Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

'We should be afraid' - Irish PM Leo Varadkar steps up warning about no deal Brexit - as it happened

Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, has said people should be afraid of a no deal Brexit.
Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, has said people should be afraid of a no deal Brexit. Photograph: Sky News

Ipsos MORI has published its latest Political Monitor polling round-up. You can read the whole thing here, but Keiran Pedley has posted a good summary on Twitter.

Updated

And, on the subject of byelections, prisoners are to be given the right to vote in the Shetland byelection, the Press Association reports. The move, announced by the Scottish government, will ensure compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. A European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling in 2005 said the UK government’s blanket ban on prisoner voting breached human rights laws. However, successive UK governments resisted changing the law in order to allow prisoners the right to vote. A dispute between the UK and the European court on the issue finally ended in 2017 when voting rights were given to around 100 inmates in England and Wales released on “temporary licence”. Powers over the franchise for Scottish parliament elections were devolved in 2017, with Holyrood and the Scottish government legally obliged to comply with the ECHR.

As the Press Association reports, the Shetland by-election will be held on August 29, having been triggered by the resignation of Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Tavish Scott. Ahead of the vote, Scottish constitutional relations Secretary Michael Russell said he will make a remedial order to bring the franchise for the by-election into line with the ECHR ruling. It will allow prisoners who meet the wider franchise criteria, and who are serving sentences of 12 months or less, to register for a vote in the byelection in time for the August 13 deadline. It is estimated the order will extend the franchise to fewer than five people.

The Brexit party bus has been out in Brecon and Radnorshire, where a byelection is taking place today. The bus hit the headlines at the weekend when it broke down. But it will probably take more than an engine repair to help the party because it is not seen as a contender in this seat where, as my colleague Jessica Elgot explained in an article on Monday, the Liberal Democrats are expected to win.

The byelection was triggered after the sitting MP, the Conservative Chris Davies, was convicted of expenses fraud. Davies is standing again, saying that his conviction related to an administrative error from which he made no financial gain and that constituents had urged him to stand again.

A poll in the constituency conducted by the Number Cruncher Politics consultancy last month suggested the Lib Dems were well ahead.

The Brexit party campaign bus on Middleton Street in Llandrindod Wells.
The Brexit party campaign bus on Middleton Street in Llandrindod Wells. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

These are from the BBC’s Faisal Islam on one of the lines to emerge from the Mark Carney press conference.

Note to readers: I’ll be wrapping up the blog in about an hour or so, and then after that Politics Live will probably be closed for the next four weeks. I will be back on Monday 2 September. At the moment there is no plan to run a daily politics blog over August, but if something particularly newsy or dramatic happens, it may come back. I hope you all get some holiday too. In the absence of the blog you can find lots of excellent political reporting at Guardian politics. And if you miss the minute by minute updates, then do feel free to take a break, read a book, ring your mum, or just generally tune out from the Brexit horror show for a while. You will probably feel much better as a result - and you can pick up again in September, when it will (almost certainly) all still remain unresolved.

'We should be afraid' - Irish PM Leo Varadkar steps up warning about no deal Brexit

Yesterday Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, accused the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, of engaging in “project fear mark two” because he has suggested a no deal Brexit could lead to the break-up of the UK. Asked about her comment today, Varadkar said that he did not accept the criticism at all, and that in fact everyone should fear a no deal Brexit. He said:

In terms of fear, I think we should be afraid of a no-deal Brexit ...

A no-deal Brexit would have very serious impacts on the economy, north and south, and on Britain. It could have security implications as well and it could have constitutional implications. It’s something that we have to prepare for nonetheless. It is something we should be afraid about.

Varadkar also said that he had invited Boris Johnson to visit him in Dublin for talks “without any preconditions”.

Asked about claims (made by Sinn Fein in particular) that Johnson was incapable of being impartial when mediating between Sinn Fein and the DUP on the issue of power-sharing in Northern Ireland, Varadkar implied he was not yet convinced Johnson would be neutral. He replied:

I think that remains to be seen.

He’s only just started in the job and I think we need to give him a fair wind and a decent chance.

But you know we shouldn’t also ignore what’s there in the Good Friday agreement and I hear a lot of talk about the Good Friday Agreement in recent weeks and months and often wonder if some of the people who quote the Good Friday agreement have actually read it.

The Good Friday agreement is very explicit that the sovereign government, the UK Government must be rigorously impartial in how it administers Northern Ireland and we all need to respect the fact that the aspirations about unionist people and nationalist people are equal.

