Afternoon summary
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The government does not expect the further rollout of universal credit to mean more people having to use food banks, a minister has said during a Commons debate on the new benefits system. As Peter Walker reports, speaking in response to a Labour motion passed unanimously last week calling for the gradual national extension of the system to be paused, Damian Hinds, the junior work and pensions minister, said ministers would “continue to listen to concerns”. But he declined to say whether the government would reduce the six-week wait for claimants to receive initial payments. Labour has called, among other changes, for this to be reduced to four or five weeks, saying the system as it is pushes people into debt. When Hinds was asked by Frank Field, the Labour chair of the work and pensions committee, if concerns that food banks would need more food in the coming year were “scaremongering”, or if the government would not be able to deliver on universal credit “without reducing them to hunger”. Hinds replied:
No, we do not expect for these things to happen because we want the system to work as well as it possibly can. It continues to improve in its performance and we continue to evolve and improve the system.
But opposition MPs insisted that the rollout of universal credit would increase hunger. The Labour MP Angela Eagle said:
In Wallasey the rollout will begin halfway through November, six weeks later it’s Christmas. The [Department for Work and Pensions] will not be open on Christmas Day, which means many of my constituents will have to wait until the new year for any assistance, which is why our local food bank is looking to collect 15 tonnes of extra food to deal with the demand.
And Debbie Abrahams, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said:
Food banks are running out of food as this scheme is being rolled out. What is going to happen to these families that desperately need this financial support?
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Peers have inflicted a double defeat on the government over demands for a ban on the “omnipresent menace” of nuisance cold-calling, the Press Association reports. The House of Lords backed by 253 votes to 205, majority 48, a cross-party amendment that would allow unsolicited calls to be outlawed where harm to consumers had been identified. The defeat was despite a move by ministers to placate critics with the promise of a future ban on unsolicited calls by claims management firms and in the area of pensions. But supporters of the changes to the financial guidance and claims bill wanted the Government to go further and argued the need for immediate action given the growing problem posed by cold-calling. In an earlier defeat, peers backed by 263 votes to 208, majority 55, a linked amendment that would give a new financial guidance body, a responsibility for consumer protection.
John O'Farrell and Oliver Letwin's memoirs - Reviews
Quite often new political books land on my desk. Here are two I’ve read in the last few weeks that I would recommend. They are both memoirs, although that is about all they have in common.
Things Can Only Get Worse? by John O’Farrell: O’Farrell’s first book, Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, was such a brilliant book - Fever Pitch for politics, the definitive book about what it means to be emotionally committed to a political party - that trying to write a sequel must have been daunting. Unlike the first, this book’s not in the classic league. But it is still a worth successor, charting O’Farrell’s ongoing involvement in politics as a writer, activist, Labour election candidate, academy school governor, joke-supplier to frontbenchers, reluctant Corbynite and tortured remainer wrestling with whether or to vote for the Ukip-backed Labour candidate Kate Hoey at the 2017 election. It is gossipy, often laugh-out-loud funny, full of insights, and at times very moving. I enjoyed it hugely.
Sample quotes:
It galls me that a satire show on which I worked for five years [Have I Got News For You] could have played a crucial part in launching the career of such a deeply destructive politician [Boris Johnson]. It’s one thing for members of the Bullingdon Club to have a laugh smashing up a restaurant then walking away. It’s quite another to do it to the European Union ...
Despite my youthful faith in its political importance, despite my sincere wish that the opposite were true, I came to the disappointing conclusion that Satire Does Not Work. All those years when I imagined I was exposing the vicious hypocrisy of Thatcher and Major, all it ever did (if anything) was make people feel a little bit better about everything. You were cross with the government, then you laughed at the government, and there: it had been processed, you’d dealt with it. Which makes satire worse than ineffective; rather than undermining the establishment, I think it actually helps maintain the status quo.
