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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Ben Quinn and Kevin Rawlinson

Corbyn vows to 'root out antisemitism in our party' at Scottish Labour conference – as it happened

Jeremy Corbyn at the Scottish Labour conference.
Jeremy Corbyn at the Scottish Labour conference. Photograph: Duncan McGlynn/Getty Images

Closing summary

We’re going to close down this live blog now. Thanks for reading and for all the comments. Here’s a summary of the latest events:

  • While he said Labour should focus its fire on the Conservatives, Jeremy Corbyn said he was “utterly determined” to rid the Labour party of antisemitism during his speech in Dundee. Corbyn also said the “real divide in our society” is about poverty and class and called on his own party to unite. The Labour peer, Lord Falconer, said he would not lead an investigation into antisemitism if the EHRC opened its own.
  • The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, set out a proposal on the backstop that was quickly shot down by the Brexit secretary, Steve Barclay. The DUP’s Nigel Dodds also rejected it, saying it represented “nothing new”.
  • You can read a summary of the day’s earlier events here.

And, for those wanting to read more, my colleagues Peter Walker, Daniel Boffey and Heather Stewart have the full story:

Lord Falconer, the Labour peer who has been in negotiations with the party about being appointed to examine its handling of antisemitism cases, has said he would take a step back if the Equality and Human Rights Commission decided to hold its own formal investigation.

He has told Jewish News:

In light of the commission coming in, I think we’ve got to put it on hold, see what the commission is going to do. If they are minded to do an investigation, they will have a range of statutory powers to get documents, emails, Whatsapp messages and witnesses, and they will do an investigation that will be completely independent from the Labour party.

So there is no point in me, with my firm of solicitors, coming in and doing exactly the same thing because it won’t carry the same degree of statutory support as the commission has.

Michel Barnier’s proposal on the backstop has not gone down well with the Brexit secretary, Steve Barclay, who has tweeted:

Nor was it particularly popular with the Brexit-supporting DUP, whose deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, had this to say:

The EU’s chief negotiator outlined his ideas in a series of tweets following Theresa May’s speech earlier today:

A little more from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech in Dundee. He has insisted he is “utterly determined” to rid the Labour party of antisemitism. He said that, rather than fighting within itself, his party should turn its fire on the Tories, whom he criticised for their “desperate” handling of Brexit negotiations and austerity policies.

With Labour struggling to deal with complaints of antisemitism, he said the party “must lead the fight against all types of racism”.

The only thing that can hold us back is if we were to turn our fire on each other rather than on the Tory government and the wealthy establishment interests they represent.

His speech came after an equality watchdog began enforcement action that could lead to it gaining access to internal communications between staff handling complaints. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced on Thursday it was launching an enforcement process which could lead to a formal investigation. Corbyn said:

Racism, religious bigotry and misogyny have no place whatsoever in any part of our movement. And we will root out antisemitism in our party, and in society at large. And I am utterly determined to achieve that.

He said it was important to return Labour to power both at Westminster and at Holyrood, so the party could deliver “real change”.

To get there, we as a party have to be united. That doesn’t mean we have no room for debate and disagreement, discussion. They are the lifeblood of our democracy. But there is no justification for the abuse of anybody.

Responding to the Guardian’s investigation, which has found teachers are cleaning and paying for books and pens to plug the gaps in school funding, the Lib Dems’ education spokeswoman, Layla Moran, has said:

We are clearly in the midst of a crisis over school funding and these revelations must result in direct action by the Conservatives. This investigation should shame the Tory government.

With teachers covering for cleaners and parents donating money for essential services there is no way Conservative ministers can deny there is a lack of funding for our schools.

The secretary of state must begin an urgent listening exercise with frontline staff and reverse the budget cuts pursued after coalition, otherwise this crisis will only get worse. To fail to act is to leave both teachers and children in the midst of what is clearly a crisis.

You can read the full story here:

Updated

A disabled MP has said she has to continuously fight with parliamentary authorities to get the support she needs to do her job.

During a debate on International Women’s Day, Marsha De Cordova said she has been denied the help she needs, adding: “It has made it very difficult for me.”

The Labour MP for Battersea and shadow disabilities minister said the House of Commons is “the one place where equality should be” and where people “shouldn’t have to fight for the support they need”.

She was talking about the inequalities women still face in 2019, saying they are “so much worse for working class women, for black women, women from ethnic minorities, and like myself, disabled women”.

And it is as a disabled woman that I want to just share something. I have faced many barriers in my life, many barriers in education, the workplace and so forth.

So, actually getting elected here was a huge achievement, but unfortunately obtaining the additional support that I need in this place to operate and function as an MP has been challenging.

I’m having to continuously fight for additional support.

De Cordova said the authorities know she has additional needs but said they told her they would not support them.

It has made it very difficult for me. I should be here, the people of Battersea have sent me to represent them, I shouldn’t be fighting the authorities here to get the additional support that I need.

But I will fight on, because that is what I have had to do throughout all of my life, to continue to fight.

