This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
Brexit: MPs debate no-confidence motion after May's deal defeat – Politics live
Brexit: May's government defeats no-confidence motion by 325 to 306 votes – Politics live
(about 1 hour later)
Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, has put out this statement about her talks with Theresa May earlier. She said:
Jeremy Corbyn says he does not want to start talks with Theresa May until she rules out a no-deal Brexit.
We have had a useful discussion with the prime minister. These are critical times for the United Kingdom and we have indicated that first and foremost we will act in the national interest.
Theresa May has just announced, on a point of order, that she wants to start talks with the leaders of the opposition parties tonight about a way forward on Brexit.
Lessons will need to be learned from the vote in parliament. The issue of the backstop needs to be dealt and we will continue to work to that end.
The government has won by 325 votes to 306 - a majority of 19.
In keeping with our commitments in the confidence and supply agreement, which has benefitted every sector of society in Northern Ireland, the DUP is supporting the government this evening so that we can concentrate on the real challenges ahead of us.
This is from the BBC’s Joey D’Urso.
We will have further engagements in the coming days.
PMQs would be absolutely 🔥 if it was Tom Watson v Michael Gove every week
Here are some more quotes from the no confidence debate.
Here is the Labour MP Lisa Nandy on Michael Gove’s speech.
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, said the government should resign.
It can’t be very comforting to the Prime Minister that Michael Gove just used the closing speech of the no confidence debate to make a clear and shameless leadership pitch to the Tory Party
The prime minister is beholden to the DUP but the DUP will only support her in very certain circumstances. This is not just about the defeat of the government last night on Brexit, it is a government that is stuck, that can’t get its legislative programme through.
MPs are now voting on the no-confidence motion.
It has no majority support in this House, it is a government that [is] past its time. And if the government had any humility, had any self respect it would reflect on the scale of that defeat last night ... The government should recognise it has no moral authority, the government quite simply should go.
It is a very simple motion. It just says:
Nigel Dodds, the DUP leader at Westminster, said the DUP would be backing the government.
That this house has no confidence in Her Majesty’s government.
We believe it’s in the national interest to support the government at this time so the aims and objectives of the confidence and supply agreement we entered into can be achieved. Much work remains to be done on those matters.
The SNP, the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Green party have also signed it. You can read the signatories on the order paper here (pdf).
I don’t think the people in this country would rejoice at the prospect tonight if a general election were to be called. I’m not convinced that a general election would significantly change the composition of the House and of course it doesn’t change, whatever the outcome, it doesn’t change the choices that lie before us all.
Gove mentions investments that have been coming to Britain – all of those, “in the words of the BBC”, despite Brexit.
The timing of this motion, as we well know, has got much more to do with the internal dynamics of the Labour party than a genuine presentation of an alternative programme for government.
The government is spending more on the NHS. And the country has two new aircraft carriers, he says.
The Conservative MP Neil Parish, chair of the Commons environment committee, said people wanted the government to come together and deliver Brexit.
He says Corbyn wants to leave Nato and get rid of the nuclear deterrent. And he claimed that Corbyn once questioned why countries need big armies.
We are the party of government, we were elected to govern this country and so therefore we have to make a decision. We can’t sit contemplating our navels forever as to whether we’re going to make the decision or not.
Corbyn was present when a wreath was laid to commemorate those involved in the massacre of Israeli athletes. Corbyn said he was “present but not involved”, Gove says. Gove says that sums up Corbyn’s stance on national security. When the Commons voted to oppose Islamic State, Corbyn was also present but not involved.
John Woodcock, the former Labour MP who now sits as an independent, claimed some Labour MPs thought Jeremy Corbyn was unfit to be PM.
And Gove goes on to claim that Corbyn would not stand up to Putin. If he won’t stand up to Putin, how will he stand up for the national interest?
With a heavy heart I have to tell the House that I cannot support the no confidence motion tonight and some of my friends mutter disgrace, I hear some of them tutting.
Labour MPs are shouting “shame” very, very loudly. (The claims that Gove is making are to a large extent contested.)
