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 17,000 students about to do a year abroad face huge uncertainty over funding and accommodation
For Alice Watkins, a Manchester University student, a year in Paris, then Madrid, as part of her degree was a dream. Now, with the turmoil of Brexit, she is preparing to arrive in France this summer with nowhere to live and no idea whether the money will still be there to support her.
“It’s horrible not knowing,” Watkins says. “We’ve been told to take at least £1,200 of our own cash to cover us for the first six weeks, and that we can’t realistically sort any accommodation before we arrive. Turning up abroad with nowhere to live is a big stress.”
Prime minister likely to have to request long article 50 extension after Bercow intervenes
Theresa May’s government has been plunged into constitutional chaos after the Speaker blocked the prime minister from asking MPs to vote on her Brexit deal for a third time unless it had fundamentally changed.
Central banks in spotlight amid Brexit uncertainty and growth concerns
The Bank’s reticence to raise rates has been hinted at by Gertjan Vlieghe and Silvana Tenreyro, two of the nine-member monetary policy committee.
Weaker growth prospects have come on top of concerns about Brexit, according to Martin Beck, lead UK economist at Oxford Economics, a consultancy. He expects a 9-0 vote to keep policy unchanged, saying:
The economy’s recent performance has been broadly in line with the MPC’s expectations. But public pronouncements by some committee members on downside risks have indicated a dovish shift around the pace of future rate hikes.
In light of the continued failure to get a Brexit deal through Parliament, Brexit uncertainty remains a key block on action by the MPC.
The Bank of England will also be in action later this week, with a monetary policy announcement on Thursday at midday.
Anything other than a unanimous vote to keep interest rates on hold would be a shock, for fairly obvious reasons.
I’m just back from the Downing Street lobby briefing. And it was a good illustration of the old rule that the length a briefing is in inverse proportion to its usefulness. (That’s because, if the reporters get a story, they want to wrap up quickly so they can file. If the briefing drags on, that’s because people keep asking questions in the hope that they might eventually get a useable reply.)
Here is the main takeaway.
Arriving at the EU foreign affairs council in Brussels this morning, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, said that he hoped there would be a third vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal tomorrow. But, he added, “we need to be comfortable that we’ll have the numbers.”
He said there were “some cautious signs of encouragement” in that Tories who have opposed the deal up to now, like Norman Lamont and Esther McVey, now want to see it passed. “But there is a lot more work to do,” Hunt added.
The Kyle-Wilson amendment was drawn up by two Labour MPs, Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson, who consulted with the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, and the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, over the precise wording.
One year after she broke the scandal, Carole Cadwalladr talks to whistleblower Christopher Wylie about the fallout for big tech, and the fight to hold the culprits to account
It’s a measure of how much has changed in a year that, last month the UK, parliament published an official report that called Facebook “digital gangsters” and said that Britain’s electoral laws no longer worked. It was a report that drew on hours of testimony from Cambridge Analytica directors, Facebook executives and dozens of expert witnesses: 73 in total, of whom MPs had asked 4,350 questions. And its conclusion? That Silicon Valley’s tech platforms were out of control, none more so than Facebook, which it said had treated parliament with “contempt”.
And it’s a measure of how much hasn’t changed that this was a news story for just two hours on a Monday morning before the next Westminster drama – the launch of the Independent Group – knocked it off the headline slots.
Leak shows Brussels planning for PM’s defeat and making efforts to prevent her deal being unpicked
The EU is war-gaming for the fall of Theresa May amid a complete collapse in confidence in the prime minister after a week of chaos over Brexit, a leaked document seen by the Observer reveals.
In the run-up to a crucial summit of EU leaders where May will ask for a delay to Brexit, Brussels fears there is little hope that she will succeed in passing her deal this week and is preparing itself for a change of the guard in Downing Street.
Party’s leader in European parliament says it must be prepared to field candidates
The Conservative party has contacted all its MEPs to ask them to consider running for election in May if the prime minister’s Brexit deal is defeated on Tuesday.
Ashley Fox, the party’s leader in the European parliament, contacted MEPs to ask them to think about their options in the event that Theresa May’s deal fails again.
The Democratic Unionist party is to continue intensive talks to try to reach an agreement to allow it to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal, with discussions focusing on domestic legal guarantees that Northern Ireland will have no regulatory divergence with the rest of the UK.
Downing Street is hopeful that the support of the DUP is key to unlocking the backing of many Conservative Brexiters when May brings her deal to the House of Commons for the third time.
The Irish premier, Leo Varadkar, has said London needs to tell the EU about what purpose an extension would serve and how long it would last.
Varadkar said he welcomed Westminster’s vote to extend Article 50 as it reduces the likelihood of a cliff edge, no-deal Brexit at the end of the month.
There seems to be two emerging options – ratification of the withdrawal agreement followed by a short extension into the summer, or a much longer extension that would give the UK time and space to decide what they want to do, including considering options that had been taken off the table like participation in the customs union and single market.
I think we need to be open to any request they make, listen attentively and be generous in our response. This matter will be now discussed further at next week’s European Council meeting and hopefully we will have more clarity from London in the meantime about their intentions.
