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Justice secretary says leaving EU without deal would have ‘very adverse effect’
The justice secretary has said he has grave concerns about the prospect of leaving the European Union without a deal, saying it would have a “very adverse effect” on the UK’s economy, security and union with Northern Ireland.
David Gauke said the government was planning for the contingency of no deal, but suggested he would support extending article 50 if a deal between the UK and EU was not reached, since a no-deal Brexit was not in the national interest. He added that he expected the government to act responsibly if the current deadlock prevailed.
Company says move is a precaution in case WTO tariffs apply to EU-UK trade
Porsche is asking British customers to sign a contract committing them to pay a surcharge of up to 10% of their vehicles’ purchase price if there is a no-deal Brexit.
Cars made in Europe could attract tariffs of 10% if imported to the UK under the terms of the World Trade Organization, the default trading relationship if the UK and the EU are unable to agree a transition period before 29 March.
Discussions could lead to new party consisting of six or more Labour MPs plus some Tories
Intense discussions are taking place at Westminster that could lead to the emergence of a new centrist party consisting of six or more disaffected anti-Brexit Labour MPs along with the involvement of some Conservatives and the backing of the Liberal Democrats.
Labour MPs reported that some of those involved had lobbied backbench colleagues they thought were sympathetic as to how they could “make the shift” away from a tribal loyalty to the party.
PM defeated by 303 votes to 258, plunging hopes of uniting her party around renegotiated deal into chaos
Theresa May has suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of hardline Eurosceptics, plunging her hopes of uniting the Conservatives around a renegotiated Brexit deal into chaos.
The prime minister failed to win support for her EU strategy after the European Research Group (ERG), led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, abstained on a government motion because it appeared to rule out a no-deal Brexit.
Theresa May has suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of hardline Brexit supporters who refused to support her approach to leaving the EU. May was not present for the defeat, by 303 votes to 258, in which she again lost control of her party in the crucial final weeks before Britain is due to leave the EU on 29 March. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, demanded May come to the Commons to explain her Brexit plan in the absence of parliamentary support for her approach
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the latest Commons debate and votes on what should happen next with Brexit
Anna Soubry, the Conservative pro-European, described the result as a “body blow” to Theresa May. Soubry said:
The prime minister has been dealt yet another body blow. This is really serious stuff.
What is happening is a profound lack of leadership from the very top of government.
We have a Conservative party - the party of business, of economic competence and prosperity - gambling with the real lives of my constituents, their futures, their jobs, their children and grandchildren.
This is outrageous and, from the Conservative Party in particular, it is not acceptable any longer.
Ex-ambassadors and high commissioners say UK is weakened by ‘fiasco’
More than 40 former British ambassadors and high commissioners have written to Theresa May warning her that Brexit has turned into a “national crisis” and urging her to delay proceedings until the government has greater clarity about Britain’s likely future relationship with Europe.
The letter, signed by many of the most senior diplomats of the last 20 years, underlines concerns that British influence in the world will wane if the country leaves Europe’s trading and foreign policy bloc.
Labour leader struggling to balance conflicting forces in his party over Brexit
Jeremy Corbyn faces up to 10 resignations from the Labour frontbench if he fails to throw his party’s weight behind a fresh attempt to force Theresa May to submit her Brexit deal to a referendum in a fortnight’s time, frustrated MPs are warning.
With tension mounting among anti-Brexit Labour MPs and grassroots members, several junior shadow ministers have told the Guardian they are prepared to resign their posts if Corbyn doesn’t whip his MPs to vote for a pro-referendum amendment at the end of the month.
There are plenty of thoughtful, pragmatic remainers and leavers. They’re just not getting any airtime
Brexit has divided Britain – everyone says so. Families have been fractured, friendships blighted. Fury – yes, fury – hangs heavy in the air. Well, maybe. Perhaps it’s just the furious – the politicians, the punters, the pundits – who are getting all the airtime.
Just after the referendum I made a Panorama documentary in the West Midlands asking people why they had voted the way they had. The leavers, the majority, thumped their tubs in triumph. The remainers hung their heads in despair at the simple-mindedness of the leavers. Standard stuff.
Chief negotiator Olly Robbins was overheard in a Brussels bar, discussing strategy
Theresa May’s high-stakes Brexit strategy may have been accidentally revealed after her chief negotiator Olly Robbins was overheard in a Brussels bar saying MPs will be given a last-minute choice between her deal and a lengthy delay.
The prime minister has repeatedly insisted that the government intends to leave the EU as planned on 29 March, and urged MPs to “hold our nerve”, while she tries to renegotiate changes to the Irish backstop.
This amendment would stop the government from running down the clock on the Brexit negotiations, hoping members of parliament can be blackmailed into supporting a botched deal.
The Labour MP Yvette Cooper has published details of her latest plan to ensure that MPs get the chance to vote to rule out a no-deal Brexit. Here are the key points.
This bill would require the prime minister and parliament to take crucial decisions by the middle of March at the very latest on whether the UK is leaving with a deal, without a deal or seeking an extension to article 50.
It forces the prime minister to tell us whether she wants to leave with no deal or to extend article 50 if she still hasn’t got a deal in place by the middle of March. This bill creates a parliamentary safeguard to prevent us drifting into no deal by accident, and to prevent those crucial decisions being left until the final fortnight. The risks to jobs, the NHS and security from no deal are too great for us to stand back and let the government drift.
Theresa May has appealed to MPs for more time to push Brussels into agreeing to changes to her Brexit deal, in an update to the Commons that contained no new announcements and reiterated her opposition to a Labour compromise plan.
