UK eases Covid travel rules for tourist spots despite cabinet rift

Holiday hopes boosted as quarantine lifted for arrivals from Balearics, Malta and some Caribbean islands

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Ministers have sought to rescue the summer holiday season by easing travel restrictions for a number of tourist hotspots, amid a cabinet rift over plans to grant extra freedoms to people who have received both doses of their Covid vaccine.

But Thursday evening's long-awaited move to scrap self-isolation for Britons returning from certain countries risked being immediately undermined, when some European leaders indicated they would toughen their own border measures to stop the UK's surge in Delta variant infections in the UK hitting their shores.