Lisa O’Carroll is a senior Guardian correspondent covering post-Brexit affairs.

EU relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds has said he is confident the new prime minister will conclude the deal to reset relations with the EU later this year, even though the 22 July summit has been cancelled in the wake of Keir Starmer’s resignation.

He said “all leadership candidates” had “committed to the 2024 manifesto” and that included Starmer’s pledge to get closer to the EU post Brexit.

Speaking at a UK in a Changing Europe conference on Brexit, 10 years after the referendum, he said it was vital that Labour demonstrated to voters ahead of the next election that it delivered the change promised.

He said:

I think that the summit package, which is broadly agreed with the European Union, which is around the food and drink agreement, the emissions trading system linkage and the youth experience scheme is going to happen, and I think it will happen at some point this year, because that’s what we’ve agreed to do with the European Union.

We have to have this package of negotiation in place, delivering, showing what the tangible benefits are of a close relationship with the UK and the EU, and I think that’s the important step towards the debate.

Thomas-Symonds also said he was conscious that there was a cliff edge for electric car manufacturers both in the UK and the EU over the 31 December deadline for tariff-free exports to each others’ markets.

He said the government would not “take our eye of the ball” on this and work would continue to prevent 10% tariffs on UK exports of EVs to the EU.

Yesterday Keir Starmer became the sixth prime minister to leave office in a decade. As this Financial Times chart shows, other leading democracies have been much stable.

Many people have said this is just down to Brexit. But, in a speech to the UK in a Changing Europe conference today, Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s lead elections expert, said it was more complicated than this. He said:

I don’t think you can say that Brexit is simply the reason why we’ve lost so many prime ministers. You can say it’s true of [David] Cameron, you can say it’s true of [Theresa] May. With all due respect, I don’t think it’s true of Johnson, I don’t think it’s true of Truss, and it’s certainly not true of Sunak.

One had their somewhat loose relationship with the truth. One didn’t listen to their civil servants … and the other lost an election.

That’s what’s meant to happen, but if by turbulence we mean: has Brexit been important in creating our much more fragmented political body? I would say it’s helped to crystalise some of those forces that globalisation was helping to create.

In an interesting thread on social media yesterday, Luke Tryl, director of More in Common UK, rejected the claim that Britain has become ungovernable. He said prime ministers who had to quit mainly had themselves to blame. He concluded:

Are the public angry/frustrated with a status quo they don’t think works for them. Absolutely. But the idea the changing is their fault is for the birds, we’ve had a series of PMs who’ve made fatal mistakes and being unable to show they’re delivering change - that doesn’t mean rushing, but being able to take public on a journey.

If anything this should give Burnham (or Badenoch, or Farage) hope. All of our convos with the public suggest enough will engage with tough choices, but it has to be couched in a vision for the sort of country we’re going to build and delivered in a way that commands confidence.

In his latest Substack article, Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, claimed he had managed to force out four of the PMs who have quit. “We’ve gone through six prime ministers in seven years. I saw off four of them – Cameron, May, Sunak, Starmer – myself,” he said. Farage is probably entitled to take some of the credit for David Cameron, Theresa May and Starmer going, but Rishi Sunak was taken down by the record of his own party in office.

In a good FT article on this topic, Chris Smyth argues lack off economic growth, the increasing rebelliousness of backbenchers and the nature of the UK media are also factors in the rapid turnout of leaders in the UK.

(Lisa O’Carroll contributed to this post.)

Rajeev Syal is the Guardian’s home affairs editor.

Lord Hermer, the attorney general, has today accused Elon Musk’s social media site X of being a platform that “constantly descends to racism and misogyny”.

Explaining why his department became the first in Whitehall to abandon the site formerly known as Twitter, he said other departments feel they “need to be on the pitch engaging with people but that is not where the attorney general’s office needs to be”.

The Guardian disclosed last week that Hermer’s department had left X, but this is the first time he has explained why.

Appearing before the Commons justice committee, he said the decision to leave X was his.

I can understand why other departments feel they need to be on the pitch engaging with people, but that is not where the attorney general’s office needs to be.

