Politics latest news: Green list countries to be expanded but Britons must 'be patient', Grant Shapps says

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India McTaggart
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The Government wants to see more countries added to the green list, but Britons must be patient, Grant Shapps has urged.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4, the Transport Secretary said he was "of course" pushing for the green list of destinations to be extended, but warned that we are "just having to wait for other countries to catch up with us" in terms of their vaccination programmes.

"That's going to gradually happen, obviously, you can see it's happening, so that list should expand," he said.

Mr Shapps said decisions on expanding the green list would depend on data showing the state of the pandemic in the various countries.

"We are reviewing this all the time, every three weeks, the next review is in the first week of June and we'll have to see what happens," he told BBC Radio 4's Today.

However, he poured cold water on expanding the list of holiday destinations immediately, saying: "Our message is very straightforward, which is 'just a little bit of patience, everyone'."

This comes amid reports that up to 270,000 people will fly to amber list countries from the UK by the weekend despite Boris Johnson urging Britons to only travel to these areas for "extreme circumstances".

​​Follow the latest updates below.

09:35 AM

Use 'a bit of common sense' about whether to travel to amber list countries, says Grant Shapps

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps urged people to be patient and wait for the global coronavirus situation to improve if they wanted to go on holiday to countries which were currently on the "amber list".

Asked why holidays were still being sold to countries which are on that list, Mr Shapps told Sky News the Government had moved away from a system where things were "banned and illegal" to a situation where people were expected to "apply a bit of common sense".

He urged people to have "a little more patience as the world catches up with our vaccine programme".

09:30 AM

Arlene Foster urges PM to 'deal with' Northern Ireland Protocol in final meeting

Outgoing DUP leader Foster meets UK PM Johnson in Downing Street - HENRY NICHOLLS/REUTERS
Outgoing DUP leader Foster meets UK PM Johnson in Downing Street - HENRY NICHOLLS/REUTERS

Arlene Foster has said that it "may well be the case" that Article 16 is invoked over the Northern Ireland protocol ahead of her final meeting with Boris Johnson as First Minister.

Mrs Foster met with the Prime Minister for the last time after announcing her resignation last month.

And she did not back away from suggestions that the clause in the Withdrawal Agreement, which could allow for customs checks at the border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland to be suspended, could be put into action.

Customs checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland have caused problems for businesses on both sides of the border, ministers have said.

And under the agreement with the EU, one side is able to suspend parts of the border arrangements if they are found to cause significant economic, societal or environmental difficulties. However this is only supposed to be invoked when all other options have been exhausted and is seen as a nuclear option.

Speaking outside Downing Street in London prior to meeting Mr Johnson, Mrs Foster said the PM needed to "deal with" the Northern Ireland protocol which she fears will "narrow common ground" if not addressed.

09:22 AM

Almost 300,000 will fly to 'amber list' countries by Sunday

Up to 270,000 people will fly to "amber list" countries from the UK by the weekend amid growing confidence among the vaccinated that it is safe to travel.

Analysis for The Telegraph shows more than 1,300 flights are scheduled to go to "amber" countries in the five days to Sunday at a rate of up to 54,000 passengers a day, with destinations including holiday resorts in Spain, Greece, Italy and France.

Seven of the 10 biggest UK tour operators are exploiting confusion in the Government's guidance to fly holidaymakers to countries or islands deemed safe for non-essential travel by the Foreign office despite being on the "amber list".

It flies in the face of renewed appeals by Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, on Wednesday for the public not to fly to "amber" destinations other than for "extreme" reasons such as caring for a dying relative.

Passengers prepare to board an easyJet flight to Faro, Portugal, which is on the 'green list' - Gareth Fuller/PA Wire
Passengers prepare to board an easyJet flight to Faro, Portugal, which is on the 'green list' - Gareth Fuller/PA Wire

09:02 AM

No 10 accused of 'heavy handedness' after warning amber list travellers to expect knock on the door

No 10 has been accused of 'heavy handedness' after warning amber list travellers to expect a knock on the door upon their return.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps sought to put people travelling to countries on the amber list this morning, reminding travellers of the "heck of a lot of hassle" they will face when returning to the UK, as well as warning that "people will come to your house to check your quarantine".

It comes after Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, confirmed that people should expect a knock on the door when quarantining at home upon their return from amber countries, with the Government claiming to have the capacity to carry out 10,000 home visits a day.

However MPs hit back at what they described as "heavy handedness". David Davis, the former Brexit Secretary, called the move "heavy-handed" and said "it won’t work yet again". He added: "It’ll be just as effective as the last test and trace."

