Cooper wins wider Tory support for new plan to allow MPs to block no-deal Brexit – Politics live

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May’s statement to MPs about Brexit

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.

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Michel Barnier says opposing no-deal Brexit will not stop it in March

EU’s chief negotiator warns UK will crash out unless ‘positive majority’ of MPs agree on new vision

Michel Barnier has warned that the move led by Labour MP Yvette Cooper to block the prime minister from delivering a no-deal Brexit is doomed to fail unless a majority for an alternative agreement is found.

The EU’s chief negotiator, in a speech in Brussels, said the “default” for the UK was still crashing out if MPs could not coalesce around a new vision of its future outside the bloc.

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May claims EU second referendum would threaten ‘social cohesion’

PM faces a looming revolt over a no-deal Brexit as Corbyn criticises her talks as ‘PR sham’

Theresa May doubled down on her opposition to a second Brexit referendum on Monday night, claiming it would threaten Britain’s “social cohesion” and insisting the centrepiece of her strategy remained negotiating changes to the Irish backstop.

With just 67 days to go until Britain is due by law to leave the European Union, May exasperated MPs and business groups by offering scant evidence that she was willing to change course.

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