Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Conservative manifesto set to abandon No Deal threat and focus on delivering Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal… Boris Johnson has abandoned the threat of a no-deal Brexit in the Conservative manifesto in a move designed to capture the centre ground, The Times has been told. The prime minister’s manifesto will focus on “getting Brexit done immediately” by pushing his “fantastic” deal through the Commons as soon as MPs return. The approach is in stark contrast to Mr Johnson’s previous “do or die” pledge to leave Britain with or without a deal on October 31. The Tories believe that they can use the promise of Mr Johnson’s deal to appeal to soft Liberal Democrat voters who have significant concerns about the impact of a second referendum. Mr Johnson told ITV yesterday: “Our opportunity now is to get this thing done, come back in the middle of December, knock it over the line and then take the country forward.” – The Times (£) Tory manifesto will abandon the threat of leaving EU with no deal – Daily Mail Tories ready to ditch no-deal Brexit threat – Bloomberg Dominic Cummings passes election baton to softly spoken Australian Isaac Levido – The Times (£) …as Johnson rejects a pact with Nigel Farage… Boris Johnson has rejected the suggestion from Nigel Farage and Donald Trump that he should work with the Brexit Party during the election. The Tory leader told the BBC he was “always grateful for advice” but he would not enter into election pacts. His comments come after the US president said Mr Farage and Mr Johnson would be “an unstoppable force”. Downing Street sources say there are no circumstances in which the Tories would work with the Brexit Party. In an interview with BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg, the prime minister said the “difficulty” of doing deals with “any other party” was that it “simply risks putting Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10”. – BBC News Boris Johnson snubs Nigel Farage over electoral pact – Politico Conservatives reject Donald Trump’s calls to ‘get together’ with the Brexit Party – Telegraph (£) Boris Johnson rejects Brexit Party electoral pact – The Sun Boris Johnson condemned for snub to Farage’s Brexit pact – Express Farage’s failed ultimatum may still help the Brexit Party – Tom Rayner for Sky News > WATCH on BrexitCentral’s YouTube channel: Boris Johnson rules out working with Nigel Farage …but Farage says Johnson’s deal ‘isn’t Brexit’ and warns him to drop it Nigel Farage has urged Boris Johnson to drop his EU deal and called on him to build a “Leave alliance.” Launching the Brexit Party’s campaign, Mr Farage said should the Conservatives reject his offer of a “non-aggression pact”, his party will stand in every British seat. The Brexit Party became earlier this year the largest British party in the European Parliament, but they have no seats in the House of Commons. – BBC News Nigel Farage explains how Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal ties UK to EU law – Express Drop your dreadful deal, Boris, and in the national interest let’s get Brexit done properly Nigel Farage for the Telegraph (£) Farage calls on Johnson to ‘build Leave alliance’ – BBC News Brexit Party to contest ‘every seat’ in UK election . – Politico Farage reveals two-week deadline for election pact with Johnson – Sky News > WATCH on BrexitCentral’s YouTube channel: Brexit Party General Election launch highlights > Jack Walters on BrexitCentral today: The Farage ultimatum to the Tories should make Brexiteers despair Tory divisions gave Brussels the edge in Brexit talks, researchers say Divisions within the Conservative party allowed the European Union to set the agenda during the first phase of the Brexit negotiations, according to an academic study. Infighting within the Tory party when it was led by Theresa May meant the UK lost ground on the production of key negotiating texts and guidelines, allowing the EU to “box-in” British negotiators, according to researchers from three British universities. – Politico Lib Dem defector Antoinette Sandbach fails to back Revoke amid fears of party divide… Liberal Democrat defector Antoinette Sandbach has failed to back its revoke policy amid fears of a growing internal schism on the issue. When questioned on whether she supported revoking Article 50 if her party came to power, she said her party would have to “win a majority” to do so and insisted her preferred outcome was still a confirmatory referendum. “I think what’s being offered now in the deal is so far from what was promised that we should go back and check that this is really what Britain wants,” she said. There appears to be a growing chasm in the party over the revoke policy, with many of Tory defectors preferring the prospect of a second referendum. – Telegraph Antoinette Sandbach: Remoaner snitch – Spiked …as ex-Conservative MP Matthew Parris also quits the Tories to vote Lib Dem Former Tory MP and prominent columnist Matthew Parris has said he will quit the party after 50 years in a call for Conservatives who oppose Brexit to support the Liberal Democrats in the election. The Times journalist said he will cast his vote for the remain-backing party in the 12 December ballot “to defeat Tory zealotry over Europe” as he joined a growing list of prominent members to quit. On Friday, Parris wrote: “Despair is no longer enough: finally one must act. So with this column I’m leaving the Conservative party.” – Guardian I’m leaving the Tories and voting Lib Dem – Matthew Parris for The Times (£) UK could trade more financial services with Asean after Brexit Asean’s gross domestic product, roughly the same level as the UK’s, is growing almost four times faster. Its population of 650m includes 90m middle-class households, a cohort that is expected to grow by 10m every year for several years. At 29 years of age, the median Asean resident is 10 years younger than their British counterpart. Apart from macroeconomic fundamentals, there is a spirit of innovation and adoption of technology that is transforming the landscape for financial services. It is projected that by 2025, one in every two dollars of transactions will be conducted electronically. Financial inclusion is a top policy objective. In addition, there is an infrastructure funding gap of several hundreds of billions of dollars. So, in terms of what the UK wants to supply, there should be ready demand in Asean. – FT (£) People’s Vote staff bid to hit Roland Rudd ‘in the wallet’ after campaign is ground to a halt by civil war People’s Vote staff are writing to clients of the public relations company run by its chairman, Roland Rudd, to ask if they are comfortable with his involvement in an extraordinary row that has brought the campaign group to a grinding halt. The angry staff members, who are refusing to work under a new chief executive summarily appointed by Rudd, ask whether he has “demonstrated good PR skills” in a vicious conflict that has coincided with the start of the general election campaign. Finsbury, the leading public relations firm run by the multi-millionaire, specialises in advising FTSE 100 companies and the letter is part of an attempt by the estranged People’s Vote staff to “hit him in the wallet” in the escalating dispute. Last weekend Rudd fired the People’s Vote’s chief executive, James McGrory, a former adviser to Nick Clegg, and its director of communications, Tom Baldwin, who used to work with Ed Miliband, prompting a mass walkout by colleagues. – Guardian The Sun: Votes for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party could put Corbyn in Downing Street – his voters should think again Voters tempted by the Brexit Party now need to face some harsh realities: Nigel Farage will not be Prime Minister. Nor is he remotely likely to hold the balance of power. There is no longer a route to the No Deal Brexit he wants. Nor any prospect of Boris Johnson caving to his demands for a pact, destroying the Tories’ unity. And it is patently untrue to say Boris’s deal is not Brexit. The Tory ERG simply wouldn’t back it if so. It will end our membership, payments and free movement and extract us from the customs union and single market, with no “backstop” keeping us half-in. We would trade freely as an independent nation. And Boris alone can get us out. The sole alternative as PM is Corbyn, and he will keep us in the EU for ever. In a few constituencies Farage’s party could hurt Labour more than the Tories. Overall it is far more likely to prevent Boris winning the majority which is vital to delivering Brexit and without which it is lost. That is why Farage’s ultimatum to the PM delighted Labour. – The Sun says Nigel Farage: Drop your dreadful deal, Boris, and in the national interest let’s get Brexit done properly To be returned to Downing Street, Johnson needs to appeal to as many Brexiteers as possible but he has two problems. Firstly, there is a swathe of those Labour Leave constituencies which for cultural reasons will never vote Tory. Second, his Brexit “deal” is a disaster. It will reduce Britain’s status, cost up to £65 billion, and leave us as rule takers on every matter from fisheries to financial services. It would be a case of taxation without representation. Worse than that, as Donald Trump told me when I interviewed him on Thursday, it is likely to hinder the UK’s ability to do a trade deal with the US. – Nigel Farage for the Telegraph (£) Farage’s Brexit ultimatum won’t change the Tory plan – Katy Balls for The Spectator Why Conservatives should rejoice at the absence of a pact – Paul Goodman for ConservativeHome Patrick O’Flynn: Nigel Farage risks destroying his own Brexit dream The basic laws of political gravity will still apply. Only two people can conceivably emerge from this contest as prime minister and Nigel Farage is not one of them. In fact, he has no more chance than does Jo Swinson, whose own pretensions in that direction were comically demolished by Andrew Neil on live TV the other night. Only one party – the Conservative party – has a realistic offer for removing the UK from the EU any time soon, in fact any time before the fourth anniversary of the EU referendum next June. Farage’s offer, oddly like Corbyn’s, is to continue on a path of trench warfare almost without end and with no guarantee of success. – Patrick O’Flynn for The Spectator Toby Young: A ‘Unite the Right’ campaign may be the best path to a Brexit majority an informal tactical voting alliance might have difficulty gaining traction. Of the Leave-voting seats where the Labour incumbent is vulnerable – around 50 in my estimation – I reckon the Brexit Party has a better chance than the Tories in about a dozen of them. They are, in order of winnability: Hartlepool; Kingston-upon-Hull East; Redcar; Barnsley East; Doncaster North; Bolsover; Normanton, Pontefract and Castelford; Kingston-upon-Hull West and Hessle; Barnsley Central; Sheffield South East; Don Valley; and Houghton and Sunderland South. You could set up a tactical voting advisory website that told Tories to vote for the Brexit Party in just these 12 constituencies, and urged Faragists to vote Conservative more or less everywhere else. – Toby Young for the Telegraph (£) Liam Halligan: Boris Johnson will only ‘get Brexit done’ by winning back the lost Tory generation As polling day approaches, the debate about Britain’s future in Europe will become even more intense – and, no doubt, more rancorous. To “get Brexit done”, Boris Johnson needs a majority. But that means attracting a broad coalition of voters – from reconciled Tory Remainers to committed Faragistas, from Labour-leaning Brexiteers to Corbyn-averse Lib Dems. Between now and 12 December, then, the Conservatives must broaden their electoral appeal – and fast. – Liam Halligan for the Telegraph (£) Brexit in Brief Why do Remainers revile homesickness? – Giles Fraser for UnHerd Boris Johnson knows how to make himself the centre of attention in a way Theresa May never did – James Forsyth for The Sun Labour’s rob-the-rich ruse can’t distract from its Brexit betrayal – Telegraph editorial (£) The French take on Britain’s role as leader of the EU’s awkward squad – Joseph Rachman for Reaction Quitters were under fire not for being women, but for betraying the voters – Patrick Benham-Crosswell for ConservativeWoman On the media’s Planet Remain, truth is now a ‘hard-right’ concept – Melanie Phillips for ConservativeWoman Fishing and the big question for party leaders – John Ashworth for ConservativeWoman Corbyn and McDonnell’s sinister class war campaign shows the historic catastrophe in prospect – Iain Martin for Reaction A Conservative victory – followed by a proper Brexit – opens the door to a radical reshaping of the economy – Patrick Minford for the Telegraph (£) Boris Johnson challenged over Donald Trump trade comments – BBC News Healthcare may trump Brexit in battle for British vote – Reuters UK manufacturing decline slows after new Brexit stockpiling rush – Reuters