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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Labour says Bradley should resign because she no longer has credibility as NI secretary - Politics live

Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland secretary.
Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland secretary. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

According to Alex Barker at the Financial Times (paywall), Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, caused some surprise in the Brexit talks in Brussels on Tuesday night by raising the notion of “the man on the Clapham omnibus” - a longstanding concept in English law, but a phrase that features in the EU treaties. Barker explains:

To the bewilderment of some EU negotiators, Geoffrey Cox, the UK’s attorney-general, invoked the Victorian-era legal concept to explain how a revamped system of arbitration could guarantee the Northern Ireland backstop plan is not “indefinite”.

The proposal, based around the judgment of an imaginary south London commuter, aimed to find a fair escape route from the provisions of the backstop, the part of the Brexit deal most loathed by Eurosceptics.

But the suggestion by Mr Cox, Britain’s top legal officer, was flatly rejected in Brussels and has little chance of surviving even in watered-down form, according to EU officials ...

“They have no clue,” said one official handling Brexit, who added that the UK’s ideas were becoming “crazier and crazier”. Other senior EU diplomats were scathing about Mr Cox, a barrister depicted as a latecomer to the talks, improvising beyond his expertise. Noting the attorney-general’s booming voice, one joked that the discussions had reached a point of “boom and bust”.

This is from the New Statesman’s George Eaton.

On a day when two cabinet ministers are already in trouble for comments that caused offence, the Labour MP Naz Shah has queried why, when she asked for a debate on Islamophobia earlier today during business questions, Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, said this would be a matter for the Foreign Office.

I’ve asked Leadsom’s office for an explanation, and will post the answer when I get a reply.

UPDATE: Asked why Leadsom said this was an issue for the Foreign Office, a spokesperson for her office said:

Islamophobia is unacceptable wherever it takes place. It was thought that the MP for Bradford West was referring to a global definition of Islamophobia. International efforts to combat Islamophobia (and all forms of religious persecution and prejudice) are led by the PM’s special envoy on freedom of religion or belief, Lord Ahmad, at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Of course, any form of Islamophobia in the UK would be dealt with swiftly by Home Office or [the ministry for communities] as appropriate.

Updated

Sturgeon reprimanded by statistics chief for using unpublished hospital waiting time figures

Nicola Sturgeon has been reprimanded by the UK’s statistics regulator for using unpublished data to defend her government’s widely-criticised performance on hospital waiting times.

Ed Humpherson, the director general for regulation at the UK Statistics Authority, wrote to the Scottish government’s chief statistician, Roger Halliday, today to chide the first minister for quoting figures which could not be independently verified by outsiders and had not come from NHS Scotland’s statistics service.

Humpherson said the authority had previously complained about ministerial use of this unpublished data, produced for Sturgeon by her officials, when it had been used on another occasion at Holyrood. He said:

Waiting times are a major concern to patients and their families.

The statistics informing debates about them must therefore be trustworthy, of suitable quality, and useful. We are therefore extremely disappointed that it has been necessary for us to intervene in this way.

He said the figures were already due to be officially released by the NHS’s information services division in May 2019. Jumping the gun, without clear guidance about the data’s quality and limitations, risked undermining public confidence, he said.

Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, urged Sturgeon to apologise at first minister’s questions. She would not do so, but said her government would “reflect carefully on anything that the Office for Statistics Regulation says. She said:

The statistics that I used were accurate and, as I understand it, are available to anybody on request and will be published by ISD Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon Photograph: Ken Jack/Getty Images

The DUP MP Sammy Wilson has defended Karen Bradley.

This is from the Labour MP David Lammy on why Amber Rudd’s “coloured” comment was offensive. (See 2.42pm.)

Labour calls for Karen Bradley's resignation, saying she no longer has credibility to stay as NI secretary

Tony Lloyd, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, says the comments from Nuala O’Loan, the former police ombudsman in Northern Ireland, about Karen Bradley on the World at One (see 2.04pm) show that Bradley no longer has the credibility she needs to stay in her job. He said:

Today I wrote to Karen Bradley, asking her to come to the Commons and give a real apology for her comments.

But following the former ombudsman’s comments, it’s clear that Karen Bradley does not have sufficient credibility to stay in her post.

This was not just a gaffe and Bradley did not simply ‘misspeak’. What she said reflected a disturbing pattern, with her and the prime minister having made a succession of baseless claims about military personnel being treated unfairly compared to others.

If Theresa May can’t find a replacement, they must finally tell us what the government is going to do with Northern Irish legacy cases.

