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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Labour leadership: Lisa Nandy close to securing place on final ballot after getting GMB nomination - as it happened

Lisa Nandy, the Labour leadership candidate, who has just been nominated by the GMB.
Lisa Nandy, the Labour leadership candidate, who has just been nominated by the GMB. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Afternoon summary

  • Boris Johnson has been defeated twice in the House of Lords today on his Brexit bill (see 3.48pm and 5.18pm), including on an amendment from Lord Dubs to reinsert provisions into the bill protecting unaccompanied child refugees. The government says it will reverse the defeats when the legislation returns to the Commons tomorrow.
  • The Welsh assembly has voted to withhold consent from the government’s EU (withdrawal agreement) bill. Following the Stormont vote yesterday, and a Scottish parliament vote earlier this month, that means all three devolved assemblies in the UK have rejected the legislation. However, these votes only have symbolic force and will not stop Johnson implementing Brexit.
  • Sajid Javid, the chancellor, has dismissed suggestions that the government’s decision not to align with EU rules after Brexit will damage British manufacturing. (See 9.31am.) In response the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said:

Increasingly Sajid Javid is looking completely out of touch with the reality our businesses are facing. He is reneging on the commitment that [Boris] Johnson gave to manufacturers during the election campaign that they would be protected. Jobs are being put at risk by Javid’s rightwing ideology overriding common sense.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

My colleague Heather Stewart has written an excellent long read giving the inside story of how Labour lost the election. It’s here.

Talking of YouGov, the polling organisation has this afternoon published some more results from its recent polling of the Labour party membership. The whole post is well worth reading, but here are three findings, and charts, that are particularly interesting.

1) Labour members, by a very large margin, would prefer the party to be a pro-fairness party than an anti-capitalist party.

YouGov polling on Labour membership.
YouGov polling on Labour membership. Photograph: YouGov

2) While three-quarters of Labour members see Rebecca Long-Bailey as Corbynite, at least half of members see all her remaining rivals as neither Corbynite or Blairite but “something else”. This is particularly helpful for Starmer who has been keen not to be identified with either the Corbynite or Blairite wing of the party.

YouGov polling on Labour membership.
YouGov polling on Labour membership. Photograph: YouGov

3) Being Corbynite may have its advantages - because Corbyn is the most popular Labour leader from the last century with members.

YouGov polling on Labour members
YouGov polling on Labour members Photograph: YouGov

Peers inflict fifth defeat on government over Brexit bill

The government has just lost a fifth vote on the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill. Peers voted for a Labour/Lib Dem amendment to include in the bill a line saying the government should take account of the Sewel convention, which says the UK government should not normally legislate on a matter devolved to one of the devolved administrations without the devolved body granting legislative consent. But this defeat was much narrower than the others. The opposition won by just 239 votes to 235 - a majority of four.

Sorry. I wrongly had this down earlier as a Game of Thrones reference. It’s not. It’s from the Hunger Games.

YouGov has published two polls of Labour membership since the leadership contest started, both suggesting Sir Keir Starmer is on course to win. This afternoon it has recalculated the numbers from its last poll, to take into account Jess Phillips dropping out, and it says this means Starmer could win on the first ballot.

Polling party members is not easy, but in 2015, and again in 2016, the YouGov Labour leadership polls turned out to provide a good guide to the eventual result.

Here is the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush on Lisa Nandy getting the GMB nomination.

Here is Tim Roache, the GMB general secretary, explaining why his union is backing Lisa Nandy for Labour leader.

Lisa Nandy is a breath of fresh air in the debate over Labour’s future.

The more members see of Lisa in this contest the more impressed they will be by her ambition, optimism and decisive leadership. GMB is proud to nominate her.

Lisa won’t shy away from the tough challenges or bold decisions that lie ahead, because she knows that after fifteen years of losing elections, more of the same won’t cut it.

A candidate entrenched in the union movement, Lisa gets the scale of the challenge.

She will raise Labour’s game with a bold agenda that puts people first and grounds politics in their lives.

And this is what he said about why the GMB was backing Angela Rayner for deputy.

For the members I represent, Angela Rayner shows that politics is about them and rooted in real life.

To those people who believe that politics is not for the likes of them or have been told their whole lives not to get ideas above their station, Angela Rayner is a role model and an inspiration. One who walks the talk.

The GMB is depicting Lisa Nandy as a Game of Thrones character, which may or may not be appropriate. Game of Thrones must be one of the few environments where the infighting and feuding is even worse than it is in the Labour party ...

Lisa Nandy has issued this statement about getting the GMB nomination. She said:

Labour is at a crossroads. To win again we will have to up our game, recover our ambition, and inspire a movement. The GMB, the biggest industrial union which speaks for more than half a million workers, has been offering that leadership time and time again in recent years. As I seek permission to lead us back to power as Labour’s next prime minister I could not be more proud to have their support.

Lisa Nandy close to securing place on final ballot after GMB nominates her for Labour leader

The GMB is nominating Lisa Nandy for the Labour leadership, Sky’s Joe Pike reports.

Nandy already has the backing of the NUM. That means she just needs an endorsement from another union or from a socialist society. There are 20 of the latter, and only one of those has endorsed a candidate (Sera - Sir Keir Starmer), and so Nandy should not find it hard to pick up the final endorsement she needs. It might come from Chinese for Labour.

This means that there are likely to be three names on the final ballot: Nandy, Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey.

Emily Thornberry is still in the contest, but unless she gets a very surprise endorsement from either Unite or the CWU (Unite will almost certainly back Long-Bailey, and the CWU will almost certainly go for someone to the left of Thornberry), she will have to get nominations from 33 CLPs to stay in the contest. She has had almost a week already to work on these, and so far she has just two. In the remaining two and a half weeks, she needs to pick up another 31. It will be tricky ...

Lisa Nandy.
Lisa Nandy. Photograph: Peter Powell/EPA

Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, has said his Fine Gael party will only vote for an EU trade agreement that ensures a level playing field for Irish farmers, if they are re-elected after Ireland’s general election on 8 February.

His declaration is a sign of the complexity to come on the EU side of the next stage of Brexit talks with member states battling to protect their own interests.

Coveney, who was in Brussels yesterday but back on the campaign stump at home today said:

I was with Michel Barnier yesterday and we spent a lot of time talking about farming and fishing. He’s somebody who understands this brief, only too well.

If we do not succeed in getting a good trade deal in place, then the €5bn of food that we sell to the UK each year becomes a trade that that will be put under threat.

With almost 50% of Ireland’s beef exports and 47% of cheddar cheese going to the UK, reducing trade barriers in agriculture will be a red line for Ireland.

Speaking in Fermoy Mart, in County Cork, he said that a seamless trade deal would include a zero tariff or quota regime. “These are serious issues, and they impact on every farm in the country, and by extension on every rural community in the country as well,” he told farmers.

Johnson suffers 80-vote defeat in Lords as peers back inserting child migrant protections in Brexit bill

Peers have passed the Dubs amendment by 300 votes to 220 - a majority of 80.

That is Boris Johnson’s fourth defeat in the Lords on the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill. There were three last night.

But this defeat is much bigger. Yesterday the government lost by 40 votes, 36 and 20 respectively.

Tomorrow the bill will return to the Commons, and the government is planning to reverse all the Lords defeats. (See 12.55pm.) At that point, or soon after, the Lords is likely to back down. It almost always gives way when it gets involved in a stand-off with the elected house, and given that Johnson has just won a large majority on a manifesto promising to pass this legislation, which needs to become law quickly, it is hard to imagine peers getting involved in protracted “ping-pong” (the process when a disputed bill goes back and forth between the Commons and the Lords) over this.

In the debate on the Dubs amendment, just before the division was called a few minutes ago, Lady Williams of Trafford, a Home Office minister, said that there were more than 5,000 unaccompanied child refugees being cared for in England alone, a 146% increase since 2014. And she said in 2018 there were more than 3,000 asylum claims from unaccompanied children - the third highest intake of any EU member state.

And she said the government was committed to resettling 5,000 people in the next year alone.

Williams said the current rules already provided a route by which child refugees could join family members in the UK.

Lady Williams of Trafford.
Lady Williams of Trafford. Photograph: Parliament TV

Emily Thornberry and Lisa Nandy, two of the Labour leadership candidates, have both tweeted about Jess Phillips’ decision to withdraw from the contest.

In the Lords peers are now voting on the Dubs amendment. (See 12.23pm and 3.18pm.)

Peers have resumed their debate on the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill and on the Dubs amendment. (See 12.23pm.) They had a break for lunch (unlike MPs, peers halt proceedings for lunch and dinner) and then there were Lords amendments.

Here are some quotes from the morning debate on the Dubs amendment. I’ve taken them from the Press Association wire.

