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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Andrew Sparrow, Matthew Weaver,Martin Farrer and Mattha Busby

Corbyn says May will raise Labour concerns over Brexit backstop with EU – as it happened

Evening summary

We will now draw today’s live coverage of events in Westminster and beyond to a close.

Here is earlier’s afternoon summary (17:35).

Thank you for reading, and see you tomorrow!

Updated

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has told French radio he remains confident that “common interest” shall prevail and a deal will be secured with the UK within two months.

However, he refused to reopen negotiations on the withdrawal agreement.

In an interview he said the two-year divorce negotiations had looked for an alternative to the “Irish backstop” which was designed to ensure that the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland remained free of border posts.

“No one, on either side, was able to say what arrangement would be needed to ensure controls on goods, animals and merchandise without having a border,” Barnier said. “We have neither the time, nor the technologies.”

European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier arrives for a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday Jan. 30, 2019.
European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier arrives for a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday Jan. 30, 2019. Photograph: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP

He insisted on Wednesday that the remaining 27 EU members were united and determined not to abandon the backstop clause they believe is key to maintaining peace on the border.

Earlier, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said it was “an extraordinary situation when a prime minister and a government negotiates a deal and then goes back and during the ratification process votes against their own deal”.

“That’s like saying in a negotiation, ‘Well either you give me what I want or I’m jumping out of the window’,” he told RTE radio.

Labour grandee Alastair Campbell asks whether it is time for MPs to force the Cabinet to choose which Brexit they would like, as the former prime minister Tony Blair criticises May’s deal.

Welsh Assembly members have voted for work to begin on preparing for another vote on EU membership if the UK cannot participate in the single market after Brexit, “as it now seems”, although they stopped short of calling for an immediate second referendum.

The call comes after First Minister Mark Drakeford met Theresa May at Downing Street today in what was the first of regular weekly meetings between the UK government and devolved Welsh and Scottish governments.

After the meeting, Drakeford said he told the prime minister that a no deal Brexit should not be an option and the UK government should look to extend the Article 50 deadline, something that the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru motion urged in order to avoid no-deal.

The assembly agreed: “If, as it now seems, the UK Parliament cannot unite around an alternative proposition which includes participation in the single market and a customs union then the only option which remains is to give the decision back to the people; and believes that work should begin immediately on preparing for a public vote.”

Plaid Cymru leader, Adam Price, told ITV that allowing the people to decide the way forward is the “only way to solve the Brexit deadlock.”

“People are fed up with seeing politicians acting in such an unedifying way during a time of real crisis, which is why Plaid Cymru decided to approach the Labour Welsh Government to offer to work together on a solution that is in Wales’ national interest,” he said.

“While Westminster serves up nothing but chaos, our parliament here in Wales is coming together to find real solutions that can move politics forward from its current point of toxic stasis.”

Updated

ITV’s Robert Peston says shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer’s absence from the meeting between Corbyn and May today was a signal of the Labour leader’s “own clear preference to avoid another referendum”.

“In the battle over whether Labour should ever back a Brexit referendum or People’s Vote, Murphy and Milne are implacably opposed, and Starmer is battling to keep that option alive,” he wrote on Facebook.

“So it matters that in choosing to explain what kind of Brexit deal Labour would support, Corbyn was accompanied by the two influential aides who are convinced that Labour should deliver Brexit and not ask the views of the people again.

“Even more striking is that those close to Labour’s leader tell me they can indeed envisage a moment in the coming weeks when it will be official Labour policy to vote for a Brexit plan,” he added.

“Those at the top of Labour, and in the grassroots, who want a referendum should fear they are being properly outmanoeuvred.”

However, my colleague Jessica Elgot says conclusions should not be drawn from Starmer’s absence, since the Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay was not at the meeting either.

Conor McGinn, a Labour MP, has called on the government to stand by the Good Friday agreement as he expressed his disappointment with Jeremy Corbyn’s remarks about the backstop.

The prime minister Theresa May has now tweeted about her meeting with Jeremy Corbyn, reiterating that a failure to vote for her deal would amount to a vote for no deal.

Earlier, May spoke over the phone with Irish premier Leo Varadkar to discuss the outcome of Tuesday’s Commons vote.

In a statement, the Irish government said: “The Taoiseach set out once again the unchanged Irish and EU position on the Withdrawal Agreement and the backstop, noting that the latest developments had reinforced the need for a backstop which is legally robust and workable in practice.

“The Prime Minister indicated that further consultations are taking place in London .. They agreed to stay in touch over the coming period.”

Tusk reaffirms the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, has tweeted:

It comes after MPs voted last night for an amendment to pass the Brexit deal bill if Theresa May can secure changes to the Irish backstop.

The prime minister said she would return to the Commons so that a revised deal – if she can get one – could be voted on by 13 February, but the EU immediately said the backstop was ‘not open for renegotiation’.

We now have more from Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with the BBC following his meeting with Theresa May today.

The Labour leader said he is “suspicious” that May is trying to “run down the clock” on Brexit.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn walks through Portcullis House in Westminster, London, on his way to Prime Minister Theresa May’s office in the Houses of Parliament for talks on Brexit.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn walks through Portcullis House in Westminster, London, on his way to Prime Minister Theresa May’s office in the Houses of Parliament for talks on Brexit. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

He warned: “The whole process looks like it’s running down the clock by saying well it’s either the problems and the difficulties of no deal or support a deal that’s already been rejected by the House of Commons.

“I’m suspicious that there is a programme of running down the clock here.”

The DUP’s Brexit spokesman has been criticised for saying people should “go to the chippy” in the event of a no-deal Brexit leading to food shortages at supermarkets.

DUP MP Sammy Wilson made the throw-away remark in the Commons earlier today after the SNP’s Ian Blackford cited a warning from the British Retail Consortium that there is potential for food shortages, after the main supermarkets voiced fears this week.

As Blackford told MPs: “Just dwell on this, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Marks & Spencer, the Co-op, Waitrose, Costcutter all warning of not being able to have sufficient supplies, of shelves lying empty,” the East Antrim MP shouted: “go to the chippy!”

Labour Party chairman Ian Lavery told HuffPost UK: “This outrageous comment highlights quite vividly how many Parliamentarians are woefully out of touch and insulting many poor and vulnerable people is not the answer.

“Instead of the DUP filling their political coffers with central government finances and propping up a zombie government, they should focus their attentions on how to better the lives of people who are suffering out their in the real world, many who reside in his constituency.”

Green MP Caroline Lucas said on Twitter:

Here is a video of European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt’s impassioned speech earlier today.

What started as a cat fight inside the Conservative party is today an existential problem for the whole [of] Britain.