With negotiations over possible changes to the Irish border backstop at a crucial stage, parliament needed to hold its nerve, the prime minister said, adding that a Brexit motion to be debated on Thursday would reiterate those intentions.
PM will stress her continued focus on Irish backstop but EU indicates it will not give way
Theresa May hopes to convince the House of Commons on Tuesday to give her another fortnight’s grace to keep pushing for changes to the Irish backstop – despite the insistence of Michel Barnier that it is Britain that must compromise.
With 45 days to go until Britain is due by law to leave the EU, with or without a deal, the prime minister will address MPs about progress in the Brexit talks, No 10 announced on Monday.
But Rory Stewart says PM’s letter showed ‘a lot of common ground’ between parties
One of Theresa May’s ministers has said the prime minister has rejected Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit plan of a customs union but insisted her letter to the Labour leader showed there was “a lot of common ground” between the parties.
“What’s happening here is not a shifting of red lines,” Rory Stewart, the prisons minister, told BBC Breakfast.
The former foreign secretary says UK must have ability to exit Irish backstop unilaterally
Meanwhile, the prisons minister, Rory Stewart, says Theresa May has rejected Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal for a customs union post-Brexit but suggested that the parties are closer together than some people think.
He told BBC Breakfast:
The prime minister remains very clear that she thinks that a very major economy like the United Kingdom needs to have the freedom to be able to make its own trade deals, so she’s disagreeing with Jeremy Corbyn’s suggestion that we enter a permanent customs union.
What she is saying is that we have a lot if common ground, a lot more common ground perhaps than people have acknowledged, on things like environmental protections, workers’ rights, making sure that we get investment into areas of the country which haven’t done as well out of the last few years as other parts of the country.
Good morning, this is Haroon Siddique sitting in for Andrew Sparrow again. I’ll be attempting to keep you up to speed with the most significant politic developments of the day. Given the number of comments the blog attracts, if you want to get my attention, the best way is probably to Tweet me.
Ahead of the Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay’s meeting with the European chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, in Brussels this evening, Boris Johnson has insisted that the Irish backstop must be amended to give the UK a unilateral out within a specified time period.
The argument is now about how to get out of the backstop. And how to make sure that the UK isn’t locked in that prison of the customs union. I think that you would need to have a time limit.
It [the deal] would have to give the United Kingdom a UK-sized exit from the backstop. We would have to be able to get out by a certain time and we would have to be able to get out of our own volition. The most promising way forward is to do what is called the Malthouse compromise.
James Brokenshire says Commons will have chance to block no-deal departure
The government has sought to buy Theresa May more time to put together a workable Brexit deal by promising MPs another say by the end of the month, as business leaders said the process was now in the “emergency zone”.
The communities secretary, James Brokenshire, said that if no finalised deal were put to the Commons by 27 February, MPs would again be given an amendable motion to consider. This would give them the chance to block a no-deal departure or make other interventions.
Nissan’s bombshell for the city has dented confidence, but citizens draw strength from their football team
Andrew Cammiss got up at four yesterday morning to set off on a 250-mile trip to Oxford for a third division football match. “I took my lad Niall who’s named after my favourite player,” he reveals. Along with other club legends Peter Reid and Kevin Phillips, an image of Niall Quinn is inked on the 39-year-old superfan’s body. “It takes my mind off things. Tattoos show my love for the lads.”
By “things” he means the latest kick in the teeth to his home city. Nissan has scrapped plans to manufacture the X-Trail sport-utility vehicle there. Despite reassurances that the cancellation does not imperil the plant, which employs about 7,000 people, Cammiss fears the worst. “I’ve a cousin and uncle who work there. Everyone knows someone who works there. If Nissan goes we’ll be gutted for a bit, but we’ll get used to it. There’s always the football.”
Cross-party calls for transport secretary’s dismissal follow collapse of £13.8m contract to Seaborne Freight
Theresa May faced cross-party calls to sack her transport secretary, Chris Grayling, last night, after the calamitous collapse of a no-deal Brexit ferry contract handed to a company with no ships.
Senior Tories said the prime minister had turned “a blind eye” to Grayling’s decision to award the £13.8m contract to Seaborne Freight to run ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend, despite widespread derision and accusations that it had been awarded illegally.
The president of the European council caused a tabloid feeding frenzy with his ‘special place in hell’ remark but what makes him tick?
Donald Tusk has it in him to be a bit of a hooligan. His younger self, he admits, would “roam the streets cruising for a bruising” to break the monotony of communist life in his home-town of Gdańsk, the port city on Poland’s Baltic coast.
Contrary to the image of the typical bloodless Brussels Eurocrat, the president of the European council, who stands alongside Jean-Claude Juncker as the most senior of EU figures, is a man of passion with a feel for who is on the right side of history. Last week it was frustration, not boredom, that brought out the inner wrecking ball.
Although there is a cloud over economy, the silver lining is central banks are more dovish
After the synchronised global economic expansion of 2017 came the asynchronous growth of 2018, when most countries other than the US started to experience slowdowns. Worries about US inflation, the US Federal Reserve’s policy trajectory, trade wars, Italian budget and debt woes, China’s slowdown and emerging-market fragilities led to a sharp fall in global equity markets toward the end of the year.
The good news at the start of 2019 is that the risk of an outright global recession is low. The bad news is that we are heading into a year of synchronised global deceleration; growth will fall toward – and, in some cases, below – potential in most regions.