I try to tell myself that voting at election time is a purely rational, intellectual exercise, and maybe I would have voted Liberal if I lived in Richmond Park and that was the only way of keeping Zac Goldsmith out. And sure, I agreed with much of the Green party’s manifesto, even if I thought they split the progressive vote, which only helps the right. But here’s the thing: I love the Labour party. When people say unfair things about Labour, I get irrationally defensive and a little angry: hey, watch it, that’s my family you are slagging off there! I am married to the Labour party, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, in Kinnock and in Blair. And sometimes they drive me mad, and I feel embarrassed and ashamed. But much more often I feel proud, deeply proud, of that picture with Nye Bevan and the first little girl treated under the NHS, or Barbara Castle welcoming the Dagenham strikers and forcing through equal pay for women, and yes, that picture of Jeremy Corbyn being led away by police for demonstrating against apartheid. These are pictures from my political family album, they help me understand who I am.
Hearts and Minds by Oliver Letwin: Letwin worked for Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit, served as shadow home secretary and shadow chancellor (amongst other jobs) during the Tories’ wilderness years in opposition, and then spent six years in government as David Cameron’s policy fixer where, as the press release for this book puts it, every piece of government policy crossed his desk. This shortish book (296 pages) doesn’t cover the period in detail, but instead focuses on ideas and lessons learnt. It his highly readable and, for a memoir of this kind, unusually candid; Letwin is much more open than most former ministers about admitting what went wrong. His conclusions about Thatcher and about NHS marketisation are probably the most important in the book, but it is all worth reading.
Sample quotes
As I look back on that period, I am ashamed for [Margaret Thatcher], and ashamed of myself, that, unlike Keith Joseph, I don’t believe she ever really took on board the extent to which some people are victims of the society in which they grow up and subsist, and I don’t believe that at that time I did either. She was so keen to re-emphasise personal responsibility and the ‘vigorous virtues’ that she, and we who were infused with her spirit, missed the other side of the equation - that some people in some conditions of life just aren’t able, without a massive amount of external help of the most intrusive and paternalistic and sympathetic kind, to escape from those conditions of life.
As we struggled through those winters, with endless meetings and conference calls to investigate what was going on in the hardest-pressed areas, including on Christmas Day, it became clearer and clearer to me that the whole picture of the NHS as a social market just didn’t fit the facts. The truth is that there are actually two distinct kinds of thing going on in the healthcare system. One is a system of GPs, A&E, maternity care and elective surgery for the young and basically fit. In principle, this side of NHS healthcare could operate as a social market ...
But the real problem is that there is a second healthcare system - or rather, un-system - which is meant to provide care for the frail elderly. It is this system that actually absorbs most of the cost of the NHS and adult social services. And - as Stephen Dorrell and Sarah Wollaston quite rightly pointed out but I didn’t understand until later - it is purely fanciful to portray this as something that can operate on anything like the social market model proposed in NHS Autonomy and Accountability [a Conservative party policy paper published in 2009] of Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS [the 2010 white paper that led to the Health and Social Care Act].
Labour to investigate latest allegations about Jared O'Mara
The Labour party has announced that it will investigate the allegations about Jared O’Mara’s behaviour earlier this year. A spokesman said:
The party is investigating Jared O’Mara MP in relation to comments and behaviour reported from earlier this year.
But Labour does not seem to have withdrawn the whip from O’Mara, who denies calling a woman an “ugly bitch” in a nightclub.
Photograph: Jon Super for the Guardian
Updated
Richard Leonard, the favourite to win the Scottish Labour leadership contest, has outed himself as a vigorous opponent of the entryist group Militant in the 1980s and insisted he would fight against party factionalism if he wins the internal election.
With ballot papers being issued this Friday both Leonard, the Corbynite candidate, and his rival Anas Sarwar, a former deputy leader of Scottish Labour, are making final campaign speeches and policy statements this week.
In a bid to reassure members after a particularly bruising phase of the contest, which has seen bitter exchanges over Brexit, allegations of dubious recruitment tactics of new members and the candidates’ loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn, Leonard said he had a long track-record of bipartisanship within the party.
