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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Labour centrists express fury about Momentum's Christine Shawcroft taking over key party post - Politics live

Christine Shawcroft, who was today elected chair of Labour’s disputes panel
Christine Shawcroft, who was today elected chair of Labour’s disputes panel Photograph: Flores/LNP/REX/Shutterstock

Afternoon summary

  • Labour centrists have reacted with fury after Corbyn supporters on the party’s national executive committee voted to replace Ann Black, an independent-minded leftwinger, with Christine Shawcroft, a Momentum director, as chair of the party’s disputes panel. The post is relatively low-profile, but the panel enforces party rules and in Labour circles it has considerable clout. The vote follows the election of three Momentum activists to the NEC yesterday after three new seats were created for members’ representatives, giving the Corbynites a decisive majority on the NEC for the first time since Jeremy Corbyn became leader, and it is seen as evidence that Corbyn supporters will now using their grasp on the levers of power in the party to impose change. Explaining the vote, a Momentum source said:

It’s not surprising that the unions, members of the shadow cabinet and three Momentum backed NEC reps chose Christine Shawcroft over Ann Black - as many ordinary members are deeply frustrated with her. In 2016 Ann voted to to exclude 130,000 new Labour members from the leadership election, forcing them to pay another £25 to participate. When you deny members the right to choose the leader of their own party, it does tend to create a certain amount of resentment.

  • Ken Clarke, the former Chancellor and leading Tory pro-European, has described parliament as “pathetic” for the way it is handing powers to the executive in the EU withdrawal bill. Speaking in the penultimate day of Commons debate on the bill before it heads to the Lords, he also said peers would insist on major changes to the bill. He told MPs:

I hope that the other place will make an enormous number of changes to this bill. The idea that the bill with all these Henry VIII clauses is going to have an untroubled passage through the House of Lords is an illusion. The House of Lords, I hope, will throw back some of the bizarre extensions of the Henry VIII principle in this bill but also some of the European things ...

This is a pathetic parliament so far in the way in which it’s handled this extraordinary measure before it.

Later the government won three votes on the bill, with majorities of 23, 18 and 23.

  • French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed not to allow the re-establishment of the “Jungle” camp of migrants in Calais. As the Press Association reports, his promise came as he visited the Channel port ahead of a UK-France summit at which reports suggest he will seek to renegotiate Britain’s role in dealing with migrants gathered there. Macron said the current “Dublin rules”, under which refugees are required to seek asylum in the first safe country they reach, were “unsatisfactory” and called for an “integrated” EU system to deal with the problem. Hundreds of asylum seekers hoping to cross the Channel remain in the area, more than a year after authorities dismantled the town’s sprawling Jungle camp. The president met Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart and organisations working with migrants on Tuesday, just two days before talks with Prime Minister Theresa May.
French President Emmanuel Macron talking to Ahmed Adam, left, from Sudan during his visit to a migrant center in Croisilles, northern France, earlier today.
French President Emmanuel Macron talking to Ahmed Adam, left, from Sudan during his visit to a migrant center in Croisilles, northern France, earlier today. Photograph: Michel Spingler/AP
  • The chairman of the Parole Board has warned against “political interference” in its decisions following an outcry over the release from prison of black-taxi rapist John Worboys. As the Press Association reports, writing in the Evening Standard, Prof Nick Hardwick acknowledged that the Board “should be open to legal challenge” and said he would welcome a judicial review over the Worboys case. But he added: “It would be a bad day for us all if people’s rightful abhorrence of Worboys’ crimes or concern about a Parole Board decision allowed these basic principles of justice to be overturned. Not on my watch.”

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has said Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s lead Brexit spokesman, was wrong when he said this morning that the UK’s plastic bag crackdown was an EU initiative. (See 9.51am.) A Defra spokesperson said:

It is not true to claim that our plastic bag charge is a result of EU regulation. We set out our plans before the EU and we have gone further than EU regulations require.

The 5p levy on plastic bags in England was announced in September 2013 and introduced in October 2015. EU plans requiring member states to reduce plastic bag use were set out in November 2013.

UPDATE: Jonathan Bartley, the co-leader of the Green party, says Defra is wrong.