I think for the work that I can do, I can engage with people in serious debate, detailed debate, respectful debate, without being on a platform that constantly descends to racism and misogyny. I think my department can do better than that.

Jim O’Neill, the economist tapped by Andy Burnham to be his chief economic adviser, has called for billions of pounds more borrowing to pay for investment in infrastructure, in a sign of how Burnham may seek to break from the policies pursued by Keir Starmer. Kiran Stacey has the story.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has published his latest long essay on his new Substack blog. It is his third in less than a fortnight. This one is about why he believes “the political class betrayed Brexit”.

Here is an extract.

If you listen to one fierce critic of the last Conservative government, this is precisely the failure mode for how it failed to seize the benefits of Brexit. They didn’t “use our regulatory system to exploit [our] competitive advantage”, or seize the “opportunities in areas like tech, and AI, even in farming”. It’s a shame that Kemi didn’t live by these words when she had the chance to do so. Instead, she chose a different maxim: “it is not the bonfire of regulations – we are not arsonists”. Indeed not. And it’s not surprising: the Conservative chose to conserve EU laws.

The More in Common polling out today shows that a lot of people are open to the idea that Brexit might have worked. It suggests that, while 35% of people think it was never going to work, 46% of people believe it might have worked well but was badly handled by politicians.

Anna Turley, the Labour chair, has claimed that Nigel Farage’s answers in interviews today about his undisclosed £5m donation show that he holds the public in “utter contempt”. (See 10.27am.)

In a statement she said:

This morning Nigel Farage seemed to change his story over his secret £5m “gift” every other minute. First it was described as a “reward for Brexit”, then it was apparently for security, and now Farage says it is a “wholly private matter”.

If Farage has nothing to hide, he should stop dodging questions and come clean. Despite what Farage may think, the British public have a right to know who is bankrolling a man seeking high office and what influence, if any, that money buys. The fact he thinks it’s not the public’s business to know shows what utter contempt he truly holds for the British people.

Here is our story on the Farage interviews by Jessica Elgot and Rowena Mason.

Jonathan Haskel, a politics professor at Imperial College London and a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, has been named as the government’s preferred candidate for chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Announcing the proposed appointment, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said:

Jonathan Haskel is an outstanding nominee for chair. His depth of expertise in economics and his track record of independent, rigorous analysis make him exactly the right person to lead the OBR – supporting the credibility of our fiscal framework and ensuring our economy is underpinned by sound public finances.

Commentators have welcomed the appointment.

This is from Faisal Islam, the BBC’s economics editor.

Professor Jonathan Haskel appointed as Chairman of OBR by Chancellor (needs to be approved by treasury Select committee) - well respected replacement for Richard Hughes, thoughtful ex Bank of England MPC member, expert on productivity and AI…

OBR likely to remain tough independent feature of governance whoever is in Downing Street.

There may have been a slight angle here a few months back, because some of the people in Burnham’s economic orbit (and even on the party’s right too) had also begun to make an argument that more pro investment reform of the OBR was required… all that seems parked now, and Haskel will prove credible and independent, while also an expert on the determinants of productivity and low investment.

This is from Gus O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, and former head of the Treasury.

Congratulations to Jonathan Haskel, new chair of OBR . Great to see excellent, independently minded economist in this vital role who also knows a lot about productivity.

And this is from Ben Zaranko, economics editor of the Observer.

Jonathan Haskel has been nominated to be the next Chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Currently a Professor at Imperial, he’s done lots of research into productivity (including the role of AI), economic inactivity, and various other issues highly relevant to the OBR.

Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.

Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, has praised Andy Burnham as a “fantastic communicator” providing a “different and compelling story”, as she urged potential rivals to the former Greater Manchester mayor to avoid triggering a formal leadership contest.

“I don’t want a contest,” said Reynolds, who was a close ally of Keir Starmer, who put her in the cabinet just 14 months after she returned to the Commons following five years out.

Speaking in an interview with the Times, she said:

I’ve lived through many different contests as an MP and as a party member. I don’t want to do that in government. I don’t think we should spend the summer turning in on ourselves.

