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Brexit: May chairs cabinet ahead of statement to MPs as calls for her resignation continue - live news Brexit: May tells MPs she does not have enough support to win third meaningful vote – live news
(about 6 hours later)
Liam Fox has indicated the government could ignore MPs’ views from indicative Brexit votes this week if parliament’s stated choice goes against the Conservative manifesto, insisting the real choice is still between Theresa May’s deal and no deal, my colleague Peter Walker reports. May says this is her first address to MPs since her speech on Wednesday last week, when she blamed them for blocking Brexit.
Government could ignore indicative Brexit votes, says Liam Fox She says she was expressing her frustrations. She says she knows MPs are doing their jobs, and she respects the fact that people have strong views on both sides.
Katie Perrior, who worked in Number 10 as Theresa May’s director of communications before the 2017 general election, has joined those saying she should announce her resignation. Writing for the Times, Perrior said: May says the government is opposed to the Letwin amendment.
Maybe it’s time to stop finding scapegoats and admit that Theresa May and her lack of leadership has made a bad situation worse. With great sadness, it’s time for her to swap her departure date in return for the deal. It’s the least she can do. She says the government remains committed to trying to see if a Commons consensus can be reached if her deal is not passed.
Yesterday there were reports that cabinet minters were being invited to spend the hour before cabinet in a reading room looking at papers about the government’s plans for indicative votes. But the Telegraph’s Steven Swinford says that idea has been shelved. But she says she is “sceptical” of this process. In the past when this procedure has been tried, it has produced contradictory conclusions, or no conclusions at all.
Just heard that the reading room on indicative votes this morning for Cabinet ministers was pulledMinisters got the call early this morningUnclear what this means for both indicative votes and MV3 - Cabinet is now underway May says she is “sceptical” about whether allowing MPs indicative votes will produce a decision.
You can read all the amendments for this evening’s Brexit debate on the Commons order paper (pdf). The main cross-party indicative votes one has been tabled by Sir Oliver Letwin, the Conservative former cabinet minister. Theresa May is now making her Commons statement on Brexit and last week’s EU summit.
In an interview on the Today programme he said that any votes would be advisory rather than binding on the government and that it could take several rounds of voting to find a majority for any option - if one gets found at all. She starts by referring to her letter to Donald Tusk requesting a short article 50 extension.
Asked if it was possible that all options were rejected, he said: She says she wanted the UK to be able to leave the EU on 29 March.
Of course I have to accept that. I can’t predict what parliament will do. But she says she was conscious of the need to protect the union, and of the damage that a no-deal Brexit could do in Northern Ireland, where there is no executive able to take steps to minimise the risk.
Good morning. It has become customary at this point on a Monday for me to type out some spiel about how this is the decisive week for Brexit. But, frankly, you must all be getting fed up of those by now, so let’s just move on. She sums up the offer from the EU.
This morning Theresa May is chairing cabinet, before addressing MPs this afternoon ahead of a vote that may well see MPs voting to “take control” of the Brexit process. Quite how the rest of the week is going to pan out remains to be seen, but here are some of the things that may (or may not) get resolved before the end of the week. She says the government has today laid the statutory instrument changing Brexit date.
1) Will MPs get indicative votes on the way forward? Almost certainly, yes, is the answer, but we don’t know if that will be under a process directed by the government, or under a process directed by the House of Commons following the passing of a backbench amendment tonight. And we don’t know how long that process will take, and whether it will produce a majority for anything. Brexit date has already changed under international, she says. She says if MPs fail to pass the statutory instrument, that will create legal uncertainty. But it won’t change the internationally-recognised Brexit date.
2) Will May bring her own deal back to the Commons for a vote? At the end of last week her colleagues were assuming the vote would be on Tuesday, but that plan seems to have been shelved and now it is not clear whether the vote will even happen at all. May says she does not yet have enough support to win a third meaningful vote.
3) Will May back plans to move towards a softer Brexit, assuming MPs push for this, or will she firm up planning for a no deal? If she chooses the former option, Brexiters in her party will erupt. If the latter, pro-European ministers may resign en masse. Given May’s history of zig-zagging between the two strategies, it is hard to know where she will go. Almost two weeks ago she seemed to take no deal off the table. A week later, she did a U-turn and ruled out a long article 50 extension instead. I asked Labour why Jeremy Corbyn was opposed to splitting the votes on the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. (See 3.06pm.) A party source said Labour would not back something giving “zero clarity” about the future, which is why it wants its changes to the political declaration written into law.
4) Will she announce plans to stand down - possibly in return of Tory Brexiters agreeing to back her deal, or possibly in a more chaotic manner if her position becomes unsustainable? Andy Shaw, a reader, has got an even more specific answer.
Certainly, the pressure on her is not easying up. Here is today’s Sun splash. @AndrewSparrow re: 15:06 "The Labour statement does not explain why Corbyn refused to separate [the WA and PD]." Surely because the EU Withdrawal Act (s13(1)) explicitly requires the two to be voted on together?
The PM has shown courage. But to seal her deal and deliver Brexit, she needs to resignTomorrow's @TheSun front page editorial The Sun Says: Time's Up, Theresa pic.twitter.com/mLszhysLtl He is right. The relevant part of the act is here.
Here is the agenda for the day. And Politics.co.uk’s Ian Dunt is good on this too.
10am: Theresa May chairs a cabinet meeting. Think Corbyn is right on this. The future relationship document dictates the likelihood of the backstop coming into force. Without it, you cannot calculate the danger of the withdrawal agreement. https://t.co/AtbkLWEF1w
12.30pm: Downing Street lobby briefing. This is from my colleague Jessica Elgot.
