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Brexit: May suffers fresh defeat as MPs rule out no deal by majority of four – Politics live
Brexit: MPs told to pass deal by next Wednesday or face long article 50 extension - Politics live
(about 1 hour later)
MPs are now voting on the Green amendment (aka the Malthouse compromise one).
Tonight’s drama in parliament has driven the pound up to a two-week high against the dollar.
This is what it says.
Sterling has just hit $1.33 for the first time since 28th February. That’s a gain of over two cents, or 1.8%, as the currency enjoys its best day of 2019.
At end, add “; notes the steps taken by the government, the EU and its member states to minimise any disruption that may occur should the UK leave the EU without an agreed withdrawal agreement and proposes that the government should build on this work as follows:
As you can see, the pound’s having a volatile week - rising on Monday as Theresa May headed for talks with Jean-Claude Juncker, then plunging on Tuesday when attorney general Cox didn’t change his legal advice on the backstop.
1. That the government should publish the UK’s day one tariff schedules immediately;
Naeem Aslam of City firm Think Markets says traders are relieved that MPs voted not to accept no deal tonight. However....
2. To allow businesses to prepare for the operation of those tariffs, that the government should seek an extension of the article 50 process to 10.59pm on 22 May 2019, at which point the UK would leave the EU;
The fact is that it is comforting to know that no deal Brexit scenario is off the table, but at the same time there is no table. This is because May’s party is in more disarray and Brexit has become a laughing matter for everyone.
3. Thereafter, in a spirit of co-operation and in order to begin discussions on the future relationship, the government should offer a further set of mutual standstill agreements with the EU and member states for an agreed period ending no later than 30 December 2021, during which period the UK would pay an agreed sum equivalent to its net EU contributions and satisfy its other public international law obligations; and
Here is a Guardian guide to how MPs voted on the main motion (as amended) tonight.
4. The government should unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK.”
How did your MP vote in the March Brexit votes?
Theresa May has been defeated by four votes, because MPs have backed the Spelman amendment ruling out a no-deal Brexit for good by 312 votes to 308.
This is from my colleague Dan Sabbagh, who has been at the Downing Street briefing.
Theresa May’s decision to allow Tories a free vote on the main motion, and on the Malthouse compromise one, is in line with a proposal she made when she was shadow leader of the Commons in 2003, the Hansard Society’s Ruth Fox has just pointed out on the BBC.
Downing Street briefing just broken up. Ministers who voted against the whip tonight will be expected to resign, those who abstain *will not*.
Here's the 2003 speech by Theresa May, endorsing free votes, that @RuthFox01 just referenced | #BrexitVote https://t.co/XFSt5D48g7
Here is the text of the government motion being debated tomorrow.
Here is Yvette Cooper on why she pushed the amendment to a vote.
Tomorrow’s motion really clears things up pic.twitter.com/T2Xtvtzcfw
Voting now for amendment a. I welcome assurances from Ministers on the Government’s intentions & will vote for the main motion against No Deal if this amendment is not passed. But think it also helpful for House to have chance to vote for a simpler, clearer motion too
The division lists for tonight’s three votes should be on the Commons website here (although it has been crashing).
The Labour MP Debbie Abrahams thinks the Spelman amendment will be defeated.
This is from Alasdair de Costa at the Institute for Government showing how cabinet ministers voted on the main motion.
Don't think amend a will be carried....
Five attending members of the Cabinet did not vote on the Government's main motion: Amber Rudd, David Gauke, Greg Clark, David Mundell and Claire Perry. pic.twitter.com/5EmgA026iT
If that is right, it will be because Tory MPs who voted for it in January won’t vote for it tonight – because they think it is more important for the government motion to be passed by a huge majority (which would be a snub to the hard Brexiters).
Here is the key passage from Theresa May’s statement responding to the two defeats tonight.
To get that result, they have to defeat Spelman, because if Spelman were to pass, there would be no vote on the motion, which it would replace.
