Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Remainers and Brexiters alike threaten to resign as MPs prepare for second round of indicative votes
Theresa May’s government is on the verge of meltdown as cabinet ministers prepare to clash over whether to support plans for a softer Brexit and a possible lengthy delay before leaving the European Union.
In a decisive intervention, David Gauke, the justice secretary, said on Sunday that the prime minister would have to accept the possibility of backing a customs union if the measure is supported by parliament this week.
Shadow foreign secretary also says it is likely Labour would pursue policy of leaving the EU in government
Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, has said Labour is considering calling another vote of no confidence in Theresa May’s government following parliament’s failure to pass her Brexit deal with 10 days before the UK is due to leave.
The prime minister survived a vote of no confidence in January, the day after her Brexit deal was rejected for the first time. Her deal has since been voted down two further times.
Relaxing of rules means police in England and Wales no longer need grounds for suspicion
Police in England and Wales are being given more power to stop and search people without “reasonable suspicion” in an attempt to tackle knife crime.
The home secretary, Sajid Javid, has announced he is making it easier for officers to impose a section 60 order, which allows them to search anyone in an area if serious violence is anticipated.
Anger at attempt by ‘green aristocrat’ Earl Percy to develop wilderness site in London
It is a row that the scion of one of Britain’s oldest aristocratic families could rather do without as he carves out a career promoting his green credentials.
And, gallingly for the Percy dynasty (one of whose ancestors was the inspiration for Blackadder’s half-witted sidekick, Lord Percy) much of it has been self-inflicted. In the one camp is Earl Percy, friend to Wills and Kate and owner of Syon House, a historic Grade-I listed pile in west London where Henry VIII’s body once lay in state.
MP says Jon Conway only joined Beaconsfield Tories to defeat confidence motion
Dominic Grieve has blamed a former Ukip opponent for orchestrating an insurgency of his local association which has plunged his future into doubt after he lost a confidence vote.
The remain-supporting Tory MP is facing de-selection from his party after the Conservative association in his Beaconsfield constituency said it no longer had confidence in him at a “rowdy” meeting on Friday.
Singer ‘devastated’ but expects to make full recovery and tells fans to keep tickets
Sir Mick Jagger has said he is “devastated” to let down fans after the Rolling Stones announced they were postponing a tour of the US and Canada while the frontman seeks medical treatment.
The singer, 75, has been told by doctors that he cannot go on tour at the moment but has been advised that he is expected to make a full recovery. No further details of his condition were given.
A statement from the group said: “Unfortunately today the Rolling Stones have had to announce the postponement of their upcoming US/Canada tour dates – we apologise for any inconvenience this causes those who have tickets to shows but wish to reassure fans to hold on to these existing tickets, as they will be valid for rescheduled dates, which will be announced shortly.
“Mick has been advised by doctors that he cannot go on tour at this time, as he needs medical treatment.
Weekend travellers at St Pancras left ‘frustrated, fed up and out of pocket’
Thousands of passengers have had their travel plans thrown into chaos after Eurostar cancelled all services to and from St Pancras when a trespasser was caught brandishing a St George’s flag.
The 44-year-old spent the night on the roof of a tunnel leading away from the central London station, bringing Eurostar services to a halt before he was arrested by police on Saturday morning.
Welcome to Yorkshire calls in investigators over its boss Gary Verity’s expenses
The Yorkshire tourism body that has appointed independent investigators to examine its chief executive’s lavish expenses accepted £14.89m in public money over the past five years, the Guardian has learned.
More than half of Welcome to Yorkshire’s (WTY) income derived from the taxpayer between 2013 and 2018 but the organisation will not answer detailed questions about how that money was spent by its boss, Sir Gary Verity, who resigned last Friday.
Internal emails show Home Office asking colleagues to confirm they are not aware of persecutions
Home Office officials have been trying to persuade their Foreign Office colleagues to say publicly that it is safe to return people to the Democratic Republic of Congo despite the country having one of the worst human rights records in the world.
Internal emails obtained by the human rights organisation Justice First, and seen by the Guardian, show Home Office officials requesting that their British embassy colleagues in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, issue a statement saying they have no information that people are being persecuted after returning from the UK to the DRC.
Exclusive: Yemen rebel chief says foreign secretary ‘cannot be a peace broker and arms salesman’
The leader of the Houthi movement in Yemen has condemned the British foreign secretary for pressing Germany to relax its arms sales ban on Saudi Arabia, saying it was not possible for the UK to be a peace-broker in the country and an arms seller.