I have to say that many of them have privately said ‘thank God that you have got the freedom to actually not support this’, because they are wrestling with their consciences, wanting desperately a Labour government, knowing that the leader of their party is as unfit to lead the country as he was when they voted against him in the no confidence motion of the party those years ago.
Gove finishes, with Tory MPs shouting “more” enthusiastically.
This is from the BBC’s Mark Devenport.
Michael Gove, the environment secretary, is winding up for the government now.
I understand @theresa_may is currently meeting a DUP delegation inside the Palace of Westminster
He says Tom Watson failed to mention Jeremy Corbyn in his speech. Gove and Watson have things in common, he says. They have both lost weight. And they both think Corbyn is unfit to lead the Labour party.
The SDLP, Labour’s sister party in Northern Ireland, which used to be represented at Westminster until it lost its three seats in 2017, has criticised Labour’s stance on Brexit. In a statement released by the People’s Vote campaign, the SDLP Brexit spokesperson Claire Hanna said:
Turning to the SNP, Gove says Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, did not say anything in his speech about the common fisheries policy, which is deeply unpopular with Scottish fishermen.
The British Labour party in parliament say that membership of the customs union would mean there was no need for an Irish backstop. This simply is not true. There is no Brexit deal available that does not require a backstop.
Tom Watson’s speech is getting rave reviews on Twitter – deservedly, because it was very good.
To be frank in the SDLP we are disappointed by the approach of the Labour leadership, who appear to place wooing DUP votes over protecting the Good Friday agreement. We absolutely acknowledge the concerns of many MPs about the impact of the withdrawal deal on their constituents, but the backstop does not fall into that category.
Here is some comment from other journalists.
The choices are between a deal with a backstop or a people’s vote with an option for the UK to stay in the EU, keeping the whole of the island of Ireland in the EU and removing any question of a backstop.
From CityAM’s Owen Bennett
Here is Emmanuel Macron’s take on where Britain stands after last night’s Brexit vote. He says the mendacious leave campaign has left MPs with the task of trying to implement the impossible.
Must say, @tom_watson is quietly destroying the PM and the Tories here. Very good closing speech.
"The first losers of [a no deal Brexit] are the British people". So, after last nights defeat of Theresa May's deal, what's next for Brexit? Here is French President Macron outlining the possible scenarios. https://t.co/yufoxVIaJb pic.twitter.com/gVmPktc8sb
From the Evening Standard’s Joe Murphy
George Osborne, the Evening Standard editor who was chancellor until he was sacked by Theresa May, reckons Macron has come up with a more realistic summary of Britain’s situation than the prime minister.
Wow, @tom_watson is so quietly savage tonight.
So here’s the French President giving a more realistic summary of the Brexit options facing Britain than the British Prime Minister. I thought the Brexiteers told us that the French will cave in because we buy their wine and cheese ... https://t.co/zlE3xoXuYp
From the BBC’s Jon Sopel
Here is the full transcript of what Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, told the European parliament this morning about the Commons Brexit vote, when he said: “The risk of a no deal has never been so high.”
.@tom_watson delivering a powerful wind up speech in the confidence debate. All the more effective because of its calm, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone. #BrexitVote
The transcript also includes the comments from Frans Timmermans, the European commission vice president, on the same subject. In the light of claims that a lot of the Brexit debate is driven by fantasy, it is appropriate that he ended his remarks with this (rather good) quote from CS Lewis.
From the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire
Let me end with a quote by CS Lewis: “We cannot go back and change the beginning. But we can start where we are and change the ending.”
Ouch! Reasonableness and sympathy deployed by @tom_watson as a devastating weapon against May. She had a face like thunder when he said people felt sorry for the PM but she must go
Another independent MP, Sylvia Hermon, who represents North Down in Northern Ireland, has said she will not be voting for the motion of no-confidence in the government, the New Statesman’s Patrick Maguire reports.
Watson says the question for MPs is whether it is worth giving May another chance to go back to Brussels, another chance to humiliate the UK, another chance to waste precious time.