Updated

Jeremy Beecham, a Labour peer, former chair of the Local Government Association and former member of Labour’s NEC, has joined those condemning the replacement of Ann Black by Christine Shawcroft. It was “shameful”, he said.

Shawcroft says it's just 'a minor sub-committee' and she doesn't know what all the fuss is about

Christine Shawcroft has said she does not understand “what all the fuss is about” regarding her election today as chair of Labour’s disputes panel, the Daily Mirror reports. She said it was “just a minor sub-committee”.

She also said what she described as the “centre-left” Grassroots Alliance, which runs the slate on which she was elected to the NEC, “represents the mainstream of the party.”

And she defended her decision to back Lutfur Rahman, the disgraced former mayor of Tower Hamlets. She said his case was “a terrible miscarriage of justice”.

Labour centrists express fury about Momentum's Christine Shawcroft taking over as disputes panel chair

Here is some assorted Twitter comment on Labour’s NEC voting to replace Ann Black as chair of the party’s disputes panel with Momentum’s Christine Shawcroft. (See 1.36pm and 1.47pm.) These are all people who would be deemed centrists, or on the right of the party.

From Richard Angell, director of Progress, the Blairite/centrist Labour organisation

From Ian Austin MP, the former minister and Brownite (remember them?)

From Tony Robinson, the Labour activist and former NEC member

From Jasmin Beckett, the youth representative on the NEC

From Luke Akehurst, a former member of the NEC

From Matt Pound, national organiser for Labour First, another “moderatate”/centrist Labour organisation

And here is some comment from journalists on what happened.

From PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield

From Prospect’s Tom Clark

Downing Street has sought not to get involved in the row about whether or not the UK will save £350m per week after Brexit that Boris Johnson reignited this morning. Asked at the lobby briefing if Johnson was right to say the UK would regain control of this amount of money after it left the EU, the prime minister’s spokesman replied:

Does the amount of money we send to the EU fluctuate year on year? Yes, it does. Some years it is bigger, some years it is smaller.

Gerry Adams launches legal bid to overturn convictions for escaping from jail in 1970s

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has launched a legal bid to overturn two historical convictions for attempting to escape from prison, the Press Association reports. Appeal proceedings began before three senior judges at Belfast’s Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday. Adams, now a member of the Irish parliament, is seeking to quash convictions received in 1975 while he was interned without trial at the Maze Prison during the early 1970s. Barrister Sean Dorian QC, who is representing the veteran politician, said: “Each conviction is for attempting to escape from lawful custody.” The case centres on a technicality that Adams’ internment was not lawful because the order to detain him had not been considered by the then Secretary of State.

Gerry Adams.
Gerry Adams. Photograph: PA

Updated

ICM have now posted the tables for today’s poll here (pdf), on their website.

In my summary earlier (see 12.41pm) I said the figures suggested the Tories and Labour were entrenched in stalemate. Yesterday the pollster and former Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft published the latest of the occasional political focus group reports that he commissions. This one also implied that not much has changed since the election.

The whole report is worth reading, but here is an extract.

Conservatives who had once dismissed the chance of Labour winning under its current leader now worried that it was all too possible: “I’m worried they’re creating a perfect storm for Jeremy Corbyn to come in.”

That said, none of those who had voted Tory in the 2017 election were yet ready to swap allegiance. Those who had switched to the party last June had usually done so for at least one of two reasons: that they wanted to see Brexit through and thought the Conservatives most likely to make it happen, or that they were aghast at the idea of Corbyn in Downing Street. For all the mishaps and uncertainty, nothing had so far changed their minds. Labour voters often saw their leader as something of a hero (“I think the man’s brilliant, I love him. So genuine, and never changes his mind;” “He’s much more on the ground, he gets the tube. His tie is off, he’s one of you”), but none of those we spoke to who had declined to vote for him last year had yet been won over. There was also some scepticism about his supposed status as a youth icon: “He goes to Glasto, but how much are Glasto tickets? Who can afford them? Not the kids I teach in Beeston.”

(Ashcroft is a Tory, but he takes his reputation as a polling/public opinion expert very seriously and his research is generally well regarded.)