Updated

Corbyn says May will raise Labour concerns over back stop with EU

Jeremy Corbyn says he discussed “various issues surrounding the problems of the back stop” in his meeting with Theresa May this afternoon and that the prime minister will speak with the EU about these concerns.

During the 45-minute conversation, the Labour leader told May that under her proposals the UK would enter into a treaty arrangement without the right to leave it for the first time in the country’s history. “I have a problem where we go into an agreement which is one sided, I want an agreement which is mutual,” he said.

“The last words I said to her were ‘don’t bring no deal back to Parliament’ because it’s not acceptable, it’s not a sensible or serious way of going forward.”

He added that he would like a “comprehensive customs union” with the EU, with a say in how those trade agreements are made.

Updated

Afternoon summary

  • Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, has said that a no-deal Brexit is now more likely following the vote in the House of Commons last night. (See 3.31pm.) Addressing the European parliament, Juncker and Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, both insisted that the withdrawal agreement would not be renegotiated, despite MPs voting last night for the backstop to be replaced. The texts of the two speeches (as delivered - so mostly in French) are here. In a second vote last night, MPs rejected a no-deal Brexit in principle. But this vote is non-binding, and today Theresa May confirmed that it does not kill off the prospect of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal.

That’s all from me for today.

My colleague Mattha Busby is now taking over.

Here is the BBC’s Nick Robinson with his analysis of what’s going on.

Listening to the European parliament debate, it was striking how keen MEPs were to see political leaders in London come together and reach a consensus on the way forward.

The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope has a line from Number 10 with their take on the May/Corbyn meeting.

This is from Sky’s Lewis Goodall on the May/Corbyn talks.

And these are from Goodall on what Jeremy Corbyn told him about what happened.

Michel Barnier (right) next to Jean-Claude Juncker in the European parliament this afternoon.
Michel Barnier (right) next to Jean-Claude Juncker in the European parliament this afternoon. Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images

This is from Stefan Rousseau, the Press Association’s chief political photographer.

This is from my Observer colleague Michael Savage.

The European parliament debate on Brexit is now over.

Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, is speaking now on behalf of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group.

He says the chances of a no-deal Brexit have gone up. But that is not because of the vote in the Commons. It is because of what has happened in Brussels.

He says the EU made Theresa May sign up to the backstop. She had to get on a plane at 4 in the morning to go to Brussels to agree to it [in December 2017]. He says she signed up to terms that no country had signed up to except when defeated in war.

He says people in the UK never used to know anyone in the EU. But now Brexit has turned “you”, he says, into household names. And people have seen how the EU behaves.

He says people in the UK are getting so fed up that they would prefer to see a no-deal Brexit.

But that is a problem for the EU, he says. What will happen to the 100m bottle of prosecco bought by the British? And what will happen to the 750,000 German cars.

Back in the European parliament Gabriele Zimmer, a German MEP speaking on behalf of the European United Left, says she has always respected British democracy. But she is disappointed by the “pantomime” she has seen.

She says she hopes the talks between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn will inject some momentum into the situation.

She says she is glad that MPs had the chance to have a meaningful vote. But MPs have to say what they want.

Molly Scott Cato, the British Green MEP, says Brexit was never more than a collection of slogans. She says it would be best of the UK to stay in the EU. As Ukip MEPs heckle her, she says they are worried, because they know that public opinion in the UK is turning against Brexit.

May/Corbyn meeting was 'serious exchange of views', says Labour

The May/Corbyn talks have now ended. My colleague Dan Sabbagh has a take from the Labour side.

Updated

Guy Verhofstadt, the liberal MEP and lead Brexit spokesman for the parliament, is speaking now. He says May will be welcome if she comes to Brussels. But for what?

Will she change her red lines? That would be welcome, he says.

He says the Commons has not voted once in the last two years in favour of a particular type of relationship with the EU.

The last two months have been very exhausting: endless debates, and endless amendments, he says.

He says, as he speaks, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are meeting.

(Well, almost - the meeting ended a few minutes ago.)

He says he hopes they are not just drinking tea and eating biscuits. He says he hopes they were working on common position.

It could be the solution for this problem if they start working together on a cross-party approach so that we know what the position of the UK is in the future, because we don’t know it.

He says, if that happens, then May will be welcome to return to Brussels.

He says the parliament is ready to move forward. But the political class in Britain must be ready to move forward too, he says.

Guy Verhofstadt
Guy Verhofstadt Photograph: EP

Updated

Ashley Fox, a Conservative MEP, is now speaking on behalf of the Conservative and Reformists group.

He says some MEPs hope the UK will change its mind. But it won’t.

He says the UK wants to leave in an orderly fashion. But for that to happen, there will have to be changes to the backstop.

In its current form, the backstop will not prevent a hard border. It will create one, he says (because it will lead to the agreement being rejected).

The backstop in its current form will not prevent a hard border, it will create it.

He says it is simply not good enough to say the agreement cannot be changed. That will just lead to no deal, he says.

He quotes Barnier saying last week the EU could try to find a way of avoiding checks at the border.

He says time limits and exit clauses should be considered.

Updated

Roberto Gualtieri, an Italian MEP, is now speaking on behalf of the socialist group in the parliament.

He says Theresa May used to defend the backstop. But then she changed her stance, and attacked the proposal that she used to support. This might have united her party in the short term, but it will not provide a long-term solution, he says.

He says the only good thing to come out of the debate was the vote to reject no deal.

If the British want to ensure the backstop is not used, they should build a majority for a Brexit involving a closer relationship with the EU.

He says, if MPs cannot reach agreement, they should send the decision back to the people.

He says if the UK needs article 50 to be extended, the parliament would agree. But it would have to know that it wanted.

Elmar Brok, a German MEP, is speaking now on behalf of the centre-right European People’s party group in the parliament.

He says all the constructive proposals in the parliament were voted down.

And it is disappointing that the PM and the leader of the opposition are not speaking to each other. He says in the European parliament they are united. But in the UK they are not, because they do not speak to each other.

He says the backstop was a British plan. The British want to renegotiate something that they created in the first place. That is “quite crazy’, he says.

He repeats his call for the British to talk to each other. “Please get things sorted out,” he says.

He says neither side wants a hard Brexit. And he does not want Brexit at all, he says.

He says the British should know that the damage from a no-deal Brexit will be much bigger for the UK.

The British need to come up with a constructive position, he says.

Elmar Brok
Elmar Brok Photograph: EP

Barnier says there is no identified solution in the UK.

So it is urgent for the EU to prepare for every contingency, he says.

Barnier says voting against no-deal Brexit will not necessarily stop it happening

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is speaking now.

