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Brexit: No 10 signals willingness to compromise over date as MPs prepare to debate early election bill - live news Brexit: UK set for December general election as Corbyn lifts Labour opposition to bill - live news
(about 3 hours later)
This is from PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield. These are from the Labour MP Barry Sheerman.
SCOOP: Number 10 sources say they would accept an SNP/Lib Dem amendment to allow an election to take place on December 11th. Sheer madness to hold a General Election in December & on Boris Johnson’s agenda!
A government source who would know says this is true, I hear Labour frontbenchers & whips resigning over decision to vote for December election.
As of this morning there were three days separating the Lib Dems and the SNP, who want the early election on Monday 9 December, and the government, who wanted it on Thursday 12. Now the government is shifting, and the gap is down to two days. A clear majority of our Shadow cabinet were against a December election yesterday but Jeremy Corbyn has been persuaded to override them after interventions from Seamus Milne & Karie Murphy!
We’ll find out later if the opposition parties would accept this. But what is most significant is that the haggling and the compromising has already started. I’ve asked Labour if it can confirm or deny what Sheerman is saying about resignations, but have not had a reply yet.
Today MPs are due to debate all stages of the early parliamentary general election bill, the legislation announced by Boris Johnson last night after he failed for the third time to get two thirds of MPs (the threshold) to vote for an early election under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act procedure. A bill can pass the Commons with a majority of one, and with the Liberal Democrats and the SNP in principle committed to an early election, and even Labour warming to the idea, there is a strong possibility that it will pass, and that by tonight we will be able to plan for an election at some point in the week beginning Monday 9 December. Heidi Allen, the former Conservative MP who defected to Change UK and then ended up a Liberal Democrat, has announced that she won’t be standing again in her South Cambridgeshire constituency.
But it is not in the bag yet. The bill has still not been published, and the government and opposition parties are divided over the date of a December poll. Ministers want it on Thursday 12, whereas the Lib Dems and the SNP want it on Monday 9. Letter to my constituents explaining why, what ever the outcome tonight, I won't be standing again to be the MP for South Cambridgeshire. https://t.co/g8zxjZD5j4
More importantly, most of the parties are deeply split over the wisdom of an early poll. Even the SNP parliamentary party, which is normally a model of unity and discipline and never normally divides over anything, has got one of its MPs going around saying the party’s plan would be like “a birthday present and a Christmas present [for Johnson[ rolled into one”. In an open letter to her constituents, she says she is “exhausted by the invasion into my privacy and the nastiness and intimidation that has become commonplace”.
And the reason for this heightened uncertainty? Decisions about whether or not to back an early election are almost always driven by self-interest, but no one knows which party is likely to benefit most from an early poll. The psephologists have already been warning that predicting the election will be “extremely difficult”, because the electorate is more volatile than it has ever been in the post-war period. To add to the complexity, no one can be certain how the electorate will respond to the Brexit delay, whether the campaign will be dominated by Brexit or by domestic issues, and how voters will respond to being asked to go to the polls a fortnight before Christmas. MPs and party leaders may have their own theories as to who would gain most from an early election, but there is no consensus and no rock-solid evidence; basically, it’s all guesswork. The Financial Times is running its own poll tracker (a chart that incorporates the results of all published polls). It has the Conservatives 11 points ahead of Labour.
The parties are expected to whip the votes this afternoon but, with MPs voting on their own job prospects, we might get more rebellions than usual, which is another reason why the bill could fail. In the Conservative party Johnson is facing a backlash against his decision to go for an election, and this morning there are signs that it is growing. The state of the polls: @FinancialTimes tracker has Tories 11pts ahead of Labour https://t.co/effGlT6HIF pic.twitter.com/tApRbMWDEf
The Tory MP Simon Hoare told the Commons last night that voters would not understand why Johnson was calling an election now. Speaking during the business statement announcing today’s bill, Hoare said: Most general elections get described as the most important the country has faced for a generation or so. Here is the academic Matthew Goodwin making a case for why this might be true this time around.
May I ask the leader of the house what we are to say to constituents and others about the fact that we may be able to find time for a five to six-week general election campaign and then the rigmarole of forming a government and yet not for bringing back the withdrawal bill? Britain looks set for the most consequential election in its entire postwar history. Brexit, a 2nd referendum, Johnson's embryonic premiership & Corbyn's Labour hang in the balance. As Nixon once said: "There's nothing wrong with this country which a good election can't fix!"
The Tory MP William Wragg said in the Commons last night that “many” Conservative MPs supported the plan put forward by Frank Field in an early day motion, saying that Johnson should instead set aside 14 days to pass the withdrawal agreement bill. Former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has confirmed that she will not take up her new post at an international communications firm while she continues to sit in the Scottish parliament.
Johnson is also being told in private by some of his MPs that he should press with the withdrawal agreement bill, and deliver Brexit, before holding an election. This is from an analysis by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. Davidson faced a storm of criticism after the announcement last Thursday that she intended to take up an appointment as a senior adviser to Tulchan Communications – their managing partner is the former Conservative party chair Andrew Feldman, a close ally of David Cameron – before stepping down as an MSP in 2021. It was reported that Davidson would be paid £50,000 for 24 days’ work a year.
One MP told me that a group of them made it clear to the PM in person on Monday night that they were deeply unhappy at what one of them described as him “being churlish, and taking his bat and ball home”, when he achieved what was said to be impossible by getting a deal in the first place, only to give up when the timetable for it was rejected last week. In a statement released on Tuesday morning, as the Holyrood parliament returns after its autumn recess, Davidson said:
Mocking the prime minister’s own slogan, the MP joked “that doesn’t exactly look like trying to get Brexit done”. The debate in Scotland about my taking an advisory role with Tulchan Communications has become increasingly contentious. I, and Tulchan, have therefore agreed not to proceed with the appointment.