Why EUCO should allow an extension, if the UK gov and her majority in the House of Commons are not ready for a cross-party approach to break the current deadlock ? https://t.co/lj1Tm4kmIg
Cable has now released a statement on his impending departure:
I indicated last year that, once the Brexit story had moved on and we had fought this year’s crucial local elections in 9,000 seats across England, it would be time for me to make way for a new generation. I set considerable store by having an orderly, business-like, succession unlike the power struggles in the other parties.
So I wanted you, our members, to know that, assuming Parliament does not collapse into an early general election, I will ask the party to begin a leadership contest in May.
Folks, it’s time to wrap up the blog for the night.
I’ll be back in a few hours to launch a new Politics live blog, bringing you all of Thursday’s Brexit and other political news. A reminder of what’s on the agenda for Thursday:
There have been some remarkable turns of phrase from commentators and politicians in their attempts to capture just what exactly has gone on in British politics in the last few days.
This is a turd of a deal, which has now been taken away and polished, and is now a polished turd. But it might be the best turd that we’ve got.
The House of Commons was a Benny Hill chase on acid, running through a Salvador Dali painting in a spaceship on its way to infinity.
A vague, and vain attempt to make sense of the great mad nights in British political history.
In 2012, Eliot Higgins began blogging about the news from his front room in Leicester. Seven years later, his investigative website Bellingcat has been responsible for revealing key aspects of some of the world’s biggest stories. And: Jonathan Freedland on the result of Theresa May’s meaningful vote
Eliot Higgins first became known for his investigations into the Syrian civil war, which he published on his blog Brown Moses. Higgins then went on to found Bellingcat, an investigative website that uses open source tools to expose the truth behind global news stories.
Higgins, who is the subject of a new documentary, tells Anushka Asthana how he and his international team of volunteers have gone about investigating some of the biggest stories of recent times, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the UK. He examines the importance of this type of work in an era of fake news and the impact it has had on his professional and personal life.
Boris Johnson, the Brexiter former foreign secretary, is speaking in the debate now. He says he had hoped that the EU would make the wholly reasonable changes the UK wanted. But the EU refused to do that.
Like Adam and Eve, they sowed a fig leaf that failed to cover the embarrassment of the UK, he says.
This deal has now reached the end of the road. If it is rejected tonight, I hope that it will be put to bed.
British PM secures ‘legally binding changes’ in Strasbourg talks with Jean-Claude Juncker
Theresa May has called for MPs to “come together” to back her deal after claiming to have secured the legally binding changes parliament wanted to ensure the EU cannot trap the UK in the Irish backstop and a permanent customs union.
But within minutes of the start of a late-night joint press conference in Strasbourg, those words rang hollow, as Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, conceded the EU had not agreed to the prime minister’s central demand.
Eurosceptics could move against the PM if Commons defeat leads to Brexit delay
Theresa May was battling on Sunday night to save her Brexit deal and prolong her premiership, amid signs Eurosceptics could move against her if there is a delay to leaving the EU.
The prime minister’s position looked precarious as she was unable to announce any progress in talks with the EU less than 48 hours before her House of Commons vote on the deal.
Stephen Barclay held talks with Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson over their plan to break Brexit deadlock
The cabinet minister in charge of Brexit has held detailed talks with Labour MPs who are championing plans for a second referendum – amid signs of mounting desperation inside Theresa May’s government about what to do if the prime minister’s deal suffers another crushing defeat on Tuesday.
Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, called the meeting with Labour’s Peter Kyle and Phil Wilson in Downing Street last Thursday as negotiations with Brussels to resolve the deadlock over the Northern Ireland backstop floundered and ministers privately began to concede that May’s plan could be doomed.
Britain’s Future has spent £340,000 promoting hard exit – but no one knows who’s funding it
The single biggest known British political advertiser on Facebook is a mysterious pro-Brexit campaign group pushing for a no-deal exit from the EU. The revelation about Britain’s Future, which has never disclosed the source of its funding or organisational structure, has raised concerns about the influence of “dark money” in British politics.
The little-known campaign group has spent more than £340,000 on Facebook adverts backing a hard Brexit since the social network began publishing lists of political advertisers last October, making it a bigger spender than every UK political party and the government combined.
Prime minister rebuffed as she pleads for last-ditch EU concessions before MPs vote
Theresa May appears set for a second humiliating defeat when she brings her Brexit deal back to parliament next week, after the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, rebuffed her pleas for last-minute concessions.
The prime minister urged MPs to “get it done” and back her deal, in an impassioned speech at a dockside warehouse in the leave-voting town of Grimsby.
Amber Rudd has apologised. According to the Press Association, she said she was “mortified at my clumsy language” and has apologised for describing Diane Abbott as “coloured”. (See 2.42pm.)
Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, has referred to Diane Abbott as “coloured”. As Patrick Maguire reports at the Staggers, she used the term in an interview with Jeremy Vine on Radio 2. Speaking about the abuse directed at MPs (see 1.12pm), Rudd said:
It definitely is worse if you’re a woman, and it’s worst of all if you’re a coloured woman. I know that Diane Abbott gets a huge amount of abuse, and I think that’s something we need to continue to call out.