Labour figures urge MPs not to vote for ‘rotten’ deal as RAF to fly signed agreement to UK

The European Union’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said striking a trade deal was a relief and will provide stability for people and companies.

"We've delivered an orderly Brexit," Mr Barnier told Franceinfo radio.

The deal, agreed a week before the year-end deadline, brought "a little stability," he added.

Mr Barnier said there were still some elements to define in the EU's future relationship with Britain, including on foreign policy cooperation.

The main hurdle in talks between Spain and Britain over Gibraltar's post-Brexit status is keeping cross-border traffic fluid, Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, has said.

Madrid and London are negotiating how to police the land border between Spain and Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, as it was excluded from the last-minute exit deal reached between Britain and the European Union last week.

Spain has secured an exemption for about 8,500 cross-border workers from border controls even if no agreement on free movement is reached, Gonzalez Laya said in an interview with RNE radio station.

She added her government seeks to keep traffic between Gibraltar and Spain fluid and avoid long lines of cars and trucks.

Nicola Sturgeon has accused the government of “spectacularly” breaking its promise to Scotland over Brexit.

The Scottish first minister tweeted to say “a better deal for fishing is the only Brexit justification the Tories have ever been able to offer Scotland," alongside Scottish government analysis which she says “shows just how spectacularly they’ve broken that promise".

A series of Labour figures including John McDonnell have urged MPs not to vote for the “rotten” post-Brexit trade deal agreement.

In a statement, the former shadow chancellor alongside colleagues and campaign groups, said the opposition risked “falling into a trap” if it rallied around the UK-EU deal, warning: “We are witnessing an act of vandalism against our livelihoods”.

Political correspondent Ashley Cowburn has the full report:

Boris Johnson is pursuing a Donald-Trump-style agenda to “work up white nationalism” to win the next election, the head of a race equality thinktank says.

In an extraordinary attack, the new director of the Runnymede Trust accused the prime minister of neglecting poorer people from ethnic minority groups for political gain.

Deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports:

From butcher’s dogs to mutant algorithms, Adam Forrest looks back at the weird and not-so-wonderful things our politicians have said in the past 12 months.

The FTSE 100 has soared to a nine-month high after markets opened for the first time following the Brexit deal.

London's top index was 2.3 per cent, or 149.4p, higher at 6,651p after investor sentiment lifted following the Christmas break.

All the UK's markets were in positive territory, with the FTSE 250 up 2.4 per cent.

Key fishing stocks landed by the Scottish fleet are set to fall as a result of the Brexit fisheries deal, according to a Scottish government analysis.

The study suggests eight fish stocks will not present an increase in fishing opportunities, with ministers also saying shares in five-and-a-half years' time will still be less than their current equivalent.

Currently, the average UK landing percentage of total EU and UK quota combined for North Sea cod is 63.5 per cent.

However, the analysis says this will drop to 57 per cent - the maximum percentage of total EU and UK quota available to the UK - under the Brexit deal.

Similar decreases have been estimated for North Sea haddock (92.5 to 84.2 per cent), Rockall haddock (88.4 to 85 per cent), North Sea saithe (31.6 to 26 per cent), North Sea whiting (82.7 to 73.5 per cent) and North Sea hake (55.6 to 53.6 per cent).

The UK government must vaccinate at least two million people a week in order to prevent a third wave of the coronavirus outbreak, a new study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has reported, Chantal da Silva reports.

In an article for The Independent, Rachel Reeves argues that the Brexit trade deal need not be a “ceiling of ambition”, insisting that Labour can improve upon it if it wins the 2024 general election.

Deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports: