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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Brexit: TUC votes for second referendum as option if MPs fail to back acceptable deal - Politics live

Delegates at the TUC conference, which is debating a second Brexit referendum this afternoon.
Delegates at the TUC conference, which is debating a second Brexit referendum this afternoon. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Afternoon summary

  • The TUC has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a second referendum on Brexit being an option if the Commons fails to agree an acceptable deal. (See 4.31pm.)
  • Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has prompted a surprise rise in the value of the pound after saying there could be a Brexit deal within eight weeks if both sides are realistic. (See 4.52pm.)

That’s all from me for tonight.

Thanks for the comments.

Peers question whether Boris Johnson acted honourably over Whitehall rules and Telegraph job

A Tory peer who chairs a Whitehall standards body suggested in the Lords today that Boris Johnson did not act honourably when he took a newspaper job after his cabinet resignation.

Lady Browning was speaking in her capacity as chair of the advisory committee on business appointments (Acoba), the body that vets jobs taken up by former ministers and former officials to ensure that they do not abuse their inside knowledge of government, and she was commenting on the fact that Johnson signed a contract with the Daily Telegraph to resume his column after he resigned as foreign secretary before consulting Acoba. Under Whitehall rules, he should have asked Acoba first.

Browning admitted that the voluntary system only worked if it was “dealing with people of honour”. She went on:

Perhaps there should be some consideration that people who do not behave with honour should in some way be debarred or have some penalty from holding public office for a limited amount of time - probably two years would be a good idea - after they have flagrantly just ignored both the ministerial code and Acoba rules.

The Labour frontbencher Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said the fact that the system relied on “a code of honour” was weakness. He went on:

We shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose, that the latest transgressor of this system is Mr Boris Johnson, who perhaps seems to have a rather distant acquaintance with the notion of honour. When will the government agree to make this a statutory committee and be able to impose sanctions in order to make the system work?

Speaking for the government, George Young, the former cabinet minister who is now a Lords whip, triggered laughter when the told peers:

I am not an apologist for the former foreign secretary. That requires a portfolio of skills which I don’t have.

Young said Johnson was returning to journalism, “a career for perhaps which his qualities are better suited”. Young went on:

I don’t in any way undermine the seriousness of his offence, but what he did was not quite the revolving door that one normally sees in that the revolving door ended him up back where he started.

Updated

Earlier I quoted a tweet from Nick Macpherson, the former Treasury permanent secretary (and an archetypal establishment remainer) saying Tory Brexiters would end up backing Theresa May’s Brexit deal because they are so keen to leave the EU. (See 10.33am.) Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister and leading figure in the European Research Group (which is pushing for a harder Brexit), has now responded - and he thinks Macpherson is deluded.

Plans to redraw the political map of Scotland have been finalised following a consultation, the Press Association reports. The review will cut the number of MPs north of the border from 59 to 53 as part of a wider reduction in Westminster seats from 650 to 600. The Boundary Commission for Scotland has laid a final set of recommendations before the UK parliament after a consultation period. Just three Scottish constituencies will remain unchanged as a result - Na h-Eileanan an Iar and Orkney and Shetland, which are protected in law, and East Lothian.

Around three-quarters of Welsh seats would be axed or changed in an overhaul of parliamentary boundaries, the Press Association reports. Wales would lose more than a quarter of its seats under proposals to cut the overall number of MPs to 600. Of the 50 seats facing the axe, 11 are in Wales and final recommendations about how to carry out the shake-up have been published. Just a quarter of seats remain unchanged under the recommendations drawn up by the Boundary Commission for Wales.

According to a Sky News analysis, the Conservatives would have won a majority of 16 at the last election if the proposed new parliamentary boundaries had been in place.

According to the Financial Times, the pound rose sharply against the dollar today after Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said something positive about the prospect of there being a Brexit deal in November.

The FT report suggests that this tweet, from the British embassy in Slovenia, may have been influential.

But Barnier’s actual quote was slightly different. As the FT reports, he said:

I think that if we are realistic we are able to reach an agreement on the first stage of the negotiation, which is the Brexit treaty, within 6 or 8 weeks.

