Boris Johnson has blasted Donald Trump’s claims a comprehensive free trade agreement between Britain and the US would be impossible to negotiate after the US President trashed his Brexit deal.
Mr Trump dropped the diplomatic hand grenade in an interview with his friend Nigel Farage on LBC last night as he also urged the Brexit Party and the Tories to form an ‘unstoppable’ general election pact.
The Prime Minister has insisted that his Brexit deal would open the door to a lucrative and wide-ranging free trade deal with the Trump administration when Britain leaves the EU.
But last night Mr Trump said it would be difficult to trade with the UK under Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal, telling Mr Farage: ‘To be honest with you… this deal… under certain aspects of the deal… you can’t do it, you can’t do it, you can’t trade.
‘We can’t make a trade deal with the UK because I think we can do many times the numbers that we’re doing right now and certainly much bigger numbers than you are doing under the European Union.’
Afterwards, a Number 10 spokesman said: ‘Under this new deal the whole of the UK will leave the EU Customs Union, which means we can strike our own free trade deals around the world from which every part of the UK will benefit.’
But the president’s intervention will be a boost to Jeremy Corbyn, although Trump said of the Labour leader: ‘Corbyn would be so bad for your country. He’d be so bad, he’d take you in such a bad way. He’d take you into such bad places.’
Donald Trump gave a pohone interview to his friend Nigel Farage where he appeared to trash Boris Johnson’s trade deal, sparking a panicked response from No 10
Mr Trump made the bombshell comments during an LBC interview with Mr Farage last night, where the president said the Tories and Brexit Party should make an election pact
Mr Johnson, pictured on the campaign trail at a self defence class in Hendon yesterday, has insisted free trade around the world will follow if MPs vote through his deal
Mr Trump last night piled pressure on Nigel Farage to forge a pact with Boris Johnson and save Britain from Jeremy Corbyn.
In an extraordinary intervention, the US President said the PM and Brexit Party leader would be an ‘unstoppable force’ if they teamed up for the General Election.
Mr Trump said of the Labour leader: ‘Corbyn would be so bad for your country. He’d take you into such bad places.’
And the President rubbished Mr Corbyn’s claim that the NHS was ‘on the table’ in talks about a US trade deal, saying: ‘We wouldn’t even be involved in that… it’s not for us to have anything to do with your healthcare system. No, we’re just talking about trade.’
It came as Mr Farage prepared to reveal this morning whether he will bow to calls to soft-pedal against the Conservatives in next month’s election to help ensure a parliamentary majority for Brexit.
Senior Brexit Party figures have urged Mr Farage to stand down hundreds of candidates to give Mr Johnson a clear run and ensure that Brexit is finally delivered.
One source said ‘dozens and dozens’ of Tory MPs had urged the party to stand aside or risk seeing Brexit thwarted again. But Mr Farage last night indicated he will not back down unless the PM abandons his Brexit deal and agrees to go for a ‘clean break’ with the EU.
Mr Trump’s diplomatic bombshell came as:
- Mr Johnson, hitting the campaign trail for the first time, pledged to deliver Brexit by January ‘at the absolute latest’;
- A new poll gave the Tories a 17-point lead over Labour;
- Mr Trump defended his controversial attempt to broker a meeting between the family of British teenager Harry Dunn and the US diplomat’s wife accused of killing him in a road accident, saying he had hoped they could ‘grieve together’;
- The US President appeared to take a swipe at the Duchess of Sussex’s criticism of her media treatment, saying: ‘She’s taking it very personally’;
Mr Trump’s intervention came in an interview on Mr Farage’s show on LBC Radio.
The US President heaped praise on Mr Johnson, describing him as a ‘terrific guy’ who would deliver Brexit.
Mr Trump repeatedly appealed to Mr Farage to join forces with the Conservatives at the election, telling him: ‘I’d like to see you and Boris get together cause you would really have some numbers – you did fantastically in the last election, and he respects you a lot. I just wish you two guys could get together – I think it would be a great thing.’
But the Brexit Party leader was circumspect about the chances of an electoral pact.
Mr Farage said the PM had brought ‘a tremendous amount of energy to the job’.
But he remained critical of Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal – and suggested he would only back down if the PM switched to a No Deal strategy. He told Mr Trump: ‘If he drops this dreadful deal, fights the General Election on the basis that we just want to have trade with Europe but no political influence, do you know what? I would be right behind him.’
