Boris Johnson under pressure after Hammond slams no-deal Brexit - politics live

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/aug/14/boris-johnson-under-pressure-after-hammond-slams-no-deal-brexit-politics-live

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The Johnson supporter and former Conservative party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, has hit back at Hammond, accusing him of undermining the UK’s negotiating position by failing to prepare for no deal.

Duncan Smith told BBC Radio 4s Today programme:

By not preparing to leave with no deal, they made it certain that we’d have to swallow everything that the European Union gave us.

So the crime that has been committed in political terms was committed by him and those who did not prepare us to leave.

Good morning, I’m sitting in for Andrew Sparrow on the politics live blog today, bringing you all the latest developments as they happen.

Philip Hammond has put the cat among the pigeons by saying that leaving the EU without a deal would be a betrayal of the referendum result. He is leading a group of 20 Conservative MPs who are making clear their opposition to crashing out on 31 October.

Seven former cabinet ministers, including Greg Clark, David Gauke and Rory Stewart, have signed a letter to the prime minister in which they accuse the prime minister of setting the bar too high in negotiations with the EU to have a hope of getting changes to a deal.

Hammond, writing for the Times, also took an apparent swipe at Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s senior adviser, saying:

The unelected people who pull the strings of this government know that this is a demand the EU cannot, and will not, accede to.

No-deal Brexit would be a betrayal, says Philip Hammond

In other developments:

John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, reportedly vowed at an Edinburgh festival fringe event to fight attempts to sideline parliament “with every breath in my body”.

Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, has said his party must team up with the Liberal Democrats in order to stop a no-deal Brexit, as the new Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson made clear she would work with him, despite having ruled out an alliance with Jeremy Corbyn.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps said the government has issued an “invitation to tender” for 300 million worth of freight in preparation for a no-deal Brexit. He said: “We may never need it, and that is my goal. But if we do, my goal is also to be fully prepared.”

Coming up later:

Boris Johnson will be conducting the latest in his Facebook Live Q&A sessions (we are awaiting exact timings).

A campaigner who tried to prosecute Boris Johnson over his EU referendum bus claim is set to find out if he can take his legal fight to the supreme court.

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