Boris Johnson: changing rules to allow new no-confidence vote within 12 months would be ‘grossly unfair’, says Javid – UK politics live | Politics

Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM), has said that if Britain decides to unilaterally abandon the Northern Ireland protocol, that will mark a “historic low point”.

The UK government is expected to publish the bill fleshing out its plans to give ministers the power to disregard parts of the NI protocol shortly, and in an address to the European parliament Martin said that instead London should be working with Brussels to find an alternative approach. He said:

I have said many times that there are solutions to practical problems under the protocol if there is a political will to find them. But that requires partnership. It requires the UK government to engage with good faith, seriousness, and commitment.

Unilateral action to set aside a solemn agreement would be deeply damaging.

It would mark a historic low point, signalling a disregard for essential principles of laws which are the foundation of international relations. And it would, quite literally, be to the benefit of absolutely no-one.

Without a spirit of partnership, there would have been no peace process in Northern Ireland.

Without trust, without engagement, without a willingness to see things from the point of view of others, there would have been no Good Friday agreement, no quarter-century of peace in Northern Ireland in which young people have been able to grow and to flourish as themselves.

All of us in positions of leadership owe it to them not to treat lightly what was so hard-won.

Sajid Javid also used his morning interviews to say he wanted the government to go further on tax cuts. My colleague Rowena Mason has the story here.

Yesterday, in a presentation to cabinet on the need for NHS reform, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said the UK had “a Blockbuster healthcare system in the age of Netflix”. In an interview with BBC News this morning, Javid stressed that his reference to moving to a Netflix model did not mean he favoured charging for NHS services. Asked if he meant people need to pay a Netflix-style subscription for the NHS, he replied:

Not at all. I’m very proud of that we’ve got an NHS that is free at the point of use, paid out of our general taxation, there for all of us when we need it.

But what I mean by that particular comment is it needs to modernise. We need to make sure that we keep modernising that we have a NHS that is looking out towards the 2048, not one that was designed for 1948.

And the Blockbuster analogy is that, for those those that remember Blockbuster, is that it failed to modernise, it failed to adapt to changing trends in markets, and therefore it wasn’t able to serve its customers and did not survive.

No-one wants to see that kind of thing happen to something as important as the NHS.

And that means making sure that the NHS is is looking at the latest demographics, our ageing population, the changes in the burden of disease use – for example, we have more dementia and certain types of cancer today than ever before – and also medicines and the latest technology.

As my colleague Gwyn Topham reports, rail workers are to strike for three days in late June, in a move that is likely to halt much of the national rail network across Britain for a week.

Asked about the proposed strike in his morning interviews, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, urged union leaders to “act like adults”. He told the Today programme:

When it comes to these strikes, it is very disappointing what the unions have said, because it’s not just going to cause misery for the travellers, but it’s actually, I think, the wrong outcome for the workers as well.

Because anyone working in this industry, any industry for that matter, you want it to be sustainable for the long term. It’s not possible to keep giving it the same level of support it got during the pandemic.

Javid said the government would be looking at “options” it could use to use legislation to limit the impact of strikes on passengers. But he went on:

But the most important thing right now would be for the union leaders to get around the table with the industry leaders and just basically act like adults and just to come to a sensible solution.

According to PA Media, talks between Network Rail (NR) and the RMT rail union in the hope of averting the strike are expected to be held in the next few days.

Good morning. And sorry for the late start.

Today we’ve got the first PMQs since the no-confidence vote on Boris Johnson. PMQs is often seen as a pointless pantomime, but it does function as a test of a leader’s authority with their parliamentary colleagues. Mostly it ends in a “draw” (Tory supporters think Johnson “won”, Labour supporters think the same about Keir Starmer), but sometimes a leader can put in a performance so memorable that it does shift preconceptions, at least a bit. Today we should get a better sense of quite how much Johnson has been hamstrung by having 148 of his MPs vote against him.

Johnson said yesterday that he hoped the no-confidence vote would draw a line under the leadership crisis, but it is already obvious that this is not happening. Some Tory MPs are already speculating about the possibility of changing the leadership election rules, which currently say that after winning a no-confidence vote a Conservative leader should not have to face another for another 12 months. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, was on the interview circuit this morning, and he claimed changing the rules in this way would be “grossly unfair”. He told Times Radio:

I think most people would think if you changed the rules it would be grossly unfair, it would be the wrong thing to do. So I wouldn’t support that.

We have very clear, transparent rules and that’s important, that they’re clear and transparent.

And if anyone wants to exercise the current rules, which they did, that’s totally their right and I respect my colleagues for that, but the decision has been made.

And I think what everyone wants to now see is that you end this sort of speculation and we just get on with the job.

I will post more from Javid’s interviews shortly.

Here is the agenda for the day.

12pm: Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.

After 12.30pm: Sajid Javid, the health secretary, is expected to make a Commons statement on a review of health and social care leadership.

After 1.30pm: Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, opens the debate on the levelling up and regeneration bill.

2.30pm: David Neal, independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.

4.10pm: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, gives evidence to a Lords committee on the Northern Ireland protocol.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

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