Tuesday newspaper round-up: Jeremy Corbyn, Labour resignations, HSBC, Honda, Huawei, Brexit

Jeremy Corbyn was warned by his deputy last night that more MPs would resign from Labour unless he brought the party back into the mainstream. Tom Watson issued the challenge after seven MPs quit the party yesterday. He told Mr Corbyn to reshuffle his top team and said that he and other Labour MPs would in any case develop a policy programme in the party’s “social democratic” tradition. - The Times

Banking giant HSBC said on Tuesday that pre-tax profit rose last year but it suffered a bruising final quarter as worries over the global economy and the US-China trade war began to bite. The London-headquartered behemoth told investors it was still aiming to meet targets despite the looming twin storms of Brexit and the long-running trade impasse between Washington and Beijing. - Telegraph

British consumers are preparing to carry on shopping despite the mounting political chaos over Brexit, according to a survey, even as business leaders increasingly sound the alarm over the potential hit to the economy. More than half of consumers in the nationwide survey told the accountancy firm PwC they had not, and would not, alter their spending habits over the course of this year as a consequence of Brexit. - Guardian

Nearly two thirds of investors are concerned current global market turbulence will damage their portfolios, but most are riding it out anyway, new research reveals. Overall, some 69 per cent of savers with investments worth £1,000 or more are opting to leave them intact as financial markets are battered by trade wars, uncertainty over Brexit, and signs of a slowdown in both the US and Chinese economies. - Daily Mail

President Trump has threatened to reignite a transatlantic trade war by imposing hefty tariffs on European car imports. “I like punitive tariffs”, he said ahead of a US Commerce Department report this week which is expected to recommend that the EU vehicle industry be classified as a threat to US national security because it robs the country of an industrial base needed to produce military hardware. - The Times

Honda plans to close its Swindon factory, putting thousands of jobs at risk, the member of parliament for the local area has confirmed. Justin Tomlinson, Conservative MP for North Swindon, said the decision was "based on global trends and not Brexit as all European market production will consolidate in Japan in 2021". - Telegraph

The US cannot crush Huawei, the company’s founder has insisted, as he hit back against criminal indictments levelled at the firm and allegations that it poses a security threat. Washington has warned allies off using Huawei products in recent weeks. But Ren Zhengfei, whose daughter Meng Wanzhou – a fellow senior Huawei executive – is among those charged by US prosecutors, told the BBC on Monday that the firm would survive the pressure. - Guardian

Reckitt Benckiser's outgoing boss insisted he was worth every penny of his lavish pay having picked up almost £90m since taking the top job. Rakesh Kapoor said he had delivered huge returns for shareholders during his eight years running the consumer goods giant, which makes Durex condoms and Nurofen painkillers. - Daily Mail

The head of Britain’s industrial manufacturers’ lobbying group is set to attack the warring political classes for selfishly pursuing ideology in the delivery of an unsatisfactory withdrawal from the European Union that could end up as a catastrophe for UK businesses. In a broadside that appears to be aimed at Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group and the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, as well as the Labour leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, Dame Judith Hackitt lays the blame for disruption in British industry at Westminster. - The Times

Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's most senior official, declared that Brexit was "in God's hands" on Monday as he said Brussels would be open to delaying Brexit if it avoided a 'no deal' scenario. In an interview with German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung, the eccentric European Commission president said that Brexit was now being dictated by higher forces. - Telegraph

A coalition of 16 US states led by California has launched legal action against Donald Trump’s administration over his decision to declare a national emergency in order to fund a wall along the Mexico border. The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the US district court for the northern district of California after Trump invoked emergency powers on Friday when Congress declined his request for $5.7bn to help create his signature policy promise. - Guardian

Britain's 650-year-old treason law could be updated to allow jihadists returning from Syria to be prosecuted, the Home Secretary has said. Sajid Javid told the House of Commons yesterday that a change to the 1351 Treason Act was 'worth considering carefully'. - Daily Mail

The chief executive of Norwegian Air has denied that he lacks confidence in his airline after it emerged that he had sold his rights to new shares to undisclosed third parties on the cheap. The manoeuvre by Bjorn Kjos, the 72-year-old founder of the low-fares carrier, sent shares in Norwegian to a seven-year low, at one point dropping by nearly 10 per cent and closing down 4.3 per cent at NKr93.67, valuing the company’s stock at about NKr4.2 billion, or about £377 million. - The Times

Thirty-four migrants were rescued from a boat in the Channel on Monday in the biggest operation since Christmas and the most seized in a single vessel. Despite a tripling in Border Force cutters and new security measures in France since the Christmas surge in crossings, the 34 including women and children were intercepted on a small cabin boat in the Channel and brought to Dover. Three men were arrested on suspicion of immigration offences. - Telegraph

Most European companies have no target for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions even though 80% see climate change as a business risk, a survey has found. Among those that have set climate goals, only one in three stretch beyond 2025, according to the annual Carbon Disclosure Project report. - Guardian

Piles of rubbish fester in the street, and this was before today's strike by bin men in Birmingham began. The sacks were seen in the Bordesley Green area of the city at the weekend, a result of bin men refusing to do overtime since December 29 in a dispute about payments. - Daily Mail