Speaking in Edinburgh, Leonard said he had campaigned for Scottish Labour in every election since 1983, for left-wing, centrist and right-wing candidates. He insisted he prized loyalty to Labour above loyalty to factions. He said:
When a Labour candidate is selected, we all get behind them 100%. That’s always been my philosophy and that’s why I believe I am the candidate who can reach out and unify the Scottish Labour party.
I have never joined a faction inside the Labour party; indeed some of my formative experiences were forged on the anvil of tackling a faction, the Militant Tendency. I have never been beholden to any group or faction or any one individual, and I have no intention of starting now.
The Militant Tendency was an hard left entryist group in Labour during the 1980s and 1990s, causing a crisis for Labour which led to a series of expulsions of Militant organisers, including the then deputy leader of Liverpool council, Derek Hatton.
Asked after his speech why he felt so strongly about Militant, Leonard said it was aiming to build a “party within the Labour party. I see no one trying to build a party inside the Labour party today.”
Unlike some of his most influential supporters, Leonard has not been a member of the Campaign for Socialism, a Scottish Labour grouping set up in 1994 to combat Tony Blair’s decision to scrap the Clause Four commitment to nationalisation. But Leonard’s critics insist his leadership campaign has benefitted directly from that grouping, which has the informal backing of Corbyn’s team. They allege it had been plotting against former leader Kezia Dugdale for months before her resignation in August.
The UK and Scottish governments will open in-depth talks on proposed amendments to the EU withdrawal bill this week, David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, has said. Giving evidence to the Scottish affairs committee he said:
What we’ve indicated is that we’ll look at all amendments and proposals that are brought forward and I can tell you today that the exciting event called an amendments forum is going to take place over the next couple of days involving officials from the UK government and the Scottish government to work through the various amendments that have been brought forward.
We’ve been quite clear that we would look at all amendments seriously, in good faith, and that they were brought forward not to wreck the bill but brought forward to make the bill better, more in line with achieving its objectives, and that’s what we’re doing ...
As in the case of the discussion of all amendments, it may be that some amendments can be accepted with a little bit of modification, some amendments ultimately we may decide that we can’t agree on and obviously it is ultimately for this house to determine whether amendments are successful in relation to the bill.
The Scottish and Welsh governments have both complained strongly that the bill as currently drafted hands EU-related powers back to Westminster which they say should go to Edinburgh and Cardiff because they relate to policy portfolios normally devolved.
Justine Greening, the education secretary and minister for women and equalities, has challenged Jeremy Corbyn to withdraw the whip from the Labour MP Jared O’Mara. She said that although O’Mara has apologised for sexist and homophobic comments he posted on internet message boards 15 years ago, he has been accused of verbally abusing a woman at a nightclub in March this year. O’Mara has denied this allegation.
But, in an open letter, Greening asked Corbyn:
This morning a member of your shadow cabinet, Angela Rayner MP, defended Mr O’Mara, implying that he was a now reformed character given that he made some of these comments fifteen years ago.
However, it has since been alleged that Mr O’Mara made misogynistic comments to a young woman in a night club just seven months ago.
I agree with Labour MP Chris Leslie who has called for these latest allegations to be investigated.
Violent, sexist and homophobic language must have no place in our society, and parliamentarians of all parties have a duty to stamp out this sort of behaviour wherever we encounter it, and condemn it in the strongest possible terms.
Will you be investigating the latest allegations made against Jared O’Mara MP?
How is it that individuals who have made such remarks can be selected as Labour candidates?
Will you be removing the whip from him while the investigation is carried out?
The Labour MP Jared O’Mara faces a potential internal party investigation over allegations he verbally abused a woman in a nightclub, two Labour frontbenchers have said. My colleague Peter Walker has the story.
Almost half of voters do not expect Brexit talks to conclude successfully, poll suggests
Today the Guardian has published its latest “Brexit watch” analysis of the economy. It shows the Brexit vote “sapping business confidence and hitting household income”.