Ken Clarke is one of the best speakers in the Commons. But even he couldn’t stop his Tory colleague Sir Desmond Swayne apparently nodding off in the EU withdrawal bill debate this afternoon.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson rejects Boris Johnson's claim about Brexit financial benefits

By reviving the £350m per week claim, perhaps the most toxic of all the phoney claims swirling around during the EU referendum, Boris Johnson has invited pro-Europeans to refight that battle over again. Labour have taken up the challenge (see 1.31pm), but some Tories have too (see 2.10pm) and now Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, has got involved. She hasn’t aggressively escalated the row - as you can see from the clip below, she was trying to be tactful - but she didn’t exactly hold out an olive branch either.

In an interview with ITV Border’s Peter MacMahon she was asked about Johnson’s Guardian interview. MacMahon said that, when Davidson debated Johnson during the referendum campaign, she accused him of lying. Was he lying again?

Davidson did not say no. Instead she replied:

Well, look, he’s a member of the cabinet and he gets to see the Treasury’s books. I’m not a member of government and I don’t. But my understanding from as many economists and government watchers that were there at the time was that I was correct in what I said when I was on the stage at Wembley debating it.

MacMahon responded: “So he was lying then and he’s lying now?” Davidson replied diplomatically:

Like I say, I can only take the analysis that I’ve seen, that I’ve seen from economists around the world, and we believed in the arguments that we were putting forward for remain.

Ruth Davidson
Ruth Davidson Photograph: ITV Border

Updated

Since we’re on the subject, here are the figures from the Office for National Statistics on the UK’s contribution to the EU in 2016.

UK contributions to EU
UK contributions to EU Photograph: ONS

The ONS also says that, if you take into account EU money going directly into the private sector in the UK (for example, payments to universities for research), the net contribution in 2016 was £8.1bn, not £9.4bn.

The website page also has a very useful “context calculator” intended to help people make sense of what these sums means.

It says a net payment of £9.4bn is equivalent to £181m per week, or 1.2% of government spending.

And a net payment of £8.1bn amounts to £156m per week, or 1% of government spending, the ONS says.

Tory MP Anna Soubry says Boris Johnson is conning people over financial benefits of Brexit

Anna Soubry, the Conservative former business minister and diehard pro-European, told the Daily Politics earlier that she was “surprised and disappointing” that Boris Johnson has chosen to resurrect the claim about Brexit saving the government £350m a week. She said:

This is not going to be extra money that will be going to our NHS ….I’m very disappointed that given where we are, our foreign secretary, who holds after all one of the great offices of state, is not squaring up and being honest with the British public - and they deserve honesty as we leave the European Union ...

Boris is being irresponsible to continue to con people in this way. He should be honest about the challenges that Brexit poses to our country.

Asked if she thought Johnson would stop using the claim, she replied:

Sadly I feel that that will not happen. Though I wish it would. He’s our foreign secretary, y’know, this is grown up, this is proper stuff, he’s got to man up to the position he holds.

Asked if she knew what the exact figure was for the amount the UK would save from leaving the EU, she said she did not know. But she went on:

What I do know is that this is not going to be additional funds that will go to the NHS – and that was an important part of the trick that was played on the British people.

Johnson won’t be particularly surprised by Soubry’s comments. She is already on the record as saying he should resign.

Anna Soubry at the European Commission yesterday, with fellow pro-European MPs Chris Leslie, Chuka Umunna and Dominic Grieve. They were there for a meeting with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator.
Anna Soubry at the European Commission yesterday, with fellow pro-European MPs Chris Leslie, Chuka Umunna and Dominic Grieve. They were there for a meeting with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. Photograph: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images

Leading Momentum figure replaces Ann Black as chair of Labour's disputes panel

Christine Shawcroft, a senior figure in Momentum, has just taken over as chair of Labour’s disputes panel, my colleague Anushka Asthana reports. The previous chair, Ann Black, has been removed.

See Anushka’s post at 1.36pm for more background.

Black was hardly a centrist Blairite; she, like Shawcroft, is also firmly on the left of the party. But she was very independent-minded, and willing to vote against the Corbyn line on certain issues, which explains why the Corbynites wanted her removed.