From Lord Kerr, the crossbencher and former head of the Foreign Office

I have absolutely no idea why clause 37 [the original Dubs provision, taken out when the bill was redrafted after the election] isn’t in this bill. I do not understand what the government are planning to do.

I agree with Lord Dubs, wearing my Refugee Council hat I see [he is a Refugee Council trustee] a lot of evidence that the country takes this very seriously indeed, and that of all the issues we are discussing here, some of them constitutionally very important, some of them politically very important, of all the issues that we are discussing on this bill, this is probably the one that has the most public resonance that these unfortunate children should be looked after.

And why the government want to take out of the statute book a commitment to try to look after them is something that the public will not understand, so I strongly urge the government to withdraw this clause.

From the Bishop of Durham

From these benches, my right reverend colleagues and I view this particular issue as a moral bellwether for the future of our country. We want to be known as a country that is welcoming and passionate and committed to playing our full part in responding to the deep issues that arise from the reality of refugees around the world.

I believe the minister and the government do want to act with compassion, it is simply that what is proposed is not conveying this.

In my mind this is not just a matter of trust, but a matter of priority. Where do the government’s priorities lie?

The action of including clause 37, removing the family reunion obligation from primary legislation, speaks louder and will be heard further beyond this place than promises of other legislation yet to be announced.

From Lady Butler-Sloss, a crossbencher and a former high court judge

What I am concerned about is urgency. It would be very easy for the government, intentionally or unintentionally, with everything else that goes along on Brexit, not to have a priority about these children. What we need to do is to retain the sense of urgency.

Updated

Jess Phillips says she is withdrawing from Labour leadership contest because she cannot unite party

Here is the full text of the statement Jess Phillips has released explaining why she is withdrawing from the Labour leadership contest.

The election defeat that the Labour party faced at the last election was cataclysmic. We need to win 124 seats to just get a majority of one.

I truly believe that unless we talk to the country on their terms, not just on ours, that we won’t be able to make the gains we need to win an election - and do what everyone in the Labour movement wants to do, and that is make people’s lives better.

In order to do that, The Labour party will need to select a candidate who can unite all parts of our movement, the union movement, members and elected representatives.

And I have to also be honest with myself, as I said I always would be throughout this campaign.

At this time, that person is not me.

In order to win the country, we are going to have to find a candidate, in this race, who can do all of that, and then take that message out to the country.

A message of hope and change, that things can be better.

Now, I want to send a message to all of the people who joined our campaign. Tens of thousands of people have signed up, and in doing that, tens of thousands of new people have joined the Labour party.

It is brilliant they will get a say in this race.I want to say to those people. This is not the end.

Together, we can now use our strength, to make the changes we want to make. To use our voices in the Labour party, and in the country, to make sure that the Labour party win elections again.

This isn’t the end.

It’s the beginning.I also want to send a message to all of those in the Jewish community, many of whom have been in touch with me to say that in me, they found somebody who would stand up for them.

That doesn’t change.

I will always stand up, I will always speak out and I promise that we will change the problems in our party that we have seen.

I’m going to go out into the country and join the fight back.

Because the Labour party is not about the job description you have.

We are the strength of our common endeavour, and everybody who has joined in, now we go out into the country, in the local elections, the mayoral elections and we fight back.

We make sure we are out there, speaking to the country, and making sure the Labour party can win elections again.

Jess Phillips confirms she is withdrawing from Labour leadership contest

Jess Phillips has released a video message confirming she is withdrawing from the leadership contest.

Here is my colleague Owen Jones’ take on Jess Phillips.

Boris Johnson has had meeting with two foreign leaders in Downing Street today.

Here he is with the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

President Sisi of Egypt (right) with Boris Johnson.
President Sisi of Egypt (right) with Boris Johnson. Photograph: Anthony Harvey/REX/Shutterstock

And here he is with the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta.

President Kenyatta with Boris Johnson.
President Kenyatta with Boris Johnson. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/PA

The Unite union has finally paid the former Labour MP Anna Turley after her victory over the union in a libel case, my colleague Rajeev Syal reports.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, will update the Scottish parliament on her government’s next steps toward a second independence referendum next week, it has been confirmed, a week after prime minister Boris Johnson refused in perpetuity to grant her the powers necessary to hold a legal vote.

With various senior SNP figures suggesting that there will definitely/will definitely not be a second referendum in 2020 or invoking the civil disobedience of Ghandi’s Indian independence movement, it’s difficult to plot a course that sticks to Sturgeon’s preferred timetable while maintaining a referendum that is a “gold standard”, as she has insisted when rejecting suggestions of a Catalonia-style poll.