On the basis of data like this, you would expect to find people becoming more negative about Brexit. And that’s exactly what we are finding, because the latest Guardian/ICM polling is out today and the conclusions should be concerning for Theresa May and Brexiters.
Here are the results in full.
- Almost half of voters do not expect the Brexit talks to conclude successfully. Only 30% of people do expect a successful outcome to negotiations.
Respondents were told the Brexit negotiations will have to end by 29 March 2019 and were asked if they expected them to end successfully or unsuccessfully. The results were:
Conclude successfully: 30%
Not conclude successfully: 45%
Don’t know: 25%
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A majority of voters say they will react negatively if Britain leaves the EU without a deal. Only 20% say they would react positively.
This is significant because polls have repeatedly shown that, if you ask people if they would prefer no deal to a bad deal, they will back no deal by a large margin. (See here and here, for example.) This is a boost for Theresa May because “no deal is better than a bad deal” is her mantra and there is some evidence that the government is beefing up preparations for the possibility of a no deal.
The pro-Brexit Tory MP John Redwood claimed at the weekend that recent comments from Angela Merkel show that EU leaders are “very worried at just how popular the WTO model [ie, leaving with no deal] is with many UK voters”.
But our polling suggests Redwood has got this very wrong. We tried to assess how people would feel if the UK were to leave the EU without a deal. Respondents were asked to imagine the UK and the EU failing to reach agreement by Brexit day and to then pick two of the responses that would best describe their emotions. The results were:
Worried: 50%
Confused: 29%
Furious: 24%
Pleased: 14%
Would feel nothing: 13%
Terrified: 12%
Proud: 11%
Excited: 11%
Net negative (all those choosing at least 1 negative response): 62%
Net positive: 20%
- Voters are becoming increasingly negative in how they think Brexit will affect their personal finances, the overall economy and life in Britain generally.
We have been asking people all year whether they think Brexit will have a positive or negative impact in these three areas. Here are the results for February, for July and for September. Taken as a whole, the latest results are more negative than they were in any of the previous surveys, although the decline in confidence is gradual, not dramatic.
Impact on the British economy
Positive: 30%
Negative: 46%
No difference: 13%
Net: -16 (down 6 from ICM in September)
Impact on your personal finances
Positive: 13%
Negative: 35%
No difference: 38%
Net: -22 (down 5)
Impact on life in Britain generally
Positive: 35%
Negative: 38%
No difference: 15%
Net: -3 (down 4)
- Labour and Tories tied on 42%, lastest poll suggests.
We also polled on voting intention. The two main parties remained tied.
Labour: 42% (up 1 from Guardian/ICM two weeks ago)
Conservatives: 42% (up 1)
Lib Dems: 7% (no change)
Ukip: 3% (down 1)
Greens: 2% (no change)
- Jeremy Corbyn has a clear lead over Theresa May on the matter of who is seen to be doing a good job, the poll suggests.
Finally, we also asked people if they thought the following people were doing a good or bad job. Here are the results.
Theresa May
Good job: 34%
Bad job: 50%
Net: -16
Jeremy Corbyn
Good job: 37%
Bad job: 43%
Net: -6
Philip Hammond
Good job: 20%
Bad job: 46%
Net: -26
Boris Johnson
Good job: 26%
Bad job: 52%
Net: -26
David Davis
Good job: 25%
Bad job: 43%
Net: -18
I will post a link to the tables here when they go up on the ICM website.
ICM Unlimited interviewed an online sample of 2,022 adults aged 18+ on 20 to 23 October 2017. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.
Updated
Lunchtime summary
- Chris Patten, the Oxford University chancellor and former Conservative party chairman, has accused the Tory whip trying to monitor what universities teach students about Brexit of “idiotic Leninism”. (See 1.47am.) He spoke after Downing Street disowned Chris Heaton-Harris’s efforts.
- Donald Tusk, the European council president, has suggested that the UK could halt Brexit. (See 9.33am.)
- Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has dismissed Theresa May’s suggestion that a UK-EU trade deal could be concluded by next autumn. (See 9.20am.)
- Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has sought to allay concerns about the Brexit transition not being agreed until next autumn by saying the “principles” behind it could be agreed soon. But he refused to commit to that happening by the end of the year. (See 1.22pm.) He spoke as Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said there was an urgent need for the government to clarify what will happen regarding the transition. (See 1.35pm.)
- Hammond has dismissed suggestions that it is now government policy to borrow £50bn to invest in housing. Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, has suggested borrowing more to invest in housing, with some reports claiming that Javid has been pushing the Treasury for an investment of £50bn. But when Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, told Hammond at Treasury questions that he was glad to see the government has agreed to increase borrowing by £50bn, Hammond said this was not government policy. He went on:
That was not what [Javid] said, as he knows. I would, however, agree with him that increasing activity in the construction sector is a very good way of creating jobs.
- The Commons culture committee has written to Facebook asking for information about Russian-linked activity on Facebook relating to the EU referendum and the 2017 general election. The committee has requested the information as part of its inquiry into fake news.
- The Labour MP Jared O’Mara has denied a constituent’s claim that he called her an “ugly bitch” just months before his election. As the Press Association reports, O’Mara resigned from his position on the Commons women and equalities committee on Monday in a row over derogatory online comments posted more than a decade ago. But he “categorically denies” the more recent claims from Sophie Evans, who claimed he was abusive to her in March this year.
Oxford chancellor Chris Patten accuses Heaton-Harris of 'idiotic Leninism'
Chris Patten, the former Conservative party chairman who is now chancellor of Oxford University, was absolutely withering about the Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris’s Brexit curriculum survey on the World at One just now. He accused Heaton-Harris of “idiotic Leninism”. He told WATO’s Martha Kearney:
When I heard about it, I had to check up it was true, because it seemed to me such an extraordinary example of outrageous and foolish behaviour, offensive and idiotic Leninism. I couldn’t believe that this could come from a Conservative MP; I think he must be an agent of Mr Corbyn intent on further increasing the number of young people who want to vote Labour. It’s absolutely disgraceful and I’m sure most universities’ vice-chancellors will deal with it in the most appropriate way which is to drop it in the waste paper basket.
Patten said that Heaton-Harris’s demands were “outrageous”. When it was put to him that the MP was just asking for information, Patten replied:
Well what do you think he wants to do? He wants to try, in a rather pathetic way, to make people believe that somehow they’ll be criticised unless they follow the Brexiteers’ line on the whole appalling decision. So presumably we all have to believe now that there really will be an extra £350m for the Health Service.
The Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris, whose one-man inquiry into what universities are teaching about Brexit has been disowned by Number 10 (see 12.53pm), has just posted this on Twitter. It does rather have the smack of a climbdown.
To be absolutely clear, I believe in free speech in our universities and in having an open and vigorous debate on Brexit.
— Chris Heaton-Harris (@chhcalling) October 24, 2017
Hammond says government hopes to agree 'principles' of Brexit transition soon
At Treasury questions Philip Hammond, the chancellor, used some interesting new language in relation to the proposed Brexit transition.
- Hammond said the government hopes to reach agreement on the “principles” of a transition period soon. He used the phrase in response to the Labour MP Chris Leslie, who said that businesses needed to have a transitional deal agreed by the first quarter of next year. When this was put to him, Hammond replied:
As part of [the proposed Brexit deal] we want to agree an implementation period during which businesses and governments can prepare for the new relationship. and we want to agree the principles of that period as soon as possible.
Last week at the European council the 27 agreed to start internal preparatory discussions on guidelines in relation to an implementation period. Together with the broad support for the idea in parliament, this should give British businesses confidence that we are going to provide them with the certainty they require.