Some journalists are suggesting this doesn’t reflect well on currency traders. This is from AFP’s Danny Kemp.

And this is from the Independent’s Jon Stone.

TUC votes overwhelmingly in favour of second referendum being option if Brexit deal fails

One of the key issues at the Labour conference in Liverpool in a fortnight will be Brexit. But, if you want to know what it will decide, then the TUC debate this afternoon is probably the best guide available. It sounded like a dry run for Liverpool. Delegates voted to keep the option of a second referendum open - but with serious reservations.

  • The TUC has voted overwhelmingly in favour of a second referendum on Brexit being an option if the Commons fails to agree an acceptable deal. Delegates voted in favour of a TUC general council statement on the topic (pdf) and a composite motion (pdf). The key section of the composite says:

Congress calls on the general council to mobilise our movement politically and industrially to prevent either a cliff-edge Brexit or if the government’s withdrawal deal fails to meet the TUC’s tests. Congress agrees that the TUC should campaign against any deal that does not meet these tests with the aim of forcing an early general election to secure a Labour government with a mandate for a Brexit deal that puts working people first. Congress believes a defeated deal would be tantamount to a confidence vote in the government, warranting an immediate general election.

Congress, recognising the real risk of a collapse in the talks, or a deal that does not deliver on the TUC’s priorities and, whilst respecting the outcome of the 2016 referendum, therefore calls for the option of a public vote to be kept on the table. Congress does not rule out the possibility of a campaign for people to have a final say on the final Brexit deal through a popular vote being held in order to make an informed decision on the deal on offer, break parliamentary deadlock or overcome [the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.]

The TUC’s tests are for the final Brexit deal to protect workers’ rights, ensuring they don’t fall behind those of EU workers, and for the UK to maintain tariff-free and frictionless trade with the EU (implying ongoing membership of the single market and the customs union).

There is an inherent contradiction in the composite - “respecting the outcome of the 2016 referendum”, while at the same time countenancing a referendum that could overturn it - but that is not particularly unusual for a composite, which is an attempt to mesh various different motions into a single statement.

What was also striking about the debate was how most of the union leaders who spoke were anxious to stress that they did not want to be seen as lining up with the People’s Vote campaigners, who they see as outright remainers hell-bent on overturning the referendum result. General secretaries like Len McCluskey and Dave Ward may hate Tory hard Brexiters like Jacob Rees-Mogg, but in their eyes the pro-European centrists like Tony Blair and Chuka Umunna are almost as unpalatable.

  • The TUC has said that it thinks the chances of Labour approving the final Brexit deal are “remote”. The composite also says:

Congress is encouraged to note that Labour’s position on Brexit includes a commitment to vote down any deal which doesn’t meet its six tests and also doesn’t deliver a post-Brexit customs union with the EU. If, despite itself, the government reaches a withdrawal deal that is put to parliament before March, the prospects that it can meet the tests set by Congress or the Labour party are remote. When this happens, our movement must be prepared, politically and industrially, to mobilise against it.

Updated

You can read the TUC general council statement on Brexit in this document (pdf), starting on page 31. And you can read the text of composite two in this document (pdf), starting on page 15.

And composite two has been carried overwhelmingly too.

I’ll post a summary (including extracts from the general council statement and composite two) shortly.

Delegates pass the TUC general council statement on Brexit overwhelmingly.

James Anthony from Unison is speaking now. He says the hall is full of serious negotiators, and they know that the government is not conducting a proper negotiation.

Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, says his union is backing the TUC statement. But it is doing so on the basis that this is not a call for a second referendum. The TUC statement says the TUC accepts the referendum result, he says.

He says the TUC is not with Chuka Umunna. But it is not with Jacob Rees-Mogg either, he says.

He says he wants a vote for workers’ rights, to scrap austerity and to renationalise all services.

He says the idea of letting Theresa May take the UK out of the EU with no deal should be inconceivable.

The TUC should accept the referendum result but insist on a general election, he says.

Mick Cash, the RMT general secretary, is speaking now, and he is urging delegates to vote down the statement from the TUC general council on Brexit and composite two.

He says they are calling for the UK to stay in the single market. But staying in the single market would mean staying in the EU, he says.