He says Theresa May said for the first time yesterday that the withdrawal agreement would have to be reopened. She said that even before the vote, he says.

The agreement will not be renegotiated, he says.

We share the will of the UK parliament to avoid a no deal.

I agree with Theresa May, voting against a no deal - as happened yesterday - does not rule out the risk of a no deal.

For us, the withdrawal agreement remains the best and only means to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the UK.

The backstop is part and parcel of the withdrawal agreement and this agreement will not be renegotiated.

He says the backstop is not “dogma”. It is part of a solution to the Irish border issued developed with the UK.

He says voting against a no-deal Brexit will not necessarily prevent one happening.

Checks on animals will be obligatory, he says. That is about protecting the internal market.

He says he has heard MPs this morning talking about getting rid of the backstop. But they know from the negotiations that the backstop is essential.

(Perhaps he is talking about Dominic Raab, the former Brexit secretary, was was interviewed on Today this morning.)

He says it is hard to accept the blame game the British are now engaged in.

It is tough, I find it hard to accept this blame game they are trying to play against us.

He says the EU is open to “alternative arrangements”. The protocol in the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration on the future relationship actually say that, he says.

He says the backstop is needed.

Right here and now, quite honestly, no-one on one side or the other can say very clearly and precisely what form these alternative arrangements will take so they can be operational and they can objectively meet the aims of the backstop.

Calmly and clearly, I will say right here and now - with this withdrawal agreement proposed for ratification - we need this backstop as it is. Rejecting the backstop as it stands today boils down to rejecting the solution which has been found with the British. But the problem remains.

Updated

Juncker says he is an optimist.

That is why he still believes that there can be a deal, he says.

I’m still an optimist by nature and a believer in democratic institutions by conviction.

This leads me to believe that there can and will be agreement with the UK so that we can move on and move forward together with our new partnership.

We will work day and night to make it happen and to ensure that we are ready in case it does not.

Updated

Risk of no-deal Brexit has increased as result of Commons vote, says Juncker

Juncker says last night’s vote has increased the risk of a disorderly Brexit.

Yesterday’s vote has further increased the risk of a disorderly exit of the UK.

  • Juncker says risk of no-deal Brexit has increased as a result of last night’s Commons vote.

He says the EU is preparing for this eventuality.

We have tried everything in our power to prepare for all scenarios, including the worst.

Updated

Jean-Claude Juncker's speech

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, is speaking now.

He says the UK will soon leave the EU. This is a bad decision.

He says the withdrawal agreement is the best and only agreement available. The EU has said that repeatedly. He says the votes last night do not change that.

The withdrawal agreement remains the best and only deal possible.

The debate and votes in the House of Commons yesterday do not change that.

The withdrawal agreement will not be renegotiated.

The EU is determined to prevent any return to the “dark times” in Ireland.

The EU has no desire to use the safety net (his term for the backstop). But he says a safety net that can only be used sometimes is not a safety net.

No safety net can ever truly be safe if it can just be removed at any time.

He says the Commons is against many things. It is against a no-deal Brexit, and it is against the backstop. But we don’t know what it is for, he says.

We know from yesterday’s debate that the House of Commons is against many things. It is against a no-deal Brexit, it is against a backstop.

But we still don’t know what exactly the House of Commons is for.

He says he will continue to be in close contact with Theresa May, “for whom I have the greatest respect”.

I will listen to her ideas, but I will also be extremely clear about the position of the EU.

Updated

MEPs debate Brexit following last night's Commons vote

The European parliament is now discussing Brexit.

Melanie Ciot, the Romanian secretary of state, is speaking first. Romania has the EU presidency. She says:

A renegotiation of the agreement is not on the cards.

Updated

These are from the BBC’s Katya Adler on the German reaction to last night’s Commons votes.

David Davis, who resigned as Brexit secretary last summer because he opposed Theresa May’s plan, says the UK needs to “hold its nerve” because the EU will resist compromising over the backstop for a while.

He also says it is important for the UK to find a solution acceptable to the Irish government.

Jeremy Corbyn has just gone into Theresa May’s office in the Commons to discuss Brexit, the BBC reports. He is accompanied by Nick Brown, the chief whip, Seumas Milne, his director of communications and strategy, and Karie Murphy, his chief of staff.

Tory Brexiters exploiting Irish backstop issue to increase chances of no-deal Brexit, Anna Soubry claims

The People’s Vote campaign, which is pushing for a second referendum, has released research which it says undermines Theresa May’s claim that, if she addresses the backstop issue, she will be able to get her deal through parliament.

May has said that last night’s Commons vote passing the Brady amendment shows that there is a Commons majority for a deal, provided the backstop issue is addressed.

But People’s Vote released research showing that, of the 118 Conservative MPs who voted against May’s deal earlier this month, only 20 of them objected to it solely on the basis of the backstop. Most cited other objections, the analysis says.

Here are the figures.

Tory MPs who voted against May’s deal and the concerns they raised
Tory MPs who voted against May’s deal and the concerns they raised Photograph: People's Vote

In a comment on the figures released by People’s Vote, one of its supporters, the pro-European Tory Anna Soubry claimed that some Tory Brexiters only voted for the Brady amendment last night because they think May’s renegotiation will fail, increasing the chances of the no-deal Brexit they want. She said:

What last night’s votes confirmed is that there is no majority for either a ‘no deal’ Brexit or for the prime minister’s original plan – which even Theresa May herself now does not support.

My appeal to my colleagues on the Conservative benches is not to allow themselves to be used by those determined to force a no-deal Brexit on the country.

As this dossier shows, the vast majority of the hardline pro-Brexit MPs in the Commons have far deeper objections to the prime minister’s Brexit deal than with the Northern Ireland backstop.

Those hardliners voted for Graham Brady’s amendment last night as part of their wider effort to kill the deal in total, because they know there is no serious prospect of the withdrawal agreement being renegotiated. They have relied on the sincere concerns of many colleagues about what the deal means for Northern Ireland to advance that cause, but this is a temporary party unity based on a false prospectus. The ERG [European Research Group] leopard has not changed its spots.

There is no form of Brexit that fulfils the promises made for it in 2016, or is as good a deal as the one we have as members of the EU, or will prevent this crisis carrying on forever as successive governments go back and forth to Brussels for more and more negotiations and renegotiations.

Instead of embarking on a further round of fantasy Brexit all of us in parliament need to decide whether to force through a deal that no one voted for and we would all live to regret – or recognise that the only way forward is a people’s vote.

Anna Soubry
Anna Soubry Photograph: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

The government has denied it is deliberately excluding an amendment that could liberalise abortion rights in Northern Ireland by restricting their domestic abuse bill to England and Wales.