Here is the letter Lloyd wrote to Bradley earlier.

The Labour MP Jess Phillips has again used a Commons debate about International Women’s Day to read out a complete list of women killed by men (or where the principal suspect is a man) in the UK since the last such day.

It took her just over four minutes to read out the entire list, in chronological order of their deaths. The first was Jennifer Rogers, 56, stabbed by her husband on 17 March last year. Her husband was jailed for manslaughter. The last was Sarah Henshaw, 40, found dead in her flat in Armley, Leeds on 11 February. A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Before reading the list, Phillips said:

I read these names not only to continue to highlight how male violence can terrorise ordinary women’s lives, but to pay tribute to them, and those who didn’t survive, and give them the opportunity to be heard.

Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story on Amber Rudd calling Diane Abbott “coloured”.

Abbott condemns Rudd's language as 'outdated, offensive and revealing'

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, has described Amber Rudd’s decision to call her coloured “outdated, offensive and revealing”.

Abbott has also retweeted this tweet from the Labour MP Danielle Rowley.

And this one from the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush.

Rudd apologises after calling Diane Abbott 'coloured'

Amber Rudd has apologised. She said she was “mortified at my clumsy language” and has apologised for describing Diane Abbott as “coloured”. (See 2.42pm.)

Amber Rudd
Amber Rudd Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, has referred to Diane Abbott as “coloured”. As Patrick Maguire reports at the Staggers, she used the term in an interview with Jeremy Vine on Radio 2. Speaking about the abuse directed at MPs (see 1.12pm), Rudd said:

It definitely is worse if you’re a woman, and it’s worst of all if you’re a coloured woman. I know that Diane Abbott gets a huge amount of abuse, and I think that’s something we need to continue to call out.

As a former home secretary, where equality and diversity issues are part of the portfolio, you would have thought that she would have known better than to use a term that, although once commonplace, has been considered offensive in mainstream discourse for decades.

Hunt criticises Salmond for broadcasting on Russian TV station

Alex Salmond’s RT chat show could create the impression the former first minister and the SNP do “not understand the difference between good and evil”, Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, has claimed. As the Press Association reports, Hunt said this was the “risk” from Salmond broadcasting on the Kremlin-backed channel, which was formerly known as Russia Today. The former SNP leader - who is no longer a member of the party - turned to broadcasting after losing his seat in the Commons in the 2017 election. The Alex Salmond Show has been broadcasting on RT since November that year.

Hunt was speaking about the risks cyber attacks can pose to democracies during a visit to Glasgow and he was asked if Salmond’s TV show was a threat to British security, or just a threat to SNP credibility. He replied:

It’s more about the SNP credibility when they do these kind of things and I think is the same risk that Jeremy Corbyn runs with the Labour party in the UK. Corbyn has an approach that essentially he will support anyone who shares his anti-western world view. Therefore, by definition, if you are anti-America, anti-Israel, anti the west, then he will support you. That is why he refused to condemn Russia over the novichok attacks in Salisbury.

And I think Alex Salmond runs exactly the same risk of fundamentally showing people that the SNP doesn’t understand the difference between good and evil, and doesn’t understand that for all its fault the international order that we have at the moment has done more to promote freedom and democracy than any international order we have had in history.

Jeremy Hunt delivering a speech on “Defending Democracy in the Cyber Age” at the University of Glasgow.
Jeremy Hunt delivering a speech on “Defending Democracy in the Cyber Age” at the University of Glasgow. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Lunchtime summary

[Bradley’s] comments demonstrated a total lack of understanding, a total disregard for the rule of law, and I think that somebody who holds the position of secretary of state, and is supposed to be attempting to help us build a new Northern Ireland, should not have said what she said. And when she came back to the Commons, she didn’t even apologise to the people who must have been devastated by what she said.

She said the 10% [of deaths during the Troubles] at the hands of the military and the police were not crimes, they were people acting under orders and instructions, fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way. I do not think that that is a proper description. It is not even in any way allowing for the process of investigation and prosecution, where prosecution is required. It demonstrates a mindset which I think is incompatible with the office of secretary of state ...

What Karen Bradley has said has demonstrated yet again that she is not fit to be the secretary of state for Northern Ireland. She does not understand the history of Northern Ireland, she does not understand the extent to which I, as police ombudsman, and others over the decades have been investigating situations where police officers and members of the military were involved in crime, and have been convicted of crime. It simply shows a total lack of comprehension of Northern Ireland and we cannot continue to have a secretary of state who is in such a state of ignorance and who does not even understand the basic principles of governance and law.