And he says this would mean the TUC would be lining up with people like Tony Blair who want a second referendum so that they can reverse Brexit. These are people who want to obstruct Jeremy Corbyn, he says.

He says a second referendum would lead to social unrest.

The Tories will love it if the TUC supports this statement, he says.

He says the only vote that matters is a general election. We don’t need a people’s vote. We need a national vote that will sweep the Tories out of power, he says.

The only vote that matters is a general election. We should be calling for one thing and one thing only - an urgent general election that returns a socialist Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. We don’t need a people’s vote, we need a national vote that will sweep this rotten Tory government out of power.

Mick Cash
Mick Cash Photograph: TUC

Updated

Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA transport union, says, when a pay offer is put to workers, they get given the chance to say whether or not it is acceptable. The same should apply to Brexit, he says. He says the Tory Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg said that it could take 50 years for the full benefits of Brexit to be felt. That may be acceptable to Rees-Mogg, Cortes says, but it is not acceptable to people who will be dead by then.

Dave Ward, general secretary of the CWU communications union, says the union movement should seek to unite those who voted leave and those who voted remain.

He says the TUC should not support a referendum that would just re-run the arguments that divided the country so much two years ago. He says the composite, and the statement from the TUC general council, should not be seen as the TUC coming out as a cheerleader for the People’s Vote campaign.

TUC debates Brexit

At the TUC conference delegates are just starting debating Brexit. There is a live feed here.

Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, is speaking now, and proposing composite two, the Brexit motion that will be put to a vote later. (You can read the text here - pdf.)

He says the government has wasted two years arguing with itself. Theresa May has been held hostage by a coalition of imperialist nostalgics and free market fantatics, he says.

[Theresa May] has been held hostage by a coalition of imperial nostalgics and free market fanatics whose vision is of a British society of the 1950s allied to the economic dogma of the 1850s. This would be all very funny if we were not being marched to the cliff edge, while, like Nero the cabinet fiddles.

He says to May it seemed more important to keep Boris Johnson in the cabinet than to keep jobs in the UK. But look how that ended up, he says.

He says a no deal Brexit would be “a problem turned into calamity”.

He says we have been told Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, would negotiate deals with EU countries in the event of a no deal Brexit to allow airplanes to continue to land. But Grayling can’t even organise a train from London to Doncaster, he says.

He says in the referendum two years ago the establishment got a “well deserved kicking”, he says.

He says he accepts that the option of a referendum must be left on the table, as a safety net.

But it would be better to have an election, he says.

  • Unite’s Len McCluskey says second referendum should remain an option, but a general election would be much more preferable.
Len McCluskey
Len McCluskey Photograph: TUC

Updated

Lunchtime summary

  • Downing Street has dismissed reports that up to 80 Conservative MPs would vote against the Chequers Brexit plan by saying it remains “the only plan on the table that will deliver on the will of the British people while avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland”. (See 12.20pm.)
  • Labour has dismissed plans published today (see 1.17pm) to redraw parliamentary boundaries and cut the number of MPs as “nothing but an undemocratic power grab”. Cat Smith, the shadow minister for voter engagement and youth affairs, said:

These final boundary recommendations are nothing but an undemocratic power grab by this Tory government. With no plans to reduce the number of ministers, the government is weakening the role of parliament and creating unprecedented levels of executive dominance at the expense of backbenchers, when parliament is meant to be taking back control.

Cutting the number of MPs by 50 as we prepare to leave the European Union is further proof this government is clamouring to tighten its grip on power. With the workload of MPs set to rise after Brexit, with thousands of pieces of important legislation expected to come through parliament, it would be utterly ludicrous to go ahead with these boundary changes.

Under the final proposals, which in many respects are similar to interim plans published last year, Jeremy Corbyn’s Islington North seat would be abolished, and Boris Johnson Uxbridge and Ruislip South seat, where Johnson had a 5,034 majority in 2017, would become even more marginal.

We have got to be rational and say that everything will not be wonderful because we are leaving the European Union. We have to say there are great opportunities that come from Brexit but that is not a guarantee that everything is going to be rosy on the other side.

