Boris Johnson news: PM’s ‘ludicrous’ plan for bridge to Northern Ireland attacked, as backlash builds over ‘mansion tax’ and HS2

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of events at Westminster and beyond.

PM set to give HS2 green light

Boris Johnson is expected to give the green light on Tuesday to the first section of the HS2 high-speed rail project – and risk a furious reaction from as many as 60 Conservative MPs opposed to the costs.

The PM will set out his response to the Oakervee Review in an announcement to parliament and is set to approve the first stretch, linking London to Birmingham.

But it is thought he will stop short of approving the project’s Y-shaped extension to Manchester and Leeds, saying that more analysis needs to be done on the cost – risking a furious reaction from business leaders in the north firmly behind the project.

Starmer’s team claim ‘dirty tricks’ by party insiders over hackling claims

Sources close to Labour leadership frontrunner Keir Starmer have claimed “dirty tricks” by party insiders, after two members of his team were reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office over an alleged breach of data protection rules.

Members of the Starmer team were reportedly accused of “data-scraping”, by hacking information from the membership database which could have been used to lobby activists for their votes in the ballot.

A source close to the campaign said that the supposed breach had in fact arisen as a result of Starmer officials checking out a previous allegation that Rebecca Long-Bailey may have broken the rules.

“This is a factional attack by the party machine on our campaign,” the source told The Independent. “This contest was always going to be a David against Goliath struggle because we have the entire party machine on the side of one candidate.”

More details here:

PM ‘mulls over mansion tax’ on wealth property owners

Boris Johnson is said to be considering stealing one of Ed Miliband’s old policies – a “mansion tax” imposed on owners of expensive homes.

According to The Telegraph, the prime minister is set for a Tory backlash over tax raising measures, as he and chancellor Sajid Javid come up with ways to fund a big public spending boost at next month’s Budget.

The PM is also mulling over cuts to pension tax relief at the Budget to help pay for a public spending boost.

“It is ridiculous,” a senior Tory MP told the newspaper. “If you are happy for people to get on in the world … you vote Conservative.”

The City doesn’t sound too enthused. George Bull of RSM, the accountancy firm, said: “A mansion tax in isolation would be half-baked.”

Tom McPhail of Hargreaves Lansdown, the investment firm, said scrapping high-rate pension tax relief “would be an act of fiscal hooliganism and would be really negative”.

Boris Johnson and Sajid Javid (Getty)

Tory minister defends deportations as ‘right’ and ‘reasonable’

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rishi Sunak has defended a plan to push on with a flight deporting 50 people to Jamaica despite widespread calls for the jet to be grounded.

He insisted that those being forcibly removed had committed “very serious offences” and their deportations were “reasonable”.

More than 150 cross-party MPs have called on the government to halt Tuesday’s flight, which is expected to include a young man who moved to the UK aged five. And a leaked report commissioned by ministers and seen by the PA news agency warned the government that the policy should be reconsidered in all but the “most severe cases”.

But Sunak said he believes the flight is “right” and the British public would expect foreign national offenders to be deported.

“What that plane is about is deporting foreign national criminals,” the Tory MP told Sky News. “It’s reasonable, it’s proportionate, and something the British people would expect us to do for foreign criminals who have committed very serious crimes who should be sent back to their countries where they have a right to reside elsewhere.”

Sunak was asked about the case of Tajay Thompson who is facing deportation to Jamaica having served half of a 15-month sentence in 2015 after being convicted of possessing class A drugs with intent to supply at 17.

Thompson, now 23 and living in south London, told PA he has no links to the Caribbean nation which he has only visited twice since coming to the UK aged five. “I feel like I was born here. Jamaica is not my country,” Thompson said as he insisted he was groomed into a gang as a teenager.

Chief secretary to the Treasury Rishi Sunak (AFP)

David Lammy rejects ‘scurrilous’ claims against Starmer campaign

Members of Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership campaign have been talking about the claims of breached data rules after the party reported allegations to the Information Commissioner.

