Boris Johnson tells Merkel EU must abandon backstop if it wants Brexit deal – live news | Politics

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Earlier, in response to a question from a reader, I posted a paragraph explaining why Boris Johnson might not be quite as fearful of an early general election as people generally think he should be. (See 2.37pm.) But my colleague Severin Carrell, the Guardian’s Scotland editor, points out (fairly) that I left out the Scottish dimension. He’s sent me this.

Amidst all the talk of a snap election this autumn, it is unwise to ignore the likely scale of an Scottish National party “win” in Scotland. All the recent polls show the SNP will romp home with a larger number of seats: not quite as high as the 56 out of 59 seats they won in 2015 but they’re on course to easily surpass 40, leaving the other parties trailing.

Those numbers will have significant impact on the prospects of both the Tories and Labour of winning a majority in the Commons, where the SNP is currently the third largest party.

The SNP are currently polling at around 40% for a Westminster election. Scottish Labour is in freefall under Richard Leonard’s lacklustre leadership, and is now below 20% – as are the Scottish Tories. That makes it impossible for Labour to win the 20 seats in Scotland it needs to gain a Commons majority; indeed it will struggle to hold the seven it won in 2017.

Now, we don’t know how many centrist and anti-Boris pro-UK voters will switch to the Lib Dems (which did very well in Scotland in the European elections and now have a young, female Scottish leader) but it’s quite possible the LDs will win a couple of more seats, more likely from the Tories in rural areas where farming will be heavily hit by a no deal Brexit.

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And with those polling numbers, it is hard to see the Scottish Tories holding onto their current tally of 13 Scottish seats: the conflicts and contradictions between Ruth Davidson, a strong soft-Brexiteer who has built the Tory renaissance by appealing to centrist voters, and Johnson are too significant.

While there are pockets of strong pro-Brexit sentiment in Scotland, there are not enough pro-Brexit votes here to make the difference in first past the post seats other than in north east Scotland and, potentially, in the rural south west – areas where the Tories already have MPs. (It is also the case that with Johnson as Tory leader, the Brexit party has no chance of winning a Westminster seat in Scotland.)

And if the SNP clean-up north of the border, the constitutional crisis over Brexit will be amplified by a constitutional crisis over Scottish independence.

Kate Connolly

Angela Merkel has wished Boris Johnson “a sure hand” in his new role as British prime minister inviting him to visit Berlin in a telephone call.

The German chancellor interrupted her summer break to speak to Johnson today, in a conversation which a spokeswoman said focussed on Brexit as well as future bilateral relations.

The spokeswoman, Ulrike Demmer said Merkel “congratulated him on assuming his new office and wished him a sure hand in exercising the duties of this responsible task.”

Demmer said the leaders’ conversation centred “around the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union as well as efforts to deepen bilateral relations”.

She added that Johnson had accepted the invitation to visit Berlin. He is expected to combine it with a visit to French president Emmanuel Macron. Political insiders in Berlin say the visit could take place as early as next week but no date has been announced.

The arrival of Johnson in Downing Street has been met with a mix of bewilderment and defiance in Berlin, where he is often referred to, particularly in the boulevard press, as ‘Brexit Boris’.

Berlin has repeatedly ruled out reopening Britain’s withdrawal agreement with the EU, putting particular emphasis on its refusal to renegotiate the Northern Ireland back-stop unless a viable alternative is found.

Here are some pictures from Boris Johnson’s visit to West Midlands Police’s learning and development centre. I have not found any pictures of people posing for selfies with him yet.

This is from Sky’s Sam Coates, who has obviously seen TV footage of Boris Johnson’s walkabout this afternoon that has not been broadcast yet.

This is from the Mail on Sunday’s Harry Cole.

My colleague Peter Walker, author of the excellent Bike Nation, approves.

Downing Street has announced that six junior ministers (all parliamentary under secretaries of state) are saying in post. They are:

Kevin Foster, a Welsh Office minister and Cabinet Office minister, and government whip

Chloe Smith, a Cabinet Office minister

Rebecca Pow, a culture minister

Guy Opperman, a work and pensions minister

Will Quince, another work and pensions minister

Nusrat Ghani, a transport minister and government whip

And here is the German read-out from the Boris Johnson/Angela Merkel call. This is from Ulrike Demmer, a German government spokeswoman.

Boris Johnson has had a telephone call with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. According to the Downing Street read-out, Merkel got exactly the same message about how the backstop must go that Emmanuel Macron received. (See 12.38pm.) A Number 10 spokesman said:

The PM today received a call of congratulations from German chancellor Angela Merkel. They agreed to continue to strengthen our bilateral relationship, and to work together closely on foreign policy and security issues.

On Brexit, the PM said that he would be energetic in reaching out as much as possible to try to achieve a deal, but he reiterated the message he delivered in the House of Commons yesterday: parliament has rejected the withdrawal agreement three times and so the UK must fully prepare for the alternative – which is to leave without a deal on October 31.

He said the only solution that would allow us to make progress on a deal is to abolish the backstop. The PM and chancellor agreed to stay in contact.

The pound has been falling in value this afternoon in the light of Simon Coveney’s comments about Brexit (see 1.08pm), the BBC’s Faisal Islam reports.

It looks like Tobias Ellwood has been sacked. Ellwood, a defence minister, said at the weekend that a no deal Brexit could plunge the Tories into opposition for an awfully long period of time. But two days later he said he would not be resigning from government.

Now he is out. He has posted this on Twitter.

The final line of his tweet, “Si vis pacem, para bellum”, means “If you want peace, prepare for war”. Whether that is a comment on defence spending, or on relations with Downing Street, remains to be seen.

Ellwood was honoured for his bravery after he intervened to try to save the life of PC Keith Palmer, the police officer killed in the Westminster terror attack in 2017.

Julian Smith, the new Northern Ireland secretary, has been visiting Derry.

As the BBC reports, Smith was greeted by protesters from the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign, as well as activists in favour of same-sex marriage and Irish language legislation.

We’ve had another instalment of the reshuffle.

These are all parliamentary under secretary of state appointments, or the equivalent, which is the most junior level of minister.

Sideway move

Nadhim Zahawi moves from education to business.

Staying put

Kelly Tolhurst remains a business minister.

John Glen remains economic secretary to the Treasury.

Graham Stuart remains an international trade secretary.

Victoria Atkins remains a Home Office minister and minister for women.