Let’s not have an irrational positivity, but look at the opportunities and look in a balanced way at the pluses we can control. We will be subjected to the same global pressures as before.

Fox’s comments seemed to be aimed at Boris Johnson, who regularly urges people to be more optimistic about Brexit. But the People’s Vote campaign, which is calling for a second referendum on Brexit, accused Fox of hypocrisy on the grounds that in the past Fox himself complained about people being “too downbeat” about Brexit. Chris Leslie, the Labour MP and People’s Vote supporter, said:

It sounds like Liam Fox has strong disagreements with himself when it comes to Brexit. One Liam Fox touts all the supposed benefits of Brexit, like fantasy free trade deals, whilst the other admits that leaving the EU is no guarantee of a rosy future.

It’s this kind of hypocrisy that explains why more and more people are turning against the government’s chaotic Brexit.

The TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady speaking at the TUC conference this morning.
The TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady speaking at the TUC conference this morning. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

The biggest civil service union is seeking legal advice on whether to challenge the government over laws on balloting for industrial action, the Press Association reports, The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said legislation should be changed as postal balloting was an “archaic and outdated” method of voting. The union recently lost a ballot for strikes over pay when the 50% threshold for those taking part was not reached.

General secretary Mark Serwotka said:

Our analysis of our recent unsuccessful ballot shows that the method of voting was the biggest barrier to participation. If we had e-balloting, we are certain we would have beat the threshold. Some of our members have never posted a letter but everyone has sent an email or used social media. It is a violation of our members’ human rights and we are looking into the possibility of challenging the Government in the courts if we can.

As the Press Association reports, the PCS said it was seeking legal advice to see if the current law infringes freedom of association under the Human Rights Act.

Delegates voting at the TUC Congress in Manchester this morning.
Delegates voting at the TUC Congress in Manchester this morning. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Here is my colleague Jennifer Rankin, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, on the FT story saying EU leaders are preparing to give Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, revised negotiating guidelines. (See 9.32am.)

The House of Commons library, which provides expert and impartial briefing papers for MPs on almost any subject that might come up for debate, has produced its own report on what will happen if there’s a no deal Brexit. It runs to 172 pages. It does not seem to contain any material not already in the public domain, and anyone expecting to find in it an overall verdict about how dreadful or acceptable a no deal Brexit might be will be disappointed. But, as a one-stop resource for anyone looking for information about how different sectors might be affected, it is probably hard to beat.

Updated

Final boundary commission proposals published

The final boundary commission proposals are out. Or at least some of them ...

The ones for England and for Northern Ireland seem to be available online, but the ones for Scotland and for Wales are not up yet.

Boundary Commission for England

News release (pdf)

Interactive website

Full set of documents

Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland

Final report (pdf)

Final recommendations map (pdf)

Individual constituency maps

Interactive map

Brexit department refuses to say if it has taken legal advice on holding second referendum

The government has refused to confirm whether it has taken legal advice on holding a second referendum on the final Brexit deal, saying revealing such information would harm its negotiating position in talks with Brussels, Reuters reports. The Reuters story goes on:

The Brexit department, which oversees the negotiations on Britain’s departure from the European Union next year, made the comment in response to a Reuters query submitted under the Freedom of Information law ...

May has repeatedly ruled out holding a second referendum following the vote two years ago to leave the EU. However, several [MPs] in her Conservative party back the idea of what is known as a “people’s vote”, and opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn is under pressure to voice his support ...

Asked by Reuters what legal advice it had received this year on holding a second referendum, the Brexit department said there was a public interest in refusing to confirm or deny whether it had such information.

“There is a very strong public interest in the most effective pursuance of the UK*s national interests abroad,” the department said in a letter.

“It is necessary to consider whether the act of confirming or denying whether we hold information ... would be likely to prejudice the government’s negotiating position, which would be detrimental to the UK*s relationships with other states, and with European institutions, and would prejudice the promotion and protection of the UK*s interests abroad.”

The department said it had concluded “the public interest favours maintaining the exclusion” of its duty to reveal whether or not it holds such information.

