Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The EU will delay its decision on the length of the next Brexit extension until next Monday or Tuesday to take into account the result of a vote on Boris Johnson’s demand for a pre-Christmas general election.
Speaking after a two-hour meeting of ambassadors in Brussels on Friday, the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said an “excellent” discussion had concluded without any clear way forward. “No decision,” he said.
Labour peer heads push to ‘save family reunion’ amid fears Brexit will stop young refugees from joining relatives in UK
Britain’s “hardening” attitude to asylum seekers threatens to end one of the last safe routes for children to reach the UK, Alf Dubs has said.
Lord Dubs believes the Home Office is targeting a permanent reduction in childrens’ rights, under an EU law known as the Dublin regulation, to join family in the UK after Brexit.
Prime minister awaits decision of EU27 over extension before next move
Boris Johnson’s cabinet is divided over how to proceed with Brexit, as the prime minister faces the stark choice of pressing ahead with his deal or gambling his premiership on a pre-Christmas general election.
After an inconclusive meeting with Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday morning in an attempt to agree an acceptable timetable for parliament to consider the bill, the prime minister told MPs at Wednesday’s PMQs that he was awaiting the decision of the EU27 over whether to grant an extension before settling his next move. The EU’s decision is unlikely to come before Friday.
Donald Tusk tells Boris Johnson he has recommended that the EU27 accept request for extension
Boris Johnson will be left waiting for the EU’s terms for a further Brexit extension until Friday, with signs of momentum building behind Donald Tusk’s plan for a delay up to 31 January.
The French government has privately voiced its concerns about taking the pressure off MPs to vote for the deal, which they believe could be ratified in 15 days, but EU sources said the bloc was seeking a “solution that works for all” and avoids a no deal exit.
Adam Bienkov, UK Political Editor of Business Insider, tweets an exchange he had with the prime minister’s spokesman when attempting to ask why Boris Johnson has insisted that there won’t be checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, even though his own impact assessment states that there will.
Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have failed to agree a timetable for pressing ahead with the “paused” Brexit bill.
Despite the prime minister’s threat on Tuesday to pull the withdrawal agreement bill (Wab) and press for a general election if MPs rejected his fast-track timetable for approving the legislation, Downing Street confirmed the pair had met on Wednesday.
PM fails to restrict scrutiny of bill to just three days in effort to meet 31 October deadline
Boris Johnson’s plan to fast-track his Brexit deal through parliament in time for next week’s 31 October deadline was blocked by MPs on Tuesday night, even after he threatened to pull it and press for a general election.
The prime minister said he would speak to EU leaders and urge them not to agree to a prolonged Brexit extension after former Tory cabinet ministers Philip Hammond and Rory Stewart joined with Labour to inflict a humiliating defeat on the government.
If, as expected, Brexit is delayed until the end of January, a general election would have to follow, the Press Association reports, citing an unnamed No 10 source.
Parliament and Corbyn have repeatedly voted for delay. On Saturday, parliament asked for a delay until January and, today, parliament blew its last chance. If parliament’s delay is agreed by Brussels, then the only way the country can move on is with an election. This parliament is broken.
The public will have to choose whether they want to get Brexit done with Boris or whether they want to spend 2020 having two referendums on Brexit and Scotland with Corbyn.
No10 source tonight.
Three points.
1). Parliament hasn’t blown its last chance. The 31st deadline was set by Brussels. The PM has said it’s his final deadline but Brussels is open to an extension.
2). Benn Act was passed by MPs but PM sent the letter.
Johnson is the author of his own misfortune. He only tried to bounce his deal through parliament because he knows it will not withstand scrutiny. A Brexit deal driven by the ideology of deregulation must be stopped.
Jean Claude-Juncker has spoken in the European parliament as his five-year term as president of the European commission comes to an end. He said Brexit had been 'a waste of time and a waste of energy' and that Brussels would be watching Westminster closely as it votes on a withdrawal agreement. Boris Johnson will make a final bid on Tuesday to force Brexit through by 31 October
Germany’s economic affairs minister has wholeheartedly backed the option of a Brexit extension beyond 31 October, as the European parliament pulled plans to hold a vote on Boris Johnson’s deal this week.