Sources are suggesting that moves are underway to oust Ann Black as chair of the Labour party’s disputes panel, and to replace her with a senior figure in Momentum, Christine Shawcroft.

The move, likely to take place at a meeting this afternoon, is infuriating centrists in the party who think it is wrong to oust an experienced figure from the role. Some are claiming the motivation is around limiting the number of Labour members who are removed from the party for perceived antisemitism online.

But others, on the left of the party, say Jeremy Corbyn’s office have long been frustrated by Black’s decision to vote against the leader in NEC meetings - including backing a move to charge people £25 to be able to vote in the second leadership election as registered supporters.

Sources have suggested that the unions are likely to back the push after being asked to do so by the leader’s office.

They think Jeremy Corbyn’s office is taking advantage of a shift in balance on the party’s governing body, NEC, following the election of new leftwing members earlier this week.

Opponents of the move claim that will impact on any crackdown on antisemitism as the committee deals with membership appeals and readmissions to the party.

Shawcroft is a leftwing member of the NEC and also a leading figure in Momentum. She has faced controversy in the past when she was suspended for publicly backing the controversial former mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman.

Christine Shawcroft.
Christine Shawcroft. Photograph: Flores/LNP/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Labour asks UK Statistics Authority to rule on whether Johnson's latest Brexit claims are accurate

The Labour party has asked the UK Statistics Authority to comment on the accuracy of Boris Johnson’s latest claim about the amount of money the UK will save when it leaves the EU. (See 9.03am.) Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, made the request in an open letter addressed to Sir David Norgrove, the UK Statistics Authority chair.

Here’s an extract.

The £350m a week claim made by the Vote Leave campaign has been widely condemned as inaccurate and misleading. For example, in September of last year the Statistics Authority wrote to the foreign secretary saying, “it is a clear misuse of official statistics.” And yet, Mr Johnson has chosen to repeat this statement and expand on the claim even further. I do not believe this to be acceptable.

I would therefore be grateful if you could make a statement on the accuracy of the foreign secretary’s most recent comments.

At the UK Statistics Authority someone will doubtless soon be digging out the bulging and well-thumbed Vote Leave bus file.

Here is the letter Norgrove wrote in September (pdf) about Johnson and this claim.

David Norgrove’s letter to Boris Johnson
David Norgrove’s letter to Boris Johnson Photograph: UK Statistics Authority

Greg Clark calls for Insolvency Service investigation into Carillion directors to be fast-tracked

At cabinet today Greg Clark, the business secretary, said the Insolvency Service had been asked to fast-track its investigation into Carillion directors. These are from Sky’s Faisal Islam.

Greg Clark.
Greg Clark. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz / Barcroft Images

There’s yet another example of business in the Irish Republic preparing to bypass the UK after Brexit today, and this time it’s on the high seas.

A new direct ferry service between Cork and Spain will start in April with those behind the sea link arguing it will allow freight traffic and hauliers to avoid post-Brexit customs checks through Britain. Brittany Ferries will operate two sailings per week from Cork to Santander in northern Spain.

Captain Michael McCarthy, Port of Cork commercial manager said:

The option for freight carriers to bypass the UK land bridge will be seen as very attractive, as Brexit uncertainty continues. We have no doubt that both exporters and importers will make this a viable service.

The ship named Connemara will carry 500 passengers and have capacity for 195 vehicles on the route.

May failing to recover from damage done to her reputation at election, poll suggests

The latest Guardian ICM polling is out today. Generally it confirms the impression that politics is entrenched in stalemate at the moment, although Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn can both find glimpses of good news in the detail if they look hard.

May v Corbyn on key issues

We asked people whether they trusted May or Corbyn most to do the best job on a range of issues. We also asked the same questions in May last year, about three weeks before the general election, and in September. Here are the main points from the last results.