Mr Trump said Jeremy Corbyn, pictured launching his election campaign in London, would be ‘so bad’ for the UK
Mr Corbyn has repeatedly claimed that US corporations could be given access to the NHS as part of a new post-Brexit trade deal. The claim looks set to be a central part of Labour’s election campaign, despite direct denials from Mr Johnson, Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Mr Trump last night said it was untrue – and suggested Mr Corbyn had made it up.
He said: ‘I mean, it’s so ridiculous I think Corbyn put that out there.’
Mr Corbyn hit back, accusing Mr Trump of ‘trying to interfere in Britain’s election to get his friend Boris Johnson elected’. He said the President had put the NHS ‘on the table’ in trade talks, adding: ‘He knows if Labour wins, US corporations won’t get their hands on it. Our NHS is not for sale.’
Mr Trump’s intervention was not entirely helpful to the Prime Minister.
The President said he was ‘disappointed’ that Mr Johnson – who marks 100 days in office today – had not managed to deliver Brexit, and he warned that a comprehensive free trade agreement could be impossible to negotiate under the terms of the PM’s Brexit deal.
Vote Farage, get Corbyn? Tories fear missing out in up to 90 seats if Brexit Party splits vote – as Donald Trump urges Boris Johnson to agree ‘unstoppable’ election pact with Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage was under huge pressure to rip up his election plans last night after an analysis showed he risks wrecking Tory hopes of snatching dozens of Leave-leaning seats from Labour.
An audit by the Daily Mail found Boris Johnson could miss out in almost 90 battleground constituencies if the pro-Brexit vote is split between the Tories and the Brexit Party.
If the Brexit Party choose not to stand and 70 per cent of their backers switch to the Tories (while 30 per cent go to Labour), then the Conservatives could take 38 target seats off Jeremy Corbyn’s party.
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An audit by the Daily Mail found Boris Johnson could miss out in almost 90 battleground constituencies if the pro-Brexit vote is split between the Tories and the Brexit Party
Boris Johnson looks at old photographs of London with students at a primary school in Bury St Edmunds today
Jeremy Corbyn poses for a selfie with Labour candidate Hannah O’Neil (left) and activists in Milton Keynes today
Mr Johnson could win a further 50 Labour-held seats if all those forecast to vote for the Brexit Party instead switch their support to him. The analysis is based on projections produced by the firm Electoral Calculus, based on current polling.
Mr Farage, who will launch the Brexit Party’s campaign tomorrow morning in London, has suggested he will target Leave-backing seats in Labour’s northern heartlands rather than those held by Tory Eurosceptics.
But this could still deprive Mr Johnson of victory because they are the sort of constituencies that the Prime Minister needs to gain if he is to get a Commons majority.
The Electoral Calculus projections, using the latest national polling, show there are swathes of seats currently held by Labour, which the Tories are now in touching distance of snatching.
Dewsbury, where Labour’s Paula Sherriff won with a 3,321 majority in 2017, is now on a knife edge according to the estimates.
The modelling predicts Labour will pick up a 36.6 per cent share of votes in the seat, with the Tories only narrowly behind on 35.2 per cent. The Brexit Party would trail on 12.2 per cent.
If the Brexit Party was removed and its support re-allocated with the majority (70 per cent) going to the Tories and 30 per cent to Labour, then the seat would flip to Mr Johnson’s party.
According to the projections, similar scenarios exist in a total of 37 other seats, including Birmingham Erdington, Burnley, Bury North, Halifax, Hartlepool, Hyndburn, and Sedgefield.
Should all of the forecast Brexit party vote be transferred to the Tories, then Mr Johnson’s party could gain as many as another 50 seats.
The Brexit Party will kickstart its election campaign at an event tomorrow morning featuring Mr Farage and ‘surprise guest speakers’. It is expected to reveal how many candidates it will field and where they will stand.
Mr Farage and the party’s chairman Richard Tice are also likely to announce which constituencies they will run in. It will be Mr Farage’s eighth attempt at becoming an MP.
The party is understood to be engulfed in a behind-the-scenes row over how many seats to contest, with some MEPs threatening to quit if they create difficulties for the Tories and others saying they will go if they withdraw candidates in hundreds of constituencies.
Mr Farage had originally said that the party would field 600 to fight nearly every seat in the UK, except for Northern Ireland.
Boris Johnson opens up MASSIVE 17 point poll lead over Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party
Boris Johnson has urged voters to back his ‘oven-ready’ Brexit deal at the ballot box on December 12 as he started the general election campaign with a massive 17 point poll lead over Jeremy Corbyn.
