Brexit

Tuesday

Steerpike

Watch: David Lammy checks his phone during Brexit debate

David Lammy has said Boris Johnson’s bid to fast track his Brexit bill through Parliament means MPs won’t have enough time to scrutinise it properly. Lammy said ‘giving MPs so little time to scrutinise one of the most consequential pieces of legislation we’ll vote on is as transparent as it is cynical’. But while fellow Labour MP Kate Hoey was quizzing the Prime Minister on what reassurances he could give to the people of Northern Ireland, Mr S couldn’t help but notice a certain MP busily tapping away on his phone. Mr S hopes that the MP for Tottenham was making notes on the withdrawal bill… Update: David Lammy has

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris Johnson’s election threat to wavering Labour MPs

The key Brexit vote tonight is on the programme motion. The sense is that the government has the votes to carry the second reading. But that wouldn’t guarantee the UK leaving on 31 October, as the committee and report stages could take weeks and see a slew of amendment added to the bill. If Boris Johnson is to meet his 31 October deadline, he’ll need to carry the programme motion which would see all the Commons stages of the bill done in the next 60 hours or so. Right now this vote is, as us nervous journalists like to say, ‘too close to call’. In an attempt to pressure MPs into approving

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The clumsy whipping operation playing out in parliament

The debate on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill is as noisy as you might expect, given how high emotions are on both sides. What is less predictable is whether MPs will be debating the legislation tomorrow, or whether the government will pull the bill after losing its programme motion vote tonight.  It’s not clear where the numbers are for this vote on the timetable for scrutinising the legislation. But the Tories have made the threat of pulling the legislation after a defeat and moving to an election. Behind the scenes, whips and No. 10 aides are working feverishly to try to shore up their support, not just from Tory MPs but

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

What Caroline Flint’s Brexit critics fail to understand

It must feel pretty lonely being Caroline Flint right now. The Labour MP has made herself unpopular with her comrades by backing Boris Johnson’s deal to leave the EU. Flint campaigned for Remain but accepts that her Don Valley constituency voted 68 per cent Leave. In the former mining towns of her South Yorkshire seat, Flint points out, the figure was closer to 80 per cent. ‘The voices in our mining villages remain unheard, despite their support for Labour over many decades,’ she records in her Labour case for respecting the outcome of the 2016 referendum.  Both Flint and her case have now felt the ire of the progressive Brexitariat,

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Meet Dominic Slack-Oxley: the biggest source of fake news in Britain

Allow me to introduce Dominic Slack-Oxley. Never heard of him, I hear you cry. Oh but you have. You hear from him every time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV news. Slack-Oxley is everywhere. More than Facebook or Vladimir Putin, he is the most reliable source of fake news in Britain. When you read about ‘Downing Street sources’ saying with absolute authority that Boris Johnson would never send a letter to Brussels to extend the Article 50 deadline, only for him to do just that, Slack-Oxley is to blame. When political correspondents boast of their exclusive access to ‘Number 10 sources,’ ‘Government sources’ and the ‘Prime

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Let’s be honest about what a second referendum means

A second referendum would be a political abomination. And it’s about time more of us said so. We need to get real about what a second referendum would mean. If we have another referendum in which Remain is an option on the ballot paper, it will be one of the few times in the history of British democracy that the British people voted for something and it didn’t happen. It will be the first time we made a clear, mass democratic choice and the political class turned around to us and said: ‘Sorry, you can’t have that. You have to vote again.’ The precedent this would set would be dreadful.

Monday

Robert Peston

This will be the make-or-break day for Boris Johnson’s Brexit

The important vote today will be on the timetable, or programme motion, for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the law that must pass before Brexit. The government wants it on the statute book by 31 October. Labour will try to humiliate the PM by forcing a delay. One minister tells me that the programme motion is therefore the ‘real meaningful vote’. Tory rebels say they will probably back Boris Johnson’s timetable if he enshrines the protection of environmental standards and workers’ rights in the bill and if the bill transfers to parliament power to decide whether transition to full Brexit is to last 14 months, 26 months or 38 months. But

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will MPs block the government’s mad dash to get the Withdrawal Agreement Bill through?

Appropriately, given the length of time it has taken politicians of all colours to continue putting off taking any sort of decision on Brexit, the government has decided to try to break the legislative speed record this week by rushing through the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in just a few days. Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg announced the timetable for the legislation in a business statement to the Commons this afternoon, telling MPs that they will be rattling through the second reading tomorrow, as well as starting the committee stage, which will continue the following day, with all Commons stages wrapping up by Thursday. There are threats to make MPs

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why everyone benefitted from Bercow’s refusal to allow today’s meaningful vote

It was hardly a surprise that this afternoon John Bercow ruled out allowing the government to bring back its meaningful vote on Brexit. Still less of a surprise that this ruling took up nearly an hour in the Commons of points of order from MPs on all sides making points which changed the minds of no-one, and certainly not the Speaker. The Speaker’s argument was as the one the Tories had been preparing for over the weekend: he ruled that it would be ‘repetitive and disorderly’ to hold a second vote on the same motion. What they perhaps hadn’t prepared for was the Speaker doing a series of impersonations of

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Tories buoyed by response to Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal

Is this the week Boris Johnson passes his Brexit deal? As ever with Brexit, there is a chance that what is meant to be a decisive week in terms of the UK’s exit from the European Union ends up leading to more delay and confusion. However, whatever happens in the coming days, senior Tories are increasingly relaxed. It’s not that ministers are confident they will be able to pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill unscathed. Instead they believe Johnson’s deal puts the party in a good position for whatever comes next. The risk to Johnson agreeing a deal before a general election was that senior Brexiteers in his own party would