Leo Varadkar
Leo Varadkar Photograph: Tommy Dickson/INPHO/REX/Shutterstock

In an interview with BBC News about the Treasury’s £2.1bn no deal planning announcement, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said this was relatively small sum compared to what a no deal Brexit could cost the economy.

If some of that is spent on things which are only needed in the event of no deal, and we don’t end up with no deal, then of course it will be wasted money. But I think we should probably see it, and the government would see it, as a form of insurance policy. If in the end it is not needed, it is not wasted, because it has at least insured us to some extent against what might happen.

The important thing is, in the context of what the impact on the public finances overall would be of a no deal Brexit, and they would be very significantly negative, as the Office of Budget Responsibility said just a couple of weeks ago, actually a couple of billion is rather little compared with the tens of billions we would probably lose as a result of a smaller economy.

Johnson also claimed there was “complete consensus, including among Brexit supporters” that the economy was about £40bn smaller today than it would have been had the UK voted remain in 2016. There was also consensus that, in the short and medium term, a no deal Brexit would shrink the economy further, he said.

Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson Photograph: BBC News

Here is the Evening Standard’s take on the Bank of England’s inflation report.

In an interview with BBC Sajid Javid, the chancellor, was asked if he was comfortable spending so much money on no deal planning, and potentially increasing the deficit, when previously he was part of a Cameron/Osborne government that worked hard to cut borrowing. Javid suggested that was not a problem because the economy was now robust. He replied:

Well, our economy is very strong. The effects of the hard work of the British people [have been] incredibly strong. In fact, this year we are forecast by the IMF to grow faster than France, than Germany, than Italy, and we want to make sure we use the strength of the economy to meet the needs of the British people. And we can afford to make many choices. Eventually, at some point, we will have a budget and we will set out exactly how we’re going to do that.

But Javid refused to say when the budget would be.

Sajid Javid, the chancellor, and Priti Patel, the home secretary, on a visit to Tilbury Docks today.
Sajid Javid, the chancellor, and Priti Patel, the home secretary, on a visit to Tilbury Docks today. Photograph: POOL New/Reuters

Talking of the Financial Times, it has published a useful report today (paywall) about how prepared the EU and the UK are for a no deal Brexit. It includes this telling graphic.

FT graphic about impact of no deal Brexit on EU 28
FT graphic about impact of no deal Brexit on EU 28 Photograph: FT

This is from Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times.

At its regular press conference this morning the European commission said that “both sides reiterated their positions” when David Frost, Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit adviser, met EU officials for talks in Brussels this week. The commission’s spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said:

We will continue our contacts and, at the latest, the G7 in Biarritz will be an opportunity for the two leaders - president [Jean-Claude] Juncker and Prime Minister Johnson - to meet.

Asked if the UK put forward any ideas to break the Brexit deadlock, Andreeva said:

This question is best addressed to the UK authorities, if they have other proposals in mind.

From the commission’s side the EU position is clear because it has been provided by the European council.

The withdrawal agreement is not up for reopening while we are open to work on the political declaration should the UK wish so.

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, is now holding his press conference.

Julia Kollewe is covering it on the business live blog.

Mark Carney
Mark Carney Photograph: Sky News

Bank of England warns of 1 in 3 chance of Brexit recession

Britain has a one in three chance of plunging into recession as uncertainty over Brexit drags down the economy, the Bank of England has warned. As my colleague Richard Partington reports, keeping interest rates on hold as the risks to the economy mount, the central bank said business investment was stalling, while heightened international trade tensions and a slowdown in the global economy was also having an impact on UK growth.

A countdown clock, reported to have cost at least £500, has been delivered to Downing Street, with just three months to go until the UK is due to leave the EU, the Press Association reports. The package arrived at Number 10 a day after Tory party chairman James Cleverly unveiled a countdown clock at Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ). The clock in Matthew Parker Street is displayed below a message which reads: “We will have delivered Brexit and left the EU by”.

A package containing a digital countdown clock is carried in to 10 Downing Street.
A package containing a digital countdown clock is carried in to 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Leading Tory Brexiter says, even if EU abandon backstop, trying to get Brexit deal through Commons before 31 October not 'sensible'

No “sensible” government would try to legislate for a Brexit deal before 31 October, the leading Tory Brexiter Mark Francois has claimed.