Hammond’s language was echoed by the Downing Street spokesman who told lobby journalists, when asked about the transition, “in terms of the broad outline of an implementation period, we believe that we can agree that quickly”. Hammond and No 10 seemed to be stressing the chances of reaching agreement on the “principles” of a transition soon in response to Theresa May’s effective admission yesterday that the full details of the transition would not be finalised until the entire Brexit deal is agreed, most likely around October next year.
- But Hammond also refused to commit to the Brexit transition being agreed before the end of the year. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, asked Hammond to confirm that the principles of the transition would be agreed by the end of this year. Hammond could not give a firm commitment on this point, but he said that the other EU states had already agreed to start discussing amongst themselves a transition and he went on:
I’m confident that we will be able to give businesses the confidence and the certainty that they need.
No 10 disowns Tory whip's attempt to monitor what universities teach about Brexit
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman distanced the government from the Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris’s freelance Brexit university monitoring campaign. (See 10.57am.) As a whip Heaton-Harris is a member of the government. But he was not acting on behalf of the government in this case, the spokesman said. The spokesman told journalists:
This was sent in his capacity as an MP, not a government representative.
What the prime minister has always been very clear on is her respect for the freedom and independence of universities and the role they play in creating open and stimulating debate.
Free speech is one of the foundations on which our universities are built and, of course, it should be protected.
Jo Johnson, the universities minister, made a similar point on Twitter.
Academic freedom -which we've just entrenched in statute in Higher Ed &Research Bill 2017! - is core to success +better protected than ever
— Jo Johnson (@JoJohnsonUK) October 24, 2017
Labour’s Stephen Timms says Hammond told the Treasury committee recently that the value of a transitional deal would decrease sharply the longer it took to negotiate it. He asks if Hammond still thinks that in the light of Theresa May indicated yesterday that a transition deal would not be finalised until next autumn.
Hammond says he has already said the government intends to give business the security it needs.
Hammond refuses to commit to Brexit transition being settled by the end of this year
At Treasury questions John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, says what Hammond said earlier about the possibility of a “no deal” Brexit was “crushingly disappointing”. He challenges Hammond to say that, like Labour, he will not support or vote of a “no deal” Brexit.
Hammond says McDonnell knows that the government wants a deal, with an implementation phase.
McDonnell says business leaders made it clear they need certainty now. But Theresa May implied the transition will only be negotiated after the trade deal has been settled. Businesses need certainty now. Will Hammond make it clear that the principles of the transition will be confirmed by the end of this year?
Hammond says he is confident that the government will be able to give business the certainty it needs.
- Hammond refuses to commit to Brexit transition being settled by the end of this year - but does claim business will get the certainty it needs.
Jonathan Reynolds, a shadow Treasury minister, asks if the government will set out a transitional deal by the end of this year.
Hammond says the government is confident that it will be able to give business the confidence it requires.
At Treasury questions Hammond says the government will continue to deduce the deficit in a “measured” way.
The French president Emmanuel Macron and the Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar have been speaking to journalists after talks in Paris. According to the Reuters snap, Macron said it was up to the UK to come up with concrete proposals on Ireland/UK border issues.
At Treasury questions the Labour MP Wes Streeting says there are SNP MPs who back the EU single market but do not support the UK single market. And there are Tory fanatics who can see the benefits of the UK single market, but want to leave the European one.
The SNP’s Kirsty Blackman asks Hammond to state that no deal is not an option for the UK. That would be terrible for Scotland, she says.
Hammond says the government is preparing for all eventualities. But its strong preference is for a deal, he says.
Philip Hammond takes Treasury questions
Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is taking Treasury questions.
Labour’s Chris Leslie asks what Hammond is doing to ensure a transition deal is agreed by the first quarter of next year.
Hammond says the government wants to agree the principles of such a deal as soon as possible.
Sturgeon demands clarification of UK government's Brexit transition plans
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has used Twitter to demand urgent clarification from the UK government as to what it plans for a Brexit transition in the light of Theresa May’s suggestion yesterday that the transition will not apply unless a new trade deal is agreed by next autumn too.
