British public want deeper economic ties with EU, business secretary says

The British public are “not nostalgic” for the pre-Brexit past but are pragmatic and want to move forward and “deepen” ties with the EU on trade and the economy, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, has said.Signing an agreement in Brussels to cooperate closely on competition issues, Kyle said he thought the deal was “a real vindication of the reset and the relationships that have emerged between the EU and the UK” since Labour came to power.He said it marked an alignment on strategies on issues such as mergers and acquisitions, the result of frequent conversations the two sides were now having.The European Commission executive vice-president Teresa Ribera said it was “a privilege” to sign the deal, which was “reinforcing the current good cooperation” with the UK.Kyle said the public was behind the pragmatism that was now producing closer ties with Europe, which could drive economic growth

Tony Blair’s legacy was the destruction of Labour’s big tent | Letter

Like Emma Brockes, I watched Channel 4’s documentary The Tony Blair Story (It’s said that Tony Blair thought he was Jesus. At least Jesus never thought he was Tony Blair, 18 February). The last episode was the saddest, as Tony’s friends and family mithered about his legacy. Like all premierships, the Blair years were a mixed blessing – some great domestic policy, largely pushed by Gordon Brown, and a patchy foreign policy.But Tony’s biggest legacy would be the destruction of the coalition that had been the Labour party for the previous 90 years

Foreign Office denies minister’s claim the Chagos Islands deal has been paused – as it happened

Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.Controversial plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius are still on track, the UK government has insisted, after a minister caused confusion by telling MPs that the deal was “paused”.Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister and former diplomat, was speaking on Wednesday as the deal came under increasing pressure from opposition parties in the UK and from Donald Trump.In a bombshell intervention last month, the US president said that Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for continued use by the UK and US of their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.Speaking in response to an urgent question put foward in the Commons by the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage (see 2

Role of Scotland’s top law officer questioned after ‘bombshell’ over Peter Murrell charges

Serious doubts have been raised about the dual role of Scotland’s top law officer after it emerged that the first minister was informed of criminal charges against Peter Murrell nearly a year before they were made public.The lord advocate, Dorothy Bain, who acts as Scotland’s chief prosecutor as well as the government’s principal legal adviser in cabinet, has faced calls to resign but the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service maintains she was acting in line with her duties.On Tuesday the office released a list of nearly 30 other cases the lord advocate had updated governments about over the last three decades. It emerged that on 20 March last year, Bain told John Swinney that Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, had appeared in court charged with embezzling more than £460,000 from the party. That detail did not emerge publicly until earlier this month

Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin will not face sanctions over byelection leaflet error

Matt Goodwin, Reform UK’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection, will not face a sanction for leaflets that omitted the party’s imprint, after a high court judge accepted this was due to an inadvertent printing error.Reform admitted that it sent about 81,000 leaflets to the constituency’s voters from a “concerned neighbour”, which did not state they had been funded and distributed by the party.Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, election material must include the name and address of those the document promotes. Failure to do can result in a £5,000 fine and a three-year disqualification from elective office.But on Wednesday, on the eve of the byelection, Mr Justice Butcher granted Goodwin and his election agent, Adam Rawlinson, relief from these sanctions under section 167, which grants an exception if breaches are due to inadvertent error

The PM who turned PI: why is Gordon Brown delving so deep into the Epstein files?

Before Gordon Brown sent a draft of his 6 February comment piece on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal to the Guardian for publication, he asked friends whether he had gone too far.The former prime minister had written that he found it “hard to find words to express my revulsion at what has been uncovered about Epstein and his impact on our politics” and the “time is overdue to let in the light”.On Peter Mandelson’s alleged leaking of market-sensitive documents to the disgraced financier and sex offender during the financial crisis, Brown was particularly vexed.If it had happened, he said it would be, in his view, “a betrayal of everything we stand for as a country”.Those whose counsel Brown had sought over the piece reassured him he was right to use the strongest terms