Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed there are differing opinions within the party on its approach to voting on a Brexit deal, but stressed that a trade agreement with the EU is “in the national interest”.

Reports suggest he and his shadow chancellor are divided over whipping MPs into backing a deal, or abstaining to protect Labour from any backlash caused by the resulting economic fallout.

“We’ll have a look at that deal as soon as we see it and make our decisions then, but I can’t emphasise enough how a deal is in the national interest,” Sir Keir told broadcasters during a visit to Portsmouth.

“We don’t know that there will be a deal – I hope there will. As soon as there’s a deal we’ll look at it, but if the choice is a deal or no-deal, then a deal is obviously in the national interest.

“The Labour Party has pulled together hugely in the last few months, presenting a strong united front, and we will do the same on this issue. Of course there are different opinions, as you would expect, but we will pull together, discuss it as a team and be united.”

Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg has confirmed that the two pieces of Brexit legislation which may breach international law will both appear before MPs next week.

The Internal Market Bill will return on Monday following a series of defeats in the Lords, which saw peers remove the clauses accused of contravening the withdrawal agreement.

Mr Rees-Mogg confirmed the government will be “pushing back” on all amendments made by peers.

The new finance bill – which could see talks with the EU collapse if it also contains similar clauses – is due to arrive on Tuesday. The government claims such clauses are necessary to protect the integrity of the UK.

Mr Rees-Mogg rejected suggestions from his opposite number Valerie Vaz that the new legislation is a “dummy bill”, saying: “These are really important pieces of legislation.”

The education secretary’s claims that the UK has been quickest to approve a vaccine because “we’re a much better country” have been derided as “deeply unhelpful and frankly silly” by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s chief executive.

“We are not hours away from a deal, what we still need to agree is quite substantial,” an EU diplomat has told Reuters.

The diplomat said there was still a major gap on fisheries and the EU could not agree with the UK’s position on state aid, as well as other guarantees of fair competition.

The person stressed trade negotiators discussing how to overcome the three main sticking points in the talks were “within millimetres” from crossing the EU’s red lines, a warning to Britain that the bloc’s 27 national capitals might still strike down any agreement if they thought it went too far.

“Economically speaking, the level playing field is very crucial. Politically speaking, fisheries is a very important factor because of the way it plays into domestic politics in France,” the diplomat said.

The diplomat said the bloc was not willing to change Michel Barnier’s mandate to give him more wiggle room and that the negotiators had one shot at presenting a done deal.

“As long as Barnier stays within his mandate, the deal would not have to go to the leaders before it can be approved,” he said.

Away from Brexit for a moment, our political editor reports that Independent Ulster Unionist peer Lord Maginnis is facing an 18-month suspension from the House of Lords after an inquiry found he bullied three MPs and a security guard using offensive homophobic language.

The House of Lords Conduct Committee also recommended that the 82-year-old peer should undertake behaviour change training, with his lengthy suspension extended further if he fails to engage constructively with the course.

Andrew Woodcock has the details here:

The BBC’s economics editor reports that the taxation bill – which may contain clauses in breach of international law – is expected to be put before parliamentarians next week.

The timing of such a move is crucial – with talks for a deal expected to fall apart if the UK offers this new provocation, but with government ministers insisting offending clauses as contained in the Internal Market Bill are necessary to prevent a border in the Irish Sea in the event of no-deal.

Tesco has called on the government to give greater clarity about how it will move goods across borders after Brexit, saying this will be the biggest challenge come 1 January.

Chief executive Ken Murphy told Sky News they had prepared the business to continue operating whether a free trade agreement is agreed or not, but said he remains worries about the movement of stock into the country.

“The biggest challenge we face really is the movement of product between borders, the movement of product between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of course between mainland Europe and the UK,” he said.

“That is the one area where we really would urge the government to give us some clarity and to allow us to prepare even better for the end of December,” he said, adding that he did not think food price inflation would be the biggest issue.

Our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn has more detail on the education secretary’s charm offensive this morning, during which he suggested the UK is the first country to secure a vaccine because “we are much better” than France, Belgium and the US.

Less than one in five British exporters have diverted business away from the EU since the Brexit referendum result – to the tune of £50bn, new research suggests.

Lloyds Bank and Aston Business School said their study indicates that firms are actively looking for new export markets as a result of the UK leaving the EU, with growth in export values to member states having fallen by an average of 8.7 per cent a year since 2016.

Despite the vast majority of businesses not having made such preparations, Lloyds’ Gwynne Master said: “These findings are the start of a new chapter in the story of global British business and trade.”

Separate polling of 1,200 British businesses found that more than two thirds of exporters have not yet made changes to their supply chain because of Brexit.

It is unlikely that Brexit will knock the capital from its perch as Europe’s top financial centre unless the continent resolves its internal squabbles and fragmented regulation, Axel Weber has said.

“The division of Europe is a massive benefit to the City of London because if Europe were united the impact . . . of Brexit would be much more,” the UBS chair told the FT’s Global Banking Summit.

“Europe is a fragmented market of 27 regulators, 27 financial markets, with a 28th regulator on top. You would not invent a system like that if you were to design a functioning system,” he added. “Brexit, in addition to Covid, should really force the EU to go back to the drawing board and start from a fresh piece of paper.”

But it came just a day after the EU’s financial services chief Valdis Dombrovskis told the paper that Brussels is ready to cut off the City of London’s post-Brexit market access if the UK begins to deviate from EU standards.