A House of Commons spokesman has said:

It is vital that all democratically elected MPs are able to carry out their duties in and around Parliament, and we are very sorry to hear that Ms De Cordova has found it difficult to get adequate support from parliamentary authorities.

We have provided tailored support and tools to Ms De Cordova and are committed to addressing any outstanding concerns.

Eleven candidates have been confirmed for the upcoming Newport West by-election following the death of the Labour MP, Paul Flynn.

Newport city council published the full list of parliamentary candidates on Friday evening for the vote, which will be held on 4 April and will represent the first electoral test following the UK’s planned exit from the EU on 29 March.

The city has traditionally been a safe seat for Labour, but the result will be seen by commentators as a sign of how party support has been affected by Brexit, for which Newport voted by 56% to 44%.

The confirmed candidates are:

  • Labour – Ruth Jones
  • Conservatives – Matthew Evans
  • Ukip – Neil Hamilton
  • Plaid Cymru – Jonathan Clark
  • Welsh Liberal Democrats – Ryan Jones
  • Green Party – Amelia Womack
  • Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party – Richard Suchorzewski
  • Renew – June Davies
  • SDP – Ian McLean
  • The For Britain Movement – Hugh Nicklin
  • Democrats and Veterans Party – Phillip Taylor

Flynn held the Newport West seat for 32 years and had a majority of 5,658 (13% of those who voted in 2017).

Here are some more details from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to the Scottish Labour conference in Dundee.

Advance excerpts had indicated he would seek to downplay the significance of the battles over crises over Brexit and Scottish independence by claiming “the real divide in our society” is about poverty and class and by focusing on climate change as one of the most pressing issues facing the UK.

My colleague, Severin Carrell, was at the conference and reports that the Labour leader has told delegates:

It’s working class communities that suffer the worst pollution and the worst air quality. It’s working class people who will lose their jobs as resources run dry. And it is working class people who will be left behind as the rich escape rising sea levels.

Big corporations will never do anything serious about it. The Conservative government will never do anything serious about it either. But Labour will make it a central objective of our industrial strategy.

We need to reduce our net emissions to zero by 2050 at the latest - it’s not just an ecological priority, it’s a socialist priority too.

Some of Labour’s pro-EU parliamentarians believe Corbyn’s remarks were designed to highlight his hostility to the anti-Brexit forces within the party. Ian Murray, a Scottish Labour MP at the forefront of the pro-Europe campaign, said Corbyn was right to point out poverty and climate had been overshadowed by Brexit. But he added:

Where he is completely wrong is we can’t resolve these issues with Brexit because Brexit makes delivery on them that much harder. His timing is off. The most meaningful vote on Brexit, the biggest vote in parliamentary history, is next Tuesday. So we need laser-like focus on that please, and the rest we can deal with later.

Stephen Doughty, a pro-referendum Welsh Labour backbencher, said Brexit is a “right-wing Tory project that threatens communities that depend on Labour. [There] is no such thing as a Labour Brexit or a jobs-first Brexit”.

Updated

Early Evening Summary

• Theresa May has urged parliament to “get it done” and back her Brexit deal, in an impassioned speech that offered no new concessions for wavering MPs before next week’s crucial vote.
Speaking at a dockside warehouse in the pro-leave town of Grimsby, May repeatedly declined to accept any personal responsibility for the ongoing uncertainty or give any clues as to what she would do if the vote was lost.
The speech prompted a withering response from the CBI, whose deputy head said the prime minister’s message was “not good enough”.

• The EU has made a counter offer to Theresa May in what would effectively result in a border being drawn in the Irish Sea, a scenario which the British government has already ruled out.
The prime minister’s apparent attempt to apportion the blame on the state of the negotiations to the EU left senior figures in Brussels deeply unimpressed.
Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said that he was confused by her suggestion that “one more push” by the EU could win the House of Commons around to the deal.
“The Brexit date is getting ever closer. The ball is still rolling toward the cliffs of Dover,” he said.

• Jeremy Corbyn has said poverty and climate change are far greater priorities for Labour and the country than Brexit.
In advance excerpts of a speech to the Scottish Labour conference, Corbyn said his party was not “obsessed by constitutional questions like the others are. We’re obsessed with tackling the problems people face in their daily lives.”
In what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to shift the focus away from his party’s deep divisions over Brexit, Corbyn said the greatest challenge posed to the UK was global warming.

• Relatives of people killed by security forces have met the Northern Ireland secretary, Karen Bradley, and asked her to resign for defending fatal shootings by soldiers during the Troubles.
A delegation of family members sat down with Bradley at Stormont House in Belfast on Friday to express concern over her comments in Westminster on Wednesday, when she said security force killings were not crimes and were the actions of people “fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way”.
Bradley invited the relatives to her office to repeat apologies she made on Thursday, but Frances Meehan, whose brother Michael Donnelly was shot with a plastic bullet in 1981, said her position was “untenable”.

Updated

Relatives of people killed by security forces have met the Northern Ireland secretary, Karen Bradley, and asked her to resign for defending fatal shootings by soldiers during the Troubles.