The motion we will table [tomorrow] will set out the fundamental choice facing this house.
This amendment is word-for-word the same as one passed by the Commons in January, after the first Brexit “next steps” vote. It was passed by 318 votes to 310 – a majority of eight.
If the house finds a way in the coming days to support a deal, it would allow the government to seek a short limited technical extension to article 50 to provide time to pass the necessary legislation and ratify the agreement we have reached with the EU.
Here is the list of 17 Tory rebels who voted for this amendment in January: Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire), Guto Bebb (Aberconwy), Nick Boles (Grantham and Stamford), Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe), Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon), Justine Greening (Putney), Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield), Sam Gyimah (East Surrey), Phillip Lee (Bracknell), Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford), Oliver Letwin (West Dorset), Mark Pawsey (Rugby), Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury), Anna Soubry (Broxtowe), Caroline Spelman (Meriden), Edward Vaizey (Wantage), and Sarah Wollaston (Totnes).
But let me be clear, such a short technical extension is only likely to be on offer if we have a deal in place.
And there were three Labour rebels who voted against: Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow), Kate Hoey (Vauxhall), and Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton).
Therefore, the house has to understand and accept that, if it is not willing to support a deal in the coming days, and as it is not willing to support leaving without a deal on 29 March, then it is suggesting that there will need to be a much longer extension to article 50. Such an extension would undoubtedly require the United Kingdom to hold European parliament elections in May 2019.
If the Spelman gets passed, there will be no vote on the government motion - because the amendment would replace it.
I do not think that would be the right outcome.
This is what the Spelman amendment says.
But the house needs to face up to the consequences of the decisions it has taken.
Line 1, leave out from “house” to end and add “rejects the United Kingdom leaving the European Union without a withdrawal agreement and a framework for the future relationship.”
John Bercow, the speaker, is reading out the motion for tomorrow.
John Bercow, the speaker, is putting the amendments to a vote.
The government motion tabled for tomorrow sets next Wednesday as the deadline for MPs to pass a Brexit deal. It says, if a deal is passed by then, the government will seek an extension of article 50 until 30 June. But if the deal is not passed by then, then the government will need a longer extension, requiring the UK to take part in European elections, the motion says.
He says Caroline Spelman said she did not want to move her amendment, but Yvette Cooper told him that she did want to move the amendment.
Bercow stresses that the motion will be amendable.
Cooper stands up. She starts saying, despite what Liam Fox said in his winding-up speech ...
This is from the BBC’s Adam Fleming.
Bercow says he does not want a speech. He just wants Cooper to move the amendment, which she does.
Reaction to tonight’s vote from @EU_Commission pic.twitter.com/7lKTOpWg3H
Fox says the Commons contracted out its decision-making to the people at the time of the referendum. The Commons is honour-bound to accept the result. He says the Lib Dems may not care about the views of the public, but he does.
Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Commons Brexit committee, says he agrees with May about the need for the Commons to show it is in favour of something. He says the government should hold indicative votes, as his committee proposes.
The British people have given parliament a clear instruction.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory Brexiter, asks the speaker to confirm that a motion of the house does not override statute law.
It is time for us to determine who is the boss.
John Bercow, the speaker, confirms that is the case.
Fox is refusing to take an intervention from Ken Clarke. Labour MPs start jeering at Fox, but Fox continues to refuse to give way. Clarke had longer to speak than he has got, he says.
Jeremy Corbyn says May must work with MPs to find a solution to Brexit.
He says Yvette Cooper earlier said she wanted to know if the result of this vote would mean the UK would not leave the EU on 29 March without an agreement. That is the position, he says. But he says in the longer term the only way to take no deal off the table is to have a deal. Having no Brexit would be even worse, he says.
Theresa May is speaking now.
Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, is winding up for the government.
She says tonight’s vote does not change the fundamental problem; if MPs want to rule out no deal, they must vote for a deal, she says.
He says some of those opposed to a no-deal Brexit want to reverse Brexit.
