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Brexit: DUP denies softening position on Irish backstop – live news
Brexit: Boris Johnson heckled in Rotherham over suspension of parliament – live news
(about 4 hours later)
Jeremy Corbyn has urged people to register to vote. As a spur he claims that Boris Johnson team have admitted they want to fix the date of the election to make it harder for people to register.
Q: What’s the probability of a Brexit deal?
We're ready. Are you?Register to vote today: https://t.co/vYH9vXVPXQ pic.twitter.com/zlTYEY85LA
We’re working incredibly hard. We’ve made a good deal of progress, he says. “We’ll see where we get” on Monday. “I’m cautiously optimistic, but whatever happens we will come out on October 31st.”
Meanwhile, Momentum is launching a new digital tool for students to decide whether to vote at university or at home in an effort to drive up the Labour vote in marginal seas.
Q: Will you commit to mass transit system in Leeds?
Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat – home to students of Brunel University London – will be targeted by the campaign group who believe they can overturn the prime minister’s 5,000-strong majority.
Oh God, Johnson said. I want to do it, Leeds should have a mass transit system, but I’m not going to commit to a budget to it today.
The new tool will allow students to put in both their home and university postcodes and will indicate which location will ultimately be more advantageous to register to vote in order to enable a Labour victory.
Q: Are you committed to Yorkshire devolution.
Momentum launches digital tool to help students register to vote
Further work needs to be done on that Johnson says, acknowledging different views.
Here’s some highbrow reaction to Bernard Jenkin’s claim that that Speaker Bercow is leading a “majoritarian dictatorship” against Brexit (see earlier).
Q: Why has Sheffield been underfunded?
comical to hear Bernard Jenkins complaining about a “majoritarian dictatorship” in Commons led by wicked Speaker when majoritarian diktat ( as warned by Mill) is precisely what has been gvt policy since Referendum
I’ve just but £3.6bn into towns, Johnson says before admitted it won’t apply to Sheffield. I’m reluctant to make more spending commitments.
Sir Bernard Jenkins is completely out of his depth. Democracy is about permanent discussion, deliberation and the construction of majorities. To describe a cross-party majority in the House of Commons as “majoritarian dictatorship “ is a baby crying when he doesn’t get his way. https://t.co/8jRHVrJcy9
Q: Do you still think police forces are ‘spaffing up the wall’ on abuse allegations?
Here’s more from that Sammy Wilson interview rejecting the Times report that DUP is softening its stance on the Irish backstop.
That’s not what I said, Johnson said. I want to see police officers fighting crime, he added.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Wilson, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman, said: “The Times article is totally untrue. It’s an unsourced article. What it says is contrary to the position, which we have adopted throughout these negotiations.
Fact check by my boss:
“And it runs contrary to what the government is saying, because the government has made it quite clear that it will not accept an arrangement which has a backstop, which separates Northern Ireland out from the rest United Kingdom.”
Boris Johnson tells reporter from Rotherham Advertiser he didn't say money spent on investigations into historic child abuse was "spaffed up the wall". This must be an imposter then...https://t.co/HY6TGJ5bli
But Wilson conceded that there had been “different attitude” in the talks this week between Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart, Leo Varadkar.
Q: Why did you delay the domestic abuse bill?
He said:
The bill is certainly going to be carried over. It will right there in the Queen’s speech, Johnson says.
We want to see a deal, the UK government wants to see a deal. And I think that as the deadline approaches, the Irish government recognise the damage to their economy if they don’t try and get some arrangement with the UK, because they have a significant stake in keeping the UK market open for their exporters.
In the Q&A Johnson says political uncertainty won’t put him off getting Brexit done by 31 October. He also repeats that there will be “ample time” to debate Brexit, in response to the heckler.
We have always said that there are alternative means by which the border can be policed without creating the hard border.
Johnson confirms plans to devolve transport to regions in the north. “It is time for the north to run its own trains,” he says. This will involve powers over fares, stations and rolling stock, Johnson says.
Asked whether the DUP was open to allowing some EU legislation to apply in Northern Ireland, Wilson said:
The arrangement will involve a partnership between the railways and the north.
That’s something that we said to the prime minister ... that where it was appropriate and EU legislation was necessary to keep the free flow of trade across the Irish border, especially in the agrifood industry, and where it didn’t damage our relationships with our biggest market in GB, then, of course, that’s the kind of thing that the North Ireland assembly should be open to consider, and that would not be opposed to that kind of arrangement. But that’s different from giving carte blanche to the EU and saying whatever regulations you introduced in the future will automatically apply to Northern Ireland whether they’re good for Northern Ireland, or whether they damage the Northern Ireland economy. We’ve all been reasonable, as far as this is concerned, because we understand that there are there are industry interests, and that there are good reasons why cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is beneficial on occasions.
Johnson comes up with a better joke about pacer trains.
The senior Conservative MP and leading Brexiter Bernard Jenkin has launched an attack on John Bercow accusing him of being “partisan” and holding too much power.
Boris Johnson on Pacers: “I love buses but not when they are supposed to be trains.”
He was responding to the Speaker’s warning that parliament would use “procedural creativity” to stop a no-deal Brexit in a speech which he also likened Boris Johnson to a bank robber.
Here’s video of that heckler:
Jenkin told to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The office of Speaker has become irretrievably politicised and radicalised. It would have been unthinkable 10 or 15 years ago for the Speaker of the House of Commons to launch a personal attack on the prime minister like this.”