She added: “Frankly nobody else has got the numbers.”

Andy Burnham has had a secret meeting with Keir Starmer to discuss the transition (see 12.43pm, 1.01pm and 1.18pm, Oliver Wright from the Times reports. He says:

Andy Burnham is understood to have held secret talks with Sir Keir Starmer, as the prime minister pledged to smooth his transition to power.

Starmer was said to have left Downing Street for an hour-long “off-site” meeting with Burnham – the first time the two men had spoken since he returned to Westminster.

UPDATE: Pippa Crerar has had this confirmed.

Lisa O’Carroll is a senior Guardian correspondent covering post-Brexit affairs.

The UK could rejoin the EU on a “short” timeline because of the remaining alignment on regulation, Michel Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator has said.

He also said the UK could also join a new European security and defence council, which he is promoting to allow more formal cooperation with non-EU European countries such as the UK and Norway.

Speaking at the UK in a Changing Europe conference, Barnier declined to put a timeline on potential timetable for a potential re-entry into the EU but said: “It could be short.”

However, he predicted that “it would take much longer” for the UK government “to decide to rejoin” than it would to become a member again.

Barnier restated his familar warning from the Brexit talks that there would be “no cherrypicking” for the UK. It could get back into the EU quickly but there would be “no indivisibility of the four freedoms” of the single market which covers free movement of labour, capital, services and goods, he said.

Jakub Krupa has more coverage of the conference on his Europe live blog.

More in Common has released some detailed polling today on Brexit. In line with most polling on this topic, it shows that by a margin of about three to one people are more likely to say Brexit has been a failure (59%) than to say it has been a success (17%).

The polling also shows that 42% of all Britons say Brexit had made them worse off. And the poorest voters are most likely to say this, and most likely to say Brexit has made them “much worse off”.

The report says:

Over 4 in 10 Britons (42 per cent) say they are financially worse off because of Brexit. Just as many say it has made no difference and less than 1 in 10 say it has made them better off.

The most financially insecure Britons perceive the greatest impact from Brexit with around 6 in 10 saying that leaving the EU made them worse off and 4 in 10 of those saying much worse off.

Only the most financially comfortable are more likely to say that leaving the EU made them better off (36 per cent) than worse off (24 per cent).

Much analysis after Brexit showed that poorer people were more likely to support Brexit than wealthier people. But there is also research making a counter argument, that wealth made people more willing to tolerate what they saw as the risk associated with voting leave.

The More in Common polling also suggests that 49% of people say they would back a referendum to rejoin the EU, against 34% who would be opposed.

Sienna Rodgers from the House magazine has the full details of the timetable for the election of the new Labour leader. She says these are the date that have been agreed by the officers group on the party’s national executive committee. They have to be signed off by the full NEC, but that is normally a formality.

She says:

EXCL: Full details of Labour’s leadership timetable revealed

– MPs nominate: Thursday 9 July to Wednesday 15 July

– MP hustings: Monday 13 July

– Affiliated organisations nominate: Wednesday 15 July at 6pm to Thursday 16 July at 6pm

– Special conference to confirm result on Friday 17 July

I’m told:

– Burnham expected to become PM on the same day

– Even if he is the only candidate, he needs both MP and affiliate nominations

– Even if all MPs nominate before 15 July or more than 80% back Burnham, the window won’t be shortened

Ten years on from Brexit – and our European friends are still wondering what’s gone wrong with Britain. Michael Savage has been looking at how the continental papers are covering the news that we’ve just had our sixth prime ministerial resignation in a decade.

At the No 10 lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said that Keir Starmer has agreed that there will be “no new major policy or spending commitments” before he stands down.

But this did not cover the defence investment plan (Dip), the spokesperson suggested. Starmer seems to regard this as a policy that is already more or less settled.

Describing how the civil service would operate during the transition period leading to a new PM taking over, the PM’s spokesperson said:

The cabinet secretary [Antonia Romeo] has written to heads of departments to set out the principles of how the civil service should operate during this period.