And this morning Philip Hammond, the former Tory chancellor who now sits as an independent having had the whip removed, told the Today programme that he was appalled by Johnson’s decision to go for an election before delivering Brexit. He said: She continues to insist that she does not believe the role amounted to a conflict of interest, continuing:
If [Boris Johnson] has pressed on with a sensible timetable motion, say allowing the Commons five days to consider the bill, it would be out by now and into the House of Lords, and we would be well on our way to being able to leave the European Union, certainly by the end of November, perhaps earlier. I sat down with Scottish parliamentary officials in advance to go through the code of conduct, in detail, in order to avoid any conflict and to ensure I would be working within the rules at all times. The role reflected this.
But because he insisted that it all had to be done by 31 October, something that we now know can’t happen, it is the government itself that has been blocking Brexit. And the idea that now we would use our precious time to halt all of this process for five or six weeks, and go out and have a general election, frankly appals me. I think the government is trying to create a narrative that parliament is blocking Brexit and therefore we need an election. But that is simply untrue. Parliament signalled very clearly last week that it was prepared to press on with the Brexit bill, provided it had a reasonable timetable to do so. The consensus view from political opponents and commentators is that working to improve businesses’ understanding of the cares and concerns of people is somehow incompatible with my role as an MSP. So if I am asked to choose between Holyrood and this role, then I choose the parliament I have dedicated the last nine years to, eight as party leader, a decision Tulchan supports.
Here is the agenda for the day. Jeremy Corbyn has just delivered a clip for broadcasters confirming Labour’s decision to back an early election and saying the party is “totally determined” to win it. He was surrounded by members of his shadow cabinet, most (but not all) of whom looked happy about the decision.
9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet. Repeating the points he made in the statement released earlier (see 10.52am), Corbyn said the party would not back an early election until a no-deal Brexit had been taken off the table. But following the confirmation from the EU that there will be an extension, the party was now ready to back one, he said.
12pm: Downing Street lobby briefing. (This marks a discreet climbdown from Sunday, when the party was saying that a Brexit extension on its own would not be enough to persuade it that no deal had been taken off the table.)
After 12.30pm: MPs begin debating the early parliamentary general election bill. It is due to pass all its Commons stages today. Corbyn said Labour would fight its biggest campaign ever. He said:
2.45pm: Philip Rycroft, former permanent secretary at the Brexit department, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee. So we are going to go out there, with the biggest campaign this party has ever mounted – totally united, totally determined - and I’m absolutely looking forward to going to every part of the country with my wonderful shadow cabinet team here and all the fantastic Labour activists to give message of hope where there isn’t one with this government.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web, although I will be focusing mostly on MPs debating the early election bill. I plan to publish a summary when I wrap up. He sidestepped a question about whether the party would insist on any conditions before it backed the government bill, implying it wouldn’t, and instead said he could not wait for the campaign to start.
You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads. I can’t wait to get out there on the streets. In every town and village in this country, Labour will be there, giving a message of real hope where this government offers nothing.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow. And when asked if any of his team had doubts about the decision, he replied:
I try to monitor the comments below the line (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 above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone. Do you know what, the Labour party loves a debate. But they also love the end of a debate. And this is the end of the debate, and we are going out there to win.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. There is one urgent question today.
One UQ at 1230 to @LauraPidcockMP to ask @andrealeadsom to make a statement on the Government’s plans for workers’ rights after the UK leaves the EU.No Statements.
The Labour decision to back an early election means Boris Johnson is going to get his way, and the bill calling for a poll in December is going to pass. Labour is still planning to push various amendments, but it has agreed to an early election in principle and none of these amendments are being described as red lines.
But MPs will still have to debate the bill. A complicated business motion (pages 6 to 9 on the order paper) has been tabled, saying the whole process should take six hours, with the second-reading vote coming four hours after the start of proceedings.
Unusually, the business motion limits the ability of MPs to amend the bill by saying that that there should be a limit on the number of votes allowed by the Speaker and that amendments moved by ministers should take priority.
The Labour MP Stella Creasy has tabled her own amendment to the business motion that would open up the process and allow amendments to be voted on as usual.
Government trying to stop amendments to their bill ramming through changes to how elections called - they want it all done in one day with no option for any changes from anyone and have tried to amend the basic rules of parliamentary process accordingly. Shameful. Just shameful.
This means the opening of the proceedings will be dominated by a row about process, because the business motion has to be agreed before the second-reading debate can start.
These are from Sky’s Lewis Goodall.
Understand Labour are to whip for a general election. Not confirmed from leadership yet though.
Understand that the whip is to vote for an election for *any* of the dates proposed.
Here is the whip Labour MPs have received: “Colleagues need to be on the estate by midday. We are on HEAVY RUNNING THREE-LINE WHIP. There may be votes throughout the day with the possibility of a late finish. All must remain until conclusion of business.”
From the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg
Labour might still back an amendment to hold the election on the 9th, but the bigger principle decision has been made, they are backing a December election
Labour has just released this statement from Jeremy Corbyn. This is what he told the shadow cabinet this morning.
I have consistently said that we are ready for an election and our support is subject to no-deal Brexit being off the table.
We have now heard from the EU that the extension of article 50 to 31 January has been confirmed, so for the next three months, our condition of taking no deal off the table has now been met.
We will now launch the most ambitious and radical campaign for real change our country has ever seen.
In this statement Corbyn is not saying anything about the conditions he flagged up yesterday for Labour supporting an early election. That implies the party is not insisting on firm red lines, and that it will support the bill – meaning the early election is definitely on.