“Get back to Parliament” shouts protester at Boris Johnson speech. pic.twitter.com/Eb3LPm1foO
Jenkin called for reform of the office of Speaker and claimed that under Bercow, support for Brexit had been marginalised because it was a minority view among MPs.
Helen Pidd, who is in Rotherham, says the heckler was promptly thrown out.
He said: “For one individual in now what is a contested, televised very public and controversial position to have so much unregulated, untrammelled power, is something that the House of Commons is going to have to look at ...
Heckler just thrown out of the Convention of the North for heckling Boris Johnson, telling him to get back to parliament and listen to MPs.
“Maybe I should ask my unconstitutional affairs committee to look at the role of Speaker because it’s clearly not functioning in the way that it used to function until Mr Bercow arrived.”
He added:
We usually have majority governments, and the Speaker of the House of Commons is there to ensure the protection of minorities. We’ve got a minority government, a very partisan Speaker, and a Speaker who is using the majority and doing nothing to protect the minority.
The number of leavers in the House of Commons is vastly outnumbered by the number of MPs who voted remain. And if the speakership is to become a majoritarian office like the speakership in the [US] Congress, is a very different proposition.
He’s not subject to any court or any … it’s a kind of majoritarian dictatorship position.
It would be very sensible if the Speaker is going to make a controversial decision, that should be a consensus decision amongst him and his deputies, not just a sole decision. It will be more of a collective.
Jenkin also suggested Bercow had resigned as Speaker before he was pushed.
He’s avoided personal scrutiny of his own personal behaviour, even though he’s introduced all kinds of new systems to regulate the behaviour of MPs. People have speculated that one of the reasons he’s going is because finally the house has voted to look at the historic cases, which would include his own case.
Sammy Wilson MP, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman, has also dismissed that Times report, which claimed his party has softened its red lines on a Northern Ireland-only backstop.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said it was “totally untrue”.
According to the Larne Times, Wilson earlier told the BBC:
We will not be accepting separate arrangements for Northern Ireland that cut us off from the United Kingdom. The only different arrangements we will accept for Northern Ireland are those where the assembly has total scrutiny of any EU legislation it decides are in the interest of Northern Ireland and doesn’t damage our relationship with the UK.
And in those situations we will consider adopting appropriate legislation if we believe it is to the advantage of industry in Northern Ireland.
Boris Johnson continues his unofficial election campaign with another trip to Labour’s northern heartlands today.
In a speech in Rotherham to the Convention of the North, he is expected to promise northern communities “control over the things that matter to them”, and a new Northern Powerhouse growth body to drive the region’s economy.
The speech is due to start at 12.30pm, and will take questions from journalists afterwards, according to Politico’s London Playbook.
Meanwhile, politicians from northern England who will gather at the convention have made a joint call for more help for the region. Mayors and city leaders from Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds and Sheffield, along with business leaders, have set out their priorities for the north in a joint article in the Times. It said:
To get this country working again, there is an urgent need to take power out of Westminster and give it to our great cities and regions.
We need to build a new, healthier politics that unifies people around place and positive change and delivers practical change for citizens.
The crisis over Brexit makes this a make or break moment for northern devolution. “Take Back Control” may have been directed at Brussels during the referendum campaign but the reality is that many people were also sending the same message to Westminster.
Whilst central government has been stuck in the Brexit mire, we have used devolution to deliver for our local communities on the things that matter to them. So today we are making a new joint call on the government for action in five priority areas.
Welcome to another special Friday edition of Politics Live.
Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, has played down a report that her party is softening its opposition to a Northern Ireland-only backstop to help Boris Johnson get a new Brexit deal.
The Times claimed the DUP has agreed to shift its red lines on Brexit, saying it could accept Northern Ireland abiding by some European Union rules post-Brexit as part of a new deal to replace the Irish backstop.
Friday’s front page: - DUP opens door to new Brexit deal for Johnson - New FGM law is racially motivated, Holyrood told #scotpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/c1iNdlMWB2
It reported that the DUP had privately said it would drop its objection to regulatory checks in the Irish Sea, something it had previously said was unacceptable since it would separate Northern Ireland politically and economically from the mainland.
In return for such concessions, Brussels would abandon its insistence on Northern Ireland remaining in a customs union with the EU, sources told the paper.
But, the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, insists that, as previously indicated, any moves which did make Northern Ireland different to the rest of the UK would be unacceptable to the party.
In a strongly worded tweet, she suggested the story was “nonsense”.
She said:
“UK must leave as one nation. We are keen to see a sensible deal but not one that divides the internal market of the UK. We will not support any arrangements that create a barrier to East West trade. Anonymous sources lead to nonsense stories.”
UK must leave as one nation. We are keen to see a sensible deal but not one that divides the internal market of the UK. We will not support any arrangements that create a barrier to East West trade. Anonymous sources lead to nonsense stories. #frontpages
Meanwhile, the prime minister has been warned against breaking the law over Brexit by the Speaker John Bercow, who said parliament would use “procedural creativity” to prevent no-deal exit.
And the EU’s chief negotiator said there was “no reason to be optimistic” that a new agreement can be brokered before the 31 October deadline.
Michel Barnier told political leaders in the European parliament on Thursday that he was unable to say whether contacts with the UK government would result in a deal by mid-October.