  • John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has announced that Labour has asked the economic historian Robert Skidelsky to carry out a review into the case for a shorter working week.

The top civil servant at the Department for Exiting the EU is to retire early at the end of March, the Press Association reports. Philip Rycroft, 57, was appointed permanent secretary in October 2017 after predecessor Olly Robbins moved to 10 Downing Street to be the prime minister’s chief Brexit negotiator. Rycroft, who joined DExEU as second permanent secretary in 2016 shortly after the EU referendum, will be replaced at the department by Clare Moriarty, currently top civil servant at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Boris Johnson accused of misrepresenting success of his anti-stabbing initiative as London mayor

Wednesday’s Daily Mail carried a long opinion piece by Boris Johnson about how to curb the current spate of stabbings involving young people. In it, Johnson discussed how as London mayor he responded to an earlier rise in such crimes with a massive increase in police stop-and-search operations.

The scheme, called Operation Blunt Two, was “one thing we did that I think helped to reduce the stabbings”, he said. Opponents warned more stop-and-search could be discriminatory, Johnson wrote: “We ignored these voices. It worked.”

There is, however, more to this narrative than billed. A Home Office analysis of Blunt Two in 2016 found that while knife crime did fall during Johnson’s tenure, there’s no evidence that the focus on stop-and-search had anything to do with it.

The study, highlighted today by the Liberal Democrats, examined crime levels in various London boroughs which saw differing levels of police action. There was, the authors said, “no discernible crime-reducing effects from a large surge in stop and search activity at the borough level during the operation”.

A parallel analysis of ambulance service data on calls for weapons-related injuries in the report found that the number of such callouts actually fell faster in the boroughs with lower levels of weapons searches.

The authors stress this does not definitively mean the operation was a failure, only that any positive effect cannot be measured. Either way, it’s not quite the picture painted by Johnson.

The Lib Dems’ home affairs spokesman, Ed Davey, said:

His gall would be impressive if it weren’t so destructive. Instead of reducing crime, expanding Stop and Search will only increase discrimination and undermine the community relations police officers need to prevent knife crime.

We know what is needed to tackle this knife crime epidemic: more police, more youth services and a proper public health approach. We mustn’t let Boris’s dishonest arguments distract us.

Boris Johnson (sporting his new, short haircut)
Boris Johnson (sporting his new, short haircut) Photograph: David M Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images

Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, has highlighted the abuse that female politicians receive on Twitter by recording a video giving examples of some of the insults she has received herself.

The most controversial poster that appeared during the referendum campaign in 2016 was the “Breaking Point” one unveiled by the then Ukip leader, Nigel Farage. It was launched only hours before a far-right terrorist murdered the Labour MP Jo Cox.

Today For Our Future’s Sake, the youth and student campaign for a second referendum, have produced a rather effective parody. Superimposing pictures of Brexiters over the images of migrants in the original, it says the country is being “swamped by a tide of incompetents”.

A billboard from the campaign group ‘For Our Future’s Sake’ unveiled at Westminster today.
A billboard from the campaign group ‘For Our Future’s Sake’ unveiled at Westminster today. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Updated

Karen Bradley apologises for 'deeply insensitive' comment about military not committing crimes during Troubles

Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland secretary, has delivered an abject apology for what she said yesterday about all military and police killings in Northern Ireland during the Troubles being lawful. Yesterday afternoon she clarified what she meant, saying that she was just making a point about the security services generally acting within the law, but her new statement goes much further.

She apologises and says she is “profoundly sorry” for the offence she caused. She says her language was “deeply insensitive”.

Here is the statement in full.

Yesterday I made comments regarding the actions of soldiers during the Troubles. I want to apologise. I am profoundly sorry for the offence and hurt that my words have caused. The language was wrong and even though this was not my intention, it was deeply insensitive to many of those who lost loved ones.

I know from those families that I have met personally just how raw their pain is and I completely understand why they want to see justice properly delivered. I share that aim and that is why I launched the public consultation on addressing the legacy of the Troubles.

My position and the position of this government is clear. We believe fundamentally in the rule of law. Where there is any evidence of wrongdoing this should be pursued without fear or favour whoever the perpetrators might be. That is a principle that underpins our approach to dealing with legacy issues and it is one from which we will not depart.