Richard Tice, leader of the Reform Party, said the Government's priorities are "all wrong".

He asked: "Surely we want police to focus on preventing knife crime, catching burglars not spying on holidaymakers. What sort of police state have we become?"

08:45 AM

Arrivals from amber and red list countries should be segregated in airports, says Transport Secretary

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he wanted passengers arriving from amber and red list countries to be segregated in airports.

"A lot of this is to do with the practicalities, of course, and everybody has to be tested before they are even able to get on to a flight to the UK," he told the BBC.

"But I do want to see people separated out as much as is practically possible and we have asked, and I think Heathrow will respond to this at the beginning of next month."

There was "excess space" due to the low level of travel and Heathrow is examining using a "spare terminal to bring in perhaps the red flights separately".

08:17 AM

Batley and Spen by-election loss would mean 'curtains' for Starmer, says Abbott

Sir Keir Starmer should resign if Labour loses a forthcoming by-election in a key "Red Wall" seat, Diane Abbott said as she suggested Andy Burnham could replace him.

The former shadow home secretary on Wednesday became the latest Jeremy Corbyn ally to suggest Sir Keir should quit if he failed to turn things around, warning that losing in Batley and Spen "must surely be curtains for him".

Ms Abbott's intervention comes amid mounting pressure on Sir Keir in the wake of a bruising series of local election results and the by-election defeat in Hartlepool.

The Labour leader's authority has been further called into question following a chaotic reshuffle, while Mr Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, has made it clear he will seek to run for leader if the party fails to win the next general election.

07:55 AM

The Duke of Cambridge gets jabbed

Prince William has tweeted that he has received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine (although he didn't specify which one he had).

He also thanked all those involved in the vaccination roll out effort.

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07:51 AM

Door knocks to check compliance

Mr Shapps said he did not recognise the figures that show up to 55,000 people a day are travelling to amber list countries, which is to be monitored by 10,000 checks on home after arrival.
He said: "We are not saying those numbers, I don't know where they've come from. Certainly not so far with regards to the unlock on Monday."
He said the numbers of people travelling to amber list countries are "certainly far fewer than that".

07:45 AM

An evolving green list

Mr Shapps conceded he wanted to see more countries added to the "green list" for travel, which is currently very slim pickings for holiday destinations.

"The amber list and the red list are not for holidaymakers, that's not the purpose of those lists at this time," Mr Shapps said.

"We just think that after a year of lockdowns in this country, of people coming forward in record numbers to get their vaccines, we do not want to be in a position of taking risks at this stage about our unlock."

Asked if he was pushing for the green list to be extended, Mr Shapps told the Today programme: "Of course. The reason for that is we have ended up getting way ahead in terms of our vaccination programme in this country and we are just having to wait for other countries to catch up with us.

"That's going to gradually happen, obviously, you can see it's happening, so that list should expand."

07:42 AM

Government calls for 'patience'

Holidaymakers wanting to visit countries on the Government's amber list have been urged by Grant Shapps to have "more patience".

The Transport Secretary urged the public to show "a little more patience as the world catches up with our vaccine programme".

Portugal is currently the only major viable tourist destination on that list, although holidays are still being sold to countries on the amber list.

Mr Shapps sought to defend this policy, as he said the Government had moved away from a system where things were "banned and illegal" to a situation where people were expected to "apply a bit of common sense".

07:23 AM

Politics today

Good morning.

All eyes today are on quarantine and the amber list, as well as the row engulfing Cabinet over British meat being exported to Australia and whether it should be tariff free.

Transport Correspondent Grant Shapps has had the media round this morning.

Asked if it was "irresponsible" to go on holiday to an amber list country, Mr Shapps said: "We ask people not to... that is the situation.

"If you do go away to an amber country - for whatever reason - you end up having to take a vast series of tests: pre-departure tests before you can return, one on day two, one on day eight, if you wanted to release early one on day five as well, there's a lot of cost involved in that.

"You have to quarantine at home, people will come and visit you.

"So there's an awful lot that you have to do and clearly most people are not going to want to go through all of that when a little bit of patience is starting to see other countries catch up."

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson will chair a meeting of the EU exit strategy committee with senior ministers for discussions about the trade deal with Australia.

Stay tuned for updates on the above and more.