Keir Starmer remains prime minister, and so the business of government will continue as normal until he has recommended a successor to His Majesty the King.

The civil service will act as it did during similar periods in line with precedent. All ministers remain in office and may carry usual activities …

The prime minister has agreed that there will be no new major policy or spending commitments initiated during this period.

Where a process is already under way or collective agreement is in place, government business will continue.

Asked if the Dip was viewed as an existing spending commitment, not a new spending commitment, the spokesperson said David Lammy, the deputy PM, told MPs yesterday that the Dip would be published before the Nato summit.

Although the Dip has not yet been published, Starmer gave interviews after John Healey resigned implying that, while Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, will be consulted before the final version is published, the overall spending totals (which Healey could not accept) are now settled.

At the lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson also confirmed that Andy Burnham will be allowed “access talks” with the civil service before he becomes PM.

The spokesperson said Dame Antonia Romeo, the cabinet secretary, has agreed that access talks can happen. This is a process that normally takes place before a general election, when officials speak to the main opposition parties so they can be in a position to implement their policies if they form a government.

The spokesperson said the access talks would take place with “prospective candidates for the Labour leadership” as soon as possible and before nominations have closed. He confirmed they could start before 9 July, the date when nominations will open.

The spokesperson suggested Burnham will be able to hold talks with officials on this basis. But he did not give details of how the Cabinet Office would decide if any other Labour MP would qualify as a prospective candidate ahead of nominations closing.

Keir Starmer has told the cabinet that he wants to “resolve difficult issues” before leaves Downing Street.

In a fresh indication of his determination to finalise and publish the defence investment plan before Andy Burnham replaces him, he said he saw it has his job to sort out some outstanding problems in his remaining weeks in office.

At the No 10 lobby briefing, describing what Starmer told cabinet about his decision to stand down, the PM’s spokesperson said:

The prime minister said he wants to thank the cabinet for their hard work over the last two years.

He said they achieved a great deal and done important work, which is not just reflected in policies and announcements but in the impact on real people’s lives.

The prime minister said he wanted whoever became the next prime minister to succeed. He added he wanted an orderly transition, as he set out yesterday and would seek to resolve difficult issues in the coming weeks to support the successor.

The prime minister said he’d seek to make the transition as easy as possible, giving his full support to whoever followed in his footsteps.

The prime minister said the cabinet had responsibilities before he stepped down, adding the normal business of government must proceed.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has told MPs that she is “confident” that the government’s defence investment plan (Dip) will be published before Andy Burnham becomes PM.

The Dip has already caused the resignation of John Healey as defence secretary and Al Carns as armed forces minister over their claims that it does not allocate enough spending to defence investment.

During Treasury questions in the Commons this morning, Reeves said that yesterday she met Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, and Sir Richard Knighton, the chief of the defence staff, to discuss the Dip.

She went on:

The Ministry of Defence are producing the Dip that will meet the scale of the challenges and meet the moment with increased readiness.

I am confident that the new Dip will be published before the Nato Ankara summit.

It will involve more money spent more effectively and will meet the scale of challenges facing our country.

The government has always planned to publish the Dip, which will illustrate how the government plans to fund the defence requirements set out in last year’s strategic defence review, before the Nato summit in Turkey. That takes place on 7-8 July.

Yesterday Keir Starmer announced that the Labour party will open nominations for candidates to succeed him on 9 July. With Burnham likely to face no challengers, it is expected that Burnham will become PM at the end of the following week, possibly on Friday 17 July.

There have been claims that Burnham wants the timetable put back so that he can finalise it himself. But, given that there is no easy way a new government could find the money to raise defence spending as quickly as military chiefs want, Burnham may be happy to leave this as a decision for Starmer to sign off.

Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.

A Lib Dem MP has been ordered to apologise to a parliamentary contractor after he pulled man’s lanyard-worn security pass to look at it, forcing him to lean forward.

An independent expert panel tasked with investigating the case rejected the insistence of Angus MacDonald, the MP for Inverness, Skye and West Rossshire, that while he might have looked at the pass without warning, he did not do so with any force.

