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Brexit: MPs debate ruling out no-deal exit from EU – Politics live | Brexit: MPs debate ruling out no-deal exit from EU – Politics live |
(about 2 hours later) | |
Jack Dromey, the Labour MP who jointly tabled the no-deal amendment with Caroline Spelman, has just told Sky News that he does not intend to move the amendment. Earlier Spelman said that she would not be moving it either. (See 3.43pm.) Dromey said that MPs have already backed this amendment (in January - tonight’s is word-for-word the same) and he said that was important was for MPs to vote, by a massive majority, tonight for the government motion, ruling out a no-deal Brexit on 29 January. | |
Asked if there would be a vote on the motion, Spelman told Sky News she did not know, because any MP who signed it could push for a vote. | |
But, given what Dromey is saying, and what Yvette Cooper said earlier (see 5.34pm), it now looks as though we won’t get a vote on it. | |
Sky’s Jon Craig tells the programme that Spelman was “nobbled” and that, having decided to whip against the amendment, No 10 did not want a vote because some pro-European ministers would have voted in favour. | |
Leading Eurosceptics are lobbying right-of-centre governments in Europe to see if they would veto a British extension of article 50 and so ensure the UK drops out of the EU at the end of the month without a deal, my colleague Patrick Wintour reports. His story goes on: | |
In theory, only one country is required to wield its veto for any British request to be rejected. | |
It is highly unlikely this lobbying will succeed as the governments in countries such as Hungary, Italy and Poland have other more important battles to fight with the EU. But the lobbying underlines the precariousness of the British position. | |
And here it is in full. | |
Brexiters lobby for European veto of article 50 extension | |
Here are two Europe correspondents on the Malthouse compromise amendment. | |
From the Telegraph’s Peter Foster | |
This Malthouse “pay-as-you-go” #brexit amendment is utterly delusional. Unicorns really do have more chance of existing. Am on phone with EU source discuss extension and what might trigger leaders into harder than expected response?“That”. | |
From the Independent’s Jon Stone | |
One EU source to me after reading Malthouse: “My god they are mad” https://t.co/riYj6I7xK2 | |
Labour’s Jess Phillips is speaking in the debate now. She says she thinks Theresa May is “terrified” of the Brexiters in her party. Sir Nicholas Soames, the Conservative pro-European, intervenes. He says he has studied May, and he thinks May is “respectful” of the Brexiters, not frightened of them. Phillips says Soames knows May better than she does - partly because May does not speak to her, she says - but she insists that May looks like a “rabbit in the headlights” in her dealings with the Brexiters. | |
The Labour MP Yvette Cooper is speaking now. Heidi Allen, the Independent Group MP, asks Cooper if she will move the Spelman amendment herself in the light of the fact that Caroline Spelman won’t move it. (See 5.20pm.) Cooper says she will listen to what Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, says in his winding-up speech. If it is put to a vote, she will support it, she says. But she says tonight is about ruling out a no-deal Brexit on 29 March. | |
Damian Green, the Tory former first secretary of state, is speaking now. He has tabled what is known as the Malthouse compromise amendment. (See 3.10pm.) | |
Referring to the most controversial part of the amendment, paragraph 3, he acknowledges that Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has said this proposal (a transition without the UK having to agree to the backstop, basically) is unacceptable. But he says if the government just did everything Barnier said, it would never get anywhere. | |
He urges MPs to back the amendment, saying it offers a way forward. | |
This is from my colleague Jessica Elgot on the Spelman amendment. (See 5.20pm.) | |
Labour sources saying they will encourage other MPs to move the amendment anyway. Meanwhile huge soft Tory whipping operation underway to try and convince MPs that it is better to see victory on the government motion, not a backbench one. https://t.co/DEYPo4uCPM | |
Spelman says she is going to withdraw her amendment. | |
She says that that is because it is more important to have a big vote for a no-deal amendment (ie, a big majority for the government motion) than for her to carry on with an amendment already passed in January. | |
So she will withdraw her amendment, she says. | |
John Bercow, the Speaker, intervenes. He says she cannot withdraw it. It is being debated, and it is in the hands of the house. He says that she can choose not to move it. But other signatories to it could move it, he says. | |
Bercow dismisses Tory attempt to cancel a vote on a no-deal amendment embarrassing to the government. | |
This is awkward for Theresa May because the government motion would have been carried overwhelmingly, without the Conservative party splitting. But if the Spelman amendment is moved by one of the other signatories, as seems likely (Labour MPs Jack Dromey and Yvette Cooper are among those who have signed it), there probably will be a Tory split. | |
Dame Caroline Spelman, the Conservative who has tabled the amendment ruling out a no-deal Brexit, is speaking now. | |
Hopefully she will address reports that the government whips are trying to get her to pull her amendment. | |
This is from the Telegraph’s Jack Maidment. | |
New: Tory MP Dame Caroline Spelman under huge pressure from the Govt not to push her no-deal amendment to a vote amid fears it would result in rebel Remainer Tory ministers having to be sacked.People now trying to figure out if another signatory could move the amendment. Chaos. | |
Earlier John Bercow, the Speaker, said that at some point in the future he could end up having to rule on whether to allow another vote on the PM’s deal - or whether to block it on the grounds that parliamentary rules say the Commons should not be asked to vote on a matter it has already considered. (See 3.43pm.) | |
Sky’s Lewis Goodall points out that this could end up being explosive. He has more detail here. | |
VERY interesting. John Bercow, responding to a question from @angelaeagle, implied it's possible that if the government keeps bringing back the withdrawal agreement to the Commons, he could rule it out of order as it's not responding to the will of the House. Would be explosive. | |
Page 397 of erskine may: “A motion or an amendment which is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided during a session may not be brought forward again during that same session.” | |
Continued: “Whether the second motion is substantively the same as the first is a matter for the chair.” Essentially, as several MPs and parliamentary experts have said to me this afternoon- Bercow has the power to decide. | |
Here is the relevant passage from erskine May. Last time the power was used was in 1943. But as one parliamentary source said, “that’s because since the rule was implemented properly, governments and MPs don’t bother to try it, so it’s never usually needed.” pic.twitter.com/DWvnGU0SeM | |
Stephen Gethins, the SNP’s Europe spokesman, is speaking in the debate now. He says that a no-deal Brexit should have been ruled out straight after the referendum. The Scottish government brought together experts to come up with a compromise plan for Brexit, he says. But the UK government failed to do this, he says. | |
The Green MP Caroline Lucas says going for a no-deal Brexit is the action of a rogue state. Gethins agrees. | |