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I don't know how that will turn out.”Long term, Cha sees “a lot of potential for coming to terms on production.” He says Samsung biologics and SK bioscience “are high-end entities that could produce lots of vaccines and aid the U.S. effort to distribute vaccines to the world.”South Korea’s desperation for vaccines plays into the dire need for semiconductors for American motor vehicle manufacturers.“On chips,” said Cha, “Samsung will make a big announcement on new investments in chipmaking in the U.S.” That deal “quietly reflects a choice by South Korea to put high-end chip production in the U.S. and not in China, thus putting them on the right side of supply chains post-COVID.” (Other South Korean companies might follow with plans to produce electronic vehicles and high-capacity batteries in America.)Right away, “Moon will claim that he has secured more vaccines and the alliance is as strong as ever,” said Lee Sung-yoon, at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “The pro-Moon South Korean press will hail the meeting as a diplomatic victory for Moon.”Getting together over North Korea, however, is another matter. “Biden will be skeptical but remain polite and say he is open to talks with North Korea under the right circumstances—when North Korea shows clear signs of moving toward complete denuclearization,” Lee told The Daily Beast. “Moon will say the way to move Kim Jong Un toward the goal is by making concessions like suspension of sanctions and high-level meetings in order to build trust.”As the sheen fades from the review, Team Biden want it known that they’re not falling for the failed policies of the two previous presidents.They say they’re getting away from the “strategic patience” of Barack Obama and the extremes of Donald Trump—yes, the guy who called Kim “little rocket man” and threatened to rain “fire and fury” on the North in 2017. Then, in 2018, the same guy claimed to have fallen “in love” with Kim and got him to agree at their summit in Singapore to work for “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”Will Trump Continue His Bromance With Kim Jong Un?That’s a phrase from the brief joint statement Trump and Kim signed with a flourish for the gaping TV networks, which is sure to come up as the basis for future talks. That signing may have been the brightest moment of Trump’s presidency. The memory has now faded into the miasma of historical disillusionment, but Kurt Campbell, a veteran diplomat who’s now Indo-Pacific coordinator on the National Security Council, believes the summit can take off from there.“Our efforts will build on Singapore and other agreements made by previous administrations,” he told Yonhap, the South Korean news agency. While “our policy towards North Korea is not aimed at hostility,” he made clear it’s still “aimed at ultimately achieving the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”—diplomatic verbiage that promises not much, if anything.In the cyclical manner of crisis and dialog, fresh meetings with the North are Moon’s only hope, and sweet talk and evasion will be Biden’s response when he sees him.“First and foremost they will demonstrate the alliance is sound and strong,” said Kathleen Stephens, former U.S. ambassador to Korea, now president of the Korea Economic Institute, funded by the Korean government in Washington. “Commitment to the alliance,” she went on at a virtual panel staged by George Washington University’s Institute for Korean Studies, “is the highest priority.”Meanwhile, “we’re acknowledging that a dramatic breakthrough is not likely,” said Frank Jannuzi, president of the Mansfield Foundation in Washington.Timing is the catch. “The Moon administration is eager to use the last year of its office on a full-court press,” said Jannuzi, whereas “the Biden administration is working on a different timeline.”Not that all members of team Biden favor alternating hard and soft lines to convince Moon they are really on his side while they are not. Bruce Bennett, long-time North Korea watcher at the Rand Corporation, told The Daily Beast he had “seen no direct evidence of arguing in back channels” at the White House, but surmised “that arguing has indeed been happening.”Through it all, U.S. policy on North Korea remains pretty much the same despite negotiations with the North over the years.