Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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.
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
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.
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.
Prime minister under pressure to say publicly she will hand over next stage to new leader
Theresa May is under intense pressure to set out a timetable for her departure from Downing Street to seal the support of Brexit hardliners for her twice-rejected deal.
The prime minister will address Conservative MPs at a meeting of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers on Wednesday as the House of Commons prepares to vote on alternatives to her Brexit deal.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including reaction to the Commons voting to try to take control of the Brexit process
The government has responded to the “Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU” petition and has announced that it will debate it in Westminster on Monday.
The petition has so far garnered more than 5.7m signatures.
This government will not revoke article 50. We will honour the result of the 2016 referendum and work with parliament to deliver a deal that ensures we leave the European Union.
It remains the government’s firm policy not to revoke article 50. We will honour the outcome of the 2016 referendum and work to deliver an exit which benefits everyone, whether they voted to leave or to remain.
A motion Conservative MP Nick Boles will table tomorrow has appeared. Here the full text from The Telegraph’s Anna Mikhailova, for those who fancy a headache:
Directive would apply to UK if it stayed in EU, and also during Brexit transition period
The European parliament has voted to scrap the twice-a-year custom of changing the clocks by an hour in spring and autumn by 2021, leaving only national governments to now give their assent.
The change would apply to the UK if it stays in the EU, and also during an extended transition period that is part of Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
Downing Street aides directly asked hard-Brexit Conservatives at Chequers on Sunday whether Theresa May’s resignation as prime minister would be enough to get them to endorse finally the exit deal struck with the European Union, it has emerged.
The afternoon summit at the prime minister’s country retreat was carefully choreographed so that Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith, Jacob Rees-Mogg and other Tory rebels present ended up in one-to-one chats with key No 10 staffers when the main meeting periodically broke up.
As not much has happened in the past hour, I’m going to close the blog by republishing my colleague Andrew Sparrow’s excellent snap analysis for those who missed it an hour or so ago. Thanks and goodnight.
Sky’s Lewis Goodall seems chirpy:
I’m going to bed and finally having a day off tomorrow. But in conclusion: something actually happened tonight.
Free movement, housing and social security rights at risk, says parliamentary report
EU citizens living in the UK would be stripped of their freedom of movement, housing and social security rights by Home Office legislation introduced to regulate immigration following Brexit, a parliamentary report has warned.
Despite repeated government reassurances that their privileges will be protected, a study by the joint committee on human rights (JCHR) concludes that more than 3 million Europeans living in Britain would be left in legal “limbo”.
Amendment giving MPs a series of votes on alternatives to May’s Brexit deal passes 329 votes to 302
MPs have inflicted a fresh humiliating defeat on Theresa May, voting to seize control of the parliamentary timetable to allow backbenchers to hold a series of votes on alternatives to her Brexit deal.
An amendment tabled by former Tory minister Oliver Letwin passed, by 329 votes to 302 on Monday night, as MPs expressed their exasperation at the government’s failure to set out a fresh approach.
With more than 120 MPs backing an amendment in support of indicative voting, it’s going to be a fraught five days
Many weeks have so far been billed as crunch weeks for Brexit. But with the revised departure date looming, Theresa May’s proposal looking all-but doomed and the prime minister’s own position openly questioned, the next days really do appear crucial. Here is what could happen and when.
High-stakes Chequers summit breaks up without agreement
Theresa May’s prospects of getting her Brexit deal through parliament this week dramatically receded on Sunday night after a high-stakes summit with Boris Johnson and other leading hard-Brexiters at her country retreat broke up without agreement.
Tory rebels present said that the prime minister repeated “all the same lines” about her deal and that nothing new emerged during the three-hour meeting, at which Jacob Rees-Mogg, Iain Duncan Smith and Dominic Raab were also present.
The PM has brought us to this crisis with a series of calamitous decisions
How has it come to this? Theresa May and her husband, Philip, have long been friends of mine and I have in the past admired her sense of duty and commitment to her party and her country. So it grieves me that her stubborn choices have left both in peril.
At a time when our politics needs statesmanship, not brinkmanship, when our divided people need time to heal and come back together, and when our country needs honest leadership rooted in reality not ideology, Mrs May has embraced division. Rather than providing the calm, compassionate and unifying leadership we so desperately needed after a divisive EU referendum campaign, she rushed to own Brexit. She has clung to power in the process, but she is letting us all down.
Shadow cabinet will clash this week over Norway-style deal or second referendum
Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet is set to clash again over Brexit this week, with supporters of a second referendum concerned that the Labour leadership will opt to facilitate a soft Brexit. With senior Labour figures openly calling for another public vote at the anti-Brexit march in London on Saturday, other influential MPs believe Corbyn’s inner circle is actually warming to a Norway-style Brexit that would see Britain leave the EU, but remain closely aligned to it.
Tensions between Labour and its pro-Remain activists are already high after the party released a tweet on Friday evening asking if supporters had any “big weekend plans” and called on them to go out leafleting for May’s local elections.
Official figures put the numbers at the people's vote Brexit march on Saturday at over 1 million. People from across the UK travelled to central London to demand a second vote on whether the UK should leave the EU