  • May has failed to repair the damage done to her reputation on key policy issues at the general election. In May she was ahead of Corbyn on six of the nine issues we asked about, with huge leads of more than 20 points on four of those topics (Brexit, the economy, immigration and security). By September she was ahead on just four issues, and even on those issues her lead was considerably reduced. She is still ahead on those four issues, but since September she has fallen back a little bit on three of those topics (the economy, immigration and security). But she is up two points on Brexit, probably as a result of the deal being reached in December at the end of phase one of the talks.
  • Corbyn has maintained the lead over May that he had on five issues in September. They are: education, pensioners, fairness, public services and the NHS. But on all five of these issues his lead is the same or lower than it was in September. On education there has been a marked fall, from an 8-point lead to a 3-point lead, perhaps reflecting the fact that tuition fees were a more prominent issue last autumn.
  • Corbyn has a narrow lead (4 points) over May on who is seen as being best for protecting the environment. We did not ask about this in May or September, and so we cannot tell whether or not he is making progress. Given that the polling was conducted just after May’s major speech on the environment, this suggests that Tory attempts to promote their eco-enthusiasm have not led to them “owning” the issue. But, given that the environment is generally seen as a better issue for the left than for the right, being just 4 points behind Corbyn on this could be seen as a relative success.
  • The NHS winter crisis has not boosted Corbyn’s lead over May on this issue. The NHS is Corbyn’s strongest issue and he has a very significant 18-point lead over May in this area. But that has not gone up since September, even though the NHS crisis has been headline news for the last fortnight and Corbyn has highlighted the issue at PMQs.

Here is the chart with the key figures.

May v Corbyn on key issues
May v Corbyn on key issues Photograph: ICM

Voting intention

  • Labour has a 1-point lead over the Conservatives, the poll suggests. Here are the figures.

Labour: 41% (up 1 from Guardian/ICM one month ago)

Conservatives: 40% (down 2)

Lib Dems: 7% (down 1)

Ukip: 4% (down 1)

Greens: 3% (up 1)

Labour lead: 1 point (up 3)

I will post a link to the tables here, as an update, when they got up on the ICM website later today.

UPDATE: ICM have now posted the tables for today’s poll here (pdf), on their website.

ICM Unlimited interviewed a representative online sample of 2,027 adults aged 18+, between 12 and 14 January 2018. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

Updated

At a briefing about the NHS at the Royal Society this morning Sir Michael Marmot, of professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London, said that Boris Johnson’s claim in his Guardian interview about Brexit freeing up £350m for spending on the NHS (see 9.03am) had been shown to be “a lie”. He explained:

I think when the history of the 21st century is written, Boris Johnson will go down as one of the best guests on Have I Got News For You ...

It’s a ridiculous thing to say. It’s been pointed out by the statistics authority, the national statistics authority that that is totally misleading. He does say ‘gross’. Gross is a good word to use actually... but that’s not the relevant bit ...

It’s an untruth. It’s misleading. I’m not sure what other word to use.

UK should not take a transition deal for granted, says European parliament

The European parliament has now put out its own press statement about this morning’s debate. It stresses the point that the UK government should not take a transition deal for granted.

Here’s an extract.

In a debate with European council president Donald Tusk and commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on the 14-15 December EU summit conclusions, MEPs cautioned the UK government not to take a Brexit transition deal for granted, and highlighted the need to formalise the withdrawal agreement as fast as possible.

They also called on the UK government to lay out clearly its vision for the country’s desired future relationship with the EU, avoiding apparently celebrated priorities such as the colour of passports, which it was always free to choose. Some MEPs made it clear that no status outside the EU will ever be as good as full EU membership.

Leading MEP ridicules blue passport announcement and says transition deal not inevitable

The Press Association has filed a longer quote from Manfred Weber (see 10.26am) about the British government’s decision to bring back blue passports.

The first problem in this respect is about honesty - the whole story is a scam.

EU law does not say anything about passport colours. Croatia have navy blue passports for years already, you didn’t have to leave the Union for that, so why do you not tell people the truth?

The blue passports are the first and the only real thing the British Government has achieved in more than one-and-a-half years of negotiations.

If I were a British citizen I would be deeply worried about the priorities of my government.

  • He said the UK government should stop complaining about Brexit and instead ell the EU what it wants.

My message to London is please stop complaining, please deliver. Give us an outlook about what you want to achieve for the future relationships.

  • He said a transition deal was not inevitable. He said he wanted to deliver a “clear warning” that if the conditions for a transitional deal were not correct, then his MEPs would not back it. “The cliff edge is far from being avoided,” he said.