A delegation of family members sat down with Bradley at Stormont House in Belfast on Friday to express concern over her comments in Westminster on Wednesday, when she said security force killings were not crimes and were the actions of people “fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way”.

Bradley invited the relatives to her office to repeat apologies she made on Thursday, but Frances Meehan, whose brother Michael Donnelly was shot with a plastic bullet in 1981, said her position was “untenable”.

Addressing the media after the meeting, Meehan said Bradley’s apology was not sufficient to undo the damage given her position in cabinet.

Relatives for Justice, a group of bereaved families that sent members to the meeting, said afterwards: “They looked her in the eye and told her she needed to resign.”

Updated

Michel Barnier has been tapping away on his iPhone in the last half an an hour to outline a bit more about what the EU is prepared to offer the UK

How to see this? One view is that the EU is making these proposals public in order to mitigate the impact of a ‘blame game’ if talks break down.

Updated

We’re hearing that Jeremy Corbyn is due to take the stage in about ten minutes at the Scottish Labour conference in Dundee.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has told ambassadors from member states that the block is willing to give Britain a unilateral exit from single customs territory while preserving other elements of the backstop agreement, according to FT Brussels Corresondent Mehreen Khan.

The government is to launch a multi-million pound advertising campaign in the next fortnight directed at EU citizens who need to register to remain in the country post-Brexit.

It will coincide with a national rollout of the special “settled status” phone app, which has been in testing for the past six months.

The Home Office is working on a media blitz involving billboards, and newspaper, radio and TV adverts, in a multitude of languages to alert those who do not already know of the need to register in the next two years.

The adverts are expected to spell out information that EU citizens in the UK will need to remain lawfully in the country whatever the outcome of next week’s crunch votes on Brexit.

While the Home Office has not unveiled them yet, their presence in high streets across the UK will bring the reality of Brexit home to all British citizens as well as the 3.8 million citizens estimated to be settled in the UK [Read on].

EU citizens holding up a banner after lobbying MPs to guarantee their post-Brexit rights at the Houses of Parliament in London. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
EU citizens holding up a banner after lobbying MPs to guarantee their post-Brexit rights at the Houses of Parliament in London. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

There is a great deal of unhappiness in Brussels at the prime minister’s apparent attempt to apportion the blame on the state of the negotiations to the EU.

“If she wanted to send a message to the EU, why is she in Grimbsy”, said one diplomat.

A second said the ring-round of leaders by the prime minister was a sign of “desperation”.

The French ambassador to the US, Gérard Araud, tweeted a more optimistic message: “The last days of any complex negotiation are always chaotic and full of drama. Each party needs to show it has fought to the last man.”

“Threats are uttered, doors are slammed. Usually, agreement is eventually reached.”

He added:

Updated

Barnier after May speech: EU 'not interested in blame game'

In the first top-level Brussels reaction to Theresa May’s speech today, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has said that he was confused by her suggestion that “one “one more push” by the EU could win the House of Commons around to the deal.

“The Brexit date is getting ever closer. The ball is still rolling toward the cliffs of Dover,” he said.

The Guardian’s Brussels Bureau Chief, Daniel Boffey, also reports:

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, in response to the speech, told reporters: “We stand united. We are not interested in the blame game, we are interested in the result. We are still working.

Earlier in the day, the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, while critical of the UK, did offer some hope that a further concession could be in order with just days to go before the deal comes before the Commons.

“We’ve already agreed to a review clause so I think we have made a lot of compromises and what’s not evident is what the UK Government is offering the EU and Ireland should they wish us to make any further compromises, we receive no offer as to what they would give us in return for any changes”, Varadkar said.

“It would require a change of approach by the UK Government to understand that Brexit is a problem of their creation, what was agreed is already a compromise. They failed to secure ratification of this so it should be a question of what they are willing to offer us.”

Here was Barnier’s reaction, via Sky News:

Updated

Government internal splits undermining Brexit talks - report

The Government’s internal divisions over the handling of Brexit talks have undermined its own position in talks with the EU, a parliamentary committee has found.

The criticism emerged in interim findings of an inquiry of the House of Commons EU Scrutiny Committee, after it took evidence from witnesses including the former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab.

Evidence from the four Leave-backing MPs suggested that separate - and sometimes conflicting - policies were developed by the Department for Exiting the EU and 10 Downing Street.

The committee said: “One of the most striking themes to have emerged from our evidence so far concerns the way in which the UK Government itself has handled the process of negotiation internally.

The cross-party report has been unanimously-agreed by members of a committee that include veteran Brexit supporters as well as MPs pushing for a second referendum.

The committee’s chair, Bill Cash, said: “Parliament is facing a series of momentous decisions in the coming days and weeks, which will shape the future of our nation.

“It is essential that we in this House, as individual representatives of our constituents, have all the information we need to inform these decisions. As a Select Committee, we have a duty to assist in this process – as does the Government.”

Number 10 have just tweeted a video to tie in with International Women’s Day.