Men in the Labour party should aspire to be the next deputy leader, Harriet Harman said. Speaking at Dublin Castle to the International Congress of Parliamentary Women’s Caucuses, Harman, Labour’s former deputy leader, said it was now time for the next leader to be a woman. She said:

In my party, we regard ourselves as the party for women, yet in 100 years we have never had a woman leader, it appears only men are able to rule the Labour party. Next time, we have to have a woman.

Don’t get me wrong, we have many brilliant men, and I encourage their ambition, I tell them: ‘You are an asset, I want to encourage you to aspire because one day, you could be deputy leader’.

Harriet Harman speaking at the International Congress of Parliamentary Women’s Caucuses at Dublin Castle today.
Harriet Harman speaking at the International Congress of Parliamentary Women’s Caucuses at Dublin Castle today. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Downing Street lobby briefing - Summary

Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.

  • Downing Street brushed aside reports that up to 80 Conservative MPs would be willing to vote against the Chequers plan. (See 10.28am.) Asked about the Steve Baker assessment, the prime minister’s spokesman said:

Chequers is the only plan on the table that will deliver on the will of the British people while avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland. The prime minister is working hard to secure a deal and hopes all MPs will be able to support it.

  • The spokesman confirmed that Theresa May will chair a special cabinet meeting on Thursday to consider plans for a no deal Brexit. The government is expected to publish another tranche of the no deal technical notices it has been releasing at the same time.

This is not language that the prime minister would choose to use. Beyond that, I don’t plan on giving this article further oxygen.

  • The spokesman implied that the government remained committed to low taxes. Asked if May agreed with Johnson that the government should rule out further tax increases (see 9.32am), the spokesman said he could not comment on future budget decisions but he stressed that the government had cut taxes in the past. He said:

What I can do is point to this government’s record of cutting taxes to support businesses and help people keep more of what they earn, such as: raising the higher rate threshold and personal allowance, cutting income tax for 31m people and leaving a basic rate taxpayer over £1,000 better off every year; freezing fuel duty for eight successive years, saving the average driver £160 this year; and introducing over £10bn’s worth of business rates support, meaning many small businesses now pay no rates at all. We have also cut corporation tax to 19%, the lowest in the G20.

When asked if May agreed with Johnson that the government could cut taxes but still raise an extra £20bn a year for the NHS, the spokesman said he had nothing to add to what May said on this when she made her announcement earlier in the year. (At the time May claimed that some of the money would come from the supposed “Brexit dividend”, but she also said that “as a country will be contributing a bit more”. That implied a recognition that taxes would have to go up. Today’s Number 10 briefing suggests that, with Johnson trying to exploit this issue, May is now not so keen to acknowledge the need for taxes to rise.)

  • The spokesman refused to say that the vote on the proposed new parliamentary boundary changes would take place before Christmas. Asked about the timing of the vote, all he said was that it would come “in due course”. But he did say the government was determined to go ahead with boundary changes. He said:

We are committed to delivering more equal and updated boundaries so our parliamentary system represents everyone equally. Without boundary reforms constituencies would be based on data which is more than 20 years old, which would disregard significant changes in demographics, housebuilding and migration. The final proposals will be debated and there will be a vote in both Houses in due course in the usual way.

When asked if the government remained committed to cutting the number of MPs, as well as equalising the size of constituencies, the spokesman said it was.

  • The spokesman appeared to welcome reports that EU leaders may modify the negotiating terms given to Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, to increase the chances of the UK and the EU reaching a deal. (See 9.32am.) Asked about the Financial Times story, the spokesman said:

We have evolved our own position and we have set out that we want the EU to evolve theirs. How they do that is obviously a matter for them. But we have said throughout that we want these talks to be approached with imagination and creativity.

10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has been speaking at the TUC conference in Manchester. As my colleague Rajeev Syal reports, she said that advances in technology meant that a four-day week working week was a realistic goal for most people by the end of this century.

I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing, which was fairly uneventful. I’ll post a summary shortly, but the main line was probably another Downing Street slapdown for Boris Johnson, albeit a somewhat routine and predictable one. This is what the prime minister’s spokesman said when asked about Johnson’s comment yesterday about the Chequers plan being like a “suicide vest”.

