Northern Ireland protocol – live: Boris Johnson booed as he arrives for Belfast talks

Welcome to The Independent’s UK politics live blog for Monday, 16 May 2022.

Boris Johnson has confirmed the government will this week set out plans expected to allow ministers to unilaterally scrap part of his Brexit deal.

The prime minister said more details would be released “in the coming days”, despite warnings they could trigger a trade war with the European Union, in an editorial in the Belfast Telegraph newspaper.

Ministers are engaged in a standoff with the European Union over the Northern Ireland protocol.

Mr Johnson’s government signed up to the agreement, which is designed to protect the EU’s single market.

But ministers warn the deal threatens the Northern Ireland peace process by putting a border down the Irish Sea and introducing checks on goods coming from other parts of the UK.

Read the full story from our Whitehall editor, Kate Devlin:

Boris Johnson is expected to hold emergency talks with Northern Ireland’s political leaders in a bid to break the deadlock over post-Brexit trading arrangements.

The PM’s visit comes amid heightened tensions between the UK and EU over the prospect of him moving forward with a plan aimed at unilaterally scrapping parts of the deal creating economic barriers between the region and the rest of the UK.

Brussels has made it clear that Westminster’s attempt to override elements of the protocol by way of domestic legislation would represent a breach of international law.

Mr Johnson has said the UK will have a “necessity to act” if the EU is unwilling to reach a compromise, though he stressed that the government is open to “genuine dialogue” with the European Commission over the protocol.

Read the details here:

The EU must display the same flexibility it has shown during the Ukraine crisis to resolve the standoff over the Northern Ireland protocol, government sources have said, just days before the row is set to come to a head.

Sources told The Independent that the bloc had shown enormous agility when it took in huge numbers of people almost overnight after Russia invaded Ukraine.

But they added that the UK would be forced to act if some of the same flexibility and creativity were not applied in relation to the protocol, which ministers insist is threatening the Belfast peace process.

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

Priti Patel is lifting restrictions placed on police in the use of controversial stop-and-search powers as part of the government’s strategy to tackle violent crime.

The new measures will see officers able to stop people without suspicion in areas where serious violence “may” occur, rather than “will” occur, a loosening of the guidelines which the government claims will help prevent knife crime.

In a letter sent to police forces on Monday, the home secretary will set out how restrictions on section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which have limited when officers could use stop and search and have been in place since 2014, will be removed.

Ms Patel’s initial plan to remove restrictions placed on section 60 searches was met with criticism, leading her to backtrack on the plan, although she is now pressing ahead with it.

Zaina Alibhai reports:

Failure to meet the targets agreed at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow could have “catastophic” consequences, Nicola Sturgeon will warn.

Six months on from the global conference, the First Minister will speak about environmental issues as she addresses the Brookings Institution in Washington DC during a trip to the US.

She will stress that world leaders must prioritise an “approach to energy security that focusses on sustainability”, with measures to promote greater energy efficiency and need to move towards renewable and low-carbon power.

“Six months on from Cop26, the world looks very different but many of the challenges we faced then remain,” she will say.

Read the details here:

The UK’s post-Brexit focus on helping the financial sector could spark a harmful race to the bottom and undermine the government’s levelling up plans, a former minister and academics have warned.

In an open letter to the chancellor, the former business secretary Sir Vince Cable and other expressed scepticism about the new plans.

“We are writing to express our concern about proposals for the UK’s Financial Services Future Regulatory Framework (FRF) to give regulators statutory objectives to promote competitiveness after Brexit,” the letter reads.

Read more about the letter in this report:

A statue of Margaret Thatcher was egged less than two hours after being installed in her home town of Grantham.

Onlookers voiced their disapproval of the new memorial to the divisive former prime minister, with several motorists booing loudly as they drove past. One man shouted “Tear it down” while another said “This is no good for Grantham, is it?”

The £300,000 statue was lowered into place in the Lincolnshire town on Sunday, after plans to put it in Parliament Square in London were opposed because of fears it would be vandalised.

My colleague Liam James reports:

Former Conservative minister Jeremy Hunt has declined to say that Boris Johnson is an honest man in the wake of the Partygate scandal.

Mr Hunt was asked the question by Sophie Raworth on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme.

In response, he twice replied that “talking about personalities is not a helpful thing to do”, despite being told by Ms Raworth that it was a “simple question”.

On the issue of whether Mr Johnson was the best person for the job, Mr Hunt said: “I hope he can turn things around.”

He did say, however, that he thought that Tory MPs should support the prime minister “in the situation we are now in” with the war in Ukraine.

Whitehall editor Kate Devlin has the details:

Priti Patel has repeatedly overridden Home Office legal advice on immigration and asylum cases, adding to record costs for the taxpayer, The Independent can reveal.

The department spent £35.2m on legal bills for lost cases and paid out a further £9.3m to people wrongly held in immigration detention in 2020-21.

The figures stand at their highest level since the Conservatives came to power, having rocketed from £17.1m and £2.2m respectively in five years.

Home Office sources told The Independent that Ms Patel and other Home Office ministers had rejected legal advice in individual cases on numerous occasions.

Legal experts had shown clear instances where “immediately settling cases offered best value to the taxpayer, and set best precedent for presenting future cases to the courts”, a Home Office source said.

Read the details in this exclusive by our correspondents Anna Isaac and Lizzie Dearden: