Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Brussels begins legal action against the UK after Boris Johnson refuses to name a new EU commissioner… The European Commission brought legal action against Britain for breaking its EU treaty obligations on Thursday, after Boris Johnson rejected its demands to name a new commissioner to serve in Brussels. The commission said it would kickstart a process that could end with Britain sued in the European Court of Justice and subjected to huge, daily fines, unless it complies or leaves the EU before the case reaches the EU. It rejected the British defence that it was bound by convention not to make major international appointments during a general election campaign, the day after Donald Tusk, the European Council president, urged Remainers not to give up trying to thwart Brexit. – Telegraph (£) EU launches ‘infringement’ action over UK refusal to appoint new commissioner – ITV News Brussels launches legal action against UK over failure to nominate commissioner – Politico …because such nominations are never made during the election”purdah” periods… Boris Johnson has rejected European Commission demands that he names a new EU commissioner to serve Brussels. Sir Tim Barrow, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, wrote to Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming commission president, on Thursday explaining the UK would not nominate a commissioner during the general election campaign. In July, Mr Johnson told the House of Commons that he would not “under any circumstances” name a new commissioner to serve the incoming EU executive, which is due to take over on December 1. A Government spokesman said, “We have written to the EU to confirm that pre-election guidance states the UK should not normally make nominations for international appointments during this period.” – Telegraph (£) UK won’t nominate EU commissioner before election, ambassador tells Brussels – Politico …but Brussels insists that EU law must trump UK law or conventions Brussels made the move after Britain rebuffed repeated requests from Ursula von der Leyen, the EU commission’s incoming president, to propose a British member of her team. The German insisted on the point because, under the EU’s treaties, the commission’s ruling college is supposed to have one member from each EU country… The commission said in its statement on Thursday that existing EU case law made clear that Britain’s purdah period is no justification for not putting forward a commissioner. “A member state may not invoke provisions prevailing in its domestic legal system to justify failure to observe obligations arising under Union law,” the commission said. – FT (£) Nigel Farage threatens to report the Tories to the police for ‘sabotage’ after two Brexit Party candidates abandon election bids Nigel Farage has threatened to report the Conservative Party to the police after he accused No. 10 of sabotage as two Brexit Party candidates abandoned his fight for the election. The Brexit Party boss accused Boris Johnson’s team of offering his MP hopefuls peerages and Government jobs to members of his party in exchange for standing down. He fumed: “The system is corrupt and broken.” However, No. 10 sources described the claim as “b******s”. It comes after Rupert Lowe, who was hoping to stand for Dudley North and Andy Wood, due to fight for Hove, pulled out of the race just before the 4pm nomination deadline. – The Sun Nigel Farage claims No. 10 insiders ‘offered inducements’ to get Brexit Party candidates to stand aside – ITV News Furious Brexit Party supporters to ‘spoil ballot papers’ rather than vote Tory, says lawyer – Telegraph (£) Liberal Democrats add ‘stop Brexit’ to their ballot paper description in appeal to Remain voters Liberal Democrat candidates will be able to appeal to Remain-backing voters by putting “stop Brexit” on the ballot paper for the 12 December general election. The Electoral Commission allowed party officials to register the phrase “Liberal Democrats – to stop Brexit” on the voting slip. And Jo Swinson‘s party said the move will help candidates in constituencies across the country to attract voters who agree with their policy of revoking Article 50 to stop Brexit. The party’s candidate for South Cambridgeshire, Ian Sollom, said he intends to use the description as he seeks to overturn the 24.6 per cent majority recorded for Tories in 2017 by Heidi Allen, who later defected to the Lib Dems but is not standing in this election. – Independent Tories more popular among working class than rich, shows new poll shows… The Conservative Party now has more support among working-class voters than the upper classes, according to a new poll which predicts that Boris Johnson will win a 110-seat majority at the general election. The exclusive Savanta ComRes survey for The Daily Telegraph found that 43 per cent of voters from the DE social group are prepared to vote for the Tories on December 12, up from 35 per cent in 2017. The poll found 40 per cent of AB voters plan to back Mr Johnson compared to 46 per cent who were prepared to vote for Theresa May two years ago. As champions of free-market capitalism, the Conservatives have always traditionally been seen as the party of the rich. However, since the UK voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the largely Remain voting so-called metropolitan liberal elite have pivoted to the Liberal Democrats. Conversely, working-class Leave voters are increasingly backing the Prime Minister’s promise to ‘get Brexit done’ in the face of Labour prevarication over a second referendum. – Telegraph (£) …as polling guru Sir John Curtice puts Labour’s chances of a majority at ‘close to zero’ Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of winning an overall majority for Labour in the 12 December general election are “as close to zero as one can safely say it to be”, Professor Sir John Curtice has said. But Mr Corbyn could still enter 10 Downing Street as prime minister next month, the polling guru said. Speaking at Westminster, the Strathclyde University election expert said that the most likely outcomes based on current polling is either a fairly sizeable Tory majority delivering Brexit on Boris Johnson’s terms or a hung parliament resulting in a minority Labour administration propped up by other parties delivering a second referendum. And the deciding factor in determining between these outcomes may be the performance of Mr Johnson in what is effectively an “unpopularity contest” between two leaders who each provoke historically high levels of dissatisfaction among voters. – Independent Diane Abbott confirms Labour will extend EU free movement despite warning from union Labour will widen free movement rights for foreigners to come to live in the UK if it wins the general election, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott said. Diane Abbott spoke out to confirm that “maintaining and extending freedom of movement rights” was official Labour Party policy after a senior trade union leader warned the proposal could cost working-class votes. Her intervention followed confusion over whether a motion passed at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton in favour of the proposal would bind a future Labour government. On Twitter, Ms Abbott said: “The Labour Party is committed to maintaining and extending Freedom of Movement rights.” She added: “The Tories break up families by barring spouses of British citizens, via an income requirement. Labour will scrap it, and extend Freedom of Movement rights to all those legally entitled to be here.” – Express Major trade partners seek compensation from UK and EU over Brexit Leading trade partners are seeking compensation from the UK and EU over Brexit uncertainty that has disrupted pre-Christmas trade. Some 15 countries — including heavyweights such as Australia and the U.S. — raised concerns over their commercial losses at today’s meeting of the World Trade Organization’s goods council, according to a Geneva-based official in the room. Australia said the extension of the UK’s withdrawal caused “significant commercial disruptions” for their businesses. “Many Australian businesses ceased exports of commercially valuable beef and sheepmeat in the lead up to Christmas,” Australia said in the meeting. The countries pressed the EU and the UK to offer better market access as compensation for the trade disruptions caused by Brexit. – Politico Daniel Hannan: You may find one Leaver who wants the Empire back… just as you may find one who thinks the EU is run by space lizards What is this Europhile obsession with the British Empire? Donald Tusk was at it again this week. In his farewell speech as President of the European Council, before an audience of student Eurocrats, he bemoaned the “longing for the Empire” which, in his imagination, motivates Brexiteers. I’m getting slightly tired of being told why I voted Leave by people who backed Remain. For three years, now, I have had it explained to me — Remainsplained, if you like — that Eurosceptics want the Empire back. These imperialist Leavers are never identified. It is simply airily asserted that there are lots of them about. In fact, I haven’t met a single Leaver — not one — who wants Britain to run big tracts of Asia or Africa. – Daniel Hannan MEP for The Sun James Forsyth: Can Nigel Farage take the Tories to victory? Despite the consistent poll lead and projections of a majority of about 40 seats, the Tories are still nervous. They are nervous because they are uncertain, because their route to victory involves taking seats that the Tories haven’t won in living memory, so no one has a proper sense of how well (or otherwise) it’s going. The debacle of the last general election campaign has left the Tory party with a collective fear of terra incognita. At the start of that campaign, there was talk of the Conservatives sweeping through the Labour heartlands, but instead they had a lesson in how badly campaigns can go wrong. The Labour vote is resilient, and there is scepticism even among the cabinet about some of the places that the Tories are trying to take this time. ‘Only a certain number of target seats are realistic,’ warns one secretary of state. – James Forsyth for The Spectator (£) Asa Bennett: Donald Tusk thinks Brexiteers are longing for empire. Has he met the EU elite? John Bercow’s demob-happy denunciation of Brexit as the “biggest mistake since the war” has inspired fellow Remainers to hold forth as they bow out of their own jobs. “The UK election takes place in one month. Can things still be turned around?” Donald Tusk mused last night, urging British supporters of the EU not to “give up” as he confessed to pushing for constant extensions to the Article 50 process in the hope of leaving time for a “possible British change of heart” on leaving the bloc. The European Council president did not just stop at publicly urging on Boris Johnson’s opponents, as he poured scorn on British Eurosceptics. “I have heard repeatedly from Brexiteers that they wanted to leave the European Union to make the United Kingdom global again, believing that only alone, it can truly be great,” he said, claiming to “hear in these voices a longing for the empire”. – Asa Bennett for the Telegraph (£) The Telegraph: It’s the EU that has imperial ambitions, not Brexit UK Donald Tusk, the outgoing President of the European Council, gave a bizarre speech on Wednesday in which he said that Brexiteers long for a return to empire. The irony, he suggested, is that by leaving the EU, Britain is actually stepping down from the world stage: “One of my English friends is probably right when he says with melancholy that Brexit is the real end of the British Empire.” The real irony in this reported exchange, however, is that it is Mr Tusk’s Remainer chum – not a Brexiteer – who mourns for empire. This is revealing. The EU thinks Britain desires an empire because that is exactly what the European federalists want. They see the world as a contest between spheres of influence and desperately long for a liberal “empire” of their own to rival the Chinese or the Americans. – Telegraph editorial (£) The Sun: We admire Nigel Farage but we will only leave the EU if Boris Johnson gets a majority We applaud Brexit Party candidates now quitting to give the Tories a clear run in Labour-held marginals. We urge scores more to follow suit. The Sun admires Nigel Farage. But we believe he has made a potentially catastrophic miscalculation in a fit of pique, wounded by the Tories’ indifference to him. Cooler heads must prevail. If Labour marginals are to be decided by Leave voters it is insane to split them between the Tories and Brexit Party. Mr Farage backs Boris’s deal. His stance makes no sense. We see no evidence of his party leading the Tories in any seat, nor backing his theory that he will only hurt Labour’s vote. – The Sun says Brexit in Brief Nigel Farage must do the right thing to secure Brexit – Joshua Mackenzie-Lawrie for The Commentator Jo Swinson preparing to demand another election as well as scrap Brexit – Express