The Spectator

Full list: the MPs backing Boris Johnson’s deal

After a remarkable turnaround, Boris Johnson succeeded in brokering a Brexit deal with the European Union last week. Now, he has the difficult task of navigating it through the House of Commons. On Saturday, Boris Johnson pulled a vote on his deal, after MPs backed Oliver Letwin’s amendment, which forced the government to ask for an extension, even if a Brexit deal had been backed by the House of Commons. On Monday, the government will therefore hold a new meaningful vote on the deal to begin the ratification process. To win the vote, Boris needs the backing of 320 MPs – a majority in Parliament. There are currently 288 Tory MPs

Saturday

The Spectator

Text of Boris’s letter to EU: ‘an extension would be damaging to us all’

Boris Johnson has written a (signed) letter to the EU saying that a Brexit delay ‘would damage the interests of the UK and our EU partners’. To comply with the Benn Act, the Prime Minister has also sent an (unsigned) letter formally requesting a Brexit extension. Here is the full text of both letters: 10 DOWNING STREET LONDON SW1A 2AA THE PRIME MINISTER Dear Donald, It was good to see you again at the European Council this week where we agreed the historic new deal to permit the orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on 31 October. I am deeply grateful to you, President Juncker and

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Boris sends three letters to the EU – and says he does NOT want a Brexit extension

The Prime Minister will today send, but not sign, a letter requesting a Brexit delay till January 31 2020, and will simultaneously tell EU leaders that Parliament wants the delay, not him or his government. This will put him in all-out conflict with MPs, who have ordered him to ask EU leaders for a three-month Brexit delay, under the terms of the Benn Act they forced on him. On the advice of his Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox, Johnson believes he will be complying – in a narrow sense – with the terms of the Benn Act when his EU ambassador Sir Tim Barrow hands an unsigned photocopy of the pro forma

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Twelve Brexit lessons from today’s drama in the Commons

Here are the important points about today’s emergency vote on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal – which turned into a vote on whether the Prime Minister should write to the EU requesting a three-month Brexit delay. First, Johnson would have won if Northern Ireland’s ten DUP, his supposed partners in government, had not voted against him. Johnson has paid a price for agreeing a Brexit settlement for Northern Ireland which the DUP sees as betraying the union of Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Second, the narrowness of the defeat for Johnson implies that there is a route for him to secure Brexit by October 31 or shortly after that – because he needs just

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris Johnson has 72 hours to win over a dozen MPs

Today was meant to be the day that parliament decided on Brexit. But this parliament will always choose to postpone that moment. By voting for the Letwin amendment by 322 to 306, the Commons chose to avoid stating whether it backs the new Brexit deal or not.  The next key moment will come on Monday when there will be a meaningful vote on the deal. Judging from the vote on the Letwin amendment, Boris Johnson has 306 solid votes both for his deal and a programme motion that would get the legislation through by the 31 October. So he needs to find 14 more votes between now and then. Oliver Letwin

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May delivers her verdict on Boris Johnson’s deal

Boris Johnson can be forgiven for feeling worried when Theresa May took to her feet in the Commons just now. The former prime minister started with the words: ‘I intend to rebel…’. Fortunately for her successor, she then added: ‘…against all of those who don’t want to deliver Brexit.’ May said she intended to back the deal because it came down to a simple question: ‘when we voted to trigger Article 50, did we really mean it? When the two main parties…stood on manifestos to deliver Brexit, did we really mean it? I think there can only be one answer to that: yes, we did mean it…because if this parliament

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The question for wavering MPs: do they really trust Boris Johnson?

Boris Johnson is still pursuing today’s vote as a decisive moment for the Brexit deal, rather than the start of yet another delay, with the Letwin amendment meaning the real meaningful vote could be moved to Tuesday. His opponents are speaking in a similar vein, framing the choice facing those MPs yet to make up their minds as being one concerning how trustworthy the Prime Minister is. Perhaps the most powerful argument against trusting Johnson came from DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds, who told the Chamber that: ‘It was once said that no British prime minister could ever agree to such terms and indeed those who sought the leadership of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

With ‘glutinous emollience’, Boris Johnson tries to win the House round

Boris Johnson is in ‘glutinous emollience’ mode today. His opening statement in the debate was not combative but an attempt to cajole and persuade. He said that he would draw on the talents of the whole House in the next stage of the negotiations. In response to Philip Hammond, he accepted the Nandy / Snell amendments which would enable parliament to set the government’s approach to the next stage of the negotiations with the EU. Even when calling on Oliver Letwin not to move his amendment—which threatens to muddy the waters today as Katy explains—he stressed that he thought Letwin was motivated by good intentions. But if the Letwin amendment

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will the Brexit deal get a majority?

The numbers will be tight today. As I say in The Sun this morning, one minister believes that things are so close that there is a real chance that the Speaker John Bercow may end up having to break a tied vote. Though if the Letwin amendment passes, the vote this afternoon will lose some of its clarity. It is remarkable that Boris Johnson is so close to getting a majority for his deal despite having lost the support of the DUP. Cabinet Ministers are increasingly optimistic that the government might just pull this off. When Cabinet met yesterday afternoon, the Chief Whip Spencer ‘scrupulously avoided giving any numbers’, according

Sajid Javid

The world wants MPs to get Brexit done

Today is a historic moment for our country. After 85 days of hard graft, the Prime Minister has brought home a new Brexit deal – and I believe MPs should vote for it. Despite being told it was impossible, we have successfully re-opened the old Withdrawal Agreement and removed the Irish border backstop. In its place is a new agreement that maintains the open border all sides wanted while ensuring the United Kingdom takes back control of its money, borders, trade and laws. As MPs gather today – the first time the Commons has sat on a Saturday since the Falklands – they should know the world is watching. I