This comes as the Welsh parliament is expected later today to vote against Johnson’s Brexit bill, following similar votes by the Stormont assembly on Monday and at Holyrood earlier in January, presenting the fairly unprecedented situation where all three devolved nations have rejected this most significant piece of legislation but, because all three votes are symbolic, it has zero impact on the bill’s passage.

There are currently five candidates still in the Labour leadership contest. (Clive Lewis pulled out in phase one, because he could not secure enough nominations from MPs.) If Jess Phillips does pull out this afternoon, some people may find that surprising because the two YouGov polls of Labour members conducted since the contest started have both shown her in third place - a long way behind the two favourites, Sir Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey, but ahead of Lisa Nandy and Emily Thornberry.

But it is not enough to be popular with members. Under the party’s leadership rules, which have been amended under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, candidates have to have a certain amount of support from constituency Labour parties (CLPs) or affiliates (unions or socialist societies) to be sure of a place on the final ballot. (See 10.13am and 11.17am.) One of the golden rules of politics is that the result of any election is hugely influenced by the rules that apply, and if the new thresholds were introduced under union pressure to keep a maverick centrist off the ballot (as many suspect), then they seem to have done the job.

Phillips has always been disliked by Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters because she has been vocal in her criticism of him. According to the most recent YouGov poll of Labour members, Phillips’ supporters are more likely to say that Corbyn has done badly as leader than the supporters of other candidates.

Polling of Labour members
Polling of Labour members Photograph: YouGov

The tables (pdf) from the most recent YouGov poll also show that 60% of Labour members who say they would give Phillips their first-preference vote would choose Starmer as their second choice, and 25% would choose Nandy. Second preferences are crucial because Labour uses the alternative vote in leadership contests and, with multiple candidates, a candidate would normally need second-preference votes (after the weakest person has been eliminated) to win.

Updated

Cabinet to meet in north of England next Friday, No 10 says

Next week’s cabinet meeting will take place on Friday in the north of England to mark the UK’s departure from the EU, Downing Street has said. The prime minister’s spokesman told the lobby briefing:

The prime minister and the cabinet have set out that they want to work for the entire country and they want to engage more widely across the UK and this is one of many opportunities to do so.

And while we are talking about the lobby briefing, the Guido Fawkes website was live tweeting from the meeting this morning. You can read the feed here. The convention has always been that the meetings are embargoed until they are over (on the grounds that that saves journalists from having to file copy and ask questions at the same time), but the Guido Fawkes lot don’t like the lobby and want to disrupt the status quo. Where this will all end up remains to be seen.

As you can see from a glimpse at the Guido feed, quite a lot of what gets said at these briefings is unremarkable and a bit dull.

From my colleague Rowena Mason, who was at the Downing Street lobby briefing

These are from my colleague Heather Stewart on the Labour leadership.

From Sky’s Beth Rigby

From Sky’s Joe Pike

Updated

And here is Emily Thornberry on the GMB hustings.

According to the BBC’s Norman Smith, Thornberry says she is confident of getting enough nominations from CLPs or affiliates to make it onto the final ballot. (Other observers don’t share her confidence - see 10.13am.)

This is from the BBC’s Norman Smith on the private Labour leadership hustings this morning hosted by the GMB’s central executive committee.

Earlier today my colleague Owen Jones posted this on Twitter.

Sky’s Joe Pike says union sources expect Jess Phillips to announce this afternoon that she will withdraw from the contest.

As explained earlier (see 10.13am and 11.17am), because of the way the Labour leadership rules are operating, Phillips has very little chance of making it onto the final ballot anyway. In the light of that, it would be easy to see why she might be tempted to concede now.

Jess Phillips.
Jess Phillips. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Johnson faces defeat as peers debate amendment to reinsert child migrant protections in Brexit bill

In the House of Lords peers are debating the report stage of the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill for the second day, and they have just started debating amendment 18, the one tabled by the Labour peer Lord Dubs that would reinstate provisions in the bill ensuring that the government remained bound by a commitment to accept unaccompanied child refugees wanting to join family members in the UK.

The original EU (withdrawal agreement) bill contained this provision. But it was dropped when Boris Johnson published a new version of the bill after the general election.

Ministers claim that their policy has not changed, and that they remain committed to allowing unaccompanied child refugees to join relatives in the UK. But they argue that this bill is not the right place for this to be set down in law. They say it could be addressed in a forthcoming immigration bill.