Although the government is stepping up preparations for a no deal Brexit at the end of that month, officially Boris Johnson thinks this will turn out to be unnecessary because he says the EU will back down over the backstop, allowing a deal to be struck.

But Francois, the vice chair of the European Research Group, which represents Tory MPs pushing for a harder Brexit, told the Telegraph’s Chopper’s Brexit podcast that it would be pointless trying to get legislation for a deal through parliament before the end of October because there would be too much opposition. As the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope (the eponymous “Chopper”) and Theodore Louloudis report in their story (paywall), Francois said:

Even if you took the backstop element out of the bill you are still talking about a very substantial bill.

You’d have to spend weeks in parliament […] and you’d have weeks and weeks of people like [Dominic] Grieve and [Oliver] Letwin and co tabling wrecking amendments.

You’d have a running parliamentary war probably for at least a month and I don’t think that any sensible government would want that in the run up to 31st October, so in practical terms I don’t think it’s a good idea.

Francois also said that, even if the backstop were removed, he would still oppose the withdrawal agreement as it stands because there were “too many other things that are wrong with it”.

The Telegraph claims that up to 60 Tory MPs would vote against a revived version of the withdrawal agreement with the backstop removed. Yet only 34 Tories voted against it when Theresa May tried to get her deal, including the backstop, through the Commons at the third attempt at the end of March.

Mark Francois
Mark Francois Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Boris Johnson 'deeply trustworthy' on Brexit, says Rees-Mogg

As a backbencher the Tory Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg started recording his own podcasts for the ConservativeHome website, under the title “Moggcast”. Last week he was made leader of the Commons, but he plans to continue and the latest Moggcast went up on the ConHome website this morning. Mark Wallace was interviewing Rees-Mogg. It’s not exactly Newsnight or the Today programme, but there were some half-decent lines nevertheless. Here are the main points.

  • Rees-Mogg claimed that Boris Johnson was “deeply trustworthy” on Brexit. Johnson’s opponents, of course, would say the opposite (a standard criticism of Johnson is that people who trust him regularly end up being let down), but Rees-Mogg was speaking in the context of leaving the EU. He said that when he was speaking in support of Johnson during the Tory leadership campaign, people often asked if Johnson would do what he was promising.

They said to me: Can we trust Boris? To which my answer is, yes, and personally, I do. I think he is deeply trustworthy, strongly believes in what he’s going to do, and recognises the political risk of not doing it. And therefore everything comes together for us to leave on the 31 October.

Rees-Mogg said that he was “gulled” by Theresa May because he believed her when she said the UK would leave the EU by 29 March. “Her statements were very clear. And it turned out that she didn’t mean what she said, and asked for an extension.” Rees-Mogg went on:

I think it is inconceivable that Boris would do the same. I just don’t think that is what he wants to do.

Politicians are a thick-skinned lot. They don’t worry about these sorts of things. The question is, are we getting the right policy direction? And I’m very, very confident that we are getting the right policy direction.

  • Rees-Mogg said he did not think John Bercow, the Speaker, was biased against Brexiters. Many Tory MPs believe Bercow is actively working to frustrate Brexit. But Rees-Mogg said he thought the Speaker was acting as “a fair-minded umpire”. He explained:

Had the situation been reversed, had we had a strong remain government, and I as a leaver had found a parliamentary mechanism to do something that hadn’t recently been done, Mr Speaker would have been open to me to do that, as he has been to them to do what they have done.

I think Mr Speaker is genuinely fair-minded in what he seeks to do. And I think that his aim is to ensure House of Commons has the say that it wants.

There is in fact only one ruling of his that I disagreed with, and I raised a point of order at the time, and that’s on the question of forthwith. I think forthwith has a different meeting from the one Mr Speaker determined. But I think he would have done the same had the boot been on the other foot. I think people miss this. Mr Speaker is in favour of the House of Commons and the authority of the House of Commons. In that sense, he is not impartial, he is pro the House of Commons. But that is as Mr Speaker should be. In terms of the political arguments, I think he is a fair-minded umpire.

  • Rees-Mogg said he thought the EU should realise Britain is serious about leaving on 31 October without a deal if Brussels does not agree to abandon the backstop. Asked why the EU should think the UK was serious, he replied:

Well, they should believe us because of our new leader. The new prime minister is somebody of considerable force of personality who is not going to be browbeaten by them. They should believe us because of the appointment of Dominic Cummings, which seems to me to be exceptionally important as a statement as to what is going to happen. That ought to make the EU realise that it is not business as usual.