“Britain sending aid does not change the tragic reality of its arms sales. Jeremy Hunt cannot promote peace while at the same time acting as an arms salesman,” said Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, the head of the supreme revolutionary committee, in an interview with the Guardian.
Scotland Yard has now updated the arrest figures for today’s rallies:
As of 21:00hrs five arrests have been made at the demonstrations in central #London today: x2 for assault, x1 drunk & disorderly, x1 for assaulting a police officer & x1 male arrested after being identified as wanted for an offence in Herts. All are in custody.
Andrew Parker and Cressida Dick say numerous plots have been foiled in recent years
Far-right terrorism has been identified as a key threat to the safety and prosperity of the country, according to the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, and Cressida Dick, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police.
Writing in the Times, the pair warned that while Islamist terrorism remains the largest by scale, they are also “concerned about the growing threat from other forms of violent extremism … covering a spectrum of hate-driven ideologies, including the extreme right and left.”
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including reaction to the latest Commons Brexit votes and to Theresa May’s announcement that she will quit before next stage of negotiations with EU
Theresa May is now embarked on a new strategy to get her Brexit deal through the Commons. Her new strategy seems largely driven by the decision of John Bercow, the Speaker, to declare that he will rule out repeat votes on the same proposition (a ruling that he firmed up yesterday, and again today). The details of the new approach are complicated, and at this stage not all 100% clear, and some MPs are already questioning the legality of what she is trying to do. But this is what we know.
DUP to vote against government on withdrawal agreement
For avoidance of doubt, DUP will vote against agreement tomorrow, party source says
Sara Thornton says police are ‘really struggling’ with routine responses to crime
Government cuts left police retreating from the streets, solving just one in 10 offences and “really struggling” to deal with routine crime, the leader of Britain’s police chiefs has said.
Sara Thornton steps down this weekend as chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, after a four-year tenure during which her and her colleagues battled to get the government to recognise cuts were leading to fewer officers and resources to fight crime.
Scent linked to epileptic seizures could mean dogs can be trained to warn owners
Dogs can detect a telltale scent linked to epileptic seizures, scientists have discovered, raising the possibility that they could be trained to reliably warn owners when a seizure is imminent.
The findings may also help explain anecdotal reports that dogs are able to sense when their owner is about to have a seizure. Knowing when a seizure is going to occur could allow people with epilepsy to have greater control and independence, meaning they could take measures to avoid injury, seek help or take medication.
The Commons sitting has been suspended but, as my colleague Dan Sabbagh and others report, there is a bit of a row going on about the fact that the mace is still there.
Speaker has walked out suspending proceedings until the indicative votes are counted. But Tories are furiously pointing to the mace, still in its place, and trying to encourage deputy speaker Eleanor Laing to take the chair. Which would be a parliamentary take over...
The mace is still in place which I think is the cause of the uproar. It’s not meant to be there if we’re not sitting, but I don’t know if a brief suspension counts. It’s not normal for the Chamber to be occupied without anyone in the chair.
Speaker suspends sitting & vacates chair while we wait for results of this evening’s votes - as he had said he would do. Tory MPs object that the mace is still there. They object by trying to raise points of order to an empty chair. What a total shambles of a parliament.
John Bercow, the Speaker, says he is not able to announce the results of the indicative votes ballot yet because they have not all been counted. But he says he hopes to be able to announce them soon.
British Summer Time starts on Sunday as EU moves towards ending mandatory clock changes
It’s that time of year again, the ritual of trying to work out which of your electronic gadgets automatically adjust for clock changes, and which don’t. British Summer Time (BST) officially starts at 1am on Sunday 31 March, when the clocks go forward an hour to 2am.
With Brexit on the horizon, it remains to be seen whether changes to daylight savings time (DST) plans in continental Europe will have any effect on the British clocks in the future. This week MEPs voted to approve plans for European Union member states to abolish clock changes if they want.
Theresa May has promised Tory MPs she will step down as prime minister within the next few months in a bid to get Eurosceptics to back her Brexit deal.
The prime minister indicated she would resign only if her Brexit deal passes in order to allow a new leader to shape the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
Minister promises to investigate report of firefight involving British personnel as claims swirl about child soldiers in Saudi-led force
The foreign office minister Mark Field has promised to get to the bottom of “very serious and well sourced” allegations that British SAS soldiers have been injured in a firefight with Houthi rebel soldiers in Yemen.
He was answering an urgent question asked in the Commons on Tuesday by the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, who suggested the Britons may have been witnesses to war crimes, if weekend allegations were true that UK special forces were training child soldiers in the Saudi-led coalition.