Campaign vice-chair David Lammy described the accusations as “scurrilous” on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It didn’t happen. There was no data-scraping. I can say categorically that this did not happen and it's denied fundamentally.”

“There was no attempt by the campaign to do this – it’s scurrilous to suggest so and I’m quite sure that the Information Commissioner will find the allegations completely untrue.”

The Tottenham MP did not link the allegation to the rival campaign of Rebecca Long-Bailey when asked, but said the report was “disappointing”.

“I hope this isn’t now a scramble to the bottom of the barrel because there’s not been any scraping of data, it feels more about the barrel really," he said. “As I say there’s no substance at all to these allegations.”

Lammy also appeared on Sky News and said it was “deeply unsavoury that it’s been shared to the media.”

Tory minister denies post-Brexit ‘freeports’ will let super-rich avoid tax

A chain of 10 “freeports” planned by the government will be used by the super-rich to hoard assets and avoid taxes, Labour has warned.

Following the 10-week consultation, sea ports and airports will be able to bid for status as a free trade zone – where UK taxes and tariffs will not apply – with successful applicants named around the end of the year.

Labour’s John McDonnell said: “This is the revival of a failed Thatcherite plan from the 1980s … There is very little solid evidence that so-called freeports create jobs or boost economic growth, showing this up as another ideological move from a far-right government.”

But chief secretary to the Treasury Rishi Sunak dismissing allegations they will boost tax avoidance as a “red herring”.

The Tory minister told Sky News a US trade boss reassured them they are safer than other ports.

“It’s worth pointing out that the EU is pretty much the only place in the world that doesn’t use freeports, for example there are over 200 in the US, employing several hundred thousand people, hundreds, billions of dollars of trade happens in those areas and that’s replicated around the world.”

Dozens of Labour MPs ‘considering quitting’ if Long-Bailey wins

Up to 40 MPs are understood to be considering quitting the party if Rebecca Long-Bailey succeeds Jeremy Corbyn as leader – which could see some sit as independents or some leave politics.

One MP told The Independent: “Some of us have been talking about walking out for some time. Between 30 or 40 MPs. I would sit as an independent.”

Bermondsey and Old Southwark MP Neil Coyle, who put the number “closer to a dozen”, told HuffPost UK: “Continuity Corbyn is a death knell for Labour. 

“Division, factionalism and introspection will continue. Favouritism and bullying will continue. Antisemitism will continue. Failure in elections will continue.”

Our correspondent Lizzy Buchan has all the latest details:

Labour and Tories almost did Brexit deal, claims ex-minister

Former PM Theresa May’s de facto deputy Sir David Lidington has revealed that the cross-party talks between the Conservatives and Labour came “pretty close” to finding a compromise over Brexit.

“I think, at the end of the day, perhaps late in the day, it was just there was an unwillingness on both sides, I think, to make the final leap.”

He also said he thought it was a mistake to create a separate department to deal with Brexit, a former minister has said. Lidington said the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) should have been “an annex to the Cabinet Office and Number 10”.

The former Cabinet Office minister added that with a different approach to Brexit negotiations at the start of the process “it would have been possible then to come to the deal earlier”.

New powers will allow government to forcibly quarantine victims

Health secretary Matt Hancock has introduced new powers to quarantine people in light of the “public health emergency” from coronavirus originating in China.

Under new measures announced on Monday, the Department of Health said people with coronavirus can now be forcibly quarantined and will not be free to leave, and can be forcibly sent into isolation if they pose a threat to public health.

A spokesman said: “Our infection control procedures are world leading and the NHS is well prepared to deal with novel coronavirus.

“We are strengthening our regulations so we can keep individuals in supported isolation for their own safety and if public health professionals consider they may be at risk of spreading the virus to other members of the public.

“This measure will rightly make it easier for health professionals to help keep people safe across the country.”

Health secretary Matt Hancock (Reuters)