Prime minister reiterates UK backing after the Ukrainian president’s latest round of difficulties with Donald Trump

Andy Burnham will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Downing Street on Wednesday as the UK seeks to further underline its support for the Ukrainian president, in contrast to his difficulties with Donald Trump.

The UK prime minister said his message to Zelenskyy and his country would be: “We are with you for as long as it takes.”

Annual update from MI5 chief highlighted a complex cocktail that could have real-life consequences for Britain

MI5’s annual threat update covers so much ground it is easy to feel anxious. The terror threat has become more diverse, with far-right anti-migrant threats on the rise; while Iran has now firmly emerged alongside Russia as a country seeking to undertake violent and deadly plots in the UK.

“There is no law of physics dictating that rising state threats will be accompanied by diminishing terrorist threats,” MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, said, although one of his core messages was that people and the country at large needed to focus on being more resilient. “In this new world, we should expect to be tested.”

The prime minister is correct to judge the time is right to push for closer links with the EU. The political risk is far outweighed by the potential rewards

The German philosopher GWF Hegel famously evoked the owl of Minerva when discussing the historical wisdom that comes through hindsight. This autumn, she has flown tirelessly over the landscape of British politics. Party conference season was dominated by conflicting Labour and Conservative accounts of the 1970s and 80s. And a decade after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, Andy Burnham this week abandoned all equivocation over the damage – economic but also strategic – that resulted from that decision.

Having declared that it is time to “face up to the reality that Brexit has done more harm than good”, Mr Burnham told the House of Commons on Monday that it would be a “dereliction of duty” not to explore all options for closer relations with Brussels. Though he confirmed that in this parliament he will honour the red lines in Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour manifesto, all bets will subsequently be off.

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Abta advice comes as more than more than 150 websites offer service of securing entry to Schengen zone

Britons travelling to EU countries have been told not to apply for an Etias visa waiver, with more than 150 websites touting the service despite its introduction being delayed.

Non-EU citizens, including UK travellers and those from other visa-exempt countries including the US, Australia and Canada, will soon need to pay €20 (£17) for an electronic waiver to enter the Schengen zone under the European travel information and authorisation system (Etias).

Ken McCallum says Kremlin attempted to influence vote through social media and TV reports but had little impact

Russia did try to interfere in the Brexit referendum through social media and television reports, the head of MI5 said on Tuesday, but he added that did not mean the Kremlin had any impact on the result.

Ken McCallum endorsed comments by Andy Burnham, who raised the issue over the past two days, though he said continuing to debate it risked giving the Kremlin a needless propaganda victory.

Spain remains most popular destination as Britons book later in hope of better deals, Abta report finds

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The UK’s cost of living squeeze means fewer people plan to ringfence money for holidays abroad next year, the travel industry has warned.

Despite war, wildfires and EES border checks, the numbers of Britons taking holidays climbed back to pre-pandemic levels this year – but rising costs may mean the numbers have peaked, according to an annual travel industry report on Tuesday.

He argued there was no evidence to suggest the result of the Brexit vote had been swayed as a result of the effort

• Andy Burnham promises ‘serious dialogue’ over UK’s relationship with EU

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, has said he does not agree with his colleague Suella Braverman’s assertion that black people cannot be English.

Asked about her views in an interview on Sky News, Yusuf said:

In my view Ashley Cole is the best English fullback in history, and I won’t take any other position. So in my view, Ashley Cole is English. I think the argument that he’s not English doesn’t hold water with me.

Nasser Hussain, who I grew up watching when I went to the cricket, the idea that those people aren’t English is an alien concept to me.

I would respectfully disagree with people, who make the opposite argument.

To say I’m English is to take a ‘laissez-faire, anything-goes’ attitude to ethnicity, citizenship and identity. It also denies me my Asian heritage. The liberals (many of them in today’s Conservative party) take this cosmopolitan approach to Englishness. They’re terrified of being called racist so they say that anyone, as long as they’re born here, can be English.

I take the conservative approach. Englishness is an ethnicity. There have been English people for centuries and we need to recognise this more if we are to start taking a more muscular approach to citizenship and nationality. And no, it’s not racist to say this.