“Denuclearization is still the goal,” said Victor Cha at the CSIS confab, where he runs Korean issues. The North has “a developed arsenal that continues to grow. We need to take this down branch by branch”—that is, go for small deals that will wind up with the North de-nuking in the end.Joseph Yun, former U.S. point man on North Korea, believes America has just about given up on CVID—complete verifiable irreversible denuclearization. “The U.S. does not think they can get it,” he said on another panel discussion. “They really don’t talk about CVID. They are thinking about it as a long-term project. They are much more realistic.”Considering the history of negotiations with North Korea, Bruce Klingner, a former CIA official who’s been dealing with Korea issues for years at the conservative Heritage Foundation, put the dilemma this way.“Biden officials continue to make claims of a ‘new course’ different from those of previous administrations.” However, he told The Daily Beast, “There are only so many tools in the tool box and only so many ways to build a policy house.” The Biden administration’s “proposed ‘calibrated’ and ‘careful modulated diplomatic approach,’” he said, appears “consistent with U.S. policies since the 1994 Agreed Framework.”Sadly, the 1994 deal, under which the North agreed to give up its nuclear program in exchange for twin light water reactors, broke down after the Americans charged in 2002 that North Korea was secretly producing warheads with highly enriched uranium.The chief architect of that agreement, Robert Gallucci, believes the latest policy review “was not enough” and called for “a more aggressive approach” toward “normalization of the DPRK,” the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as an “anormal country.”Gallucci, retired U.S. ambassador-at-large, now at Georgetown, is annoyed that “we are essentially not trying to solve this problem” while focusing on Iran, which has cooperated with the North to develop its own nuclear arsenal. “Neither side is showing up,” he said at CSIS, meaning neither the U.S. nor North Korea wants to talk.For Moon, however, a White House summit coming five weeks after Biden hosted Yoshihide Suga, prime minister of Japan—with which Korea remains on terrible terms from the era of Japanese colonialism—offers a chance to go home claiming understanding with the Americans. They will convince him they too are all for pressing ahead with negotiations even if they aren’t likely to happen right away.Moon “will come out of the summit looking pretty good,” said Christopher Hill, the U.S. envoy who engineered six-party talks, including the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S—another failed effort at negotiating with North Korea. The summit “will showcase” the bond between the U.S. and Korea and “the warmth of the relationship.” Koreans “want to see we’re continuing to have a North Korean policy” with Moon “on top of his game,” he said at the CSIS panel.South Korea’s New Political Darling Is Kim Jong UnThat’s exactly how the Biden team wants Moon to feel, even as he emphasizes negotiations rather than denuclearization and glosses over human rights as South Korea abstains from UN resolutions condemning the North’s human rights abuses.Moon, the Americans think, will be delighted to demonstrate how well he gets along with Biden in persuading him to subscribe to talks with the North. Having met Kim three times, he now has to battle sharply declining popularity thanks to inflation and skyrocketing real estate prices. Kim’s failure to respond to entreaties for more talks since the failure of the second Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi in 2019 adds to the misery.Moon knows his conservative enemies are lying in wait to avenge the ouster and jailing of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye, in the Candlelight Revolution of 2016 and 2017. “South Korea and the U.S. cannot and should not accept North Korea as a nuclear power,” said Park’s last prime minister, Hwang Kyo-ahn, who ran against Moon for president in 2017. “The issue of human rights in North Korea is of great concern to South Korea.”Those are the conditions to which the U.S. subscribes while Moon sublimates them for fear of offending the North and derailing his faint hopes for another summit with Kim. “As long as we look for a diplomatic solution,” said Nick Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, talking at the Committee for Human Rights on North Korea, “we’re assigning our leadership to a fool’s errand.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • 35 Republicans Defy Trump and GOP Leaders to Push Capitol Riots Probe