Dubs told peers that he was prepared to accept the word of individual ministers. But he did not trust the government as a whole, he said.

And he also insisted that this was a matter of decency, and that members of the public would support what he was proposing. He concluded his speech:

If the argument is put to the British public, they tend to respond positively ...

What we are talking about here is a very small number of children who would be positively affected by this measure. And that’s why I’m pretty keen on it.

We’ve had over 200,000 signatures on a petition supporting this provision. I believe we are essentially on the side of public opinion. I believe we are essentially on the side of humanity. I beg to move.

The government is expected to lose when peers vote later this afternoon, although, with a majority of 80-plus in the Commons (it depends how you measure it), Boris Johnson should have no trouble reversing the defeat when the bill returns to the lower house tomorrow.

Lord Dubs.
Lord Dubs. Photograph: Parliament TV

From Bloomberg

There is more coverage of President Trump’s speech at Davos on my colleague Graeme Wearden’s Davos live blog.

The justice secretary, Robert Buckland, has claimed the government is not politicising the death of the London Bridge terror attack victims by unveiling tougher prison sentences for the most serious offenders, my colleague Kate Proctor reports.

The Labour MP Justin Madders may be the first person in the party to call for a review of the way the party’s leadership election rules are currently working.

When Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader in 2015, candidates just needed nominations from 15% of MPs to get on the ballot. But subsequently the rules were changed. The 15% threshold was reduced to 10%, but, as a concession to the trade unions, a second hurdle was introduced - requiring candidates to get a certain number of nominations either from constituency Labour party, or from affiliate organisations. (See 10.13am.) At the time it was not widely acknowledged how restrictive this rule might be, particularly for a candidate like Emily Thornberry or Jess Phillips.

The Labour party has refused Lisa Nandy’s request to change the format of the leadership hustings, at least for now, HuffPost’s Paul Waugh reports.

Sir Keir Starmer, the favourite in the Labour leadership contest, told Sky News as he arrived for the private GMB hustings this morning this morning that his message to the union would be: “That the Labour party and the trade unions need to be shoulder to shoulder.”

Keir Starmer going into the meeting with the GMB.
Keir Starmer going into the meeting with the GMB. Photograph: Sky News

And Lisa Nandy, another leadership candidate, told reporters as she arrived:

I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of friends in that room and working out how we rebuild the Labour party.

Lisa Nandy
Lisa Nandy Photograph: Sky News

HuffPost’s Paul Waugh says that Nandy is right to expect a warm welcome, but that this does not mean she will get the GMB nomination. In a briefing written last night he says:

The GMB has a strong tradition of promoting smart, soft left women (new MP Sarah Owen replaced the legendary late Mary Turner on the NEC until her election to parliament) and with Nandy campaign chair Louise Haigh another alumnus, it could be ‘the women-wot-win-it’. A big endorsement could provide the launchpad she desperately needs to show members she’s a heavyweight figure in this race (remember her ‘preferential strategy’ depends entirely on coming ahead of Long-Bailey, a big ask).

But the GMB’s central executive council (CEC) is made up of 55 ‘lay’ members and they’re proud of the democratic, regional structure. Although there are big Nandy fans (dubbed ‘Nandynistas’ by one party insider who shares my age and knowledge of Latin American leftists) in senior GMB posts, it’s possible that the 55 council members have picked up the same pro-Starmer rank-and-file sentiment as other unions.

Updated

According to Sky’s Joe Pike, Jess Phillips is not attending the private hustings for the GMB’s central executive committee taking place before the union decides which candidate it will nominate. She was not likely to win the GMB nomination anyway,

The BBC’s Jessica Parker says Phillips had a prior engagement.

In an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain Emily Thornberry, the Labour leadership candidate, said the party should choose a woman to replace Jeremy Corbyn because she said Boris Johnson had a problem dealing with female political opponents. She said:L

It is an advantage to be a woman leader at this time because I think Boris Johnson has a woman problem, most definitely. He certainly has a problem with me. I think the Labour Party should think about that.

She also said she favoured the wealthy and businesses paying more in tax. She said:

Of course, if you have broader shoulders, then you should be paying more. Tax rates have changed under 10 years of the Tories - people who earn the most are actually paying less in terms of the percentage. Tax rates have gone down, tax rates on big companies have gone down. I’d put them back up to make them the average for rich countries around the world.

This is broadly in line with what Labour was proposing in its 2019 election manifesto.