The panel investigated the matter after MacDonald appealed against an initial finding of wrongdoing by Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards.

The incident happened last year when the complainant was in his first day working in parliament as a verbatim reporter at a meeting of the Commons Scottish affairs committee, of which MacDonald is a member.

MacDonald, the panel said, “grabbed his security pass, which was attached to a lanyard around his neck, without any prior warning and with such force that he was physically tilted forward. He alleged that Mr MacDonald held the security pass in place, keeping him in a semi-bowed position, before eventually releasing it and walking away.”

Rejecting MacDonald’s appeal, the panel ordered the MP to apologise.

David Frost, who was Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, has told a conference this morning that, if Andy Burnham becomes PM, he should ditch much of Keir Starmer’s reset with the EU. Lisa O’Carroll has the story on the Europe live blog.

Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.

The Liberal Democrats are marking the tenth anniversary of Brexit by enjoying their favourite pursuit – being rude about Nigel Farage.

Ed Davey’s party have paid for a series of billboards across the UK showing a grinning Farage and a newspaper headline about his £5m gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which at one point Farage described as a reward for Brexit, and the slogan: “Ten year on… do YOU feel better off?”

Unveiling one placard in west London, Davey said:

Nigel Farage pocketed a £5m “reward” for the damage he’s caused, while the rest of us are paying for it dearly. When he promised we would be better off, he clearly only meant himself. We are taking over billboards across the UK today to say enough is enough.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK, has claimed that “no one cares” about the undisclosed £5m donation he recieved from Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency billionaire, shortly before he was elected as an MP in 2024.

Asked about the donation in an interview on BBC Breakfast this morning, Farage said: “No one cares, apart from the media, no one cares.”

He went on:

I’m absolutely convinced I’ve done nothing wrong in any way at all. I also know that since I was elected as an MP, I’ve taken zero in personal expenses. I’m very careful and very cautious about these things.

Under Commons rules, MPs have to declare donations they receive, including in the 12 months before their election, if they are linked to their political work, or might reasonably be thought to be related. Farage did not register the £5m because he says it was a personal gift to fund his security, and it only became public when revealed by the Guardian.

One person who clearly does care about this is Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, who is investigating whether Farage broke parliamentary rules.

Farage largely gave up on holding press conferences after the £5m donation became public, and he frequently got tetchy when asked about, but today he has been doing interviews to mark the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote and could not avoid the topic.

On BBC Breakfast, asked how much of the money had been spent, Farage replied: “It’s none of your business.”

Farage also gave an interview to the Today programme, where the presenter, Nick Robinson, asked him:

Would you be happy if the next prime minister of this country secretly banked a £5m cheque from a billionaire whose business interests he was promoting?

Farage said he would “refute that entirely”. He said he did not promote Harborne’s business interests.

He questioned Robinson’s decison to describe the donation as secret. When Robinson pointed out that he did not declare it, Farage switched tack and claimed that he did not need to.

Farage claimed that he had been arguing in support of the cryptocurrency industry “for years”. He also suggested that, even if London were to change its rules on crypto trading, that was unlikely to affect Harborne’s investments in the sector because it was such a “minute part of the global market”.

Harborne has said that he has never asked for anything in return for his donations to Reform UK, or in return for the personal donation to Farage.

When news of the donation first broke, Farage said that on the basis of the legal advice he had been given he was confident that Commons rules did not require him to declare it. The parliamentary commissioner for standards is now investigating this, and this morning Farage sounded less confident about being cleared. He told BBC Breakfast.

I believe [the donation] to be a wholly private matter. The standards commissioner may take a different view.

It is easy to see why Farage is claiming “no one cares” about the donation. He wants the media to stop asking about it. Research published last week showed that, of all the many lines used by Labour to attack Farage, those highlighting the donation, and accusing Farage of being in the pocket of rich donors, are most likely to influence voters.

In a Guardian story last week, Tom Burgis and Rowena Mason revealed that Farage has been trying to block a Bank of England cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for Harborne.

Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive and estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon, has been jailed at the high court in Edinburgh for five years and three months after he admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.

This is what the Press Association is reporting about the two MPs who have not ruled out challenging Andy Burnham for the Labour leadership. PA says:

Cabinet minister Darren Jones and former armed forces minister Al Carns are being considered as potential candidates by Labour MPs wary about installing Mr Burnham in No 10 without a contest.

Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister and a key ally of Keir Starmer, is one potential candidate with support from those loyal to the outgoing Labour leader.

Sources close to Jones said he was not currently minded to run in a contest but that he would want assurances on Burnham’s approach to economic policy, amid concerns among some of potential unease in the markets.

Burnham is set to make a major speech next week to set out key aspects of his economic policy, including confirmation he will stick to the current chancellor Rachel Reeves’ rules for managing the public finances.

The second potential rival to Burnham is former Royal Marines officer Carns, who is making up his mind whether to launch a leadership campaign.

He suggested on ITV’s Peston he was considering what to do before nominations for the Labour leadership open on 9 July .

“I’m not ready to make a decision on this in any way, shape or form,” he said.

“What I would say is we need to move from the politics which talk through the tactics and actually think about the strategy, and what I’m really looking for are big objective outcomes that we want to get to in 2029 and 2034-35”.

He said: “we need to have a clear and concise discussion about what this country wants to be at the next general election and the general election after that”.

Ed Miliband is to say that the UK must stick to net zero targets to deliver jobs and growth, as speculation surrounds the energy secretary’s role under a new prime minister, Fiona Harvey reports.

Good morning. Nothing is inevitable in life, but it is now all-but-certain that Andy Burnham will become the next Labour leader. There are still more than two weeks before the nominations for the leadership open on Thursday 9 July but – unless the Mail on Sunday can somehow unearth some surprise scandal about how Burnham has fathered a secret lovechild while also taking bribes from Israeli defence companies or whatever (which they won’t) – Burnham has in effect already won. He is the clear choice for Labour party members, and yesterday Labour MPs showed that they overwhelmingly back him too.

There is no realistic prospect of any alternative candidate beating Burnham in a leadership election. And there almost no realistic prospect of any person who does launch a leadership bid getting the support of 81 MPs, and the nominations from 5% of constituency Labour parties, or at least three affiliate organisations (of which two have to be unions), that they would need to be a candidate.

But that has not stopped chatter about some sort of challenge. It is possible to imagine some sort of shadow contest happening over the next fortnight, involving candidates declaring an interest, giving speeches, setting out a platform and perhaps attending hustings (before probably pulling out by 9 July when they don’t have enough support). This morning, the BBC is reporting that Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, and Al Carns, the former armed forces minister, have not ruled out a bid.

Other figures in the party are trying to discourage this sort of challenge. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the minister for EU relations, has been giving interviews this morning. He was a Keir Starmer loyalist, but today he said that he wanted to see Burnham become leader and that he wanted to see “a swift transition”.

He told Sky News:

I’m backing Andy Burnham and, yes, looking for a swift transition.

Asked if that meant he did not want a contest, he said:

I just think we have to weigh up what is in the best interests of the country. I am of the view that it needs to be a swift transition, but of course I understand colleagues have difficult decisions to make.

And Margaret Hodge, the former minister and Labour peer, told the Today programme that, while she could see the case for an election, “on balance” she thought it would be better not to have one. “We’ve got to get on with delivering, we’re in government,” she told the programme.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

9am: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, launches a poster campaign at an event to mark the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum vote.

9.30am: Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive, and Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband, is sentenced at Edinburgh high court for embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.

10am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, publishes an article defending Brexit on his Substack account.

10am: Sir Martyn Oliver, the head of Ofsted, gives evidence to the Commons education committee.

11am: More in Common publishes MRP polling on views on rejoining the EU.

Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

12.15pm: Michel Barnier, the lead EU negotiator during the Brexit process, speaks at a UK in a Changing Europe conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the referendum. David Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, is also speaking.

2pm: Kemi Badenoch speaks at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London.

2.30pm: Lord Hermer, the attorney general, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.