But will there be any more traction in that row which was sparked earlier in Grimsby when May only took one question from a female journalist?

Updated

Tory MPs unlikely to back May deal, ERG figure indicates

Tory MPs from he hardline pro Brexit European Research Group (ERG) are unlikely to back Theresa May’s deal when it comes up for its latest ‘meaningful vote’ in parliament on Tuesday, a key figure from the group has indicated in the wake of the prime minister’s speech today.

Mark Francois, vice-chairman of the ERG, also said he believed that the British public would get “extremely angry” if Britain did not leave the EU on March 29 after the Prime Minister had repeatedly promised that this would happen.

That anger would be fuelled by a public belief that Brexit had been foiled by members of the civil service and senior Cabinet Ministers “conspiring,” he told the BBC.

MPs were all waiting to see what the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, came back with from Brussels in the latest round of negotiations, which are centred on British attempts to ensure that the Irish backstop is underlined as a temporary arrangement.

“But if there are really no changes to this treaty or if the changes are all sort of weak and legally meaningless then you are basically asking the same question that you asked over a month ago,” said Francois.

“Logic suggests if you ask the same answer then you get the same answer.

On a side note, Francois was embroiled in a spat on the BBC’s Politics Today with the writer Will Self

Updated

May warns of a "moment of crisis" if MPs reject Brexit deal

Theresa May has urged parliament to “get it done” and back her Brexit deal in an impassioned speech which, however, offered no new concessions for wavering MPs ahead 0f next week’s crucial vote.

Speaking to energy workers in a dockside warehouse in the leave heartland of Grimsby, May also repeatedly declined to accept any personal responsibility for the ongoing uncertainty, or give any clues as to what she will do if the vote is lost.

Instead, she urged the EU to make new concessions over the Irish backstop insurance policy – the issue that saw many of her MPs vote against the deal the first time – before expected last-ditch talks in Brussels this weekend.

May also lashed out at Jeremy Corbyn for, as she put it, seeking to frustrate Brexit, and implored Labour MPs in leave-voting seats, such as the Grimsby MP Melanie Onn, who was there, to back her deal.

If her plan was voted down again in the Commons on Tuesday, May told the crowd, the result would be more economic uncertainty and delay, and the possibility of Brexit being either watered down or even overturned.

A vote against the deal would mean “not completing Brexit and getting on with all the other important issues people care about, just yet more months and years arguing”, May said. “If we go down that road, we might never leave the EU at all.”

She added: “My message to those MPs who agree with me that we should not risk that is simple: the only certain way to avoid it is to back the deal the government has secured with EU on Tuesday. Let’s get it done.”

Updated

The government will not have completed all of the secondary legislation needed to prepare for life after Brexit by the time of the UK’s scheduled withdrawal from the EU on March 29, Downing Street has said.

Confirming what had already been revealed in a piece on Conservative Home by the former agrictulture minister, George Eustice, a spokeswoman said that certain pieces of legislation have been “deprioritised” and will be dealt with after Brexit day.

But she insisted that all “vital” changes to the statute book will be ready in time for the UK’s withdrawal, whether it happens with or without a deal with the EU.

“We are on track to deliver the Statutory Instruments (SIs) we need for exit day and we have already laid over 80% of these,” said Number 10.

Updated

Corbyn: poverty and class is real divide in UK society

Jeremy Corbyn has downplayed the significance of the crisis over Brexit and the divisive battle over Scottish independence five years ago by claiming “the real divide in our society” is about poverty and class.

In advance excerpts before he addresses a Scottish Labour conference later on Friday, Corbyn said his party was not “obsessed by constitutional questions, like the others are. We’re obsessed with tackling the problems people face in their daily lives”.

In a deliberate attempt to shift the focus away from Brexit and his party’s deep divisions over strategy on the EU, Corbyn said the greatest challenge to the UK and humanity was posed by global warming.

“We are facing a climate crisis. There’s no bigger threat to our future. And fundamentally, the destruction of our climate is a class issue,” he said.

He continued: “We believe that the real divide in our society is not between people who voted yes or no for independence. And it’s not between people who voted to remain or to leave the EU.

“The real divide is between the many – who do the work, create the wealth and pay their taxes – and the few, who set the rules, reap the rewards and dodge their taxes. So let me spell it out: our mission is to back the working class, in all its diversity.”

Updated

Jeremy Corbyn is due to speak at the Scottish Labour conference at 4.30pm, but some interesting developments are already coming out of Dundee.

The Guardian’s Severn Carrell reports that Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, has apologised to the party’s two Scottish MEPs after their calls for a second EU referendum were deleted from the guide to this weekend’s spring conference.

Leonard faced accusations of censorship from his predecessor Kezia Dugdale on Wednesdy after it emerged the conference report from MEPs David Martin and Catherine Stihler was edited to take out their support for a “people’s vote”, and replaced by anodyne remarks saying Brexit was a tragedy.