After 3.30pm: May gives a statement to MPs about Brexit and last week’s EU summit. New - Understand PM is likely to say that as yet, there is not enough support to hold a third meaningful vote. Statement from May in the House of Commons at 3.30.
After 5pm: MPs begin the latest Brexit debate. At 10pm they are due to vote on an amendment calling for parliament to take control of the Brexit process. Two more questions from BTL.
Today I will be focusing exclusively on Brexit and, as usual, I will be covering the breaking news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. @andrew Do any sources suggest that the demo or the petition were discussed in cabinet?
You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads. This was raised at the Number 10 lobby briefing and, although the prime minister’s spokesman did not say exactly what was said about the march and the petition, he did not give the impression that a lot of time was spent discussing them, or that they are having much impact on the government’s thinking. The spokesman accepted that there were “strongly-held views” on Brexit on both sides. But he said the PM’s view was that the country had staged a “very large democratic exercise” and voted to leave, and that MPs had to honour this.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. @Andrew
I try to monitor the comments BTL but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply ATL, although I can’t promise to do this for everyone. Why is No. 10 saying that MV3 might not happen this week when the E.U. statement made it clear that it must happen this week and otherwise the May 22nd date is gone and the only options then left are either no deal or a Monty Python type "now for something completely different" plan by April 12th?
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. The EU offer is less blunt than that. Read what Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, said late on Thursday night (my bold text.)
In the first scenario, that is, if the withdrawal agreement is passed by the House of Commons next week, the European Council agrees to an extension until the 22nd of May.
In the second scenario, that is, if the withdrawal agreement is not approved by the House of Commons next week, the European Council agrees to an extension until the 12th of April, while expecting the United Kingdom to indicate a way forward. What this means in practice is that, until that date, all options will remain open, and the cliff-edge date will be delayed.
The UK government will still have a choice of a deal, no-deal, a long extension or revoking article 50.
This implies that if the UK were to pass the deal next week, and then request an extension of article 50 from 12 April until 22 May, that might be feasible.
The Labour party has just released this statement about Jeremy Corbyn’s meeting with Theresa May at lunchtime. A spokesman said:
Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May met for over an hour in parliament and had a frank and comprehensive exchange of views.
Jeremy Corbyn made clear there was no basis for bringing back the meaningful vote on Theresa May’s deal for a third time.
The Labour leader did not accept the prime minister’s suggestion that the withdrawal agreement could be separated from the political declaration.
This is more revealing than these meeting read-out statements often are. Here are the two key lines.
Theresa May is considering asking MPs to vote on the withdrawal agreement separately from the political declaration, Labour has revealed. Until now May has treated them both as a package, and MPs have been asked to vote on both together (eg, in the motion for MV2). But the EU summit communique issued last week said that, for the UK to get Brexit extended until 22 May, MPs just had to pass the withdrawal agreement. The EU statement did not mention the political declaration in the context of a vote this week. This is significant because there is little in the withdrawal agreement (which focuses on the transition, the £39bn payment and the backstop) that Labour objects to; most of Labour’s objections to May’s deal relate to the political declaration. The Labour statement does not explain why Corbyn refused to separate the two issues.
Corbyn told May she should abandon the third meaningful votes.
Corbyn was joined at the meeting by Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, and Nick Brown, the Labour chief whip. May was supported by Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, and Julian Smith, the government chief whip.
The Labour team came away with the clear impression that the government would not be bound by any decision of parliament in indicative votes. That is what Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, suggested this morning too.
Here is the Financial Times’ political editor, George Parker, on the choice facing Theresa May.
Big decision facing @theresa_may in next few hours. Many ERG MPs ready to back her deal tomorrow if she sets timetable for her departure, but maybe not enough? The PM will only drop the "R-bomb" if she's sure it will secure victory. DUP don't want to jump first. Mexican standoff!
Last month George Eustice resigned as fisheries minister because he was opposed to Theresa May’s willingness to contemplate extending article 50. He is seen as a relative hardliner on Brexiter - he once stood as a Ukip candidate - but in an interview with Radio 5 Live’s Emma Barnett this morning he said he favoured the Norway option. He explained:
The right settlement is somewhere in the space of what’s called the Norway option. It’s the European free trade association. The UK actually invented it in 1959, and we built a coalition of countries, including Norway, but in those days also Austria, Portugal and Sweden and others too.
And I think we should rely on existing legal rights under what’s called the EEA treaty, that’s the European Economic Area, like Norway – but leave the European Union as soon as we can, and effectively become an Efta state, an Efta member instead. That gives us a close economic tie with the European Union - but gives us our independence back.
Eustice also said he thought a majority of MPs would “get behind a variant of the Norway option”.
(But would Efta want the UK as a member? On Friday the prime minister of Iceland, one of the Efta countries, didn’t sound too keen.)
James Forsyth and Katy Balls have a useful cabinet write-up at the Spectator. Here’s an extract.
May also appears to be moving more firmly towards ruling out no deal. One minister says that it is the ‘the first time she has said it so definitively’. This minister says that ‘it is the issue of the union seems to be what has really convinced her’ of this.
On the World at One the housing minister Kit Malthouse dismissed the Letwin plan for indicative votes on Brexit, echoing what Number 10 said about it earlier. (See 1.28pm.) Matlhouse said:
I hope members across the house realise that it has significantly detrimental constitutional implications and will vote it down so that we can continue with an orderly, iterative process of reaching consensus across the house rather than a kind of X Factor.