Reshuffle continues as Boris Johnson makes statement on US, UK and Australia military partnership – live

The Boris Johnson statement is now over. For a prime ministerial statement, it was over very quickly, but that is because most MPs had little notice that it was coming and many are not in London on a Thursday. Johnson presented it as a jobs announcement almost as much as a foreign policy initiative, and broadly it was welcomed.

I have updated some of the earlier posts with direct quotes. To get them to appear, you may need to refresh the page.

Back in the Commons the SNP’s Gavin Newlands asked Boris Johnson to deny reports that, if Scotland were to become independent, the rest of the UK would seek to keep the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland as British territory.

Earlier this month the Financial Times said this was being considered as an option in the event of Scotland voting to leave the UK. There were similar reports ahead of the 2014 referendum.

In his response Johnson ignored the question altogether, and just said most commonsensical people would welcome the arrival of jobs in the the UK, particularly in Scotland.

Here is an analysis of the Aukus initiative from my colleague Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor. He quotes a White House official calling it “a downpayment” on the “concept of global Britain”, and says President Biden now expects the UK to be more present in the Indo-Pacific.

Turning back to the reshuffle for a moment, John Whittingdale has announced that he has been sacked as a culture minister.

Whittingdale was unusual in that he was culture secretary under David Cameron, but subsequently returned to government under Boris Johnson as a more junior minister in the department he used to run.

Theresa May, the former PM, asks what the implications of this would be if China were to invade Taiwan.

Johnson says the government is determined to defend internal law, and that is the advice it would give to Beijing.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says he welcomes international cooperation with allies.

But he asks for an assurance that this agreement will not be used to supply Australia with nuclear weapons.

Johnson says there is no risk of the deal breaking the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

It is a defence technology agreement that is “very sensible”, be says.

Johnson is replying to Starmer.

He says this initiative is not about confronting China; it is about support the UK’s allies, he says.

It is important to understand that Aukus [the name for the Australia, UK, UK partnership] is not intended to be adversarial towards any other power. It merely reflects the close relationship that we have with the United States and with Australia.

On the subject of jobs, he says a scoping exercise will establish what opportunities there are. But he says there are pools of expertise in the UK, and he is no doubt there is an opportunity for hundreds of high-wage jobs to be created.

What I can say is that there will be an 18-month scoping exercise to establish where the work should go between the three partners. But clearly there are deep pools of expertise throughout the United Kingdom.

There is expertise across the United Kingdom and I have no doubt whatever that it will bring hundreds of high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the kind that we want to see in our country, and increasingly are seeing.

He ends by welcoming Starmer’s support for Nato, saying that at the last election he was campaigning to install a prime minister who had been opposed to Nato (Jeremy Corbyn).

Sir Keir Starmer says Labour welcomes the strengthening of the partnership with the US and Australia.

But he asks how it will affect relations with China.

Johnson says nuclear-powered submarines are the “capital ships of our age” because they are propelled with an “effectively inexhaustible source of energy, allowing them to circumnavigate the world without surfacing, deriving oxygen and fresh water from the sea around them”.

He says he has no problem trusting Australia in a military partnership of this kind. “We are as closely aligned in international policy as any two countries in the world,” he says.

He says Australia, the UK and the US are now “inseparable partners” in a project that will last decades.

He says this shows what the tilt towards the Indo-Pacific means in reality.

The integrated review of foreign and defence policy described Britain’s renewed focus on the Indo-Pacific, a region that is fast becoming the geopolitical centre of the world, ever more important for British trade and therefore for British jobs and British livelihoods.

If there was ever any question about what global Britain’s tilt towards the Indo-Pacific would mean in reality or what capabilities we might offer, then this partnership with Australia and the US provides the answer.

It amounts to a new pillar of a strategy demonstrating Britain’s generational commitment to the security of the Indo-Pacific and showing exactly how we can help one of our oldest friends to preserve regional stability.

A nuclear submarine programme is unlike any other engineering project, he says. He says this partnership will “strengthen Britain’s position as a science and technology superpower”. He says it will create hundreds of highly skilled jobs in the UK.

Boris Johnson is now making a Commons statement about the new US/UK/Australia military partnership.

Here is our overnight story about the announcement.

And here is the statement issued by Johnson about this last night.

Here is my colleague Jessica Elgot’s analysis of yesterday’s reshuffle.

Here is an extract.

Whitehall sources said the casualties were intended to put his ministers on notice about the prime minister’s strength of position. Robert Buckland, the justice secretary, lost his job despite no discernible wrongdoing. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, was unceremoniously fired despite fears he could be a threat on the backbenches. One government source said all ministers “would know they are dispensable”.

One Tory compared the reshuffle to Margaret Thatcher’s 1981 “purge of the wets” – a brutal show of authority after 18 months of rebellions and U-turns. “Boris has shown people he’s in charge,” they said. “People won’t mess around now. Anyone can get chopped.”

And here are four other reshuffle analysis articles that are well worth reading.

Rather, the performance of ministers shows up, by and large, in where the members place them. At any rate, the government’s spin on the shuffle this morning is that the new cabinet is stronger than the old one, and so better placed to build back better and level up Britain.