Labour MP Stella Creasy accused the Home Office of prioritising the votes of the DUP, the Conservatives’ confidence and supply partners. The Northern Irish party is strictly anti-abortion.

In an urgent question in parliament, Creasy questioned which the draft domestic abuse bill was applicable only to England and Wales, preventing MPs from amending the bill to change abortion law in Northern Ireland, where it is illegal under almost all circumstances.

Home Office minister Victoria Atkins told MPs in the Commons that in line with existing criminal law the provisions of the draft bill “expand to England and Wales only”.

Creasy said the minister should “go back to the drawing board and coming up with a bill that can protect every victim across the UK” including those in northern Ireland, saying the restrictions were “just because the government needs those 10 votes of the DUP to stay in power.”

Minister, fight us fair and square on abortion rights in this place, not through backroom deals and bargaining, unless it will take a rape victim having to come to court to make this government do the right thing and not block this change. Put DV [domestic violence], not the DUP first.

Atkins said MPs should not “believe everything you read in the paper” and insisted the subject matter was “devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland” and said the efforts to liberalise abortion should not hinder its progress.

“We are currently in discussion with the Scottish government and the Northern Ireland department of justice about whether they wish to extend any of the provisions of the bill to Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively,” she said.

This is from the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.

And here is a translation from Jakub Krupa from the Polish Press Agency.

I spoke today with Chancellor Angela Merkel about Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. Acting together, with all EU members states, we should do our best to avoid hard Brexit. We are waiting for Theresa May’s government to present their proposals to the EU.

These are from Sky’s Tom Boadle.

Sir Oliver Letwin, the Conservative former cabinet minister who was one of the supporters of the unsuccessful Yvette Cooper amendment last night, which was intended to rule out a no-deal Brexit, told Radio 5 Live this morning that he did not think Theresa May’s attempt to renegotiate the backstop would succeed. He said:

I don’t actually think it’s at all likely that that will succeed. And I think it’s much more likely that if we’re to find a deal before 29 March, it will have to be done on a cross-party basis.

'Alternative arrangements' to backstop don't exist, says Irish deputy PM

In his speech at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) in Dublin, Simon Coveney, the Irish deputy prime minister, also ridiculed that idea that “alternative arrangements” could replace the backstop, as the Brady amendment passed yesterday proposes. He said:

There are currently no alternative arrangements, which anybody has put forward, which achieve what both sides are determined to achieve - to avoid a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks or controls, and protect the all-island economy, North-South co-operation and the Good Friday agreement.

Believe me, this has been explored endlessly in the negotiations over the last two years.

We have seen no alternative arrangements that meet this essential threshold. We need a backstop or insurance mechanism based on legal certainty, and not just wishful thinking.

Simon Coveney speaking at the Institute of International and European Affairs
Simon Coveney speaking at the Institute of International and European Affairs Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

This is from the Telegraph’s Steven Swinford.

The claim that Crawford Falconer, the international trade department’s chief trade negotiator, and Julian Braithwaite, the UK’s representative at the WTO, were going to be drafted in as part of the Brexit negotiating team was included in a Sun story this morning.

Brexiters have been calling for Falconer to be more involved for some time. They argue that he cannot be expected to mastermind trade policy if he is not involved in the discussions about the UK’s future trade relationship with its biggest single market, the EU.

UPDATE: This is from the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn.

Updated

Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, has warned it will not be threatened into abandoning the backstop arrangement for the Irish border, comparing Britain’s latest Brexit moves to an ultimatum from someone threatening to jump out the window. My colleague Lisa O’Carroll has the full story here.

PMQs - Snap verdict

PMQs - Snap verdict: Has Brexit fatigue finally reached the House of Commons? It certainly felt like that. After a night of high drama, that led to Theresa May being applauded as a hero by the rightwing press for winning a vote by capitulating to the ERG and abandoning a deal she spent more than a year negotiating, it seemed as if MPs - like much of the rest of the country - had finally had enough, and were anxious to change the subject. It wasn’t that the Brexit crisis was totally ignored. But it did sound as thought there were far fewer questions about it than normal.

And you can see why, because whenever it did get raised, all we heard were the familiar platitudes that made it feel like Groundhog Day - although I’m sure in Groundhog Day there was more variation. The best question was posed by the SNP’s Ian Blackford, who in his opener (see 12.22pm) cleverly highlighted just what a whopping U-turn May exercised yesterday evening. Other interesting questions came from MPs who tried to get May to acknowledge that the passing of the Spelman/Dromey amendment last night rejecting no deal meant that a no-deal Brexit was now off the table, but May sidestepped them all in such a way as to make it impossible to glean any more about whether she would, or would not, be willing to contemplate such an outcome.

Jeremy Corbyn devoted all his questions to Brexit and he focused on one of the government’s greatest weaknesses - its inability to say anything substantive about what the “alternative arrangements” it wants to replace the backstop will actually entail. But May could see this coming, and - by her standards - gave an unusually full answer to Corbyn’s first question, rattling off various possibilities. In reality, these are little more than bullet points that have already been dismissed by the EU, but Corbyn did not deploy the forensic firepower needed to make that apparent, and May survived those exchanges mostly unscathed (although his joke question about the new technological solutions that might emerge in the next 58 days was a good one). Corbyn ended with a very reasonable point about the need for the government to find a Brexit solution around which the country might unite, but May’s glib retort about his failure until now to even talk to her about Brexit got her off that hook too.

In a PMQs that was unmemorable even by recent standards, perhaps the real takeaway was how pointless these May/Corbyn talks are going to be. He was already rehearsing his lines about May being unwilling to reach out to business/union opinion. And she devoted a large chunk of one of her replies to regurgitating her critique of Labour’s Brexit policy. They would both save time by calling it off, and asking Keir Starmer and Stephen Barclay (less abrasive types) to have a chat instead.

Theresa May at PMQs.
Theresa May at PMQs. Photograph: Jessica Taylor/PA

Updated

Labour’s Liam Byrne asks about a homeless man who died in Birmingham. Homelessness is a “moral emergency”, he says.

May says the government is taking action across the country to deal with it.

Updated

Bob Blackman, a Conservative, asks May to join him in praising volunteers who work with the Holocaust Memorial Trust. May says she is happy to praise them for what they do. We should all be fighting against antisemitism wherever it occurs, she says.

The DUP’s Nigel Dodds asks May if she agrees the language from the Irish government, about uniformed guards at the Irish border, or Brexit being like jumping out of a window, is highly reckless.

May says she will be speaking to Irish PM later today. She says both sides want to maintain their commitments under the Good Friday agreement.

Labour’s Siobhain McDonagh asks about a family in her constituency being forced into temporary accommodation.