The EPP is the largest group in the parliament.

Manfred Weber visiting Downing Street in November last year.
Manfred Weber visiting Downing Street in November last year. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

At the end of the European parliament debate Frans Timmermans, vice president of the European commission, reaffirmed the point made by Donald Tusk earlier about the EU being willing to let the UK change its mind about Brexit. He told MEPs:

It is not the EU that decided to leave the United Kingdom. It is the United Kingdom that decided to leave the European Union. And if at some point the United Kingdom has second thoughts or would take another decision, obviously the European Union would leave the door open.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, is now winding up the debate in the European parliament. He says he welcomes what other MEPs have said, agreeing with his comments about Brexit. Their remarks suggest the EU will remain united on this, he says.

And that’s it. The debate is over.

Tusk's suggestion that UK could change its mind about Brexit is 'absurd', says Tory Bernard Jenkin

Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative Brexiter, told Sky’s All Out Politics that Donald Tusk’s suggestion that the UK might change its mind on Brexit (see 10.23am) was “absurd”. Asked about Tusk’s comments this morning, Jenkin said:

Nobody serious wants another referendum in this country on this question.

When it was put to him that the government could change its mind, Jenkin went on:

You want the government to just ignore the referendum? It’s absurd.

The referendum was won by the leave campaign against the odds and against the expectation because nobody could find anything good to say about the European Union during the campaign. All we had was fear from the government about what would go wrong if we choose to leave. Most of those fears have not been realised. We were meant to have 500,000 more unemployed, we were meant to be in recession by now. That has not happened. Most countries aren’t in the EU and they’re fine.

Bernard Jenkin.
Bernard Jenkin. Photograph: Bernard Jenkin/Sky News

Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s lead Brexit spokesman, has tweeted the main points from his speech to the parliament earlier.

And the Conservative MEP Syed Kamall, co-leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European parliament, said that the EU should focus on the needs of citizens, not its institutional interests, when negotiating Brexit. He told MEPs:

Voters, citizens and workers don’t care about legal technicalities, they don’t sit at home hoping the UK is made an example of. They simply want both sides to sort it out.

They want to keep making a living, keep selling their products, keep their jobs, keep travelling and keep safe.

So, quite simply, the EU needs to decide whether - is this is a deal for the European peoples or a deal for the European project?

In the Eurpoean parliament debate Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right European People’s party group in the parliament and a key ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, mocked the British government’s plans to bring back blue passports. He told MEPs:

The whole story is a scam, EU law does not say anything about passport colours ...

The blue passports are the first and the only real thing that the British Government have achieved in more than one-and-a-half years of negotiations.

What Tusk said to MEPs about Brexit

Here is the full text of Donald Tusk’s speech to the European parliament.

And here is is passage on Brexit in full.

Finally on Brexit. Leaders decided unanimously that sufficient progress had been achieved on the first phase with citizens’ rights, Ireland and the financial settlement as priorities. Accordingly, the EU27 adopted a first set of guidelines for the next phase of the talks. This would not have been possible without the unity of the EU27, the hard work of Michel Barnier and the constructive effort of prime minister May.

As regards our future relations, what we need today is more clarity on the UK’s vision. Once we have that, the leaders will meet and decide on the way the EU sees its future relationship with the UK as a third country. It also means a new set of guidelines. The hardest work is still ahead of us, and time is limited. We must maintain the unity of the EU27 in every scenario, and personally I have no doubt that we will. If the UK government sticks to its decision to leave, Brexit will become a reality – with all its negative consequences - in March next year. Unless there is a change of heart among our British friends.

Wasn’t it David Davis himself who said: “If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.” We, here on the continent, haven’t had a change of heart. Our hearts are still open to you. Thank you.

And here are some more extracts from Guy Verhofstadt’s speech earlier. (See 9.29am.)

Juncker backs Tusk in saying it's not too late for UK to rethink Brexit

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, also said that it was not too late for the UK to change its mind about Brexit when he addressed the European parliament plenary. These are from my colleague Jennifer Rankin and from Open Britain’s Thomas Cole.