This won’t be news to anyone who has so much as Googled her (niche audience I know), but Lady Hermon tells me she will back May tonight and indeed won’t ever vote in such a way that puts Corbyn closer to No10. Makes Labour’s long game a bit harder. https://t.co/4PVJEUJXNH
He says it was May who laid down impossible red lines. She refused to guarantee the rights of EU nationals. And she tried to shut out parliament. She has treated MPs with disdain, he says.
John Woodcock, who was elected as a Labour MP but now sits as an independent after leaving the party because of his opposition to Jeremy Corbyn and over a disciplinary case, has told the Commons he will not be voting for the motion of no-confidence in the government this evening. He said he thought Corbyn and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, were not fit to hold high office.
He says parliament is now having to assert its authority.
The Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, who delayed her caesarean section so that she could vote in last night’s division, and who had to be taken through the lobby in a wheelchair, will be “nodded through” tonight. That is a procedure normally used for MPs who are seriously ill. As long as they are on the parliamentary estate at the time of the vote, and witnessed by a whip, their vote is counted as if they had gone through the division lobby in person.
At every turn, May has promoted division instead of unity.
In a series of Tweets, Siddiq said she was doing this because she had received a personal assurance from the prime minister that the Tories would honour the system.
She has chosen to placate the most extreme of her colleagues, he says.
In light of the PM's personal assurances to me yesterday, I will be 'nodded through' for tonight's vote of no confidence. I went through the division lobby in a wheelchair last night because pairing is broken, there is no proxy voting, and I wanted my vote recorded.
What happened to those burning injustices that May said she would fight: Racism? Classism? Homelessness? Insecure jobs? All these problems have got worse.
Nodding through is not ideal, I will still have to travel to Parliament & wait for whips to check I am present even though I am giving birth tomorrow. The UK is in chaos and, clearly, much greater issues face the country, but Parliament needs dragging into the 21st century ASAP.
May will forever be known as the “nothing has changed” PM.
At his regular press briefing in Brussels earlier today, Margaritis Schinas, the spokesman for the European commission, said it was up to London to decide what happened next in the Brexit process. He said:
But something must change. May is too aloof, too set in her ways. She lacks the agility to bring people with her.
The next move has to come from London. There is nothing else we can do from here at this stage. What matters at this stage … is that we know what to expect from the UK, and that we don’t know.
It is not through lack of effort or dedication. The country feels sorry for the PM. Watson says he feels sorry for the PM. But that is not enough, he says.
The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has said Theresa May should resign – but also argued that if she survives the confidence vote she ought to be given a few days to find a way through the impasse. Speaking in the Senedd in Cardiff, Drakeford said:
He says Tories may feel loyal to May. But they know in their hearts she is “not capable of getting a deal through”.
We need a new House of Commons and a new government to find a fresh way forward. That approach should rule out a no-deal exit and protect jobs and the economy here in Wales.
That is why we need a general election, he says.
Any prime minister who finds herself defeated in the way this prime minister has been when attempting to discharge the single most important responsibility that will ever fall to her should resign. That is the constitutionally proper form of action.
Watson says he is not one of those people who questions Theresa May’s motives. He accepts she is motivated by duty, and that she is trying to honour the result of the referendum. But she has failed, and the failure is hers alone.
The greatest threat to Wales is that we crash out of the European Union with no deal at all, with all the damage that will cause to business, to jobs.
He says he admires her resilience. Other people would not have been able to put up with the humiliations she has endured. But May has failed.
He said the point may come when a people’s vote is the only way to break the impasse.
He says she has no majority for her flagship policy, no authority, and no alternative. She lost the vote by 432 votes to 202. That is not a mere flesh wound, he says.
But Drakeford also said May had told him in a telephone conversation that she would work with devolved administrations as well as parliamentarians to find a way through. He said:
He says May does not have the empathy or political skills to carry on as prime minister.
If she is in a position to do that after today, I think we have to allow her the few days at her disposal to see if that can be brought about. If there is a deal that she can do that meets the tests set out by my party, there may yet be a deal to be done. If that is not the case then I agree in those circumstances that the decision will have to go back to the people.
Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader, is winding up now for the opposition.