May says she will ask the relevant minister to look at the case.

Mark Harper, a Conservative, says he could not vote for May’s deal originally, but he is glad that she will renegotiate the backstop. He says he hopes Tory MPs will give May space. The EU will not crumble tomorrow, he says.

May says winning the vote gave “a very clear message” to the EU that a deal can go through the Commons.

Labour’s Marsha De Cordova says MPs vote against no deal last night. Ordinary people would be most affected by a no-deal Brexit. Will May categorically rule one out?

May says MPs rejected no deal. She says she hopes De Cordova will play her part in avoiding one by voting for her deal.

Maggie Throup, a Conservative, asks about schools and educational performance.

May says schools are seeing performance improve.

Simon Clarke, a Conservative MP, asks May to take seriously the Malthouse compromise Brexit plan. May says the government is looking at what it proposes.

Labour’s Jack Dromey says we are 58 days from a cliff. If we plunge over, the country will be poorer. Last night MPs voted for the Dromey/Spelman amendment rejecting no deal. Will May honour that?

May says MPs voted to reject no deal. But they also voted for a deal. That is what we should be focusing on, she says. She says the Commons can only avoid no deal by having a deal.

Updated

Labour’s Stephen Hepburn asks about World Cancer Day, and what can be done to provide more help in his constituency.

May says the relevant minister will meet Hepburn to discuss this.

Updated

Douglas Ross, a Scottish Conservative, asks if May agrees Moray needs a fairer funding settlement.

May says it is the SNP goverment that decides how much money councils in Scotland get.

Labour’s Stephen Morgan asks about the closure of a department store in his constituency.

May says the business department will work with the company involved. But if Morgan is worried about jobs, the policies of Labour are the ones that would cause most harm.

Bim Afolami, a Conservative, says the government is spending more on education. But small, rural schools still have a funding problem, he says.

May says she is sure the chancellor will have heard Afolami’s lobbying.

The DUP’s Ian Paisley asks about a report on the handling of serious sexual offences in Northern Ireland.

May says this issue highlights the need for the devolved administration to get back up and running.

Updated

David Duguid, the Scottish Conservative, asks May to stand firm against EU attempts to retain access to UK fishing waters.

May says she can give that assurance. The UK will become an independent coastal state.

Labour’s Tracy Brabin asks about cuts to bus services in her Batley and Spen constituency. Shouldn’t the government invest more in them, and bring them under public control?

May says the government spends £250m every year subsidising buses.

Vicky Ford, a Conservative, asks May to confirm that the UK stands behind all its commitments under the Good Friday agreement.

May says she can give that assurance.

Labour’s Owen Smith says there is a rising tide of racism in this country. Race hate crime has increased by 100% since May became PM. What is happening to this country on her watch?

May says, when she was home secretary, she took steps to improve the recording of hate crime. There is no place for hate crime in our society.

Andrew Percy, a Conservative, asks about a toddler constituent who died of sepsis.

May says sepsis is a devastating condition. The NHS is working on improving its early warning system, he says.

Labour’s Sandy Martin asks about a constituent, with two terminal illnesses, who has been made to wait too long for a PIP assessment.

May says she will ask the relevant department to look into this.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Tory, asks May if she agrees that Corbyn should abandon his plan to keep the UK in the customs union, so the UK can strike its own trade deals after Brexit.

May agrees. She says the UK must be able to strike free trade deals after Brexit. Those deals will help poorer countries too, she says.

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, says two weeks ago May told MPs that no alternative deal exists. Yet last night she said she would look for one. So, which is it? Has May inadvertently misled the House? Or has her incompetence reached a new level?

May says Blackford overlooked the fact that MPs voted against the deal.

She says she wanted to respond to what Blackford said in the chamber last night. Blackford said the government had “ripped apart” the Good Friday agreement. She says that was irresponsible.

Blackford says that was a graceless response. He says the UK government told Scotland in 2014 that independence would take it out of the EU.

May says Scotland voted to stay in the UK. And the UK is leaving the EU. More than 60% of Scotland’s exports go to the UK. That is more than three times as much as goes to the EU. Yet the SNP want to put up a border, he says. That would damage Scotland.

Chris Philp, a Conservative, says first-time buyers need more help to buy homes. Does May agree councils should ensure as many new homes as possible are designated as starter homes.

May says national planning policy is intended to encourage the building of more affordable homes.

Corbyn says May should acknowledge that MPs voted to take no deal off the table. She should look at alternative plans.

May says voting to reject no deal is not the end of the story. You have to vote for a deal too, she says. Corbyn has said he will reject any deal the government puts on the table. If the government comes back with a revised deal, will he support it?

Corbyn says May must acknowledge that she must abandon her red lines. Our responsibility is to bring people together, whether they voted leave or remain. He says he will discuss with May a solution that could unite the country. Changing the backstop is not enough. Businesses and union say a customs union and a relationship with the single market will be essential. May may have succeeded in temporarily uniting her very united party. But is she willing to make the compromises necessary to unite the country?

May says Corbyn is a fine one to talk about coming together, when it was only last night that he agreed to meet her. She says MPs voted to address the backstop issue. Corbyn needs to listen to that, she says. She says Corbyn’s plans were rejected by MPs. She says Corbyn has no plan for Brexit, no plan for the economy, and no plan for the country.

Updated

Corbyn says Stephen Barclay dodged a question about which options would be explored in talks with the EU. What are they?

May says she answered that already. Corbyn should have listened.

Corbyn says he is looking forward to meeting her. He will tell her about Labour’s plans, what would command a majority in the Commons. She talks about technological solutions. What new technology will become available in the next 58 days.

May says she referred to some options in her answer earlier. But last night a majority of MPs in the Commons voted for a new approach. They want a change to the backstop. That is what she will take back to the EU. She is working to get deal, she says. She says Corbyn is risking no deal, because he has rejected the deal.

Jeremy Corbyn also offers his condolences to those who lost relatives in the dam collapse.

He asks May to set out what the “alternative arrangements” to the backstop that May wants will be.

May says there are a number of proposals. She says various MPs have put forward plans. She is engaging with them. Ideas include an exit date, or a unilateral exit mechanism. And trusted trader plans will be examined.

Corbyn says none of what was in May’s answer was clear to him. Will May say which of her red lines will change?

May says EU leaders want a deal. The vote last night showed that is needed for a deal. It shows she can get a clear and sustainable majority. She says she is pleased Corbyn will meet her to discuss Brexit. Corbyn says he wants a strong single market relationship with the EU. But will he accept state aid rules? Because you have to if you are in the single market. She says the next time a Labour backbencher tries to ask Corbyn a question, he should answer.

