New abortion law to be introduced in wake of referendum, according to Leo Varadkar. The proposed legislation will allow abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and up to the 24th week in exceptional circumstances. Irish Minister for Health Simon Harris will seek the Cabinet’s backing on Tuesday to draft the new legislation. The result south of the border has shifted focus to Northern Ireland’s similarly strict abortion laws, with UK Prime Minister Theresa May facing calls to act. As a result of the vote, Northern Ireland will soon become the only part of the UK and Ireland with an almost blanket ban on terminations. Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and her deputy Michelle O’Neill held up a sign saying, “The North is next.” The referendum repealing the constitutional ban on abortion in the South produced a conclusive majority for reform among men and women, nearly all age groups and across most counties. The final figures were 66.4% in favour of the change and 33.6% voting No.

Labour would be neutral in any border poll. In a speech at Queen’s University Belfast, Jeremy Corbyn said he was not asking for or advocating a referendum on Irish unity, but would ensure the Good Friday Agreement is implemented “to the letter.” It was Mr Corbyn’s first visit to Northern Ireland three years after becoming Labour Party leader. He used his speech to assert that Brexit must not lead to a hard border or damage the fragile political settlement in Northern Ireland. He also said there should not be a border in the Irish Sea. “Let me be clear, Labour will not support any Brexit deal that includes the return of a hard border to this island,” Mr Corbyn said. Mr corbyn also noted that “We are also clear there must be no effective border created in the Irish Sea either. And thus, “That is why Labour has put forward a plan that would go a long way to solving this issue, a plan for which I believe there is a majority in Westminster.”

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un ‘set on Trump summit’. The latest development followed a surprise meeting on Saturday between Mr Kim and the South’s Moon Jae-in, who said the North was “committed to denuclearisation.”It was the leaders’ second meeting in as many months. Earlier in the week President Trump had cancelled the 12 June summit in Singapore, citing the North’s “hostility.” On Saturday, however, he said that the date “hasn’t changed” and that things were “moving along very nicely.”The summit would be the culmination of diplomatic efforts that began this year to try to defuse what had threatened to become a military confrontation between the nuclear-armed communist North and the South and its US ally.

UK is playing hide and seek in talks, says EU negotiator. Addressing a gathering of jurists in Portugal on Saturday, Mr Barnier called for more clarity on the UK’s position, saying an effective negotiation was dependent on knowing what the other side wanted. He said the EU would be ready to accept movement on Theresa May’s “red lines” that insist Brexit must see the UK leave both the European single market and customs union. “The UK can change its mind,” he said, but stressed that “time is tight”. And that “If the UK wishes to modify its red lines, it will have to tell us so – the sooner the better,” he added. Mr Barnier’s comments come as the EU Withdrawal Bill is due to return to the House of Commons, having suffered another major defeat in the House of Lords. The PM faces a rebellion over her move to rule out any future membership of the customs union and single market. The government fears MPs may follow suit and attempt to amend the bill.

I don’t wish to be Prime Minister, says Jacob Rees-Mogg. Mr Rees-Mogg has been highly critical of Theresa May’s preferred option for a customs partnership with the EU and has questioned whether her government is still on track to deliver Brexit. He said the UK had made “a lot of compromises” during Brexit negotiations with Brussels and “nothing has come back.”However, he added: “I am reassured in the last week. I think the government is still committed. But there are concerns, inevitably, about the way the negotiations are proceeding.” He said the Prime Minister had made a “mistake” at the start of Brexit talks by unilaterally committing the UK to an open border with the Republic of Ireland, saying it was “overwhelmingly” in Ireland’s interests to have one too. “I think, if you are going into a negotiation, you should use your strongest cards and just to tear one of them up and set hares running on other issues is, I think, an error,” he said.