Dugdale also berated him for failing to organise a motion or event which celebrated their service to the party: Martin is one of Labour’s longest serving parliamentarians, who first became an MEP in 1984, while Stihler first became an MEP in 1999. She has already resigned from the European parliament due to Brexit, and Martin would lose his seat if the UK quits the EU.

Leonard told BBC Radio Scotland he had apologised to Stihler and Martin, blaming the editing on a mix-up. He said changes were needed to their text because it did not reflect party policy, but said their protests were not properly taken into account.

“What was published in the programme did not fully reflect what was put in by them, and I have apologised to them for that|: that shouldn’t have happened. That shouldn’t have happened,” he told Good Morning Scotland.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard attends the Scottish Labour Party Conference at the Caird Hall on March 8.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard attends the Scottish Labour Party Conference at the Caird Hall on March 8. Photograph: Duncan McGlynn/Getty Images

Updated

May has been accused by the Labour MP Jo Stevens of “complete hypocrisy” for saying that the EU’s behaviour will determine the outcome of next week’s vote.

“If Theresa May is really interested in getting this right, there’s an easy solution: ask the public what they want,” Stevens said in a statement issue by the Best for Britain pressure group.

Some analysis now of May’s speech. By any measure, there was a plea to Brussels there, but there was also a further bid to scare her own Brexiteer MPs into backing the deal.

In particular, she wielded the prospect of a second referendum as a bogeyman, despite it appearing (for now) that the votes just aren’t there in parliament to make such a poll a reality.

Sky’s Beth Rigby points a key passage that would seem to be directed at wavering pro-Brexit MPs:

Those sections in May’s speech about workers rights are also coming under scruinty. The Prime Minister said that concerns for workers’ rights after Brexit should be allayed by her promise to allow Parliament to vote on whether to adopt any new protections proposed by the EU.

“Leaving with a deal will mean workers are protected,” she said. “And if they back the Brexit deal on Tuesday, MPs will give our whole economy a boost.”

May’s claims are a “massive red herring,” says the Guardian’s Jennifer Rankin.

Updated

A row has now broken out in Grimsby over why May only took one question from a woman on International Womens’s Day.

May left the podium to an angry shouted question from ITV’s Libby Wiener as to why she only took one question from a woman, the Guardian’s Peter Walker reports.

May has responded:

Updated

So, reaction now, and many people are distinctly unimpressed by her failure to give direct answers to many of the questions posed to her afterwards.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker, who was among those who had asked her what personal responsibility she took for the chaos surround the Brexit talks, tweets:

Updated

.. and that’s it. May disappears behind a shelving unit of wooden crates.

Is it still possible for the UK to leave the EU on March 29 or is a delay inevitable?

May says that if MPs vote for the deal then the “usual channels” can get together.

Is she going to take No Deal off the table?

It’s the third time she has answered the question, says May, who adds that the best thing that MPs could do to end uncertainty is by voting for her deal on Tuesday.

“If MPs don’t vote for that deal then we know we will see ongoing uncertainty,” she adds.

May says her message to the EU also is that now is the moment for both sides to get the deal through and bring the deal back to parliament on Tuesday.

Rob Hutton from Bloomberg tells her that a ship has sailed on a smooth and orderly Brexit. Britain is already in chaos and business leaders are pulling their hair out. Does she owe them an apology?

May says that now is the moment “to get this done” and for parliament to “come together” and back the deal.

“We have a responsibility to deliver to this country the Brexit which people voted for,” says May.

BBC is up next and asks her if she is trying to shift blame away from her and on to the EU.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker says her that the UK is three weeks away from Brexit and workers in the room have no idea what is going to happen.

How much responsibility does she take for the chaos?

May is taking questions now from the media. The microphone didn’t pick up the first one to her but the PM says that voting for the deal enables the UK to leave the EU in a “smooth and orderly way”.

Theresa May delivers a speech at Ãrsted East Coast Hub in the North Sea fishing port, Grimsby on March 8.
Theresa May delivers a speech at Ãrsted East Coast Hub in the North Sea fishing port, Grimsby on March 8. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

May doubles down on her pleas to MPs to support her deal on Tuesday.

The British people have already moved on. They are ready for this to be settled.

“Let’s get it down,” she repeats for at least the second time.

No Brexit could do "profound damage" to democracy - May

Never leaving the EU would amount to a political failure and do “profound damage” to people’s faith in democracy, says May.

Some of those who had voted in the referendum had voted for the first time ever. Why should they ever vote again if their wishes were not acted on?

Updated

The EU might insist on new conditions if a delay to Brexit was put into action, says May.

That might lead to a form of Brexit that does not match up to the Brexit that people had voted for.

It could mean no end to free movement (one of the key parts of the deal she has negotiated), no new trade deals... or even lead to a second referendum.

Here’s the appeal to the EU - “it’s in both of our interests.”
European leaders tell her that time is running out, says May, and her message to them is that now is the moment to act.

The deal “needs just one more push” to address the specific concern of MPs.

“If MPs reject the deal nothing is certain. It would be at a moment of crisis.”