Updated

John Whittingdale, a Conservative, says last year was the worst on record for the deaths or imprisonment of journalists. Does May agree journalists play a vital role in democracy?

May agrees. She says in 2018 80 journalists were killed. She says the government is helping to train journalists around the world, including in Venezuela.

Labour’s Toby Perkins asks about the funding of further education colleges. Their funding has been cut, he says.

May says Perkins “could not be more wrong”. By 2020 funding going into FE will ensure that young people get the best life chances, he says.

Theresa May starts by sending thoughts and prayers by those affected by the collapse of the dam in Brazil.

Normally I post a PMQs snap verdict as soon as the May/Corbyn exchanges are over, because for many people that is the most important part of the whole session, but today I’ll wait until the end because I think it will be interesting to see how she engages with the House as a whole.

PMQs

PMQs is due to start soon.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

PMQs
PMQs Photograph: HoC

No-deal Brexit less damaging to EU than undermining single market by dropping backstop, says leading MEP

Philippe Lamberts, a Belgian Green MEP and a member of the European parliament’s Brexit steering group, told Sky News this morning that he thought hard Brexiters in the UK were suffering from “delusion” if they thought the EU was going to abandon the backstop. He explained:

We are not going to say that we surrender the backstop or, conversely, that we accept that we will make no checks at the borders, even though the United Kingdom might significantly diverge in terms of sanitary standards, social standards, environmental standards. And then we should let a 500 kilometre door open to the single market, without any checks? Just as if you, as a Brexiter, would say, ‘Okay, we do not want [freedom of movement], but we accept that we will not make any border checks on people. Would they do that? Of course not ...

I think there is an underestimation in the United Kingdom ... that the cost of hurting the single market is judged, on this side of the channel, as much bigger than the cost of a no-deal Brexit. Yes, a no-deal Brexit will be damaging, not just to the UK - massively so - but also to the European Union. But accepting a gigantic backdoor into the single market would be even more damaging. So the calculus is quite obvious; if we have to choose, we will choose the lesser of two evils, and that’s a no-deal Brexit.

These are from my colleague Jennifer Rankin in Brussels.

May has got 'very strong hand' as she demands EU renegotiation, says DUP

But, despite what EU leaders are saying (eg, see 7.58am, 9.14am, 11.18am, and 11.20am), the DUP’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson told Sky’s All Out Politics this morning that it was “perfectly possible” that Theresa May would be able to negotiate a revised deal without a backstop. He said:

What she sold to us last night was that she is going to go back to the EU and ask for the withdrawal agreement to be reopened, she is going to have the backstop removed and she will come back with a legal guarantee that Northern Ireland won’t be separate from the rest of the UK. I believe it is perfectly possible for her to deliver ...

She has got a very strong hand. She can say the House of Commons has roundly rejected the withdrawal agreement and she now has the Commons backing her to reopen the agreement and get changes.

We are leaving on March 29, whether the EU likes it or not. There’s not going to be a withdrawal agreement in place then, so far, far better for them to start looking at the flexibility which they are telling the Irish they will look at in the event of no deal, and get that flexibility in a deal.

Sammy Wilson outside the Houses of Parliament with a pro-Brexit supporter
Sammy Wilson outside the Houses of Parliament with a pro-Brexit supporter Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

And Nathalie Loiseau, the French Europe minister, has said much the same thing. She said:

Brexit will take place in two months. Time is running out.

We are ready to talk about the future but now is the time to agree on the conditions of the separation.

The withdrawal agreement that is on the table is the best possible agreement. Let us not reopen it.

This is from the Express’s Joe Barnes.

Stewart Wood, the Labour peer who worked as a foreign affairs to Gordon Brown when Brown was prime minister, has posted a good thread on Twitter about how the UK consistently misunderstands the EU. It starts here.

Police Scotland drawing up plans to deal with 'potential public disorder' after Brexit

An interesting Twitter thread from Police Scotland has just appeared online, which quotes Scotland’s police chief, Iain Livingston, saying his force is preparing for “potential public disorder” after Brexit. The thread starts here.

Livingstone is updating board members on the force’s planning for Brexit, which is being done in conjunction with colleagues across the UK.

“Planning is focused on mitigating potential disruption to law enforcement tools and on preparing for potential disruption at ports, and on dealing with potential public disorder which could lead to mutual aid requests from across the UK.” says one tweet, quoting Livingstone. He also announces that he has decided to bring forward recruitment of more than 100 police officers in this financial year to ensure capacity and resilience is in place for the UK leaving the EU.

Mujtaba Rehman, a former European commission official who produces well-informed Brexit analysis for the Eurasia Group consultancy, sent out his latest take this morning. He thinks there is little chance of Theresa May getting the change to the backstop she wants. Here is an excerpt.

There is, however, little prospect of May winning the “significant and legally-binding change” to the backstop she has vowed to seek, as the strong reaction from the EU has already shown. This is especially as European council President Donald Tusk is extremely cautious. The strength of his language suggests this was a very carefully co-ordinated, considered and pre-negotiated statement, which carries the full weight of the council, particularly its more important members.

The EU’s unwillingness to reopen the withdrawal agreement—a hardening of its position from just a few weeks ago—is not simply because it has serious reservations about May’s strategy (is the problem really the backstop?) and her credibility as their interlocutor (can she deliver parliament?)

It is also borne out of a belief that the ticking clock could actually reinforce dysfunctional behaviour among MPs—as opposed to encouraging more co-operation. One lead negotiator contemplates the incentives of the various constituencies in the Commons: If the European Research Group (ERG) believe no deal is credibly within grasp, why would they settle for changes to the backstop? Why would Labour not be tempted by the desire to blame a botched Brexit on the government?

The perception in Brussels is therefore that the situation in Westminster is far from the stable. “We need to be able to make a rock-solid calculation that if we move, this will do it. But if you analyse what’s behind Brady it’s clear we’ll simply be opening a can of worms.” Another senior negotiator concurs, “May can come to Brussels and we could work something out. But once she’s back on a plane to London we’ll have no idea whether it will work.”

Rahman thinks it is almost certain that the UK will end up wanting to extend article 50. But he says this could be problematic, because May would want a short extension, while there is “a growing risk that the EU will only offer May a longer extension, given the leaders’ perception of how May does business; their reluctance to find themselves in a similar situation in three months’ time as well as their desire to prevent the need for multiple mini-extensions”.

He concludes:

“I still think you’re way too low on your no-deal probability”, the senior official concludes, referring to our articulated 10% no-deal odds. Any mismatch between the length of the extension the UK wants and the one the EU will offer “is one sure route to an accidental Brexit.”

Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, will speak to Theresa May tonight about Brexit, a spokesman for Tusk has announced.

This is from Euronews’ Darren McCaffrey.

Updated

In the Commons debate yesterday Jeremy Corbyn repeatedly refused to take an intervention from one of his own MPs, Angela Smith, which led to him facing loud and disruptive jeering from Tories. In debates MPs are not obliged to take interventions, but it is considered bad form to ignore them, because the exchanges tend to be much more informative when MPs do engage with each other and argue.

On the Today programme Smith said she thought that Corbyn was ignoring her because he knew she would ask about a second referendum, which she favours. She said:

My point would be that given that we have had the vote of confidence it is looking increasingly likely that the renegotiation of the deal is going to prove very difficult - Theresa May has chosen to go with the backstop and go with the ERG group rather than develop a consensus with the Commons.

On that basis I think the leader of the Labour party needs to move to the next stage in party conference policy and adopt the people’s vote as party policy and pursue it now with all vengeance in parliament.

After receiving some criticism last night for his inflammatory language in describing the Tories as “ripping up” the Good Friday Agreement, the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford said this morning that the preservation of the peace treaty was the responsibility of all politicians in Westminster.

Describing May as “tin-eared” and “irresponsible”, and her plans to return to Europe to re-negotiate the backstop as a “charade”, he told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme that he saw no sign of EU willingness to reopen the issue.

I think Europe are being very resolute and I think they have to be because what is fundamental to this issue of the backstop is the issue of preserving the Good Friday agreement, a peace treaty and all of us have an obligation to do that.

For the prime minister, who knows fine well that Europe is not going to reopen this issue, to try and create this charade that she is going to go back to Brussels and renegotiate, it’s not going to happen.

He predicted that parliament would now be “stuck for the next two weeks” until the next meaningful vote.

The prime minister is still going to be presenting that binary choice of the deal on the table, which is economically damaging to Scotland, or no deal which is even worse.

Blackford added that there was now a “substantial risk” of crashing out of the EU without a deal, despite the fact that the Commons “gave clear expression yesterday that it didn’t want no deal”.

Ian Blackford
Ian Blackford Photograph: Imageplotter/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

Barnier says EU remains united and committed to withdrawal agreement

And here is another comment that Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, gave to reporters this morning. He said:

The only point I want to make is to confirm that the EU institutions remain united. And we stand by the agreement we have negotiated with the UK, never against the UK.

Updated

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrrow, taking over from Matthew Weaver.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has delivered his first public response to the votes in parliament last night. But it was not very expansive. He said:

The position of the European Union is very clear. It has been expressed yesterday by President Tusk. President Juncker will make a statement to the parliament this afternoon.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the commission president, is due to address the European parliament this afternoon, in a session starting at 2.30pm UK time.

The reaction to Barclay’s performance has been scathing, particularly his failure to spell out the alternatives to the backstop:

Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay says no-deal Brexit remains an option

Barclay refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit despite MPs voting for the non-binding Spelman amendment on just that.

Asked whether the UK would leave the EU without a deal on 29 March if no compromise with Brussels could be reached in meantime, Barclay said:

Yes, for the simple reason that the way you take no deal off the table is to secure a deal, or to revoke article 50 and not have Brexit at all, which I think would be catastrophic to our democracy and go against the biggest vote in our history.

Many MPs are concerned about the consequences of no deal, I share that concern as someone who oversees many of the plans on no deal. I’m not one of the MPs who says that no-deal can be managed in a benign way.

It is not a policy, it is reality. It is the fact that the majority of MPs voted to trigger article 50. The way you address the risk of no deal is to have a deal or to revoke article 50. That is the legal position.

Barclay confirmed the prime minister will be meeting Jeremy Corby later today but he refused to say whether she negotiated a new deal with the EU over the next fortnight.

He added:

Both sides want to have a deal. Neither side want to have the disruption of no-deal. There is common ground on which to build. The question that the European Union themselves put to parliament, which is ‘tell us what you need to get the deal over the line’ , that is what parliament answered.

Updated

Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, claimed last night’s backing of the Brady amendment gave the government a mandate to renegotiate the backstop with Brussels.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he said:

What we saw in the vote last was a clear mandate to take back to Europe to say this is what parliament will support.

What came through in the previous debate is that there is a central concern on the backstop. It was a vote on the deal if this central concern can be addressed.

Asked what the alternative arrangements are for the backstop, Barclay cited the use of technology, and the Malthouse compromise.

But after repeated questioning he could not spell out what the alternative to the backstop could be.

Updated

Jeremy Corbyn has not backtracked by agreeing to speak with Theresa May while no-deal Brexit remains a possibility, Barry Gardiner has said, PA reports.

The shadow international trade secretary said Labour had never demanded the prime minister “physically” remove the threat of leaving without a deal.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today:

Jeremy always said that all she needed to do at this stage, she didn’t need to actually physically remove it, she didn’t need to pass legislation, she just needed to accept that that was the will of the House and that would be what happened.

Parliament yesterday explicitly said that they did not want no deal to happen and the prime minister, when it came to the summing-up after the debate, accepted that that was the will of the House.

She has said she will be coming back in two weeks’ time, she hopes, with something from Europe, but there will be another opportunity at that stage if she has run down the clock further, for a legislative vehicle to then be put in place by parliament to avoid no-deal.

Updated

Guy Verhofstadt, the Brexit co-ordinator for the European Parliament, told reporters that the best way to avoid the backstop was the UK to stay in a customs union.

Speaking in Brussels he said:

The backstop is an insurance. And an insurance is needed to be 100% sure that there is no [hard] border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. We don’t want ourselves that the backstop is used. It is a guarantee, a safeguard.

But it depends a lot on what the future relationship will be. If this future relationship for example is a customs union that makes it completely different. And I hope that cross party between Labour and the Conservatives, between Mrs May and Mr Corbyn finally we see emerging some proposal that could be backed by a majority in the House of Commons.

Asked about an a possible extension of article 50 he said:

That amendment has been defeated. And I think it is in the interest of nobody to prolong this process, because that creates more uncertainty for businesses and for citizens.

Updated

Sky News is reporting that Downing Street has invited Jeremy Corbyn for Brexit talks with Theresa May, later today.

Last night Corbyn dropped his insistence that May rule out a no-deal before entering discussions, after parliament voted for a non-binding amendment to rule out no-deal.

The former Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, insists the UK will crash out of the EU without a deal if Brussels continues to refuse to budge on the backstop.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, he said:

We should keep the arm of friendship extended to the EU, and keep trying to get a deal but not at any price. The deal has got to work for the UK. The deal is currently fatally flawed because of the issues around the backstop.