This is true as far as it goes. Michael Gove is a more formidable politician than Robert Jenrick; Nadhim Zahawi a more capable executive than Gavin Williamson, Oliver Dowden a more experienced manager than Amanda Milling.

But the point of the reshuffle is not only, or even primarily, to bring a sharper cutting edge to reform. It is to tighten the grip of Johnson’s chunky fist on power, now that he has decided a shuffle can no longer be postponed.

For those promoted are either Johnson loyalists, like Nadine Dorries and Anne-Marie Trevelyan; sent sideways to do a specific job, like Oliver Dowden or Steve Barclay, or placed where they won’t be a threat to the prime minister’s leadership.

While other changes may generate more headlines, the key move is the appointment of Michael Gove as communities and housing secretary with a particular focus on the levelling-up agenda. Whatever criticisms are made of Gove’s politics, he is seen by Johnson as an effective and forceful minister who is more likely than most to turn what has heretofore been a nebulous slogan into a detailed strategy. Gove has become Johnson’s go-to minister for major strategic challenges and his appointment signals the prime minister’s concern that the huge expectations he has stoked need to be turned into visible delivery.

What’s harder to divine is any one strong political ideology, or any radical guiding idea. Certainly, politicians popular with the Tory party like Truss seem to have prospered. Loyalty to the prime minister himself seems to have been rewarded.

But it’s not a Brexit cabinet, or a small-state cabinet, or to use Tory verbiage, a “one-nation” cabinet for those more in the middle.

It’s a Johnson cabinet, with no particular bent towards any one faction or tribe. For some of his backers, that is one of Mr Johnson’s attributes – he’s not wedded to principle, but staying on top. For other Tories, that’s rather the problem – with no one strong ideology other than a desire to win, it begs the question of what it’s all really for.

This was a prime minister today who, in the words of one of his colleagues, was “cordial but clinical”. “It was a butcher’s yard.”

There’s no doubt his success in driving the health and social care tax levy through the backbenches has emboldened the prime minister but he knows all too well that shuffling the deck always carries risk as the swell of discontent grows.

But in the past 10 days, he has clearly defined what he wants from his government. The question is whether he can deliver it.

In the Commons John Nicholson, the SNP’s culture spokesperson in the Commons, gives Nadine Dorries a less warm welcome, saying that she has a long anti-gay rights record. “Just as well there are no homosexuals in the arts sector,” he says sarcastically.

This is what Benjamin Cohen from Pink News tweeted about Dorries’ record on gay rights yesterday.

In the Commons David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, tells Nadine Dorries that he welcomes her appointment to cabinet, saying it shows “you don’t need to be a boring conformist to get on”.

The latest edition of the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast is out. In a reshuffle special, Aubrey Allegretti and Rowena Mason look at the winners and losers of Boris Johnson’s reshuffle. Plus, Jessica Elgot and Rafael Behr analyse the government’s Covid winter plan.

Tim Davie, the BBC director general, said this morning that he would not be “distracted” by the previous anti-BBC comments from Nadine Dorries, the new culture secretary. Asked about some of her previous remarks, he told the RTS Cambridge Convention 2021:

I wouldn’t get too distracted by it; it’s all about sitting down with the ministers and the teams and really getting into it, I’m not distracted by it. I think we have got a strong case for investment in the BBC.

Davie also said he was looking forward to meeting Dorries.

We need a really serious, grown-up dialogue with government, it’s an incredibly important topic. There will always be a bit of theatre but we will sit down and have a proper dialogue around the BBC, and I look forward to it.

Boris Johnson will make a statement in the Commons later on the new US/UK/Australia security partnership, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons has announced.

Normally a statement of this kind would come at 10.30am.

In the Commons Nadine Dorries, the new culture secretary, is now taking questions. The first question was about the review of football governance, and Dorries started by talking about her own football credentials. Her great grandfather was one of the founders of Everton football club, she said – although she stressed that she herself was a Liverpool fan.

Good morning. Yesterday Boris Johnson carried out a cabinet reshuffle that turned out to be bolder, more far-reaching, more interesting, and probably more strategic, than most people were expecting. It was also remarkably smooth by reshuffle standards. Only Dominic Raab seemed to offer much resistance to what was proposed, and as far as we know at this point Johnson was able to make all his cabinet appointments according to plan.

Here is our overnight story.

And there is more to come, because today Johnson is reshuffling more junior ministers. Downing Street has just sent out the first announcement.

• Penny Mordaunt, who was defence secretary when Theresa May was PM and who until yesterday was paymaster general in the Cabinet Office, becomes a minister of state at the Department for International Trade.

• Michael Ellis replaces her as paymaster general. Until recently he was attorney general, covering for Suella Braverman while she took maternity leave.

Mordaunt used Twitter earlier this morning to announce she was moving.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Nadine Dorries, the new culture secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

9.30am: The ONS publishes its latest Covid antibodies survey, plus new figures about the symptoms of people with coronavirus.

10.20am: Will Quince and Mims Davies, who are both welfare ministers, give evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee about the universal credit cut.

11.30am: Downing Street holds its daily lobby briefing.

12pm: Sajid Javid, the health secretary, gives a speech in Blackpool on his vision for levelling up in health.

12pm: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions in the Scottish parliament.

For further Covid coverage, do read our global live blog.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com