Thornberry is one of five candidates still in the race, but she and Jess Phillips face a high risk of being eliminated on Friday 14 February, the next deadline in the contest.

All five candidates have already cleared the first hurdle in the election - getting nominations from 22 MPs or MEPs. But by 14 February they need to hit another threshold: either nominations from at least three affiliate organisations, of which at least two must be unions, comprising at least 5% of the entire affiliate vote; or nominations from at least 33 constituency Labour parties (5% of the total).

Sir Keir Starmer has already cleared this second hurdle, through the affiliates route, and Rebecca Long-Bailey is thought to be safe. Lisa Nandy’s fate may hinge on whether the GMB decide to nominate her this afternoon.

But Thornberry and Phillips seem to have very little chance of getting the big union backing they need to qualify through affiliates (without the support of one of the big five unions, it is impossible to reach the 5% target), and they will probably find it hard to win the backing of 33 CLPs.

According to the @CLPNominations Twitter feed, a reliable guide to CLP nominations, Starmer has 13 nominations so far, Long-Bailey has four, Thornberry and two, and Nandy and Phillips have none.

The number of people who are unemployment dropped by 7,000 to just below 1.31m in the three months to November, according to new data. As the Press Association reports, that means that 3.8% of people who want to work do not have a job, largely unchanged on the previous quarter. However, the figure is 0.2 percentage points lower than a year earlier, according to numbers from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It means that unemployment is currently at its lowest level since December 1974.

UPDATE: I’ve amended this post to make it clear that these figures refer to the unemployment figures, not the claimant count figures.

Updated

Javid claims manufacturing won't suffer from government plan not to stay aligned to EU rules

The UK will leave the EU at the end of next week and this morning Sajid Javid, the chancellor, is attending his last Ecofin, the regular meeting for EU finance ministers, as a member. In a clip for broadcasters on his way, he was asked about the row generated by his interview with the Financial Times (paywall) at the weekend in which he insisted that that the UK would not stay aligned to EU rules after Brexit. He made two main points.

  • Javid claimed that business had had ample warning about the government’s plan not to remain aligned to EU rules. Asked about the reaction to his FT interview, in which he said “there will not be alignment, we will not be a rule taker, we will not be in the single market and we will not be in the customs union”, he said:

We have been very clear now for many months, and of course in our recent election as well, as we leave the EU we will not be in the single market, we will not be in the customs union, and we will not be rule takers.

At the same time, of course, we want a deep, comprehensive free trade agreement, and that’s what we are working on.

This is not wholly true because there were times during the general election campaign when Boris Johnson implied the opposite. For example, a few days before polling day, on a visit to a factory near Sunderland in the north east, Johnson was repeatedly asked, by workers and journalists, about the impact of his Brexit plan on companies like Nissan. He insisted that companies reliant on EU supply chains had nothing to fear. The Newcastle Chronicle has accused Javid of going back on an election pledge made by Johnson.

  • Javid dismissed suggestions the government’s ‘no alignment’ policy would damage business. When it was put to him that some firms thought his stance was irresponsible, he claimed that the government was working closely with business. And when asked if his comment to the FT about how some firms would not benefit from Brexit meant the government was prepared to “sacrifice some elements of manufacturing and industry”, he replied:

No, not at all. We look forward with confidence as we strike that new free trade agreement with our European friends, as we strike new free trade agreements across the world, it will be a very important time for British business. And I can see a British economy that continues to go from strength to strength.

This is slightly different from the message he gave to the FT. Speaking to the FT, he said: “There will be an impact on business one way or the other, some will benefit, some won’t.”

We are expecting more Brexit news as the day goes on, not least from the House of Lords, where the government faces more defeats on the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs cabinet.

9.30am: Unemployment figures are published.

10am: Labour leadership candidates address the GMB’s 60-strong central executive committee at a private meeting.

11am: Peers resume their debate on the EU (withdrawal agreement bill). The government is facing further defeats following the three votes it lost last night.

11.30am: Andrea Leadsom, the business secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

11.35am: Johnson meets the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, in Downing Street.

12pm: Downing Street lobby briefing.

Around 4pm: The GMB is due to announce who it is nominating for the Labour leadership and deputy leadership.

And in Brussels at some point today European commission officials will be briefing EU27 diplomats on their plans for how to schedule the next phase of the Brexit talks.

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 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

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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
‘What is literally the point’: Utah man sets up a date. Then he sees her address and tries to change the plan
Low effort, high red flags.
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