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Brexit: Boris Johnson poised to suspend parliament – live news
Brexit: chaotic scenes in the Commons as parliament is suspended – live news
(32 minutes later)
And we’re back. The door has been ordered to be closed.
Parliament has been suspended until 14 October.
Parliament was meant to be back five minutes ago, but is still not back. Maybe someone lost their ermine robe.
Jeremy Corbyn is now shaking hands with John Bercow and Labour MPs are queued up to shake Bercow’s hand. The Speaker is taking his time with each handshake, giving Ian Blackford a big pat of the back and a rub of the arm. Bercow now hugging John McDonell. This might take a while.
A reminder that progroguing parliament does not just have implications for Brexit.
The camera has just panned back and we can see nine Conservative MPs.
Parliament will not sit again until 15 October and a host of bills will not be heard because of the break, including, as Jon Featonby from the British Red Cross points out, a bill about reuniting refugees in the UK with their family members.
The Conservative benches are almost empty, whereas the Labour benches are packed with MPs holding up signs saying “silenced”. These are quite extraordinary scenes.
Prorogation means that the Refugee Family Reunion Private Members' Bill falls. Thanks to @AngusMacNeilSNP for leading the efforts, and to many, many others for their support #familiestogether
John Bercow is reading out what happened. He sounds incredibly bored. He is saying that the leader of the House of Lords addressed the group and gave assent to the proroguing of parliament.
We are about two minutes away from parliament being prorogued. So, what is actually going to happen? My colleagues Martin Belam and Jessica Elgot have written this helpful guide including this information about the ceremony that is about to take place:
John Bercow has returned to the House of Commons, where he was given a huge round of applause by Labour MPs.
You cannot do anything in Westminster without a bit of pomp and circumstance. A ceremony of prorogation involves a message from the Queen being read in the House of Lords, and then Black Rod summoning MPs from the Commons to the Lords. A list of all the bills passed by the parliament is read, followed by a speech on behalf of the Queen announcing what has been achieved by the government before MPs are sent home. Given what is on the order paper in parliament on Monday, this is likely to happen very late this evening.
“I feel much more at home here,” he says.
UK parliament's prorogation: all your questions answered
The group – including Bercow and Black Rod – are now returning back to the House of Commons where opposition MPs have been singing.
Good evening/early hours of the morning everyone. This is Kate Lyons taking over from Mattha Busby.
Lords have addressed the Speaker and ordered that parliament has been prorogued. There was a lot of hat-tipping and now the Speaker, Black Rod and other key MPs have left the Lords.
Parliament has been suspended for 10 minutes to prepare for the prorogation formalities. Or as David Linden (SNP MP) put it “so folk can get their ermine robes and funny hats on”.
Whole thing just incredible. Speaker to Black Rod: This is not normal...it is an act of executive fiat’ pic.twitter.com/Gj6iBwyQ1U
In short, we’ve suspended so a few folk can get their ermine robes and funny hats on. pic.twitter.com/KEBGKrmWYV
There are some serious scenes going on right now, as opposition MPs band together in protest at the prorogation by singing.
Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts says all the checks and balances of parlimentary democracy have been “deliberately stormed”.
I can confirm that we just sang Scots Wha Hae and now it’s Plaid and Labour having a wee go as well... Tories utterly dumbfounded !
When the government teeters between avoiding and evading the law, this is neither normal nor honourable. We desperately need a new politics of citizens conventions in every nation, of truth and conciliation in an informed referendum, with article 50 revoked if necessary for this to happen.
Opposition MPs were holding up signs in parliament saying “silenced”.
The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas says that events tonight have clearly shown that the political system is broken.
pic.twitter.com/Tvtk2yHhMq
It is wrong that a prime minister can suspend parliament as a mere inconvenience simply to avoid scrutiny. It is wrong that he can cynically try to use the proposals for a general election as a way of getting us to crash out of the EU while we’re in the middle of a general election campaign. We can no longer continue with an uncodified constitution that depends on people playing by the rules when we have a feral government.
And one of these signs has been left on the Speaker’s chair. Labour MP Clive Lewis has posted a photograph of it alongside a quote suggesting what has happened today equates to “tyranny”.
Liberal Democrat MP Sir Ed Davey says his party is offering the prime minister a way out: “Put it to the people in a People’s Vote”.
“Silent acquiescence in the face of tyranny is no better than outright agreement.”#OurParliamentSilenced pic.twitter.com/DxlVXXWWjR
The SNP’s Ian Blackford says Johnson has lost every vote in the House of Commons since he became prime minister and predicted that he will be “swept from government” in the next election.
Bercow was loudly applauded by opposition MPs as he left the chamber. Labour MPs then chanted “shame on you!” to Conservatives as they exited.
The party’s leader in Westminster declares he is looking forward to Scotland securing independence “away from the clutches of a Tory Brexit Britain and an isolationist Britain taking us away from our partners and friends in the European Union”.
Bercow being applauded by the Opposition. Labour MPs screaming “shame on you!” to ministers. These are absolutely extraordinary scenes.
Amid mass abstentions, 293 MPs vote for the prime minister’s motion, while 46 vote against it. The course of action required the support of two-thirds of MPs.
Some classic Bercow in that last speech, which he interrupted to address an MP who was heckling him (I missed the original comment), to which Bercow responded:
“The majority does not satisfy the requirements of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act,” the Speaker, John Bercow, confirms.
“I require no response from you Mr Stephenson! You wouldn’t have the foggiest idea where to start in counselling me. I require no response from you, I require no response to you! Get out, man!”