If the the EU just takes a computer-says-no approach, and just refuses to budge ... we will leave on WTO terms. There will be some short-term risk but we will manage them. But we will then at least have a clean Brexit and be able to put this behind us.

He added:

This is clearly a change that can be made. Michel Barnier on the 24 January made that clear. The question is do they want a deal, and the ball is their court. And some of the pressure now is on them to decide.

The deal is there to be done now, it is up to the EU to decide what they are all about.

Updated

Both sides need to compromise, says Brexit minister

Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng is on BBC News now insisting that there “is room for a compromise” in the EU.

He talked about the need “tweak” and “change” the backstop on the Irish border.

Kwarteng said:

Sabine Weyand, who is the deputy chief negotiator, said on Monday that she is open to alternative arrangements. We are going to have to have discussion and negotiation about what those arrangement in Northern Ireland will be, but clear there is room for a compromise.

He did not mention that Weyand insisted that the negotiations were over.

Instead he said:

The final deal will have to have some give on the backstop from the EU.

We have to look at new arrangements, technology to try and sort out those differences.

They want a deal, we want a deal, both sides are going to have to compromise ... If there is a no deal they won’t get a penny pinch from us.

Updated

Not sure if anyone really knows what the “alternative arrangements” are going to be to replace the Irish backstop.

Damian Green couldn’t answer that question when he was pushed by Justin Webb on Today. And Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng has just been similarly vague, according to this tweet from Sky News.

Updated

Damian Green, May’s former consigliere, has just told the Today programme that more could be done to rethink the Irish backstop. He said that the Tory party had compromised and now “Brussels must compromise”.

Green also cited the amendment passed by the Commons last night saying that Parliament rejected a no-deal Brexit.

One of the authors of the amendment, Labour MP Jack Dromey, has just been on as well and he said the vote against no deal “could not be ignored” and that parliament would not allow Britain to crash out without a proper agreement.

Updated

We need to talk about the backstop ... that’s what all this is about (sort of) so what exactly is going to happen with it and why?

May’s original Brexit deal included the backstop, a kind of insurance policy to ensure border posts and checks on vehicles do not return to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland when Britain leaves the EU. But Brexiters loathed this because it would see the UK enter into a temporary customs union with the EU if no trade deal was sealed by the end of a transition period after Brexit. It would last until December 2020 and could be extended to the end of 2022.

The Border Communities against Brexit group hold an anti-Brexit protest in Louth, Ireland.
The Border Communities against Brexit group hold an anti-Brexit protest in Louth, Ireland. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

So the PM has been packed off to Brussels to float “alternative arrangements” for the border which don’t involve border guards at checkpoints – something which could sink the cherished Good Friday agreement.

There is a belief in Brexiter circles that technology could somehow soften a hard border. The idea seems to be that customs checks could be carried out at the source of the thing being shipped, for example a factory or an abattoir, or that customs declarations could be made online.

We might be hearing more about Theresa May’s negotiating team in the coming days after the Sun reported that she has caved in to Brexiter demands by changing the team’s make up.

The paper says it will now include Julian Braithwaite, the UK’s permanent representative to the UN and WTO in Geneva, and Crawford Falconer, the chief trade negotiation adviser at the Department for International Trade.

There’s powerful comment as well with Rafael Behr likening Brexiter MPs to drug addicts who are on a high in thinking that the Brexit agreement can be renegotiated. But they will come back to reality with a thump soon enough when the EU refuses to play ball.

And our editorial calls the Commons vote a “pyrrhic victory” for the prime minister which is built on fantasy and says she has put party before country by caving in to the demands of Brexiter MPs.

Updated

There’s lots of great Guardian content to catch up this morning.

You can find out how your MP voted with our interactive guide – and that tells you about the Labour MPs who voted for the Brady amendment and thus giving May more time to strike a deal to take Britain out of the EU in 59 days’ time.

There’s also a roundup of the best quotes from MPs in the Commons. These include Jeremy Corbyn saying that in the event of any no deal “it will not be any comfort to say: ‘I told you so’ when the lorries are backing up on the M20”.

1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady saying that the vote backing his amendment has “strengthened” Theresa May’s her hand and was now “able to say that she has a real mandate from this house and to ask for real change”.

Tory MP Oliver Letwin said of a possible no-deal Brexit: “It will be the first time when we have consciously taken a risk on behalf of our nation, and if terrible things have happened to real people in our nation because of that risk, we will not be able to argue it was someone else’s fault.”

Updated

There’s a fair bit of reaction and chatter around on social media this morning. Here is some to get you warmed up.

Andrew Adonis thinks it’s all about the Tories selling the Good Friday agreement down the river in order to make Brexit work.

But then that assumes the PM can get a deal, which at the minute looks about as likely as Newcastle beating Man City winning the Champions’ League.

One way of trying to work out what might happen is to follow the money.

The pound dropped on the foreign exchanges after the vote, which was the financial world’s way of saying a no-deal Brexit is now more likely.

Sterling lost one US cent on the news to $1.308 but has been steady overnight. it’s currently at $1.3094.

Here it is in graphic detail:

Updated

What happens now

The blog won’t be making any predictions but at least we can try to map out a timetable about what’s going to happen.

  • The most concrete thing we know is that Theresa May has until 13 February to persuade the EU to agree what the Brady amendment calls “alternative arrangements” for the Irish backstop and bring the plan back to the Commons for another “meaningful vote”.
  • If she doesn’t manage that by 13 February the government will table a statement to the Commons and MPs will vote on that the next day, Valentine’s Day.
  • The prospect of delayed Brexit seemed more unlikely because of the Cooper amendment falling so it’s worth noting that there are now only 59 days (including today) until Britain has to leave the EU under article 50
  • It’s not clear when May will go to Brussels although the Daily Mail claimed she might even go this week.
  • She will face MPs at question time later today
  • She also has to meet Jeremy Corbyn for talks after he said he wanted to discuss a “sensible Brexit solution that works for the whole country”.

Updated

Good morning and welcome to the politics live blog. Andrew Sparrow will be firing himself up shortly for what promises to be another huge day in British politics, but in the meantime my name is Martin Farrer and I’m going to guide you through the latest developments in Brexitland.

The main points are:

It’s also useful to look at what the papers say on these occasions and the treatment of yesterday’s events cleaves quite clearly along partisan lines. “Theresa’s triumph” reckons the Mail and the Express says “She did it!”. But one editor’s triumph is another’s slow-motion car crash. The Guardian, FT and Mirror all stress the EU’s insistence that the all-important matter of the Irish backstop is not up for discussion not open for renegotiation.

You can read more on what they have to say with my roundup of the front pages here.

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