Drakeford met today with members of Plaid Cymru and Welsh Tories to discuss no-deal contingencies. He said he had not met members of Ukip because they did not believe there was any need to prepare for no-deal.
He says the UK is “more divided and fearful for the future than ever before”.
The Commons Brexit committee has published a report (pdf) saying MPs should be given a series of indicative votes on what happens next. Voting in the Commons is normally binary – MPs either vote for or against a proposition – but on Brexit there is increasing support for an alternative approach that would enable MPs to vote on a series of options, so as to show which had most support.
In Cardiff the Welsh assembly has passed a Plaid Cymru motion rejecting a no-deal Brexit in any circumstances. After the vote Adam Price, the Plaid leader, said:
The committee suggests MPs should be given a vote on four options. It explains them like this.
I’m very pleased that the Welsh government and our national parliament supported Plaid Cymru’s motion in rejecting in any circumstances an exit from the European Union with no deal. The agreement on our motion is a good sign that there is an emerging understanding in this place that we must come together to face problems that are crowding around Wales and the Welsh economy, threatening a perfect storm.
1. To hold another vote on the draft withdrawal agreement and framework for the future relationship.
2. To leave the EU with no deal on 29 March with no agreement on future relations in place and with no transition/implementation period.
3. To call on the government to seek to renegotiate the deal to achieve a specific outcome, be it a variation of the terms of the separation set out in the withdrawal agreement or providing clarity about the end state of future relations as set out in the political declaration. The main renegotiation possibilities would be: 1) Seeking changes to the text in the withdrawal agreement on the backstop arrangements; 2) Seeking a Canada-style deal: 3) Seeking to join the EEA through the EFTA pillar and remaining in a customs union with the EU or a variation on this.
4. In addition to these policy choices about the UK’s future relationship, parliament could decide to hold a second referendum to allow the British people to decide either which kind of Brexit deal they want or whether they wish to remain in the EU.
The committee, which is chaired by the Labour MP Hilary Benn, agreed the report by a majority. Four pro-Brexit members – the Tories Sir Christopher Chope, Craig Mackinlay, John Whittingdale and the DUP’s Sammy Wilson – voted against.
The government has not yet said when, or how, MPs will get to hold the debate that must take place following the Commons decision to vote down Theresa May’s Brexit deal yesterday. But in response to a point of order after the vote last night, John Bercow, the Speaker, indicated he would do what he could to ensure that debates and votes do take place. He said:
Of one thing I am sure: that which members wish to debate and which they determine shall be subject to a vote will be debated and voted upon. That seems to me to be so blindingly obvious that no sensible person would disagree with the proposition. If MPs want to debate and vote on a matter, that opportunity will, I am sure, unfold in the period ahead.
Anyone who thought that the first no-confidence debate in the Commons for almost a quarter of a century was going to be a vintage occasion will have been disappointed – at least by the opening statements. Jeremy Corbyn’s speech was a little rambling and definitely not one of his best. Theresa May’s was not hugely better, although she did seem to be enjoying herself more than the opposition leader (bizarrely, in the circumstances, but who knows how the May psyche works). It did not generate big news, but there were some interesting lines. Here they are:
May signalled she is not willing to consider keeping the UK in a customs union for good (which is a Labour demand) when she opens cross-party talks on a new approach to Brexit. When asked about this explicitly by Labour’s Yvette Cooper, May replied:
What I want to see is what the British people voted for. They voted for an end to free movement, they voted for an independent trade policy, they voted to end the jurisdiction of the European court of justice. And it is incumbent on this parliament to ensure that we deliver on that.
Being in the customs union would be incompatible with an independent trade policy, because the UK would not be free to strike its own trade deals. When the pro-European Tory Ken Clarke tackled her on the same issue, saying he had not met anyone who said they voted leave because they wanted to leave the customs union, May made a similar point. She said:
When they were [voting in the EU referendum] I believe they did vote to ensure we continue to have a good trading relationship with our nearest neighbours in the EU but also to improve our trading relationships with others around the world.