In his Telegraph article (see 9.32am) Boris Johnson claims that President Trump’s low tax and deregulation policies have contributed to US growth reaching almost 4.5%. This is contested.

Annualised growth in the US doubled in the second quarter, reaching 4.1%.

But, as this FactCheck.org article from July argues, so far Trump’s overall record on growth has been less impressive. It says:

Economic growth rebounded under Trump — but hasn’t reached the rate he promised, and is still below the best years under Obama ...

The first official estimate for the second quarter of 2018 won’t be released until July 27. However, the “GDP Now” forecast produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta projected on July 6 that the second-quarter growth rate will come in at 3.8 percent — almost within the range that Trump promised.

But few if any economists expect sustained growth at anywhere close to what Trump has pledged.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects real GDP to grow 3.3 percent this year, and 2.4 percent in 2019, then settle to an average of 1.9 percent for decades to come.

The National Association for Business Economists June survey produced a median forecast of 2.8 percent growth this year and 2.5 percent next year.

And this is what the economist Kenneth Rogoff said in a Guardian article on this topic last month.

What will be the cumulative effect of Trump’s economic policies on the economy 10 years from now? Political ruckus aside, the jury remains out ...

Trump’s efforts to scale back regulation, particularly on small and medium-size businesses, are probably also a plus for long-term growth, reversing some excesses that crept in at the end of Obama’s term (though Trump is throwing out good regulations with bad ones) ...

But while the Trump administration has strengthened the US economy’s long-term growth potential in some ways, the other side of the ledger is rather grim. For starters, a wide range of studies – from the work of the late economist David Landes to more recent research by MIT’s Daron Acemogluand the University of Chicago’s James A Robinson – find that institutions and political culture are the single most important determinants of long-term growth. Recovery from the damage Trump is inflicting on institutions and political culture in the US may take years; if so, the economic costs could be considerable.

If you know of any other good articles that shed light on this debate, please flag them up BTL.

I’m off to the lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am.

Here is Nick Macpherson, the former Treasury permanent secretary, on whether Tory MPs could actually vote against Chequers.

Steve Baker, the Conservative former Brexit minister, spoke to Sky News this morning and he restated his assessment that there are almost 80 Tories willing to vote against Theresa May’s Chequers plan.

Baker suggested that he had already put this figure on the record. That is true, up to a point. In July Baker said that people claiming that 40 Tories were willing to vote against Chequers “were out by a factor, not a fraction”. What he meant was that the real figure was twice 40 (a factor of two), not, say, 60 (40 plus half again), but his phrasing was a bit abstruse and his comment was not widely reported.

As Sky’s Beth Rigby reports, Baker also effectively confirmed that the European Research Group, the Tory faction representing MPs pushing for a hard Brexit, has effectively abandoned plans to publish an alternative Chequers plan - despite journalists being briefed last week that this was the intention.

UK economic growth fastest in nearly a year

Britain’s economy grew 0.6% in the three months to July, the fastest pace in almost a year and up from 0.4% in the three months to June, my colleague Julia Kollewe writes. She has more on the growth figures on her business live blog.

Boris Johnson increases pressure on May by urging Tories to rule out tax increases

When does routine party political infighting, conducted through anonymised briefing and public statements qualified by code and euphemism, cross the line into open civil war? It is hard to be sure but, wherever you draw the line, the Conservative party seems to have crossed it recently. It has split into two camps that are fighting an increasingly open and acrimonious battle over whether or not the government should defend or abandon Theresa May’s Chequers plan for Brexit.

And, in a sign of how the battle over Chequers is also a contest between two rival visions for government, Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and the leading figure in the “chuck Chequers” hard Brexit camp, has used his column in today’s Telegraph (paywall) to publish what looks like the first instalment for a Conservative leadership manifesto. Here are the key points.

  • Johnson says the Conservatives should rule out further tax increases. He makes the argument despite also accepting that the government should press ahead with May’s commitment to find an extra £20bn a year for the NHS by 2023. The Treasury believes this means some sort of tax increases will be inevitable. But Johnson believes that, through the magic of the Laffer curve, government can cut taxes and raise revenue at the same time. He says:

Instead of canvassing tax rises, we should say that tax henceforward will not go up. That’s it. No new taxes and no increase in rates. We should be lifting thresholds, so that people on modest incomes are not caught by fiscal drag, like so many in the South East.