It isn’t a sort of wet establishment that will go along with Brino [Brexit in name only]. It is a tough-minded, clear-sighted government that will accept a decent deal, a fair deal, but will not accept a bad deal, and isn’t frightened of leaving.

He said the problem in the past was that Brussels did not realise there were people in the UK who believe that life will be “unquestionably better” outside the EU. But that is now the view of the government, he said.

  • He said he believed a new deal with the EU could be agreed before the end of October because the EU could act very quickly when it wanted to. He explained:

I think work expands to fill the time available, and you’ve seen that with the European Union again and again. If you think the European Union Work could work out how to find hard to find 600 billion euros in contradiction of the treaties to bail out the euro, and got it done half an hour before the New Zealand markets opened, the EU can move quickly when it wants to, and so can the UK. So the fact that the the work has been concertinaed isn’t that much of a problem.

  • He refused to say he if he would resign if Brexit did not happen by 31 October. He said, having just been appointed, he said it was “a bit premature” to start answering questions about resigning.
  • He said it was “not true” to say parliament would block a no deal Brexit. He said that 31 October was set down in law as the date for leaving, and that that would only change if the UK asked for an extension or if it revoked article 50. And both of these outcomes would require a new prime minister, he said.
  • He said that, although he is still chair of the European Research Group, which represents Tory MPs pushing for a harder Brexit, he would be standing down at its next meeting, after the summer recess, because it was not appropriate for it to be led by a cabinet minister.
Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Jacob Rees-Mogg. Photograph: Vickie Flores/EPA

The SNP has also joined those criticising the Treasury’s £2.1bn no deal planning announcement. In a statement, its Europe spokesman Stephen Gethins said:

Rather than working to avert a catastrophic no-deal exit, Boris Johnson is accelerating over the economic cliff-edge.

With just three months to go before the revised Brexit date, Boris Johnson should be ruling out a no-deal exit and instead working towards bringing the Brexit chaos to an end - not pursuing an avoidable and purely ideological policy that lays bare the shameful priorities of this Tory government.

The staggering £6bn for a no-deal Brexit is a shameful waste of money at the same time as Tory welfare cuts are increasingly driving people to food banks and public services are still bearing the pain of Tory austerity.

The People’s Vote campaign, which wants a second referendum, has also criticised the Treasury’s decision to announce an extra £2.1bn may be spent on no deal planning. It put out this statement from Rachel Reeves, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons business committee. She said:

The government is spending £130m on a no deal propaganda campaign but no one should be fooled into thinking crashing out of Europe is anything other than a disaster for our economy and a humiliation for our country.

The slump in the value of the pound as the government ramped up its no deal rhetoric this week says it all – no deal will be bad for the UK.

The extra government spending announced today might be necessary but no amount can ever be sufficient to clear up the mess no deal will make. And this is all money that could be better spent on the NHS, schools or reversing cuts to benefits.

Boris Johnson and his hard Brexit cabinet only mentioned no deal in 2016 to dismiss the idea. Now they are trying to force it on the country. They have no right and their behaviour is an outrage against democracy.

More evidence of “turbo-charging” in Westminster. (See 9.17am.) Last night the Department for International Trade sent out a press notice picture of the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, having a call with the Australian trade minister, Simon Birmingham. The department has just recirculated it, with a bit of extra information about what was said on the call. It says Truss told her Australian counterpart “that the UK government is turbo-charging work on securing new free trade agreements which was welcomed by Minister Birmingham who said that Australia is ready to match the fast pace set by the British government”.

Liz Truss speaking to her Australian opposite number, Simon Birmingham.
Liz Truss speaking to her Australian opposite number, Simon Birmingham. Photograph: DIT

Updated

Rishi Sunak, the chief secretary to the Treasury, was doing a media round this morning talking about the Treasury’s £2.1bn no deal planning announcement. He claimed that a lot of this money would have to be spent anyway, because it related to changes that would have to be implemented even if the UK left the EU with a deal and, in his interview on the Today programme, he phrased it like this.

At some point we will be leaving the European Union - hopefully by the end of October is our clear desire - so we would at some point have to do that campaign to get traders ready for the changes they’ll have to do.

But “hopefully” leaving by 31 October is not the absolute commitment to be out by then come what may that Boris Johnson has promised and, as the Daily Mail’s John Stevens points out, in subsequent interviews Sunak flipped back to “do or die” mode.