May was accused of being in denial about the extent of her difficulties over Brexit. Corbyn said the government was “not recognising the scale of the defeat they suffered last night”. Cooper said: “The problem is the prime minister seems to be talking as if she lost by 30 votes yesterday, not 230.” Labour’s Angela Eagle criticised May for “just repeating the lines to take that we have heard for the last five months ad nauseam” instead of accepting the need to change tack. And the SNP’s Pete Wishart said:
She’s lost a quarter of her cabinet, 170 members of her backbench want her gone, she’s experienced the biggest defeat in parliamentary history - what shred of credibility has her government got left? For goodness’ sake, prime minister, won’t you just go?
Corbyn revealed that, despite May saying she wants to hold cross-party talks with senior parliamentarians, she had not been in touch with him. He said:
There has been no offer of all-party talks, there has been no communication on all-party talks – all the prime minister said was she might talk to some members of the house. That isn’t reaching out.
Corbyn accused May of heading a “zombie government” and said any previous government would have resigned if it had lost as badly as May’s did last night. He said:
Last week they lost a vote on the finance bill, that’s what’s called supply. Yesterday they lost by the biggest margin ever, that’s what’s regarded as confidence. By any convention of this house, by any precedence, loss of both confidence and supply should mean they do the right thing and resign …
This government cannot govern and cannot command the support of parliament on the most important issue facing our country. Every previous prime minister in this situation would have resigned and called an election and it is the duty of this house to lead where the government has failed.
May said holding an election was “not in the national interest”. She said:
It would deepen division when we need unity, it would bring chaos when we need certainty, and it would bring delay when we need to move forward, so I believe this house should reject this motion.
At this crucial moment in our nation’s history, a general election is simply not in the national interest.
May criticised Corbyn’s record on security and said he would bring “national calamity” to the country if he became PM. She said:
This is the leader of the party of Attlee, who called for the dismantling of Nato, the leader of the party of Bevan, who says Britain should unilaterally disarm herself and cross our fingers that others follow suit, the leader of the party that helped deliver the Belfast agreement, invited IRA terrorists into this parliament just weeks after their colleagues had murdered a member of this House.
His leadership of the Labour party has been a betrayal of everything that party has stood for, a betrayal of the vast majority of its MPs and a betrayal of millions of decent and patriotic Labour voters.
I look across the house and see backbench members who spent years serving their country in office in a Labour government, but I fear that today this is simply not a party that many of its own MPs joined.
What he has done to his party is a national tragedy; what he would do to the country would be a national calamity.
David Cameron, the former Conservative prime minister, has told the BBC he does not regret calling the EU referendum. He said:
I do not regret calling the referendum. It was a promise I made two years before the 2015 general election, it was included in a manifesto, it was legislated for in parliament.
Obviously I regret that we lost that referendum. I deeply regret that. I was leading the campaign to stay in the European Union and obviously I regret the difficulties and problems we have been having in trying to implement the result of that referendum.
Cameron also said he backed Theresa May and he supported “her aim to have a partnership deal with Europe”. He continued: “That is what needs to be put in place. That is what parliament needs to try to deliver now.”
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, has told the Commons European scrutiny committee there would be “quite visible anger” among the public if the UK has not left the EU or begun a transition process to withdraw by April. He told the committee:
I think we will see quite visible anger from the public at large, and not just those who might be counted as leavers.
I have met quite a lot of erstwhile remainers who have said to me ‘I have changed my mind and next time I will vote leave’ or ‘Why is this proving such a difficult process?’
If they don’t see a delivery on the vote of 2016, it will be really serious indeed.
Appearing before the Commons’ education committee this morning, Damian Hinds, the education secretary for England, said he might have to second civil servants to other departments for no-deal Brexit planning.
Asked about no-deal planning, he said:
There’s a broader cross-governmental question about making sure that if there were to be a no deal, that those functions that are truly mission-critical, in the very sharpest sense, that government is collectively able to deliver. And that does involve departments like ours being asked to see who if needed we could release on a temporary basis to support those other departments.
Is there a risk of civil servants being taken out of the DfE to go to other departments? On a temporary basis, absolutely. That is the reality of no deal – across government we would have to find resources to be able to make sure that mission-critical things for people’s way of life, supply of food and medicines and so on, that those things are protected.