We should also remember the phenomenon first identified by the great Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldūn in 14th-century Tunisia, and now ascribed to Arthur Laffer: that if you cut the right taxes, you can actually increase receipts for government. And with that in mind, we should be looking not at rises but at cuts to income tax, capital gains tax and stamp duty.

(There are some circumstances in which lowering tax rates does increase tax revenue, but the idea that this is catch-all solution to funding public services is a rightwing fantasy.)

  • Johnson praises President Trump’s record in the US, saying his policies have boosted growth.

I know it is not fashionable to point this out, but the United States currently boasts economic growth rates far in excess of this country, at about 4.5 per cent, and with record low unemployment – and that growth is being driven not just by the US government’s decision to cut taxes and regulation, but perhaps even more by psychology: by the sense that the government wants to cut taxes, wants to liberate and energise people. Do we send out that signal, here in this country? I am not so sure.

  • He condemns HS2. This is interesting because it puts him in the same camp as Ukip, which has long called for HS2 to be scrapped. Johnson says:

When it comes to championing HS2, the so‑called high-speed rail scheme, I am afraid my sword rather sticks in my scabbard ...

No one is accountable for the waste, because HS2 is structured like so many other big UK infrastructure contracts, with a cascade of contractors and subcontractors, each shuffling the blame on to the other, and each of them ultimately with their jaws clamped around the teat of the Treasury.

So, in one article, Johnson has planted his flag firmly in political territory that used to be owned by Nigel Farage. That might not be a recipe for success in UK politics as a whole, but it will sow up the Ukip-leaning vote in any future Conservative leadership contest.

There is quite a lot of other Brexit news around this morning. Here’s a summary.

The EU is preparing to give its Brexit negotiator new instructions to help close a deal with Britain, in a conciliatory move that will bolster Theresa May as she suffers savage attacks from Brexiters at home ...

EU member states insist they remain firmly behind Mr Barnier. “I don’t know how much you need to change, frankly speaking,” said the EU diplomat, adding that the most important point of new guidelines was “the symbolism.”

Two other officials on the EU side confirmed the planned discussion in Salzburg on supplementing the guidelines for Mr Barnier. One EU diplomat dubbed it a “save Theresa” operation.

  • At least a dozen Conservative MPs could leave the party if Johnson became prime minister, it has been claimed. But Nicky Morgan, the pro-European former education secretary, she was not one of them. In an interview with the Today programme, she said she would not serve under Johnson if he became prime minister, but that she would not leave the party either. She said:

I have been in the Conservative party for the best part of 30 years. I am not going anywhere. I believe that there is a role for a centre-right party in our political system. I am a one nation Conservative and that is what I shall stay and fight for.

  • David Gauke, the justice secretary, told the Today programme that May’s Chequers plan was the only credible Brexit proposal available. He said:

There is an overwhelming majority within the Conservative party that we respect the referendum result, that we implement it in such a way as to respect the integrity of the United Kingdom and the Good Friday agreement and ensure that we are in a strong position to grow the economy in the years ahead.

There isn’t an alternative credible plan out there. I think that it is absolutely right that the cabinet and the parliamentary party backs the prime minister. In challenging circumstances she is the right person to deliver the right deal for this country.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The TUC conference resumes. At lunchtime the Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, and the GMB general secretary, Tim Roache, will be speaking at a fringe meeting about how the Labour party should move forward. And in the afternoon the TUC will debate Brexit.

11am: Downing Street lobby briefing.

12pm: Matt Hancock, the health secretary, gives a speech.

After 3.30pm: MPs are due to hold a general debate on legislating for the EU withdrawal agreement.

At some point today the Cabinet Office is expected to publish the final reports from the four UK boundary commissions proposing new boundaries that would see the number of MPs cut from 650 to 600.

As usual, I will also 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 before I wrap up, at around 6pm. Comments will probably close about half an hour later.

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

Here is the Politico Europe round-up 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 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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