Options would include “going on arguing” with a delay potentially creating more problems.

MPs voted against her deal last week for various reasons, says May, who adds that the backstop policy was the biggest cause of concern for those (on her side of the House of Commons presumably) who voted against.

There were “genuine concerns” that there was no way out of the backstop, she adds, and these have been taken Brussels.

She emphasises the importance of the Belfast Agreement.

If the deal is accepted then businesses would start to invest in a major way again and money that could have been spent on a No deal would be invested elsewhere.

There would be a giant “open for business sign,” says May.

There’s a section on foreign affairs - the UK would continue to wield influence on the world stage through the UN security council an its diplomatic and military resources - and one on workers rights.

Brexit would not be a “race to the bottom” in terms of the latter and the UK would continue to be in a position to safeguard workers rights outside of the EU.

It’s about (yes, you’ve guessed it) “taking back control.”

May says that the Brexit vote was about sending a message that things needed to change and goes on to use Grimsby - where one of the UK’s largest Leave votes was recorded - as an example of that.

May says that the UK is lucky to have London and its thriving economy but it was no good for growth to be concentrated there.

The government has formulated an industrial strategy that would empower towns and cities such as Grimsby.

“That is the opportunity that awaits our country if we agree the Brexit deal. We can build the stronger communities of the future.”

But Brexit does not belong to the MPs in parliament, says May, “it belongs to the whole country.”

Next comes a fairly contentious claim: Everyone wants to get “it” done, “past the bitter debates and out of the EU as a successful country.”

May: Britain may "never leave" EU

May says that, if her deal fails to win a majority in the Commons next week, Britain may not leave the EU for many months, it may not leave with the protections that have been negotiated or “we may never leave”.

If the deal she has negotiated is not embraced then the only certainly would be ongoing uncertainty, months more argying about Brexit when Britain could be focussing on the domestic agenda such as the NHS.

The MPs will take a decision on Tuesday - her latest meaningful vote on her Brexit deal - and it is up to them to act responsibly and abide by voters’ wishes, she says.

The result of the referendum was “close” and could have gone the other way, but the result needs to be acted on.

Updated

Theresa May is on her feet and has started her speech in Grimsby in which she is expected to make an appeal to the EU to give her a better Brexit deal.

She’s begun by talking about the merits of offshore wind. The UK is a “world leader” apparently. Standby for the Brexit talks metaphors.

Updated

Bradley should resign, families insist after meeting minister

Karen Bradley’s position is completely and utterly untenable and she needs to resign, families of those killed by the security forces in Northern Ireland have said after a meeting with the Northern Ireland Minister.

Speaking after the meeting, Frances Meehan, whose brother was shot dead by the British Army in 1980, called for Mrs Bradley to resign.

“I wanted to meet her because I wanted to look her in the eye to tell her how I felt about her comments in the House of Commons,” she said.

Bradley had reached out to a number of victims’ groups following her remarks in the Commons on Wednesday that killings carried out by the police and military during the Troubles were not crimes, rather actions of people “fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way”.

Some refused to meet Mrs Bradley but on Friday morning a delegation of relatives did travel to Stormont House in Belfast to discuss the furore.

Bradley’s remarks in the Commons on Wednesday that killings carried out by the police and military during the Troubles were not crimes, rather actions of people “fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way”, sparked fury among some victims and political parties.

Theresa May’s speech in Grimsby is imminent, and the Guardian’s Peter Walker is in position.

Midday summary

• Jeremy Hunt has said relations with the EU will be “poisoned for many years to come” if Brussels fails to budge in the Brexit talks, as the cabinet ministers leading the negotiations put on hold tentative plans to return to the Belgian capital.
Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, and the Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, had been expected to resume their haggling on the Irish backstop on Friday.

• Theresa May will make a last-ditch attempt to persuade the EU to give her a better Brexit deal on Friday, as she struggles to hold her crumbling government together following a day of cabinet embarrassments in Westminster.
The prime minister will plead with EU leaders to offer further concessions, as it became clear that talks in Brussels have stalled and hardline Eurosceptics in her party are likely to vote down the deal for a second time in parliament next week.

• Jeremy Corbyn has said that that his party’s priority was to stop a no-deal Brexit, but insisted that Labour was not “backing away” from a second referendum.
He said that Theresa May’s planned speech today sounded like a sign of “desperation” and that his party would not be supporting her deal next Tueday, but would vote to take a ‘no deal’ Brexit off the table.

• The Home Office is the wrong department to manage immigration after Brexit, says a highly critical report by the Institute for Government (IfG) thinktank.
The department is pressing ahead with the full rollout of a registration scheme for an estimated 3.8 million EU citizens from 30 March, but the report lays bare systemic flaws in the Home Office and calls for an “urgent” root-and-branch review of its immigration operations.

Following her gaffe about state killings, Karen Bradley has been meeting today in Northern Ireland with families bereaved by security force violence.

We’ll have a news story on that shortly. In the meantime, the Irish writer Una Mullally writes in the Guardian that Brexit has led to the return of anti-English sentiment in Ireland, while comments from British politicians like Bradely are part of the mood music.