An Ipsos Mori survey conducted for the Evening Standard between October 25-28 has the Tories on 41 per cent – up eight points since September.
But Labour is far behind on 24 per cent and only narrowly ahead of Jo Swinson and the Liberal Democrats on 20 per cent.
An Ipsos Mori survey for the Evening Standard gives the Tories a 17 point lead over Labour with the Lib Dems in third place in 20 per cent
The poll has Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party on just seven per cent as Mr Johnson appears to be winning back Leave voters who may have ditched the Tories for the upstart movement.
Meanwhile, the Tories have a 15 point poll lead over Labour in a new YouGov survey conducted for The Times.
The Tories and the Labour Party were in similar positions in the polls at the start of the 2017 general election campaign but ultimately ended up with 42 per cent and 40 per cent of the total vote share on polling day.
A 2019 general election poll tracker suggests that the Tories are gaining ground while the Labour Party is struggling to make progress
‘She takes it personally… you’ve got to be a little bit different’: Donald Trump implies Meghan Markle needs to toughen up to deal with ‘unfair’ press coverage
Donald Trump today implied Meghan Markle needs to toughen up to deal with ‘unfair’ Press coverage against her during a live radio interview with Nigel Farage.
The US President said he had watched footage from a recent documentary in which the Duchess of Sussex complained about her treatment from the tabloids and realised she had taken the criticism ‘very personally’.
He told LBC: ‘I guess you’ve got to be a little bit different than that but she takes it very personally and I can understand it. But I don’t know her.’
Mr Trump’s comments may have surprised some listeners given his own sensitivity towards media criticism. On Twitter, the President regularly brands the Press ‘fake news media’ and ‘the enemy of the people’ in response to negative reports.
He also recently banned the New York Times and Washington Post from federal buildings after repeatedly attacking them in public following critical stories.
The US President said he had watched interviews of the Duchess of Sussex complaining about her treatment from the tabloids and saw she had taken the criticism ‘very personally’
Mr Trump – seen on the South Lawn of the White House on October 25 – admitted he ‘understood’ her personal reaction to the coverage
During his interview, Mr Trump also discussed his ‘wonderful’ visit to the UK in June and said he had enjoyed meeting Prince Harry, who he called ‘great’, before heaping praise on the Queen.
Referring to Prince Harry, Mr Trump said: ‘I met him when I was over at that incredible… we had something that was so incredible recently. What that was five months ago, time flies.
‘He’s a great young man. The whole family is terrific, it’s a great family..’
Mr Trump called the Queen ‘an incredible woman’ and described sitting next to her during a state banquet at Buckingham Palace.
‘I sat next to her, and she was smiling and having a good time and I was smiling and having a good time. It was really a great evening, and I was told that she enjoyed it and I can tell you I enjoyed it.’
He added: ‘She’s a great woman. I say that very seldom. I don’t say that often, I have to say, about anybody.
‘But she is really very outstanding, and Prince Charles so good, so good. He loves the environment. We had a great time.’
Angry medical student rants at Boris Johnson for his ‘PR visit’ to her hospital after being BANNED from asking a question about ‘NHS cuts’
An angry medical student ranted at Boris Johnson yesterday for his ‘PR visit’ to her hospital after claiming she was banned from asking him a question about ‘NHS cuts’.
Julia Simons, 23, said no one at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge even knew the Prime Minister was coming, and she only found after ending up on a corridor he was walking down.
The trainee doctor attempted to ask Boris a question but was allegedly told she couldn’t by a security guard, so instead shouted some at him as he was leaving.
Julia Simons, 23, (right) tried to shout questions at Boris Johnson as he left Addenbroke’s Hospital in Cambridge
She said afterwards: ‘No one here was informed that he was even coming. I was in a corridor that he was about to come down. I asked a security guard if I could ask a question but he said ‘absolutely not’.
‘So I was just waiting in the corridor for a while waiting for him to come through, and I had a bit of time to think. I thought if he using coming to the hospital as a PR opportunity why couldn’t I ask him a question. You know the freedom of speech.
‘I asked him “as a future doctor’ what guarantees can you give me that the system that I work in will have drug accessibility?” and I asked “how will you prevent the climate crisis that is currently being allowed to continue under your government?”‘
Ms Simons tried to ask the PM again when he walked past but claims she was ‘pushed away’.
‘It’s just cowardly, he knows he won’t get a warm reception,’ she said. ‘He hadn’t actually talk to the people who work here, he won’t have an open discussion.
‘This whole visit has been completely controlled. I went into the canteen afterwards and people didn’t even know he was here’.