    Alex WongOver the objections of GOP leaders, the House passed a bill Wednesday that would create a bipartisan and independent commission to examine the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.The House voted 252-175, with 35 Republicans joining all Democrats in support of the bill.With 35 House Republicans voting for the commission, there’s a possibility Democrats in the Senate can find enough Republicans there to support the panel, but the odds are long. While the number of GOP defections is a bit of an embarrassment for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and his leadership team, it’s probably not quite the jailbreak that Democrats needed to convince their Senate colleagues to go against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Democrats would need 10 Republicans to overcome a GOP filibuster for 60 votes in the Senate, otherwise the bill establishing the commission won’t make it to President Joe Biden’s desk.Still, Democrats found themselves surprised at the number of GOP defections. “That’s a good showing,” Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) told The Daily Beast. “It should be everyone. But given the death grip Donald Trump has on his party, I think it’s encouraging.”Debate in the House on Wednesday was mostly one-sided. More Republicans spoke in support of the commission than those who spoke against it. But the GOP arguments against the legislation were particularly divorced from reality.Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) implored Democrats to start being bipartisan and stop using “every tool as a partisan stick to beat Republicans.”“Look, things have changed a lot since the 9/11 commission,” Gohmert said, “because back then, we did not have a problem on both—either side of the aisle condemning anti-semitic remarks.”Fellow Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy argued that an independent commission was unnecessary because Congress already has committees that could subpoena people and investigate Jan. 6.“Let's use the powers that we have and the powers of this body and the committees we have to seek the truth to the information wherever it may lead,” Roy said.But Democrats and some Republicans contended that an independent and high-profile commission—like the one Congress created after 9/11—was an important step toward accountability and future safety.Schiff invoked that example to justify the Jan. 6 commission. He told The Daily Beast that Congress did important work to probe 9/11 but that the commission brought “tremendous added value” because it was outside the political process and was staffed with trusted figures.“That's what we need here, so that the recommendations that come out of the commission will be broadly accepted by the public,” Schiff said.House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) particularly took offense to the GOP contention that the commission ought to broaden its scope to all sorts of political violence, not just the violence that occurred on Jan. 6.“It's vital that Congress establish a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate January 6. Not some other date,” Hoyer said. “That does not absolve any wrongdoing anywhere, any time. But it says that this unique insurrection is a danger to our democracy. Not to Republicans and Democrats. To our democracy. To our Congress. To the people's House and the United States Senate, which was occupied."Rep. John Katko (R-NY)—the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee who brokered the deal—also spoke in support of the bill, saying an independent commission was “critical for removing the politics around January 6.”“The American people and the Capitol Police deserve answers and action as soon as possible to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again,” Katko said. “We must find answers to the many questions surrounding that day.”All of this drama to create a bipartisan commission comes after four months of negotiations and a flurry of recent opposition from GOP leaders.After Katko finalized a deal with Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) last week to create the commission, McCarthy promptly blew it up on Tuesday.And although McConnell said later in the day on Tuesday that he was undecided, he woke up on Wednesday and himself called the proposal “slanted and unbalanced.”The only thing that had seemed to change was that former President Donald Trump issued a statement Tuesday night calling the commission “partisan unfairness.”While McConnell and Republican allies tried to come up with reasons on Wednesday why that was the case, their rationales didn’t seem to match up with the legislation.The bill that the House passed Wednesday would create an independent commission composed of 10 people outside of government—five to be picked by Democratic leaders, and five to be picked by Republican leaders. The commission would have subpoena power, but only if the Democratic chair and GOP vice chair agreed, or absent that agreement, if a majority of the commission approved.The one item of imbalance Republicans focused on Wednesday was the composition of the staff, which also seemed to be a mostly imagined complaint. The language for hiring staff was almost identical to the bipartisan 9/11 commission, as well as a bill from January establishing an independent commission that had more than 30 GOP cosponsors.But not long after McConnell’s speech against the legislation Wednesday, those senators who had been undecided, or even supportive, changed their tune.Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), who said on Tuesday that the insurrection could not be “swept under any rug,” said on Wednesday that he’d changed his mind after hearing directly from McCarthy. “Leadership in the House says it’s not bipartisan in nature,” Rounds said, even though the bill was the product of negotiations between Katko and Thompson—with McCarthy’s backing.After Trump, McCarthy, and McConnell all came out in opposition to the commission, GOP leaders began explicitly laying out a key concern that’s percolated for weeks: that such a commission would damage them politically. “A lot of our members, and I think this is true of a lot of House Republicans, want to be moving forward and not looking backward,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. “Anything that gets us rehashing the 2020 elections I think is a day lost on being able to draw a contrast between us and the Democrats’ very radical left-wing agenda.”The 10 Republican votes needed to pass the bill in the Senate, then, will now be much tougher for Democrats to win. Even senators who would be the building blocks of any bipartisan vote, like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), have said they want to see changes to the commission as it is structured.The Senate GOP’s widespread opposition potentially sets up something momentous: the minority’s first use of the legislative filibuster since Democrats took power in January. The symbolism in such a move is not lost on Democrats. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told The Daily Beast such a move would be in line with the GOP’s intent to filibuster voting rights legislation. “They’re just interested in blocking,” he said.Democrats on both sides of the Capitol say they will plow ahead though, even if the path to establishing the commission is unclear. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) vowed on Wednesday to put the House’s bill to a vote, no matter what. And Hoyer told reporters that Democrats would find a lane for the review somehow—even if it meant creating a special committee in the House.That would be a far more diminished version of the commission outlined in the bill, however.Republicans have pointed to ongoing reviews of the Jan. 6 attack being conducted by congressional committees and various agencies from the federal government, saying their work would be more than sufficient in uncovering what happened and how to prevent it from happening again.But Rep. Tim Ryan (R-OH), who chairs the House committee that oversees the Capitol Police, said Wednesday that would not be enough. “We're trying to govern the country, so we're trying to set this up,” Ryan said. “If there’s something better, be a part of it.”“If we can’t get Republican votes on this,” Ryan added, “it’s indicative of what’s to come.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

  • Luka Doncic is great but he will never match Dirk Nowitzki, so we should stop | Opinion

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  • Family members kill neighbor in ‘tragic case of mistaken identity,’ Texas sheriff says

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  • Salma Hayek spent 7 weeks isolated in a room battling COVID-19 because she refused to go to the hospital: 'I'd rather die at home'

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