has made cutting them harder than ever

One of the phrases which do little to help public discussion of economic and social policy is “the tax burden”. Often when I come across it I am reminded of a master at my grammar school who used to delight in annoying his pupils by informing us that we were “the taxpayer’s burden”.

Now, some taxes are no doubt wasted, and people have a right to approve or disapprove of the projects to which their taxes are put. But taxation is necessary for a civilised society and, as the population ages and the demands on the public purse grow, taxes are increasing as a proportion of the national income.

In the week that nearly 4 million Britons were reported to live in destitution, policymakers axed the cap on City pay. How’s that for a healthy society?

Rejoice! At last the British establishment has identified a 100% cast-iron Brexit bonus. This week, financial watchdogs agreed there need be no more limits on the bonuses paid to City bankers. The Bank of England found that “a bonus cap is not routinely imposed in other leading international financial centres outside the EU”. The cap will go at the end of this month – which, in case you need reminding, is also Halloween. From Bishopsgate to Canary Wharf, there will be no tricks this year, just treats.

Rather than all that waffle about money for the NHS, Boris Johnson really ought to have slapped that on his big red Brexit bus: “Bigger bonuses for bankers”. As parliament was prorogued, the supermarket shelves emptied of food and HGV lorries went without drivers, the entire country could have gritted its teeth and reminded itself of why all the privation was worth it: so that City folk could take home more cash at the end of another hard year. And whether in the referendum’s 48% or 52%, everyone could have rallied around the idea that it was a modest sacrifice for a great national reward.

In reality, the politics of this move are not so cheery. This week, it was estimated that nearly 4 million Britons are living in destitution, getting by on one meal a day or relying on food banks. Many of those in such dire straits will have had their misery compounded by the austerity of the past 13 years, and cuts to benefits and public services made in the wake of the giant crash of 2008 – caused by the same class of bankers, now enjoying limitless bonuses. All this is happening under a fabulously wealthy prime minister who was formerly an investment banker. What political analysts call “the optics” are truly terrible on this one.

Disillusioned with Stormont and Brexit, 18 to 24-year-olds want progressive change – and don’t see it happening in the union

• Emma DeSouza is a writer and campaigner

The DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, expressed his confidence this week that there won’t be a united Ireland in his lifetime. But as support for unionism wanes among Northern Ireland’s young people, could the so-called peace babies have a different future in mind?

A recent Lucid Talk/Sunday Times survey showed that 57% of 18 to 24-year-olds in Northern Ireland would vote “yes” to reunifying Ireland if a border poll were held today, despite there being no official campaign or unity plan in place. More than 600,000 people have been born in Northern Ireland since the signing of the Good Friday agreement, and they have grown up during a sustained period of peace that has given rise to a new set of priorities. This is a generation that wants more rights, more progressive change – and to confine the division of the past to the dustbin of history.

Party leaders start to reveal clearer positions on policy areas ranging from net zero to transgender rights

• UK politics live – latest updates

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have faced off against each other for the past 11 months as leaders of their parties, but the time has been marked by frustration within their own ranks that they are failing to create clear dividing lines with their opponents.

That situation has begun to change. The Conservative leader suddenly seems more eager to lay out his own ideological credentials – even if recent net zero announcements were quickly rushed out in response to leaks.

Scientists relieved they can once again apply for funding from world’s largest such programme after three-year hiatus

• Sunak hails ‘right deal for country’ as UK rejoins EU Horizon project

The UK has rejoined the flagship Horizon Europe research programme, to the widespread relief of the scientific community. But what is Horizon Europe and what does it mean for UK science?

Brexit spat excluded Britain from £85bn European programme – at huge detriment to vital research, argue scientists

The UK is edging closer to a deal to allow it back into the flagship £85bn Horizon Europe science research programme after being locked out since 2020 in a row over Northern Ireland’s Brexit trading arrangements.

What might happen, and can British science recover its leading position in Europe?

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

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”.

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

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

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

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

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