Peter Altmaier, a key ally of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said he believed a technical extension would be offered to allow extra time for legislation to pass or a longer period to accommodate a general election or second referendum.
Boris Johnson has been denied the opportunity to hold a second vote on his Brexit deal in the House of Commons after the Speaker, John Bercow, ruled that it would be “repetitive and disorderly”.
Bercow said it would break longstanding conventions for MPs to debate and vote on the agreement struck in Brussels last week, little more than two days after Saturday’s historic sitting.
Self-interested and reckless leadership defines too much of our past – and present
Boris Johnson concludes his Churchill biography with splutters against historians who insist the “story of humanity is not the story of great men and shining deeds”. The story of Winston Churchill, he cries, “is a pretty withering retort to all that malarkey. He and he alone made the difference.”
The story of Boris Johnson withers too. He is shrivelling Britain: making it cramped, poor and irrelevant. Modern historians may sniff at the 19th-century notion that “the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men” to use Thomas Carlyle’s words. The rest of us should not be so complacent and register the capacity of catastrophic men and women to change the world for the worse.
Donald Tusk says he is ‘waiting for letter’ that PM promised in phone call after Commons vote
Boris Johnson has confirmed in a phone call with the European council president Donald Tusk that he is sending a letter requesting a further Brexit delay beyond 31 October.
Despite the prime minister’s insistence that he would not “negotiate” a further extension of the UK’s membership of the EU, he confirmed on Saturday evening that he would be seeking such an extension.
Led by mayor Sadiq Khan, around one million protesters gathered to demand a fresh referendum
In one of the largest public demonstrations in British history, a crowd estimated at around one million marched outside parliament to demand MPs grant them a fresh referendum on Brexit.
Organisers of the march said the turnout, buoyed by the dry weather and the promise of “super Saturday”, was comparable to the previous second referendum rally six months ago, when a million people gathered in central London.
The Labour MP Sarah Champion says she will vote for Boris Johnson’s deal, BuzzFeed’s Alex Wickham reports (assuming MPs get the chance to vote on the deal tomorrow).
Sir Oliver Letwin has released a note to journalists explaining what his amendment will do. (See 4.05pm.) Here it is.
I am writing this as somebody that voted three times for Theresa May’s deal, who has guaranteed publicly to vote for any deal that provides for an orderly exit, and who will vote for Boris’s excellent deal at all stages through to third reading of the implementing legislation, without any changes whatsoever.
The one issue that concerns me is to keep the Benn Act extension in place as an insurance policy until the implementing legislation is passed by both Houses of Parliament and the UK’s withdrawal Is ratified.
Donald Tusk has failed to back Jean-Claude Juncker by refusing to rule out granting a further extension to the date of the UK’s departure from the EU. Speaking at a press conference after a new Brexit deal was endorsed by the EU, the European council president said he had ‘no idea’ what would happen in the House of Commons
The Irish PM said on Thursday he had 'mixed feelings' over the Brexit deal reached between the UK and the EU. Speaking at a press conference after the deal was ratified and sent to the UK parliament for approval, the taoiseach said he regretted Brexit but added that 'there will always be a place at the table for the United Kingdom, if they ever choose to come back'
European commission president puts pressure on British MPs to pass new Brexit deal by pouring doubt on the possibility of any further extension. Arriving in Brussels for the EU summit, Juncker said there was no argument for further delay
For those of you who missed this, late last night Louise Ellman, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, announced she was leaving the Labour Party because she could “no longer advocate voting Labour when it risks Corbyn becoming PM”.
Dame Louise, 73, who is Jewish, said she had been “deeply troubled” by the “growth of anti-Semitism” in Labour in recent years.
I have made the truly agonising decision to leave the Labour Party after 55 years. I can no longer advocate voting Labour when it risks Corbyn becoming PM. I will continue to serve the people of Liverpool Riverside as I have had the honour to do since 1997. pic.twitter.com/3BTzUacZvo
Lord Adonis is up and tweeting early, as he often does. He is reiterating his view that Johnson will end up being forced to ask the EU for an extension beyond 31 October.
Obviously Parliament cannot vote tomorrow on a deal which has not been agreed, let alone published, as a legal text. So he will still have to apply for an extension, which is the key operative fact today