Jean-Claude Juncker.
Jean-Claude Juncker. Photograph: Patrick Seeger/EPA

Updated

Tusk says EU needs more 'clarity' from UK on what it wants from Brexit

Donald Tusk, the European council president, spoke at the start of the European parliament’s plenary session about half an hour ago. Here are some of the key points he made.

  • Tusk said the EU needed “more clarity” from the UK on what it wants from Brexit.

As my colleague Jennifer Rankin points out, that is a rebuke to Philip Hammond, the chancellor, who said last week that the EU had to say what it wanted from Brexit too.

  • Tusk said the UK could still change its mind about Brexit.

As Jennifer points out, this line was greeted with only muted applause.

Donald Tusk speaking in the European parliament.
Donald Tusk speaking in the European parliament. Photograph: Vincent Kessler/Reuters

Updated

Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s lead Brexit negotiator, is speaking in the European parliament’s plenary session now.

He says the next stage of the Brexit talks will be harder than the opening stage.

He says it is particularly important to secure the guarantees for citizens’ rights.

And he says he wants to ensure there is no cherry picking during the transition. That is why he welcomes the new, toughened-up draft negotiating guidelines produced by the EU, he says.

My colleague Daniel Boffey has written about those draft guidelines here.

European council president Donald Tusk says not too late for UK to change its mind about Brexit

But it’s not too late for the UK to change its mind about Brexit, Donald Tusk, president of the European council suggests in a tweet this morning.

Updated

Boris Johnson condemned for escalating 'untruth' about UK saving £350m a week from Brexit

It is only Tuesday, but it is already clear that the wind-up of the week prize goes to Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary. Yesterday he gave an interview to my colleagues Heather Stewart and Anushka Asthana. He had a lot of interesting things to say (not least on the NHS, which is not part of his portfolio) and, knowing how angry many Guardian readers are about the vote to leave the EU, and his widely discredited claim that membership was costing the UK £350m per week, he said it was wrong.

So far, so good. Something Johnson and Guardian readers could agree on. But the consensus didn’t last long.

The real figure was even higher, he claimed.

Here is our story.

And here is the key excerpt.

Johnson argued that the UK’s EU contribution was already up to £362m per week for 2017-18 and would rise annually to £410m, £431m, and then to £438m by 2020-21 - “theoretically the least year of the transition period”.

Johnson argued that it was reasonable to use the gross figure because the UK government would “take back control” of the full amount. Moreover, he said the net figure was also rising, with around half of the total likely to be available to plough into British priorities in the future.

Johnson has succeeded in outraging remainers, as he no doubt intended. Open Britain, which is campaigning for a soft Brexit, issued this statement from the Labour MP Alison McGovern.

Our NHS is in the middle of a winter crisis and Boris Johnson’s solution is to return to the scene of his previous crimes and promise ever larger slices of pie in the sky.

Boris’s cabinet cheerleading for leaving the single market and the customs union will lead to less money - not more - for public services like our NHS.

Boris Johnson promised £350m a week for the NHS while telling us the EU could go whistle but then backed a £40bn divorce bill. Does anyone think he’ll leave our NHS doing anything other than whistling in the wind for the extra resources it badly needs?

And this is from Eloise Todd, CEO of Best for Britain, which is fighting Brexit.

This is a yet another untruth from Boris, a man who has become so obsessed with the lie he slapped on the side of the bus.

You have the sense that Boris will be arguing about £350m, that bus and that pledge for the rest of his political life.

He sold Brexit on a false prospectus and with the NHS in crisis people are rightly asking where is the money and if it’s not forthcoming they should have the right to change their mind. The man is a snake oil salesman.

There is a lot more Brexit coming today. Here is the agenda.

9.15am: Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, and Donald Tusk, the European council president, are due to address a plenary session of the European parliament in Strasbourg.

9.30am: Theresa May chairs cabinet.

9.50am: Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s lead Brexit spokesman, is holding a press conference.

11.30am: Philip Hammond, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.

12.15pm: Michael Gove, the environment secretary, gives evidence to the Lords Natural Environment Act committee.

Around 12.45pm: MPs begin the EU withdrawal bill’s report stage debate. Votes are due at 4pm and 7pm.

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 post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ 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 BTL but normally I find it 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 direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.

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

Updated

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