Rishi Sunak
Rishi Sunak Photograph: Isabel Infantes/AFP/Getty Images

Boris Johnson chairs cabinet's key Brexit committee as £2.1bn no-deal fund widely criticised

Boris Johnson is back in London today after completing the tour of the UK he embarked on to mark his appointment as prime minister and for the first time he will be chairing XS, the cabinet’s EU exit strategy committee which may turn out to be the most important decision-making body in government. This is the six-strong committee that is expected to take all the key decisions on Brexit. And they are all men. Along with Johnson, the other members are: Michael Gove, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the deputy chair of the committee; Sajid Javid, the chancellor; Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary; Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary; and Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general.

Overnight the Treasury announced that it was setting aside an extra £2.1bn for no deal planning. In its press release, the Treasury says this will “turbo-charge no deal preparations”. With language like that, you can tell the government is now being run by a former motoring correspondent for GQ. Andrew Neil wouldn’t approve; “you keep on saying turbo-charge, which is a meaningless phrase,” he told Jeremy Hunt, in one of his many effective put-downs when he interviewed him during the leadership campaign.

Here is our story about the announcement.

Opposition parties and anti-Brexit groups have been damning.

For Labour, the shadow chancellor John McDonnell said:

This is an appalling waste of tax-payers’ cash, all for the sake of Boris Johnson’s drive towards a totally avoidable no deal.

This government could have ruled out no deal, and spent these billions on our schools, hospitals, and people.

Labour is a party for the whole of the UK, so we’ll do all we can to block a no deal, crash-out Brexit – and we’ll deliver a transformative economic policy that delivers for the many, not the few.

The Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Chuka Umunna said:

This extra money is a drop in the ocean when compared to the huge hit to the exchequer of at least £90bn – according to the chancellor’s predecessor – of a no-deal Brexit.

They promised us an extra £350m each week for the NHS, now they are making more money available just to ensure access to medicine.

This is a political choice made by an irresponsible government. The Liberal Democrats are the only party that can get into government which is committed to stopping Brexit – so we can use public monies to tackle the real problems the country faces.

And Naomi Smith, CEO of the anti-Brexit group Best for Britain, said:

This is a colossal waste of money for something both parliament and the country don’t want.

We know a no-deal Brexit will mean shortages of foods and medicines, and we know it’ll cost the country a fortune. Now the new chancellor wants to throw billions more at the problem his government is responsible for creating.

Wasting money like this when we have so many other priorities is exactly why the country has turned against Brexit. We need to stop fixating on it so that we can fix the country.

We are not expecting to hear much about what happens at the XS cabinet committee today. But we will hear from the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, who is holding a press conference at 12.30pm. My colleague Julia Kollewe will be leading the coverage of that on the business blog, but I will be keeping an eye on what is said too.

Otherwise, it looks quiet. The Brecon and Radnorshire byelection is taking place, but we won’t get the result until the early hours of tomorrow morning.

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. I plan to publish a summary when I wrap up.

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.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

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.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
"There’s injustice, and so much hate and fear, and it’s such a drag." Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl says it's difficult not to feel angry and disillusioned about the state of America in 2026
Dave Grohl on his "deeply divided" homeland
Louder
Louder
The first black hole ever discovered is spewing 'dancing jets' at half the speed of light
Astronomers have accurately measured the "dancing" energy jets of the first confirmed black hole, Cygnus X-1, more than 60 years after it was first spotted.
LiveScience
LiveScience
Is reading your favourite hobby? A new era of book clubs is reshaping how we read
Reading is experiencing a resurgence among Gen Z and millennials, many of whom are actively seeking alternatives to “doomscrolling” and the mental fatigue associated with constant social media use.
The Conversation
The Conversation
39 Years Later, A Highly Anticipated Sci-Fi Sequel Is Breaking Its Promise
One of the most beloved sci-fi parodies ever, ‘Spaceballs,’is getting a sequel decades later, but it's not called what you think.
Inverse
Inverse
Kimmel on Trump’s AI images: ‘Someone’s been looksmaxxing!’
Late night hosts discussed Trump’s AI images, the closure of 7-Eleven stores and JD Vance’s advice to the Pope
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entitled American influencer visiting Mexico demands locals ‘invest’ in their ‘skillset’ and learn English
TikTok do not suffer fools gladly.
We Got This Covered
We Got This Covered
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play