Karen Bradley
Karen Bradley Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

There was an urgent question in the Commons earlier on knife crime. Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, used it to criticise Philip Hammond, the chancellor, for saying in interviews this morning that the police should tackle knife crime by redeploying resources from other areas. Abbott said:

Many people will find the fact that the chancellor of the exchequer is suggesting that all the police have to do is move resources from other areas to fight knife crime is monstrous, and an insult to grieving families?

Victoria Atkins, the Home Office minister who was responding, did not directly address Abbott’s claim in her response, but pointed to the government decision to “increase police resources by nearly a billion pounds” last month.

A few minutes ago in the Commons Mark Francois, the Tory Brexiter, just accused Geoffrey Cox’s parliamentary private secretary Alex Burghart of trying to intimidate him. Francois said that, after he asked Cox a question about whether it was appropriate for Cox to “mark his own homework” by giving legal advice on the Brexit deal he was negotiating, Burghart came up to him to complain his question was “indecent”.

In response, John Bercow, the speaker, dismissed the complaint, saying that Francois was “not a notably delicate flower”. Bercow said that he knew this from personal experience. He said he remembered being rude to Francois himself when they met at a conference in 1983. He told Francois he was “intellectually knee-high to a grasshopper”, Bercow said. (He has got a phenomenal memory). Bercow implied Francois did not seem to mind too much, telling MPs that what he said did no harm to Francois’ career.

Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, has just confirmed that MPs will vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal on Tuesday next week.

She said that, if the government loses the vote, she will make a further business statement on Tuesday about how the government will allow a vote on a no-deal Brexit, followed by a vote on extending article 50 if no deal gets rejected.

But she did not say, as May originally proposed, that the no-deal vote would be on the Wednesday and the article 50 extension debate on Thursday. That could be a hint that both of those votes might take place on Wednesday, as Laura Kuenssberg suggested last night. (See 10.10am.)

What Geoffrey Cox told MPs about Brexit talks

Here are the main points from what Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, told MPs about the Brexit talks. He started by saying that he could not comment on the detail of the negotiations, but he then ended up being more forthcoming than one might have expected.

  • Cox rejected EU claims that the UK has not put forward a clear plan to amend the backstop. He may have been responding in particular to Nathalie Loiseau, the French Europe minister, who made this specific charge in an interview today with the Guardian, but other EU figures have been saying much the same, either directly or in anonymous briefings. Commenting on the talks, Cox said:

We are discussing detailed, coherent, careful proposals. We are discussing text with the European Union. I am surprised to hear the comments that have emerged over the last 48 hours that the proposals are not clear. They are as clear as day. And we are continuing to discuss them.

In her Guardian interview Loiseau said:

We are still waiting for a proposal from London. It’s really a British initiative which has to come ...

At this stage we know what the UK does not want, and that’s a first phase, but it’s not necessarily enough ... We have not heard proposals, ideas or initiatives coming from the British government to overcome the current difficulties.

  • Cox said talks with the EU on the backstop would resume “very shortly” and could go through the weekend.

These discussions ... are going to be resuming very shortly. They are going to be continuing almost certainly through the weekend and we will endeavour to give the House as early notice as we can if and when we have something to report.

  • He said he would publish his legal advice on any new document negotiated with the EU.
  • He implied that the government was no longer seeking to reopen the text of the withdrawal agreement. Asked if it was government policy to reopen the agreement, he said:

It is government policy to achieve the necessary change in the backstop which will cause me to ... change my advice. That is government policy.

  • He joked about his new backstop plan being known as “Cox’s codpiece”. Tory Brexiters have been using the phrase to diminish what Cox is trying to achieve, implying that any assurances he get will just be cosmetic, intended to disguise the horrors of the backstop. But Cox sought to appropriate the jibe. He told MPs:

It has come to be called “Cox’s codpiece”. What I am concerned to ensure that is what is inside the codpiece is in full working order.

ITV’s Alastair Stewart implies the phrase may be more appropriate than Cox was willing to admit.

Geoffrey Cox
Geoffrey Cox Photograph: HoC

Updated

This is what the Labour is saying in response to the announcement from Equality and Human Rights Commission that it is starting an investigation into allegations about antisemitism in the party. A spokesperson said:

We completely reject any suggestion the party has acted unlawfully and will be co-operating fully with the EHRC.

Labour is fully committed to the support, defence and celebration of the Jewish community and its organisations.

Antisemitism complaints received since April 2018 relate to about 0.1% of our membership, but one antisemite in our party is one too many. We are determined to tackle antisemitism and root it out of our party.