The gulf between EU/business/post Florence understanding of ‘transition’ and what PM now seems to be saying surely needs urgent resolution. https://t.co/piWKh5SXAp
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) October 24, 2017
Sturgeon was commenting on this Tweet from Mike Russell, the Scottish Brexit minister.
A degree of certainty by Christmas unlikely if this is true..Transition to be agreed with Brexit trade deal - May https://t.co/Doty86gLzn
— Michael Russell (@Feorlean) October 24, 2017
People don’t normally need to add the rider “if this is true” to a story from Reuters (or the Guardian, one would hope). The fact that Russell saw the need to include it suggests he cannot believe that the government is serious about refusing to finalise any transition deal until next autumn.
Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, has welcomed Donald Tusk’s acknowledgment that the UK could halt Brexit. (See 9.33am.) In a statement Cable said:
I welcome Donald Tusk’s comments in the European parliament. No matter what Theresa May says there are still three options on the table. No deal, a deal, or no Brexit.
The EU have confirmed what we have been saying all along, if Brexit looks like a disaster we can call the whole thing off.
As the Guardian reports today, the Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris has been accused of “McCarthyite” behaviour after writing to all universities asking them to declare what they are teaching their students about Brexit and to provide a list of teachers’ names.
The Universities and Colleges Union is now pushing for the higher education minister Jo Johnson to strongly condemn his Tory colleague’s letter. Sally Hunt, UCU’s general secretary, said:
Our society will suffer if politicians seek to police what universities can and cannot teach. This attempt by Chris Heaton-Harris to compile a hit list of professors has the acrid whiff of McCarthyism about it and Jo Johnson must disown it in the strongest terms.
Our universities and colleges must lead the way in defending academic freedom, where received wisdom can be challenged and controversial ideas debated.
Few if any universities are likely to respond positively to the MP’s request for details of their teaching on Brexit, with many publicly saying they have no intention of complying.
General Sir Richard Barrons, a former head of the Joint Forces Command, was on the Today programme this morning calling for higher defence spending. He argued that changing international circumstances made this necessary. He told the programme:
The future will not replicate the comfortable recent past. The risk today, and more so in the future, is that countries like Russia and China already have capability that could hold the UK homeland at military risk at very short notice. We can’t really deal with that.
Yesterday the German journalist Thomas Gutschker stirred things up admirably when he published an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAZ) with a vivid, “insider” account of Theresa May’s dinner last week with Jean-Claude Juncker. As this passage (from Nina Schick’s translation) shows, it did not reflect well on May.
Theresa May seemed anxious to the president of the commission, despondent and discouraged. A woman who hardly dares trust anybody, but is not ready for an act of liberation either. May’s facial expressions and appearance spoke volumes — that’s how Juncker later described it to his colleagues. Everyone can see it: the prime minister is drawn from the struggle within her own party. She has deep circles under her eyes. She looks like someone who does not sleep for nights on end. She rarely laughs, though clearly, she has to for the photographers. But it looks forced. Previously, May could literally pour out laughter — her whole body shaking. Now she has to use her utmost strength to avoid losing her composure.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, said the report was not true.
But in the Times (paywall) today Rachel Sylvester describes May in similar terms. Sylvester’s column includes this astonishing anecdote.
Those who have seen Mrs May privately in recent weeks describe her as stricken and stunned. On one occasion she sat in silence for almost ten minutes while the visitor she had invited to see her waited for her to lead the conversation. He left the meeting deciding she no longer wanted to be prime minister. The internal contradiction of her position must be taking an emotional as well as a political toll.
As my colleague Jessica Elgot reports, Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, has defended Jared O’Mara, the Labour MP who apologised for posting derogatory and homophobic comments on a forum 15 years ago. Rayner told the Today programme:
Yes, I am happy to sit alongside [O’Mara]. I’ve met many people in my life who have had homophobic, misogynistic and even racist views; I’ve knocked on doors where that has been the case. Jared changed his views, that’s what’s important, he recognised they were abhorrent and wrong and he changed. Fifteen years on, he is not the Jared that made those comments.