Every clanger from a British politician – Karen Bradley’s offensive and ignorant statement exonerating British soldiers for their crimes in Northern Ireland; the border mess, exacerbated by the Conservative government’s tactical alliance with the DUP; the clueless remarks emanating from the House of Commons – has not just confirmed, but elevated our suspicions that English (and Brexit was always about Englishness, not Britishness, nor the oxymoron that is now the “United” Kingdom) apathy, ignorance and entitlement towards Ireland is as dominant as ever.

Downing Street has been engaging in some expectation management ahead of the Grimsby speech.

The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh has this:

Corbyn: Labour "not backing away" from second referendum

Jeremy Corbyn has said that that his party’s priority was to stop a no-deal Brexit, but insisted that Labour was not “backing away” from a second referendum.

Speaking during a visit to a site in north London where new homes are set to be built, the Labour leader said that Theresa May’s speech today sounded like “a sign of desperation”.

“We will not be supporting her deal next Tuesday - we will be voting to take no-deal off the table and we will once again be putting our proposals - our five pillars - which are a customs union, market access and protection of rights in this country that have been obtained through the EU.”

“I’ve taken those proposals to the European Union - they are a good basis for negotiation - they are a way forward. It’s time that she got on board and recognised there is a deal that could command a majority in the House.”

Grimsby has presumably been selected as the backdrop for May’s speech today on account of it being one of the most eurosceptic regions in Britain.

An overwhelming majority of constituents in north East Lincolnshire– 69.9% – voted to Leave during the referendum.

For a bit more on why the vote went as it did you could do worse than read this piece from Tim Burrows, who wrote after a visit last year:

Grimbarians feel isolated many times over: from London, from the rest of the country, from the docks where husbands said goodbye to wives before a few treacherous weeks at sea, and from the dead fishing industry through which it faced the world. Grimsby has become a place where municipal decisions are always pending.

There are no guarantees with this latest wave of hopes: it could all be scuppered by more political infighting, or private enterprise pulling out. Who knows what will happen after Brexit.

Updated

We don’t have specific set time yet for Theresa May’s speech today in Grimsby but it’s expected at around 12.30.

If the advance guidance is anything to go by, the Prime Minister will effectively plead with the EU to meet her halfway on Brexit talks or risk Britain leaving the union without an agreement.

She will say:

Just as MPs will face a big choice next week, the EU has to make a choice too.

“It is in the European interest for the UK to leave with a deal. We are working with them but the decisions that the European Union makes over the next few days will have a big impact on the outcome of the vote.

In the meantime let’s hope Her Majesty’s Press Corps will make it time to hear her utter those words..

Updated

The EU’s 27 ambassadors have been called for a meeting with the European commission’s negotiating team at 3pm in Brussels but sources stressed that there had not been any positive developments in the talks.

Diplomats are instead expecting the commission to update them on the latest, and confirm the member states’ resolve to reject the UK’s recent proposals on the Irish backstop.

The UK wants an arbitration panel to have the final say on whether the backstop arrangement should come to an end. The commission’s negotiators have turned down the idea.

The meeting of ambassadors will be held shortly after Theresa May has finished a speech in Grimbsy, where she will call on the EU to budge on their position. “Just as MPs will face a big choice next week, the EU has to make a choice too”, the prime minister is expected to say.

“It is in the European interest for the UK to leave with a deal. We are working with them but the decisions that the European Union makes over the next few days will have a big impact on the outcome of the vote.”

Eyebrows are also very definitely being raised at this latest attempt at an apology by Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley.

In an interview late yesterday evening with the Press Association, she made clear she would not be resigning after saying that killings carried out by the police and military during the Troubles were not crimes, rather actions of people “fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way”.

She also rejected the suggestion she was out of her depth in the role.

“I am determined to prove myself by delivering for the people of Northern Ireland,” she said.

“It is an enormous honour to be Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, it’s an enormous honour to serve the people of Northern Ireland and Government, and it is something I really want to deliver on.”

Mrs Bradley added: “I shouldn’t have said it and I want to say sorry to all those people, all those families that have been kind enough to share their experiences with me.

“I want to say sorry to them because I didn’t want to cause hurt or pain or distress to them in any way, and what I want to do is deliver for them, and I am absolutely determined I will do.

A few eyebrows might be raised at this. DUP leader Arlene Foster has been named Female Politician of the Year at an awards event in London organised by the publishers of Asian Voice.

The accolade - bestowed on Foster at an event hosted by the Labour MP Keith Vaz - comes after the DUP leader has appeared to wield significant influence over the course of government policy.

At the same time though, it also comes an Irish Times Poll found that the majority of voters in Northern Ireland are dissatisfied with her.

Updated

Not all of the government Statutory Instruments (SIs) – mechanisms to ensure that EU laws that apply in Britain are incorporated into domestic law – will now be passed before the Brexit date (for now) of March 29.