Attorney general questions are now over.

I will post a summary shortly.

Cox says he will publish his legal opinion on any new document negotiated with EU

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow solicitor general, asks why the “star chamber” set up by Tory MPs to assess Cox’s new deal does not include any Labour MPs.

Cox says he will be presenting his views to the “star chamber” of the Commons.

  • Cox says he will publish his legal opinion on any new document negotiated with the EU.

Updated

The SNP’s Joanna Cherry asks Cox if he has advised Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland secretary, that what she said yesterday about the military not breaking the law when they killed people during the Troubles was ill-advised, and possibly in contempt of court.

Cox says Bradley has corrected what she said.

The DUP’s Gavin Robinson says Cox if he agrees that, if the backstop were to be permanent, it would breach the Belfast agreement.

Cox says he cannot give a direct answer, because that would breach the convention that he must not disclose legal advice to the government. But he says that the issue Robinson raised as not escaped him.

Bob Neill, the Tory chair of the justice committee, asks Cox if he agrees that media commentary on the negotiation is unhelfpul.

Cox agrees. The running commentary is “often based on hearsay and rumour”, and it is not conducive to the negotiation, he says.

Labour’s Hilary Benn asks why the EU would consider an alternative arbitration system, given there is already one in the backstop plan.

Cox says what matters is the question that gets put to the arbitration system.

Cox says the talks with the EU will resume “very shortly” and could continue over the weekend.

Cox says he has put “detailed, coherent, careful proposals” to the EU.

He says he was surprised to read claims from Brussels saying the opposite. His plans were “as clear as day”, he says.

Geoffrey Cox says talks with the EU on backstop assurances will resume “shortly”

It is attorney general questions in the Commons. It is only a 20-minute slot, and normally it attracts zero media interest. But, now that Geoffrey Cox, the AG, has been tasked with trying to rescue the Brexit talks, journalists are all ears

Cox tells MPs that he cannot discuss the details of his negotiations with the EU, but he says the talks will resume “shortly”.

  • Geoffrey Cox says talks with the EU on backstop assurances will resume “shortly”.

Labour’s Helen Goodman asks if it is still government policy to to re-open the withdrawal agreement.

Cox says he is trying to get assurances that will allow him to change his legal advice about the possibility of the UK being trapped in the backstop.

He says his plan has been referred to in the media as “Cox’s codpiece”. He says his task is to ensure that what is in the codpiece “is in full working order”.

Updated

Equality and Human Rights Commission opens investigation into Labour antisemitism allegations

Britain’s equality watchdog has said it believes Labour may have “unlawfully discriminated against people” as it announced the first step of a statutory inquiry into the party’s handling of antisemitism complaints, my colleague Dan Sabbagh reports.

An Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) spokesperson said:

Having received a number of complaints regarding antisemitism in the Labour party, we believe Labour may have unlawfully discriminated against people because of their ethnicity and religious beliefs.

Our concerns are sufficient for us to consider using our statutory enforcement powers. As set out in our enforcement policy, we are now engaging with the Labour party to give them an opportunity to respond.

Here are some of the main Brexit stories around overnight and this morning.

Downing Street insiders conceded that if Mr Cox did not secure the “legally binding” changes he would need in order to alter his assessment, Mrs May would be heading for another crushing defeat next week.

“If we lose the vote on March 12, we lose control,” admitted one aide to the prime minister, adding that within days of such a defeat parliament would vote to delay Britain’s exit and that Europhile MPs would insist on a much softer form of Brexit.

Theresa May’s cabinet is resigned to her Brexit deal being defeated by up to 100 votes next week after talks in Brussels collapsed without progress on Wednesday.

Downing Street is already making plans for a third “meaningful vote” on the deal on the assumption that Tuesday’s vote is lost, and Mrs May is considering making a major speech on Friday to plead for support from MPs.

One minister said it appeared “certain” that the Commons vote on the Brexit deal will be lost, and that Mrs May’s next move would depend on the scale of the defeat.

The UK is still looking for ways to change the substance of the Brexit deal agreed with the European Union despite having been repeatedly told that the withdrawal agreement cannot be reopened, according to a diplomatic note seen by BuzzFeed News.

My POLITICO colleague Jacopo Barigazzi emails from Brussels after multiple conversations with EU diplomats who explained the opposition to the UK’s proposals. “The UK wants this [arbitration] panel to be able to declare the backstop ‘nil,’” one diplomat tells Jacopo. “Walking out by the UK is not an option for the EU. Backstop is not a backstop if one can unilaterally walk out of it.” This, fundamentally, remains the problem for the EU side, just as it has been all along. Another diplomat is somewhat blunter about Britain’s approach. “The requests were insane,” the official says.