She says she has promised a vote on extending article 50. Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, will soon make a business statement confirming that this will happen on Thursday.
He says the government motion focuses on 29 March. At that point the UK either has to leave with a deal, or leave without a deal, or have an extension.
If MPs back a deal soon, the government will seek a short, technical extension of article 50.
An extension is not in the gift of the UK. All 27 EU countries would have to agree. And it is not clear what price the EU might extract for an extension.
But if MPs do not vote for a deal, and do not want a no-deal Brexit, there will have to be a longer extension. And that would require the UK to take part in the European elections.
He says what Labour wants is impossible. It wants to stay in the customs union, but it also wants an independent trade policy. You can’t have both, he says.
May says, if MPs do not vote for a Brexit deal soon, she will have to seek a long article 50 extension, which would mean the UK having to take party in the European elections.
He says for much of the debate he did not recognise the country being described. The UK is in control of its own future, he says.
Theresa May has lost again, but this time by a much bigger margin. MPs voted by 321 to 278 in favour of the motion ruling out a no-deal Brexit – a majority of 43.
Pennycook says the way the government worded its amendment (see 3.10pm) is unsatisfactory. At worst it is ambiguous, at best it is contradictory.
That is why Labour favours backing the Spelman amendment, he says.
Pennycook asks why any responsible government would contemplate an entirely avoidable act of self-harm.
And it would be a measure that does not have majority public support, he says.
He says, by repeating the mantra “No deal is better than a bad deal”, the government desensitised people to the risks involved.
Pennycook says May’s “No deal is better than a bad deal” slogan desensitised people to the risks involved.
Matthew Pennycook, the shadow Brexit minister, is winding up the debate for Labour now.
He says it is hard to overstate how damaging a no-deal Brexit in just over a fortnight would be. It would be “nothing short of a national disaster”, he says.
The government has suffered two defeats in the House of Lords on the trade bill.
In the first, peers voted by 285 to 184, a majority of 101, in favour of a cross-party amendment tabled by the Labour former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain aimed at ensuring the continuation of frictionless trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic and blocking the imposition of customs arrangements or other checks and controls after Brexit day.
Explaining what his amendment would do, Hain said:
It does not place the government in a straight-jacket. All it requires is the very outcome we are all - leave or remain, government or opposition, London or Dublin - supposed to be signed up to. Namely the invisible open border on the island of Ireland we currently have.
And in the second vote, peers voted by 254 to 187, a majority of 67, for a cross-party move to demand that a future trade deal with the EU would include measures that enable “all UK and EU citizens to exercise the same reciprocal rights to work, live and study for the purpose of the provision of trade in goods or services”.
Liz Truss, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told Radio 4’s PM programme this evening that she was “not inclined” to vote for the no-deal Brexit motion tonight. Tories have a free vote, so she does not have to. She said:
I’m going to vote to keep no-deal on the table.
She also said she thought May’s deal was still viable. She explained:
I think it is still alive, I do. Ultimately, when you look at the alternatives - which are a customs union, no Brexit or no-deal - Theresa May’s deal is more attractive than those other three options.
I think that’s the conclusion MPs will ultimately come to.
Leo Varadkar, the Irish leader, has said that if the UK government did go ahead with its plan to avoid customs checks at the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland in the event of a no-deal Brexit, it would soon end up having to set up a backstop-type arrangement anyway. He explained:
I don’t think the UK’s proposals will be workable for very long. They propose to treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the UK.
Northern Ireland will become a back door to the European single market and I think that in a matter of months that will lead to the need for checks at Northern Ireland’s ports.
So those that opposed the agreement may find that something very akin to the backstop is applied by the UK government in a few weeks’ time.
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 she would not be moving it either. (See 3.43pm.) Dromey said MPs had already backed the amendment (in January – tonight’s is word-for-word the same) and that what was important tonight was for MPs to vote, by a massive majority, for the government motion, ruling out a no-deal Brexit on 29 March.
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 looks as though there won’t be 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.