“I earlier urged the house to trust the people but once again, the opposition think they know better,” says Boris Johnson, after his second attempt to trigger an early general election fails.
The heckling continues, someone yells: “Anti-deomocratic”.
“They want the British prime minister to go to a vital negotiation without the power to walk away. They want to delay Brexit yet again, without further reference to those who voted for it … And so now the house will move to adjourn and resume the state opening and the Queen’s speech on October 14, and I hope the opposition will use that time to reflect. Meanwhile, this government will press on with negotiating a deal.”
Responding, Jeremy Corbyn says: “The one thing the prime minister didn’t say was that he was going to obey the law of this country. He did not say, acknowledge or accept three votes that have taken place in this parliament, and under his request, the House is now due – apparently this evening – to be prorogued for one of the longest prorogations in history, simply in order to avoid any questioning of what he is doing or not doing … This government is a disgrace.”
Independent MP Ivan Lewis says parliament’s handling of Brexit has reduced the UK to a “laughing stock around the world” and warns of the economic consequences of the further insecurity – urging Brexit to be delivered.
“Whatever the deal is put to this house, there are many, many people who will vote against it because they want to thwart the terms of the referendum result,” he says. “It is many of the so-called progressives in this house who are fuelling rightwing extremism by showing contempt for the result. One can’t be a selective democrat.”
Tory MP Tom Tugenghat says the only answer to solving the current impasse is a general election.
Shortly after, John Bercow calls for a division.
Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake attacks Corbyn for “campaigning for decades to leave the EU on any terms possible” and criticises Labour MPs for opposing Theresa May’s “sensible deal” for the purposes of “party politics”.
He says it is reasonable for people to expect the UK to leave the EU with a deal, but calls for a People’s Vote to decide the best way forward.
Labour MP Phil Wilson echoes his call for another vote.
In response, Tory MP Andrew Selous says parliament is very good at saying no, but “bereft of ideas to come up with anything better” and calls on the result of the referendum to be respected by a new parliament that will “actually vote for something for a change”.
Labour MP Sir George Howarth then asks why the prime minister is putting his own ambitions above the national interest. “Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Well, the hour has come, but certainly not the man,” he says.
Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson commends Amber Rudd’s brave decision in resigning from the cabinet – in what could be interpreted as the extension of an olive branch to the former work and pensions secretary.
She goes on to tell Boris Johnson that people across the UK are afraid of a no-deal Brexit.
Labour & Co-operative MP Geraint Davies says that rather than spend millions on propaganda, the government should disclose Yellowhammer and use the money to help educate people about the horrors of the report.
Questioned about her party’s earlier announcement, Swinson says: “If people really want an end to this Brexit mire, the way to do that is to stop Brexit … A Liberal Democrat government would revoke article 50.”
She says elections should not be held at moments of national crisis.
Although I believe that a People’s Vote is the best way to resolve this, I say to the prime minister, he can have his general election as soon as he secures an extension, because otherwise we risk the scenario where there is a general election where we crash out of the European Union either during or in the immediate aftermath of such an election, and with parliament not sitting at those crucial moments, it would be the height of irresponsibility to dissolve parliament at that time.
Former Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan says the government has been “trammelled into a Kafkaesque trap” by the Fixed Term Parliaments Act and that he hopes the next government will act swiftly to abolish it.
He says that leaving the EU has been the most “poisonous, difficult decision of our life” and predicts that a general election – called with Brexit unresolved – would not resolve the problems the government faces either.
Blackford says Johnson has lost the support of Scottish Tories, referencing the resignation of former leader Ruth Davidson.
“We want an election,” he declares. “But we don’t want it on the prime minister’s terms. This is a prime minister who cannot be trusted, who is seeking to trap parliament tonight so he can drive us off the cliff edge.”
Bill Grant, one of 13 Tory MP’s in Scotland intervenes to say that in 2016 more people in Scotland voted to leave the EU than voted for the SNP in 2017.
Blackford says the SNP has won the last three elections, before going on to warn that the prime minister is set to demonstrate that the law “doesn’t matter”.
The prime minister is saying with those words that he’s going to ignore an act of parliament. That he is going to ignore the law. I would simply say to the Prime Minister: be careful.
You occupy the highest office in the land and what you’re demonstrating to the people of the United Kingdom is that the law doesn’t matter. That’s a very serious situation to be in.
I ask the prime minister to think again, to think very carefully or be prepared to pay the consequences of ignoring the law of this land.
SNP leader in Westminster Ian Blackford says he is ashamed at what he has seen in parliament this evening and calls on MPs to behave in a dignified manner.
However, DUP MP Ian Paisley claims that an SNP MP shouted “You’re a liar” when Boris Johnson was speaking, and also alleges that a Labour member shouted “You’re a thug” at the prime minister.
Blackford says he is condemning all such behaviour, and fellow SNP MP Stewart McDonald intervenes to compare the prorogation of parliament to events typical of a “failed state” that Tory MPs would denounce.
Johnson tells Corbyn to go to Brussels and negotiate a deal for himself, as the back and forth goes on, and the Labour leader retorts that his party is responsible and accuses the government of suspending parliament to avoid scrutiny.
In particularly fraught proceedings – with Tory MP Robert Goodwill at one point standing up and flapping his arms like a chicken as some of his colleagues shouted chicken – Corbyn declares that the prime minister is talking up no-deal to one wing of his party and talking up getting a deal to the other.
“The sad reality is that he is not preparing adequately for the first and not negotiating at all for the other,” he says. “This government is only interesting in shutting down parliament to avoid scrutiny. His obfuscations and evasions are being rumbled, both at home and abroad.”
“We are not going to walk into traps set by this government.”