That’s according to the former agriculture minister, George Eustice, who writes today in Conservative Home:

The civil service has done a sterling job preparing for no deal. We are in the process of laying hundreds of Statutory Instruments to make retained EU law operable.

There are a few that have been de-prioritised and will not be done by the end of March but, when I went through the small number that were being left behind, it was pretty clear that they were a collection of inconsequential rules that were either not particularly relevant to the UK anyway or were where alternative powers already existed.

Updated

The Labour MP Naz Shah has called for an apology from Andrea Leadsom after the Commons Leader suggested Islamophobia should be treated as a Foreign Office issue.

In a letter to Prime Minister Theresa May, Shah said: “This comment exposes profound ignorance of race issues at the top of Government. This is not a trivial matter. “

A bit of local by-election action meanwhile ( the only one taking place this week) and the the Green Party has snatched a council seat from the Tories.

The Conservative defeat by more than 400 votes came in a contest in the Haddenham & Stone ward of Aylesbury Vale District Council caused by the death of a Tory councillor.

Voting was: Green 1,210, C 781, LD 333, Lab 59. The turnout was 32%.
The council is due to be abolished next year in a major restructuring of local government in Buckinghamshire which would see four district councils and the county council replaced with a single unitary authority.

Hunt: Future generations will blame EU for talks failure

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned that future generations will blame the EU if it fails to come to an agreement at this point in the Brexit negotiations.

“This is a moment of change in our relationship between the UK and the EU and history will judge both sides very badly if we get this wrong,” Hunt told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning

“We want to remain the best of friends with the EU. That means getting this agreement through in a way that doesn’t inject poison into our relations for many years to come. That’s what the UK has said we want to do, it’s what most people in the UK want and feel very strongly about.

“But it does need the EU also to be flexible in these negotiations and understand that we now have a very, very clear ask. We know what it would take to get a deal through the House of Commons, and that is for a significant change to allow the Attorney General to change his advice to the Government and say we couldn’t be trapped in a customs union forever.”

What’s he up? One obvious conclusions is that he is atteming to establish blame early in the minds of British voters. ITV’s Robert Peston also has this:

Updated

Apart from the May and Corbyn speeches today, other political stories include:

• Claims in a highly critical report by the Institute for Government (IfG) thinktank that the Home Office is the wrong department to manage immigration after Brexit.
The department is pressing ahead with the full rollout of a registration scheme for an estimated 3.8 million EU citizens from 30 March, but the report lays bare systemic flaws in the Home Office and calls for an “urgent” root-and-branch review of its immigration operations.

• Ongoing calls for the Northern Ireland Secretary to resign following her latest gaffe.
The calls come not just from Labour but from relatives of people killed in Northern Ireland by the military.

• A renewed political focus on knife crime, with one of Britain’s most senior police officers demanding “harsh” sentences for criminals caught carrying knives.

• Analysis by the social reform think tank the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), which found that the benefits freeze has pushed 200,000 people into poverty.

Jeremy Hunt has said relations with the EU will be “poisoned for many years to come” if Brussels fails to budge in the talks, as the cabinet ministers leading the negotiations put on hold tentative plans to return to the Belgian capital.

Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, and the Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, had been expected to resume their haggling on the Irish backstop on Friday.

But after what Cox described as “robust” talks earlier in the week, during which Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator rejected the latest British proposals, the two sides appeared to be in a stalemate.

A visit by Cox and Barclay had not been confirmed for Friday. But if talks had progressed on the British ideas for winning over MPs to the Brexit deal, sources on both sides had suggested that the cabinet ministers would be in Brussels, ahead of a sign-off by the prime minister during a possible Sunday visit to the EU’s headquarters.

UK officials insisted that the situation remained “fluid” and that both men were on standby, should there be a breakthrough.

Good morning and welcome to Guardian live blog coverage of a crunch day of Brexit brinkmanship and British party political turmoil – or, as one former Conservative minister put it, “the last days of Rome”.

Regulars will know that this blog attracts a lot of comments so if you want to get my attention it might be easiest to Tweet me.

Today’s key moving stories are:

  • A last-ditch attempt by Theresa May to persuade the EU to give her a better Brexit deal as she struggles to hold her crumbling government together following a string cabinet embarrassments in Westminster. In a speech in the Brexit stronghold of Grimsby, Lincolnshire, the prime minister will plead with EU leaders to offer further concessions, as it became clear that talks in Brussels have stalled and hardline Eurosceptics in her party are likely to vote down the deal for a second time in parliament next week.
  • An address by Jeremy Corbyn to Scottish Labour’s Spring conference, which comes after the former leader of Scottish labour launched an attack on her successor. In a letter that was leaked this week, Kezia Dugdale was highly criticial of Richard Leonard’s approach to Brexit. The party’s crisis over allegations of antisemitism continues to rumble on meanwhile after Britain’s equality watchdog said it believes the party may have “unlawfully discriminated against people because of their ethnicity and religious beliefs” as it announced the first step of a statutory inquiry into the party’s handling of antisemitism complaints.

Updated

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