Juncker says European commission not 'hostile' to UK and wants Brexit deal
And Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European commission, told MEPs that the commission wants a Brexit deal and is not taking a “hostile” approach to the UK. He said:
The commission is not negotiating in a hostile mood. We want a deal. Those who don’t want a deal - the no-dealers - they had no friends in the commission.
Juncker’s comment can be seen as a retort to Nick Timothy, who until he resigned the day after the general election was Theresa May’s co chief of staff and her most influential policy adviser. Yesterday, in response to the German news report about the May/Juncker dinner, Timothy tweeted this.
After constructive Council meeting, Selmayr does this. Reminder that some in Brussels want no deal or a punitive one https://t.co/VDlhFx8bdl
— Nick Timothy (@NickJTimothy) October 22, 2017
Timothy was referring to Martin Selmayr, Juncker’s chief of staff, who denied leaking information about the dinner.
My colleague Jennifer Rankin has another line from Tusk’s address to MEPs.
Tusk opens EP speech by saying each of 27 MS made sacrifice for David Cameron deal. Now "no one can divide the 27" on Brexit.
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) October 24, 2017
European council president suggests Brexit could be halted
Donald Tusk, the European council president, told the European parliament this morning that it was up to the UK how Brexit ended. Giving MEPs an update on the EU summit he also suggested that Britain remaining in the EU (“no Brexit”) was still a possible outcome. He told them:
Ahead of us is still the toughest stress test. If we fail it, the negotiations will end in our defeat.
We must keep our unity regardless of the direction of the talks. The EU will be able to rise to every scenario as long as we are not divided.
It is in fact up to London how this will end: With a good deal, no deal or no Brexit.
But in each of these scenarios we will protect our common interest only by being together.
Barnier dismisses May's hopes of reaching quick deal on UK-EU trade after Brexit
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has given an interview to a group of European newspapers in the course of which he said that the UK is likely to end up with a trade deal with the EU similar to Canada’s. My colleague Daniel Boffey has written it up here.
A lot of commentary and reporting about Brexit includes reference to the proposed “Brexit deal” but Barnier’s interview also highlights the fact that there are actually two possible deals in play and they are quite different: the withdrawal deal (governing the terms of the withdrawal, including a possible transition); and the future trade deal.
In the UK journalists have often tended to conflate the two because the government’s intention is to try to negotiate both at the same time. At one point Theresa May admitted that technically the UK would not be able to sign a trade deal with the EU until after it left, because it could not sign while it was still a member, but the government has always glossed over this, as if it intends to have the bulk of the trade deal bolted down before Brexit in March 2019. In the Commons yesterday May restated her belief that the withdrawal deal and the trade deal could essentially by negotiated at the same time. In a response to the Tory Iain Duncan Smith, who said “a proper free trade arrangement” would have to be negotiated by next summer, she said he was essentially right, but that October 2018 was a more realistic deadline.
But Barnier made it clear in his interview that he thinks settling the trade issue will take much longer. Referring to the Brexit negotiations, he said:
The two phases are difficult. The second will be very different and will last several years. It is truly unique because instead of promoting regulatory convergence, it will aim to frame a difference. It will involve risks, including about its political ratification, making all the more necessary transparency around these topics.
Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is taking questions in the Commons later. We will probably get his take then.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Theresa May chairs a political cabinet, followed by a full cabinet at 9.30am.
9.45am: Priti Patel, the international development secretary, gives evidence to the Commons international development committee.
10.30am: John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, addresses a rally at Westminster called by the School Cuts coalition. Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, and Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, are also speaking to the rally later.
11.30am: Philip Hammond, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.
Around 12.45pm: MPs begin an emergency debate called by Labour on universal credit. The motion is “that this House has considered the government’s response to the decision of the House on pausing the universal credit full service rollout.
1.40pm: David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, gives evidence to the Commons Scottish affairs committee.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard’s Playbook. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.
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