Talks between the EU and the UK over Northern Ireland appear on the brink of collapse as London indicated it was still considering unilateral action to keep unhindered supplies flowing from Great Britain into the region. Boris Johnson has said he does not expect the row about the Northern Ireland protocol to overshadow the G7. Speaking in Cornwall, where he will hold talks with President Biden tomorrow before the G7 starting on Friday, he was asked if he thought the dispute would overshadow the summit. “I’m not worried about that,” he replied. He said the summit would be a “big moment” because it was Biden’s first major overseas trip as US president, and his first trip to Europe. Johnson has claimed that finding a solution to the problems relating to the Northern Ireland protocol is “easily doable”. Asked to respond to suggestions from the US that the UK’s position might be threatening the Northern Ireland peace process (see 2.58pm), Johnson replied: What we want is something that enables us to protect trade flows, east/west as well as north/south, and it’s easily doable. I’m very, very optimistic about this. I think that’s easily doable. And the reason to do that is because that is the way to preserve the essential balance of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which has to look at things both north/south, on the island of Ireland, but also east/west. Don’t forget, the bulk of the trade from Northern Ireland goes east/west. It is probably fair to say that “easily doable” is not an assessment shared by almost anyone else who has looked at how the UK’s position and the EU’s might be reconciled, and this comment probably says more about Johnson’s innate, evidence-immune optimism than it does about the prospects of a solution. (Ironically, the EU’s Maroš Šefčovič also effectively argued at his press conference this afternoon - see 4.06pm - that a solution was easily doable. But his plan involved the UK agreeing to align with EU sanitary and phytosanitary standards for food - something that the UK has ruled out, because the government claims it would defeat the point of Brexit.) Prof Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College epidemiologist whose modelling helped to persuade Boris Johnson to order the first lockdown, has said there remains a risk of a “substantial third wave” of Covid infections. (See 4.34pm.) Ministers’ plans for post-Covid schools catchup is so unambitious it will “hold Britain back for a generation”, Keir Starmer has said at prime minister’s questions. MPs have written to Dominic Cummings demanding that he provide proof for a number of serious allegations against the health secretary, Matt Hancock, who will face a parliamentary inquiry tomorrow. That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.