  • The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg says there is talk of the votes on a no-deal Brexit and on extending article 50 both being held on Wednesday next week, instead of over two days as planned (Wednesday and Thursday).

Corbyn says he is 'more certain than ever' that he can get Commons majority for softer Brexit

Philip Hammond, the chancellor, told Tories earlier (in terms) that if they did not back Theresa May’s Brexit, they could end up with Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit. His interview coincided with Corbyn himself saying, in an article in the Daily Mirror, that he is “more certain than ever” that he can construct a Commons majority for a softer Brexit. Referring to his meeting yesterday with Tory and Labour MPs backing the “Norway plus” Brexit, he wrote:

On Tuesday, I met the five biggest organisations that represent Britain’s businesses, large and small. They want what Labour wants, the uncertainty to end and a sensible deal to be struck.

Yesterday, I saw senior Labour and Conservative MPs to discuss a close economic relationship with the EU, which would help protect jobs like those of the Honda workers in Swindon, some of whom I also met.

I left both meetings more certain than ever that we can find a way to work across parliament to force the government to back a sensible Brexit plan that protects jobs and more determined to achieve it.

Jeremy Corbyn at Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, on the 10th annual Visit My Mosque Day on Sunday.
Jeremy Corbyn at Finsbury Park Mosque in north London, on the 10th annual Visit My Mosque Day on Sunday. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Nathalie Loiseau, the French Europe minister, is in Britain today for a conference of British and French mayors. In an interview with the Guardian ahead of her visit, she said the UK should put forward new ideas to resolve the Brexit crisis.

She was also on Today this morning. She told the programme the withdrawal agreement could not be re-opened.

We cannot reopen this negotiation on the withdrawal agreement because it is balanced...

We don’t like the backstop, we don’t want to have to implement it, and if we have to, we don’t want to stay in the backstop.

We all agree that it should be temporary, and that it’s a last resort solution.

As my colleague Matthew Weaver reports, Philip Hammond, the chancellor, also used his Today interview to reject calls from Sajid Javid, the home secretary, for an emergency fund to tackle the surge in knife crime.

Hammond tells Tories to back May's deal or risk softer Brexit

“Vote for Theresa May’s deal, or you will end up with a soft Brexit.” Those weren’t quite the words that Philip Hammond, the chancellor, used in his interview on the Today programme this morning, but undoubtedly that was his message.

May has promised MPs a new vote by Tuesday on her deal. If it gets defeated again, there will be a vote on Wednesday on a no-deal Brexit and, if that option gets rejected, there will be a vote on Thursday on extending article 50. Hammond would not say how the government would ask its MPs to vote on the no-deal motion, assuming May’s deal falls again, but no one expects the government to whips its MPs to vote in favour and Hammond said he had a “high degree of confidence” that the Commons would reject no deal.

So what would happen then? Nick Robinson asked Hammond if he would be willing to accept the idea of the UK staying in a customs union with the EU for good (Labour’s policy) as an alternative. Hammond did not reject the idea, or explicitly endorse it, but he strongly hinted that this was what might happen if Tory Brexiters continued to reject May’s deal. He told Robinson:

What I would say is this: you are not raising an issue that isn’t widely known and understood, that the Labour party has been talking for a long time about the idea of a customs union grafted onto the PM’s deal.

Those of my colleagues who feel very strongly against that proposal need to think very, very hard about the implications of voting against the prime minister’s deal next Tuesday, because we will then be in unknown territory where a consensus will have to be forged across the House of Commons, and that will inevitably mean compromises being made.

The way for my colleagues to avoid that is to vote for the prime minister’s deal on Tuesday and get it done.

The fact that Hammond is making the argument in these terms is probably a measure of how desperate the government is getting ahead of Tuesday’s vote, which it is widely expected to lose. I will be doing a lot more on this as the day goes on.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, gives a speech in Glasgow on “Defending Democracy in the Cyber Age”.

10.10am: Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, takes questions in the Commons.

After 10.30am: Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, announces next week’s Commons business to MPs.

1.35pm: Jeremy Wright, the culture secretary, speaks at the Enders media conference.

As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web, but I expect to be focusing mostly on Brexit. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another when I wrap up, at around 5pm.

You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply ATL, although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

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